Hubert Bindon Marten
Hubert Bindon Marten (c1864-1938)
1938 Obituary [1]
HUBERT BINDON MARTEN was managing director of Messrs. H. V. Smith and Company, Ltd., public works contractors, from the formation of the firm in 1909 until his death, which occurred in Chelsea on 3rd January 1938, in his seventy-fourth year. He was particularly concerned with the construction of asphalt roads and with the surface treatment of roads.
Mr. Marten was the son of Mr. E. B. Marten, M.I.Mech.E., a former Vice-President of the Institution, and served a pupilage from 1882 to 1885 under Mr. Henry Lovatt, of Wolverhampton. During the next twenty-four years he was engaged, first as resident engineer and later as contractor's agent, on a very large number of public works schemes, mostly in connection with the construction or widening of a number of English trunk railway lines, such as the widening of the Great Western Railway from Reading to Moulsford, the construction of the Great Central Railway extension to London, and the widening of the Metropolitan Railway from Finchley Road to Wembley.
In 1907 he was engaged on the construction of gun pits for the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, and in the following year he went to Singapore as chief agent for Messrs. Coode, Son and Matthews, engineers, and Messrs. John Aird and Company, Ltd., contractors, the two firms undertaking the construction of the Tanjong Pagar docks. After the formation of Messrs. H. V. Smith, Mr. Marten turned his attention to ferroconcrete construction, which he employed in several contracts for the erection of bridges, sea walls, etc. He also carried out the construction of the Elsenham and Thaxted Light Railway.
Mr. Marten's connection with the Institution covered no less than fifty years; he was elected a Graduate in 1888 and was transferred to Associate Membership in 1904 and to Membership in 1913. He was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.