David Sugden
Sugden, David Burnet, BE CPEng FIEAust AO (1920-2011)
David Sugden was born at Claremont on January 31, 1920, the son of Agricultural Bank Inspector, Edgar Sugden and his wife Dora Edina Sugden née Burnet. Edgar Sugden had been a farmer at Latham and was wounded in World War I. After having an arm amputated, he took on the less physically demanding bank role. The family moved to York living at “Inglefell”.
The property at York had a workshop with a lathe, a forge and a high speed grinder, enabling David to undertake projects such as rebuilding a car motor engine and constructing a motorcycle. David’s education was at state schools in York up to Junior level, and 1935 and 1936 at Guildford Grammar School, partially completing his Leaving. In March 1937 he worked as the Junior Clerk at the York Court House and completed the balance of his Leaving in that year.
In 1938 Sugden was successful in applying for an engineering cadetship with the WA Public Works Department. He then enrolled in engineering at the University of Western Australia, where he was a resident of St Georges College. He graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in April 1942. David participated in a wide range of sports at university including football, hockey, cricket, swimming, boxing and tennis. He also pursued his lifelong passion for music, being a member of the University Music Club and on the Music Society Committee.
David was employed as an assistant engineer with the PWD from July 12, 1942. His early work involved running a research program for gas producers which led to him being the State Inspector for all gas producer designs. Other work involved electrifying the State Brickworks at Byford, inventing a reversible mouldboard plough and creating 15 water boring machines from scrap parts. He was successful in applying for the position of Research Engineer at the South Australian School of Mines, but the PWD would not release him to take up the position.
In 1943 David Sugden was placed in charge of the WA State Central Workshops for Plant and was also made an honorary inspector in the Army Inventions Directorate. He demonstrated his ingenuity in overcoming war time shortages of spare parts by manufacturing or adapting replacement parts.
On February 2, 1945 David married Peggy McGuire in Perth, and they had five children. Peggy had been a state swimming champion and grew up on the Ashburton station, Turee Creek. Also in 1945, he was involved with the formation of the National Association of Testing Authorities, serving on its national committee.
In 1947 Sugden was appointed an Assistant Plant Engineer at the Hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania and very quickly became Plant Engineer. He radically restructured the way in which construction plant was managed and maintained. He established a section for transportation of heavy equipment; he managed to design and build a 120 ton self balancing transporter in 28 days, meeting a deadline to position two 100 ton transformers that needed to travel on uneven roads with tight corners to isolated sites.
Whilst at the HEC, David was instrumental in introducing the Commission and subsequently Australia to machine tunnelling. He had made a scale model of a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to test its capability for a tail race tunnel at Poatina. Subsequently a Robbins TBM was purchased and with many Sugden innovations successfully completed a seven kilometre tunnel.
In 1967, David began a long and internationally recognised consultancy career. Notably he had significant involvement with both the Robbins Company of Seattle, USA and Terratec Asia Pacific. Many of his inventions and adaptions on TBM’s were used worldwide, such as flexible grippers and the “Melbourne” shield.
David was actively involved in an honorary capacity on various community organisation boards, CSIRO committees, various educational and professional committees and the Industrial Design Council of Australia. In 1977 he was appointed to the Tasmanian State Committee for CSIRO.
Not restricted to designing tunnelling equipment, David designed a new violin, which is cheaper to produce but still maintains a quality sound, opening up the learning of the violin to a greater number of people, and which has been favourably received by the conservative music world.
David was been recognised for his contribution to tunnelling and the mentoring of young engineers involved in the field, with the Allen Neyland Tunnelling Achievement Award in 1996, an Order of Australia in 2002, and the 2003 A G M Michell Award for his outstanding contribution to Australian Mechanical Engineering.
In 2004 the Australian Tunnelling Society started the David Sugden Award to encourage young engineers to develop the art of technical writing.
David had a lifelong love of music and attributed the tuning of his keen hearing to mechanical and geo mechanical noises to time spent with his passion.
David died in Hobart on July 17, 2011.
References:
West Australian, 11.4.1942, p. 3.
West Australian, 16.8.1946, p. 8.
R van der Molen, Oral History Tape NS2247/2/1 and NS2247/2/2, Libraries Tasmania, 2003
https://www.ats.org.au/about-us/awards/david-sugden-award/ accessed 18.9.2020
2003 AGM Michell Award, Engineers Australia, 2003.
https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2017-01/Master%20Oral%20History%20Register%20140606.pdf accessed 18.9.2020
