George had noticed, over the last 5 to 10 years, an increasing tendency for his clients, and architects and quantity surveyors, to ask him to arrange various contracts on their behalf. Some of the contracts were quite small, e.g. a few trial holes for a new house or an extension to a house. Others, however, were sizeable - full-scale site investigations, laboratory tests on samples of materials, the making of expensive models, and even commissioning market research for a feasibility report he was preparing.
J.J. Ward