Albert Roxburgh

My father, Albert "Rox" Roxburgh, who has died aged 94, was one of the leading electrical engineers of his generation. Working for GEC, he designed heavy duty switchgear for major projects around the world, including, in 1959, the Kariba dam, which straddles the Zambezi river between Zambia and Zimbabwe. His business trips took him to the US by boat, and later to Africa, New Zealand and Australia in the first passenger jets. During the 1950s and 60s he was granted several patents for high-voltage circuit breakers. He kindly passed on the proceeds to me: $1 per patent, which I received as 7s 6d (35p).

Rox was born in the London borough of Southwark, the eldest of three brothers; his father was one of the navvies who dug Leicester Square underground station, his mother was a Harrods shop assistant. He left school at 14 for an apprenticeship in the drawing office of the engineering company BTH in Willesden, north London. He continued to study, at the Borough Polytechnic and elsewhere, for many years.

During the second world war, being in a reserved occupation, he served in the Home Guard, memorably refusing a high-ranking officer entry to Wembley Town station until he produced an ID card. He also played rugby for London Wasps.

He remained with BTH after it was taken over by AEI in 1960 and later merged into GEC, progressing to the post of chief designer and then works manager at Willesden. He became a fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1963, and eventually a technical director of GEC Switchgear in Manchester. He applied his design skills at home too; among his inventions were complex draught excluders which rose as the door was opened.

Persuaded to take ballroom dancing lessons by my mother, Dorothy, who thought it a useful social skill, Rox passed the gold medal exams of the Institute of Ballroom Dancing. He applied similar dedication to golf and bridge, sticking to his retirement plan to "play golf every day" well into his 80s. He was a modest man, kind and generous, with time as well as money. Widowed in 2004, he is survived by myself, his son-in-law, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.