Denison Campbell-Allen
Denison Campbell-Allen
(1923 - 1992)
(Adapted by Rob Wheen from a document originally written by Nicholas Trahair.)
Professor Denison Campbell-Allen was born in 1923, in Harrow, UK, and was educated at the University of Cambridge and graduated with a BA in 1944 and with First Class Honours in Mechanical Sciences and then with an MA. He joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, where he worked on the analysis of aircraft structures. There began the long series of technical papers that he authored. In 1948, Campbell-Allen migrated to New Zealand to become a lecturer in engineering mathematics at the then Auckland University College. In 1951, he joined the Scientific Services Division of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority as Engineer-in-Charge of the Materials Branch. The four years he spent at the Snowy marked the beginnings of a long and fruitful association with concrete technology and practice in Australia.
During this period, he made contact with Professor John Roderick who invited him to join the academic staff of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in 1954 as a Senior Lecturer. Campbell-Allen became Associate Professor in 1962 and Professor of Civil Engineering (Concrete Technology) in 1968. At first it was within the school that he developed his early work on concrete into a substantial body of knowledge on concrete technology, but he was soon involved with the profession and industry at large. He sought to develop a better understanding of many aspects of this seemingly mundane but, in truth, very complex material, particularly the shrinkage, creep and cracking which have so plagued the construction industry.
At the University of Sydney, Denison Campbell-Allen became Challis Professor and Head of Civil and Mining Engineering and Director of the Civil and Mining Engineering Foundation in 1982 and 1983. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree and became an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988. He was the author of 71 publications, mostly in the field of concrete properties and construction. Notable among them is the book that he co-authored with Honorary Concrete Institute of Australia Member, Professor Harold Roper: Concrete Structures, Materials, Maintenance and Repair.
Professor Campbell-Allen played important roles within many industry and professional bodies, including the Australian Professional Development Group, which became the Concrete Institute of Australia (CIA) on 14 April 1970. He was one of the original subscribers to the CIA, joining an illustrious group of the ‘who’s who’ of the concrete world in Australia in setting it up. He was elected its president for 1974-75.
Among other things he was involved with the Institution of Engineers, Australia. Serving as Chairman of the Sydney Division. Other associations included the CSIRO and the Standards Association of Australia, where he served on a number of concrete-related committees.
Within the University of Sydney Professor Campbell-Allen was a gifted teacher who was able to inspire his students with his sense of curiosity to find out how things really worked. As a valued colleague he helped shape the careers of many by encouraging the development of personal interests and areas of expertise. Outside the school he made many contributions to the university as Dean of Engineering (1975-77), Chairman of the Academic Board and Fellow of the Senate (1978-1981) as well as on many committees and working parties. His success was assured by his abilities to summarise and clarify even the most complex issues and bring people together by reconciling opposing points of view.
When he retired from the university in 1983 Professor Campbell-Allen said he wanted to have a continuing engineering involvement as a consultant. “I don’t want to waste what I know and I’ll be a lot more use to people than I was 20 years ago”. And so he was. In retirement he became an Associate Member of the Institute of Arbitrators, Australia.
Denison Campbell-Allen died on 12 October 1992.
