Using his ‘Greathead Shield’, the engineer James Henry Greathead was instrumental in the building of the London Underground. He is commemorated with a blue plaque at 3 St Mary’s Grove in Barnes, where he lived between 1885 and 1889.

THE ‘GREATHEAD SHIELD’

Born in South Africa, Greathead came to England at the age of 15, and in 1864 began an apprenticeship with the civil engineer Peter W Barlow, the brother of WH Barlow.

In 1869, aged only 24, Greathead was entrusted with the construction of the Tower Subway, a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames. Completed in 1870, it was built using a cylindrical boring device designed by Greathead that enabled tunnels to be driven through soft, waterlogged ground. He continued to develop this machine, which became known as the ‘Greathead Shield’.

THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

The shield was used again from 1886 when Greathead started work on the City and Southwark Subway. This grew into the City and South London Railway, the world’s first underground electric railway. The line opened in 1890 and is now part of the Northern Line.

Greathead was resident engineer on the Hammersmith and Richmond extension of the Metropolitan District Railway, and was also involved in building the Blackwall Tunnel (which opened in 1897) and the Waterloo and City Line (opened 1898).

3 MARY’S GROVE

In 1884 Greathead married Blanche Emily Caldecott Coryndon (1862−1912) and in the following year moved to 3 St Mary’s Grove, a late 19th-century detached house. Set back from a quiet road near Richmond Park, the house was their home until 1889 when the family moved to Streatham.