Henry Haynes
HAYNES, Henry Thomas AMICE AMIEAust MRSI (1858 – 1941)
Henry Haynes was a pioneer in establishing the professional status of municipal engineers in Western Australia at the beginning of the twentieth century. He also played a prominent role in the formation of the Western Australian Institution of Engineers (WAIE).
Henry Haynes was a founding Councillor of the Institution in 1910 and in 1915 16 was elected its President, the only municipal engineer to hold that position during the ten years of the Western Australian Institution’s independent existence. Haynes also had an important role in the formation of the federal institution. From the time of its formation the WAIE was a firm advocate for the formation of such a nation wide organisation. In November 1910, the WA Institution wrote to other kindred institutions suggesting that steps be taken to initiate such a move. Despite the hiatus caused by the war, a conference of delegates from the fourteen Australian engineering institutions was finally called in Melbourne in February 1918 to consider a federation or an amalgamation. The WAIE was unable to send delegates but wrote offering its full support for such a body. When a Provisional Council was convened in Sydney for 15-16 May 1918 to draw up a Constitution Henry Haynes was one of the two delegates sent by the WAIE, the other being Walter Shaw, the Secretary of the WAIE. The First Council of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, met on 20-21 October 1919.
Haynes was born in Richmond, Victoria, on June 23, 1858, the son of Thomas Haynes and Mary Sophia Haynes (nee Nixon). In July 1883, he was appointed to the office of Engineer at the Municipality of Hay in New South Wales after working in his father’s office who was Engineer and Building Surveyor at Collingwood. It was at Hay that Haynes married Catherine Mary Field in 1884.
Haynes subsequently qualified as a municipal engineer under the Victorian Government’s Local Government Act examinations in 1888. On January 23, 1889, he was appointed Town Engineer of Hawthorn, the inner Melbourne municipality. On September 2, 1891, he became a Member of the Victorian Institute of Engineers. By 1897 he had been appointed Town Clerk and Town Engineer at Hawthorn. In 1902 Haynes became a member of the Institution of Municipal and County Engineers, London.
Haynes moved to Western Australia in 1903 with his wife Catherine Mary Haynes and his young family to take up the position of Engineer for the City of Perth. At that time Perth had 80 miles of roads within the municipality, none of which had a tar or bitumen topping and all requiring expensive watering. Forty five thousand square yards of inner city roads were paved with jarrah blocks (6in x 9in x 3in thick) laid on lean concrete. Haynes experimented with other native timbers to test their wearing and expansive properties but found none better than jarrah. He claims to have introduced to the State the use of tar as a binder and dust reducer. After a trial section in St George’s Terrace was completed in 1904, much of Adelaide Terrace and St George’s Terrace was sealed in 1905 06. He also introduced the use of tar macadam in new road construction. In this form of road making, metal coated with tar was spread on the roadway base course.
In 1911 Haynes was appointed Town Clerk and Town Engineer for the Fremantle Municipal Council, positions which he held until 1921 when he retired from the position of Town Clerk. He continued to hold the appointment as Town Engineer at Fremantle until 1924.
Haynes’s published papers include:
‘Municipal engineering’, Proceedings of the Western Australian Institution of Engineers (ProcWAIE) and discussion 1 (1910): 1 38, xi xv.
WAIE Presidential Address, ProcWAIE 6 (1915 – 16): 1 18.
‘Road construction of the future’ (abstract only), Transactions of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (TransIEAust) 5 (1924): 275.
Henry Haynes' family
Norman Field Haynes followed his father into service in local government being appointed Secretary of the Peppermint Grove Road Board in 1917 and by 1920 becoming Town Clerk and Town Engineer at Cottesloe. Many local government postings for N F Haynes followed at locations such as Bunbury, Mandurah and Southern Cross.
Henry Haynes’ daughter Doris had married the actuary, Oswald Gawler, in Fremantle in 1920. In 1921 the young couple moved to Victoria where Gawler was initially a member of the Melbourne Stock Exchange as well as a consulting actuary. Gawler ultimately became the Victorian Statist from 1934. Henry Haynes and his wife Catherine Mary Haynes moved to Victoria around 1930, living at Croydon. Around 1936 they moved to live with the Gawlers. Haynes died at Malvern, Victoria in December 1941.
Haynes’ nephew, Thomas Haynes Upton, was also a strong contributor to engineering. A founding associate (1919) and member (1922) of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, Upton joined its board of examiners in 1932. Representing (1939 – 54) the Sydney division on the council, he was elected a vice president in 1944 and president in 1946.
Upton chaired (1948 – 56) the Standards Association of Australia. He was awarded the Kernot and (Sir) Peter Nicol Russell medals, respectively by the University of Melbourne in 1947 and by the Institution of Engineers Australia in 1949. The University of Western Australia conferred Upton with an honorary doctorate of engineering in 1949.
References:
‘RpSC…reconstruction & maintenance…Perth Fremantle Roads’ V&P WA 1915, A1; TransIEAust 1 (1920), 28 36; Ewers, Western Gateway, 1971, 216; Cumming, WA Engineers (ms, Battye).
Australian Dictionary of Biography on line edition http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160520b.htm
Private Papers K Gawler
Richard G Hartley for the Heritage Panel 6.5.09
