[1] He then went to India in 1844 as professor of engineering at Elphinstone College, Bombay, where he had organized a course of instruction for Indian students; his health obliged him to return to England in 1848.
With official work from the government, he served on committees which considered the application of armour to ships and fortifications (1861–1864), and the comparative advantages of Whitworth and Armstrong guns (1863–1865).
His mathematical tastes found congenial occupation in the study of whist, and as a contemporary to Cavendish, he was an exponent of the scientific principles and history of the game.
His literary work included treatises on the steam engine and on iron construction, biographical studies of famous engineers, including Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir William Fairbairn and Sir William Siemens, several books on musical subjects and on whist, and many papers for reviews and scientific periodicals.
His proposers were all civil engineers: David Stevenson, Sir John Hawkshaw, James Leslie and Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin.