James Andrew Fowler
James Andrew Fowler (c1881-1944)
1946 Obituary [1]
JAMES ANDREW FOWLER received his technical training, which extended over a period of ten years, from 1891 to 1901, at Robert Gordon's College and at special classes which he attended in Aberdeen. His apprenticeship was served from 1901 to 1907 with Messrs. J. M. Henderson and Company in the same city. After filling short appointments as crane draughtsman to Messrs. Appleby's, Ltd., of Glasgow, and as designer of cranes to Sir William Arrol and Company, Ltd., he was appointed leading draughtsman to Messrs. Wellman, Seaver and Head, Ltd. (now the Wellman Smith Owen Engineering Corporation, Ltd.), in 1909, and began a connection which lasted for nearly twenty years.
A year later he was promoted to be chief draughtsman with responsibility for the design of the entire plant of the steel works, as well as special cranes. In 1916 he was appointed, by the Ministry of Munitions, chief engineer to the Redbourne Hill Coal and Iron Company with the charge of the construction of new steel works. On his return a year later to Messrs. Wellman, Seaver and Head he subsequently became chief engineer and occupied that position both in this country and also in South Africa where for some years he represented the firm's interests until he went into practice as a consulting engineer in Johannesburg. In the course of the 1939-45 war he relinquished his practice and, was engaged on the supervision of shell manufacture for theMinistry of Supply in Messrs. Stewarts and Lloyds works.
Mr. Fowler, whose death in his sixty-third year occurred on 14th July 1944, was elected a Member of the Institution in 1913. He was also a Member of the South African Institution of Engineers.