n February 1835 the Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society regretted the death of one of its earliest members, "Thomas Telford, Esq., the President of the Society of Civil Engineers". Although his obituary appears on the same page as a warning of membership suspension for subscription defaulters, there remains a dignified air of Georgian rhetoric in the announcement. In only eight lines, despite the obituarist claiming that Telford's talents were "too well known to need any encomium in this place", we read that the Scottish civil engineer's works are "so numerous all over this country (as it has been justly observed) there is scarcely a county in England, Scotland or Wales, in which they may not be seen."
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