John Max Sherrard
John Max Sherrard
(1935 - )
John Max Sherrard, known as Max, was born in Sydney in 1935. His father, Howard Sherrard was a civil engineer and at the pak of his career, Commissioner for Main Roads in NSW, and his mother a geologist and secondary school teacher.
Max attended Kensington Public School and then Sydney High School, followed by the University of Sydney where he graduated in civil engineering in 1957. His work experience period during his study was with the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Corporation where he worked at Eucumbene and Tumut.
His first employment as a professional engineer was with the Sydney Water Board where he worked at Warragamba Dam. He then travelled overseas in 1958 and was employed in the London office of Ove Arup, then with CD Caruthers & Wallace in Toronto Canada.
On his return to Sydney in 1961 he joined consulting engineers Macdonald, Wagner & Priddle and, in 1974, Julius, Poole & Gibson, where he remained for the rest of his working career, though the firm merged with Bassett to form Bassett J.P.G. in 1991.
Projects on which he consulted included telephone exchanges, airport hangars, multi-storey commercial buildings and high-rise residential structures, most notably the sixteen and thirty storey Housing Commission buildings in Waterloo. He also worked on school, university and hospital buildings.
Max had married Hilary in 1952, and they had three children. He was a member of the Institution of Engineers Australia from 1962, made a contribution to Scouting from 1975 to 1995 and was a member of Rostrum from 1963.
To access an oral history interview with John Max Sherrard please use this link:'
