Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thomas Telford was born on the 9th of August 1757 at Glendinning, a hill farm east of Eskdalemuir Kirk. He grew up in poverty under the care of his mother Janet Jackson until she passed away in 1794.
Thomas Telford devised a master plan to improve communications across the Scottish Highlands starting in 1801 that included building the Caledonian Canal along the Great Glen. The project required constructing some 150 miles of new roads and over one thousand new bridges including Craigellachie Bridge and harbor improvements at Aberdeen Dundee Peterhead Wick Portmahomack and Banff.
Thomas Telford constructed the Menai Suspension Bridge between 1819 and 1826 spanning 579 feet. This became the longest suspension bridge of its time and utilized individually linked iron eye bars for the cables unlike modern designs.
Thomas Telford died on the 2nd of September 1834 at about 5pm after falling ill on the 23rd of August. He was buried in Westminster Abbey's nave with a statue erected nearby in St Andrew's Chapel.
An Act of Parliament passed in 1823 provided £50,000 for building up to forty churches in communities lacking any religious buildings. Of the forty-three originally planned thirty-two were eventually constructed across Scottish Highlands and islands while eleven others involved renovating existing buildings.