The British Army on the Western Front, 1914-1918 Q1743

Peter Norman Nissen, (6 August 1871 – 2 March 1930) was a

Canadian-American Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadians ...

-British mining engineer, inventor and army officer. He held a number of patents for his inventions and developed the

Nissen hut A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated iron. Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British engineer and inventor Majo ...

prefabricated shelter during the

First World War 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 ...

Early years

Peter Nissen was born in the United States. His father, Georg Herman Nissen, had emigrated from

Bergen, Norway Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...

, during 1857. Georg Nissen was primarily a mining engineer who developed a

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operatio ...

used in crushing ore. The family, which included his wife Annie Lavinia Fitch and son Peter, travelled around the United States and Canada as he changed job sites. Peter Nissen moved with his family to Canada in 1891. He resided in Halifax,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

and later studied mining engineering at the Mining and Agriculture School of Queen's University in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between Toro ...

. Nissen completed his studies without taking the final examination. At university, he met Louisa Mair Richmond, whom he married in 1900.

First World War

In 1910 he moved to

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

, South Africa with his wife and daughter Betty and in 1913 he moved to Great Britain. Nissen worked there principally in the sale and distribution of the Nissen stamp mill until he joined the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

at the start of the

. He was commissioned in January 1915 in the

Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for just under 90 years, from 1881 to 1970. In 1970, the regiment was amalgamated with the Worcestershire Regiment to f ...

, transferring to 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 ...

in May 1915. Between 16 and 18 April 1916, Major Nissen of the 29th Company

began to experiment with hut designs. Nissen constructed three prototype semi-cylindrical huts. His design was subject to intensive review by his fellow officers, Lieutenant Colonels Shelly, Sewell and McDonald, and General

Clive Gerard Liddell General Sir Clive Gerard Liddell, (1 May 1883 – 9 September 1956) was a senior British Army officer who served as Adjutant-General to the Forces from 1937 to 1939. He was Governor of Gibraltar from 1939 to 1941 during the early stages of the ...

, which helped Nissen develop the design. After the third prototype was completed, the design was formalised and the Nissen hut was put into production in August 1916. Two factors influenced the design of the hut. First, the building had to be economical in its use of materials, especially considering wartime shortages of building material. Second, the building had to be portable; this was particularly important in view of the wartime shortages of shipping space. This led to a simple form that was prefabricated for ease of erection and removal. The Nissen hut could be packed in a standard Army wagon and erected by six men in four hours. The record for erection was 1 hour 27 minutes. At least 100,000 were produced in the First World War. Nissen patented his invention in the UK in 1916 and patents were taken out later in the United States, Canada, South Africa and Australia. Nissen received royalties from the British government only for their sale after the conflict; he received some £13,000. Production of Nissen huts waned between the wars, but revived in 1939. Nissen Buildings Ltd waived its patent rights for wartime production during the Second World War (1939–45). In the

1917 New Year Honours The 1917 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in several editions of ''The London Gazette'' in Ja ...

, Nissen was awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typ ...

for his contribution to the war effort. He was awarded the

Order of St. Sava The Royal Order of St. Sava is an Order of merit, first awarded by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1883 and later by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was awarded to nationals and foreigners for meritorious ach ...

, third class, by Serbia in 1919. After the War, he left the army with the rank of

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Later years

He was naturalised in 1921 as a British subject. In that year he purchased Deepdale, an imposing house on Westerham Hill,

Westerham Westerham is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. It is recorded as early as t ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, where he lived until his death. Until at least the 1970s, two Nissen huts at Deepdale were used as garages. His first wife, Louisa, died in July 1923. Nissen married Lauretta Maitland in 1924 and they had two children, Peter and George. He died in 1930 and was buried at St Mary's churchyard in Westerham.

Patents

*Ore stamp-mill. US 776414 A. Publication date Nov 29, 1904. Assigned to The Nissen Engineering Co. *Ore-stamp-mill mortar. US 945135 A. Publication date Jan 4, 1910. Assigned to The Nissen Engineering Co.

Early years

First World War

Later years

Patents

References

Related reading