William Alec Quinnell
William Alec Quinnell (1878-1947)
1948 Obituary [1]
"Colonel WILLIAM ALEC QUENNELL, C.B.E., R .A .0 .0 Wh.Sc., was born in 1878 and on leaving school continued his education in mechanical engineering at Finsbury Technical College.
After serving his time in the locomotive shops of the London and South Western Railway at Nine Elms, from 1894 to 1897, he gained experience as a draughtsman for brief periods with Messrs. Boult and Wade, patent agents, and with Messrs. James Simpson and Company, waterworks engineers.
In 1898 he gained a Whitworth Exhibition and a year later a Whitworth Scholarship. He then received a commission in the Army Ordnance Department (later the R.A.O.C.) and saw service in the South African War, with the China Expedition in 1900, and in the 1914-18 war. After holding various appointments at home and abroad, including India, as inspector of ordnance machinery and later as O.M.E., he became chief ordnance mechanical engineer of the Eastern Command. From. 1927 to 1931 he was attached to the War Office as assistant director of ordnance stores, later being awarded the C.B.E. for his valuable work during this period. His final appointment, which he held from 1931 until his retirement in 1935, was that of C.O.M.E., Southern Command. Colonel Quennell, whose death occurred on 30th September 1947, had been a Member of the Institution since 1913."