Frank Prout
Frank Prout (c1870-1941)
1941 Obituary [1]
1942 Obituary [2]
FRANK PROUT received his technical education at the Engineering School at Ventimiglia, Italy, and served his apprenticeship, from 1885 to 1891, with the Continental Lead and Iron Company, Spezia. He then joined the Naval Construction and Armaments Company at Barrow-in-Furness, where for five years he was chiefly employed on shop tests on Admiralty work and on sea trials. After being in charge of machinery for Messrs. Swan and Hunter, at Wallsend, he was in 1897 appointed works manager to Messrs. Lancaster and Tonge, Ltd., engineers and iron and brass founders, of Pendleton, Manchester.
He became a director in 1909 and managing director in 1937, and held the latter position up to the time of his death, which occurred on 5th July 1941, in his seventy-first year. Mr. Prout maintained a great interest in the marine engineering side of the business, and was responsible for the development of the "Lancaster" restrained piston rings. He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1912.