Clark, Adam

▪ British civil engineer

born Aug. 14, 1811, Edinburgh, Scot.

died July 23, 1866, Buda [now Budapest], Hung.

      British civil engineer who is associated with the construction of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge (Széchenyi Lánchíd) between Buda and Pest (two districts of present-day Budapest), the first permanent bridge over the Danube River in Hungary. He also designed the Buda Tunnel at the Buda bridgehead. The square between the bridge and the tunnel is named for him and is the official point of origin of the country's road network, with a sculptured “zero kilometre stone” in the centre.

      In 1834 the social and political reformer István, Gróf (count) Széchenyi (Széchenyi, István, Count), who saw the improvement of communications as a necessary condition of Hungary's economic development, engaged Clark to direct the installation of equipment bought for the Danube regulation works. Because William Clark (no relation), the English engineer who designed the Chain Bridge, could spend only a few weeks a year in Pest, in 1839 he commissioned Adam Clark to direct the construction. In 1847 Széchenyi made Adam Clark technical adviser to the National Transport Commission, and in the following year, as minister of public works, Széchenyi made him technical adviser to the ministry. Clark twice saved the bridge: first, from the Austrian general who, during the revolution of 1849, wanted to blow up the bridge and, second, from the commander of the Hungarian army, who gave orders to destroy it as his troops retreated. Following the completion of the Buda Tunnel in 1857, Clark worked on several smaller commissions.

* * *