.. The First Consulting Engineers HOARE LEA & PARTNERS
Front cover Henry Lea/Royal Victoria Law Courts, Birmingham Birmingham Town Hall/Edwin Hoare GLASS GLOBES OR SHADES AND HOLDERS FOR INCANDESCENT ELECTRIC LAMPS PATENT SPECIFICATION No.9773, 14 JULY 1886 GRANTED TO HENRY LEA To modify the distribution of light emitted by incandescent electrical lamps that it will not distress the eyes of persons on whom it falls, and will more uniformly illuminate the apartment.
The First Consulting Engineers Researched, written and produced by Brian Roberts, Frank Ferris & Paul Yunnie of the CIBSE Heritage Group Birmingham General Hospital as it was in 1862 when Henry Lea set up as a Consulting Engineer
Henry Lea begs leave respectfully to announce that, by the advice of many Gentlemen well acquainted with his qualifications and experience, he has commenced practice as Consulting Mechanical Engineer. Letter of November 1862
Henry Lea was not the first professional engineer, nor was he the first to provide engineering design and advice in return for a fee. However, when in November 1862 he commenced practice as a Consulting Mechanical Engineer he was probably the first person to describe himself in this way. He was certainly one of the very first engineers to earn his living from designing and supervising the installation and maintenance of mechanical and electrical services in buildings. Now in the 21 st century, Hoare Lea & Partners, the firm that he founded over 140 years ago, has established a network of offices across the UK with an enviable reputation for delivering best value design solutions in all areas of mechanical, electrical and environmental engineering for construction.
. STEAM ENGINE INDICATORS PATENT SPECIFICATION No.785, 26 FEBRUARY 1877 GRANTED TO HENRY LEA. By my invention, the process of drawing separate diagrams (to ascertain steam pressure per square inch) is dispensed with and an indicator is caused to measure the area of every diagram during its formation. [The Engineer 1882 and Proc.IMechE December 1899] INCANDESCENT ELECTRIC LAMPS PATENT SPECIFICATION No.2186, 9 MAY 1882 GRANTED TO HENRY LEA My invention has for its object to facilitate the connecting and disconnecting of incandescent electrical lamps. My improvements consist in simplifying the holder. In a lamp made according to my invention, the hollow glass globe is surmounted by a hollow neck, the upper end of which has the form of a tee-shaped head. One of the platinum conducting wires is brought out and bent into a small loop folded down and pressed closely to the glass.
STEAM ENGINE GOVERNOR PATENT SPECIFICATION No.2862, 2 NOVEMBER 1893 Awarded to Henry James Taylor Piercy of Broad Street Engine Works, Henry Lea and William Henry Thornbery the younger of 38 Bennetts Hill, and Albert Edward Alexander Edwards of Kings Heath
Cadbury Brothers, Bourneville. An early Henry Lea appointment covered boiler and steam engine work. St Philip s Cathedral, Central Birmingham. Built 1710-15 by Francis Smith, the architect was Thomas Archer. Built in the English Baroque style it became a cathedral in 1905. Henry Lea was involved in the design of the heating chamber 1889.
The first example of electric traction was the small locomotive by Siemens & Halske demonstrated at the Berlin Exhibition of 1879 [Nature, 24 January 1880] Early electric tramcar in Suffolk Street, Birmingham. Henry Lea as advisor to the Council collaborated in an experimental electric tramway as early as 25 July 1890. A track was laid from the centre to Bournbrook, a distance of 3 miles. The tramcars were limited to the maximum speed of 8 mph as permitted by the Board of Trade. In 1891 Henry Lea also designed the lighting for the new Birmingham Technical School, pictured in the background.
The Town Hall, Victoria Square, Birmingham, built 1831-49. The architect was Joseph Hansom (inventor of the Hansom Patent Safety Cab), but the financial arrangements led to his bankruptcy. In 1835 Charles Edge took over as architect and construction continued until about 1849. In 1882 Henry Lea was responsible for providing temporary lighting of the Town Hall for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. The magazine The Engineer claimed this to have been the first large public building so illuminated, though the Savoy Theatre in London was lit a year earlier. The generators were situated in Winfield s Works in Cambridge Street, a quarter of a mile away. The lamps were Swan incandescent type. Installation of a permanent electric lighting system had to await the establishment of a power station to supply central Birmingham. This took place in 1891 when the Birmingham Electric Supply Company was established with a central generating station at Dale End. Birmingham Town Hall, Report of 6 October 1891. The Electric lighting of this hall has been carried out for the City Council under the superintendence of the firm of Henry Lea and Thornbery. The supply is obtained from the public mains of the Birmingham Electric Supply Company. The main body of the hall is lighted by 18 pendants carrying in all two hundred 32 obscured lamps without shades. There are in addition twentythree 16 candle-power lamps under the galleries and one hundred and sixty lamps in the corridors etc. The roof is also lighted by eleven 32 candle-power lamps. Double main and local fuses are used throughout having not more than six lamps on each local fuse. Swan lamp of 1879
Victoria Law Courts, Corporation Street, Birmingham 1886-91. Designed by architects Aston Webb & Ingres Bell. Henry Lea s appointment covered the installation of the dynamos, the boilers and engines. Letter from Henry Lea dated 30 November 1898 to a Dr Fergusson of the Hydropathic Establishment at Great Malvern in which he sets out his rates for carrying out tests on the electric lighting installation.
