Hamilton Fulton

Hamilton Fulton (26 May 1781 – 30 October 1833) was a Scottish civil engineer who worked for John Rennie and Thomas Telford before moving for a decade to the state of North Carolina as its principal engineer. Thereafter, he returned to Britain.

Early years Fulton was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1781 to Hugh Fulton and Barbara Bowy. He worked for John Rennie and for Thomas Telford, both of whom were noted engineers. In the case of the latter, his work included surveys of roads in the Scottish Highlands and in North Wales, as well as work in Sweden and, between 1809 and 1810, a survey of the Stamford Canal. It was while he was in Stamford, Lincolnshire, that he married Sarah Collins Martin, on 25 April 1810.

In 1815, Fulton journeyed to Bermuda on a commission from the Admiralty. There he reported on the development of naval constructions at the recently acquired dockyard on Ireland Island, Bermuda. He was similarly tasked at Malta in 1817, and both of these ventures were conducted under the instruction of Rennie. as a pupil. In 1832, Fulton made proposals for the construction of a harbor and breakwaters at the coalfield port of Amble in Northumberland. Although these came to nothing, the idea was revived in a different form by Rennie's son, John Rennie the Younger, a few years later. He also worked with Rennie junior on surveys of the railway line between London and Brighton.