James Drake (engineer)

Sir James Drake CBE (27 July 1907 – 1 February 1989) was a chartered civil engineer who is regarded as the pioneer of the national motorway network in the United Kingdom. As the County Surveyor and Bridgemaster of Lancashire County Council from 1945 to 1972 he led teams that designed the first stretch of motorway opened to the public, the Preston By-pass (now the M6 from Junctions 29 to 32) on 5 December 1958. There then followed numerous contracts to extend the motorway in the north west of England, which, thanks to his role, probably still has the greatest density of motorways in the country. He was appointed a CBE in 1962 for his services as County Surveyor and Bridgemaster of Lancashire County Council and in 1973 he was knighted in recognition of his role as head of the North West Road Construction Unit and the Lancashire Sub-Unit, organisations that further extended his initial work.

Drake was born in Burnley, Lancashire, and was educated at Accrington Grammar School and the Victoria University of Manchester where he graduated in 1927 with a BSc in Civil Engineering, with first-class honours. He passed the professional exams of the Institution of Civil Engineers in April 1931, and was accepted as an associate in 1933 and as a full member in 1943. He married Kathleen Shaw on 6 July 1937 and they had two daughters, Diana and Jane.

His working life was spent in the north west of England, and, but for the first three years of his career when he worked for Stockport County Borough Council (1927–1930), he was based entirely in Lancashire. He spent seven years at Bootle County Borough Council (1930–37) and from there moved to Blackpool County Borough Council (1937–45), initially as Deputy Engineer and Surveyor and latterly as Borough Engineer and Surveyor. In the early part of his career he worked on the design of a wide range of municipal engineering schemes. These included a sports stadium and cycle track; an eighteen-hole golf course; municipal offices; housing estates; libraries; schools; sea defences; an 18-mile sewerage system; a 7-mile ring road; and the construction of Britain's first multi-storey car park with integrated bus station.

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