John Galtress Betty
John Galtress Betty
(1922 - 2002)
John Betty was born on 8 April 1922 and grew up in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, attending various State primary schools and completing his Leaving Certificate in 1938 at Sydney Boys High School. He studied Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney completing the course in October 1943. The degree was conferred in June 1944.
In December 1943, together with Ted Peacock (CMPS) and Hugh Bubb (later to be City Engineer, Adelaide) he joined the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve as Sub Lieutenant specifically for service as a Deck Officer and Hydrographic Surveyor. During 1944, he saw service on the survey ship HMAS Moresby in surveys on the New Guinea coast and in the Timor Sea. During 1945 he was posted to the survey ship HMAS Warrego and saw service in the Philippines, Borneo and off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia. In 1946 he was appointed Commanding Officer of the survey ship HMAS Jabiru and carried out surveys in the Curtis Channel and the Barrier Reef off Gladstone on the Queensland coast. Betty was demobilised in March 1947.
A few days after being demobilised, he joined the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board of Sydney in their design office. He mainly worked on the design of the Warragamba pipeline and on several new metropolitan water reservoirs. In July 1948 he left the Water Board and joined the Consulting Engineering firm of AS Macdonald, Wagner and Priddle. His first job was the design of the buildings for the new copper smelting plant for Mount Isa Mines Ltd at Mount Isa, Queensland.
He was married in February 1949 and in March 1952 left the firm and, with his wife and small daughter, travelled to England where he obtained a job with Sir William Halcrow and Partners, working on the design of the buildings for several large power stations. At the end of 1952, he returned to Australia and re-joined A.S. Macdonald, Wagner and Priddle with whom he stayed for the rest of his professional career, retiring in July 1985. In 1964 he had been appointed an Associate of the Firm and a Partner in 1969, joining the ACEA. When the firm incorporated as a Company in 1972, he had become a Director.
During his career with the firm, he was responsible for the design and supervision of the construction of a wide range of structural and civil engineering projects —- industrial and commercial buildings, factories, power stations, wharves, harbour works, bulk loading installations, defence facilities, coastal engineering works, bridges and highways.
Shortly after he retired he was invited to lecture for two years in civil engineering design to final year civil engineering students at the University of Sydney. During his final years with the company, he was particularly interested in contract documentation. He felt that the subject was largely ignored in engineering schools and young graduate engineers were often left with little or no guidance. He felt that a book on the subject was overdue, and consequently wrote such a book, "Engineering Contracts", and in 1994 it was published by McGraw Hill (Europe) Ltd. By 1996 about 750 copies have been sold world-wide.
In 1995 Betty was asked by the Director of the RAN Maritime Studies Programme, Mr David Stevens, to present a paper at the RAN's Second History Conference at the Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour in August 1995 on the work of the RAN Hydrographic Branch during World War II. The paper was very well received. The Navy decided to publish the Proceedings of the Conference as a book entitled "The Royal Australian Navy in World War II". This was published by Allen and Unwin in April 1996. My paper was included as one of the chapters.
He researched a number of aspects of Australian naval history and in 2002 submitted and article on Darwin’s Floating Dry Dock to the Naval Officers Club competition and I won second prize, but sadly John Betty died before it could be accepted.
To access the 1943-1946 account of John Betty's war service see:
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C325641
To read John Betty's paper on Darwin's Floating Drydock see
https://navyhistory.au/author/bettj/
To access an oral history interview with John Galtress Betty please use this link:'
https://heritage.engineersaustralia.org.au/wiki/Oral_Histories_Sydney
