Sir William Anderson (1834-1898) of Easton and Amos.
1834 Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, 4th son of John Anderson, a banker.
1849 Came to London; began a three year course in applied sciences at King's College.
1851 he became a pupil at Sir William Fairbairn's Canal Street Works, Manchester.
1854 He became manager of Courtney, Stephens and Co at Blackhall Iron Works in Dublin. The following year he was made a partner. The company made many iron bridges, including the Malahide Viaduct, along with other constructive ironwork for railways and canal, and signalling apparatus and turntables. Anderson developed braced-web in bent crane jibs.
1864 moved to Easton, Amos and Sons at the Grove Works, Southwark. They had decided to erect a large new works at Erith, and Anderson was responsible for the laying out of the works. When completed, they considered a model of what an engineering works should be.
1871 Living at Lesney Park Road, Erith: William Anderson (age 37 born St. Petersburg, Russia), Civil and Mechanical Engineer employing 700 men and Boys. With his wife Emma E. Anderson (age 34 born Knighton, Rad.) and their children; Emma F. Anderson (age 11 born Dublin); Fanny M. Anderson (age 7 born Dublin); Catherine M. Anderson (age 5 born Erith); Frederick A. Anderson (age 4 born Erith); and Elaine Anderson (age 1 born Erith). Six servants.[1]
In 1871 he went to Egypt to work on the building of three large sugar factories, and three years later went to Japan to oversee the erection of the Ogi Paper Mill in Japan. He gave an account of the Mill to the Institution in 1876.
Designed several gun mountings of the Moncrieff-typefor the British Government, which were made at the Erith works.
1876 he designed a pair of twin Moncrieff turret mountings for 40-ton guns for the Russian Admiralty, which were in due course made at Erith and proved highly successful.
Designed a high angle fire mortar mounting for the American Government; many were made to the design generating considerable royalties for the firm.
Invented the revolving iron purifier in conjunction with Sir Frederick Abel; which was adopted and used thereafter.
In 1889, at the request of the Explosive Committee of the War Office, he undertook the design of machinery for the manufacture of the new explosive, Cordite. In August of the same year he was appointed Director General of Ordnance Factories, and the Cordite machinery project was passed to his eldest son. His new position saw him responsible for the ordnance factories, laboratory, carriage department and gun factory at Woolwich Arsenal, the small-arms factories at Enfield and Birmingham, and the gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey. Of the many hundreds of guns produced during his administration, which were at least 50% more powerful than the guns they superseded, not a single failure or accident of any kind occurred.
1892/93 He was president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
He died in 1898.
1898 Obituary [2]
Sin WILLIAM ANDERSON, K.C.B., was born on 5th January 1834 in St. Petersburg, being the fourth son of Mr. John Anderson, who was a member of the firm of Matthew Anderson and Co., bankers and merchants in that city; his mother also was English.
He received his early education up to the ago of fourteen at the Commercial High School, where he attained the position of head boy and silver medallist; with this was associated the freedom of the city of St. Petersburg, which was not withhold from him although he had become a subject of the Queen's. One result of this early education in Russia was that he was an admirable linguist, Russian being equally with English his mother tongue; he was also proficient in both French and German, these languages being much spoken in St. Petersburg.
In 1849 he came to London to commence his technical education in the applied sciences department of King's College, where he passed through the usual three years' course, gaining many prizes, and taking with distinction the degree of associate of the college on leaving.
In 1851 he became a pupil of Sir William Fairbairn in the Canal Street Works, Manchester, and remained there for three years, during which he was engaged in superintending the erection of machinery in Ireland and Wales; of his master he always spoke in glowing terms, ascribing to him much of his own subsequent success in engineering.
In 1854 he became manager, and in 1855 partner, in the firm of Messrs. Courtney, Stephens and Co., Blackball Place Iron Works, Dublin, where he was much engaged with iron bridges, including the Malahide viaduct, and other constructive ironwork for railways and canals, and in the manufacture of signalling apparatus and turntables, and in general engineers' and millwrights' work.
While in Dublin he met with a serious accident in Messrs. Mander's brewery, by getting his right elbow badly smashed in some toothed gearing, to which he had already called attention as dangerous; thanks to a good constitution he was able to forego amputation of the arm, which became quite sound again, though he was unable thereafter to raise his hand higher than his chin.
