Ralph Dodd was a late 18th century engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 primarily known, by his detractors, for his attempt, and ultimate failure to produce a tunnel underneath the Thames.

Marine painter

Dodd has been well documented, for he was more versatile than he appears at first sight.He was granted British Patent No 3141 on 3 June 1801 for a building system that was over 150 years ahead of its time. In his younger days, together with his brother Robert Dodd

Robert Dodd (artist)

Robert Dodd was a British marine painter and aquatint engraver. He is known for his works on the French Revolutionary Wars.-Life and family:...

(1748–1816), he was an accomplished marine painter.

Civil engineer

Dodd had two sons, Barrodall Robert Dodd (c.1780-1837) and George Dodd (c.1783-1827); both became engineers. Ralph cooperated on a huge Port of London improvement scheme together with other, more famous, civil engineers.

Dodd in 1795 wrote An Account of the Principal Canals in the Known World. As a riposte, J. Whitfield wrote The Engineering Plagiarist, accusing Dodd of copying John Philips' General History of Inland Navigation, Newcastle 1792.

Death

Dodd suffered severe burns when the boiler of the paddle steamer Sovereign (80 feet long, of the River Severn Steam Yacht Co, built by H. Turner, Stourport and registered on 30 Jan. 1822, British National Archives Registration No BT/107/168) exploded at Gloucester on her trial run in December 1821. The damage sustained to the ship was so bad that she was broken up directly. He took advice to go to Cheltenham for his health and, since he was nearly penniless, he walked there in the middle of winter. He died at Cheltenham on 11 April 1822.Two portraits of Ralph Dodd are to be found, one, probably in his artist days, c.1780-1810 and another at the height of his engineering career, c.1815-1820.

Writings

• An Account of the Principal Canals in the Known World, 1795
• Various Possible Improvements, Civil & Military, to Hartlepool Harbour 1795.
• Proposed Brighton Sea Jetty, 1819.