Catalogue description Records created and inherited by the Hydraulics Research Board and the Hydraulics Research Station

The need for increased scientific research into hydraulics had been put forward as early as 1934 in a memorandum by Dr H J Gough, Director of the National Physical Laboratory.

In January 1945 the Institution of Civil Engineers sent a memorandum to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) again emphasising this need, particularly in respect of research relating to rivers, estuaries and coasts known as 'loose boundary hydraulics'. A small amount of research had previously been carried out at the National Physical Laboratory, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and in some British universities, but nothing on the scale of that done in France, Holland and India.

The Committee on the Needs for Research in Civil Engineering, appointed under Sir William Halcrow in December 1944 by the DSIR Advisory Council, concluded that the main gap was in research on marine works and waterways, and recommended the establishment of a hydraulics research organisation. In its report (issued in 1946) it recommended that a central hydraulics research laboratory be established; that this be a completely new station to be constructed as soon possible; that in the meantime facilities for such work in the National Physical Laboratory and universities be extended and that a Hydraulics Research Board, under the DSIR, be set up. Accordingly, in November 1946 a Hydraulics Research Board was set up, with Halcrow as chairman.

In March 1947 the new laboratory came into being with the appointment as Director of Hydraulics Research of Sir Claude Inglis CIE, MICE, who was a leading authority on hydraulics and had for many years been in charge of the Indian Waterways experimental station at Poona in India.

The new laboratory, known as the Hydraulics Research Organisation, was established to carry out research at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, Middlesex, using large scale models and scientific measuring instruments to study the problems of forecasting what might happen to natural or artificial boundaries of rivers, coasts or harbours, the effects of bridge and weir design and the long term effects of siltation and dredging. Work in progress in the field of civil engineering hydraulics was transferred to the new organisation, at the Royal Victoria Dock of the Port of London Authority, and at universities.

In 1949 a new site was found for the organisation at Howbery Park, Wallingford, Berkshire, and its new quarters were officially opened in the summer of 1951 under the title of Hydraulics Research Station.

The scope of the station's work, directed by the board, did not include all aspects of hydraulics but only those in which the fluid, usually water, was not completely controlled by solid bonds. It investigated such matters as the erosion of coasts and river banks, the silting up of navigable waterways and the design of harbour works. These areas of investigation were those which the Institute of Civil Engineers and a Committee on Civil Engineering had recommended for research in 1945. Besides constructing and operating models of large scale projects of national importance, the station provided fee-paid services on special problems for organisations in this country and overseas, published the results of its work in technical journals, answered technical enquiries, and arranged courses for engineers of river boards.

In 1962 a Hydrological Research Unit was established at the Hydraulics Research Station to study the hydrological behaviour of natural catchments, especially in relation to land management. In 1965 this unit became one of the component bodies of the new Natural Environment Research Council and it was later renamed the Institute of Hydrology.

The Hydraulics Research Station passed to the Ministry of Technology and the Hydraulics Research Board was replaced by a Hydraulics Research Station Steering Committee. After a brief period under the Department of Trade and Industry in 1970 it was transferred in January 1971 to the Department of the Environment.