William Halcrow

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Sir William Halcrow (* July 1883 in Bishopwearmouth , Sunderland ; † 1958 ) was one of the most respected English civil engineers of the 20th century, especially respected for his expertise in the planning of tunnels and for construction projects during the Second World War .

Early years

Halcrow was in Scotland in Bishop Wearmouth , Sunderland born (at the address 9 Shakespeare Terrace), at a time in the Sunderland Railway and Harbor extensively developed.

In the early 1900s he began his training in the London branch of PW and CS Meik (the engineer brothers Patrick and Charles Meik happened to be born in Bishopwearmouth). One of his earliest projects was the Kinlochleven - hydroelectric power plant in the western Highlands of Scotland, where he as an assistant connection engineer worked.

In 1910 he left the company to gain experience overseas . He worked on the construction of the King George V Dock in Singapore . Back in Scotland during World War I , he was tasked with building the Invergordon naval base and defenses at Scapa Flow on the Orkney Islands .

Hole but

After a brief episode in Singapore on the Johor – Singapore Causeway project (around 1919), he returned to Charles Meik to work on the design of the Lochaber hydropower plant, which was to provide the energy for an aluminum smelter in Fort Williams in the west of Scotland . When Meik died in 1923, the continuation of this ambitious project was in Halcrow's hands. It involved the construction of a tunnel 5 m in diameter and 24 km in length through the Ben Nevis massif, and the creation of a number of dams and reservoirs . In the same year the company was renamed CS Meik and Halcrow .

Merit in the war

His responsibilities extended to tunnels under Whitehall and for the post and telecommunications office.

His knowledge gained in Lochaber proved invaluable as World War II approached and transport authorities tried to protect the London Underground from flooding. He also helped design deep air raid shelters, eight of which were attached to existing stations such as Goodge Street station . This also housed a command center used by General Eisenhower to direct the Normandy landing on D-Day in 1944 .

Halcrow's expertise was also used in preparatory work at the Manod slate quarry in north Wales , which was used to protect treasures from the National Gallery from air raids. His company helped design the reinforced concrete caissons that would be used in the Mulberry ports built after D-Day in northern France, while his knowledge was being used in the Barnes Wallis dam construction to get the roll bomb used in the famous Operation Chastise or Dam Busters action in May 1943.

Further development in peacetime

After the war, Halcrow's attention returned to Scotland. Instead of generating electricity for aluminum production, the North Scottish hydropower electricity company advocated a new generation of hydropower plants to produce electricity for public use. The 'Glen Affric' plant started in 1947 and was the largest, but there have been similarly impressive projects in neighboring catchment areas such as Glen Garry and Glen Moriston - the latter included one of the first cavern power plants in the UK - and Strathfarrar and Kilmorack.

In Wales, Halcrow Company also turned to water supply projects. The Claerwen Dam, which opened in 1952 and later the Clywedog Dam, helped to supply the towns in the West Midlands region with its reservoirs . Halcrow also helped persuade the government to set up a hydraulics research laboratory in Wallingford , Oxfordshire , while his colleagues designed rail tunnels at Potters Bar (1955) and previously the Woodhead Tunnel (1954) and work on the new Victoria Line , the Underground line under central London began.

Overseas, Halcrow led the company while working on a wide variety of engineering projects, from roads, bridges and ports in Ghana , Libya and Mozambique to dams in Venezuela .

Halcrow's legacy

Halcrow was beaten Knight Bachelor in 1944 and elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1946. He retired in the late 1950s and died in Folkestone , Kent in 1958 .

The company, renamed WT Halcrow and Partners in 1941 and Sir William Halcrow and Partners in 1944 , was later known as the Halcrow Group . On November 10, 2011, the company was taken over by the American consulting firm CH2M Hill .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Garth Watson, The Civils, Thomas Telford Ltd, London 1988, page 253, ISBN = 0-7277-0392-7

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Halcrow, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH July 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Bishopwearmouth , Sunderland
DATE OF DEATH 1958