1-158-578 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

William Jessop, British civil engineer, c1860. Jessop (1745-1814) is particularly well known for his work on canals, harbours and early railways in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1790, with Benjamin Outram (1764-1805), he founded the Butterley Ironworks to manufacture cast-iron edge rails, a design Jessop had used successfully in 1789 with flanged wheels on a railway for horse-drawn coal wagons.