Thomas Harrison Douglas, who has died aged 91, was a highly respected
civil engineer, an advocate of hydroelectric power, whose knowledge and
skills in tunnelling and dam construction were second to none. He was an
authority on pumped storage hydro systems, where water is pumped to a
higher elevation at off peak periods when the cost of power is low, then
released through turbines at times when the electricity is most needed.
His travels began in 1940, when he was evacuated to the US for the
duration of the war. With Tom's father, George, busy at his oil and cake
mills, and his mother, Margaret, driving for the Mechanised Transport
Corps, they arranged for the u-year-old and his older sister Mona to
stay with relatives in Georgia.
After a few months at |unior High, Tom won a scholarship to Western
Military Academy in Illinois. It was the making of him, he would say.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
Noting his nephew's abilities, interests and experience, an uncle
suggested that civil engineering would be the ideal career. Following an
apprenticeship with Blyth and Blyth in Edinburgh, he became junior
engineer at Balfour Beatty In London. The company soon assigned him to
work on a new hydroelectric scheme in Kenya where, as Assistant Civil
Engineer, he not only managed tunnel blasting and dam construction but
was also armed as a Reserve Police Officer, this being during the Mau
Mau rebellion.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
In Scotland in 1955 he joined Babtie, Shaw and Morton in Glasgow,
worklng on North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board schemes on Loch Laidon,
the Burn of Mar and Loch Awe, and shipyard reconstruction at Whiteinch.
Ten years later, he joined WV Zinn, and was responsible for designing
the water supply and surface drainage system for Livingston New Town
centre.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
In 1970, now with James Williamson and Partners, he began work on a
massive pumped storage hydro scheme at Craigroyston, Loch Lomondside,
but when the government halted that scheme, he was reassigned to take
charge of the pumped storage development at Dinorwig, North Wales.
Opened in 1982, it was dubbed (the engineering project of the decade'
and it remains the largest scheme of its kind in Europe.
The first sentences of his entry in the Academy's graduating year book
are, '(Scotty Douglas came from across the sea but will forever be a
part of Western and the class of '45. Few cadets were better liked or
had more friends". Before he left the US, he worked as a bell boy at
exclusive hotels at Sea Island in Georgia, and NewYork's Rockefeller
Centre.
The next few years saw Tom travelling to a number of countries to advise
on or oversee work on hydro schemes. He spent time in Turkey, Mozambique
and Japan, and while in Papua New Guinea he crossed primitive rope
bridges as he assessed for clients the possibilities of damming remote
rivers.
It was in the People's Republic of China that he made his biggest
contributions to hydro-electric power development in the Far East,
helping at the Guangzhou Pumped Storage Power Station, where the
positioning of the lakes reminded him of Dinorwig. So impressed were his
hosts that he was invited to give a series of lectures to an audience of
power engineers and construction staff.
On his return to the UK he took charge of Historic Scotland's commission
for driving a new vehicle and services tunnel through 100 metres of rock
at Edinburgh Castle. All these projects through the 198os into the early
1990s consolidated Tom's team-building, mentoring and negotiating
skills.
Meanwhile, he began publishing articles on tunnelling and organised the
Institute of Civil Engineers' major international conference on pumped
storage in 1990. Invitations began to come from many quarters.
He was asked to be a member of the Board of Enquiry into the deaths of
four men during construction of a dam in Derbyshire, and was appointed
arbiter in a multi-million pound dispute between South African Railways
and a tunnelling company. Now a full-time consultant, Tom was called in
to advise CERN on the tunnel system for the Large Hadron Collider. Years
later he was to remark on the coincidence that an Edinburgh-born
engineer had helped devise the tunnels used to prove the theories of
Peter Higgs, an Edinburgh University professor.
Tom himself was honoured to become a professor - Visiting Professor of
Civil Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. Another honour was
his appointment as Chairman of the Association of Consulting Engineers
in 1990.
However, he would always say that the most significant family honour was
when his wife Patricia was awarded
the MBE in 1991 for her work as Director of the Charles Rennie
Mackintosh Society. Their first home together in 1952 was a Nissen hut
by the Maragwa River in Kenya; where Tom was working on the power
station, but on their return to the UK they settled first in Bearsden,
and then Killearn, Stirlingshire.
They were committed Episcopalians, and were keen tennis players and
swimmers, and were leaders in youth organisations: Patricia with the
Girl Guides and Sea Rangers, Tom as Chairman of the Shakespeare Street
Youth Club Management Committee.
Tom was survived by their two sons, Antony (who was born in Kenya) and
Gavin, six grand-children and six great grandchildren.
Tom Douglas, civil engineer
Born: 5th Ju|y 1928; Died: 27th April 2020
DOUGLAS Patricia Margaret MBE [Died] Peacefully, with the family, at
Auchlochan Garden Village, on 29th August 2016, Patricia Margaret
Douglas MBE (FRSA), aged 85 years. Beloved wife of Thomas Harrison
Douglas, dear mother of Antony and Gavin, mother-in-law of Catriona and
a much loved grandma of Adam, Richard, James, Jonathan, Harris and Kern
and great-grandsons Seth, Heath and Harrison. |
