John Alexander Brodie

Who was John Alexander Brodie?

John Alexander Brodie was a British civil engineer.

Brodie began his professional career in 1875 working in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board engineering department under Chief Engineer George Fosbery Lyster, following this he set up a private consultancy and spent some time working in Spain. In 1889 he invented the goal net for use in football matches and he said that this was the invention of which he was the most proud. Brodie returned to Liverpool in 1898 as the city engineer suggesting several improvements for the town such as the UK's first ring road, electric trams and the East Lancashire Road, the UK's first intercity highway.

He was at the fore front of pre-fabricated housing technology promoting the use of pre-cast reinforced concrete slabs as a means of building houses quickly and cheaply, he presented an example of this technique to the Cheap Cottages Exhibition at Letchworth where many examples of this kind of building can be found to this day. The design attracted attention from across the world and he is known to have influenced Grosvenor Atterbury who used a similar technique to build the houses at Forest Hills Gardens.