Sir Ernest William Moir (9 June 1862 – 14 June 1933) was a British civil engineer and the first Moir baronet. He is credited with inventing the first medical

airlock An airlock, air-lock or air lock, often abbreviated to just lock, is a compartment with doors which can be sealed against pressure which permits the passage of people and objects between environments of differing pressure or atmospheric compo ...

while working on the Hudson River Tunnel in New York in 1889.

Early life

The son of Alexander Mitchell Moir and of Scottish descent, he was born in London and was educated at

University College School ("Slowly but surely") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Mark Beard , r_head_label = , r_hea ...

. At a young age he showed a great interest in mechanics and became expert in mechanical and engineering work while in college. Aged about 15, Moir joined the engineering works of Messrs.

Robert Napier and Sons Messrs Robert Napier and Sons was a famous firm of River Clyde, Clyde shipbuilders and marine engineers at Govan, City of Glasgow, Glasgow founded by Robert Napier (engineer), Robert Napier in 1826. It was moved to Govan for more space in 1841. Hi ...

in Glasgow where he served an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer. He studied engineering at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

before joining the firm of

William Arrol Sir William Arrol (13 February 1839 – 20 February 1913) was a Scottish civil engineer, bridge builder, and Liberal Unionist Party politician. Career The son of a spinner, Arrol was born in Houston, Renfrewshire, and started work in a cotton ...

in Glasgow where he started in the drawing office. In his early career he also came into close contact with John Fowler, Benjamin Baker and

John Wolfe Barry Sir John Wolfe Barry (7 December 1836 – 22 January 1918), the youngest son of famous architect Sir Charles Barry, was an English civil engineer of the late 19th and early 20th century. His most famous project is Tower Bridge over the River ...

Engineering projects

Moir was the assistant to

James Henry Greathead James Henry Greathead (6 August 1844 – 21 October 1896) was a mechanical and civil engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railways, Winchester Cathedral, and Liverpool overhead railway, as well as being one of the earliest pr ...

(1844–96) on the building of the London (City) & Southwark Subway, later the

City & South London Railway The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing ...

(and now part of the

Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, two ...

) in the late 1880s. He was also involved in the construction of the southern

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

s of the

Forth Bridge The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...

. After British consulting engineering expertise was required at the Hudson River Tunnel in New York City, Sir Benjamin Baker provided a report which facilitated $1.5 million of British investment, and in 1889 construction resumed with a contract let to British contractor S. Pearson & Son; Moir was originally resident engineer working for Sir William Arrol and designed an 80-ton steel tunnelling shield for each tunnel at Baker's directions. Moir became contractor’s agent (for S. Pearson & Son) in January 1890, working there until British engineering efforts were suspended in 1891.Hudson River Tunnel – Engineering Timelines
/ref> While in New York from May 1890 Moir invented an

chamber for treating

decompression sickness Decompression sickness (abbreviated DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompressio ...

when he noticed that about 25% of the workforce digging the Hudson River Tunnel were dying and was surprised to note that "nobody has seemed to care anything about it." He realised that the solution was recompression and his airlock was quickly applied throughout the industry. While Moir's treatment was effective it was too fast by modern standards but he began the process which would lead to the effective treatment of decompression sickness.John L. Phillips, ''The Bends: Compressed Air in the History of Science, Diving, and Engineering''

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

(1998) –

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

p 103 Upon his return to the UK from New York, Moir worked on other S. Pearson & Son projects including the

Blackwall Tunnel The Blackwall Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels underneath the River Thames in east London, England, linking the London Borough of Tower Hamlets with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and part of the A102 road. The northern portal lies just south ...

(1892–1897), for which he designed the steel tunnelling shield and other plant,Blackwall Tunnel Northbound – Engineering Timelines
/ref> being praised by

David Hay David Hay (born 29 January 1948) is a Scottish former football player and manager. He broke into the Celtic team in the late 1960s, as one of a generation of players who continued a highly successful era for the club. A contract dispute betwe ...

for his "originality, zeal, determination and genius" in carrying out the work. Later projects included expansion of the

Surrey Commercial Docks The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe, South East London, located on the south bank (the Surrey side) of the River Thames. The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to 1969. Most were subsequently fi ...

and

Seaham Seaham is a seaside town in County Durham, England. Located on the Durham Coast, Seaham is situated south of Sunderland and east of Durham. The town grew from the late 19th century onwards as a result of investments in its harbour and c ...

harbour, the Admiralty harbour at

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

(officially opened in 1909), and Valparaiso harbour in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. He gained the rank of captain in the Royal Engineers (

Volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

) and was put on the Unattached List in 1908. Among his patents was one for a

diving bell A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...

in 1921.

War service

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 ...

