Historical note

Robert Bruce commenced consultancy practice on his own account in 1906 and, with his two sons A.K. Bruce (a mechanical engineer) and later, J.H. Bruce (a naval architect), founded the firm of Robert Bruce and Sons in 1908, at 4 Lloyds Avenue, in the City of London. His early career in engineering consultancy and contracting had brought him into contact with such eminent engineers and men of science, such as Sir William Thomson, afterwards Lord Kelvin, and his brother Professor James Thomson, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Frederick Bramwell, Professor William Rankine and James R. Napier,

Robert Bruce continued as a partner in the firm until his death in 1931. His sons A.K. and J.H. carried on the business and were joined by his grandson, Bruce Wolfe in 1951, the last family member to be involved, who retired from practice in 1976. A.K Bruce was President of the Diesel Engineers and User’s Association (now the Institution of Diesel and Gas Turbine Engineers) from 1943 to 1945, and was made an Honorary Member. Over the years, other partners have included Brian Lapthorn, John Marsh, Patrick Marsh and Richard (Dick) Ward, who became sole principal upon the premature death of Patrick Marsh in 1986. Dick Ward continues the practice today under the name of Robert Bruce & Sons.

From its foundation to the present, the practice has had an industrial focus, particularly on power generation, mining and the process industries. Early clients included many leading mining and mineral processing companies, particularly in Australia: Australian Fertilizers, Australian Paper Manufacturers, Broken Hill Associated Smelters, Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation (Comalco), Coal Cliff Collieries, Electrolytic Zinc, Kembla Coal and Coke, New Broken Hill, Western Mining Corporation, Western New South Wales Electric Power Proprietary, the Zinc Corporation. The firm worked on light railways serving tea plantations in Assam, India, and tea processing plant. In Fiji, the Emperor Gold Mining Corporation became a client upon its foundation in 1936 continuing into the 1990s. The firm also served the power engineering needs of remote mining sites and island communities associated with these and many other enterprises, in Australasia, the Pacific basin, Indonesia and the sub-continent of India.

While continuing to carry on an international practice in project support, since the 1970s, the firm has provided engineering expert services to assist the resolution of construction, intellectual property and plant performance disputes, and industrial injury compensation claims, in the U.K and overseas.