William Langdon
1862-67 Apprenticed to James Watt and Co, Soho Foundry, Birmingham
1868 Passed into H.M. Bombay Marine
Spent 3 years in Bombay Royal Dockyard as engineer
1872 Appointed locomotive superintendent and stock manager of the Buctrow (?) Railway and Mineral Company
1874 Joined Edwin Punchard and Co, contractors, boring a tunnel for the Rio Tinto Mines (Spain)
1875 Appointed loco superintendent of the Rio Tinto Co
1877 Appointed also as chief mechanical engineer of the company when he was proposed for membership of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
1933 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM LANGDON had been a Member of the Institution for fifty-two years, having been elected in 1881.
He was born in 1846, and from 1862 to 1867 served an apprenticeship with Messrs. James Watt and Company, Soho Works, Birmingham.
He subsequently joined the Bombay Marine (formerly the Hon. East India Company) as assistant engineer, and during the Abyssinian Expedition he served afloat, and in the dockyard.
In 1873 he was appointed mechanical engineer to the Buitron Company, Spain, and a year later he joined the Rio Tinto Railway Company, with whom he remained for twenty-three years. He was first appointed to the contracting staff and was engaged on the construction of the main tunnel at the mines and was in charge of the pneumatic machinery. Later he was appointed chief mechanical engineer of the mines railway and manager of the railway company. In addition he held, from 1884 to 1896, the position of ship and engineer surveyor to Lloyd's Register of Shipping at the port of Huelva, Spain.
From 1897 to his retirement in 1900 he was works manager of the Electrical Copper Company of Widnes.
Mr. Langdon was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
He was eighty-six years old at the time of his death, which occurred on 20th June 1933.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Mechanical Engineer Records