Sir Alexander Gibb


1872 - 1958

Civil engineer. Born into a family of civil engineers at Broughty Ferry, Gibb was educated at Dundee High School and University College London. He trained in London and was appointed engineer for the extension of the Metropolitan Railway. He soon joined his father's company, Easton Gibb & Son, becoming its managing director in 1900. Gibb was responsible for the construction of Rosyth Naval Dockyard between 1909-21. In 1916, Gibb was appointed Chief Engineer Ports Construction to the British Army in France and was given the rank of Brigadier-General. He was appointed Civil Engineer-in-Chief to the Admiralty in 1918 and knighted in the same year. He went on to create his own company, Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, which built the Galloway Hydro-Electric Power Scheme (1929-35), the Kincardine Bridge (1932-36) and grew into an international concern. It became part of the US-based Jacobs Engineering Group in 2001.

Gibb was also noted as a collector of the works of Robert Burns (1759-96) and for his biography of Thomas Telford (1757 - 1834), entitled The Story of Telford: The Rise of Civil Engineering (1935). Gibbs great-grandfather John Gibb (1776 - 1850) had worked alongside Telford. He served as a member of the Royal Company of Archers, as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1936-37), President of the Dunfermline Burns Club and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Edinburgh.

He died at his home near Reading (England).


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