Roderick, John William (JW)

John (Jack) William Roderick was born in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada on the 21st September 1913. His parents, Thomas Watkin Lewis Roderick and Mercy Lloyd Roderick had emigrated from Wales just before World War I. Thomas Watkin Roderick served with the Canadian Army in France during World War I, and subsequently died from his wounds in 1917. He is buried at Bailleul.

After his father's death, Roderick and his mother returned to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, where Roderick received his education at Newport High School in what was then Monmouthshire. Mrs Mercy Lloyd Roderick died in Monmouthshire, England, in 1969 at the age of 91, and was at the time in receipt of a Canadian War Widows Pension. Roderick always retained his Canadian citizenship.

Roderick attended Bristol University as a Kitchener Memorial Scholar. It was at this university that Roderick began a productive association with Professor John F. Baker, who introduced Roderick to structural research. Roderick's first degree was awarded in 1935, followed by an MSc in 1937, and PhD in 1941. Many years later Roderick would be awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering by the University of Newcastle in 1969, while he was President of the Institution of Engineers Australia.

Roderick's first employment after graduation was in Bristol in 1935 as an engineering assistant with H. Young & Co., Structural Engineers. He then worked at the Bristol Aeroplane Company as an engineering assistant with the Experimental Department, working on the design and construction of a prototype aircraft. It was during this time in Bristol that Roderick also engaged in part-time research into the behaviour of suspension bridges, for which he received his MSc degree, and subsequently earning him the Miller Prize and James Forrest medal after submitting the paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers.

In 1937 to 1939 Roderick was a research assistant in the Department of Civil Engineering at Bristol University, under the direction of Professor J. F. Baker (later Lord Baker of Windrush) for the Welding Research Council of the Institute of Welding. In 1939 Roderick was appointed Lecturer in Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds.

In December 1941, J. W. Roderick married Iris Caroline Margaret White (later better known as Mrs Carol Roderick).

In 1943, the British Welding Research Association seconded Roderick to Cambridge University, where he re-joined Professor J. F. Baker, now at Cambridge, to continue the research started at Bristol in 1937. By 1945, Roderick had become Assistant Director of Research in the Engineering Department of Cambridge, where he was responsible for the conduct of various investigations into the behaviour of metal structures.

In 1951, J. W. Roderick moved to Sydney to take up the Challis Chair of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney, where one of the top priorities for rejuvenating the Civil Engineering Department was fostering a research department. Roderick was only the third person to head the department since its inception in 1883. Roderick made efforts to immerse himself into the civil engineering society. By 1962 he was Chairman of the Sydney Division of the Institution of Engineers Australia, a member of their council from 1959 to 1977, and their President in 1969. He was also a fellow of both the Institution of Structural Engineers and Institution of Civil Engineers London, and American Society of Civil Engineers.

J. W Roderick remained Head of the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Sydney until his retirement in 1978 and remained revered by his peers. During his time at the University of Sydney, it was considered that one of his most notable achievements was setting up the Postgraduate Civil Engineering Foundation in 1968. The foundation became an integral part of the School of Engineering. He had numerous works published and on 30th May 1981, Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Sir Hermann Black, formally named the laboratory in the Department of Civil Engineering “The J. W. Roderick Laboratory for Materials and Structures”.

(A booklet titled “100 years of structural engineering” describing the official naming of the laboratory at the Graduates Association Open Day, with an address given by Professor N. S. Trahair, is available in the University of Sydney Archives at location S714/Box 37).

J. W Roderick died at his home in Glenhaven, New South Wales, on the 27th November 1990 at the age of 77. His wife Carol Roderick predeceased him 4 years earlier.

*(See J. W. Roderick's biography BIOG 957 in Archives for detailed summary of Roderick's education, employment history, publications and Curriculum Vitae).