John Alfred Craven
John Alfred Craven (1859-1942)
1943 Obituary [1]
JOHN ALFRED CRAVEN was a Member of the Institution for forty-three years and for five-and-twenty years was associated with the firm of Messrs. Craven Brothers, Sheffield, railway rolling stock builders, which was founded by his father and two uncles. He was born in 1859 and after four years' experience as a commercial clerk with an engineering firm in Sheffield, he received six years' practical training in the Darnall Works of Messrs. Craven from 1878 to 1884. He was then appointed the firm's London representative and held this position until 1892 when he returned to Sheffield to become a director, with responsibility for all external contacts with the numerous home and foreign railways and consulting engineers, for which Messrs. Craven received orders.
About 1911, however, ill health caused Mr. Craven to sever his connection with the firm and he retired to Exmouth, but he continued to keep in touch with the engineering profession generally and maintained his connection with Pneumatic Appliances, Ltd., of which he was a director, until a short time before his death, which occurred on 30th November 1942.