Robert Ferguson LeggetCCFRSCFRSE (September 29, 1904 – April 17, 1994) was a civil engineer, historian and non-fiction writer. He is internationally known for his contributions to engineering, geology and building research and standardization. He is credited with the establishment of co-operation amongst Canadian geotechnical engineers, geologists and pedologists.
Legget was born in Liverpool, England, to Donald Thompson Legget and his wife Mary, both of whom were of Scottish descent. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby.[1] He studied Civil Engineering and obtained a BEng (Hons) in 1925, and MEng 1927, from the University of Liverpool. He was initially employed as an engineer on the Lochaber Water Power Scheme in Scotland. He then emigrated to Canada in 1929, working for the Power Corporation of Canada.[2]
In 1936, he began teaching at Queen's University and the University of Toronto. He left teaching in 1947 to establish and serve as director of the National Research Council of Canada's new Division of Building Research. He held this position until he retired in 1969. Part of his legacy there was to establish a National Building Code that was respected throughout all of Canada, as opposed to the multitude of inconsistent local codes that were prevalent in 1947.
Between 1959 and 1960, Legget was the chairman of the Engineering Geology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). He served as GSA president in 1966.[3]
In 1971 he received an honorary doctorate (DEng) from the University of Liverpool. In 1977 he received the Sir John Kennedy Medal.
After he retired, Dr. Legget wrote many books on the history of transportation in Canada including Ottawa Waterway: Gateway to A Continent, Rideau Waterway, Canals of Canada, The Seaway, and others, and he was a contributor to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Legget died in Ottawa at the age of 89. His wife, Mary Free, had died in 1984. They had one son.
^Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 p., ISBN0-8137-1155-X.
