Sir Herbert Henry Couzens

KBE KBE may refer to: * Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, post-nominal letters * Knowledge-based engineering Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain o ...

(16 October 1877 – 17 November 1944) was a British electrical engineering executive who managed public utilities in England, Canada, and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Career

H. H. Couzens was born in Totnes on 16 October 1877. He attended the

Taunton School Taunton School is a co-educational independent school in the county town of Taunton in Somerset in South West England. It serves boarding and day-school pupils from the ages of 13 to 18. The current headmaster is Lee Glaser, appointed in the aut ...

, and married Elsie Annie Goodman on 11 August 1902. He was an electrical engineer for

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancien ...

in London, England, when he was recruited in 1913 to head the new Toronto Hydro Electric Commission in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. He was instrumental in guiding the early development and expansion of the publicly owned electric network in Toronto. Seven years later, in September 1920, he also became the first General Manager of the Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC), which had been established earlier that year to take over several privately and publicly owned

street railway A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

operations. He managed the integration of the different streetcar networks into one unified system, and oversaw the extensive rebuilding and reequipping of the TTC that took place throughout the early 1920s.

Job change

Couzens resigned his positions as general manager of Toronto Hydro and of the TTC in 1924, and joined the Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Co., a Canadian-owned utility based in Brazil, with extensive holdings in South America, and later became vice-president of the company. In 1937 he moved from

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

to England to work for the firm, and was knighted that same year. He returned to Toronto, Canada in 1941 as president of the company.

Death

In 1944, on a business trip to Brazil, he became ill and later died in Ilford, England on 17 November 1944.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Couzens, H. H. 1877 births 1944 deaths Couzens, H.H. British electrical engineers Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Canadian people of English descent