Sir William Gordon Harris
KBE CB (10 June
1912–20 February 2005) was a British
civil engineer.
The docks at Faslane
Harris was
born in Liverpool
on 10 June 1912. He studied the
Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Sidney Sussex
College
, University of Cambridge
. Harris worked for the London Midland and Scottish
Railway as an engineer from 1932 until 1935 when he transferred
to the Irrigation Department
of Sudan
. He
returned from Sudan in 1937 to work in the Civil Engineer's
Department of the
Admiralty, the start of
a 26 year association with that department. Harris married Margaret
Harvie in 1938, he would have three sons, one daughter and sixteen
grandchildren with her. Harris received several promotions during
his time with the Admiralty, becoming Assistant Civil Engineer in
Chief in 1950, Deputy Civil Engineer in Chief in 1955 and Civil
Engineer in Chief in 1959. Harris gained a
Commonwealth Fund of New York
Scholarship in 1950 which allowed him to spend two years with
the
US Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks. In 1960
he became the Director-General of Navy Works at the Admiralty, a
post he would hold until the reorganisation which followed the
merger of the
Royal Navy,
Royal Air Force and
British Army administrations into the
Ministry of Defence in
1963. During his time with the Admiralty Harris saw the last large
gunnery ships go out of service to be replaced with
submarines and
aircraft carriers.
This change of fleet
composition required a revolution in dockyard facilities, for which
he was responsible, especially those at Faslane
, the
submarine base.
In the 1963
Queen's Birthday
Honours Harris was appointed a
Companion of the Order of the
Bath, and became Director-General of Works at the
Ministry of Public Building
and Works.
From 1965 Harris was the Director-General of
Highways at the Ministry of Transport
(later the Department of the Environment
). During this time he was responsible for all
design, construction and maintenance of roads in England
.
Harris's tenure as Director-General saw the construction of 650
miles of
motorways and an expenditure of
£2.2 billion on new road construction. He was appointed a
Knight
Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1969
Queen's Birthday Honours. Harris was involved with the
Permanent
Association of Navigation Congresses from 1969 until 1985 and
from 1970 to 1971 was the UK's chief delegate to the
Permanent Association of Roads
Congresses. Harris was a vice-president of the
Institution of Civil
Engineers from 1971 to 1974 and president from November 1974 to
November 1975. In 1973 Harris left the Department of the
Environment and became a partner at
Peter Fraenkel & Partners,
a position he held for the next five years.
From 1976 to 1979 Harris was chairman of the Construction Industry
Manpower Board and from 1978 to 1987 was the chairman of the
B&CE Holiday Management Company and Benefit Trust Company, a
provider of benefits, holiday pay and pensions to the construction
industry.
Harris was the deputy chairman of the board
of the Port of
Dover
for 1980 to 1982, having been a member of the board
since 1959. In 1984 He was elected president of the
Smeatonian Society of
Civil Engineers. In 1985 he received the
Department
of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the
US Army Corps
of Engineers in recognition of his work to secure an
international agreement upon the disposal of
dredged material. His wife, Margaret, died in 1991
and in 1992 he married Rachel Bishop.
Harris died at
East
Carlton
, Northamptonshire
on 20 February 2005.
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