Leonard Marshall Wilkinson
Leonard Marshall Wilkinson (1862-1941)
1941 Obituary [1]
LEONARD MARSHALL WILKINSON served his apprenticeship from 1878 to 1883 in the erecting shops of the Gorton locomotive works of the Great Central Railway (then Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway), and in the drawing office and workshops of Messrs. Fawcett, Preston and Company, Liverpool. He was then appointed draughtsman to Mr. F. Harrison Carter, a flour mill engineer, of Mark Lane, London, and later he became chief draughtsman to Messrs. Joseph Barron, Ltd., in Leeds.
After holding further appointments in Leeds as draughtsman to Messrs. Greenwood and Batley, Ltd., tool makers and engineers, and with Messrs. Manning, Wardle and Company, Ltd., locomotive engineers, he became assistant manager and draughtsman to Mr. Middleton Pratt, of Huddersfield, a position which he retained until 1889. He then joined Messrs. Henry Berry and Company, Ltd., hydraulic engineers, of Leeds, as a draughtsman, later becoming chief draughtsman, and remained with that firm for sixteen years.
In 1905 he commenced to practice as a consulting engineer and represented the steel department of the British Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company, Ltd., and, from 1906, the Darlington Forge Company, Ltd., acting as chief mechanical inspector of special plant until his retirement in 1931. During the war of 1914-18 he went to Switzerland to negotiate for the supply of small arms for the Ministry of Munitions.
Mr. Wilkinson, whose death in his seventy-ninth year occurred on 1st March 1941, was elected a Member of the Institution in 1912.