Guy Anson Maunsell
Army and Navy Sea Forts and the Mulberry Harbours.
If I can quote Shakespeare at the beginning I hope you will understand, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” I would say that 99% of you have never heard his name, Guy Anson Maunsell, he was one of those people that stand back in the time of need and fire on with his work.
Guy Anson Maunsell was born into a military family during the British Raj in India in Srinagar, Kashmir, the third child and only son of Lt Col Edward Henry Maunsell. He was educated in England and began his civil engineering career in the early years of the 20th century.
In 1936 Guy Maunsell moved into Hilden House, London Road, directly opposite the Hilden Manor, a rather stately house set well back from the main road. (Hilden House was demolished in the 1960s). They employed a maid, a gardener and a garden boy to run the house, with its extensive grounds and large vegetable plot. He would travel up to Charing Cross, possibly in the first class compartment and walk to one of the many government buildings. If he had to work late he resided with his wife, Millicent Geraldine, at 31 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1, a 2 to 3 minute walk from Downing Street.
In 1936 Guy Maunsell moved into Hilden House, London Road, directly opposite the Hilden Manor, a rather stately house set well back from the main road. (Hilden House was demolished in the 1960s). They employed a maid, a gardener and a garden boy to run the house, with its extensive grounds and large vegetable plot. He would travel up to Charing Cross, possibly in the first class compartment and walk to one of the many government buildings. If he had to work late he resided with his wife, Millicent Geraldine, at 31 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1, a 2 to 3 minute walk from Downing Street.
Guy Maunsell was a civil engineer with a great interest in the use of concrete and had worked for several companies and had also been directors of some. He began to use concrete in different ways and saw the introduction of reinforced concrete that came on the scene.
Around 1939 just as World War 2 began, Guy, his wife and two daughters, Maureen Edith (born 30th Jul 1927) and Rosalia Loveday (born 24th March 1930) moved home from Hilden House to Selby's Farm, Leigh Road, Hildenborough, and set to work constructing a large vegetable garden. One of his loves was Jersey cows from which he started a herd and changed the name from Selby's Farm to Jersey Farm. After setting up the farm with his Jersey cows, several other farmers within the area took up the same idea and produced the well-known “gold top milk”. Guernsey cows were bred back in the 1880's before Guy Maunsell brought Jersey cows to the farm. Now there are no milking cows within Hildenborough.
Around 1939 just as World War 2 began, Guy, his wife and two daughters, Maureen Edith (born 30th Jul 1927) and Rosalia Loveday (born 24th March 1930) moved home from Hilden House to Selby's Farm, Leigh Road, Hildenborough, and set to work constructing a large vegetable garden. One of his loves was Jersey cows from which he started a herd and changed the name from Selby's Farm to Jersey Farm. After setting up the farm with his Jersey cows, several other farmers within the area took up the same idea and produced the well-known “gold top milk”. Guernsey cows were bred back in the 1880's before Guy Maunsell brought Jersey cows to the farm. Now there are no milking cows within Hildenborough.
Maunsell was 55 when World War 2 began on 1st September 1939 and for the next six years it consumed his energies and resources. Guy’s daughter Maureen says that Guy "lived for his work" and commuted from Hildenborough to London every day. He was “so vague and absorbed that discomfort did not really bother him. He could always go to sleep on a train or a plane, but unfortunately quite often failed to wake up in time". When he woke up at the wrong station either Millicent would have to collect him by car; (it was not easy when petrol was scarce) or he would have to wait for a train back to Hildenborough where he had left his bicycle. By now Maureen and Rosalia were being educated at Tonbridge Grammar School, catching the 101 Maidstone and District Bus to Tonbridge Station and walking the rest of the way to school.
In October 1940, Britain had suffered at Dunkirk and was in the grip of the German Blitz on major cities. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Commander E.C. Shankland, Port of London Harbour Master, were worried about the number of shipping losses in the Thames Estuary. The ships needed protection from aerial attacks and from the laying of magnetic mines so they asked Maunsell's advice on a series of forts to defend the area from enemy aircraft.
