Ralph Kirkby Bagnall-Wild
Brigadier-General Ralph Kirkby Bagnall-Wild (c1873-1953)
Ralph Kirkby Bagnall-Wild (18 Aug 1873 - 12 Oct 1953)
25 Jul 1893: Officer, Royal Engineers.
1909 Biographical information and image at Automotor Journal 1909/10/02
1917-18 President of the Institution of Automobile Engineers
1919-1920 Chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society
1955 Obituary [1]
Brigadier General Ralph Kirkby Bagnall-Wild, C.M.G., C.B.E., D.L., was a Past-President of the Institution of Automobile Engineers, and a Past-Chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He was elected a Member of the former in 1910, and became a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1947, having previously been a member from 1905 to 1924.
He was also a Member of the Iron and Steel Institute.
He received his education at Hermitage School, Bath, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and his technical training at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, and on submarine mining at Portsmouth.
Later he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and retired from the service in 1913 with the rank of Brigadier-General.
Brigadier-General Bagnall-Wild's activities included railway survey in China; work as inspector of iron structures at the War Office; and as Director of Aeronautical Inspection, Air Ministry, and later as Director of Research. He served in both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force.
His death occurred on 12th October, 1953, at the age of eighty.