Charles Bubb
BUBB, Charles Thomas James, BE DIC (Eng Seis) MIEAust (1928-2015)
Charles T Bubb was born in Perth on May 16, 1928, the son of baker Charles Bubb and his wife Angela Elizabeth Bubb née Flanagan. His early education was at St Joachim’s Convent School in Victoria Park. He commenced an engineering degree in 1945 at the University of Western Australia, and completed his final year in 1949, graduating in April 1950.
Charles Bubb was Assistant Engineer at the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission from 1950 to 1954 before he joined the Commonwealth Department of Works to work in their New Guinea Regional Office from 1954 to 1955, and in Tasmania and Victoria until 1956.
He had a brief period working with the Melbourne City Council from 1956 to 1957 before he returned to the Commonwealth Department of Works. He was seconded to the US Navy to work on the North West Cape Communications project at Exmouth from 1962 to 1963. In 1971 he was appointed Principal Engineer, Buildings and undertook a post graduate course at Imperial College London on Engineering Seismology.
An extract from the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society biography follows:
Charles Thomas James Bubb .. has had an outstanding professional career most of it in Melbourne with the Commonwealth Department of Works which later morphed into Housing and Construction but with stints in between at the HEC Tasmania and in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea. His career was cut short when the Government scrapped the Department by which time Charles and his wife Viki had made the successful transition to Canberra where they chose to live out the rest of their lives.
He was appointed Chief Structural engineer in 1977, and then Director of Engineering at the Commonwealth Department of Works in 1979, the position he held until his retirement in August 1987. After his retirement, Charles continued to serve on various high level committees of Standards Australia and Engineers Australia.
Charles was one of the primary drivers of Australian earthquake engineering research following the 1968 Meckering earthquake in his role as Chairman of the Australian National Committee for Earthquake Engineering from 1971 to 1976, and then inaugural president of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society from 1990 to 1995. Charles led the development of the 1979 Australian Earthquake Code and was a significant contributor to the Australian Wind Loading Standard.
It was in the then Territory of Papua New Guinea that Charles learned about earthquakes and wrote the first Technical Notes there to guide aseismic design, little realising that soon after his return he would be shocked by the Meckering earthquake in his home state, a major earthquake that destroyed the town of Meckering and did considerable damage in Perth, more than 120 km to the west. It was the first earthquake known, at the time, to rupture the ground surface in Australia causing a 35 km long scarp up to 2m high which cut the main east west railway and highway and the Mundaring – Kalgoorlie water pipe. This propelled him well into earthquake engineering though his other love, cyclones, was to absorb him after Tracy wrecked Darwin in December 1974 and Comm Works were charged with reconstruction.//
Charles encouraged and promoted research into wind engineering at Melbourne University and developed an interest in tornadoes and tornado risk in Australia, not a popular topic yet. He introduced computer aided design into the Department when computers were massive and pretty basic and well ahead of its adoption by the private sector.
Charles, picking his time, initiated the formation of AEES in 1990 immediately after the Newcastle earthquake of December 1989 and handpicked David Rossiter to form a committee when we applied to become a technical society of IEAust. Charles was very much a strategic thinker, the merger into IEAust was a prelude to seeking affiliation with the world body IAEE. He prided himself on being able to pick trends and to make lasting relationships which would serve him well.
Charles may well have had some influence in the IEAust publication "What Price Data", because he practised the message, arranging instrumentation of the then new Parliament House and Black Mountain Tower in Canberra and the Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, some of the very few buildings monitored for their earthquake response in Australia.
At the busiest time of his life, Charles also had a very active social life with Viki, they imported a champion Afghan hound from which they bred many others. They were well known in the dog world even though Charles admitted later he preferred cats. At the same time Charles did a woodwork course and built high quality furniture for their home, even designing a hidden mitre joint, using only hand tools. He loved fancy cars and owned a Ford 500 and later a Torana XU 1. Professor Ambraseys used to laugh at the thought of his student driving to Imperial College in a Mercedes when the professors all caught the tube. In Canberra Charles took up target pistol shooting and was quite proud of his ability to shoot a tight group.
Charles was widely read and would discuss philosophy, politics, astronomy and science fiction with whoever would listen, but best to know your subject. I never saw him get angry, he was always a well dressed gentleman, very private, loved his jazz and the occasional scotch, especially at David Rossiter’s where the inaugural committee met. In Canberra he joined the pc users group and taught basic computing skills to readers at the Woden library, more public service for one who spent his life serving the public. He was a great engineer in the widest sense of the word, as a practitioner, teacher, mentor, chief and trend setter.
Charles T Bubb died on May 17, 2015 aged 87 and was survived by his wife Viki. The Charles Bubb Medal awarded by Engineers Australia is named in his honour.
References:
https://aees.org.au/rip-charles-bubb/ accessed 16.9.20;
Woodside, John and McCue, Kevin, Early History of Seismic Design and Codes in Australia, Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, 2016 Conference.
http://aees.org.au/charles-bubb-award-for-earthquake-engineering/ accessed 16.9.20;
Margaret Park, Interview with C T J Bubb, Engineers Australia Oral History Project, 2003.
