Fakirjee Edulji Bharucha
Fakirjee Edulji Bharucha (1871-1950)
1952 Obituary [1]
"FAKIRJEE EDLTLJI BHARUCHA was well known in the Bombay Presidency as a teacher of engineering and also as a prominent engineer. He was educated at Elphinstone High School and V. J. Technical Institute, Bombay. Beginning with the post of assistant engineer to Central Spinning and Weaving Mills Company, Ltd., Nagpur, in 1892, he spent the next seventeen years as works manager and engineer in various industrial concerns. During this period he designed and erected several factories, including the Lahore Spinning and Weaving Mills and the Amritsar Flour and General Mills. He also acted as consulting engineer to a number of firms engaged in the textile industry.
From 1909 to 1919 he was professor of mechanical engineering at Poona Engineering College where he was responsible for the design and erection of the new laboratory with its elaborate and modern equipment. He also acted as University examiner in mechanical engineering besides being an inspector of technical and industrial schools. In 1919 he received the appointment of assistant director of industries, Bombay Presidency, becoming director five years later. He relinquished this position in 1927 and went into practice as a consulting engineer in Bombay. His activities in this direction were of a varied nature and included acting as an advisory industrial engineer to a number of firms and as expert valuer to the High Court and Government of Bombay. Mr. Bharucha was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1903 and transferred to Membership in 1919. He was also a past-president of the Institution of Engineers (India), which awarded him a Gold Medal in 1945 for his paper on "Half a Century in Steam Power Engineering". In addition he had served as president of the Mechanical Engineers' Association, the Bombay Textile and Engineering Association, and the Bombay Engineering Congress. He was the author of a number of works on technical subjects, of which "Mill Engineering in India" reached its fourth edition, and he was the editor of Engineering India.
His death occurred on 31st August 1950 at the age of seventy-nine."