At this early period he largely applied theoretical methods to the practical] work in hand, utilizing throughout his eight years' sojourn in Ireland the knowledge he had acquired of engineering science, of 1physics, and of chemistry. To the theory of diagonally braced girders he paid particular attention, and contributed several papers on this and other subjects to the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland, of which he was a Member from 1856, and President in 1863.
In the autumn of 1864 he joined the old firm of Messrs. Easton and Amos, Grove Works, Southwark, London, for whom he at once proceeded to lay out the large new works they decided to erect at Erith. Although modern requirements have in some respects outstripped the capacity of the Erith Iron Works, at the date of their erection they were a model of what engineering works should be. In the early period of their existence a great deal of work was done there in paper-making and sugar machinery.
In 1871 he went to Egypt for some time to look after the starting of three large sugar factories built for the Khedive by his firm, which had then become Messrs. Eastons and Anderson.
In 1874 they erected the Ogi Paper Mill in Japan, of which he gave a description to this Institution in 1876 (Proceedings, page 127). Turning his attention to gun mountings, particularly those of the Moncrieff hydro-pneumatic kind, he designed a pair of twin naval mountings for 40-ton guns for Russia, which were made at Erith and proved highly successful. Later on he designed similar mountings for 50-ton guns, of which one pair was made at Erith and two pairs in Russia. The last mounting he designed was a high-angle mortar-carriage for America, in conjunction with Colonel Razkazoff of the Russian navy; this was adopted at once in America, and largely made there.
In 1879, having to carry out water works for the supply of Antwerp from the highly coloured and turbid water of the river Nethe, he worked out in conjunction with Mr. Gustav Bischof and Mr. G. H. Ogston a successful adaptation of Mr. Bischof's method of filtration by the use of spongy metallic iron (Proceedings Inst. C.E., vol. lxxii, 1883, page 24).
In 1888 he carried out the two colossal lifts for the Chignecto ship railway, then in course of construction in New Brunswick for connecting the head of the Bay of Fundy with the Gulf of St. Lawrence; the work was nearly finished and the lifts were partly erected at the site, when the failure of the general contractor put an end to the undertaking.
Early in 1889 at the request of the Explosives Committee of the War Office he undertook to design machinery for the manufacture of the new explosive, cordite; but had not proceeded far with it when in August of that year he was appointed by Mr. Stanhope, the Secretary of State for War, to be Director General of Ordnance Factories; the pressure of his official duties then compelled him to hand over the cordite machinery to his eldest son, by whom it was in due course carried out. The new appointment also necessitated the severance of his connection with the Erith Iron Works, after it had lasted just a quarter of a century; and he now had under his charge not only the ordnance factories, laboratory, carriage department, and gun factory at Woolwich Arsenal, but also the small-arms factories at Enfield and Birmingham, and the gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey.
As striking examples of engineering work accomplished under his direction may be mentioned the adoption of Mr. J. A. Longridge's method of constructing wire-wound guns of all calibres; and it is noteworthy that among the many hundred service guns of this construction which were issued during his administration, all of them from 50 to 100 per cent. more powerful than the guns they superseded, not a single failure or accident of any kind occurred. The laying down and perfecting of the machinery for drawing solid steel shells up to 10 inches calibre, and the appliances for filling them with Lyddite, were features of his management; as also the Tropenas cast-steel plant, whereby castings of great soundness though very thin are produced with a minimum of waste; and a great number of improvements in small-arm cartridges, shell fuses, firing tubes, gun carriages, especially those of the quick-firing order for fortresses, and wagons for military trains, and magazine rifles.
Of the manufacture of brass powder-cases for quick-firing guns he gave a succinct description to this Institution in 1897 (Proceedings, pages 73-6). The economies realised by these numerous improvements were great, owing to the large number of articles that are generally required to be turned out.
His long and extensive commercial experience enabled him to correct many wasteful tendencies, with general advantage to the nation from the saving thereby effected. Of much of the system of administration carried out in the ordnance factories he gave a lucid and interesting account in his presidential address to this Institution (Proceedings 1892, pages 112-23).
