Robert Brown Creak
Robert Brown Creak (c1861-1942)
1943 Obituary [1]
ROBERT BROWN CREAK, Wh.Sc.. whose death occurred at Mill Hill on 8th October 1942, in his eighty-first year, was for over twenty-five years chief of the dust-collecting and pneumatic conveying departments of the Sturtevant Engineering Company, Ltd., and had an extensive experience as a specialist in the design of flour milling machinery as well as pneumatic appliances for the disposal of noxious dust in factories. He received his technical education at Owens College, Manchester, which he entered as an Ashbury Scholar in 1878; he graduated B.Sc. with honours in engineering at Victoria University in 1882.
While serving a three years' apprenticeship in the Crewe locomotive works of the London and North Western Railway, he continued his studies, and gaining a Whitworth Scholarship in 1886, he finally obtained the M.Sc. degree of Manchester University. After a brief period in the drawing office of Messrs. Beyer Peacock and Company, Ltd., he joined the staff of Messrs Henry Simon, Ltd., Manchester, and remained with that firm for twenty-seven years. On the completion of a year's experience as draughtsman he was appointed engineer-in-charge of the dust-collecting department, and five years later assumed the supervision of outside work.
In 1910 he became head of the flour-milling department and was entirely responsible for the design of flour-milling plant, the most important being the installations for the Riverside Milling Company, Ltd., and Messrs. John White and Sons, both of Glasgow.
On severing his long connection with Messrs. Henry Simon in 1914 Mr. Creak began his association with Messrs. Sturtevant, which lasted until his retirement in 1940. He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1912 and was the author of a paper on "Modern Flour-Mill Machinery", which was presented and discussed at a General Meeting of the Institution in October 1913.