Somers Howe Ellis
Somers Howe Ellis (1871-1954)
1954 Obituary [1]
SOMERS HOWE ELLIS, F.R.G.S., who died on the 8th October, 1954, was born on the 25th February, 1871. He was educated at King’s College London. He began his professional career as Assistant Engineer in the Construction Department of the former Midland Railway Company. In 1897 he was appointed Assistant Engineer on the East Indian Railway. In l903 he became Resident Engineer on the construction of the Tranmere Bay Development Works for Cammell, Laird and Co., at Birkenhead.
Between 1906 and 1919 he was in private practice, but most of his work was commissioned by Alfred Holt and Co., who were at that time developing their own wharf properties in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The port facilities available were inadequate to the increasing volume of cargo and size of ships employed in the trade. The wharf at Shanghai - nearly half a milelong-presented particular problems, for the Yangste Delta consists of several hundred feet of soft silt and all the structures had to be supported on skin-friction piles or on rafts.
During World War I he developed similar properties for the Company in the Netherlands East Indies with equal success and in July 1919 was appointed Chief Civil Engineer to the Company in Liverpool, a post which he held with distinction till he retired in May 1939. Apart from the design and equipment of port facilities to meet the varied requirements of ships and cargoes, he also had much to do with the large office buildings erected by the Company in Liverpool and Singapore in the 1920’s.
Mr Ellis was elected an Associate Member in 1896, and was transferred to the class of Members in 1907. He was awarded a TeIford Premium in 1908 for his Paper on “The Tranmere Bay Development Works”, and a Manby Premium in 1912 for his Paper on “Reinforced Concrete Wharves at Lower Pootung,Shanghai.” He also contributed a Paper on “Corrosion of Steel Wharves at Kowloon.” He is survived by his wife, a son, and two daughters.