James Henry Greathead

James Henry Greathead was a South African born English civil engineer best known for his work on the railway lines now incorporated into the London Underground. Greathead was an engineer on the London (City) & Southwark Subway, later the City and South London Railway, and now part of the Northern line, which has a station near to the statue at Bank.

The bronze statue depicts a bearded Greathead wearing a broad-brimmed hat (an allusion to his South African origins) and carrying a coat over his right arm, holding a piece of paper which he is reading. It stands on a hollow oval Portland stone base with granite plinth. The base bears a bronze plaque on one side depicting a tunnelling shield with an inscription that credits Greathead as being the "inventor of the travelling shield that made possible the cutting of the tunnels of London's deep level tube system". (A part of the tunnelling shield used at Bank station was rediscovered during a refurbishment, and left visible painted red in a passageway leading to the Waterloo & City line.) The…