George Arnold Escher

Escher was hired by the Japanese government as a foreign advisor from September 1873 to July 1878, along with fellow Dutch civil engineers Johannis de Rijke and Cornelis Johannes van Doorn.[1] During his stay in Japan, he designed and supervised the restoration of the Yodo river (Osaka), and built a harbour in Mikuni in Fukui prefecture.

After returning to the Netherlands, he worked in Maastricht. During this time, he recorded in his diary his difficulty as a Protestant in finding a suitable marriage partner in Roman Catholic Maastricht who would also be able to satisfy his equation v = 1/2m + 10, where v was the age of the woman, and m the age of the husband.[3] In 1882, Escher married Charlotte Marie Hartitzsch, with whom he had two sons. He became a widower in 1885, and in 1892 married Sara Gleichman, with whom he had three more sons. Escher worked as a hydraulic engineer in Leeuwarden. In 1903 the family moved to Arnhem.

• Kamibayashi, Yoshiyuki. "Two Dutch Engineers and Improvements of Public Works in Japan," Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Construction History, Cottbus, May 2009.
• Louman, Johannes Petrus Antonius. (2007). Fries waterstaatsbestuur: : een geschiedenis van de waterbeheersing in Friesland vanaf het midden van de achttiende eeuw tot omstreeks 1970. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. OCLC 150391614

• "w = 1/2m + 10". Archived from the original on December 15, 2005. Retrieved June 5, 2007.
• 御雇オランダ人工師エッセルの「阪井港修築建議」の現代文訳

• Kamibayashi, Yoshiyuki (1999). "The Background of GA. Escher, Hollander Engineer who supported Jode Rijke for 40 years". Historical Studies in Civil Engineering. 19: 399–406. doi:10.2208/journalhs1990.19.399.