Not to be confused with poet and composter Thomas Curtis Clarke

Thomas Curtis Clarke

Thomas Curtis Clarke was a railway engineer, builder and author best known for a series of cast iron bridges in the United States. While living and working in Port Hope, Ontario, his firm won the contract to build the east and west blocks of the Canadian Houses of Parliament...

, or U.S Attorney General Thomas Campbell Clark

Tom C. Clark

Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...

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Thomas Curtis Clarke (16 September 1827 – 15 June 1901) was a railway engineer, builder and author best known for a series of cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 bridges in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. While living and working in Port Hope, Ontario

Port Hope, Ontario

Port Hope is a municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, about east of Toronto and about west of Kingston. It is located at the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in the west end of Northumberland County...

, his firm won the contract to build the east and west blocks of the Canadian Houses of Parliament

Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...

. Thomas Curtis Clarke is buried in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada.

Early work

Clarke was born in Newton, Massachusetts

Newton, Massachusetts

Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...

 on 16 September 1827 and as a boy he attended the Boston Latin School. He enrolled at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, graduating in 1848 with a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

degree in engineering, working under Captain John Child.

Further reading

• Thomas Curtis Clarke et all, "The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management and Appliances", Charles Scribner's Sones, 1889

• "Who Was T.C. Clarke, C.E.", SSAC Bulletin, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 1992, Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada (SSAC), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (article by Jim Leonard; information used as basis of Ontario Heritage plaque erected in Port Hope.