No_7_November_and_December__1950 — Page 8

KURT BILLIG, PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING,

HONG KONG UNIVERSITY

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Professor Billig, who is the new Professor of Engineering of the Hong Kong University, a Doctor of Technical Science, Chartered Engineer and Chartered Structural Engineer, has worked in Europe. Asia and America before being appointed to his new post. After leaving University. Professor Billig spent several years on the design and construction of rein-

forced concrete and steel structures.

For six years he was

• Consultant to the Russian Government for the design and erection of industrial plant and was in charge of research into new methods of concrete construction.

After his Russian experience, Professor Billig took up private practice in London and Dublin. His work there included the erection of reinforced concrete hangars and run- ways for the Air Ministry during the war and the design of factories, hospitals, bridges and other work. He was a Con- sultant to the Ministry of Works on prestressed concrete. He lectured at the College of Technology in the University at Manchester and last year toured the United States to talk about his work in Europe.

Many readers will know Professor Billig from his articles published in technical journals. In the Journal of the Institu- tion of Civil Engineers, he published articles on "Electro- Concrete". "Vacuum-Concrete". "Concrete Shell Roofs with Flexible Moulds" and "Simplified Design of Shell Roofs". A: the Congress of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering held at Liege in 1948, he was British delegate reporting on "The Terminal at Dublin Airport", on "Corrugated Concrete Shell Roofs" and on "Prestressed Concrete.

Professor Billig's publication included a text book on "Pre- stressed Concrete" published in 1944 and another on "Precast Structural Reinforced Concrete" published in 1946.

We have invited Professor Billig to write a number of articles for this journal and deal with special problems of con- crete construction. Readers may therefore expect to find his articles in future numbers on "Reinforced Concrete Shell Structures", "Precast Reinforced Concrete". "Treatment of Concrete" and "The New Code of Practice of Ordinary Rein- forced Concrete".

We feel certain that we are expressing the thoughts of all those connected with building and structural engineering when we wish Professor Billig all success in his new post.

PROFESSOR F. A. REDMOND

Photo by courtesy “S. C. M. Post")

Professor Redmond retired in October 1950 after 36 years' association with the University of Hong Kong, and it is but Atting that, in introducing his successor in the Engineering Faculty, Professor Kurt Billig, some acknowledgment be made of Professor Redmond's great contribution in the development of this branch of the University work.

We quote the following brief biography from the "South China Morning Post":

After the war there were many Hongkong men whose labours over the years really entitled them to well-earned retirement. Instead they chose to return to the ravaged colony to ensure that those enterprises to which they had given their lifework would swiftly and smoothly recover from the conflict and go forward to yet greater things.

Professor F. A. Redmond, B.Sc., Lond., D.I.C., F.G.S., who left Hong Kong last October on retirement was one of these.

For nearer four decades than three he has been associated with the Civil Engineering Department of Hongkong University and has been a prominent figure in the sporting and social life of the Colony. In 1945 he was due for retirement at the age of sixty but, at the urgent request of the University, he came back from the Old Country to see his department and the Engineering Faculty firmly reestablished in the postwar world.

It was in May of 1914, on the eve of the so-called "Great War" that Professor and Mrs. Redmond first came to Hong- kong. The young graduate of London University took up his

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post as lecturer in Civil Engineering and one of his first tasks here was to run a survey of what is now Kai Tak for a building and development company who were interested in cuiting up and reclaiming land there. The Professor revealed how our airport received its name. The two people most interested in this company were Sir Kai Ho-kai and Shin Tak- fan, and one syllable was taken from each of their names to designate the project. The scheme fell through however owing to the war, during which both sponsors died and it remained for the Government years after to resurrect the idea of reclamation.

In 1920 he was made professor in charge of his depart- ment which he has since built up to become numerically the largest of the Engineering Faculty. During the past 36 years he has trained some 400 graduates and sent them out into the world-mostly to China-to practise their profession as civil engineers. The Engineering faculty of the University was formed in 1912 largely to satisfy the Chinese Govern- ment's need of competent civil engineers and British industry owes much to the "ambassadors" sent out by Professor Red- mond and his department for its business achieved in China. Many a salesman struggling to sell some British engineering proposition against foreign competition has found that the voices there that advocated the merit of his proposal and the votes that finally clinched the deal were those of Hongkong University alumni upon whose knowledge and ability the homeside Chinese felt that they could place reliance.

Professor Redmond is the author of two standard technical works on Tacheometry-a method of speeding up surveying— and has voluntarily edited the Hongkong University Engineer- ing Journal since its inception in 1929. In it for many years his researches and literary and technical contributions have earned the respect of his colleagues and the many engineers of the Far East.

Elected several times Dean of the Engineering Faculty, Professor Redmond has always taken a deep interest in the many activities of his students both in the classroom, in the survey camp and on the sports field. His colleagues on the staff of the University will not readily forget the many occasions in which his ready and pungent wit have enlivened the proceedings of the Senate or the Council.

Captured by the Japanese during the war as a Major in the Engineering section of the Hongkong Defence Force, Professor Redmond spent three and a half years at Shamshuipo camp as a prisoner of war.

An ardent freemason, Professor Redmond joined the University Lodge and the University Chapter in 1916. He held the rank of District Senior Warden and Third Grand Principal.

He has also been an Unofficial Justice of the Peace for many years and was one of the original founders as well as the third president of St. Patrick's Society, following Sir Joseph Kemp and Col. Myles.