Alexander Blackie William Kennedy
Sir Alexander Blackie William Kennedy (1847-1928), mechanical and electrical engineer
1847 March 17th. Born at 20 Stepney Green, Stepney, London, the eldest son of John Kennedy, Congregational minister, and his wife, Helen Stodart, daughter of Alexander Blackie, bank manager, of Aberdeen.
Educated at the City of London School and the School of Mines, which was then in Jermyn Street.
1863 Age 16. He was apprenticed for five and a half years to the firm of J. and W. Dudgeon at Millwall and gained his first experience in marine engine construction.
1868 Made leading draughtsman in Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Co at Jarrow, and here he worked out the designs for the first compound marine engines built on Tyneside.
1870 Became chief draughtsman to the firm of T. M. Tennant and Co of Leith
1874 Kennedy was appointed professor of engineering at University College, London
Married Elizabeth Verralls (d. 1911), eldest daughter of William Smith (1816–1896), an Edinburgh actuary, in the same year; the marriage produced two sons and one daughter.
1889 Kennedy resigned his professorship to practise as a consulting engineer at Westminster in partnership, moving from mechanical engineering into an electrical consulting practice.
1894-5 He was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
1897 Kennedy and Bryan Donkin's tests on different types of boilers, initially published in Engineering, appeared as a book, "Experiments on Steam Boilers" (1897).
1899 Formation of Kennedy and Jenkin with Bernard Maxwell Jenkin
1928 November 1st. Kennedy died at his home, 7a Albany
1928 Obituary [1]
Sir ALEXANDER BLACKIE WILLIAM KENNEDY, LL.D., died on 1st November 1928, at the age of 81, thus closing one of the most active and successful careers in the profession of engineering.
During his early years he held the appointment of Professor of Engineering at University College, London, taking up this post at the age of 27. He achieved distinction in this capacity by establishing the first college engineering laboratory, for which indeed he had to coin the name "engineering laboratory."
His essentially practical ability, however, brought him a great deal of consulting engineering work, so that in 1889 he resigned his professorship and occupied himself wholly with design and constructional work.
His early training was mechanical. On leaving the School of Mines he served an apprenticeship of four-and-a-half years with Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon, shipbuilders and marine engineers of Millwall, from whence he took up the position of leading draughtsman in the engine department of Messrs. Palmers' Shipbuilding and Iron Company at Jarrow-on-Tyne.
He then became chief draughtsman with Messrs. T. M. Tennant and Company of Leith, and in 1871 commenced a consulting engineering practice in Edinburgh and Glasgow, in partnership with Mr. H. O. Bennet.
In 1874 he took up his professorship. Whilst at University College, Professor Kennedy carried out a long series of experiments for the Institution Committee on Riveted Joints which he reported in 1881, 1882, 1885, and 1888. He also carried out a large number of experiments on concrete beams, and designed the steel and concrete structure of the Alhambra Theatre and the steel work for the Hotel Cecil.
Upon relinquishing his professorship he turned his attention to electrical engineering, and in a few years had built up one of the largest consulting engineering practices in this country. At the same time he was engaged in reporting the historic Marine-Engine Trials to the Institution, the Reports of the Institution Committee appearing in 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1892. Two years later Sir Alexander Kennedy was elected President of the Institution, and he devoted his Presidential Address to the generation and transmission of electrical power, which was now becoming his chief interest, and in which his mechanical training was serving him so well.
It was about this time that he became chief engineer for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, a position which he held throughout the remainder of his career. He was also chief engineer from its commencement of the Central Electric Company and was engineer to the St. James's and Pall Mall Electric Supply Company.
Many provincial electric generating stations were designed by him, and he was also associated with other electrical undertakings, such as the London County Council Tramways, the Waterloo and City tube railway, the electrified lines of the Great Western Railway, and the Southern Railway, and the formation of the London Power Company.
He served on innumerable technical committees, especially during the War. He was President of the Machinery Designs Committee of the Admiralty until the designs for the "Dreadnought" were settled, in 1913 was a member of Lord Parker's Committee on Wireless Telegraphy, and quite recently was chairman of the Electric Railway Advisory Committee.
