Our heritage

The widening of Blackfriars Bridge was the start of a long association with the City Corporation of LondonThe Mott MacDonald Group was formed in 1989 when Mott, Hay & Anderson, renowned for its contribution to transportation engineering, merged with Sir M MacDonald & Partners, distinguished by a long tradition of water-related projects. This union was the first step in providing an all-inclusive engineering, management and develop-ment consultancy on a global scale.

Today the Group is a world-class company with over 13,000 staff operational across the globe in an array of markets from buildings and transportation to health and education.

Here we highlight our origins and the key steps we’ve taken to grow our business in line with our strategic plan.

Our founders

Mott, Hay & Anderson

Engineers Basil Mott and David Hay, having worked together since 1888 on the City and South London Railway, entered into partnership under the name Mott & Hay in 1902. Sir David Anderson joined 19 years later.

Their traditions owe much to Mott’s and Hay’s two mentors: JH Greathead is renowned as the foremost soft ground tunneller of the time, while Sir Benjamin Baker is remembered particularly for London’s District Railway and the Forth Railway Bridge.

Sir M MacDonald & Partners

Sir Murdoch MacDonald and party at the Aswan DamIn 1921 Sir Murdoch MacDonald returned to Britain – after retiring as Advisor to Egypt’s Ministry of Public Works, working on the development of the Aswan scheme – and entered into partner-ship with Archibald MacCorquodale. Six years later Sir Murdoch joined PH East (who had also been an engineer in the Egyptian Government Service) and OL Prowde in a partnership marking the start of a new era: the company name changed to Sir M MacDonald & Partners and major new work started including the second heightening of the Aswan Dam.

Strengthening our capabilities

One of the most dramatic project in our UK building portfolio is Magna – the UK’s first science adventure centre and winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize, Britain’s top architectural award

Power and telecommunications – Ewbank Preece

Ewbank Preece joined the group in 1994 to take our power and telecommunications abilities into a new league. Its pedigree began when Preece Cardew & Rider, electric power and tele-communications specialist, was founded in 1893 by Arthur Henry Preece and later joined by his father Sir William Preece, engineer in chief to the General Post Office, Major Phillip Cardew, electrical advisor to the Board of Trade, and in 1915, by electrical engineer John Hall Rider.

Ewbank & Partners Limited was founded in 1946 by CHP Ewbank and like-minded colleagues from Edmundsons at the time of nationalisation of the UK electricity supply industry.

Both companies merged in 1983 to form Ewbank Preece, one of the UK’s leading specialist consultancies in power generation, transmission and distribution, desalination and telecommunica-tions.

Education – Cambridge Education

In 1985 Sir M MacDonald & Partners, in partnership with the University of Cambridge, formed Cambridge Education Consultants (CEC) with the aim to provide the highest quality education consultancy services in support of educational development world-wide.

For many years CEC had enjoyed close links with Cambridge Education Associates (CEA) collaborating on many projects –increasingly in the UK where CEA was the largest contractor for Ofsted inspections and the leading provider of consultancy and interim management for local education authorities and schools. Marking the start of a new era CEA formally joined the Group in 2000 and our education business is now known as Cambridge Education.

Health – HLSP

Moving into health had long been one of our ambitions which we realised in 2003 when we were joined by HLSP, an international organisation providing technical assistance, consulting and project management focused on improving world health.

HLSP, established in 1985, works for governments, international agencies and non-government organisations including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Its main areas of expertise include organisational reform and strengthening, sector financing and services planning, costing and delivery, communicable di-sease control, drugs management programmes, clinical effective-ness and sexual health strategies including responses to HIV and AIDS.

Additionally, HLSP manages the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) resource centre focusing on policy analysis and development, education and knowledge management. In 2005 we established the HLSP Institute to provide policy analysis, training and applied research with an aim of informing debate on global health issues, national health systems and responses to HIV and AIDS.

Cost consultancy – Franklin + Andrews

Our contribution to the UK’s sport-ing heritage includes extensive redevelopment of Twickenham Rugby Ground - the home of English rugbyLeading cost consultant Franklin + Andrews joined the Group in 2002 to enable us to provide world-wide total solutions deli-very encompassing all facets of planning, design and manage-ment within the building, tran-sport, utility and energy sectors.

Founded in 1866 Franklin + Andrews is the longest-standing company to join the Group and bought us specialist consultancy skills in contracting strategy, supply chain management, construction cost data, benchmarking, process mapping and contract advisory services.

North America – Hatch Mott MacDonald

To serve North America’s booming transportation market we and Canada’s Hatch Associates established a joint venture company in 1996 called Hatch Mott MacDonald after a long affiliation which first began when we worked together on Toronto’s subway in the 1950s.

In 2001 Hatch Mott MacDonald acquired Killam Group, one of the leading infrastructure and consulting engineering firms in eastern USA, to broaden our service offering in the water and environ-mental sectors.

Today Hatch Mott MacDonald provides planning and design serv-ices plus project and construction management covering all as-pects of transport and water infrastructure in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

India

Our business in India has grown to become one of the country’s largest management and engineering consultancies since its formation in 1970 under the name Dalal Consultants.

Firstly, the company provided pre-investment advisory services to private investors in the industrial sector and to government owned industrial development corporations. After 20 strong years Dalal diversified its activities into water resources management, tran-sportation and integrated infrastructure development once the private sector opened up.

Dalal joined us in 2001 to expand our industrial, multi-disciplinary infrastructure and social sector capabilities in India's vast market.