Haiste Consulting Engineers - the Middle Years 1950 to 1974

Описание: Consulting civil engineers John H Haiste and Partners was founded in 1920. It grew from less than 20 staff in 1950 to three or four times that number by 1974, which is the period covered by this video. It’s the third in a series that aims to put something worthwhile on the digital record about Haiste, a UK consulting engineering firm that was in business from 1920 to c1995.
After taking on a new partner in ‘Josh’ Sharkie, a Panel 1 Engineer in accordance with the 1930 Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act, founder John H Haiste retired as other partners joined the firm, which expanded during Britain’s post war reconstruction and development. Oliver Cyril Rowe, dubbed "Charlie" by the staff was the next senior partner, followed by David Ellis who was in place in 1974.
I interview a member of its staff who joined as a trainee draftsman in 1952, became a well-respected engineering technician, and remained with the firm and its successor until his retirement in 1999.
Another former colleague was taken on in 1958 as an indentured pupil civil engineer, in accordance with the training formalities laid down by the Institution of Civil Engineers.
We learn something about how out of office surveys were conducted in the 1950s, without formal procedures of health and safety, and that rather laisse faire regime changing after he was a casualty, in his case contracting Weil’s disease.
The social aspect isn’t over-looked – friendly cricket matches with pipe manufacturers and equipment suppliers of the day – Ames Crosta Mills, Naylor Brothers, Stanton and Staveley. And Friday lunch times at Headingley pubs – The Skyrack and The Original Oak.
The video references just a few of the many projects that were undertaken by the firm – water supply, drainage and sewage treatment works at Darlington, Fleetwood, Gainsborough, Knutsford, Ripon and Pateley Bridge, Spalding, Upper Stour Valley and Withernsea.
A sea defence wall at Robin Hoods Bay in North Yorkshire was completed in the final year covered by this video. It protected the village against the North Sea storms for 50 years, only very recently having capital monies spent on it in defect repairs, to extend its life for another 50 or so.
The year 1974 delivered a huge blow to Haiste and other similar civil engineering consulting engineering practices. Local government re-organisation in that year meant that it lost most of clients, virtually overnight. Staff redundancies followed in 1975, for the first time in the firm’s 55 years of existence until then.
Haiste survived by turning its attention to the overseas market, particularly the Middle East and North Africa. As we shall see in future videos in the series, it was hugely successful – being responsible for large projects in Greece, Iraq, Libya and Tunisia in the 1980s.