Besides his many technical papers, he published several books of wide interest, notably "Ypres to Verdun," a series of lectures and photographs vividly revealing the devastation caused by the War, and " Petra: its History and Monuments," an account of a journey of exploration which he made in Trans-Jordania at the age of 75, also remarkable for the magnificent photographs which he had taken. Music also claimed his interest, and his discriminating appreciation led him into close association with musical affairs.
He became a Member of the Institution in 1879 and was elected an Honorary Life Member four years later. He became a Member of Council in 1885, and Vice-President in 1890, and was President during the two years 1894-95.
He was also President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1906, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
1929 Obituary [2]
Sir ALEXANDER BLACKIE WILLIAM KENNEDY, LLD., F.R.S , whose death took place on the 1st November, 1928, was a man of great versatility. To the public he was known chiefly as a veteran engineer of remarkably varied experience, the branches of engineering in which he worked having ranged from the marine to the academic, and from the constructional to the electrical.
Born at Stepney on the 17th March, 1847, he was the eldest son of the Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., his mother being a sister of John Stuart Blackie, the well-known Professor of Greek at Edinburgh University. He was educated at the City of London School and the School of Mines, Jermyn street, and at about the age of sixteen he began his association with marine engineering by becoming a pupil with Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon at Millwall, where he took part in the construction of the very earliest twin-screw engines, destined mainly for blockade-running purposes. The magnitude of the changes he witnessed in marine engineering may be judged by the fact that when, after leaving Millwall in 1868, he entered the drawing-office of Palmer's engine-works at Jarrow-on-Tyne, he could say he was one of the dozen or so draughtsmen in this country who had had the drawings of a compound marine engine in their hands ; and in working out the designs of the first engines of that type built on the Tyne he had to discuss and settle on first principles such fundamental questions as the sizes of the cylinders, the positions of the cranks, and the ratios of expansion, which have now long been mere matters of routine practice. From Jarrow he went to Leith as chief draughtsman to Messrs. T. M. Tennant and Company, and then, after a few years of consulting practice with the late Mr. H. O. Bennett at Edinburgh, he ceased his connection with marine engineering.
In 1873, while still at Edinburgh, Mr. Kennedy was asked by Dr. Maw, the editor of Engineering, to go as a member of his staff to the exhibition at Vienna. He wrote there a description of the steam-engines, boilers, and other machinery, published in Engineering, and afterwards in the Blue Books as an official report ; and for the next fifteen years he continued to be a regular contributor to Engineering. Whilst in Edinburgh he was one of the first presidents of the Edinburgh and Leith Engineers' Society, a position since held by Professor Fleeming Jenkin, Mr. Alexander Leslie, and other members of The Institution.
In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Engineering in University College, London, and by adopting Reuleaux's kinematic analysis he founded a school of engineering teaching which has extended generally over this country and the United States. During his tenure of the chair he established in the college an engineering laboratory, an institution of a kind then new to this country, though now forming an adjunct of every educational centre that professes to provide a sound training in engineering.
It is interesting to recall what Professor Kennedy said at one of the many dinners of the U.C.L. Engineering Society - that he came to London to accept the Professorship of Engineering at University College at a salary less than £200 a year. The personal work of a professor and his relations with his pupils may, in the course of years, extend over a wide field and bear abundant fruit, but none the less they are directly experienced by a comparatively small number of men. In establishing an engineering laboratory at University College, however, Professor Kennedy did a piece of work which in its ramifications influenced directly many thousands of engineering students. It is somewhat difficult to realize nowadays that when Professor Kennedy went to University College in 1874 not only was there no engineering laboratory there, but there was no such establishment for educational purposes anywhere else. It is perhaps still more difficult to realize that Professor Kennedy had not only to conceive the idea of an engineering laboratory, but, so novel was the suggestion, also to invent a name for it. From his academic period dates the publication of a translation of Reuleaux’s “Kinematics” (1876) and of “The Mechanics of Machinery” (1886). He also compiled with the late Mr. Bryan Donkin, M. Inst. C.E., a work, “Experiments on Steam Boilers,” and his science lectures at South Kensington on the “Kinetics of Machinery” were subsequently published. As a constructional engineer he was responsible for a steel arch pier at Trouville, and he designed the steel and concrete internal structure of the Alhambra Theatre and of the Hotel Cecil, in which were introduced certain novel features, including the use on a large scale of flat concrete slabs carrying weights. Among the most important items in his