Engineering Heritage Victoria and the RHSV present this event in partnership.

Hugh Ralston Crawford (1876 – 1954) consulting engineer, was a pioneer in reinforced concrete work in Australia. He was granted a provisional patent for monolithic reinforced concrete cavity wall construction in 1907, and he later used the system to erect several concrete houses in Melbourne. In 1910, he designed and built, the heritage listed Sniders and Abraham’s cigarette factory at 7 Dewery Lane Melbourne, it was the first wholly reinforced concrete building erected in Melbourne, challenging Monash’s virtual monopoly of reinforced concrete construction in Victoria. It was also the first building in Australia to utilise the C.A.P. Turner ‘Mushroom System’ of flat slab construction. But was he an innovator or an imitator?

During the First World War Crawford was employed by the Metcalfe Company of Montreal, Canada in connection with construction and installation of grain elevators and concrete wheat silos for the bulk storage of wheat for the New South Wales government. At the end of the First World War, he was appointed reinforced concrete consultant to the Federal Government and was associated with many of their new concrete framed Commonwealth office, bank and telephone exchange buildings across Australia. In 1926 Crawford proposed a transporter bridge over the Yarra River at Spencer St and in 1927 proposed a similar bridge for the crossing of the Yarra at Williamstown.

Speaker:
David Beauchamp MICE, MIEAust, CPEng(Ret.)

David Beauchamp has been a significant advocate for the preservation and restoration of heritage buildings and an engineering consultant in the field for over 40 years. He became the first president of the Carlton Association in 1969 to fight for the preservation of a large group of 19th Century terrace houses at risk of being demolished by the Housing Commission of Victoria. In that same year he established a consulting practice to give advice on the repair and restoration of historic buildings. His consultancy developed and expanded to produce conservation management plans for many bridges for VicRoads and other bodies, and to carry out inspections, heritage assessments and reporting on historic bridges and other buildings.

David was appointed a member of the Heritage Council of Victoria in 1995, served on the Council for 6 years, and on Heritage Victoria’s Technical Advisory Committee until 2013. He has been a longstanding member of Engineering Heritage Victoria, the National Trust Bridges Committee, and actively participated in the activities of Australia ICOMOS, and the Association of Preservation Technology in the USA.

Housekeeping

When you book tickets you will be sent an automatic, system-generated confirmation email with your tickets. If this can’t be found in your in-box please check your Spam folder or Junk Mail folder as these system-generated emails often go astray. If you can’t find your tickets, don’t panic, we always have a list at the door.

As with most RHSV events, we will serve refreshments from 5:30pm – 6pm when the lecture starts.

The Zoom-cast will begin at 6pm.