Robert Wynne-Edwards

Who was Robert Wynne-Edwards?

Sir Robert Meredydd Wynne-Edwards CBE, DSO, MC and bar was a British civil engineer and army officer. Wynne-Edwards was born in Cheltenham and educated at Giggleswick School and Leeds Grammar School before being commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers at the outbreak of the First World War. He served on the Western Front in France where he received a Mention in Despatches, Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross and bar for his gallantry and leadership. Following the war he studied engineering at Christ Church, Oxford from which he graduated with second class honours in 1921.

Wynne-Edwards emigrated to Canada working on several contracts in Vancouver including the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel. He returned to Britain in 1935 following a slump in the Canadian building industry and joined John Mowlem & Co. where he was given the task of constructing the William Girling Reservoir. The newly constructed dam later collapsed and Wynne-Edwards enlisted the expertise of the Building Research Station and Karl von Terzaghi to prove that he was not at fault. During the Second World War Wynne-Edwards was seconded to the Ministry of Works where he became their director of plant.