James Charles Inglis

Who was James Charles Inglis?

Sir James Charles Inglis was a British civil engineer.

Inglis was born in Aberdeen on 9 September 1851. He served in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, an unpaid volunteer unit of the Volunteer Force which provided technical advise to the British Army. He was appointed a Major in that corps on 24 June 1893, by which time he was also a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps on 1 April 1908 on the date that it transferred from the disbanded Volunteer Force to the newly raised Territorial Force.

Inglis was elected president of the ICE for the November 1908 to November 1910 session. During his time as president he saw the start of construction of their new headquarters at One Great George Street. Inglis ceremoniously laid the foundation stone for the building in 1910 after placing beneath it copies of the institution's Royal Charter and the Telford, Watt and Stephenson medals awarded by the institution. He was knighted by King George V at St James' Palace on 23 February 1911 by which point he was the General Manager of the Great Western Railway.