Geoffrey Binnie
Geoffrey Morse Binnie FRS FEng was a British civil engineer and writer particularly associated with dams and reservoirs.
Binnie was the third generation of his family to enter civil engineering. He was educated at Charterhouse School, Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Zurich University. On graduation, he became a pupil of Swiss engineer Dr Henry Edward Gruner, working on a hydro-electric scheme, Sernf-Niederenbach, in the Alps, and then on a larger project, Albbruck-Dogern on the River Rhine.
He joined the Binnie & Partners firm of consulting engineers in 1931. From 1932 to 1936, he worked on the 88m high Jubilee Dam in Hong Kong, the then highest dam in the British Empire. Upon his return to the UK, he worked on the construction of Eye Brook Reservoir near Corby, Northamptonshire. In 1939, he was appointed a Partner in the family firm.
During World War II, he served in the Royal Engineers. After the war, he worked on various water supply projects in the UK and overseas, including the Kalatuwawa Dam, near Hanwella, which supplies water to Colombo in Sri Lanka. Other major projects included:
- Dukan Dam, on River Tigris, Iraq
- Mangla Dam, on the Jhelum River, Pakistan, today still the world's 16th largest dam.
- the W. A. C. Bennett Dam, part of the Peace River Project, British Columbia, Canada