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Sir Thomas Bouch (25 February 1822 - 30 October 1880) was a railway engineer in Victorian Britain. He was born in Thursby, Cumbria and lived in Edinburgh. He is the inventor of the caisson and the train ferry (roll-on roll-off). He designed the first Tay Rail Bridge whilst working for the Edinburgh and Northern Railway. Queen Victoria travelled over it at the official opening in 1878, and she awarded him a knighthood in recognition of his achievement.

However, the Tay Bridge collapsed on December 28, 1879 when it was hit by strong side winds. A train was travelling over it at a time, and 75 people died, among them Thomas Bouch's son-in-law.

The subsequent public inquiry revealed that the railway company sacrificed safety and durability in favour of stringent cost-cutting. Sloppy working practices such as poor smelting and the re-use of girders dropped into the sea during construction were factors in the bridge's collapse. The inquiry concluded that the bridge was "badly designed, badly built and badly maintained". All of the high girders section fell during the accident, and analysis of the archives has shown that the design of cast iron columns with integral lugs holding the tie bars was a critical mistake. As the engineer, Thomas Bouch was blamed for its collapse, however (his assistant Charles Meik merely left an impression that he "was aptly named"). Following on from the Tay Rail Bridge disaster was the introduction of the phrase into the English language of the term "you have made a bouch of that" which was further anglicised into the term "botch" leading to the saying for a job of poor construction being called a botch job.

Sir Thomas Bouch - Biography with links to construction projects.
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500 Tay Bridge Collection - Scope and content of the collection held at the University of Dundee.
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The Forth Bridge - Essay on its history, realization, and features.

Who was Thomas Bouch? - Biography from the BBC's Forensic Engineering.
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