Tom Barton - The Master Pavior
Tom Barton M.A., C.Eng., F.I.C.E. – Our New Master
Tom joined the Paviors in 1990. He was Chairman of the Admissions Committee for a number of years. He also organised the Swimathon for a number of years.
Tom spent most of his childhood in Eastern Nigeria and the Cameroons. He has memories of no electricity, ferries not bridges and laterite roads which felt like driving over corrugated iron. It was this early insight into what Civil Engineering could achieve that made him decide to go into the Civil Engineering profession.
Tom went to school at Downside in Somerset and then New College, Oxford where he gained an honours degree in Engineering with Economics.
He joined Mowlem to work on the National Westminster Tower on the day of the first concrete pour for the raft of the Tower. He went on to design the slipforming methods for the core and then supervised the construction of the tower superstructure. During this time he became a Chartered Engineer. He subsequently wrote a paper for the Institution of Civil Engineers on the slipforming of the Tower for which he was awarded the Telford Medal.
Some of the other projects that he worked on whilst at Mowlem’s included a number of high security prisons, several hospitals, numerous office projects in the City and the John Lewis Department Store in Kingston where the Client was Past Master John Carpenter – They are still talking!!
Tom also spent sometime travelling. He travelled on a regular basis to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, to Cyprus, and also to Kazan in Russia. In Kazan he was involved in the planning of the construction of a new airport. This was shortly after the fall of communism and was absolutely fascinating as Kazan had been a military city closed to Westerners throughout the Cold War!
In 1997 Tom moved to Sir Robert McAlpine. In his time there he has been involved in some fascinating projects such as putting trams back into Croydon with Croydon Tramlink, a major PFI project for the MOD in Colchester (which has taken up 25% of his working life!) and of course the Millennium Bridge by St. Paul’s. Despite its early problems it is a wonderful bridge and is a fantastic example as to how Construction and Civil Engineers can help development, in this case linking the more deprived Southwark right into the heart of the City.
On the office block front Tom has been responsible for around 12 major buildings within the Square Mile.
Tom has not yet retired so he hopes that his current direct links with Industry will be of significant benefit to the Livery.
Tom has been married to Mary, who is a teacher, for 36 years. They have lived in Woking, Surrey, for most of that time, where they brought up their three children, James, Robert and Elizabeth. They now have three grandchildren – Hannah, Timothy and Isabella.
They own a sailing cruiser which they keep on the Hamble which Mary allows Tom to sail more often than he really should. She has pointed out to him that he is likely to have less time for this during his year as Master.