WHO IS IN THIS STORY?

Dresden is a small town in southwestern Ontario. In 1957 it was one of the first municipalities to receive funding from the new Ontario Water Resources Commission to build new waterworks for the community..

The water treatment plant and pumping station were designed by Canadian British Consulting Engineers (CBCE), in Toronto. Keillor Construction, based in St. Thomas won the contract to build it.

The workers who lost their lives were Wiebrand Hovius (19), his father Enne Hovius (39), Jan Bremer (43), Jan Oldewening (45), Hendrik Drenth (58) and their foreman, Dirk Ryksen (37). Like many Dutch immigrants at that time, the workers came the Netherlands. They had settled with their families around Aylmer.

The client was the Dresden Utilities Commission, managed by C.W. King. For the duration of the project, CBCE provided a junior engineer to supervise construction and ensure that the waterworks were built according to their design specifications.

That engineer was Keith Philpott who had come to Canada from England. He was 25 years old when he arrived in Dresden on July 31, 1957, exactly two weeks before the disaster.

Site engineer Keith Philpott (L) on the night of the cave-in. With him is with Guy Lambkin of the Dresden Utilities Commission. Lambkin was serving as engineer's assistant,.

THE FILMMAKERS PERSPECTIVE

A few years ago I asked my mother what my father had done in Canada before he met her. That was the first time I heard about the Dresden cave-in. She told me that he had been the site engineer on a construction project. She said he’d been concerned about the deep excavation, but the contractor had been dismissive. Soon afterards, the pit collapsed and six men were killed. I was very surprised to hear this story, years after my father had died. I wanted to know more, but when I searched for information, I couldn’t find anything.

Director Eric Philpott, filming in summer 2024

The discovery that changed everything

That might have been the end of the story, as far as I was concerned, but then we found my father’s diary, photos, and other documents from the Dresden waterworks project. Now we had a detailed day-by-day record of the ten-month construction, including the tragic cave-in.

This was important historical material. I felt strongly that it should become part of a museum collection or archive. But as I looked around for a suitable recipient, I was astonished to discover that no one had even heard of the Dresden disaster.

When it happened, it was Ontario’s worst workplace tragedy (in terms of fatalities, it still ranks #2) but today the story is entirely unknown amongst historians, workplace safety specialists, or any other experts.

Keith Philpott's diary entry from August 9, 1957

TAKING ACTION

Last year, I decided to do something about it. With the help of my colleague Joseph Crawford, I started work on this documentary project.

Since then, I’ve interviewed family members and friends of all six victims. I found out that hundreds of newspaper articles were written about the Dresden cave-in, across Canada and the Netherlands.

Other than my father’s materials, original documents have been difficult to find, a consequence of the fact that no one until now has done any research on this event. But we have found materials and we’re still looking for more.

We met and interviewed witnesses who experienced the event first-hand, including the only living survivor of the tragedy, one of the men involved in the massive rescue effort after the cave-in, and the widow of another one.

Piece-by-piece we are re-assembling this story. It’s detective work and with each discovery, the story becomes even more compelling.

Most importantly, by doing this research and making this film we will ensure that this tragedy is never again forgotten.

Senior editor Joseph Crawford in the Aylmer Cemetery where five of the victims are buried.

Why this matters to me

More than anything, I want to make this film for the families of those men. It was an accident that should never have happened, but letting the memory of this tragedy disappear has inflicted a second injustice, leaving the family and friends of these entirely alone in their loss. We can change that.

I also believe that this is our history; that this story belongs to all of us. Can we really know who we are if we don't know how we got here?

And it's personal

Making this film is important for me and my family, too. Dresden was a traumatic, and painfully unresolved experience in my father’s life. For me, telling the story is an attempt to complete something that he could not.

Keith Philpott at work in 1957

MEET OUR TEAM

We work collaboratively: Eric Philpott drawing on years of experience in film and broadcast technology, teaching history, and directing theater. Joseph Crawford has two decades of experience in the industry, including work as an editor, video producer, and actor. Pawel Kacprzak is a cinematographer with international experience, based in Poland.

Eric Philpott

Writer / Director

Joseph Crawford

Senior editor / Consulting producer

Pawel Kacprzak

Cinematographer

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