Engineering History

In the article below, Graham Ross tells the story of Murrell Robinson Robinson, a man who made a significant contribution to the development of the Cape Colony. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Robinson was a conscientious and dedicated public servant who has the rare distinction of having an engineering work named after him - the Robinson Pass between Mossel Bay and Oudtshoorn is a tribute to the high regard in which he was held in the Colony.

Robinson Pass (DRISA)

Robinson was born in Southwark, England in 1820. Initially he worked as a surveyor, and in his early twenties served in the Falkland Islands with a small contingent of Royal Sappers and Miners, engaged in laying out the original capital Port Louis (renamed Anson) and then the new capital of Stanley. He became Private Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor, and was appointed Superintendent of the Survey Department.  After some unfortunate personal differences had arisen, he was dismissed...

In the article below, Tony Murray unpacks the career and achievements of Henry Fancourt White. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

White is one of the less well-documented engineers in South Africa’s history and his early days are a bit of a mystery. According to official sources he was born in Yorkshire in 1811 and arrived in the Cape with his parents in a party of British 1820 settlers. His family were allocated land at Riviersonderend and eventually settled at Assegaaibosch near Port Alfred, but this is not confirmed by settler records. It appears more likely that aged 17 he moved directly from England to Australia to join his ex-convict father. Certainly it was here that he obtained surveying experience and was appointed as Assistant Surveyor by the New South Wales Government. He also began speculating in property, and is credited with planting the first vineyard in the Hastings River wine region. However after a disagreement with a magistrate he was dismissed from his survey post, apparently unfairly, and he sold up and left for the Cape Colony.

He arrived in South Africa in 1843, and applied for a job with the newly constituted Roads Board. Perhaps the Colonial Secretary Montagu (click here to read more), who knew all about unjust Australian authorities, was sympathetic, for despite his record White was appointed as a Roads Inspector in...

In the article below, Tony Murray highlights the remarkable achievements of John Montagu and the influence he had on civil engineering in South Africa. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Montagu was not an engineer, but perhaps we can regard him as the first professional client in the country.  In any event he had a resounding influence on civil engineering in the Cape Colony in the mid -19th century and thus deserves a place in our annals.

John Montagu (Past Masters)

He was born in India, the son of Lt. Col. Edward Montagu, on 21st August 1797. He joined the army and served at Waterloo before re-entering civilian life. In 1823 he was posted to Tasmania as private secretary to the Governor, Sir George Arthur. At the time the island was simply a penal colony for the most difficult of the Australian convicts. Montagu assisted Arthur in developing a strict but fair system of dealing with the lags and his administrative talents were soon recognised; after a series of promotions he was appointed Secretary of the Colony in 1834. Through some astute land deals he built up a little fortune which would have sustained him in later years.

Arthur retired and...

In the article below, Graham Ross profiles Charles Jasper Selwyn, a military engineer who left a rich legacy of his work in the Eastern Cape. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Selwyn was a military engineer who left his mark on the Eastern Cape, but perhaps his greatest benefit to his adopted country was to recognize and nurture the latent skills of Andrew Geddes Bain and give him the opportunity to become a great pass-builder.

Selwyn was born in Gloucester on 27 May 1792, the seventh of eight children of Henry Charles Selwyn, a Captain in the Royal Fusiliers, who later became Lieutenant-Governor of Montserrat. Coming from a long line of soldiers, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, from where he graduated as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers to his first posting at Dover in May 1811. As a full lieutenant he was posted to the island of Guernsey for 18 months, where he married, before being posted to the West Indies. From here he was posted to Ireland, where he spent nine years surveying and was promoted to captain.

In February 1834, Capt. Selwyn was appointed Commanding Officer of the Royal Engineers on the eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope. He reached Grahamstown in July 1834, and scarcely five months after his arrival the 6th Frontier War broke out...

In the article below, Tony Murray reveals the story of Charles Cornwallis Michell, an engineer who contributed so much to the Cape Colony. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

South African civil engineers can look with pride to the father of civil engineering in their country. Not only was Charles Michell a competent and energetic engineer, but he was a thoroughly interesting and indeed romantic character who could well have been the subject of an historical novel.

Charles Cornwallis Michell

He was born in Exeter on 29th March 1793 and was sent as a cadet to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1807. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and fought in the Peninsular War, taking part in several notable actions including the battles of Badajos, Victoria and Toulouse. At this last event he performed with particular distinction, leading a raid on a fortified chapel which was a turning point in the action. For his efforts he was awarded the Peninsula Gold Medal and clasp, and subsequently a grateful Portuguese nation honoured him by making him a Knight of the order of St Benedict of Avis, and a Commander of the Tower and Sword.

While recovering...

In the article below, Graham Ross tells the story of William Holloway, the engineer who built the magnificent Franschhoek Pass. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Thank you to Tony Murray for giving us permission to publish. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Strictly speaking Holloway was not a civil engineer but a military engineer, since his professional life was spent as an officer in the Royal Engineers. However, he was the first person to carry out a significant civil engineering work in South Africa, and as such deserves pride of place in our catalogue.