Guy Maunsell had gained experience of the necessary design and construction techniques during the construction of the Storstrømsbroen (Storstrom Bridge, pictured left) in south-east Denmark.
Maunsell’s answer was “A Proposal To Establish Martello Towers for the Defence of The Thames Estuary”. Maunsell developed the ideas for the Army and Navy sea forts by which the public continues to remember him, known collectively as the Maunsell Forts. Martello Towers had been built as land-based coastal fortifications in Britain and around the British Empire during the Napoleonic Wars (early 19th century onwards). Maunsell’s idea was to build similar fortifications in the middle of the Thames estuary. He proposed to build the forts beforehand, complete in every detail at a site up river, tow the finished structure to its destination at sea where it was then sunk on to the sea bed. His designs were completed in November 1940. They met with conflicting responses from the Admiralty. Maunsell was asked to a number of meetings, after which he waited for weeks to be told by the Director of Naval Construction on 20th January 1941 that the forts would be unstable and might capsize before being sunk into position. More arguments followed, models were constructed and demonstrated, and the plan was finally given the go-ahead by Navy Controller Vice-Admiral Fraser on 6th March 1941.
First to be built were four forts designed as gun emplacements for use by the Royal Navy and sited in the Thames Estuary. They were built at Red Lion Wharf, between Northfleet and Gravesend, and then towed to their destination east of Shoeburyness. The first fort (Roughs Tower) was towed into position and grounded on 11th February 1942, with all its personnel aboard. The naval officer overseeing the operation caused the base to be flooded from one side only and the fort tilted at 35 degrees before settling level on the sea bed. This prompted the Admiralty to pass responsibility for positioning the other three forts (Sunk Head Tower, Tongue Sands and Knock John) to John Albert Posford, the resident engineer at Red Lion Wharf, which he completed without problems by 1st August 1942.
Maunsell then designed more forts for installation in the Mersey estuary, to be operated by the Army rather than the Navy. Each fort consisted of 7 towers, variously equipped with light and heavy anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and radar. These forts never saw enemy action but the design proved sound.
Another three Army forts were constructed for the Thames Estuary, work began in September 1942, again at Red Lion Wharf. They were similar to those used in the Mersey although the water here was shallower so the design was amended to suit. The original plan for 7 forts (49 towers) was amended to 3 forts (21 towers). Each tower was placed by two tugs, and bridging walkways were floated out and hoisted into position afterwards. These three forts (Nore Fort, Red Sands and Shivering Sands) were installed in the estuary north of Whitstable between 20th May and 14th December, 1943. These forts certainly proved their worth, their anti-aircraft guns shot down 22 enemy aircraft and 30 V1 doodlebugs heading for London.
When Maunsell was working on the design of the navy sea forts in 1940, he was also developing the ideas that would lead to the famous Mulberry Harbours (1943-44) being constructed and deployed to assist the Normandy landings in 1944. Forming an artificial harbour for wartime use was not a new proposition. In July 1917 Winston Churchill, then Minister of Munitions in World War I, had written to Prime Minister David Lloyd George that "a number of flat-bottomed barges or caissons, made not of steel but of concrete” could be towed into place and sunk, so that "a torpedo- and weather-proof harbour, like an atoll, would be created in the open sea". That early suggestion never came to fruition but now that Britain was at war again, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson in the War Office thought it could work and asked Maunsell for his advice in December 1940, just after Maunsell had submitted his designs for the forts. Maunsell produced a sketch entitled “Emergency Port Works” and wrote to the War Office that "structures similar to some which the writer has designed for the Admiralty ... might be built and afterwards used to form berths for ships supplying troops landing or operating upon enemy territory".
A flat-bottomed concrete Mulberry Harbour caisson under tow during World War 2.
The caissons formed part of the two huge floating harbours used for the Normandy Landings.
View of the Mulberry B harbour “Port Winson” at Arromanches in September 1944
Many prominent engineers of the day, military and civil, worked on the final design and testing of the individual structures that made up the two Mulberry Harbours for Vierville sur Mer (later known as Omaha Beach) and Arromanches in France. They operated in conditions of absolute secrecy, often not knowing who else was involved or what they were doing.
