John Francis Cleverton Snell
Sir John Francis Cleverton Snell (1869–1938), electrical engineer and administrator
1869 born at Saltash, Cornwall, on 15 December, the son of Commander John Skinner Snell RN and his wife, Mary Henriette, only daughter of Frederick William Pouget Cleverton.
Educated at Plymouth grammar school and at King's College, London
1885 Started as pupil with Woodhouse and Rawson
1889 worked with Colonel R. E. B. Crompton on electricity supply work at Kensington and Notting Hill in London, and also at Stockholm;
1892 Worked with Major-General C. E. Webber, for whom he carried out many country-house and other installations.
1892 married Annie Glendenning Quick of Biscovey, Cornwall; they had one son.
1893 Appointed as assistant electrical engineer to the St. Pancras Vestry
1896 Appointed Borough electrical engineer at Sunderland
1899 Also became Sunderland's borough tramways engineer.
1906 began consulting engineer practice in Westminster
1910 joined Preece and Cardew as a partner, during which he served as an expert witness, concerning the nationalisation of the National Telephone Co, where he was chief technical witness for the Post Office.
1914 Knighted
1918/20 Left Preece and Cardew
1919 he became electrical adviser to the Board of Trade and was appointed chairman of the Electricity Commission, shaping the electrical policy of Britain, and bringing about the co-ordinated system of generation and transmission of electricity by the "national grid".
1920 The partnership with Preece and others was dissolved[1].
1922 Kt., M.Inst.C.E., M.Mech.E., M.E.E, Chief Electricity Commissioner, Pres., I.E.E., 1914-15; Mem. of Council, Inst. C.E.; Chairman, Sectional Elec. Ctee., B.E.S.A.; P.-Pres., Incorporated Municipal Elec. Assoc.; a Governor of the Board of the N.P.L. Watt Gold Medallist. Addresses: Wey Barton, Byfleet, Surrey; 8, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W.I.
1929 Appointed Fellow of Kings College.
1938 Died at the London Clinic after an operation on 6 July.
1938 Obituary [2]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ London Gazette Issue 31770, 6 February 1920
- ↑ 1938 Institution of Civil Engineers: Obituaries