Sir Thomas Peirson Frank (23 July 1881 – 12 November 1951) was a British

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 ...

and

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

. He is particularly remembered as "the man who saved London from drowning" in

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

Sir Thomas Peirson Frank plaque 20150705

Frank was born in 1881 at

Kirkbymoorside Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York, It is also midway between Pickering and Helmsley, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. It had a populat ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

, the son of farmer Thomas Peirson Frank and Jane Shepherd. He was elected to the

Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers The Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers was founded in England in 1771. It was the first engineering society to be formed anywhere in the world, and remains the oldest. It was originally known as the Society of Civil Engineers, being renamed fo ...

in 1937 and was president of th
Royal Town Planning Institute
in 1944. He was elected president of the

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 ...

for the November 1945 to November 1946 session. Frank was chief engineer of the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

from 1931 to 1946 and coordinating officer for Road Repairs and Public Utility Services during the period 1939-1945. He was knighted in 1942 for his direction of the repair services that enabled

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

to carry on in spite of the severest air raids. He is credited with having organised and put to action "rapid response" teams who repaired upwards of a hundred breaches in the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

wall, thus preventing low-lying areas of London from being flooded,"Engineer secretly saved London from World War Two floods"

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, 30 October 2014 an achievement that, for reasons of protecting "the public's morale," was kept secret during the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. On 29 October 2014 a commemorative green plaque, funded by the

, was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

in his memory. It is located on a section of the

Thames embankment The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment. History There had been a long history of f ...

wall, close to the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

, one of the most important locations where Frank organised repairs to bomb damage.

References

British civil engineers Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1881 births 1951 deaths Knights Bachelor People from Ryedale (district) Engineers from Yorkshire {{civil-engineering-stub