Roberts Beaumont
Professor Roberts Beaumont (1862-1922)
1922 Obituary [1]
Professor ROBERTS BEAUMONT, M.Sc., was born near Huddersfield on 25th June 1862.
After a period of training in the textile industries he was appointed Lecturer on Textile Design and Weaving Mechanism under his father at the University of Leeds, on whose death eight years later he succeeded to the Professorship. The Department of Textiles at Leeds is unique in this country, and, under his able control and initiative, continued to have a life of progressive importance to industry. Apart from his tutorial and administrative duties in the University, he was also responsible for much of the organizing and examining work of other technological educational authorities, notably the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Royal Society of Arts, both of which authorities conferred medals on him. in respect of his valuable services.
Professor Beaumont was the author of several standard works on textile subjects, among which should be mentioned "Woollen and Worsted Manufacture," "Colour in Woven Design," and "Union Textile Fabrication," which may be seen in the Institution Library, besides many contributions to the Technical Press. He had at different times brought out several devices which effected simplifications in weaving machinery, and was engaged on a further invention regarding the improvement of the motions of looms at the time of his death, when also he had on hand the preparation of a book on carpets and their manufacture.
His death took place at Leeds on 3rd November 1922, in his sixty-first year.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1899.