Edward Eugene Brown
Edward Eugene Brown ( -1926)
1926 Obituary [1]
EDWARD EUGENE BROWN, born in the early sixties, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Brighton on the 19th March, 1926, after much suffering from heart trouble.
He was educated at Denmark Hill Grammar School and at the Birkbeck Institution, and, later, at Finsbury Technical College and at the Durham College of Science.
He was originally intended for the medical profession, and spent a year in his uncle's surgery at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire; but his own desire was always for engineering, and he eventually turned to that as a career.
After being in several workshops in London and in Cardiff, and after some further experience in Sunderland, he went in 1885 to the works of Messrs J. H. Holmes and Co. in Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he remained for 21 years, beginning as a draughtsman, and afterwards becoming chief designer. He was associated with Mr. J. H. Holmes in the design of the dynamos used to supply current to the electric lamps at the 1887 Newcastle Exhibition, and of some early train-lighting sets made for the late Mr. Langdon of the (then) Midland Railway Co. in 1889.
After he left Newcastle in 1906, he spent some years in Bath with the Griffin Engineering Co., Ltd., makers of internal-combustion engines and gas producers; and he was subsequently with the Braulik Engineering Co. in London.
About the beginning of the 1914-18 war he joined the Sperry Gyroscope Co., Ltd., and worked in their drafting and design department until 1916, when he went to the Steel Wing Co., Ltd., of Hither Green, manufacturers of all-metal aeroplanes of the corrugated strip type. The first metal B.E.2.D. wings were built to his designs in 1917, and the tests of these gave the necessary data for the development of the company's special method of construction, with the early stages of which he was thus associated.
Although he was compelled by ill-health to give up much of his work, he continued to be in touch with the Steel Wing Co. about their patents until his death. He appears to have had other minor engineering interests, but what has been written indicates the main course of his life's work.
Of Welsh origin, he was intensely musical and artistic in his temperament, and had some skill both as a painter and as a violinist. He was, in addition, a man of wide reading, and one who travelled much in Europe. To his associates his generous sympathies made him always kind, and he was most willing to help young people during their training time in every way within his power. As one who knew him perhaps better than most people says of him, "on the human side he was genial, modest, good-humoured and a loyal al friend." So he obtained the worthy regard of his colleagues by his personal character as well as by his knowledge and his ability; and he has the reward of a full and active life.
He joined the Institution as an Associate in 1890, and became a Member in 1891. He was amongst those who went to Switzerland with the Institution in 1901, and he was Chairman of the Newcastle Local Section (now the North-Eastern Centre) of the Institution during the Session 1904-5.