Opening address

ou may be interested in hearing a little about the history of the Institution and its Members as regards the subject of piling. In 1936 the Institution joined the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors and the Building Research Station (now the Building Research Board, a Government establishment) in research already in progress into the driving of pre-cast concrete piles. The joint committee on pile driving was set up by the Institution Research Committee at that time. Then, owing to the difficulty of finding the money and manpower to resume research in the immediate post war years, work was at first confined to collecting records on piling from sites. A second list of research topics was published by the Committee in 1959. In 1966, with the development of the Civil Engineering Research Association (later absorbed into the Construction Industry Research and Information Association) it was necessary to define again the function of the Institution Research Committee. It was, therefore, renamed the Piling Committee.