Return To UK
Following a downturn in building during a 1934 economic slump in Canada Wynne-Edwards returned to the UK in 1935 where he joined John Mowlem & Co.. He was given the task of building the William Girling Reservoir near Chingford in Essex, this was constructed using the first fleet of newly developed American earth moving equipment to reach Britain. In 1937 a recently constructed part of the dam embankment collapsed and it was shown by the Building Research Station (BRS) that the fault was due to a patch of soft clay which Wynne-Edwards had asked to be allowed to remove but was overruled. When this theory was ignored by more senior consultants Wynne-Edwards traced Karl von Terzaghi, the famous geologist and soil mechanics expert, and persuaded him to represent Mowlem. Terzaghi supported the BRS's theory and redesigned the bank to accommodate his findings. The publicity surrounding this event and Wynne-Edwards lectures at universities led to the popularisation and acceptance of the relatively new science of soil-mechanics in the UK.
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Famous quotes containing the words return to and/or return:
“The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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