Charles Hawthorne Lydall
Charles Hawthorne Lydall (1878-1945)
1946 Obituary [1]
CHARLES HAWTHORNE LYDALL who had an extensive experience as an electrical engineer, received his general and technical education at King's College, London. He served his apprenticeship with Messrs. James Simpson and Company, water engineers, from 1897 to 1901, and for a further year in the power house of the City and South London Electric Railway. He then became shift engineer at the Dover Electric Supply Station and subsequently was made clerk of the works.
In 1906 he was appointed district superintendent of the Cleveland and Durham Electric Power Company and had charge of the Bishop Auckland area. Five years later he joined the staff of Messrs. Merz and McLellan, consulting engineers, and began an association which lasted for over thirty years. During this long period he was responsible for a number of electrification schemes in different parts of the world, including those of the Central Argentine and the Buenos Ayres Western railways. As chief representative he was in charge of the construction of the Natal and Capetown section, South African Railways' electrification, and in addition supervised the construction of the Witbank power station. At the time of his death, which occurred at Baltimore on 25th April 1945, in his sixty-seventh year, he was a member of the South African Government Supply Commission in the United States.
Mr. Lydall was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1912 and was transferred to Membership in 1928. He was also an Associate Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.