Charles Husband

Lovell telescope

Sir Henry Charles Husband ( HC Husband for short ; born October 30, 1908 in Sheffield ; † October 7, 1983 ) was a British civil engineer .

biography

His father Joseph Husband (1871-1961) was the first civil engineering professor at Sheffield University. His son Charles received his civil engineering degree from Sheffield University in 1929. In the 1930s he worked for civil engineer Owen Williams (1890-1969) and for government housing projects during the economic crisis. In 1936 he founded the engineering company Husband & Clark in Sheffield with his father and a partner. During the Second World War he worked for the government in aircraft manufacturing, among other things. After the war he headed his engineering office.

He became known for the construction of the radio telescope in Jodrell Bank (the Lovell telescope). Bernard Lovell wanted a pivoting telescope that was 250 feet (76 m) in diameter, which some civil engineers rejected as impossible. Construction lasted from 1952 to 1957, accompanied, for example, by wind tunnel tests. The telescope was considered the pinnacle of British engineering after the war. Later on, Husband was involved in other radio antennas (such as the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station).

In the 1950s, in collaboration with the radiologist Frank Ellis in Oxford, he constructed one of the earliest radiation devices for radioactive cobalt for cancer therapy, which required extensive shielding.

He oversaw the rebuilding of Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge after a fire in the 1970s . In doing so, he resorted to Stephenson's original plans for the reconstruction in a modified form.

Britannia Bridge

His engineering office built a lot in Sri Lanka , where there was a branch in Colombo. There they built a 16-story high-rise (Ceylinco House). His company built the bridge that gave the film its title for the filming of the 1957 film Die Brücke am Kwai with filming in Sri Lanka.

Honors

In 1965 he was the first applied scientist to receive the Royal Medal , the Institution of Structural Engineers gold medal in 1973 and the Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1966 . In 1959 he received the Benjamin Baker Gold Medal and in 1976 the James Watt Medal. In 1964 he became Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and in 1975 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor . He was an honorary doctor from the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield.

Fonts

• HC Husband, RW Husband: Reconstruction of the Britannia Bridge, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 58, 1975, pp. 25-49
• HC Husband: The Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 9, 1958, pp. 65-86

literature

• Robert Sharp: Husband, Sir (Henry) Charles (1908–1983), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ,