Ros MacKinlay (nee Clarke)
MACKINLAY (Nee Clarke), Roslyn Kerry (Ros), BE(Hons) MIEAust (1949-2020)
Ros Clarke was born in the Wongan Hills Hospital on November 15, 1949, the daughter of farmer and former RAAF Flight Sergeant, Lancelot James Clarke and his wife Faith Alma Clarke nee Mitchell. Her grandparents, Alfred James Clarke and Ruby Clarke, were pioneers of the Kokardine-Cadoux district to the east of Wongan Hills having commenced wheat and sheep farming in the area in 1906.
Ros Clarke’s early education was at Wongan Hills Primary School. At age 13, she became a boarder at Methodist Ladies College, Claremont completing secondary schooling in 1966. In 1967 she commenced an engineering degree at the University of Western Australia being one of four females amongst 200 engineering students in her first year. She graduated with honours as the first UWA female engineering graduate having completed her Civil/Structural Engineering Degree in 1970.
In March 1971 she married Alistair Robert MacKinlay and they had two sons, Daniel and Andrew.
Ros had a variety of experience in mining and infrastructure in her work as an engineer up to 1984, including project engineering and preliminary design work on the Boddington Gold Mine for the offices of Kinhill Stearns, project engineering on the Broome Grain Handling Facility for the offices of Keith Dodd; and project and design engineering on a number of heavy media mineral processing projects in Australia for the offices of Mitchell Cotts / Fraser and Chalmers Group of South Africa.
From 1984 to 1990, she undertook project engineering and contracts management for a number of mineral processing projects through the offices of Keith Dodd Consulting Engineer. Projects included the major expansion for St Barbara Gold Mines, a limestone crushing and grinding plant in Indonesia, a crushing treatment plant for White Range Gold, Northern Territory, expansion for EON Metals, expansion for Golden Valley Radio Mine, a gold heap leach project at Parker Range, Thames Mining Talc materials handling system, a complete crushing and gold treatment plant for Broken Hill Metals, Southern Cross, a complete crushing and gold treatment plant for Astrik Resources, Queensland, a complete gold treatment plant for Julia Mines, gold treatment plants for Forsayth Mining Services, Mt Gibson and Lawlers, and Stage 1 & 2 of the Sons of Gwalia Gold plant, at Gwalia.
From 1990 to 1997, Ros worked for Minenco, Senior Consulting (NT) and Wood and Grieve on mining and infrastructure projects. Returning to work for Keith Dodd in 1997 she undertook total contract management for the installation of the Calcrete Crushing and Grinding plant at the Anaconda Nickel Cobalt Mine at Murrin, Western Australia. Another project was the building of a new shiploader and land based materials handling facilities for the Port Hedland Port Authority.
In early 2002 she joined Wyche Consulting as a senior structural engineer. Her major projects included a launch analysis assessment for the 660 metre Mount Henry rail bridge and the design of the system to shift the curved, prestressed Canning Bridge Bus Bridge 9.5 metres sideways.
A major project was a component of the Seaford Rail Extension, South Australia. Ros provided the design for the cast bed and worked out the basis for the launch sequence for this 1,200 m long incrementally launched single cell box girder rail bridge. Another major project was the $500 million New Perth Bunbury Highway. Ros carried out a variety of design tasks including abutment and foundation design, and extensive temporary works design for the two incrementally launched bridges.
Ros worked with Wyche Consulting up to 2016. She died on March 11, 2020 aged 70, being survived by her partner Alec Holm.
References:
Patsy Vizents, Interviewer and Transcriber, Engineering Heritage WA Oral History Transcript - R K MacKinlay, Interview December 2019.
UWA farewells first female engineering graduate : Archive Page : The University of Western Australia (accessed 2 February 2021)
Kate Emery and Patrick Cornish, Obituary, West Australian, p. 20, 18 July 2020.
