William George Nicholson Geddes

Who was William George Nicholson Geddes?

William George Nicholson Geddes, CBE DSc FRSE FEng was a Scottish civil engineer.

George Geddes was born in Oldhamstocks, East Lothian and studied civil engineering at Edinburgh University, gaining a "blue" in football. He worked for the City Engineer in Edinburgh, then Sir William Arrol & Company, and F.A. Macdonald & Partners under William Fairhurst, before joining Babtie, Shaw and Morton in 1942. He became a partner of the firm in 1950 and senior partner from 1976 to 1978. His specialist experience was structural engineering which led to an interest in hydro-electric projects, dams, shipyards, docks and industrial developments.

One of Geddes' most notable projects, under the overall direction of James Arthur Banks and later constructed by the contractor Marples Ridgway, was his contribution to the design of the Allt na Lairige dam in Argyllshire in the 1950s. This was the first concrete dam in western Europe, and possibly the world, to be prestressed by using high tensile steel bars, bolted either end, to compress the structure.

Later Geddes was in charge of Backwater Dam, the first in the UK to use a chemical grout cut-off. One of his outstanding achievements was the major shipbuilding dock at the head of the Musgrave Channel in Belfast for Harland and Wolff. The dock was the largest in the World when it was completed in 1970, having been designed and built scarcely two years after the decision was taken to proceed.