Hyder Consulting was a multi-national advisory and design consultancy with particular specialisation in the transport, property, utilities and environmental sectors. The firm employed approximately 4,200 people across the UK, Europe, Germany, Middle East, Asia and Australia and had been listed on the London Stock Exchange since October 2002. The name Hyder is the Welsh word for "confidence".[1]

Hyder Consulting plc
SuccessorArcadis Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
4,200
ParentArcadis NV
WebsiteHyder Consulting

In October 2014 it was acquired by Arcadis NV.

History

edit

Hyder was formed in 1993 when engineering firms Acer Group and Wallace Evans Ltd were acquired by Welsh Water and subsequently merged.[2]

Acer Group was itself an internationally recognised consultancy practice formed in 1987 by the merger of John Taylor and Sons (established 1739) and Freeman Fox and Partners (established 1857), and joined in 1991 by Sir Bruce White, Wolfe Barry, and Partners.[3]

Hyder Consulting was subsequently acquired by Western Power Distribution, which prompted Hyder's senior management to instigate a management buy-out that was completed in January 2001. The firm was then listed on the London Stock Exchange in October 2002.[4]

Freeman Fox and Partners had been involved in Melbourne's West Gate Bridge disaster in 1970. Thirty-five construction workers were killed and 18 injured in the collapse, and it remains Australia's worst industrial accident to this day. [5][6] Other structures involving Freeman Fox and Partners included the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932),[7] the Adomi Bridge (1957)[8] and the Erskine Bridge (1971).[9]

References

edit
  1. ^ "Nine new letters that will change The Post Office". BBC News. BBC. 2001-01-10. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  2. ^ "Jobs go at Acer and Wallace Evans – and YRM". Construction News. 30 September 1993. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  3. ^ "Sir Bruce White, Wolfe Barry and Partners". Structurae. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  4. ^ Roberts, Gwilym (2006). Chelsea to Cairo: 'Taylor-made' Water Through Eleven Reigns and in Six Continents. Thomas Telford Publishing. p. xxii. ISBN 978-0-7277-3727-4.
  5. ^ "The Doomed Repair". West Gate Bridge Memorial. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  6. ^ "Forty years on, the West Gate Bridge collapse still looms large". The Age. 16 October 2010. Archived from the original on 12 May 2017.
  7. ^ List of bridges designed by Freeman Fox & Partners and built by Redpath Dorman Long or its predecessors in the booklet "50th anniversary of the opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge" 1982
  8. ^ Scott, Peter Adamson; Roberts, Gilbert (1958). "The Volta Bridge". Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 9 (4). Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, E-ISSN 1753-7789, Volume 9, Issue 4, April 1958, pp. 395-432: 395–432. doi:10.1680/iicep.1958.2304. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  9. ^ "Construction of the Erskine Bridge - Erskinebridge.co.uk". www.erskinebridge.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13. Retrieved 2014-07-04.

Further reading

edit
edit