Eassie was born at
Lochee near
Dundee in 1805. Little is known of his early life, but he was involved in construction of the
East Lancashire Railway in 1840. In 1849 he moved to Gloucestershire and worked on the
Gloucester and Dean Forest Railway, securing a contract to supply and install wooden sleepers and to lay iron rails. He subsequently worked on the docks branch of this railway on the west side of the
Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, and on the
Vale of Neath Railway in south Wales. In delivering contracts, Eassie worked often with
Richard Potter of Price & Co, a Gloucester-based timber importer, and in 1851 he set up a steam-powered saw mill on land beside the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal that Price & Co leased from Gloucester Corporation. From this mill, Eassie also supplied other contractors, including those working on rail projects for
Isambard Kingdom Brunel. followed by a similar order from the French government. Shortly after completion of these orders in early 1855, Eassie was approached by Brunel to work on designs for prefabricated buildings to form the
Renkioi military hospital near the
Dardanelles. The hospital was designed as 16 buildings, each holding 50 patients in two wards, and were shipped direct from Gloucester Docks to
Balaklava. After the Crimean War, Eassie's business expanded its engineering capabilities, forging scrap iron to manufacture ship anchors and other components, and developing a piling machine to work at the
Millwall Iron Works in London where Brunel's
SS Great Eastern was being built. However, Eassie's business got into financial difficulties, and he was forced to restructure the business, giving his sons (William and Peter Boyd Eassie) formal roles in William Eassie & Sons. The company continued to make wooden buildings for UK and overseas customers, later expanding into the supply of wood for the manufacture of railway wagons in an adjacent works in Gloucester. ==Legacy==