Mr. Edward Dobson, M. Inst. C.E., for many years Chief Engineer of the Province of Canterbury, was born in London, in 1816. He was articled for six years to a well-known architect and surveyor, and subsequently practised his profession, and was occupied on various railway surveys and works till 1850. In that year he sailed for the Canterbury settlement, in the ship “Cressy.” He was one of the original land purchasers from the Canterbury Association, having taken up fifty acres of land at Sumner. In 1854 Mr. Dobson was appointed Provincial Engineer, an office which he held for fourteen years. During that period he laid out and superintended the construction of the Christchurch-Lyttelton Road, the Great Northern and the Great Southern Roads, and the road to the West Coast over Porter's and Arthur's Passes, through the Otira Gorge. He also planned and supervised the Officers' Point Breakwater, drainage works at Rangiora swamp and in other parts of the province, and many works and surveys, including the first telegraph line opened in New Zealand, that between Christchurch and Lyttelton. Under his direction a complete system of railways throughout the province was surveyed and mapped, and the portion extending from Lyttelton, through Christchurch, to the Selwyn, a distance of twenty-nine miles, was completed during his tenure of office. The chief work in this connection was the famous Lyttelton tunnel. On leaving the Provincial Government service in page 361 1868, Mr. Dobson was appointed a commissioner to report to the Otago Government on the harbours of Oamaru, Moeraki, and Waikouaiti. In 1869 he went to Melbourne as acting engineer to the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company for two years. After the Government bought that company's lines, Mr. Dobson was engaged on Government water supply works until 1876, when he returned to Christchurch, and resumed his profession in partnership with his son, Mr. A. D. Dobson. For five years, from 1887, he held the position of lecturer on engineering at Canterbury College. Mr. Dobson was a man of great ability and indomitable energy, and had a rare talent for organisation and the management of men. He was also a fluent speaker and a ready writer, and contributed to several learned societies papers of value on professional and archeological subjects, and on art. A paper which he sent amongst others to the Institute of Civil Engineers gained the high distinction of the Telford gold medal. He also wrote a number of standard works on architecture and civil engineering. Mr. Dobson was a member, and at one time president of, the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, and during his first sojourn in Canterbury he held a commission in the old Canterbury Engineers corps. The high position which he occupied in his profession was attested by the frequency with which his services as consulting engineer were sought by public bodies and private individuals. Mr. Dobson married in 1839, and had a family of six sons and four daughters. He and Mrs Dobson now (1902) live in retirement at Papanui.