William Hanton Salmon
William Hanton Salmon (1854-1935)
1935 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM HANTON SALMON devoted the whole of his professional career to paper mill engineering and was engineer in chief of the Imperial Paper Mills, Ltd., Gravesend, from 1909 until his retirement in 1926.
He was born at Wrotham, Kent, in 1854, and received his technical education privately. From 1870 to 1876 he served an apprenticeship as engineer and millwright at the Woking Paper Mills. He then became engineer to the Rishton Paper and Staining Company, Ltd., the mill being near Blackburn.
In 1877 he accepted a similar position at the Chartham Paper Mills, near Canterbury.
Four years later he left for Holland as engineer and general manager of the Dutch Pulp and Paper Company, Ltd., at Raamsdonk.
He returned to England in 1883, and became engineer and manager of the Willesden Waterproof Company, Ltd.
From 1886 to 1890 he took full charge, as chief engineer, of Messrs. C. Marsden and Sons' paper mills in Sheffield, Tamworth, Barnsley, and Wakefield, after which he joined the Northfleet Paper Mills, Ltd., in a similar capacity, and held this appointment for thirteen years.
He then went into business on his own account as consulting engineer, and visited India in connexion with an arbitration case.
For three years prior to his appointment with the Imperial Paper Mills, he acted as resident engineer and London manager to Messrs. Bertrams, Ltd., of Edinburgh, and carried out contracts for them in Holland and Scandinavia. His subsequent appointment at Gravesend involved the design and layout of the whole of the buildings and machinery, and the installation of fire-fighting appliances. In addition he was employed by the Government to prepare the Bramshott paper mills for the production of bank notes, postal orders, etc. He was the inventor of the Salmon antifriction metal, for the production of which he established a company, but relinquished his interest in it in 1910.
Mr. Salmon lived at Bexhill after his retirement, and died there on 23rd July 1935.
He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1922.