In the late 1940s Marples was a director of a company called Kirk & Kirk,[3] which was a contractor in the construction of Brunswick Wharf Power Station at Blackwall in London.[8] Marples met civil engineer Reginald Ridgway (1908–2002), who was working as a contractor for Kirk & Kirk.[8] In 1948 the two men founded Marples Ridgway and Partners, a civil engineering company that started with one five-ton ex-army truck and one crane.[8]
The new partnership took over Kirk & Kirk's contract at Brunswick Wharf[8] and in 1950 Marples severed his links with Kirk & Kirk.[3] Marples Ridgway's subsequent contracts included building power stations in England, the Allt na Lairige dam in Scotland, roads in Ethiopia and (significantly) England, and a port in Jamaica.[8] The Bath and Portland Group took over Marples Ridgway in 1964.[
Marples Ridgway was a British civil engineering company founded in 1948 by engineer Reginald Ridgway and accountant Ernest Marples. Marples later became British Minister of Transport.[1] In 1964, the company was taken over by the Bath and Portland Group.
Projects included:
- Brunswick Wharf Power Station[2] (1956)
- Allt na Lairige Dam (1956)
- Chiswick flyover (1959)
- Hammersmith flyover (1961)
- Skelton Grange Power Station
- Port Esquivel shipping terminal, Jamaica
- Bromford Viaduct
- A329(M) motorway
- M56 motorway
- M27 motorway
The original bridge was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century in two stages: the first bridge was built by the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway between 1859 and 1860 at a cost of £84,000 to carry two tracks into Victoria Station; it was the first railway bridge across the Thames in central London. The engineer was Sir John Fowler.[1][2]
The bridge was widened by four tracks on the eastern side for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and London, Chatham and Dover Railway between 1865 and 1866, at a cost of £245,000. Sir Charles Fox was the engineer.[1][3]
In 1907 the bridge was widened again with a further track, on the western side, for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.[1][4]
In 1963–67, the structure of the bridge was completely renewed and modernized, leaving only the cores of the original piers. At the same time, a tenth track was added in a space formerly used for gas mains. To minimize disruption to traffic, each track was renewed separately, and put back into service before the next one was closed. The designer for this work was Freeman Fox & Partners, and the project engineer was A. H. Cantrell, chief civil engineer of the Southern Region of British Rail.[5][6] It was said to be the busiest railway bridge in the world with 1000 trains crossing per day in 1968.[
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