Abstract
IN Engineering of April 4, Eng.-Captain E. C. Smith gives a short history of the almost forgotten Institution of Marine Engineers, which existed from 1876 until 1879. It came to a close ten years before the present Institute of Marine Engineers was founded, and it does not appear there was any connexion between the two. The Institution grew out of a Registry of Sea-Going Engineers, afterwards called the Associated Marine Engineers, founded in the City of London. In January 1876, the Marine Engineering News, the forerunner of the present Marine Engineer, was founded, and the editor of this and the secretary of the Institution were one and the same person, Matthew Augustus Soul, a patent agent. Another leading figure in the activities of both journal and society was Nicholas Proctor Burgh, the writer of several books on engines and steam, on the latter of which he held some unusual views. The other promoters of the Institution were consulting engineers in the City of London. The aims of the Institution were admirable. Papers were to be read, a museum and library formed, and a provident fund started; but evidently affairs did not nourish, for both Institution and News came to a close in 1879, leaving little trace of their doings.
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An Early Marine Engineering Institution. Nature 147, 539 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147539a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147539a0