experimental work were the Society of Arts “Trials of Motors for Electric Lighting ” of 1888, which he conducted with the late Dr. John Hopkinson and the late Mr. Beauchamp Tower, M. Inst. C.E. Professor Kennedy drew up the report, which was published by the Society of Arts, and later he wrote for the Society a Paper on the trials, for which he was awarded a gold medal. These “motors” were small gas and steam engines. It is a reasonable inference that his work on these trials aroused Professor Kennedy’s interest in the question of electric lighting; certain it is that, within a few years, the whole of his activities were devoted to that subject. He conducted and reported on a number of experiments on the strength of riveted joints for a Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, an account of which was published in the Proceedings of the Institution from 1881 to 1888. He was also Chairman of the Marine Engine Research Committee of the same Institution, and strongly advocated the necessity of carrying out complete engine and boiler trials at sea, separating the boiler results from those of the engines. He eventually succeeded in obtaining permission to carry out such trials on six steamers, and devised the necessary apparatus for carrying them out. This was done later on with the active help of Mr. Bryan Donkin, of Mr. Fred Edwards, and of a large staff, composed in the main of his old students at University College. The results were published in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for 1889-92. Though this method of making trials was somewhat scornfully received by marine people at the time, it is now universally recognized as the proper method, and was adopted in the Royal Navy, and later by the Boiler Committee of the Admiralty. The resignation of his professorship in 1889 introduced an entirely new phase into Professor Kennedy’s activities. Up till that time he had been a mechanical engineer, and the consulting practice he had built up was concerned entirely with mechanical, or possibly constructional, engineering work.
From 1889 or 1890, however, he turned over to electrical work, and in a few years built up one of the largest consulting electrical practices in this country. This practice claimed the main part of his activities until his death. It is not likely that any similar sudden conversion of a mechanical into an electrical consulting practice would be seen nowadays, but at the time Professor Kennedy interested himself in electrical work matters were in an early stage of development, and no great amount of experience in power-station lay-out and operation was available in any quarter. Further, then as now, the amount of mechanical engineering in a power-station at least equalled the amount of electrical engineering, while it is probable that in those early days mechanical experience applied to purely electrical matters was very advantageous. It cannot be said that from this period Professor Kennedy deliberately turned to electrical work as his future career. There may have been something fortuitous in the matter, but it is likely that his sound judgment would enable him to foresee something of the remarkable future before this branch of engineering. A small piece of evidence is afforded by the fact that he became a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1890, although he never took the prominent part in that Institution which he did in the Civils and Mechanicals. The first important electrical work with which he was connected was for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, for which he planned the whole system and works, and remained the Chief Engineer throughout the remainder of his career. He gave an interesting and amusing account of the early experiences of this company at the Commemoration Meetings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1922. In his own words the "undertaking started at a small shanty in Dacre Street and another in Chapel Street, with some “GG” engines in the Stoneyard of the Houses of Parliament, which were used specially to supply the Houses of Parliament". He also planned the system, and was chief engineer from the start in 1899, of the Central Electric Supply Company.
Among the London companies, he was also engineer to the St. James’ and Pall Mall Electric Light Company. The first electric generating-stations built in many provincial towns were also due to him, while the total number of provincial stations for which he was responsible amounted to a remarkable figure, and no purpose would be served by attempting to give a complete list of them. They included stations at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast, Croydon, West Hartlepool, York, Rotherham and many others. In 1899 he was consulted by the London County Council as to the electrical working of their system of tramways and reported finally in favour of an underground (conduit) system for all the central parts of the City, with overhead connections through outlying suburbs. His report was adopted after much discussion, and he was instructed to prepare a scheme in accordance with it. This was eventually submitted to and approved by the Board of Trade, and after being embodied in the usual specifications, was used in the construction of the South London (Tooting) Tramways under his direction, and carried out according to his designs. These tramways were opened on the 15th May, 1903, by the Prince and Princess of Wales. On the death of the late Mr. J. H. Greathead, M. Inst. C.E., he became joint engineer with the late Mr. W. R. Galbraith, Vice-President Inst. C.E., for the Waterloo and City Railway, the second tube railway opened in London.
He schemed the whole of the electric part of this work, which was carried out to his specifications. The railway was designed, and had been continuously worked, with motors in the front and rear ends of the train, instead of locomotives, the system which was recommended some years later by the Vibration Committee in connection with the Central London Railway, and has now been adopted practically in every place where which the conditions make it possible. As consulting electrical engineer to the Great Western Railway, he prepared the plans for the work of electrification west of Paddington on the Great Western and Hammersmith and City Railways. He and his partners were consulting electrical engineers to the London and North Western and London and South Western Railways in connection with their schemes of suburban electrification round London, and at a later date carried out similar work for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. He was for many years, up to the date of his retirement, consulting engineer to the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, and the St. James’ and Pall Mall Electric Light Company. He was closely associated with the formation of the London Power Company, which has amalgamated the generating resources of ten of the electric-supply companies in London with a yearly sale of about 500 million units, and he took a very keen personal interest in the internal economies of the various stations.
In 1900 he was appointed by Lord Goschen a member of the Belleville Boiler Committee, and, in conjunction with the other members of the Committee, carried out the trials on the “Hyacinth" and “Minerva,” which were published in the Committee’s first report, and which finally settled the question of the Belleville boiler. The Committee carried out similar trials on the “Sheldrake,” “Seagull,” “Espiegle ” and “Fantome,” and on the “Medea,” “Medusa” and the “Hermes.” The final report was made in 1904, and immediately after its presentation Dr. Kennedy was appointed President of a “Machinery Design Committee” at the Admiralty, constituted at the instance of Lord Selborne. He continued to hold this post until the “Dreadnought” designs were settled, when the Committee was dissolved. He was a Civil Member of the Ordnance Board from June, 1909; served on Lord Parker’s Committee on wireless telegraphy in 1913; and was Chairman of the Ministry of Transport’s Committee on Electric Railways in 1920.
In 1894 he was President of Section G (Engineering) of the British Association at its Oxford meeting, and in his address on that occasion returned to his educational interests, dealing with “The Critical Side of Mechanical Training,” speaking of the necessity for all young engineers to develop a critical faculty and the power of choosing one from several ways of solving an engineering problem. He was elected to The Institution as a full Member in May, 1879, and became a Member of the Council in 1893. He became Vice-President in 1903, and in 1906 he became President of The Institution. His Presidential Address in November, 1906, was devoted to abstract considerations of engineering in modern life, science, art, nature, and the law in relation to engineers and engineering work, along with many other things of this kind. This address was often spoken of at the time as a real literary production, being a complete essay on the whole outlook of engineers and engineering and written in a style usually lacking in the written work of engineers. He said himself in this address that “literature, I am afraid, disowns us,” and ended the address, which gives some idea of his philosophical outlook on life, with the following paragraph :- “The greatest temptation of all is to try and work out the effect of the mechanical bent of modern civilization on the ideas which man generally conceives of the universe around him, that is, on the whole system of philosophy which consciously or unconsciously determines his motives or actions, in this twentieth century.”
He delivered the James Forrest lecture before The Institution in 1896, the subject being “Physical Experiments in Relation to Engineering Laboratories,” in which he described the work he had done at University College, and was about to do in private practice in Westminster. At the time this Paper was of immense importance to the profession generally on account of the pioneer work which he had done on the strength of materials and on the testing of heat engines and boilers. He served on various committees of the Institution of Civil Engineers, for instance, on both committees for the Education and Training of Engineers; on the Steam Engine and Boiler Trials Committee ; on the Internal Combustion Engines Committee; and was Chairman of the Committee on Thermal Efficiency of Steam Engines in 1896-98. He was made an honorary Member of the Heat Engine Trials Committee in 1922 to 1927, and sat as a member of the Examinations Committee from its formation in 1896 to 1917. He was Chairman of Section 3 (Machinery) of the Engineering Conference in 1903; and at the Charter Centenary Celebration in 1928 he took the chair at a few meetings and made a speech of thanks to the delegates on behalf of The Institution.
In April, 1928, not very long before his death, he was elected an Honorary Member of The Institution, after his retirement from the active work of his firm. This was an honour of which he was very proud.
In 1899 Sir Alexander took into partnership Mr. Bernard Maxwell Jenkin, M. Inst. C.E., son of the late Professor Fleming Jenkin ; and in 1908 his son, Mr. J. M. Kennedy, and Mr. S. B. Donkin, son of the late Mr. Bryan Donkin, M. Inst. C.E., joined the firm.