In 1895 he was created a Companion of the Bath, and in 1897 received the honour of knighthood in the same order. He became a Member of this Institution in 1856, and was a Member of Council from 1879, a Vice-President from 1889, and President in 1892 and 1893. Besides the contributions already mentioned, he translated for the Institution Proceedings D. Chernoff's Russian papers on the manufacture of steel and the mode of working it (1880, page 286), on the structure of cast-steel ingots (1880, page 152), and on steel guns (1891, page 465). He also translated the researches of General N. Kalakoutsky on the internal stresses in cast-iron and steel.
In 1879, as chairman and reporter of the Research Committee on the hardening, tempering, and annealing of steel, he drew up their first report (Proceedings 1881, pages 681-95).
In 1890 he was appointed chairman of the Alloys Research Committee, which was started on his recommendation with the object of investigating the effects of small admixtures of certain elements upon the mechanical and physical properties of iron, copper, and lead. This research is still in progress under the conduct of Professor Sir William C. Roberts-Austen, K.C.B., from whom several reports have been received and discussed, and published in the Institution Proceedings. He was also a Vice-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he had been a Member from 1869, and a Member of Council from 1888; also a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Society of Engineers, the Society of Arts, the St. Petersburg Engineering Society, and various other scientific associations. For many years he acted as one of the consulting engineers of the Royal Agricultural Society, in succession to his former partners, Mr. Charles Edwards Amos and Mr. James Easton. At their Nottingham meeting in 1888 he tested with Lord Kelvin the first engine worked with heavy petroleum having a high flashing point, which consumed 1.73 lb. of oil per hour per brake horse-power.
To the Society of Arts he delivered in 1884-5 a course of Howard lectures on the conversion of heat into useful work; and to the School of Military Engineering at Chatham special lectures on hydraulic machinery and on the hydro-pneumatic Moncrieff gun-carriage. While acting for some years as examiner to the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, he instituted a novel mode of examination, which he considered more effective than the usual method in bringing out the real merits of the students; they were allowed a reasonable time to write their answers to the examination papers at home, with free access to their books and notes, but without communication with one another or with any one else.
In 1889 he was President of the mechanical section of the British Association at their Newcastle meeting, on which occasion the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the University of Durham. On the establishment of the James Forrest lectures at the Institution of Civil Engineers, be had the distinction of being selected to deliver the first in 1893 upon the important subject of the interdependence of abstract science and engineering, which received from him a masterly treatment. Having lived at Erith from 1864, he became the first chairman of the local board when the town grew large enough to require one, and he held the office for some years; he was also a magistrate for many years. Interesting himself warmly in the education of children, he hailed with joy the Education Act of 1871, and was elected upon the Erith school board which was at once formed; of this he continued an active member for twenty-seven years, the last few as chairman, resigning his seat only early in 1898 on account of ill health.
From the commencement of the year he had been suffering from weakness of the heart, brought on by overwork, and spent some months at Worthing in the hope of improving his health; although dropsy supervened, it was so far surmounted as to enable him to return to his duties in the early autumn, apparently much better. But shortly after he had moved in November into his official residence in Woolwich Arsenal, it set in again with such virulence as to necessitate an operation on 10th December, which though successful in relieving him gave such a shock to his system that he died a few hours after it from failure of the heart on 11th December 1898 in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
1899 Obituary [3]
Sir WILLIAM ANDERSON, K.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L., was the fourth son of Mr. John Anderson, a member of the firm of Matthews, Anderson and Co, bankers and merchants, of St. Petersburg, and was born in that city on the 5th January, 1834.
He received his elementary education in St. Petersburg at the High Commercial School, and even then showed great talent, becoming head of the school, and carrying off not only the silver medal but the freedom of the city. St. Petersburg is a very cosmopolitan place, and he thus enjoyed great facilities for acquiring languages, which, with his natural linguistic talent, he was not slow to make the most of. Thus, on leaving Russia to finish his education in England in the year 1849, he was a proficient in English, Russian, German and French. He had, in fact, two mother tongues, Russian and English, and used either indiscriminately.
Even many years after he used to say that he often thought in Russian. He employed his knowledge of that language with great advantage to the Institution by translating and abstracting for the Proceedings articles of interest that appeared in the Russian technical journals, among which may be particularly noticed Chernoffs researches on steel.
