Abstract
OUR readers will accord hearty congratulations to Prof. W. C. Unwin, F.R.S., a veteran of the engineering world, who celebrates his eighty-seventh birthday this week, namely, on December 12. An Essex man, he was educated at the City of London School, and afterwards became a pupil in the firm of William Fairbairn, Manchester. Following the managership of engineering works, he was engaged as instructor at the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, South Kensington, 1868-72; afterwards as professor of hydraulic engineering at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, 1872-85. Prof. Unwin then took up a professorial post at the Central Technical College of the City and Guilds of London, occupying this for twenty years. One might have thought that this long period of strenuous work would have dulled endeavour, but it was otherwise. In 1911 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. At a conference there in that year on the training and education of engineers, Prof. Unwin said: “I believe the idea that a college course unfits a man for practical work is a wholly mistaken one … the view of the employer who looks only to the immediate usefulness of the student is a short sighted one.” On retirement from office the late Sir William White emphasised that “Unwin was looked upon as a master and teacher of the science of engineering.” In 1915 the professor was elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. His portrait, painted by Harold Speed, may be seen there-testimony to service. Prof. Unwin's views on the organisation of research work on British timber may be quoted as of current interest. Speaking at the Royal Society of Arts, in 1913, he remarked that if a forest laboratory were established on any considerable scale in Great Britain, the discovery of information about our colonial timbers would be of even greater importance than that dealing with home forest products. So recently as April last, Prof. Unwin took part in the discussion of a paper by Mr. G. A. Hankins on “Hardness Research Tests,” at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
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Current Topics and Events. Nature 116, 875–879 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116875b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116875b0