Family member found to be working in Nigeria.....

[carol8353]

Both were just D Whitney,but the ages,jobs and place fitted.
There is another D Whitney who is also an engineer but he's 10 years younger and travelled with his wife and child.

[diana2646]

Thanks very much Carol, for all your time and trouble.  I will have to look into who the 'other' Whitney was.

Regards,  Diana

[francoso]

Been away a while so just catching up. Nigeria was a colony in 1940s-1950s and Brits staffed and ran the Ministry of Works as it did in just about all the colonies. I worked there after independence and the Biafran war (in the early- mid- 1970s) for a consulting engineering firm of civil engineers. One of the people I worked with then had been in Nigeria in the 1950s and was with the MoW at that time.

[diana2646]

Hi Francoso,  how lovely to hear from someone who actually worked in Nigeria as a Civil Engineer.  I suppose it is possible that the person you worked with may have known my relative - Denis Whitney.  He died very young, at the age of fifty, in Ely in Cambridgeshire, in 1961.  I contacted the Institute of Civil Engineers headquarters in London, but they had no record of him.  They said that not all Civil Engineers were registered with them.  I don't know if these Civil Engineering companies would have records of staff going back that far, that's if I even knew which company he worked for.  Were there many companies involved in work in Nigeria?   
As I don't know very much about Civil Engineering, could you possibly give me an idea of what type of projects would have been going on in the 50's in Nigeria and Ghana?  I imagine it would be building work?
Thank you very much for your imput.  I look forward to hearing from you again.
Best wishes, Diana

[francoso]

Hi Diana. In those days, there probably would not have been civil engineering companies working in Nigeria. Most likely all civil engineers worked for the government (UK) in the Ministry of Works or Public Works Departments of the Colonies. They handled roads, water supply, sewerage systems, government buildings etc. The good friend of mine who worked in Nigeria in the 1950s with the PWD and again in the 1970s with the same engineering consulting firm as myself, died many years ago so that's a brickwall, unfortunately. Your relative may have been contracted by what was, or became, known as Crown Agents: I can't recall their original title if indeed there was one. Googling it, it says they were founded in 1833 as a UK Statutory Public Corp. Their full title is The Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations Ltd. They have a website http://www.crownagents.com and according to that their contacts are: The Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations Ltd. Tel: +44 (0) 20 8643 3311 Fax: +44 (0) 20 8643 8232
Crown Agents, St. Nicholas House, St. Nicholas Rd, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 1EL, United Kingdom. It may all be wrong and he didn't work for them but in the 1950s it was all government employment for the colonies. If you contact them, be persistent because for them to do tracing of your Denis will mean unproducitve 'work' for them. Give it a go and good luck.
Best

[diana2646]

Hi Francoso,  Thank you very much for that information.  I will look into it and I will be 'persistent' as you say!!  I have come across so many very kind, helpful people in the course of researching my family history.  People that have done things for me, and wanting nothing in return.  What a shame your friend has passed away.  Denis Whitney's father, is buried in Goudhurst in Kent and a lovely lady from the Goudhurst History Society, went to the cemetery and took photos of his grave for me and sent them.  It was so kind of her to do that!  I live in Lincolnshire, so wasn't able to go and find it myself.
I will contact the Crown Agents and let you know what I find out.
All the best, Diana

[francoso]

No probs, Diana, we all need to help otherwise we get nowhere. I mentioned Crown Agents. They are the most likely but there were some large British contracting firms who worked overseas on contracts funded by the colonial powers: my memory isn't great but Taylor-Woodrow and Costains spring to mind but they, and others like them, have long been taken over and disappeared into history. The Insitution of Civil Engineers at 1 Great George St may know what happened to those firms and who to contact/who has their records.

Good hunting.

[diana2646]

Thanks very much Francoso, for all your help.

I have heard of Taylor Woodrow, but not Costains.  I will see what I can find out.

Very best wishes Diana

[francoso]

Grey cells stirring: also McAlpines and MacDonalds were two other large contracting firms (now out of existence). Maybe there are records of them somewhere.