In 1840 he became a student in the Applied Sciences Department at King’s College, London, and passed through the course with distinction, becoming an Associate on leaving. He used to tell with pride how he and his friends managed to make the iron castings for some small engines they had in hand. There was no steam-power to work the cupola blast fan, and it had to be done by manual labour, so that the making of a casting was not an easy thing to carry out. On leaving King’s College he served a pupilage at the works of Sir William Fairbairn in Manchester, where he remained three years.
His business life began in 1855, when he joined the firm of Courtney, Stephens and Co, of the Blackhall Place Ironworks, Dublin. There he did a great deal of general engineering work, including many appliances for railway signalling. He designed several cranes at that time, and Stoney, in his 'Theory of Strains in Girders and Similar Structures,' refers to the fact that Mr. Anderson was the first to adopt the braced web in bent cranes. To this period of his life belongs his marriage.
On the 11th November, 1856, he married Miss Emma Eliza Brown, daughter of the late Rev. I. H. Brown, Incumbent of Knighton, Radnorshire, the ceremony taking place in Knighton Church.
In 1863 he became President of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland, to which Society he contributed several Papers.
During his stay in Dublin he met with a severe accident at Manders’ Brewery, where he was looking after some work. In some way his right arm was caught between two toothed wheels, which he had already pointed out were dangerous, and the elbow was much damaged. Most of the doctors who were called in said that amputation was inevitable, but his family doctor considered that the arm could be saved. Mr. Anderson decided to act on the latter opinion, the result being that, having a splendid constitution, his arm was restored almost to its normal condition, the only effect being that he was not again able to raise the right hand above the level of his chin. In some things, therefore, he became left-handed, such as in drinking out of a cup or tumbler.
In 1864 Mr. Anderson joined the old established firm of Easton and Amos, of the Grove, Southwark, S.E., and at once went to live at Erith, where the firm had decided their new works should be erected. The design and laying out of these devolved mainly on Mr. Anderson, and although the changes in the class and character of the work carried out since that time have suggested improvements, they undoubtedly were then, and even are now, a model of what such works should be. The particular business at that time was pumping machinery of all kinds, centrifugal umps, cranes, boilers, and paper and sugar machinery. Mr. Anderson gave much attention to centrifugal pumps, and materially improved the pattern adopted by Mr. Appold.
In 1870 the firm took a large contract for three sugar mills for the late Khedive Ismail of Egypt, the greater part of the designing of which fell to Mr. Anderson’s share. He spent a considerable time in Egypt during the erection and starting of the mills, and in 1872 presented to the Institution an account of the factory at Aba-el-Wakf, for which he was awarded a Watt medal and a Telford premium.
He next turned his attention to gun mountings of the Moncrieff type, and designed several for the British Government, which were made at the Erith works.
In 1876 he designed a pair of twin Moncrieff turret mountings for 40-ton guns for the Russian Admiralty, which were in due course made at Erith and proved highly successful. Later he designed some similar mountings for 50-ton guns, also for Russia, one pair of which was made at Erith, two other pairs being made in Russia to the same design. Finally he designed the mountings for H.M.S. 'Rupert' shortly before he was appointed to Woolwich.
He also designed a high-angle fire mortar mounting for the American Government, which answered very well, and many were made to the design in the United States, bringing in for some years a considerable royalty to the firm for the patent, which, it should be added, was taken out jointly with Colonel Razkazoff, of the Russian Government, with whom Mr. Anderson had been associated for many years in the employment of disk springs for gun mountings.
About the years 1878-82 he was much occupied with two large contracts the firm had obtained for the waterworks of the towns of Antwerp and Seville. In the former he was confronted with the problem of making the only available water, that of the River Nethe, which was little better than a sewer, fit for drinking purposes. It was solved by the use of spongy iron in the filters, an application of an invention by Mr. Bischof. This was only partially successful, however, and his mind soon had to return to the subject. The result was the invention, in conjunction with Sir Frederick Abel, of the revolving iron purifier, which was at once adopted and has been in use since. He presented to the Institution B description of the Antwerp works and of this iron process, for which he was awarded a Telford medal and premium.
In several other places this process has been adopted with success, and within the last few years has been installed on a large scale at the waterworks of Paris. Strange to say, however, it has made no headway in England.
