Michael Bruce Urquhart Dewar
Michael Bruce Urquhart Dewar (c1888-1951)
1951 Obituary [1]
MICHAEL BRUCE URQUHART DEWAR
Many engineers will learn with regret of the death of Mr. Michael Bruce Urquhart Dewar, which occurred at his home at Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, on December 21st. Mr. Dewar, who was in his sixty-fourth year, was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge. After serving an apprenticeship with Vickers, Ltd., at Sheffield, he joined T. Firth and Sons, Ltd., a company of which he eventually became a director. During the 1914-18 war he served first with the Royal Engineers and in 1915 he was transferred to the War Office for work in connection with munition production. A year later he moved to the Ministry of Munitions and was appointed Director of National Projectile Factories and Assistant Controller of Shell Manufacture. At the end of the war, after serving on several inter Allied committees, Mr. Dewar returned to industry, and in 1919 he joined the board of the Leeds Forge Company, Ltd., and later became the managing director of the Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company, Ltd. In 1928 he was appointed chairman of British Timken, Ltd., an office which he held at the time of his death. In the years between the wars, Mr. Dewar had a number of interests other than those of a strictly engineering nature. He was a Member of the committee of inquiry into Employment Exchanges in 1920, and also of the Ministry of Labour delegation which studied industrial conditions in Canada and the United States in 1925.
When war started in 1939 it was only natural that full advantage should be taken of Mr. Dewar's previous experience on munitions production to which by then had also been added considerable and varied industrial and administrative experience. In 1940 he was appointed head of a special mission on tanks which went to the United States, and which became responsible with United States Ordnance for the design and production of the Sherman tank. Afterwards he became the Deputy Director General of the British Purchasing Commission and British Supply Mission. In addition to other offices, Mr. Dewar was a Vice-President of the Federation of British Industries.