Robert W. Passfield

Robert W. Passfield, Senior Historian Emeritus, Parks Canada Agency, has prepared numerous reports documenting, recording, and evaluating the heritage value of historic engineering sites and structures. He has published in the history of technology, engineering history, industrial archaeology, and heritage conservation fields, in addition to a narrative history of the Canada Expedition of Sir William Phips undertaken in 1690 to conquer New France (Canada).

As an historian, Passfield has been fascinated by how ideas influence actions, and in his published works on engineering structures he has followed the practice of tracing the original conception and plan, through the construciton process in which he explains the reason for any changes in plan, through to a description of the finished structure as-built and its impact. This approach is in keeping with his belief the projects evolve in response to practical problems encountered during the course of construction, insights gained into better ways to do things, innovations introduced, and new materials adopted. In sum, he believes that a recording, description and analysis of simply what was built, does not do justice to the achievement realized in the construction of a major engineering work. He has followed the same approach in his book on the Phips' Canada Expedition of 1690 in tracing that undertaking from its origins and original conception,through the carrying out of the expedition, and its aftermath.