Combining engineering teaching and consulting work in a long career of public service, Charles Gilman Hyde was a teacher in civil, hydraulic, and sanitary engineering subjects at the University of California for thirty-nine years. After his retirement in 1944, with the rank of Professor of Sanitary Engineering, Emeritus, he continued his sanitary and hydraulic engineering practice in Berkeley, California.

Born at Yantic, Town of Norwich, in Eastern Connecticut, May 7, 1874, he was educated at Norwich Academy and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received the bachelor of science degree in sanitary engineering in 1896. Prior to going to California in 1905, he served four years in the engineering department of the Massachusetts State Board of Health; two years in Philadelphia on water purification investigations; and three years in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on water purification experiments and the design and construction of water treatment works.

During his 46 years in California, Professor Hyde was actively concerned with a number of public and private water supply, sewerage, and environmental control problems and projects in the Pacific Coast area. He was a consultant for the United States Public Health Service and a member of the board, State Department of Public Health (1911-1942). During World War I, he was first a member of the board of engineers on sewerage and outfall works for Camp Fremont, California. Then, he served as captain and major in the Sanitary Corps, U.S. Army, first stationed at Camp Meade, Maryland, and later stationed in Washington, D.C. in charge of sanitary engineering for the army (1918-1919). He joined the Sanitary Engineering Reserves, U.S. Army in 1919. He served the City of Sacramento, California (1915-1916), as consultant on problems of water supply. The San Francisco Department of Public Health drew on his experience as a consultant on water supply, sewage disposal, and general sanitation (1932-1944). He was a member of the board of engineers appointed to consider and report on a long-range program of sewerage treatment and disposal for Los Angeles. Martinez, California, profited by his wise counsel in 1939 in connection with the terminal reservoirs of the Contra-Costa Canal and the East Bay Municipal Utilities District. Until 1941 he served as chairman of the consulting engineers for the East Bay Cities and then, until 1947 he was chairman, Board of Engineers, conducting a sewage disposal survey for Santa Clara County, The State of Nevada (1918-1919) profited from his knowledge of pollution control, especially relating to paper mills.

He is the author and co-author of numerous professional reports and papers that have been published in the technical press, or in separate papers or bulletins. For example, (jointly with Wilhelm and Miller) he prepared a report on possible sources of water supply for Sacramento, and subsequently wrote numerous reports and papers in the technical press on this subject. In the period 1906-1909, he prepared nine reports covering many different water control projects. During 1919-1922, he prepared a report for the design of pumping and filtration works. Professor Hyde was also an important member of the U.S. Treasury Department Advisory Committee that produced the world-famous “Standards for Drinking Water.”

Affiliated with many professional organizations, he was a national honorary member of the American Water Works Association and the Federation of Sewage Works Associations; member of the Pacific Association of Consulting Engineers, the New England Water Works Association, Society of American Military Engineers (Fellow), and the American Public Health Association. Attesting to his social talents was his membership in no less than fifteen fraternities and other organizations. Long active in the American Society of Civil Engineers and its San Francisco Section, Professor Hyde was president of the section in 1938. He served as director of the national society in 1940-42, and was made an honorary member in 1951.

In 1949, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of California. The degree carried with it the following citation:

“The Regents of the University of California, in recognition of his meritorious achievements, have conferred the Degree of Doctor of Laws upon Charles Gilman Hyde, Professor Emeritus of Sanitary Engineering. For more than four decades a superb teacher and productive scholar in the Faculty of this University and for two years its Dean of Men. Officer in Charge of Sanitary Engineering for the Surgeon General of the United States in World War I. Consulting Engineer on many and diverse problems of water supply, purification and environmental control. The West is a fairer, sweeter land because of his concentrated work on its waters . . .”

He was elected a Chapter Honor Member of the California University chapter of Chi Epsilon on October 1, 1925, the same year that the chapter was founded. The national Fraternity elevated him to the grade of National Honor Member, March 31, 1950. Charles Gilman Hyde left his earthly home on September 21, 1971, at the advanced age of 97.