John Peter Desmaretz

His projects included a new entrance to Shoreham-by-Sea's harbour (1753), powder and horse mills in Faversham (1755-1763) and for gun batteries at vulnerable points on the coasts of Kent and Sussex (1759).

His epitaph by his daughter Mary reads: though born a foreigner he early adopted every sentiment of civil and religious liberty and exerted his active abilities for the service of this nation in quality of an engineerThis and his surname imply a Huguenot origin, though nothing certain is known of his life before he joined the army of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough in 1709.

He remained in British service at the war's end in 1713, working with John Armstrong to demolish the port at Dunkirk and survey the coastline between Gravelines and Ostend.

He also produced estimates, charts and reports and took part in every major Ordnance project in southern England at the time, including his survey of Harwich Harbour (1732), the Brompton Lines around Chatham Dockyard (1756) and alterations at Dover Castle (1756) which cost £3,658 and employed 734 men.

In the meantime, he had written a report and estimates for the large magazine at Purfleet in 1755, for fortifying Senegal in 1758 and for a military hospital in Sheerness in 1762-1763.