John Robinson McClean

John Robinson McClean CB FRS (21 March 1813 – 13 July 1873), was a British civil engineer and Liberal Party politician.

He was born in Belfast. Educated at Belfast Academical Institution and University of Glasgow.

Whilst still young, he offered himself as candidate for the Office of Engineer to the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, but was refused. Upon leaving the Board Room, he said to Mr Edmund Getty, (an old family friend) “that he would let the Commissioners yet see what a man they had lost”.

With his partner, Francis Croughton Stileman, he founded McClean & Stileman, engineering consultants of Great George St, Westminster. Some of his positions were:

• Advisor on the Suez Canal for the British Government.
• Extensive works for Emperor Napoleon in France.
• Chief Engineer of the Plymouth and Dover Harbours.
• Chairman of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company.
• Chief Engineer overseeing construction of the South Staffordshire Railway, which opened in 1849.

After an Act of Parliament was passed to allow it, he took a 25-year lease on the railway, thus becoming the first person ever to be the sole owner of a railway. With the financial backing of several businessmen, he planned and built "The South Staffordshire Water Works Company" which piped fresh water to all of the Black Country. He was also the owner, with partner Richard Chawner, of "The Cannock Chase Colliery Company".

He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1864-5.

He unsuccessfully stood for Parliament as a Liberal Party candidate for Belfast at the 1857 general election, the second time he had been rejected by his native town.

He was elected at the 1868 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Staffordshire, and held the seat until his death in 1873.

He was also Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, a volunteer corps whose members serve as engineering advisors to the British Army.

Funerary monument, Kensal Green Cemetery, London

He died in 1873 aged 60, and is buried with his wife Anna, on the edge of the main path at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

He was married to Anna (1813–1877). They had five daughters and one son, Frank McClean.