William Curtis English (3 November 1911–17 February 1995), contractor, was born in Altavista, Campbell County, and was the son of William Benjamin English and Viola Yeatts English. His father, one of the town's founders, had established English Lumber Company, a construction and building-supply business, in 1909. English graduated from Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (later Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) in 1932 with a degree in architectural engineering and then returned to Altavista, where he assumed management of English Lumber Company and his father retired. On 11 August 1933 English married Louise Adline Towles. They had four daughters.
Curtis (often misspelled Curtiss) English, as he was familiarly known, or W. C. English, as he was known in his professional capacity, took his younger brother into the business in 1934. He ran the construction part of the business, while his brother oversaw the building-supply side. In 1935, in consultation with his brother and father, English reorganized his division as a separate business, English Construction Company. English's brother served as vice president, and English, in turn, served as vice president of his brother's building-supply business.
Unlike his father, who had been content to build local residences, storefronts, and churches, English tackled higher-profile municipal projects. He also broke out of the local scene almost immediately. During the next half-century English expanded the company into one of Virginia's largest state and federal contractors. His timing could not have been better because the country was just entering an era of extensive public works projects as part of the New Deal and World War II. In the mid-1930s English won contracts to build new government offices in Altavista and in Chatham, Pittsylvania County, which the federal Work Projects Administration at least partially funded. During World War II, he partnered with a Norfolk real-estate developer to construct housing for the thousands of sailors, airmen, soldiers, and defense employees who flooded into the area.
After the war English obtained a new State Corporation Commission charter for English Construction Company, Incorporated. He raised capital in response to the postwar building boom then underway as localities constructed new hospitals, schools, and wastewater treatment plants to accommodate the baby boom and unprecedented suburban development. English also saw opportunity in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which stimulated bridge and highway construction nationwide. With a successful bid to construct a stretch of highway in central Virginia, English began a long relationship with the state government that became a principal source of business and transformed English Construction into a major concern. As air conditioning spread throughout the South and further increased the demand for electricity, English turned another emerging trend into a lucrative business opportunity and won contracts to build electric power plants throughout Virginia and in neighboring states. He assisted his brother in founding a South Boston branch of English Lumber Company, Inc., in 1948 and the following year they launched English Gardens Corporation, a real-estate holding company in Altavista.
English remained a modest man who attributed his success to his employees. He had a reputation for finding or creating management talent within his company's ranks, and English Construction became a robust meritocracy. English was conservative about growth but did not micromanage his employees. As a result, the company grew more rapidly than he sometimes thought prudent and in spurts that occasionally struck him as reckless. English's confidence in his managers often paid off with innovations and in managing multiple projects.
During the 1980s English began gradually withdrawing from active management into an advisory role, while his son-in-law, a senior project manager and officer of the corporation, took on the responsibilities of managing the company. He succeeded English as president, while English chaired the board of directors and served as the public face of the business until his death. The company's acquisition of several smaller firms late in the 1980s and early in the 1990s owed much to his public image, as former competitors approached him directly with offers to sell during tough economic times. English Construction Company had grown from a small-town builder of upscale residences early in the 1930s into a major concern with about 700 employees in the 1990s, and it built or renovated scores of churches, hospitals, schools, power plants, wastewater facilities, government offices, bridges, and highway extensions.
A devout Baptist like his father, English devoted much of his time and money to public service. English Construction undertook several large projects at cost, including a World War II memorial at Virginia Tech in 1951, a Baptist retreat near Lynchburg in the mid-1950s, and a new dormitory for Averett College (later University) late in the 1960s. English served on the boards of numerous church-affiliated organizations, including the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee and Foreign Mission Board (later the International Mission Board), the Baptist General Association of Virginia (of which he was president in 1957), and Averett College. In 1960 he was one of twenty-four industry and finance leaders appointed to the board of the Virginia Industrial Development Corporation, which helped provide financial assistance to industries and businesses hoping to expand in or move to Virginia. English had also established the W. C. English Foundation in 1954 to provide grants to religious, charitable, and educational organizations. It endowed a professorship at Virginia Tech's College of Engineering in 1992 and the following year created the W. C. English Scholarship Foundation.
From 1951 to 1992 English served on the Altavista town council, for about fifteen years as vice mayor. William Curtis English died at a Lynchburg hospital on 17 February 1995 and was buried in Green Hill Cemetery, in Altavista.
Sources Consulted:
Birth date in Social Security application, Social Security Administration, Office of Earnings Operations, Baltimore, Md.; Marriage Register, Lynchburg, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; family and business information provided by daughter Beverley English Dalton (2010); State Corporation Commission Charter Book, 215:523–525, Record Group 112, Library of Virginia; English: The First 100 Years, video recording (English Construction, Inc., 2009), copy in Dictionary of Virginia Biography Files, Library of Virginia; presidential address in Baptist General Association of Virginia Journal (1957), 44–48; obituaries in Lynchburg News and Advance, 19 Feb. 1995, Altavista Journal, 22 Feb. 1995 (portrait), and Religious Herald, 2 Mar. 1995.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Myja R. Thibault.
How to cite this page:
Myja R. Thibault,"William Curtis English (1911–1995)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=English_William_Curtis, accessed [today's date]).
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