Ever since the Railway Age, Halcrow has applied its skills and ingenuity to all areas of civil engineering while guarding the integrity and objectivity of its independence.
Halcrow’s pedigree stretches back to 1868 when Thomas Meik, one of the most knowledgeable men of his time on docks and harbour works, set up in practice as a consulting engineer.
Thomas Meik retired in 1888 and left the company in the hands of his two sons, Patrick and Charles and the company became Thomas Meik and Sons and later P.W. and C.S. Meik. Under the brothers the company continued to make steady progress with docks, harbours and railway projects preeminent.
In 1921 William Halcrow was taken into the partnership which in 1923 became known as C.S. Meik and Halcrow and then W.T. Halcrow and Partners in 1941.
During the Second World War the company was busy on important war works such as Deep Level Shelters in London for the Home Office, Technical advice to the War Cabinet and the incredible Mulberry Harbour breakwaters for the invasion of Europe. Halcrow also worked closely with Barnes Wallis the inventor of the bouncing bomb. He had read William Halcrow's 1939 paper on the structure of the Möhne Dam and wanted to ensure his invention was sufficiently destructive. A dam in Wales was blown up to test the validity of his ideas.
In 1944 William Halcrow was knighted in recognition of his services to the country and in 1946 he was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He retired in 1955 and died in 1958 after one of the most distinguished careers in British civil engineering history.
After the knighthood the company became Sir William Halcrow and Partners and in 1985, a private limited company bearing the same name was formed. In 1997 the various Halcrow businesses and departments came together under one name: Halcrow Group Limited.
In the 1980s and 90s Halcrow began expanding its skill base recruiting increasing numbers of experts who were not engineers, including chemists, ecologists, planners, designers, economists, hydrologists and many more.
Halcrow's first commissions outside of the UK were undertaken in the 1890s. By 2007, projects outside the UK accounted for around half the company's turnover.
The company played a major role in the development of the Gulf states and in the 1960s and 70s were the consulting engineers for major projects such as Port Rashid and Jebel Ali Port in Dubai and the Ports of Jeddah and Jubail in Saudi Arabia.
Other projects outside the UK include:
- Bay of Naples, Italy: reconstruction of reinforced concrete pier - 1905
- Christmas Island, Indian Ocean: steel viaduct and pier - 1910
- Beyt and Velan Harbour, India - 1921
- Port of Beira, Mozambique - 1927 to 1946
- The hydroelectric project on the River Caroni, Venezuela, completed in 1959
- The Port of Tema in Ghana, opened in 1962, it was Africa’s largest man-made harbour
- Port of Benghazi, Libya - 1961
- Al Maktoum Road Bridge, Dubai - 1963
- The Orange-Fish Tunnel in South Africa: at 83KM it was the longest water carrying tunnel in the world - commenced 1965
- The Accra-Tema Toll Motorway in Ghana opened in 1965
Click the image below to read our book "125 years of Halcrow" printed in 1993.