Thomas Penson

Thomas Penson, or Thomas Penson the younger (c. 1790 – 1859) was the county surveyor of Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire, and an innovative architect and designer of a number of masonry arch bridges over the River Severn and elsewhere. Family He was the son of Thomas Penson the elder (c. 1760 – 1824), who had been the county surveyor for Flintshire from 1810 to 1814, but had been dismissed when the bridge at Overton-on-Dee collapsed. Thomas Penson the younger completed its replacement. Thomas Penson the younger had two sons: Thomas Mainwaring Penson (died 1864) and Richard Kyrke Penson (died 1886), both of whom were architects and practised in Chester. Training and career Thomas Penson was a pupil of the architect and bridge designer Thomas Harrison of Chester. He became a fellow of the RIBA in 1848 and an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839. He was appointed Montgomeryshire county surveyor in 1817, a post in which he continued until 1859. He was also the surveyor for the Montgomeryshire Turnpike Trusts and was responsible for the design of many new roads in the county. He became county surveyor for Denbighshire around 1820. He had married Frances Kirk, daughter of the Wrexham iron master Richard Kirk (1747–1839) in 1814, and at first lived at Overton-on-Dee, but by 1823 he had moved to Oswestry, where he set up his office known as "Penson's Chambers" at 35 Willow Street, while he lived at 19 Willow Street. In 1839, his wife inherited from her father Gwersyllt Hall or Hill near Wrexham, which Penson remodelled in Neo-Jacobean style, and which became their home. Among Penson's pupils were J. W. Poundley, who was to become the Montgomeryshire county surveyor in 1861, and the Welsh poet John Jones (Talhaiarn). Penson was Mayor of Oswestry in 1840.