Jack Armytage Kilby
Jack Armytage Kilby (c1898-1938)
1939 Obituary.[1]
Jack Armytage Kilby, elected an Associate Member in 1922 and transferred to full Membership in 1936, received his education at Castle Hill School, Ealing, and later at Marlborough College. His engineering experience was gained at Swindon Works, Great Western Railway, between 1915 and 1917.
During the war he served as an officer with the Royal Engineers, being seconded to the R.A.S.C. (Motor Transport). Wounded, he was demobilised in 1920 with acting rank of Major, and returned to Swindon to complete his apprenticeship. In 1921 he won the Swindon 4th Year Studentship, and for the next 12 months was a pupil of the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the G. and S.W. Rly.
In 1922. he was appointed Assistant Divisional Locomotive Superintendent in Upper Egypt on the Egyptian State Railways, becoming Technical Adviser to the Superintendent of Stores at Cairo, and, in 1925, he returned to Upper Egypt as Divisional Locomotive Superintendent. From 1929 to 1932 he was in charge of the Alexandria Division, and then of the Cairo Division until 1935, when he was made Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer.
Mr. Kilby was a keen locomotive engineer and took out patents concerning locomotive valve gears with the object of eliminating the disastrous effects of dust and sand on the motion. He died after a short illness in October, 1938, at the early age of 40.