Russell Dumas
Australian engineer (1887-1975)
Sir Russell John Dumas KBE, CMG (17 January 1887 – 10 August 1975) was a public servant and engineer who led several large works projects in Western Australia.
Early life
Dumas was born in Mount Barker, South Australia second of five children of Charles M. R. Dumas (1851–1935), who founded the Mount Barker Courier newspaper. Dumas attended Prince Alfred College and completed a Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Adelaide.
Career
Dumas started work as a draughtsman in the Engineer-in-Chief's Department in 1910, then became a drainage-works designer at Naracoorte. Dumas enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1916, and served on the Western Front in France from 1917 to 1918. He became lieutenant and was wounded twice; his service ended on 16 November 1919.
Dumas returned to his job at Naracoorte, and was promoted to resident engineer in 1923. In 1925, Dumas and his family moved to Western Australia where he joined the Metropolitan Water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Department. There he directed the construction of the Churchman Brook Dam, Drakesbrook/Waroona and Wellington dams; the raising of Harvey weir; and the extension of the irrigation areas in Collie and Harvey.
In 1932, he was chair of the Institution of Engineers' Perth division.
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This entry incorporates text from “Russell Dumas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.