Edward Sinclair Pretious was born in Calcutta, India. He obtained his B.A.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia (1929) and M.Sc. in Hydraulics from Iowa State University (1939). He joined the Department of Civil Engineering at UBC in 1940, remaining there until his retirement in the early 1970s. Interested in hydraulic engineering and research projects relating to fish conservation in B.C., Pretious headed the Fraser River Model Project (1948-1961) and the Vancouver Harbour and Burrard Inlet Model Project (1953-1956). The Fraser River Model Project was designed to help improve navigation on the Fraser River Estuary. Located on a three-acre site on the western edge of the Point Grey campus, the project was a hydraulic, erodible-bed, tidal river model and one of the largest in the world. The Vancouver Harbour - Burrard Inlet Project had the primary objective of determining the effects on currents, tides, and navigation of proposed dredging in the First Narrows. A pilot model of the First Narrows was built by the National Research Council of Canada, in cooperation with UBC, on the site of the Fraser River Model, near the Arboretum.