George Proud (1870-1934)
1934 Obituary [1]
GEORGE PROUD had been for twenty-two years partner in the Beaver Proud Engineering Company of Valparaiso. The firm acted as consulting engineers and contractors in Chile and Bolivia on mechanical enterprises, and as importers of machinery.
Mr. Proud was born at Gateshead in 1870, and in 1885 he commenced a four years' apprenticeship to Messrs. Clarke, Chapman and Parsons, of Gateshead.
After a year's further experience with Messrs. Scott and Mountain of Newcastle on Tyne, he went to sea, and in 1893 obtained a Board of Trade first class engineer's certificate.
In 1898 he joined the Chilean Navy as second engineer and was later promoted to chief engineer.
He retired from this position in 1903 and took up an appointment with the Beaver Scott Engineering Company, under Mr. John R. Beaver, M.I.Mech.E., becoming a partner in the firm, which was subsequently known as the Beaver Proud Engineering Company, in 1912. Amongst the largest works for which Mr. Proud was personally responsible was the erection of the waterworks for the town supply of Valparaiso from the Aconcagua river at Concon. The scheme cost 1250,000, and was completed in 1915. Some of the portions of the machinery weighed as much as 7 tons, and one of the chief difficulties was their transport by bullock carts, over a hilly country where roads were practically non-existent, during the rainy season.
Other important contracts with which Mr. Proud was concerned were the erection of nitrate plants at Carolina and Castilla, copper-smelting plants at Catemu and Gatico, and the whole of the workshops on the Chilean Longitudinal Railway. In addition he introduced electric signalling on the Chilean State Railways.
He died on 29th March 1934.
He had been a Member of the Institution since 1916.