Henry Metcalf Hobart
Henry Metcalf Hobart (1868-1946) of BTH Electrical and railway engineer.
Born in Boston, USA
1895 Came to the UK to work for BTH
1911 Returned to America
1946 October 11th. Died in Schenectady, new York
1946 Obituary [1]
"BRITISH and American electrical engineers alike will learn with regret of the death in Schenectady, New York, on Friday, October 11th, of Mr. Henry Metcalf Hobart, a pioneer worker in the design and construction of electrical machinery. He was born in Boston and received his technical education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, taking his B.Sc. degree in 1889. On leaving college he joined the Thomson-Houston Company and the General Electric Company of America, and worked for these companies until 1896. In that year he was appointed technical expert to the British Thomson-Houston Company during its carrying out of the Central London Railway contract. He was also engaged on the construction of the Middlesbrough and the Dublin tramway systems. During the period 1900 to 1903 he was chief designer of continuous-current machinery with the A.E .G., Berlin....Read more
1947 Obituary [2]
"HENRY METCALF HOBART, who was one of the pioneers of the electrical industry, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1868. He was educated at the Massachusett's Institute of Technology, where he graduated B.Sc., in 1889.
His first post was with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company (afterwards the General Electric Company of America) for whom he was engaged on the design and manufacture of electrical machinery at their Lynn and Schenectady factories.
In 1895 he came to England and joining the staff of the British Thomson-Houston Company as technical adviser became responsible for the design and starting up of the electrical equipment of the Central London Railway and the tramways at Dublin and Middlesbrough. Five years later he was appointed chief designer of direct-current machines for the Union Elektricitats Gesellschaft, Berlin. In 1903 Mr. Hobart established a practice as an independent consulting engineer in London, and in 1911 he returned to Schenectady where he continued his activities, in the capacity of consulting engineer with the General Electric Company, until his retirement in 1940. Mr. Hobart had been a Member of the Institution since 1911. He was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In addition he was a Fellow and a former Vice-President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and a Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He presented a paper in 1910 on "Goat of Electrically-propelled Suburban Trains", and was also the author of a number of treatises on the application of electricity to transport and other industries. Mr. Hobart's death occurred at Schenectady, New York, on 11th October 1946, at the age of seventy-seven."
1946 Obituary [3]