Sir Alexander Kennedy, who received his knighthood in 1905, held honorary degrees from the Universities of Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool. He was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1894-95. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1887, and was created a Pasha by King Hussein in 1924. During the war he was on the panel of the Munitions Inventions Department, and he acted as Chairman of the Committee on Gun-Sights and Range-Finders, and as Vice-chairman of the Committee on Ordnance and Ammunition and of the Anti-Aircraft Equipment, Committee. He was intensely desirous of bringing home to those of his countrymen who had not seen them the extent of the ravages and destruction wrought by the Germans on the Western Front. To this end he gave several lectures illustrated by admirable photographs taken by himself, and these appear in his book, “Ypres to Verdun,” published in 1921. It was a remarkable proof of Sir Alexander Kennedy’s energy and intellectual curiosity that at the age of seventy-five he undertook the exploration of Petra. This involved extreme fatigue, and, indeed, nearly cost him his life, but it bore fruit in what is probably the most complete monograph on the subject, “Petra: Its History and Monuments,” published at the end of 1925, and magnificently illustrated by photographs taken by himself. He was a keen mountaineer and an old member of the Alpine Club. He edited Moore’s “Alps in 1864.”
He was also a musical amateur of taste and enthusiasm, and used to give delightful private concerts in his beautiful rooms in the Albany. He was indeed a man of varied interests and capacities, and was held in great affection by his many friends at the Athenaeum, to which he was elected under Rule 11 in 1906, and at the Alpine Club and Garrick Club. In his introductory lecture delivered at University College in 1875, and speaking to the students and telling the qualifications demanded for the best sort of success, Professor Kennedy said: “Perseverance and determination, capacity for dealing with men as well as metals, energy and decision, perhaps above all unlimited capacity for work, are required.”
This short record of his life will show that he did not give advice that he did not follow for himself. Above everything, apart always from energy, which is the motive power, it is possible that Sir Alexander Kennedy’s success lay in his capacity to comprehend and use all experience which came his way. In his introductory lecture he quoted Goethe’s phrase, “Was man nicht versteht, besitzt man nicht.” In this sense Sir Alexander certainly “possessed” his great experience. He “understood” it and could always use its fruits and its lessons on new problems.
He married, in 1874, Elizabeth Verralls, eldest daughter of Dr. William Smith, of Edinburgh, and had two sons and one daughter.
1929 Obituary [3]
SIR ALEXANDER BLACKIE WILLIAM KENNEDY, F.R.S., died on the 1st November, 1928.
Born at Stepney on the 17th March, 1847, he was educated at the City of London School and at the School of Mines in Jermyn-street, and at about the age of 16 began his association with marine engineering by becoming a pupil with Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon at Millwall, where he had a part in the construction of the very earliest twin- screw engines.
He left Millwall in 1868 to enter the drawing office of Palmer's engine works at J arrow, and took a prominent part in the design of the first com- pound marine engines built on the Tyne. From Jarrow he went to Leith as chief draughtsman to Messrs. T. M. Tennant and Co., and then, after a few years of consulting practice with the late Mr. H. O. Bennet at Edinburgh, he severed his connection with marine engineering. In 1873, while at Edinburgh, he was invited by Mr. Maw, then editor of Engineering, to go as a member of his staff to the Exhibition at Vienna, and he there wrote a description of the steam engines, boilers, and other machinery, which was published in that journal and afterwards in the "Blue Books " as an official report.
In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Engineering at University College, London, and, by adopting Reuleaux's kinematic analysis, founded a school of engineering teaching which has extended generally over this country and the United States. During his tenure of the chair he established in the college an engineering laboratory - an institution of a kind then new to this country. From his academic period dates the publication of a translation of Reuleaux's " Kinematics" (1876) and of "The Mechanics of Machinery " (1886). As a constructional engineer he was responsible for a steel arch pier at Trouville, and he designed the steel and concrete internal structure of the Alhambra Theatre and of the Hotel Cecil. Among the most important items in his experimental work were the Society of Arts "Trials of Motors for Electric Lighting " of 1888, which he conducted with the late Dr. John Hopkinson and the late Mr. Beauchamp Tower. Later he wrote for the Society a paper on the trials and was awarded a Gold Medal. These ' motors " were small gas and steam engines, and it is possible that his work on these trials aroused his interest in the question of electric lighting. Certain it is that within a few years the whole of his activities were devoted to that subject.
