Ernest William Robey (1873-1944)
1946 Obituary [1]
ERNEST WILLIAM ROBEY was born in 1873 and after receiving his general education at the Grocers' School, Hackney, became a pupil in the engineering works of Messrs. Hunter and English in London. At the same time he attended the City of London College. On the conclusion of his pupilage he went to South Africa, where for four years he was employed as a fitter at the North Randfontein gold mines. He was then appointed engineer-in-charge at the Golden Kopje mine in the Transvaal, but two years later entered the office of Messrs. A. Goertz and Company, Johannesburg, as a draughtsman.
On his return to England, in 1902, after holding temporary appointments as draughtsman to the Consolidated Engineering Company, Ltd., at Slough, and chief draughtsman to the Underfeed Stoker Company, in London, he began to practice as a consultant. Subsequently he went to Birmingham and for some years acted as representative for various manufacturers of steam-raising plant and boiler accessories.
He returned to the Underfeed Stoker Company as chief engineer in 1911 and was associated with that firm, of which he later became a director, until 1927. In that year he joined International Combustion, Ltd., by whom he was engaged first as manager of the handling and latterly of the patent departments. Mr. Robey whose death occurred at Worting, Hants, on 21st August 1944, was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1904 and was transferred to Membership in 1914.
He was a joint author of a paper on "Heat Liberation and Transmission in large Steam-Generating Plants" with Mr. W. F. Harlow, which was presented in 1933. For this paper he was awarded a Thomas Hawksley Premium.