William Glanville

Sir William Henry Glanville CB CBE FRS (1 February 1900 – 30 June 1976) was a British civil engineer. During World War II he and the Road Research Laboratory were involved in important war work, developing temporary runways, beach analysis, and tank and aircraft design. He also worked on the explosives calculations and scale models used to develop the bouncing bombs used in the Dam Busters Raid.

He was widely recognised for his contributions to engineering and, amongst a string of professional awards, was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), as a Companion of the Order of the Bath and knighted.

Early life William Glanville was born on 1 February 1900 in Willesden, Middlesex, the second child, and only son, of Amelia and William Glanville. His father was originally from Cornwall and worked as a builder. Glanville served briefly in the British Army during the final stages of the First World War. One of his classmates was Caleb Grafton Roberts, who became chairman of the Country Roads Board in Australia. The BRS was led by director Reginald Stradling, who held two doctorates and had also served during the war.

Glanville's first investigation at the Building Research Station (BRS) was to study how the water permeability of concrete varied and, with Duff Abrams, was one of the first to attribute this primarily to the water-cement ratio and not to the type and proportions of aggregate used. He also found that concrete became much more impermeable when cured by immersion in water, compared with the more popular air curing method.

Glanville's became an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1925. After the move Glanville's focus switched to development of new methods of testing building materials, designing and installing new testing equipment at the BRS and carrying out research on concrete, structural steel, brickwork and the acoustic properties of materials. His work on the creep and flow of concrete led to a PhD from the University of London in 1927. Glanville was appointed head of the BRS' engineering section ("Chief Engineer") in 1928. His responsibilities encompassed all of the BRS's engineering work including the management of its research, development of equipment and investigations of structural failures as well maintenance and expansion of the station. Glanville continued his own research into concrete and received, in 1930, a DSc degree from the University of London. In later life he reflected on this period of his career as his happiest and most professionally rewarding. In the early 1930s he carried out research on the use of driven concrete piles, which had previously been little studied. Collaborating with Geoffrey Grime, W. W. Davies and the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors he developed a means of estimating the amount of driving force a pile could be exposed to without damage. This involved a mixture of analytical work and practical experimentation on sites at the laboratory and across London. The team developed apparatus using piezo-electric strain gauges to measure dynamic stress during driving, the set-up was later adapted to measure blast pressures from explosions. The work helped provide guidance to designers and contractors on installing the piles in various ground conditions. There had previously been no method of determining if piles were suitable for the ground conditions before they were installed on site, leading to some dangerous failures of piles whilst being driven by heavy hammers.

Glanville's 1930 three-part paper Studies in reinforced concrete and further work he carried out in 1939 formed the basis for design codes for reinforced concrete structures which became British Standard CP114.

Road Research Laboratory The RRL had been formed in 1933 with Stradling taking the directorship jointly with his previous role at the BRS. Glanville was appointed deputy director and officer in charge after the previous appointee R. G. C. Batson resigned to take up the chair of engineering at Liverpool University. Took on the directorship in April 1939 after Stradling resigned upon appointment as chief scientific officer to the Ministry of Home Security, which had been established to consider matters of air raid precautions as the Second World War loomed. Glanville insisted on the title being amended from Director of the Road Research Laboaratory to "Director of Road Research", as he believed his remit should encompass all roads research within the DSIR.

War work

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Glanville was put in charge of the research and experiments department of the Ministry of Home Security as chief scientific adviser at the Princes Risborough station. The station was situated here to avoid German air raids. The RRL received additional work from the Ministry of Home Security, the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aircraft Production, the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Defence and Glanville found that defence matters accounted for up to 70% of the department's work.

Glanville also acted as an advisor to the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aircraft Production on the construction of concrete runways and specialised airfields. Post-war Terrell shared a £9,500 government award for the invention with Glanville.

Glanville's most famous contribution to the war effort was his work, with Barnes Wallis, on the bouncing bombs used in the famous Dambusters raids. Glanville was responsible for calculating the correct explosives charge and for the use of scale models to test the theory on. Post-war analysis of the raids has shown that Glanville's breach size forecasts were accurate to within 10%. Also in 1943 he proposed that the RRL meet monthly with representatives from the Ministry of War Transport, though such meetings were not implemented until 1945 and equivalents with the MOT on traffic and road safety were not implemented until 1953; this was partly because Glanville's deputy Reuben Smeed did not see their value. In general the meetings on materials and construction methods were more successful than those on road safety and road planning policy.

