Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/301

Vetch iron framework in the construction of piers and breakwaters. In 1845 he reported on the various designs for a harbour of refuge at Dover.

In July 1846 Vetch was appointed consulting engineer to the admiralty on all questions relating to railways, bridges, and other works which might injuriously affect the harbours, rivers, and navigable waters of the United Kingdom. In 1847 he was appointed a member of the new harbour conservancy board at the admiralty, the other members being Captains Washington and Bethune, royal navy. Washington was withdrawn from the board in 1849, and in 1853 Vetch was appointed sole conservator of harbours. In 1849 he was appointed one of the metropolitan commissioners of sewers, a laborious honorary office which he held for four years. In the same year he proposed an extended water supply for the metropolis, and in 1850 designed a system of drainage for Southwark. In 1858–9 he was a member of the royal commission on harbours of refuge, of which Admiral Sir James Hope was chairman.

Vetch retired from the admiralty in 1863; his office of conservator was then abolished and the duties transferred to the board of trade. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1818, of the Royal Society and of the Royal Geographical Society in 1830, an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839, a member of the Société Française de Statistique Universelle in 1852, and was a member of other learned bodies. He died on 7 Dec. 1869, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.

Vetch married, on 2 Feb. 1832, in London, Alexandrina Ogilvie (d. 1853), daughter of Robert Auld of Edinburgh. By her he had ten children, of whom seven survived him, including Rev. James Edward (d. 1870), Robert Hamilton, C.B., colonel royal engineers, and William Francis, C.V.O., major-general, formerly royal Dublin fusiliers. Vetch's portrait, by Joshua Munro, is in possession of his eldest surviving son.

Vetch was author of: 1. ‘Account of the Remains of a Mammoth found near Rochester,’ 1820. 2. ‘Account of the Island of Foula,’ 1821. 3. ‘Letter to Lord Viscount Althorpe on Reform,’ 1831. 4. ‘On the Monuments and Relics of the Ancient Inhabitants of New Spain,’ 1836. 5. ‘Considerations on the Political Geography and Geographical Nomenclature of Australia,’ 1838. 6. ‘Description of a Bridge built of blue lias limestone across the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway at Dunhampstead,’ 1841. 7. ‘On the Structural Arrangement most favourable to the Health of Towns,’ 1842. 8. ‘Enquiry into the Means of Establishing a Ship Navigation between the Mediterranean and the Red Seas,’ 1843. 9. ‘On the Advantages of employing a Framework of Malleable Iron in the construction of Jetties and Breakwaters,’ 1843. 10. ‘Havens of Safety,’ 1844. 11. ‘Remarks on the Effluvia from Gully Gratings,’ 1849. 12. ‘On the River Bann Navigation,’ 1850. 13. ‘On Surveys for Drainage and the Application of Sewer Water for Agricultural Purposes,’ 1842. Reports were published by Vetch between 1847 and 1859 on the following harbours: Ramsgate, the Tyne, Cork, Wexford, the Isle of Man, Holyhead, Port Patrick, and Donaghadee, Galway, Portsmouth, Table Bay, Port Natal, Point de Galle.

[War Office Records; Royal Engineers' Records; Royal Engineers' Journal, 1871, 1880, and 1881; Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1841, 1870 (Memoir); Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1870; Ward's Mexico in 1827, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1828; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Jones's Sieges in Spain; Porter's History of the Corps of Royal Engineers; Connolly's History of the Royal Sappers and Miners; The Isthmus of Suez Question, by M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, 8vo, London and Paris, 1855; Gordon's Description of Captain Vetch's Metropolitan Sewerage Plans, 1851; Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1836 and 1838; Journal of the Geological Society, 1821; Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, 1821; Vetch's Letters from an Engineer Officer in the Peninsula, ap. Roy. Eng. Journal, 1880; private sources.]  VETCH, SAMUEL (1668–1732), colonel, first governor of Nova Scotia, born in December 1668, was second son and third child (in a family of ten) of William Veitch [q. v.], the covenanter, and of his wife, Marion Fairlie of the house of Braid, near Edinburgh, Midlothian. His father fled to Holland, and Samuel and his brother William were educated at Utrecht. Both entered the army of the Prince of Orange, accompanied him to Torbay in 1688, and, when the Cameronians or 26th regiment of foot was raised, obtained commissions in it. They both fought at the affair of Dunkeld (21 Aug. 1689), and afterwards in Flanders at the battle of Steinkirk (3 Aug. 1692), where William was severely wounded, and at the battle of Landen or Neerwinden on 29 July 1693. After the peace of Ryswick in 1697 they joined their father at Dumfries, where he was then minister.

Vetch and his brother both volunteered