St Katharine Docks, London - Telford's high-speed harbour

The current paper describes Thomas Telford's work as engineer for St Katharine Docks, London, in the context of his role as a maritime engineer. Although not the largest in London, they presented one of the most challenging projects in Telford's career, not least owing to the extreme time pressure he was put under to get the docks trading in London's then busy and profitable shipping industry. With up to 1000 construction workers on site, and despite a major flood, the first ship entered the dock in 1828-just three years after contracts were let.