Edgar Purnell Hooley was a British civil engineer, surveyor, inventor, and entrepreneur who patented tarmac in 1902 and founded the Tar Macadam Syndicate. His work as Nottinghamshire County Surveyor helped establish a durable, dust-reducing road surface that later became associated with Tarmac.
Background
Edgar Purnell Hooley was born on June 5, 1860, in Swansea, Wales, to Charles Hooley, a commercial traveller, and Elizabeth Phillips, née Purnell. His early life unfolded during a period when expanding towns, industrial production, and improving transport networks were increasing the demand for trained engineers and public works specialists.
He began his professional training in South Wales and Bristol. After a short period in the office of the surveyor to the Neath highway board, he was articled in 1876 to James Craik, a civil engineer and surveyor in Bristol, and remained there as an assistant in 1879–1880.
Education
No university education is documented for Hooley. His professional preparation followed the nineteenth-century British system of articleship, combining supervised office training with practical experience in surveying, road construction, drainage, and municipal engineering.
After his Bristol training, Hooley returned to South Wales and entered a partnership with Francis Lean. His subsequent appointments with highway boards and a rural sanitary authority placed him within the expanding system of local-government engineering responsible for roads, bridges, drainage, and water supply.
Career
Hooley began his professional career in South Wales and Bristol. He was articled to the civil engineer and surveyor James Craik in Bristol from 1876 and served as an assistant in 1879–1880. He later formed the partnership Lean and Hooley with Francis Lean at Neath; the partnership was dissolved on August 27, 1881.
In 1881, Hooley became surveyor to the Stow-on-the-Wold Highway Board. In 1884 he took a similar position with the rural sanitary authority for Maidstone, Kent, where his responsibilities included roads and bridges as well as the design of water and sewerage schemes. These duties reflected the growing role of local engineering authorities in improving public health and transportation outside major cities.
Hooley was appointed County Surveyor to Nottinghamshire County Council in 1889. Nottinghamshire's county surveyor worked within the nineteenth-century expansion of organized highway administration, and Hooley was also associated with the design of civic and institutional works, including the principal buildings and layout of the Nottinghamshire County Asylum at Saxondale.
In 1901, while serving as county surveyor, Hooley observed that tar accidentally spilled on a roadway near Denby Iron Works in Derbyshire had been covered with furnace slag, producing a comparatively smooth, durable, and dust-free surface. He developed the observation into a method of mixing heated tar with broken slag and other road-making material. His British patent application for improvements in tarring broken slag, macadam, and similar materials was filed in 1902 and granted as GB 7796 in 1903; the process became known as tarmac.
Hooley formed the Tar Macadam (Purnell Hooley's Patent) Syndicate Limited in 1903. The business had difficulty commercializing the invention and was acquired by Sir Alfred Hickman, whose steelworks produced large quantities of furnace slag. Hickman relaunched the enterprise as Tarmac in 1905, while Hooley's patented process became the foundation of a major British road-surfacing and building-materials business.
Hooley also served in the British Territorial forces. He became Second Lieutenant in the 1st Nottinghamshire, or Robin Hood, Battalion, on March 12, 1892, Lieutenant on June 23, 1894, and Captain on December 23, 1896. He resigned that commission in 1902, returned to military service during the First World War as Quartermaster and Honorary Captain of the 8th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, and later transferred back to the Territorial Force Reserve. He retired in 1920 while retaining the rank of Quartermaster and Captain.
Hooley wrote on highway administration, road maintenance, steam rolling, rural sanitation, road management, and the use of tar in road construction. He died at his home in Oxford on January 26, 1942.
Achievements
Hooley developed and patented a method of producing tarmac by combining tar with broken slag, macadam, and related road-making materials. The process created a more durable and dust-resistant road surface and became an important stage in the development of modern bituminous roads.
He founded the Tar Macadam (Purnell Hooley's Patent) Syndicate Limited in 1903, establishing the commercial enterprise whose later relaunch as Tarmac connected his invention with the British building-materials industry.
As Nottinghamshire County Surveyor, Hooley contributed to county engineering and civic works, including the planning and design of the principal buildings and layout of the Nottinghamshire County Asylum at Saxondale.
Works
article
Maintenance of main roads and county management
(A technical paper on the administration and maintenance o...)
1890
Road requirements
(A paper on the requirements of road construction and admi...)
1907
Steam rolling; with discussion
(A technical contribution on steam rolling and road constr...)
(United States Patent No. 803,902, concerning apparatus an...)
1905
Views
Hooley's professional writings emphasized practical engineering, systematic highway maintenance, and the relationship between municipal infrastructure and public welfare. His discussion of rural sanitation treated drainage and water management as public-health concerns, while his road publications focused on durable construction, efficient maintenance, and the reduction of dust and mud.
Connections
Hooley married Matilda Fanny Stallard in 1884. They had two sons and two daughters.
Wife:
Matilda Fanny Stallard
Married Hooley in 1884; they had two sons and two daughters.
Upper Saxondale Appraisal and Management Plan
A local-government conservation document describing Hooley's role in designing the principal buildings and layout of the Nottinghamshire County Asylum at Saxondale.
2025
The First 120 Years of Tarmac Roadstone
A historical account of the discovery, patenting, and early commercialization of Hooley's tarmac process and the formation of the Tar Macadam Syndicate.
