LINDLEY, WILLIAM (1808-190o), English engineer, was born in London on Sept. 7, 18o8. He was engaged for a time in railway work in various parts of Europe, and then settled in Hamburg, as engineer-in-chief to the Hamburg-Bergedorf rail way. His first achievement was to drain the Hammerbrook marshes, and so add some 1,400 ac. to the available area of the city. His real opportunity, however, came with the great fire which broke out on May 5, 1842, and burned for three days. The strong measures he adopted to prevent the spread of the fire, in cluding the blowing-up of the town hall, brought his life into dan ger with the mob, who professed to see in him an English agent charged with the destruction of the port of Hamburg. Lindley was then appointed consulting engineer to the senate and town council, to the Water Board and to the Board of Works. He con structed a complete sewerage system, and designed, between and 1848 the water-works of the city, the intake from the Elbe being at Rothenburgsort. In 1846 he erected the Hamburg gas works ; public baths ; wash-houses were built, and large extensions to the port executed according to his plans in 1854; and he super vised the construction of the Altona gas and water-works in 1855.
Among other services he rendered to the city were the trigono metrical survey executed between 1848 and 186o, and the conduct of the negotiations which in 1852 resulted in the sale of the "Steelyard" on the banks of the Thames belonging to Hamburg jointly with the two other Hanseatic towns, Bremen and Liibeck.
In 186o he left Hamburg, and during the remaining 19 years of his professional practice he was responsible for many engi neering works in various European cities, among them Frankfort on-the-Main, Warsaw, Pesth, Diisseldorf, Galatz and Basel. In Frankfort he constructed sewerage works on the same principles as those he followed in Hamburg, and the system was widely imi tated in Europe and America. He advised the New River Com pany of London on the adoption of the constant supply system in 1851 ; and he was commissioned by the British Government to carry out various works in Heligoland, including the big retaining wall "Am Falm." He died at Blackheath, London, on May 22, 1900.