Brigadier Sir Bruce Gordon White, KBE, FCGI, FICE, FIEE (1885-1983) was one of the leading

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

consulting engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

s of his generation. Son of the engineer Robert White (1842-1925), Bruce White joined his father's practice in 1919 together with his brother Colin White in 1923. On his father's death Bruce White became senior partner. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Bruce White was knighted, and the practice became known as Sir Bruce White, Wolfe Barry and Partners. On Sir Bruce's retirement

Allan Beckett Allan Harry Beckett MBE (b. 4 March 1914, East Ham, London Borough of Newham, United Kingdom, d. 19 June 2005, Farnborough, London) was a civil engineer whose design for the 'Whale' floating roadway was crucial to the success of the Mulberr ...

became senior partner. The family firm continues today as marine consulting engineers Beckett Rankine where Sir Bruce's grandson Gordon Rankine and Allan Beckett's son Tim Beckett are directors. Born on 5 February 1885, White saw military service in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as a Major in the Royal Engineers; he was involved in the design and construction of Richborough military port near Sandwich in Kent; the port was notable for being equipped with the UK's first electric gantry cranes for cargo handling. White was appointed

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in 1919. During

White returned to military service with the rank of

brigadier Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. In ...

. He held the posts of Director of Ports and IWT at the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

and Deputy Director, Department of Transportation Tn(5). He was part of the team involved in planning and designing of the "artificial" Mulberry harbours, having been responsible for the development of the four-legged floating pontoons and the floating roadways that became the

Spud The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United S ...

pier heads and the

Whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

piers of these two harbours. These were used to supply Allied forces in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

after the

D-day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

landings in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. In this capacity he was chairman of the Harbours committee, which was principally made up of civilian consultant

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

s who undertook the design of

Mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...

. He was appointed a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1943 and a KBE in 1944. After the war his company was responsible for the design of the

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Full ...

flyover,

Bhavnagar Port Bhavnagar Port is a seaport in Saurashtra region of Gujarat state in Western India. Bhavnagar has had trade links with Southeast Asia, Africa, Arabia and ports of Red Sea since the early 18th century. The original port Bhavnagar Harbor located a ...

, Bombay Marine Oil Terminal, Damman Port, Muara Port, the UK's first

container terminal A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example train ...

at Tilbury's Berth 30 and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

's first container berth. White worked into his nineties. He died on 29 September 1983.

Publications

The artificial invasion harbours called Mulberry, a personal story by Sir Bruce White KBE, 1980. Published privately and downloadable fro
here
Beckett Rankine have published Sir Bruce White's archive of papers from the 2nd World War at http://www.mulberryharbour.com

Sources

*Who was Who *Mulberry – The return in Triumph by Michael Harrison, 1965. *A Harbour Goes To War: The Story Of Mulberry And The Men Who Made It Happen - J.Evans, R.Walter, E.Palmer; Publisher - South Machars Historical Society, 2000
A casual interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Bruce 1885 births 1983 deaths British civil engineers Presidents of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers Artists' Rifles soldiers Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire