Obituary: Oleg Alexander Kerensky

Dr Oleg Kerensky, who died on 25 June 1984 in London, was one of the foremost bridge builders of the century who was also responsible for design and construction of roads and developments in modern transportation thinking in Britain. He was respected not only for his engineering technical skills but also for his professional integrity and fairness in dealing with the commercial aspects of the projects for which he was responsible. For the past 20 years he had chaired the BSI bridge committees and he had also been chairman, and for the last four years president, of CIRIA (the Construction Inudustry Research and Informa- tion Association). He found his relaxation in the game of bridge, at which he excelled, and in later life, croquet. As a young man he was an above-average rugby player and he remained an accomplished swimmer all his life.

Oleg Alexander Kerensky was born in St Petersburg (Leningrad) on 16 April 1905, the elder son of Alexander Kerensky, lawyer and leader of the Trudoviks, the Russian democratic opposition to the Tsarist regime. After the over- throw of the Tsar in February 1917, Kerensky senior became a member of the government and, from July until November 1917, was Prime Minister until his Government was deposed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. It is a quirk of history that the Lenins and the Kerensky family had been neighbours and that Oleg's grandfather had been Lenin's teacher at school.

Oleg's family had been well-to-do middle class for three or more generations. His mother's father was General Baronovsky whose father was a professor of mathematics; an uncle, in Oleg's words, was 'an outstanding engineer- inventor' who founded an important armaments factory and invented a quick-fLdng gun widely used by the Russian armies. Other uncles were also generals, lawyers, teachers and farmers.

Until 1917, Oleg wrote in later life, he had had a happy childhood surrounded by love and attention, with languages and art being taught by German and French governesses. Reading in the family's large library was a principal occupa- tion of the long, dark winters and the summers were spent gardening and riding on an uncle's farm. At home, literature and politics were almost the sole subjects of conversation

and by 15 he reckoned he had read 'many Russian, German and French classics, and translations of English ones'.

In 1917, when he was 12, the whole pattern of normal life was destroyed and danger, privation and much sorrow followed, terminating in the abandonment of almost all that was dear and familiar. The sight of starvation to death, a short spell in Lubyanl~a prison, the execution of relatives and family friends, and extreme poverty left an indelible impression, but these experiences were, he believed, despite their horror, beneficial in the formation of his character. From 1913 he had been educated in a modern co- educational private school but that was closed in 1918 and he was transferred to a new co-educational boarding school. In 1920, with the help of friends, his mother escaped to England bringing Oleg and his younger brother, Gleb (who became a distinguished mechanical engineer with the English Electric Company). They did not see their father from 1917 until just before the latter's death in 1970.

When Madame Kerensky and the two boys arrived in England, it was looked on as a temporary move and for many years they believed they would one day go back to Russia. It was not until 1946 that he became a British national but, even as recently as the 1950s and 1960s, he was active in movements organized by East European exiles. When, however, just a few years ago, Oleg received an official invitation to return to Moscow he declined, observ- ing to friends, with a wry smile, that he would not be allowed to come back if he went.

The two boys had not learnt English and for three years they went to a small private school in North London to prepare for matriculation. They persevered and obtained necessary exemptions to gain entrance into a university. Oleg's learning had always been towards the arts rather than science and he wanted to follow his father into the legal profession but, as there was no way in London he could prepare for the Russian bar, it was decided that he should enrol with his brother, who did want to be an engineer, at the Northampton Engineering College, then part of London University, now City University. He left in 1927 with a second class degree, a first class City and Guilds Certificate in engineering economics and a college

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diploma. Again later, he wrote 'the College respect for honest x,ork was well ground in and remained one of my basic principles throughout my life'.

Krensky's first appointment in 1927 was to the design office of the Bridge Department of Dorman Long & Company, which was then in London, where he worked under the direction of the late Sir Ralph Freeman, the company's bridge consultant, and his two chief assistants, the late J. F. Pain and Gilbert Roberts on the design of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Later, he worked on the designs for, amongst others, the Pretoria steelworks in South Africa, Storstr~bm Bridge in Denmark and several power stations. For a spell, in 1930-1932, he served as an assistant engineer on the construction of the Lambeth Bridge over the Thames. The London office was closed in 1934 because of shortage of work, but Kerensky was retained and moved to Middlesbrough as one of three senior designers in the company. While there, he taught 'theory of structures' in evening classes at the Constantine Technical College to supplement his income.

In 1937 he left Dorman Long and came to London, joining Holloway Bros as chief engineer and sub-agent on the construction of the Wandsworth Bridge over the Thames. At the outbreak of war, still with Holloway, he went to Bristol to build an emergency oil jetty in Avonmouth Docks and, in 1943, to North Wales where he supervised building of buffer pontoons for the Mulberry harbours for the invasion of NW Europe by the Allied Armies.

In 1945 he returned to London and in 1946 left Holloway to join Freeman Fox & Partners as principal bridge designer working under Sir Ralph Freeman on the early designs of the Severn Bridge and other major structures. Also in the firm,just returned from war service, was Freeman's son, also Ralph. It was in 1948 that Gilbert Roberts joined the Partnership to supervise the Severn Bridge joint office with Mott Hay & Anderson. Ralph Freeman Senior died in 1950 and Roberts took over complete responsibility for Severn and, later, the Forth Road Bridge, while Kerensky looked after road/railway bridges for Thailand and India and the design for the truss structure for the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

For many years he lectured on bridge design for a post- graduate course in Cambridge and on the design of welded structures in courses organized in London and the provinces by the Welding Institute.

He became a Partner of the firm in 1955 and his respon- sibilities changed to become primarily concerned with major road projects which necessarily involved many bridges. The firm's first road project was the M2 with the Medway Bridge, for which both steel and prestressed concrete designs and documents were prepared, because estimates within the design office gave no clear indication of which might be the more economic. The steel industry had not believed a 500 ft concrete span could be competi- tive. In the event, three concrete tenders were priced lower than the lowest steel tender and the bridge was built with the then longest concrete span in the world.

The M5 followed and Kerensky's major contribution to that project was Almondsbury interchange, linking the M4 to the M5, this country's first four-level interchange, notable for the compactness of its geometry, the economic use of steel, concrete and composite materials, and the deployment of concrete-filled steel-tube columns to support the upper levels of the structure. In East London, he was responsible for the Bow Bridge intersection, a dual 2-lane flyover above a roundabout carried on a composite steel and concrete

structure over the River Lea, and with slip roads to the surrounding streets. Also, during the 1960s, he led the team planning, designing and reconstructing the Grosvenor Bridge carrying commuter and continental trains in and out of Victoria Station, the work being carried through piecemeal so that there was virtually no disruption of services.

Simultaneously, with Ralph Freeman (the son), Kerensky had taken the firm into transport planning, becoming Partner-in-charge of the London traffic survey and other regional traffic studies as well as serving on the steering committee for Sir Colin Buchanan's report on 'Traffic in towns'.

Gilbert Roberts retired at the end of 1969, and Kerensky took over as partner-in-charge of two bridges: Milford Haven and the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne, Australia. Within the year, both bridges had suffered collapse of a span under construction. With Ralph Freeman, Kerensky carried much of the criticism aimed at the firm and he came out of the inquiries with a greatly increased reputation. The firm's involvement with the Australian bridge was abruptly severed, and it was eight years before it was completed, but Kerensky saw through to completion in 1975 the construc- tion of the Milford Haven bridge, coping with all the problems of the constantly changing requirements of the Merrison Committee's interim design and workmanship roles.

In 1970-1971 Kerensky had been President of the Structurals and in 1972-1973 he was President of the High- ways (to say nothing of serving on many other committees). Yet, such was the capacity of the man that he fulf'dled all the duties both those institution presidencies demanded, despite the load he carried within the firm.

From the mid-1960s he had been chairing British Standard bridge committees and through the 1970s and into the 1980s he continued to chair the committees that finally produced BS 5400. Time, and experience, as Kerensky well acknowledged, will show how much, or little, amendment that document will require. He defended it against the critics and was equally critical of its blind adherents who applied it wrongly and retrospectively to older bridges, so leading to recommendations for unneces- sary remedial works.

He was a prodigious author of papers for which he received nearly every principal award that both the Institu- tions of Civil and Structural Engineers give and, also, the Gold Medal of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE). He was appointed a CBE in 1964 and in 1967 was awarded an honorary DSc by City University - he had never lost his association with his College, of which he had become a Governor, and was a founder member of the University's Court. He was elected FRS in 1970 and was a founder member of the Fellowship of Engineering.

He was admired by many and will be remembered with affection by all who knew and worked with him. There are many Kerensky anecdotes but perhaps one, so far untold, reflects his capacity to live. On the day the Royal Commis- sion report on the West Gate Bridge was to be published he had a croquet match at Hurlingham -- and he played.

He married, in 1928, Nathalie Bely, both of whose parents were Russian; their son, Oleg, is a writer on the theatre, music and ballet. Nathaiie died in 1969 and, in 1972, Kerensky married Mrs Dorothy Harvey. who survives hiFU.

David Fisher

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