One of the last works Mr. Anderson was engaged on before receiving the Woolwich appointment was the machinery for the two great lifts of the Chignecto Ship Railway. These were fully designed, and the work was mostly sent out to the site and was partly erected, when the failure of the contractor put an end to the enterprise.
Shortly before his appointment he was asked by the Explosives Committee of the War Office (Sir F. Abel, Professor Dewar and Dr. Dupre) to design the machinery for the manufacture of the new smokeless explosive 'cordite.' He, however, had barely started upon this when, in 1889, he was offered and accepted the post of Director General of the Ordnance Factories, and the duties of that post precluded him from continuing to act in connection with the cordite machinery, which work was handed over to his eldest son, who had assisted him in what he had already done.
This appointment involved complete severance with his old firm, so much so that, even though he was able to continue his residence at Erith, he scarcely entered the Erith works again, though he was always ready to give advice about any of the old work.
Of his work at Woolwich Arsenal it is not possible to write in detail. The position was one which demanded the exercise of great tact and experience, and no one could have been found more gifted in those qualities than Mr. Anderson. He made many improvements in the details of management of the Arsenal, thereby removing numerous sources of waste of money, which his experienced eye quickly detected, and there is no doubt that at the time of his death the factories were working far more economically than when he took up the post. It may be pointed out that besides the Arsenal at Woolwich, his office gave him the control of the Enfield and Sparkbrook Small Arms Factories, and the Gunpowder and Cordite Factory at Waltham Abbey.
Mr. Anderson was elected a Member of the Institution on the 12th January, 1869. In 1886 he was elected a Member of Council, and in 1896 a Vice-President. He was also a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, of which he was President in 1892 and 1893. In 1891 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1889 he was President of Section G of the British Association Meeting at Newcastle, and on that occasion the degree of D.C.L., 'honoris causa', was conferred upon him by the University of Durham. He was a Vice-President of the Society of Arts, and a Member of the Royal Institution, of the Iron and Steel Institute, and of other societies. He was also a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps. In 1895 her Majesty was pleased to confer the honour of C.B. upon him, and in 1897 that of K.C.B.
Sir William Anderson contributed many Papers to scientific societies. In addition to those already referred to he presented the following to this Institution: - 'A Visit to Some Peat Works; in the Neighbourhood of St. Petersburgh,' 'The Emission of Heat by Hot-Water Pipes,' 'Notes of a Journey through the N.E. Portion of the Delta of the Nile in April, 1884.'
In 1883 he delivered the second of the series of lectures on Heat in its Mechanical Applications, his subject being 'The Generation of Steam, and the Thermo-Dynamic Problems Involved;' and in 1893 he gave the first 'James Forrest' lecture, his theme being 'The Interdependence of Abstract Science and Engineering.' among the information contributed by him to other societies may be mentioned his address as President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1892, 'The Development of Graphic Methods in Mechanical Science,' 'The Action of Waves an8 Currents in Estuaries,' 'Revolving Purifier for the Treatment of Water by Metallic Iron,' and 'The Mechanical Properties of Cork.' His Howard lectures on the 'Conversion of Heat into Useful Work,' delivered before the Society of Arts in 1884-85, have since been republished, and now form a recognised text-book on that subject.
In 1878 he delivered a series of seven lectures on hydraulic machinery at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham.
For several years he was examiner in engineering at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper’s Hill, and instituted the system of setting papers for the students to do at home or in their rooms, allowing free access to all books and notes, only placing them upon their honour not to ask anyone to help them. He maintained that this was a far better way of determining the real worth of a man than the usual method. For many years he took great interest in the trials conducted by the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he was a consulting engineer. On giving up that post he was made a member of the Implement Committee, and acted as a judge of the trials on more than one occasion.
No biographical sketch can be considered complete without, some reference to his life outside his professional duties, He was a true Christian, filled with the importance of the duty of doing good to his fellow-men in every possible way, and the town of Erith, in which he lived for thirty-four years, has every reason to be grateful to him. He was the first chairman of the Local Board on its formation, and held the office for some years. For many years he was a magistrate, and attended petty sessions regularly until his Woolwich appointment rendered it impossible for him to continue to act. But his chief work was the education of children.
