Bridges to the past – Brian Maye on architect John Benson

Although he came from the little village of Collooney, Co Sligo, he made an impressive and lasting impact on the cityscape of Cork. His name was John Benson and he died 150 years ago on October 17th.
He was born in modest circumstances in 1812 (date and month unknown), the only son of a father of the same name. Little is known of his schooling or upbringing except that the Coopers of Markree Castle, near Collooney, must have taken him under their wing because the astronomer Joshua Cooper, of that family, sent him, at the age of 19 or 20, to be trained at the Royal Dublin Society’s School of Architectural Drawing, where he is recorded as gaining premiums in March and December 1832.
He received some commissions in his native Sligo, including restoration work on Markree Castle, a number of churches, especially the Catholic Church of the Assumption (done in the Gothic-revival style), Collooney (1843-78), and Victoria (now Hyde) Bridge in Sligo town.
Following a period with the Board of Works, he passed the qualifying examination for the office of county surveyor in 1846 and was appointed county surveyor for the West Riding of Cork that year but was almost immediately transferred to the East Riding, which position he held until 1855. He and the new surveyor for the West Riding, William Augustus Treacy, faced the formidable job of overseeing the Famine-relief works in the county, during which they superintended the construction of several hundred miles of road.
In May 1848, Benson was given the additional appointment of consulting engineer to the Cork Harbour Board, and in January 1851, he was also made engineer to the city; the two positions were amalgamated in November 1854 and he was elected to the new post of city engineer, which he held until resigning because of poor health in April 1873.
The bridges for the construction of which he was responsible included St Patrick’s Bridge and North Gate Bridge, both beautifully designed, and Benson Bridge, which bears his name.
Waterworks, quays and piers were also designed by him, such as the deep-water Victoria Quay, which “with improved dredging of the river, enabled the largest ships to dock, doubling Cork harbour revenues,” according to Helen Andrews, who wrote the entry on him in the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Railway construction in the Cork area also saw him deeply involved in various capacities, including engineer of the Cork and Macroom Railway, the Rathkeale and Newcastle Railway and the Cork and Limerick Railway; chief engineer and architect to the Cork and Passage Junction Railway, and director of the Cork and Kinsale Railway. Helen Andrews tells us that he designed the Penrose Marsh terminus for the Great Southern and Western Railway, “with its impressive Doric colonnade”, finished in 1860 but later sadly demolished.
Frank Keohane, in his book Cork: City and County (2020), referred to Benson’s many buildings and praised their sophistication; they were individualistic while reflecting the styles fashionable at the time.
The Italian Lombardic style was popular with him and Keohane commended how he combined the contrasting Cork red sandstone with white sandstone. The best example of this was the new Cork Waterworks, which is now the Lifetime Lab visitor centre.
Other fine structures of his that have found new uses are the double-arched entrance to the demolished Cornmarket, now in Bishop Lucey Park, and the Butter Exchange and Firkin Crane (also used in the butter trade), which are now technology and enterprise, and dance centres respectively. Keohane also singled out for special praise Benson’s Princes Street entrance to the famous English Market and the impressively imposing St Vincent’s Church on Sunday’s Well Road (now no longer a church and owned by UCC).
Benson won the competition for designing the premises for the Dublin Exhibition of 1853, supervising the building of it himself on Leinster Lawn, on the south side of Leinster House.
On the exhibition’s opening day, he was knighted by the Lord Lieutenant.
He published many articles in the Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland, was a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (admitted in 1856) and of the Institute of Civil Engineers (admitted in 1861), held office in the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, and was a master and provincial grand architect in the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland.
He married Mary Clementine Pyne in 1849. They had no children. They went to England for health reasons in 1873 and were living at Alexander Square, Brompton, London, where he died. “Benson had a pleasant disposition and was highly respected,” according to Helen Andrews.