John Porter
John Porter (1860-1900)
1901 Obituary [1]
JOHN PORTER, eldest son of the late John Henderson Porter, was born in London at St. George’s Square, Pimlico, on the 18th of August, 1860, and was educated at a private school.
He commenced his engineering career in the year 1876 by assisting his father, who was then entering upon the development of |Dr. Clark’s process of softening water by mechanical agency, known as the Porter-Clark process. In a few years he became a very active support, displaying ready aptitude and ingenuity in designing and in superintending all the installations erected up to the year 1895. By that time he had acquired considerable experience in general engineering work and construction, and in the autumn of 1895 he was induced to apply his experience in India, in connection with a Bombay firm, Messrs. Fry & Co., interested in cotton- and paper-mill construction. His prospects in the change of circumstances soon gave scope for his experience, but the climate ultimately proved too trying to his constitution, and he succumbed at Delhi, on the 28th of June, 1900, to an attack of fever of a few days’ duration. This untimely end to a promising career is the source of much grief to all who intimately knew him; for he was of a kind and genial disposition, active, hard-working and progressive.
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 24th May, 1887.