Hugh Iorys Hughes
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Hugh Iorys Hughes (16 April 1902 – 16 August 1977) was a Welsh civil engineer and keen yachtsman who submitted ideas to the War Office for the design of the Mulberry harbours used in Operation Overlord. Hughes was born in Bangor, where he attended Friars' School, and grew up in the
Conwy Conwy (, ), previously known in English as Conway, is a walled market town, community and the administrative centre of Conwy County Borough in North Wales. The walled town and castle stand on the west bank of the River Conwy, facing Deganwy on ...
area, becoming familiar with its waters. He studied engineering at the
University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...
. Afterwards he went to work for Owen Williams, a designer of concrete structures, specialising in bridges. On the outbreak of war, he was unable to join the armed services because he was now in a reserved occupation. In 1917 Churchill drafted plans for the capture of the islands of Borkum and
Sylt Sylt (; da, Sild; Sylt North Frisian, Söl'ring North Frisian: ) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian ...
, off the Dutch and Danish coasts. He planned to use sunken caissons filled with sand to form an artificial breakwater on the seabed. The proposal was shelved and forgotten. In 1940 the civil engineer Guy Maunsell wrote to the War Office with a proposal for an artificial harbour, but the idea was not adopted. In 1942 Hughes came up with a similar idea for using caissons as part of a jetty while working as a civil engineer in London. He also submitted his plans to the War Office, and these were ignored until Hughes' brother, Alain Sior Hughes, who was a Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, drew attention to the documents. Following Winston Churchill's memo ''Piers For Use On Beaches'', dated 30 May 1942, the Mulberry project gained momentum under the direction of Major General D J McMullen and civil engineer Brigadier
Bruce White Brigadier Sir Bruce Gordon White, KBE, FCGI, FICE, FIEE (1885-1983) was one of the leading British consulting engineers of his generation. Son of the engineer Robert White (1842-1925), Bruce White joined his father's practice in 1919 togeth ...
. An early priority was the construction of trial installations in the
Clyde estuary The River Clyde ( gd, Abhainn Chluaidh, , sco, Clyde Watter, or ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. It is the ninth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third-longest in Scotland. It runs through the major cit ...
at
Gare Loch The Gare Loch or Gareloch ( gd, An Gearr Loch) is an open sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland and bears a similar name to the village of Gairloch in the north west Highlands. The loch is well used for recreational boating, water sports and f ...
. Hughes designed and supervised construction of a prototype jetty consisting of 'Hippo' concrete caissons sunk on the sea bed supporting 'Crocodile' steel roadway bridge units which spanned between the Hippos. The prototype was built at
Conwy Morfa Morfa Conwy is a spit formed originally of marshy sand, north of the western end of the modern A55 entrance to Conwy in Conwy county borough, north-west Wales. A widely used corruption of the place name is ''Conwy Morfa'', likely to have come ...
near Hughes' home town of
Conwy Conwy (, ), previously known in English as Conway, is a walled market town, community and the administrative centre of Conwy County Borough in North Wales. The walled town and castle stand on the west bank of the River Conwy, facing Deganwy on ...
and towed to
Garlieston Garlieston ( gd, Baile Gheàrr Lios, IPA: paləʝeaːᵲʎis̪ is a small planned coastal village in the historical county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, south west Scotland. It was founded in the mid 18th century by Lord Garlies, la ...
,
Wigtownshire Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975 the area has f ...
, in Scotland, where it was installed and tested against two other designs, both of which were floating roadways; the "Swiss Roll", designed by R M Hamilton, was made of canvas and steel cables, while the "Whale" roadway designed by
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 ...
consisted of flexible bridge spans mounted on pontoons. During the testing a storm washed away the Swiss Roll and created scour of the sea bed around the Hippo units, which in turn led to them tilting, resulting in the failure of the Crocodile spans. 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 ...
roadway design survived the tests undamaged and was consequently selected for use on the Mulberry harbours. One of Hughes' Hippo units did survive at Rigg Bay off Garlieston until it collapsed in a storm on 16 March 2006. In June 1943 the War Office set up a committee of civil engineers to advise on the design of the artificial harbours and the equipment to be used in them. Despite their early submissions to the War Office, neither Maunsell nor Hughes was appointed to the committee.Register of Engineers and Transport Executives Available to Advise the War Dept - from the papers of Sir Bruce White
/ref> In 1946, Hughes married Jane Vernon. After competing in several long-distance yachting events, he co-founded the Ocean Cruising Club in 1954. Later in the decade, he was involved in the building of 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 ...
. He suffered a heart attack in 1960, and eventually retired to
West Mersea West Mersea is a town and electoral ward in Essex, England. It is the larger (in terms of population) of two settlements on Mersea Island, south of Colchester. History Roman buildings and tesselated pavements close to the quayside have led to ...
. Hughes' ashes were spread in the
Menai Straits The Menai Strait ( cy, Afon Menai, the "river Menai") is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales. It varies in width from from Fort Belan to Abermenai Point to from ...
after his death in
Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...
,
Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
. His former family house in Bangor is now let to students of Bangor University, and has a Blue plaque outside it in his honour. There is also a plaque to his memory in the museum at Arromanches.


References


http://www.engineering-timelines.com/who/Hughes_HI/hughesHughIorys.asp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iorys Hughes, Hugh People from Bangor, Gwynedd Welsh civil engineers 1902 births 1977 deaths