Thomas Bernard Collinson
Royal Engineers officer
Major-General Thomas Bernard Collinson (17 November 1821 – 1 May 1902) was an English military engineer of the Corps of Royal Engineers who carried out the earliest British surveys of Hong Kong, and planned roads and other early military and civil engineering works in New Zealand. Immediately prior to retirement, he was architect to the Scottish Prison Commission.
Origin and military service
Collinson was born in Gateshead, County Durham, ninth child of fifteen of Rev. John Collinson, Rector of Gateshead, and Amelia King. Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, he was commissioned in the Corps of Royal Engineers as No. 683, with the rank of second lieutenant, on 16 June 1838, at the age of 16. He spent his first five years on Ordnance Survey work in Wales, Ireland and Northern England. He advanced to rank of lieutenant on 9 March 1841 and was sent to Hong Kong and New Zealand in 1843. His service over the years, before his retirement with the rank of major-general in 1873 at the age of 51, took him to Hong Kong, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Wanganui, Hobart Town, London, Waltham Abbey, Aldershot, Corfu, Malta, Chatham and Dover. He was the younger brother of Sir Richard Collinson, RN, who pioneered hydrographic surveys of the southern China coast in HM ships Sulphur and Plover, and commanded HMS Enterprise in the 1850–1855 search for Sir John Franklin's expedition missing in the Northwest Passage since 1845.
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