Post-war

After the war Glanville remained with the RRL and concentrated on research into road safety. The organisation soon adopted a radical new form of study, implementing experiments on live highways. This method resulted in improvements to surfacing materials, road marking paint, and non-skid treatments. The laboratory was significantly enlarged in 1946 and took on a wider remit to investigate road safety and traffic management. Research in this area lead to better tyre materials, zebra crossings, speed limits, and laws regarding the wearing of safety helmets and seat belts.

As well as road safety work he also worked in the field of concrete engineering. In 1956 he was a visiting lecturer at Cape Town University. The RRL under Glanville also investigated the layout of road networks and town planning and the properties of road construction materials and became renowned as the leading road organisation in the world. Glanville's period at the RRL included the development of the country's first motorways and Glanville and his department played key roles in developing those roads and resolving early issues.

Glanville declined numerous opportunities to leave the RRL to take up university professorships and senior positions in industry or with the Ministry of Transport; these all offered higher salaries. Charlesworth considers that the only post he may have accepted, but which was not offered, was that of secretary of DSIR. Charlesworth thought that if he had received the post in the mind 1950s he may have been able to prevent the break-up of DSIR in 1965.

Glanville summed up his approach to research, saying that it must "be weighed in the balance of practical experience and application; that the problems of the research engineer are revealed by the difficulties of practice; and that to make his full contribution the researcher must follow these problems into the realm of practice". He sought to involve practicing professional in his research, seeking to tailor his research to the needs of the construction industry. Glanville promoted the use of research boards within DSIR through which the activities of each research station could be directed. Although this required additional work to prepare reports and answer queries the presence of industry leaders, academic and government representatives on the Road Research Board increased awareness of the work of the RRL and allowed it to be directed more to the needs of these stakeholders. Glanville considered that the move to IRDA would further remove the RRL from policy-making and exacerbate the current problems. He was critical of the proposal to bring the RRL under the MoT as it would involve a second layer of scientific staff working for the MoT who would need to interpret the output of the RRL for ministers, Glanville preferred that the RRL be directly consulted. He was also concerned that the RRL may not be able to preserve its objectivity and might be swayed by political pressure; separation of research from politicians, the so-called Haldane principle, had long been customary in Britain. Glanville was unable to present evidence to the Trend committee and there was an apparent political desire to abolish DSIR. In 1964 the Conservative Douglas-Home ministry stated that it would follow Trend's recommendations. When the Labour Wilson ministry came to power in October 1964 DSIR was dissolved and the RRL transferred to the MoT.

Professional institutions Glanville was involved with many professional institutions and other bodies. He had many contacts abroad through his road research and chaired the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) committee which organised the biennial overseas conference. and such was his popularity in that office that there was a movement amongst members to waive the law that limits presidents to one term that had long been in the statute books.

Glanville was asked by the president of the International Road Federation to serve as their consultant, a service he provided for ten years, and organised the papers presented at their world meetings in London and Washington. He was the federation's European representative to their survey of research into roads carried out across 72 counties.

Honours Glanville obtained the degrees of PhD in 1925 and DSc in 1930 in the course of his work at the BRS. He was recognised by the government for his important work and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1944 New Year Honours, a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1953 New Year Honours, and was knighted in the 1960 New Year Honours. He was awarded the Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal in 1962 and was a fellow of that institution. He received the Viva Shield and gold medal of the Worshipful Company of Carmen in 1965. He was an honorary member of the Institutions of Municipal Engineers, Highway Engineers and Royal Engineers, and of the Concrete Society. He was a fellow and governor of Queen Mary College, London, and almoner, governor of Christ's Hospital, Horsham and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1958.

On 11 June 1976 he became a founding fellow of the Fellowship of Engineering.

Personal life Glanville married Millient Carr on 20 June 1930 by whom he had a daughter and a son.

A memorial service was held for Glanville at St Margaret's Church, Westminster on 2 November 1976. Sit William Harris, a former director at the Ministry of Transport, said "Although he spent the whole of his career in scientific research, Bill Glanville - as he was known to many of us - was one of the great engineers of his era and it was as a research engineer, rather than a scientist, that he saw himself". However the portrayal is somewhat misleading in that it depicts Glanville and the RRL as subordinate to Barnes Wallis whilst this was not the case and both parties worked on an equal footing.

Glanville is featured on a plaque on Imperial College London's Skempton Building, which houses its Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.