Sir Benjamin Baker KCB KCMG FRS FRSE was an eminent English civil engineer who worked in mid to late Victorian era. He helped develop the early underground railways in London with Sir John Fowler, but he is best known for his work on the Forth Bridge.
He was born in Keyford, to Benjamin Baker family and who was a , principal assistant at Tondu Ironworks and, at the age of 16, became an apprentice at the Neath Abbey Iron Works. After his apprenticeship he spent two years as an assistant In 1861 Baker became an assistant to the consulting engineer John Fowler and by 1875 was his partner for the construction of the subterranean District Railway from Westminster to the City of London. He also served as consultant for the building of other London Underground lines, all bored deep in the London clay. His other projects included the docks at Avonmouth and Hull and the ocean transport of the 180-ton obelisk Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt and its re=erection in London.

In 1867 Baker wrote a series of articles, “Long Span Bridges,” discussing the application of cantilevers, which were later used in his Forth Bridge . At the completion of that bridge, Baker was knighted. He served on numerous government commissions and boards and, among other assignments as a consultant, implemented William Willcocks’s plans for the first Aswān Dam In the United States he was consulted by James B. Eads on the construction of his steel bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri, and, when the first Hudson River tunnel threatened to fail, Baker was called in to design a tunneling shield that allowed work to be completed.