Our next FoWT monthly meeting will take place on Monday 6th January 2025 – 7.00 pm (19.00 hrs) via Zoom.
“The construction of the Albert Dock” by Anthony Clarke.
Our guest speaker on the night will be Anthony Clarke, who will talk about “The construction of the Albert Dock”.
Anthony Clarke BSc CEng FIStructE MICE CARE
Anthony is a Chartered Structural Engineer and a Conservation Accredited Engineer (one of 95 in the UK). He worked for 39 years at Curtins in their Liverpool office until March 2018 and then became an independent consultant mainly working on repair of Historic Buildings. In 2024 he retired from work.
His involvement at the Albert Docks started in 1982 when he was part of a team undertaking a detailed assessment of the derelict warehouses and continued through the development period and beyond. In total 30+ years’ experience working on these fabulous buildings. Other notable Liverpool projects have included both Cathedrals and most of the Museum listed properties together with John Rylands in Manchester. Since going into retirement, he continues his private research on Victorian dock construction methods. He also enjoys cycling and photography. He is the current President of Hoylake Photographic Society.
Anthony’s presentation will cover the history and method of construction of the Albert Dock and its river wall in 1840 when mechanisation was scarce. It will include reasons why the dock was sited in this position of Liverpool together with the difficulties encountered during construction.
Jesse Hartley, Liverpool’s Dock Surveyor between 1823 and 1860 was responsible for the design and supervision of the construction of Liverpool’s first fire proof bonded warehouse, known now as the Royal Albert Dock. In 37 years, his team transformed Liverpool to become an internationally known port. The speed of construction was incredible and was completed without today’s reliance on mechanisation. Hartley was a very private person and guarded his technical information carefully. This has made research of his techniques difficult.
The presentation starts by summarising the development of the port from the early 18th century up to the time of the 1840s when the Albert Dock were constructed. It then continues to describe the construction of the warehouses based on the author’s work as part of a team of structural engineers investigating the buildings prior to the restoration in the 1980s. The subject is then developed to cover Victorian methods of construction. Drawing on the author’s private research, the talk will discuss Hartley’s options and proposes the most likely methods he used to construct these Grade I listed buildings.
If you would like to take part in this, or any of FoWT’s future monthly meetings, you will need to register your interest. Once registered, we will e-mail you the details you will need to join the meeting on the night.
To register, Fill in the form on our FoWT Monthly Meeting page and we will do the rest. Once you are on our mailing list to take part in our monthly meetings, look out for our e-mail a few days before the meeting, which will give you all the details you will need to join the meeting.
See the complete list of this years talks, presentations and speakers