Opinion

History for engineers - the past must be a vital part of our future

Mark Whitby

Mark Whitby recently joined up with English Heritage as a lone voice of engineering  objecting to Network Rail's plans fo the Ordsall chord scheme in Manchester. He reflects on his experience of this public inquiry and what led to it.

My Twentieth Century Society magazine arrived today, a coffee table quality magazine of a society that celebrates and campaigns for architecture and design from 1914 onwards.

In the magazine are details of recent listing and, more critically, news on campaigns the society is supporting for the listing of threatened buildings. One of the societies visit this summer will be to the grade 1 listed wind-tunnel building at Farnborough.

Not everything they like to celebrate is architectural,  they even ran a series of lectures last winter on 20th century engineers.

It is a shame that as engineers we should stand to one side, leaving it to architects and historians to describe what it was we achieved. It is a travesty that we stand aside when our engineering heritage is threatened.

What is interesting, as an engineer, is how whilst, for architects, history is a backbone to their profession and an academic subject in its own right, for engineers it hardly matters. Nowhere is engineering history taught and certainly there is little appetite for it as an academic subject.  

The case made is that engineering is about the future and certainly the past should not be allowed to get in the way of progress. As a consequence there is no need to appreciate the legacy laid down by our predecessors.

But is this how engineers really feel about their heritage? Sir Neil Cussons, a former chairman of English Heritage, in his defence of Stephenson’s heritage in Manchester, likened the UK’s industrial heritage to the pyramids of  Egypt or temples of Greece, making the case that in terms of modern world as we know it, it started here. 

Looking forward I can imagine that our engineering heritage may be appreciated more and afforded greater protection, but currently as a profession we are at best careless and at worst delinquent.

It maybe that other professions can make a better case for our heritage. But it is a shame that as engineers we should stand to one side, leaving it to architects and historians to describe what it was we achieved. It is a travesty that we stand aside when our engineering heritage is threatened.

These are not just great engineering objects, they are testaments to vision, collaboration and above all tenacity.

Behind many of the artefacts that constitute this history is the potential to not only appreciate the culture of the time but also see into the minds of the engineers. Their best and worst moments are on record. These are not just great engineering objects, they are testaments to vision, collaboration and above all tenacity.

That these engineers lit the spark that made the modern world is no accident, that it happened in Britain was not just a coincidence . It has to be that, as engineers, we are best placed to value this.

And perhaps society would value us a little more if it were we who made the case and told the story.

Mark Whitby is past president of the ICE and a direcor at Davies, McGuire and Whitby