Samuel Clegg (1781–1861) was a British civil engineer.

Clegg was born at Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 on 2 March 1781, received a scientific education under the care of Dr. Dalton. He was then apprenticed to Boulton and Watt

Boulton and Watt

The firm of Boulton & Watt was initially a partnership between Matthew Boulton and James Watt.-The engine partnership:The partnership was formed in 1775 to exploit Watt's patent for a steam engine with a separate condenser. This made much more efficient use of its fuel than the older Newcomen engine...

, and at the Soho Manufactory

Soho Manufactory

The Soho Manufactory was an early factory which pioneered mass production on the assembly line principle, in Soho, Smethwick, England, during the Industrial Revolution.-Beginnings:...

 witnessed many of William Murdoch

William Murdoch

William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

's earlier experiments in the use of coal gas

Coal gas

Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...

. He profited so well by his residence there that he was soon engaged by Mr. Henry Lodge

Henry Lodge

Henry Lodge may refer to:* Henry Cabot Lodge , Republican U.S. Representative and Senator who argued against the League of Nations in 1919...

 to adapt the new lighting system to his cotton mills at Sowerby Bridge

Sowerby Bridge

Sowerby Bridge is a market town that lies within the Upper Calder Valley in the district of Calderdale in the county of West Yorkshire, in northern England.-Geography:Sowerby Bridge is situated on the edge of Halifax, about three miles from its centre...

, near Halifax

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

; and finding the necessity for some simpler method of purifying the gas, he invented the lime purifiers.

After removing to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, he lighted in 1813 with gas the establishment of Mr. Rudolph Ackermann, printseller, 101 Strand. Here his success was so pronounced that it brought him prominently forward, and in the following year he became the engineer of the Chartered Gas Company. He made many unsuccessful attempts to construct a dry meter which would register satisfactorily; but in 1815 and again in 1818 he patented a water meter, — the basis of all the subsequent improvements in the method of measuring gas.

For some years he was actively engaged in the construction of gasworks, or in advising on the formation of new gas companies; but in an evil hour he joined an engineering establishment at Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, in which he lost everything he possessed, and had to commence the world afresh.

He was afterwards employed by the Portuguese government as an engineer, and in that capacity reconstructed the mint at Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, and executed several other public works. On his return to England railway works engaged his attention, but unfortunately he became involved with the atmospheric system

Atmospheric railway

An atmospheric railway uses air pressure to provide power for propulsion. In one plan a pneumatic tube is laid between the rails, with a piston running in it suspended from the train through a sealable slot in the top of the tube. Alternatively, the whole tunnel may be the pneumatic tube with the...

 of propulsion with the Samuda Brothers

Samuda Brothers

Samuda Brothers was an engineering and ship building firm at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, founded by Jacob and Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda. The site is now occupied by Samuda Estate....

. The failure of their system as a practicable plan of locomotion was a great blow to him, and he never after took any very active part in public affairs.

He was appointed by the government one of the surveying officers for conducting preliminary inquiries on applications for new gas bills, and he occupied his spare time in contributing to the elaborate treatise on manufacture of coal gas published by his son in 1850. He became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1829, and took a prominent part in the discussions at its meetings.

He died at Fairfield House, Adelaide Road, Haverstock Hill, Middlesex, 8 January 1861.

Samuel Clegg, the younger, only son of the above, born at Westminster 2 April 1814, was employed as an assistant engineer on the Greenwich, Great Western, and Eastern Counties (afterwards the Great Eastern) lines, and as resident engineer on the Southampton and Dorchester railway in 1844. Previously to this he had made a trigonometrical survey of part of the Algarves in Portugal in 1836. He was appointed professor of civil engineering and architecture at Putney College in 1849, and in the same year lecturer on civil engineering to the royal engineers at Chatham, which latter post he held to his death. In 1855 he was sent by the government to Demerara to report upon the sea walls there, and to superintend the works for their restoration. He died at Putney, Surrey, 25 July 1856, aged only forty-two. At the time of his decease he was engaged in maturing a plan for removing all the gas manufactories in London to a considerable distance from the metropolis, and concentrating them at a spot on the Essex shore. He was author of a treatise on coal-gas, 1850. He died at Putney on 25 July 1856, leaving a widow and a young family.