Ernie Godfrey
GODFREY, Ernest William Clifford (Ernie), BCE FIEAust (1892-1972)
Ernie was born in Murrumbeena, Victoria on November 3, 1892 the son of carpenter and builder William George Godfrey and his wife Lizzie Godfrey nee Tarry. Ernie was educated at the Tooronga Road State School in Malvern where he won one of 40 State scholarships for secondary study. He then attended the newly opened Melbourne Continuation School where he won an Exhibition for his Leaving in 1909.
In 1911, Ernie enrolled in engineering at the Melbourne University. His study was interrupted by the First World War. He enlisted on November 25, 1915 and served in France. Returning to Melbourne University in 1918, he completed his Bachelor of Civil Engineering in 1919.
In 1919, he married Edith Ann Ribbett and they had one son, William, who died in an air crash in 1942 in England. Edith died in August 1930 aged 45. Ernie then married secondly, Alice Gwendoline Sheppard, on September 18, 1931. Alice and Ernie had three sons, Norman, Arnold and Roland.
In March 1928 he was one of a number of engineers recruited to the newly formed (1926) Main Roads Board in Western Australia. Even though he was appointed as an assistant engineer he took on responsibility for bridge design and construction. One of his first designs in 1928 was the Brunswick River Bridge constructed as four metal girder bridge on timber piles with a jarrah bridge deck in 1929.
In April 1931, a concrete and steel bridge was opened across the Gascoyne River as part of a quartet of bridges he designed in the North West of Western Australia. The innovative design by Ernie using concrete and steel was replicated in his designs of the Fortescue Bridge (tender accepted 1929), Murchison River Bridge (opened 1930) and the Ashburton River Bridge (opened 1931).
He had a preference for the use of reinforced concrete but would use other materials when appropriate. One of his early bridges was the road bridge over the railway and river at Clackline (designed 1934, built 1935) where he specified timber for the bulk of the horizontally curved bridge with a one in twenty gradient and steel (for fire protection) over the 45 foot span over the railway.
Other E W C Godfrey designed bridges were the Garratt Road Bridge, (which when it was opened in 1935 was the longest traffic timber bridge in Western Australia), the Guildford Road Bridge (1937), Canning Bridge (1938) and the North Fremantle Road Traffic bridge (1939) being all completed before World War II. Ernie was also the Resident Engineer on the North Fremantle Traffic Bridge.
During World War II Ernie was in charge of the Eucla end of the strategic interstate roadway from Norseman to South Australian border which Main Roads WA constructed on behalf of the Allied Works Council. After the war he designed the Greenough River Bridge (opened 1953). The culmination of Ernie’s career as a bridge designer came post-war with the design and construction of the composite steel and concrete Causeway Bridges.
Ernie was a Foundation Associate Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a full Member and Fellow in 1945. He was elected to the WA Division Committee in 1938 and was Chairman of the WA Division of the Institution of Engineers in 1946.
Ernie reached retiring age in 1957 and was succeeded by his protégé Gilbert Marsh. However having overseen the preliminary planning for a major prestressed concrete bridge over the Swan River at the site known as the Narrows during 1954 and the selection of design consultants Maunsell and Partners (1954− 1955), he continued on as Liaison Engineer between the Department and the consultants for the currency of the construction contract for the bridge (1957 – 1959).
He died on March 27, 1972 aged 79 and was survived by his second wife Alice and the three children from his second marriage.
References:
Cumming Papers
Malvern Standard, 9.2.1907, p3
The Age, 25.1.1910, p6
The Herald, 23.12.1919, p6
Leigh Edmondson, The Vital Link, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands
Daily News, 25.5.1928, p5
West Australian, 1.11.1938, p17
Geraldton Guardian, 10.2.1953, p4
