Robert Sides MacCormac
Robert Sides MacCormac (c1876-1934)
1934 Obituary [1]
ROBERT SIDES MACCORMAC was for several years in practice as a consulting mechanical engineer, specializing in automobile engineering.
He was born at Banbridge, Co. Down, and served an apprenticeship from 1893 to 1897 at the Banbridge Foundry Company.
He then went to Leicester, and took up balloon manufacture, at the same time studying aerostatical problems.
In 1899 he went to South Africa on active service, where he served with distinction.
He returned to Banbridge in 1901 and established the Iveagh Engineering Works on his own account. Much of the work he carried out was in connexion with weaving and bleaching machinery, but he also took up automobile engineering.
He subsequently invented the MacCormac aeroplane, which was exhibited at the Agricultural Hall, London, in 1906, and shortly afterwards at the Royal Institution.
He then went into business in London as a consulting engineer.
During the War he held the position of equipment officer in the R.A.F., and was also officer commanding the transport at Hounslow. Subsequently he joined the Noble Engineering Company, a firm which undertook examinations of motor vehicles on behalf of the Underground group of companies.
In 1930, on the death of the managing director of his company, he resigned and again went into private practice as an automobile engineer and assessor. He continued to do work for the companies which in 1933 became the London Passenger Transport Board, and acted in a consultative capacity to the Board until his death, which occurred in London on 27th March 1934, at the age of 58.
He had been an Associate Member of the Institution since 1909.