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Civil engineering in Sussex around 1800, and the career of Cater Rand, by John H. Farrant, published 1973 in Sussex Industrial History (No. 6, article, pp.2-14) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16389/6] & The Keep [LIB/506524]   Download PDF

When its history can be adequately written, Sussex will be seen to have undergone great changes in the last quarter of the 18th and the first years of the 19th century. For example, population was growing fast; the coastal towns and villages adopted as watering places were 'booming'; in agriculture, the arable acreage, especially of wheat, rose in response to the enlarged local and national market; and coal, that symbol of the Industrial Revolution, was widely substituted for indigenous fuels. A major contribution to the infrastructure which supported these changes was made by engineering works - indeed of substantial works which existed in Sussex when the first steam railway (from London to Brighton and Shoreham) was started in 1837, the great majority had been effected in the previous 60 years. All the river navigations and canals (bar 16th-century improvements on the Arun) were built between 1785 (the Arun to Newbridge) and 1827 (the Adur to Baybridge), while improvements were made in the drainage of many of the levels (or low lands bordering the rivers). Major works were effected on Shoreham and Rye harbours, while additions and alterations were made to piers built in the 1730s at the other two estuarine harbours of the county, Littlehampton and Newhaven. Brighton Chain Pier, to encourage the cross-Channel packet traffic, was built in 1822-3. Turnpike roads there were in some number by 1780, but the following decades saw a substantial increase in mileage and, after 1800, an improvement in quality. The building and maintenance of bridges by the county justices advanced apace, while bridges near the mouths of the Adur and Ouse were built under local Acts. Public gas works appeared in the second decade of the 19th century. And numerous other schemes never went beyond the drawing boards (or fertile minds) of engineers, amateur and professional.
Engineers were thus a key group in advancing economic development. The stimulus for this article was the frequency with which the name of Cater Rand occurred in connection with engineering projects in East Sussex between 1775 and 1825, but its justification lies more in the absence of published research on local civil engineers in Sussex or elsewhere. So if a minor figure is perhaps accorded over-generous treatment, it is in the attempt to begin building up a general picture and to stimulate further research; and if the sum total of works completed to his plans or under his direction was small, the projects with which he was involved provide a cross-section of the types of engineering work, with the exception of roads, contemplated or executed in Sussex around 1800. By way of introduction, Section 1 briefly discusses the backgrounds of the engineers responsible for that work.

Cater Rand, an engineer in Georgian Sussex, by John H. Farrant, published 2012 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 150, article, pp.143-161) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 18615] & The Keep [LIB/500368] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Cater Rand (1749-1825), a Lewes schoolmaster with some education and continuing interest in science, practised also as an engineer, on projects ranging from training in military fortification in Ireland to equipment for life-saving from the Sussex cliffs. He concentrated, though, on land drainage, river navigation, coastal defences and harbour works in Sussex. Within the old tradition of multi-occupation surveyors, Rand with some success made the transition from work which finished up in a map, to civil engineering. But on several occasions, he found himself at odds with the emerging cadre of 'professional' consulting engineers who operated nationally.