The thesis analyses the connections between British civil engineers and British imperialism in the period 1880-1914. The thesis works at the intersection of intellectual history, history of technology, and imperial history. The thesis argues that Britain and the Empire should be studied as an interconnected dynamic unity in which engineers were situated; the geographical and ideological context in which their activities took place. The thesis can be read as a contribution to recent re-conceptualisations of the British Empire as a zone bind together by ‘colonial connections' and ‘imperial networks' through which knowledge circulated, people travelled, and through which trust and authority was negotiated. It is furthermore a contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of engineering.