The resignation of his professorship in 1889 introduced an entirely new phase into his activities. Until that time he had been a mechanical engineer, and the consulting practice he had built up was concerned entirely with mechanical and civil engineering.
From 1889 or 1890, however, he turned over to electrical work, and in a few years built up one of the largest consulting electrical practices in this country. This practice claimed the main part of his activities until his death. The first important electrical work with which he was connected was for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, for whom he planned their whole system and works and continued to serve as their chief engineer throughout the remainder of his career. An account of the early experiences of this company was given by him at the Commemoration Meetings of the Institution in 1922. He also planned the system, and was chief engineer from the start in 1899, of the Central Electric Supply Co., and he was also engineer to the St. James's and Pall Mall Electric Supply Co. The first electric generating stations in many provincial towns were due to him, while the large number of provincial stations for which he was responsible included those at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast, Croydon, West Hartlepool, York and Rotherham.
In 1899 the London County Council consulted him as to the electrical working of their system of tramways, and he reported finally in favour of a conduit system for the central parts of the city, with connections on the overhead system to outlying suburbs. His report was adopted after much discussion, and he was instructed to prepare a scheme in accordance with it. This was eventually approved by the Board of Trade.
On the death of the late Mr. Greathead he became joint engineer with Mr. W. R. Galbraith for the Waterloo and City Railway and prepared the scheme for the whole of the electrical work, which was carried out to his specifications. As consulting electrical engineer to the Great Western Railway Co. he prepared the plans for the work of electrification west of Paddington on the Great Western and Hammersmith and City Railways. He, with his firm, were also consulting electrical engineers to the London and North Western and London and South Western Railway Companies in connection with their schemes of suburban electrification round London, and at a later date he carried out similar work for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. He was also for many years, up to the date of his retirement, consulting engineer to the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation.
In 1910 he was appointed by Lord Goschen a member of the Belleville Boiler Committee and, in conjunction with the other members, carried out the trials on the " Hyacinth " and " Minerva," which were published in the committee's first report. The final report was made in 1904, and immediately after its presentation he was appointed president of a Machinery Design Committee at the Admiralty, constituted at the instance of Lord Selborne, and he continued to hold this post until the " Dreadnought " designs were settled, when the committee was dissolved. He was a Civil Member of the Ordnance Board from June 1909, served on Lord Parker's Committee on Wireless Telegraphy in 1913, and was Chairman of the Ministry of Transport's Committee on Electric Railways in 1920. He was closely associated with the formation of the London Power Co., and took a very keen personal interest in the internal economics of the various stations. He joined the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1890, and in the early years of his electrical practice, in 1894, became president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, devoting his presidential address entirely to a discussion of electric power generation and transmission. In the same year he was president of Section G of the British Association at its Oxford meeting, and in his address on that occasion returned to his educational interests, dealing with "The Critical Side of Mechanical Training," speaking of the necessity for all young engineers to develop a critical faculty and the power of choosing one from several ways of solving an engineering problem.
In 1906 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In 1899 he took into partnership Mr. B. M. Jenkin; and in 1908 his son, Mr. J. M. Kennedy, and Mr. Sydney B. Donkin joined the firm. He received his knighthood in 1905 and held honorary degrees from the Universities of Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1887, and was created a Pasha by King Hussein in 1924.
During the War he was on the panel of the Munitions Inventions Department, and he acted as chairman of the Committee on Gun-Sights and Range-Finders, and as vice-chairman of the Committee on Ordnance and Ammunition and of the Anti-Aircraft Equipment Committee. It was a remarkable proof of his energy and intellectual curiosity that at the age of 75 he undertook the exploration of Petra. This resulted in the publication in 1925 of what is probably the most complete monograph on the subject, "Petra - Its History and Monuments.' He was a keen mountaineer and an old member of the Alpine Club, and was also very fond of music He was, indeed, a man of versatile interests and capacities, and was held in great affection by his many friends at the Athenaeum and at the Alpine and Garrick Clubs. Above everything, apart always from energy, which is the motive power, it is possible that his success lay in his capacity to comprehend and use all experience which came his way.