Francis Richard Collins
Lt. Col. Francis Richard Collins (c1874- )
Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers Dectn., Officer Legion of Honour.
Career:
- Almondbury Grammar School.
- Huddersfield Technical School.
- Crewe Works, L.N.W. as apprentice and pupil. Draughtsman, Locomotive Foreman, L.N.W. Attached R.E., South African War.
- District Locomotive Superintendent, Works Manager, C.S.A.R.
- Superintendent Mechanical, S.A.R.
- 1914-15 Commanded S.A. Engineering Corps, S.W. Africa (despatches).
- 1917-18 Commanded S.A. Railway Troops, France, (despatches, D.S.O., Officer Legion of Honour).
- A.D.L.R. V.Army.
- 1919 Inspection, North America.
- 1920-22 Advisory Engineer to H.C. for S. Africa in London.
- 1922-29 Chief Mechanical Engineer, S.A. Railways (retired).
- 1937-38 President, Institution of Locomotive Engineers.
1937 Bio Note.[1]
Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Richard Collins, D.S.O., Officier Legion d’honneur, President for Session I937-3<S, is the son of the late Rev. Richard Collins, M.A., and was born in 1873. He was educated at Almondbury Grammar School and Huddersfield Technical School. On f leaving school, in 1891, he became a premium apprentice at the Crewe Works of the then L.N.W.R. and, on completion of his time, a pupil of the late F. W. Webb. In 1896, after a term in the Drawing Office, he was appointed Locomotive Foreman at Ordsail Lane (Manchester), being transferred later on to Aston Shed at Birmingham and then to Camden.
In 1901-2 he was placed in command of a section of the 2nd Cheshire R.E. (Railway Volunteers) in the South .African War, attached to the loth Company of Royal Engineers, and later to the Imperial Military Railways.
From 1902-4 he was District Locomotive Supt. at Bloemfontein, on the Central South African Railways. He was appointed Works Manager at Pretoria in 1904 and Supt. Meeh, and Motive Power, South African Railways, at Johannesburg in 1908.
In 1914-15 he was Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding the South African Engineer Corps, in the operations in South- West Africa, and was mentioned in despatches.
He came to France in 1916, in command of the South African Railway Troops, and, later, was appointed Assistant Director of Light Railways, Fifth Army. He was again mentioned in despatches and awarded the D.S.O. and made an Officier Legion d’honneur.
Returning to the services of the South African Railways in 1919, he visited Canada and the U.S.A, on inspection work and was appointed, in 1920, Advisory Engineer to the High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa in London. In 1922 he became Chief Mechanical Engineer of the South African Railways, residing in Pretoria. He retired in 1929.
He was a delegate at the International Railway Conferences at Berne In 1910; at Rome in 1922; and in London in 1925.
He was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1917 and a Member of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers in 1920.