Moir served on the Council of the

Minister of Munitions The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis of ...

for which service he was decorated with the award of Officer in the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

. Described by

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...

as "a man of exceptional ability and tact", initially Moir was responsible to

Eric Geddes Sir Eric Campbell Geddes (26 September 1875 – 22 June 1937) was a British businessman and Conservative politician. With a background in railways, he served as head of Military Transportation on the Western Front, with the rank of major-ge ...

for machine gun production. Later Lloyd George appointed Moir to the Inventions Department of the Ministry of Munitions. Announcing this appointment to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

on 28 July 1915, Lloyd George stated:

I have appointed Mr E.W. Moir, a distinguished engineer who has already given valuable assistance to my department on a voluntary basis, to take charge of the new branch, and he will not only have an expert staff, but also a panel of scientific consultants on technical and scientific points.

However, Moir quickly found that 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 ...

was not inclined to co-operate fully with the Ministry. He wrote to Lloyd George about this in March 1915 which Lloyd George reprinted in full in his ''War Memoirs'', using it as evidence of the difficulties and obstructiveness he had encountered as Minister of Munitions during the War.Clarke, John M. ''London's Necropolis: A Guide to Brookwood Cemetery'', Sutton Publishing (2004), p. 74 The Moir Baronetcy, of Whitehanger in the parish of

Fernhurst Fernhurst is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, on the A286 Milford, Surrey, to Chichester road, south of Haslemere. The parish includes the settlements of Henley Common, Kingsley Green and Bell Vale, ...

in the

County of Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English C ...

, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on 11 July 1916 for him. Moir produced a design for concrete machine-gun pillboxes. Designed to be constructed from a system of interlocking precast concrete blocks, with a steel roof, around 1500 Moir pillboxes were eventually produced (with blocks cast at

Richborough Richborough () is a settlement north of Sandwich on the east coast of the county of Kent, England. Richborough lies close to the Isle of Thanet. The population of the settlement is included in the civil parish of Ash. Although now some dist ...

in Kent) and sent to the Western Front in 1918. Moir was the founder and head of Ernest William Moir & Co Ltd, engineers, and a Director of S Pearson & Son Ltd and was President of the Junior Institution of Engineers (a forerunner, 1902–1970, of the

Institution of Incorporated Engineers The Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) was a multidisciplinary engineering institution in the United Kingdom. In 2006 it merged with the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IE ...

, later the

IET __NOTOC__ IET can refer to: Organizations * Institute of Educational Technology, part of the Open University * Institution of Engineering and Technology, a UK-based professional engineering institution ** Institute of Engineers and Technicians, wh ...

) in 1929. During the 1920s, he also helped one of the first female civil engineers meet

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

requirements that design engineers have site experience;

Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan ] Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan, married name Fleming (8 October 1899 in Dumfriesshire – 13 June 1985 in Somerset) was a Scottish civil engineer, and the first female member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, successfully passing the instituti ...

left London to work on the

Silent Valley Reservoir The Silent Valley Reservoir is a reservoir located in the Mourne Mountains near Kilkeel, County Down in Northern Ireland. It supplies most of the water for County Down, surrounding counties and most of Belfast. It is owned and maintained by Northe ...

project in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, and was supervised by Moir, eventually becoming the first female member of the ICE in 1927.

Family life

Moir married Margaret Bruce Pennycook (1862–1942) on 4 June 1887. Ernest William Moir died in 1933 aged 71 and is buried in the family plot at

Brookwood Cemetery Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regist ...

under a monument which is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. This features a bronze profile portrait of Moir's son 2nd Lieutenant Reginald 'Rex' Moir (1893–1915) of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, who died of

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or ...

in the Officers' Hospital in London. The angel sculpture surmounting the pedestal is by Lillian Wade. He was succeeded to the title by his second son, Sir Arrol Moir (1894–1957), named after

, his first benefactor. He was survived by his wife

Margaret, Lady Moir Margaret, Lady Moir, OBE (née Margaret Bruce Pennycook) (10 January 18645 October 1942) was a Scottish lathe operator, engineer, a workers' relief organiser, an employment campaigner, and a founder member of the Women's Engineering Society (W ...

OBE, who described herself as "an engineer by marriage" as she had travelled with her husband on his many engineering projects. During

she organised the Weekend Relief Work Scheme whereby substitute workers covered for the women working in munitions factories allowing them time off. She herself worked as a relief lathe operator for 18 months.Cheryl Law, ''Women, A Modern Political Dictionary'', I.B. Tauris (2000)
–

p109 Lady Moir was a co-founder of the

Women's Engineering Society The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, pred ...

in 1919. and an early member and president of the

Electrical Association for Women The Electrical Association for Women (EAW) was a feminist and educational organisation founded in Great Britain in 1924 to promote the benefits of electricity in the home. History The Electrical Association for Women developed in 1924 from a p ...

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moir, Ernest William 1862 births 1933 deaths People educated at University College School Alumni of University College London British civil engineers 19th-century British engineers 20th-century British engineers Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Burials at Brookwood Cemetery Engineers from London