After the passing of the Education Act of 1870 the School Board of Erith was at once formed, and he was one of the original members, retaining his seat until obliged to resign early in 1898 on account of ill-health. His interest in children did not, however, stop there. Not content with looking after them on week-days, he acted for twenty-five years as superintendent of the Sunday-schools of Christ Church, Erith, and spent a great part of his Sunday in teaching or working in connection with those schools, learning to know nearly every child in the place. It is touching to note how this Sunday work was uppermost in his mind, for it is recorded that within an hour or two of his death he was heard to be muttering something half unconsciously. One of his sons listened attentively, and made out that it was an address to the Sunday-school children such as he had been in the habit of giving nearly every Sunday for twenty-five years. He took an active part in building Christ Church, Erith, and the schools attached to it. He was, however, no bigoted churchman, but would always assist other denominations in every possible way. He was a licensed Lay Reader, and in past years frequently conducted the services at a mission chapel in connection with Christ Church.
His chief recreation was his workshop. He was an admirable workman both in wood and metal, a gift inherited from his father, and his work was always thoroughly good everywhere alike. Inside parts which would never be seen again were finished with the same care and accuracy as the most prominent portion. For about a year before his death Sir William Anderson suffered from heart trouble, and had to forego all physical exertion. He therefore left his house at Erith and took up his residence at the Arsenal.
He spent some time in the spring and summer at the seaside, and in the autumn took a house at Blackheath, where his health improved so much that in November he returned to $he Arsenal. A reaction, however, set in again very shortly, dropsical symptoms returned, and the shock of an operation performed on Saturday, the 10th December, 1898, caused his death on the following day. He had not lost touch with his work all through his illness, and was able to some extent to attend to it as late as the 9th December.
His character was a beautiful one. He was filled with love for all things, and everyone who really knew him loved him also. He had no lust for money; he worked for work’s sake, and because it was a sacred duty, rather than for gain, and he freely spent that which he had for the good of others, and but little on himself. He always had a perfectly serene and calm mind.
No one ever saw him angry or heard a hasty or unkind word proceed from his lips. Those in difficulty or trouble naturally came to him, assured in advance of help or advice, an& no genuine case of distress was disappointed.
1898 Obituary [4]
1898 Obituary [5]
Sir WILLIAM ANDERSON died at his official residence, Woolwich Arsenal, on December 11, 1898. He was the son of Mr. John Anderson, merchant, of St. Petersburg, and was born in St. Petersburg in 1835. He was educated at the High Commercial School there, where he was head of the school and silver medallist, and had conferred on him the Freedom of St. Petersburg.
In 1849 he matriculated at King's College, London, and there took many prizes; leaving after the three years' course in applied sciences to become a pupil of the late Sir William Fairbairn in Manchester.
From 1855 to 1864 he was in partnership with Messrs. Courtney, Stephens & Co. of Dublin, being engaged chiefly in the construction of various kinds of fittings for railways. He paid much attention to the theory of diagonally braced girders, and contributed papers to the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland, of which body he became president in 1863.
In 1864 he returned to London to join the old firm of Easton and Amos, whose Erith Ironworks were built under his direction. Eventually he became head of the firm, the name of which was altered to Easton & Anderson. His knowledge of Russian enabled him to translate the works of Chernoff on steel, and the researches of General Kalakoutsky on the internal stresses in cast iron and steel. He delivered courses of lectures on hydraulics to the Chatham School of Military Engineering, on the conversion of heat into work to the Society of Arts, and on the generation of steam to the Institution of Civil Engineers.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a past president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a vice-president of the Society of Arts, and a member of the Institution of Naval Architects. At the Newcastle meeting of the British Association he was president of the mechanical section, and had the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law conferred upon him by the University of Durham.
In 1889 he was appointed by Mr. Stanhope, then Secretary of State for War, Director-General of the Royal Ordnance Factories, and in 1897 he was created a K.C.B. He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1875, and contributed to the proceedings in 1891 papers on tests for steel used in the manufacture of artillery and on the constitution of the Royal Ordnance Factories. He frequently took part in the discussions, and during the autumn meeting of 1891 hospitably received the members at Woolwich.
1899 Obituary [6]