Francis Maurice Gustavus Du-Plat-Taylor
Francis Maurice Gustavus du Plat Taylor CB , also du Plat Taylor (December 7 1878 - May 22 1954) was a British engineer for docks and land reclamation.
1954 Obituary [1]
ON Saturday, May 22nd, the death occurred of Mr. F. M. G. Du-Plat-Taylor, who was seventy-five years of age.
Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor was well known as an authority on dock and harbour engineering and had practised as a consulting engineer in that field.
He was educated at Farnborough School and Winchester College, and received his technical education and training at University College (London University), where he graduated in 1896, and as a pupil of A. G. Lyster, a past-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In the first years of the present century Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor was employed on the engineering staff of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
In 1904, however, he joined the staff of the London and India Docks Company, and became resident engineer on the East and West India Docks; he continued to work in this capacity when the Port of London Authority was formed, and obtained further experience as resident engineer at Tilbury, where his duties included supervision of the construction of the Tilbury main dock extension and a deep water jetty, founded on reinforced concrete piles, driven inside cylinders sunk down to ballast.
With the constructional works at Tilbury well advanced, Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor joined the Royal Artillery, Territorial Army, in 1916.
After the war he returned to his old post with the Port of London Authority, where he served until 1924. At that time he started work as a consulting engineer and continued in practice for many years, in partnership with Dr. Cunningham for part of the time, but later on, on his own. His practice included many harbour and maritime works, involving maintenance as well as new construction, and including sea defence schemes.
Some of this work formed the subject of papers which Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers (he was elected to membership of that Institution in 1919), including "The Prevention of Coast Erosion" (Journal, I.C.E., Vol. 15, November, 1940) and "The River Rother Improvement Works" (Selected Engineering Papers No. 97, 1930); his earlier work at Tilbury was recorded in the paper, "Extensions at Tilbury Docks, 1912-1917", (Proceedings, I.C.E., Vol. 215, 1922- 23).
Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor's book, "Docks, Wharves and Piers," in its various editions, is well-known as a standard work of reference on that subject. He also wrote a volume entitled " The Reclamation of Land from the Sea," and he was a contributor to this journal.
The breadth of Mr. Du-Plat-Taylor's experience may be illustrated by pointing to some other of his activities. He carried out arbitration work and was a fellow of the Institute of Arbitrators. He was also a Justice of the Peace. He had many connections with civil engineers in France, and he was an Officier d' Academie, and a past-president of the British section of the French Society of Civil Engineers. He was a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and of the Association of Consulting Engineers.
1954 Obituary [2]