Robert Jacomb-Hood

On 10 January 1849, Jacomb-Hood was appointed as the engineer to the Portsmouth line, a joint project between the LB&SCR and the London and South Western Railway. The same year he also began giving out the contracts for London Bridge station, which first opened on 2 August 1850. . The bridge was wide with a single track that could be lifted up and down by a crank handle; it was dismantled after the freight branch closed in January 1964. On 7 November 1850, the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded him a Council Premium of Books for the paper. —would be relocated. The board decided that a railway should be incorporated into the site, On 10 June 1854, Jacomb-Hood and his wife were among 40,000 guests at the opening ceremony of The Crystal Palace on its new site. which he had written while staying at the Queen's Hotel, Cheltenham. On 14 December 1858, he was awarded a Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineering for his work on the paper. Jacomb-Hood was responsible for the design of the LB&SCR's half of the station; by applying his principle of judicious arrangement to the roof—built with a single truss design—it cost only £17 per (£ in ), two-thirds the price of the roof built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway on the other side. Specific techniques Jacomb-Hood employed for Victoria station included placing the iron girders supporting the roof in the centre of each platform to prevent a train colliding with them, and creating arched entrances to each platform which advertised the destinations of its trains. The station opened to passengers on 1 October 1860; Jacomb-Hood's side of the station was demolished between 1899 and 1909 to make way for a new façade, roof, and platforms, which were designed by Charles Langbridge Morgan.

1860–1869: Full-time private practice The historian Alan A. Jackson describes 1860 as a "milestone year" for Jacomb-Hood; on 29 September, Jacomb-Hood resigned as Resident Engineer due to the pressure of managing the parliamentary side of railway engineering. These were incredibly time consuming and expensive; for example, Isambard Kingdom Brunel appeared before parliamentary committees 233 times in his career. Having been employed by his brother in various ways (likely as a result of nepotism ), George Jacomb-Hood hosted a farewell party on 24 November 1863 before leaving the country to engineer the Scinde Railway in India, ending his pupilage. Among the many other projects that the pair worked on were the Portsmouth line between Peckham Rye and Sutton railway stations, and the plans for the East London Railway (now partially the East London line) and Axminster and Lyme Regis Railway. On 3 July of the same year, Jacomb-Hood entered into a partnership with his cousin and former student William Jacomb; The agreement between them was that Jacomb would provide one third of the necessary capital in return for one third of the profits.

On 28 April 1866, a bridge being built in Sutton, London as part of Jacomb-Hood's work collapsed, killing six men. Then, on 29 May, the LB&SCR stopped all its work due to the railway company being in financial difficulties, and Jacomb-Hood was instructed to withdraw or suspend all of the company's parliamentary proposals. He was nevertheless able to continue his work with the South Eastern Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, and assist negotiations between the Great Northern Railway and the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway. The financial situation of the LB&SCR had not improved by 1867, and the company descended into chaos with the appointment of an entirely new board of directors; this greatly jeopardised the company's abilities to pass legislation and continue constructing lines. ) in 1868 to plan repairs to the Portcreek Viaduct near Portsmouth, Hampshire; the works were carried out the following year. Combined with the death of his wife the same year (see § Personal life), this motivated Jacomb-Hood to end full time practice and enter semi-retirement, moving to a smaller office in Westminster.

Personal life Portrait of an Elderly Gentleman is believed to depict Robert Jacomb-Hood and was painted by his son George. alt=A colour painting of a mostly bald man leaning against a desk. He is holding a cane in his left hand and has his right hand on his hip. He is wearing a long coat and red jumper and looks stern and directly forward.On 25 November 1851, Jacomb-Hood married Jane Stothard Littlewood. She was the daughter of George Littlewood, who worked as a printer. The pair had met earlier the same year, when she was working as the governess of his cousin's children. Jacomb-Hood and Littlewood had nine children, of whom two died in infancy. Their first child, Katie (who later took the surname Dale by marriage), was born on 27 April 1853. His second son, John Wykeham Jacomb-Hood, also became a civil engineer; his career included working as the Chief Engineer of the London and South Western Railway and being elected to the Institution of Civil Engineers like his father.

On the death of his father on 9 July 1857, Jacomb-Hood inherited the family seat at Bardon Park. On 13 June 1864, On 12 August 1870, Jacomb-Hood became engaged to Elizabeth Thornton and on 21 February 1871 they married at St George's, Hanover Square, By this time, his late father was listed as an "esquire" rather than simply a "gentleman". Jacomb-Hood did not marry again, remaining a widower for the last twenty-five years of his life.