John Dadford

John Dadford was an English canal engineer, as were his father Thomas Dadford and brothers Thomas Dadford, Jr. and James Dadford. He lived from approximately 1769 to 1800, although neither date is known for certain.

Biography John Dadford was the third son of the canal engineer Thomas Dadford and his wife Frances Brown, the daughter of a Wolverhampton toymaker called Samuel Brown. They lived in the Wolverhampton area, and John was probably born in that area. His older brothers were Thomas and James, both of whom worked as canal engineers. He had a younger brother called William and a sister called Mary. He is known to have been a pupil at Sedgley Park Roman Catholic School between May 1778 and June 1781.

Career By 1790, he was working as an engineer, assisting his father and his brother Thomas with surveys for the Neath Canal. His involvement with the construction of the Glamorganshire Canal is less certain, but quite likely. By 1792, he was working independently, surveying a route for a canal and tramway to connect the Neath Canal to the Glamorganshire Canal, and a route for a road along the Aberdare Valley. Between 1792 and 1793, he was employed as a carrier on the Glamorganshire Canal. Skempton describes a tramroad from Llangroiney [Glangrwyne] to Gellifelen, and a second section from Gellifelen to Fossalog, near Nantyglo, Dadford's bridge over the Usk collapsed in February 1795, when the river was in flood, and the fact that he had not built flood relief culverts into the embankments on either side of the bridge was deemed to have been a contributory factor in its failure.

Legacy It is not known what Dadford did after emigrating, and he was not mentioned in his father's will in 1809, which probably indicates that he died there before then. Despite the failure of some of his bridges, he was highly regarded, with the Monmouthshire Canal requesting that if anyone was sent down to inspect the works, they would prefer John Dadford to anyone else.