The company was formed on 8 February 1930[1] by John Leonard Eve (3 February 1887 - 25 June 1954)[2] from Aveley in Essex.
He grew up at Cranham Hall in Cranham in Essex, now part of London.[3] Richard Newland Eve had lived there from 1896.[4] His mother was Elizabeth Mary Manning, daughter of Abraham Manning, of Moor Hall in Rainham. His parents married on 5 June 1873 at Aveley church.[5]
His father died on 19 October 1917, aged 72.[6] Richard was the son of William Eve, of Manor House in North Ockendon. On 18 November 1937, his first wife Nancy Gill died, with the funeral at Hornchurch parish church.[7] He remarried Doris Matthews in 1940, with a son David born on 16 February 1945.[8][9]
In 1924 he was appointed as the Chief Engineer for the river crossings of the Scottish area of the Central Electricity Board (CEB, which existed from 1926 to 1947). He worked with Robert Chandler-Brown. The CEGB came into existence in 1957. J.L. Eve left a son and a daughter.
The Air Ministry had contacted the company to build two test radar transmitters, one on the south coast, and one on Orkney. After 1939, the company extended it to over fifty radar sites. It built the first part of the supergrid in 1952 from Tilbury to Elstree - with a 275kV voltage instead of 132kV and 136 ft instead of 85 ft, with 45 miles for the British Electricity Authority[10]
It joined the Unlisted Securities Market in September 1986[11] From 1982 to 1988 it was known as Eve Construction. It would later be known as Eve Group plc from April 1988, then Eve Group Ltd and Babcock Networks Ltd from 2004. It was bought by the Peterhouse Group plc in January 2000. In the late 1990s the chief executive was Alan Robertson, with finance director Christopher Wigg.[12]
Babcock Networks, its successor, is situated off the M1 at Sherwood Park at Annesley, next to E.ON UK; its training base is at the former RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire.
Durris transmitting station; 38-year-old Thomas Sutherland of Blairgowrie died in its construction on 24 October 1966, falling 175 ft from 300 ft up the mast; the company had a regional office in Edinburgh[14]
The original Emley Moor steel-tube mast, which collapsed on 19 March 1969.;[15] also built the 50-ton 180 ft top steel lattice, on the top of the current structure in December 1970[16]
Meldrum transmitting station (500 ft) on Core Hill carries national radio in north-east Scotland, in the mid-1950s
Skelton Transmitting Station, the tallest structure in the UK at 365 metres, and was built in the war for clandestine broadcasts, now a few miles west of the M6, north of Penrith
Aust Severn Powerline Crossing (488 ft tall) - the longest powerline crossing in the United Kingdom at 1700 m (5,310 ft) between towers (built around 1955)[20]
