It will of course also be necessary that all parties acting under me in the direction of the works should feel that their appointment or dismissal depends entirely upon me.
In return for the confidence thus placed in me and the authority given to me, I should of course know no interest but that of the Government. If the Government is willing to appoint me engineer according to this definition of my position, I shall feel pride in the appointment, and I shall devote my best energies to the accomplishment of one of the finest and most interesting works of the day....
On the Position of Joint Engineer.
October 16, 1843.
The contents of your letter of yesterday take me quite by surprise; the expression you use of joint-engineership implies a view of our relative position diametrically opposed to the views which I have plainly and unequivocally expressed to you and to the Directors when such a thing as joint-engineership was proposed to and rejected by me....
You wind up your letter by saying ‘we have accepted the duty of joint-engineers,’ &c., and you add a postscript requesting me to lay your letter before the Directors: this I should have been obliged to do without any such request. I never accepted the duty of joint-engineer; I have always refused to do so. I thought I had made this very clear both to you and the Directors on several occasions; indeed I often feared that I expressed myself too strongly instead of leaving it capable of misapprehension....
On the Position of Consulting Engineer.
December 30, 1851.
I shall be happy to act in any capacity (subject to the exception I will further explain) which can be useful to your Company; ... but the exception I have to make is one which perhaps resolves itself merely into a question of name. The term ‘Consulting Engineer’ is a very vague one, and in practice has been too much used to mean a man who for a consideration sells his name, but nothing more. Now I never connect myself with an engineering work except as the Directing Engineer, who, under the Directors, has the sole responsibility and control of the engineering, and is therefore ‘The Engineer;’ and I have always objected to the term ‘Consulting Engineer.’ ...
In a railway the only works to be constructed are engineering works, and there can really be only one engineer; and in your case especially, where, as I apprehend, the contractor is part of the company, and has to be treated with consideration, and perhaps less vigorously, at all events differently from an ordinary contractor, considerable management and discretion will be required of your engineer, and a degree of responsibility which I would only undertake if sole engineer. Possibly this is what you meant, and that I alone see the distinction, but it is an important one with which you may not be so familiar as I am.