The 140-year history of Tilbury Douglas can trace its origins back to men born over 500 kilometres apart. In the late 1800s, two brothers in London formed a fledgling civil engineering firm, while the son of a Scottish farmer helped in the war effort build Britain’s airfields.
It wasn’t until 1991 when the two companies would unite to form the Tilbury Douglas we now know. Let’s look back at the rise of Tilbury Douglas and how they got to where they are today…
In 1884, brothers Edmund and Augustus Hughes formed London and Tilbury Lighterage Company Limited.
The two specialised in transferring cargo between vessels, before diversifying into waste disposal and purchasing a civil engineering firm, between 1930 and 1950.
Meanwhile, Sir Robert Douglas, son of a Scottish farmer, formed RM Douglas.
The company was a West Midlands building and civil engineering contractor that also had a formwork and scaffolding business, now known as RMD Kwikform.
Douglas was born in February 1899 in the village of Durisdeer, near Dumfries in the south-west of Scotland.
Joining the army at age 17, he served with the Highland Light Infantry and the Cameron Highlander during The Great War.
In the post-war years, Douglas’ humble sub-contracting days saw him build small stretches of road for local authorities or developers.
It wasn’t until 1936 when Douglas found true success, given a groundworks contract of a large shadow factory in Longbridge, Birmingham, which produced fighter bomber used in the Second World War.
As with many contractors of his day, the Second World War proved fertile ground for the Midlands industrialist, aiding in the war effort in ways big and small.
For Douglas it was helping to build Britain’s airfields.
By the late 1950s, his civil engineering company was one of the first to take advantage of the motorway programme.
Over the following 30 years, RM Douglas completed a range of motorway projects including sections of the M1, M40, M42 and M6.
The firm was probably best known for the two large developments in Birmingham – the National Exhibition Centre and the International Convention Centre.
In 1956, Douglas was awarded the OBE, before he was knighted in 1976.
He was chairman of the Douglas Group until 1977 and continued as president and remained president until his death in 1996.
According to a biography of Sir Robert, his son John, a former chairman of Tilbury Douglas, said: “My father was a great personality in Birmingham industry and brought the caution of a Scottish farming background to what is an overextended industry. He will be greatly missed.”
In 1991, Tilbury Lighterage Company Limited (then known as Tilbury Contracting Group Limited) merged with RM Douglas, forming Tilbury Douglas.
Newly merged and renamed, Tilbury Douglas then set about constructing phase two of the Murrayfield rugby union stadium redevelopment scheme in Edinburgh, Scotland and the London Eye.
In 2001, the group rebranded as Interserve plc, to reflect the shift in focus towards maintenance and facilities management services, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped build the Birmingham Nightingale hospital at the NEC.
However, in 2022 the company exited Interserve Group, re-establishing itself as a standalone major contractor, fully separated from the Interserve Group.
By the close of 2023, the group proved it could stand on its own two feet, turning in a successful set of financial results with turnover of £492.8 million, up from £392 million in the prior year,
It was also able to climb back into the black, generating a pre-tax profit of £2.8 million from the £96.3 million loss in 2022.
Nick Pollard, chairman at the time, said: “This comes after dealing in preceding years with legacy contract losses and the high one-off costs of restructuring. The past is now firmly in our rear-view mirror, and the business is running smoothly.”
The firm is now headed by CEO Craig Tatton, handed over from Paul Grandy who stepped down in November 2024.
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