Alexander Nicholson
Alexander Nicholson
(1901 - 1984)
Alexander Nicholson was born in 1901 and from 1917 to 1926 was a trainee engineer with the Colonial Sugar Refining Company in Sydney. His experience was mechanical and electrical with minor structural work as required. He then worked for Smith and Waddington, the body building firm, and with Henry White, an architect building Bunnerong Power Station.
At about this time the Great Depression set in so his employment was disjointed and limited, until 1931 when Nicholson set himself up as a self-employed consulting engineer. He joined the Australian Society of Consulting Engineers, fledgling organisation that it was in those days. Later he became treasurer of the ASCE for two or three years, and ran the company for 15 years and was chairman twice.
Once the Second World war broke out work dried up and Nicholson transferred to the American Army in the headquarters section of the Southwest Pacific Area. Here he was involved in the supply chain, designing refrigeration plant for use in the field. One particularly large job was the whole of the engineering design for the Herne Bay American Military Hospital (now Riverwood, Sydney), the largest military medical facility outside the continental United States.
After the war Nicholson resumed his consulting engineering business though details are unknown, nor when he retired. He lived until at least 1981 when he recorded the oral history referenced below. He may have died in 1984 if the death notice for Alexander Scott Nicholson of Edgecliff, aged 83 years, can be inferred as being the same man. If this is the case then he had married Beatrice and that had two children.
To access an oral history interview with Alexander Nicholson please use this link:'
