Editing Benjamin Baker (engineer) (section)

==Early life and career==

[[File:cleopatras.needle.from.thames.london.arp.jpg|thumb|Cleopatra's Needle from the River Thames, London]]
He was born in Keyford, which is now part of [[Frome]], Somerset in 1840, the son of Benjamin Baker, principal assistant at [[Tondu]] Ironworks, and Sarah Hollis.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf| title=Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002; Biographical Index, Part One| isbn=0-902-198-84-X| date=July 2006| publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh| access-date=26 March 2015| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919152306/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf| archive-date=19 September 2015| url-status=dead}}</ref> There is a plaque on their house in Butts Hill.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fromesociety.wordpress.com/plaques/|title=Plaques|date=2016-06-16|language=en|access-date=2019-06-02}}</ref> He was educated at [[Cheltenham Grammar School]] and, at the age of 16, became an apprentice at Messrs Price and Fox at the Neath Abbey Iron Works.  After his apprenticeship he spent two years as an assistant to Mr. W.H. Wilson. Later, he became associated with Sir [[Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet|John Fowler]] in London. He took part in the construction of the [[Metropolitan Railway]] (London). He was also a key [[expert witness]] in the [[Tay Bridge disaster]] of 1879.

He designed the cylindrical vessel in which [[Cleopatra's Needle (London)|Cleopatra's Needle]], now standing on the [[Thames Embankment]], London, was brought over from [[Egypt]] to England in 1877–1878.

He obtained an extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the great engineering achievements of his day.