William Cuthbert Holloway was born on 1st May 1787, the son of Major-General Sir Charles Holloway, R.E. and his wife Helen Mary. After passing through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in January 1804.  During the Napoleonic Wars he did military service in Ireland, Madeira and Spain.

In October 1818 Holloway was sent to the Cape as commander of a detachment of Royal Engineers. His duties were essentially to provide infrastructure - including surveys and mapping - for military purposes. However, the Governor soon put his talents to wider use, and he began preparing plans and specifications for various public works in the Colony as well as supervising their construction. He was also required to make periodic tours of inspection. Based on these investigations he submitted a detailed report on the...

When in Johannesburg, one of the best places to visit is the National Museum of Military History, a.k.a. the War Museum, located next door to the Zoo and just off of Oxford Road. The Museum’s opening hours are between 09h00 – 16h00 daily and I find that three hours is enough time to spend in order to see the exhibits on display. Opened as the South African National War Museum on the 29th August 1947 by the then Prime Minister, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, it had as its main display halls two Bellman hangars, which were originally built during the Second World War and now have become museum pieces themselves.

The Bellman hangar, was so named after its designer N. S. Bellman, the structural engineer for the British Air Ministry in 1936 who was given the brief to design a lightweight, portable and quick to erect (and dismantle) portal frame structure to house the aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF), at a time when the RAF was expanding its number of squadrons as a consequence of Britain re-arming to answer the threat of a resurgent Germany. What follows is an abridged version of a Guardian newspaper report, dated Monday 4th March 1935:

In a major reversal of rearmament policy Britain today announced new expansion plans for its army, navy and air force. The plans, in a defence white paper, are to demonstrate that Britain does not take lightly Germany’s continuing rearmament.

The white paper calls for an enlarged fleet...

Now I have to say from the very outset that I am “old school” and therefore know relatively little of the workings of Building Information Modelling (BIM), but being a keen observer of the built environment I am aware of the benefits that its methodology can bring to a building project with the aid of sophisticated computer software, which is now at the fingertips of the Architect, Engineer and Contractor, whether the project be “Greenfield” (new) or “Brownfield” (existing).

Now what is BIM?  As defined by The Institute of Structural Engineers, London “It is an approach centred on using digital tools to efficiently produce information to allow assets to be built, operated and maintained. It relies on all those involved in the project fully populating a central data base” (i.e. a three dimensional computer model). This brief definition does not fully convey the power of BIM and so in order to give more weight to the topic I refer the reader to the web site of the “BIM Institute” (www.biminstute.org.za), where he/she can be the judge of the usefulness of BIM in their own field.

The saying goes that “the only constant is change” and that is certainly true with regard to the building industry, where the competitive edge is of great importance in winning contracts. In the last 50 years there have been great strides  made in the way a building project is brought to completion and in my own experience I could never have anticipated the developments that...

For anyone who has read the epic fantasy novels in the “A Song of Fire and Ice” series  by George R.R. Martin or watched the TV series “Game of Thrones” (based on his books), they will surely know that nothing cuts like Valyrian Steel. Swords made from Valarian Steel never dulled and their edges remained as sharp as the day they were forged, unfortunately the knowledge to make the steel was lost and the swords that were made from the metal became the prized possessions of the noble families of Westeros and were passed down from father to son.

Of course the above is pure fiction but it has its basis in fact. Swords of high quality steel were much prized by the Knights of Old during the Crusades to the Holy Land (11th to 15th centuries CE). The Crusaders were introduced to this steel in battle when their own swords were sliced in half by those wielded by the Muslims. The superiority of their weaponry was only one aspect of Islam’s Golden Age, during which advances were made in astronomy, medicine and mathematics. To say that the Christians were playing catch up on the battle field is correct but catch up they did as they discovered where to lay there hands on this sword breaking steel and that was in the city of Damascus, a thriving trading centre of the day where armourers were supplying swords, daggers and body armour, at a price. Thus this strong (hard but flexible) steel...

When Johannesburg’s august Mayor, Harry Graumann (later Sir Harry), welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Connaught on 28 November 1910 he presented the Royal couple – who had come to South Africa to open the first Union Parliament – with a lavish commemorative book. This described the Town Engineer’s duties in terms of roads, parks, gas, electricity provision and other grand projects, but there was not a word about sewage, such were the Edwardian sensitivities to this delicate subject. Yet the disposal of human waste has determined the size and success of cities for millennia. Delta Park owes its existence to the expansion of Johannesburg’s sewage scheme during the 1930s when rural farmland on the outskirts of the city was transformed into the Delta Sewage Disposal Works.

Johannesburg is situated on the Witwatersrand watershed and rivers flow either to the south (into the Klip River, thence into the Vaal River, and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean) or to the north (feeding into the Crocodile River, the Limpopo River and disemboguing into the Indian Ocean). The city is somewhat unusual in always having separated waste-water (including sewage) from storm-water. Until a Town Engineer’s Department was established in 1902 after the South African War, sewage was collected in tarred buckets and removed beyond the town’s boundaries by horse-drawn night-soil carts to be used as fertilizer on neighbouring farms. Naturally, disease was a regular hazard.
             
Between 1902 and 1910 a very large gravity-fed sewage scheme (at...