Alexander Cullen
CULLEN, Alexander Edward, ISO MInstCE (1861-1950)
Alexander Cullen, harbour engineer, was born in Brisbane on 21 December 1861 and educated there. He began his long association with the Queensland coast in 1878 as a Civilian Assistant with the Admiralty Coast Survey, in HMS "Pearl". When the commission was completed in 1880, he worked for six months on railway surveys in north Queensland, and then became an assistant to J.B. Henderson (q.v.) on water-supply investigation in Brisbane and in western Queensland. Resigning for health reasons in 1882, he did six months contract surveying for the Lands Department and then joined the Department of Harbors and Rivers as a nautical surveyor. He worked as far north as the Gulf of Carpentaria before transferring in 1890 to the Department of Ports.
In 1893 Cullen became Nautical Surveyor and Engineer to the newly-formed Marine Board which had absorbed the Department of Harbors and Rivers. It was a time of financial depression with little money even for maintenance, and much of Cullen's time was spent surveying the Brisbane River to find the cheapest way of restoring the shipping channels which had been obliterated by the great floods of 1893. In 1896 he removed a major restriction to the port by blasting a cut, 1.5m deep, through the Lytton Rocks at the river mouth. He also prepared a scheme for the improvement of the river upstream to Victoria Bridge which involved extensive dredging, the construction of training walls, and the easing of sharp bends in the upper reaches. He aimed at reducing both the amount of maintenance dredging and the height of river floods by forming the largest possible channel which would be swept clean by the tidal flow. Apparently the design was intuitive, based on his intimate knowledge of the river, and it proved very successful when completed many years later.
In 1902 Cullen was appointed Engineer for Harbors and Rivers in a re organized Department, and he was sent on a study tour of the USA. In 1908 work was begun on a new 6.5 km long approach channel, from Moreton Bay to the river mouth, and after Cullen visited England in 1910 more dredging plant was purchased, including the very successful dredge "Remora". In 1912 a start was made on the construction of the river training walls and the reclamation of the tidal flats behind them which have since been developed. Cullen made Brisbane a most successful river port, with a deep-water channel some 25 km upstream from the mouth. After the 1930s overseas trade moved downstream towards the Hamilton area but the river was adequate for the heavy wartime shipping and it was not until the 1970s that it was necessary to build a new port at the mouth of the river. Although Brisbane was the chief port throughout Cullen's career there are some twenty gazetted ports in Queensland, and Cullen had a great influence on their development, either directly or by technical advice and supervision of loan expenditure for the larger ports such as Townsville and Gladstone which were controlled by local boards.
Cullen's ability was widely known; in 1912, with the Chief Engineer of the Sydney Harbour Trust, he reported on the development of a new harbour at Napier, New Zealand, and for some years he represented Australia on the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He gave papers to the Institution on the removal of the Lytton Rocks and the improvement of the Port of Brisbane, being awarded a Telford Premium for the latter. He also contributed to the discussion of other papers describing the construction of training walls and Queensland's experience with dredges. In all his practice he maintained that "no man could be considered a competent Harbour Engineer unless he had a knowledge of the sea, and of ships, gained by experience", for he held that theoretical knowledge was no substitute for practical experience(*).
Cullen was awarded the ISO in 1930; he retired in 1931 and worked for some years with his son, E.B. Cullen, who had established a consulting practice in harbour and civil engineering. He died in Brisbane on 13 April 1950, predeceased by his wife and survived by his son and daughter.
References:
Eminent Queensland Engineers Vol 1 is available here.
ADB, Vol. 8, pp. 167-8; Jour. Inst. Clv. Engrs, Vol. 34 (1950);
Min. Proc. Inst. Civ.Engrs, Vols 142 (1899-1900), 202 (1915-16), 203 (1916-17), 214 (1922);
G.Lewis, 'The Ports of Queensland' (Brlsb, 1973);
(*)Journal. I.E. Aust., Vol. 41 (1969), p. 72;
G.R.C. McLeod, 'Dredging the Brisbane River, 1860-1910', JRHSQ, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1977-78), pp. 137-148;
Information from Mr E. B. Cullen, Brisbane.
NOTE: Alexander Cullen has also been recognised in the Queensland Hall of Fame
