George Robert Jebb was a civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

 from the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Prominent in the field of railway and canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

 engineering, he became Vice-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers

Institution of Civil Engineers

Founded on 2 January 1818, the Institution of Civil Engineers is an independent professional association, based in central London, representing civil engineering. Like its early membership, the majority of its current members are British engineers, but it also has members in more than 150...

.

Born in 1838 in Baschurch

Baschurch

Baschurch is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies in North Shropshire, north of Shrewsbury. Population: 1,475 . The village has strong links to Shrewsbury to the south-east, Oswestry to the north-west, and Wem to the north-east. Baschurch is twinned with the town of Giat...

, Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, where his father John was stationmaster of Baschurch station, Jebb completed his engineering training under Alexander Mackintosh, working on the lines of the former Shrewsbury and Chester Railway. He was subsequently appointed the Resident Engineer of the Wrexham and Minera Railway along with a number of other lines in Wales.

Jebb was later appointed as the Chief Engineer of the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company

Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company

The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was a Company in England, formed in 1846, which managed several canals and a railway. It was leased by the London and North Western Railway from 1847, and bought by it in 1922, but continued to act as a semi-autonomous body, managing the canals until...

 (for whom he designed many of the docks and warehouses of Ellesmere Port

Ellesmere Port Dock

Ellesmere Port Dock is a dock situated on the Manchester Ship Canal, in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England. The Ellesmere Canal gives its name to the area were the canal joins the Mersey, by the mid-1790s, it was known as Ellesmere Port. Docks and warehouses were built to facilitate this.Between...

) and of the Birmingham Canal Navigations

Birmingham Canal Navigations

Birmingham Canal Navigations is a network of navigable canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country...

 and was a director of the Glyn Valley Tramway

Glyn Valley Tramway

The Glyn Valley Tramway was a narrow gauge railway that connected Chirk with Glyn Ceiriog in Denbighshire , Wales. The gauge of the line was...

. He was involved with many other engineering projects around the world, such as planning the route of the railway between Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

 and Chernivtsi

Chernivtsi

Chernivtsi is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine. The city is situated on the upper course of the River Prut, a tributary of the Danube, in the northern part of the historic region of Bukovina, which is currently divided between Romania and Ukraine...

. Jebb was an officer of the London and North Western Railway

London and North Western Railway

The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...

 through his Shropshire Union post, and was a close friend and associate of the LNWR's CME Francis Webb

Francis Webb (engineer)

Francis William Webb was a British engineer responsible for the design and manufacture of locomotives for the London and North Western Railway .- Biography :...

; a LNWR Claughton Class

LNWR Claughton Class

The London and North Western Railway Claughton Class was a class of 4-cylinder express passenger 4-6-0 steam locomotives.They were introduced in 1913, the first of the class No. 2222 was named in honour of Sir Gilbert Claughton, who was the Chairman of the LNWR at that time...

 locomotive, number 5930, was named G R Jebb after him. Although he became Vice-President of the ICE, he declined to be nominated as President and stepped down in 1912, although in that year he did become President of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers

Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers

The Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers was founded in 1771, and was originally known as the Society of Civil Engineers, being renamed following its founder's death...

.

Jebb lived in Great Barr

Great Barr

Great Barr is a large and loosely-defined area which straddles the boundaries of Birmingham, West Bromwich and Walsall , West Midlands, England...

, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, in his later years. He was a keen amateur botanist and corresponded with several journals of the period on British flora: he was a particular authority on the flora of North Wales

North Wales

North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

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George Jebb died after a short illness on Feb 16th 1927. He was the paternal grandfather of the architect Philip Jebb.