By this time Maunsell was kept out of the design process but belatedly, he did receive credit for the idea — one of the plaques on the Mulberry B monument to the British Royal Engineers at Arromanches, which was inaugurated on 6th June 2000, bears the inscription:
Original Floating Harbour Concept Mr Guy A. Maunsell
By this time Maunsell was kept out of the design process but belatedly, he did receive credit for the idea — one of the plaques on the Mulberry B monument to the British Royal Engineers at Arromanches, which was inaugurated on 6th June 2000, bears the inscription:
Original Floating Harbour Concept Mr Guy A. Maunsell
Another of Maunsell’s ideas, one almost as successful as his sea forts, stemmed from a conversation between Posford and Admiral Sir John Cronyn (Jack) Tovey in June 1943. Tovey was lamenting the lack of dock and slipway facilities for repairing landing craft damaged in training exercises, with steel too scarce for building floating dry docks. Posford knew Maunsell had proposed reinforced concrete dry docks to the Admiralty in April that year, and reported the conversation to Maunsell, who promptly revised and resubmitted his designs.
At the subsequent Whitehall meeting, he was told that — as with the Navy forts — the docks would be unstable and prone to capsizing. Losing his patience, already worn fairly thin, he snapped "Gentlemen, as you know, I live on a dairy farm at Hildenborough in Kent. When I leave the office, I go home and the first thing I do is to go into the field where my cows are and discuss my day with them. I must say, I get more bloody sense from them than I ever get from talking to you!" An irate Maunsell later contacted Tovey, who overruled the Admiralty's decision.
Construction of three 406-tonne reinforced concrete floating dry docks with integral crew accommodation began at the well-used Red Lion Wharf in August 1943, and the first was completed in three months. Only the dock bottom and its decks were cast in situ, the rest was prefabricated, which speeded building and enabled the other two to be completed in a further two months. The cost was comparable with steel docks, though the materials were more readily available.
Posford supervised trials of the first floating dock at Tilbury in November 1943. Multiple orders from the Admiralty followed, for docks of varying lifting capacity. The largest was 813 tonnes and could accommodate keeled vessels, and the smallest 254 tonnes. Docks were built also at Bromborough, at the same yard as the Mersey Army forts. Two yards were built in India and one in Australia to manufacture Maunsell's floating dry docks, but plans for more were halted when the war ended. The docks themselves were used worldwide and a few remain in use. They were so effective that the US Navy used Maunsell's design for all their floating dry docks.
When war ended, Maunsell went back to the daily business of breeding Jersey cows and selling them as evidenced in these 1947-48 newspaper adverts…...
His wife, on the other hand, was breaking the law…...
(From The Courier - 21st April 1950)
This article, left, appeared in the Herald Express on 18th October 1948 seeking awards to be made for contributions to the design and construction of the Mulberry Harbours.
Further investigation found no report of the conclusion of any awards made.
In 1955, aged 71, Maunsell founded G. Maunsell & Partners and took his ingenuity all over the world — to Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong and Australia — completing iconic bridge 'firsts' in the process. Narrows Bridge (1957-9) in Perth, Australia (then the world's largest pre-stressed concrete bridge), and the Gladesville Bridge (1959-64) in Sydney (the world's longest single span concrete arch at the time). In Britain, the Hammersmith Flyover (1959-62) is the most famous illustration of his use of pre-stressed concrete.
Guy Maunsell retired in 1959, sold Jersey Farm (which then reverted back to its original name of Selby's Farm) and moved to “The Orchard”, London Road, Southborough. “The Orchard”, pictured right, has been modified and extended since Maunsell’s time there.
The above information includes excerpts from Engineering Timelines about Guy Maunsell's life.
I would like to thank all those people in helping me in writing this article.
For more information about Guy Maunsell, click on the following link:-
www.engineering-timelines.com/who/Maunsell_G/maunsellGuy.asp
and for more info on the Mulberry harbours, click on this link:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour
I would like to thank all those people in helping me in writing this article.
For more information about Guy Maunsell, click on the following link:-
www.engineering-timelines.com/who/Maunsell_G/maunsellGuy.asp
and for more info on the Mulberry harbours, click on this link:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour
by Tim Asquith