Clerk of Works

[thecatsmother]

Is a Clerk of Works independent or attached to a particular body e.g. council or building firm? I'm trying to find out more about my grandfather who was a clerk of works, living in Wolverhampton until 1968.

[Blue70]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerk_of_works


Blue

[thecatsmother]

Thank you Blue. I'll have a look at that 

[Maiden Stone]

 Councils used to have a post  called Clerk of Works.

[stanmapstone]

There is The Institute of Clerks of Works and Construction Inspectorate of GB Inc. http://www.icwgb.org/page/default.asp?title=Welcome%20to%20ICWCI&pid=1

Stan

[garstonite]

I was a Clerk of Works in 1980's
I worked for
Liverpool City Council
Young Persons Housing Association -
one Council and one private
hope this helps - Clerk of Works also went around Public Buildings to evaluate Maintenance and Repairs
Schools
Libraries
Public Baths
Council Rates Buildings
Housing Offices - where you paid your rent .
to my knowledge I have never met another Clerk of Works who wasn't a time served Tradesman .
Joiner
Plumber
Bricklayer
Plasterer
Painter and Decorator
etc
I served 5 years Apprenticeship as a Carpenter and Joiner
my qualifications were
City and Guilds Intermediate
City and Guilds Advanced
Full Technological Certificate Part 1
Full Technological Certificate Part 2
so I would research more on your Grandfather - chances are he was a Tradesman prior to being a Clerk of Works
good luck

[mike175]

I don't think you can necessarily assume he was working for a public body. An ancestor of mine was described as 'Clerk of Works' on the construction of an iron bridge in 1824. He was employed by the foundry.

Mike.

[thecatsmother]

Thank you all for spending the time to give me some leads. Unfortunately my grandfather's life is a mystery to me. So far I have found him being a builder's lorry driver in 1925 Blyth, possibly a builder's merchant in Gateshead 1934, and a Clerk of Works in Newcastle-Under-Lyme in 1939. When he died in 1968 Wolverhampton he was a retired Clerk of Works. I would like to know more about his life,and wonder whether the institute or council would be able to tell me anything. Any thoughts, you kind people?

[Rena]

I worked for a large engineering company in the 1950s that manufactured excavators, grabs and dredgers, which also had its own Clerk of Works.  It was his job to make sure the factory buildings were maintained and up to current H&S standards.  He became really busy at the end of the 1950s when a new purpose built factory with its own playing fields was erected, as it was his job to liaise with the builder's representative to make sure they were working to plan.

The next time I had contact with a Clerk of Works was 1969 when my OH got a job in another county and we moved into a new build on a partly built housing estate.  The CofW could be seen somewhere on the estate most days.  Inevitably on a new build there's some snagging and I had to ask him to sort out my warm air central heating (the cheapest & best system I've had) and he quickly organised the chap who had planned the systems for the estate to inspect mine.   Another time was when he arrived at my house to ask a favour - apparently another batch of newly finished houses were due to be visited by the Building Inspector for signing off but he'd just discovered one of the houses had all its taps but one set of taps was minus the red and blue hot and cold inserts - so could he "borrow" a blue and a red insert for a couple of hours?