Cementation Company

The Cementation Company
Industry Construction
Fate Acquired
Successor Trafalgar House
Headquarters Doncaster, UK
Key people
 Abram Rupert Neelands (Chairman)

The Cementation Company was a large British construction business. It was eventually acquired by Trafalgar House.

History

The company was established by Albert Francois, a Belgian who had been striving to improve grouting associated with shaft sinking for coal mining, as the Francois Cementation Company based at Doncaster in 1910.[1] The company began to struggle and was in need of strong direction. One of the board members John A. Agnew of Consolidated Goldfields South Africa asked his son-in-law, Abram Rupert Neelands a Canadian mining engineer to look over the company and report its prospects. Rupert produced a report which was forwarded to the board. The shareholders were impressed and asked Rupert if he could commit to the company. The offer was accepted on the basis he had 'full charge and complete control'. Rupert took over management of the business in 1921. Through the vision of Rupert a small profit started to be released. In 1941 the company was renamed as The Cementation Company.[2] During World War II it undertook the grouting of 15 runways[3] and in the 1950s it undertook grouting for several major dams including the Kariba Dam on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and the Dukan Dam in Iraq.[4] Then in 1967 it acquired Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company.[5] The Cementation Company was acquired by Trafalgar House in 1970.[6] In 1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher faced conflict-of-interest questions in the House of Commons in relation to the involvement of her son Mark in representing Cementation in its bid to build a university in Oman at a time when the Prime Minister was urging Omanis to buy British.[7] Today the company is recognised as Cementation Skanska.

References

  1. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 7
  2. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 29
  3. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 40
  4. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 35
  5. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 45
  6. ↑ O'Driscoll, p. 51
  7. ↑ "Profile: Mark Thatcher". BBC News. 26 August 2004. Retrieved 22 August 2007.

Sources

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