King Edward High School, New Street, Birmingham in 1930. The school was founded in 1552. The New Street School was built in 1838 to the designs of Sir Charles Barry. Henry Lea carried out the electric lighting in 1897, for a school in which he received his education. The school moved to its present site near Birmingham University in 1936. Birmingham University with its 325 ft high clock tower (Big Joe) opened in 1909. The architect was Aston Webb. Henry Lea was appointed as Consulting Engineer for this extensive project. The first building was the power station from which a 6 ft high subway was built to carry services to the main university buildings for electrical and mechanical engineering and for mining and metallurgy. The clock tower was nicknamed after Joseph Chamberlain; the illumination for its 17 ft diameter clock faces being carried out under the supervision of Lea. King Edward VII & Queen Alexandra opened the University on 7 July 1908. Henry Lea was appointed a Life Governor.
Birmingham General Hospital 1893. The 8 ft diameter Blackman fan forming part of the plenum ventilation system
Birmingham General Hospital as it was in the late 18 th century. [An History of Birmingham, Wm Hutton, 1780] Opening of the new buildings of Birmingham General Hospital in 1897. by HRH Princess Helena of Schlesweig-Holstein The architect of the award winning design in a competition for a new General Hospital, judged by Alfred Waterhouse, was William Henman. Meanwhile the Building Committee visited the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, which had been mechanically ventilated in 1889 by the Plenum system devised by William Key. The Committee was so impressed that it decided the new Birmingham hospital should also have a plenum system. Henry Lea, working with Henman, faced unexpected problems in arranging for artificial ventilation for a large dispersed hospital designed originally for natural ventilation, but they met the challenge and a plenum system was duly installed.. Henman noted that the capacity of the buildings was two million cubic feet within which twenty million cubic feet of air was changed every hour. Though considered successful both architect and engineer realised that a hospital designed from the outset for plenum ventilation could be more compact and efficient. They were given the opportunity when they collaborated in designing the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast 1898-1903 A still operational steam engine for driving the two intake fans of Henry Lea s landmark plenum ventilation system
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast 1898-1902. Henman s original perspective. In 1898, following the success of Birmingham General Hospital, William Henman and Henry Lea were appointed as architect and engineer for the new Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Both knew there was scope for the improvement of environmental systems and grasped the opportunity. Operating theatres and 17 wards were provided under a continuous roof. A very large brick lined air duct 9 ft wide and 43 ft long ran beneath the main corridor. Lea determined this size was necessary to provide 10 air changes/h in summer and 7 changes in winter. Two fans each of 9ft 2 inches diameter were provided, driven by a steam engine (picture opposite) with the exhaust steam used to heat domestic hot water. The local engineer Samuel Cleland Davidson was responsible for installing and later maintaining much of the central plant. A sprinkler system, used to moisten the fresh air filters (coconut fibre rope) was regulated on the basis of regular readings of wet and dry-bulb air temperatures, a very early example of the conscious control of humidity. Much of the central plant and the underground duct remains in place. One of the wards
St Martin, Bull Ring, the Old Parish church of Birmingham photographed in 1906. In 1898 Henry Lea was responsible for the installation of electric lighting. It is believed he was appointed because of the sensitivity needed in applying electric wiring for the first time within the fabric of such an ancient building. St Martin was cased in brick in 1690 and altered and enlarged in the 18th century, notably the tower and spire being restored by P C Hardwick in 1853-55, while the rest of the church was entirely rebuilt by J A Chatwin in 1873-75.
Arbury Hall, Nuneaton Lighting by Henry Lea 1908 Aston Hall, Birmingham Heating and lighting by Henry Lea 1908
The Grand Hotel, Brighton (right) built 1880-85 The Grand Hotel, Brighton was badly damaged by a terrorist bomb in 1984 which narrowly missed killing the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Hoare Lea & Partners was the consulting engineer for the re-instated engineering services.
Advertisement celebrating 125 Years of Hoare Lea & Partners as Consulting Engineers, 1987
Portraits of the Partners of Hoare Lea, painted for the 130 Years Brochure of 1992