engineering

John Murphy (contractor)

John Murphy (contractor) is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Murphy (contractor) rather than just read about it. In short: John Murphy (5 October 1913 – 7 May 2009) was an Irish business man who established the construction and infrastructure contractor J. Murphy & Sons.

Key takeaways

John Murphy (contractor) belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Murphy (contractor) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Murphy (contractor) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Murphy (5 October 1913 – 7 May 2009) was an Irish business man who established the construction and infrastructure contractor J. Murphy & Sons. The company, based in Kentish Town, with its green vans and lorries, works on building sites across the UK and Ireland. His late brother Joe also went into construction in London, trading as Murphy Ltd and using grey vehicles, but that company went into administration and closed in 2013.

Biography Murphy was born at Loughmark, near Cahersiveen, County Kerry. He left school at 15 but found work hard to come by. He travelled to London and started up as a subcontractor in the building trade. The Second World War offered him a golden opportunity. New airfields were urgently needed and later on runway repairs were needed also. He was successful in providing this service and at end of the war was well placed to help with large-scale reconstruction. Other ventures included electrification, cable installation, water facilities and road-building. At his death in 2009, his worth was estimated at £190 million. He valued his privacy and was known to spend little on luxuries, instead preferring to spend time with his own workmen and other Irish friends.

J Murphy & Sons In the 1970s a specialist division of the company worked on the development of natural gas. Later projects included the Stansted Airport Rail Link, work in the City of London, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and London's Olympic Park. In 2007 J Murphy and Sons generated nearly £500 million of revenue and made pre-tax profits of £60 million. It was appointed lead contractor in the £125 million Liverpool-Manchester water pipeline project, which is to carry up to 100 million litres of water per day. After Murphy's death in May 2009, leadership of the company passed initially to his daughter Caroline, who had been appointed deputy chairperson of the group in 2007. She later planned to turn the business into a worker's Co-op owned by its 3,500 employees, but other board members — notably her mother, brother and half-brother — resisted, and she resigned in 2014. The company was then led by Steve Hollingshead until the appointment in 2017 of John Murphy's grandson, John B Murphy. In the year to 31 December 2017 the company made a pre-tax profit of £12.43m from a turnover of £711m, and had 3,878 employees. In 2018, it experienced a slow down in growth, and cancelled its Christmas Party as part of a cost-cutting drive affecting jobs across the business.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Murphy (contractor)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Murphy (contractor) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Murphy (contractor) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Murphy (contractor) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Murphy (contractor)

In research: John Murphy (contractor) appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Murphy (contractor) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Murphy (contractor) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1913 births, 2009 deaths, 20th-century Irish businesspeople, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Murphy (contractor) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Murphy (contractor) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Murphy (contractor) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Murphy (contractor) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Murphy (contractor) in simple terms?

John Murphy (5 October 1913 – 7 May 2009) was an Irish business man who established the construction and infrastructure contractor J. Murphy & Sons.

Why does John Murphy (contractor) matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Murphy (contractor)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Murphy (contractor).