Talk:Nicholas Procter Burgh

More on Burgh and the Institution of Marine Engineers (1876-79)

Quotes from: Marine Engineering and Shipbuilding Abstracts, Vol 1-5, (1938-42), the Institute of Marine Engineers, p. 75

Marine Engineering and Shipbuilding Abstracts v. 1-30, no. 12; Feb. 1938-Dec. 1967. Published Feb. 1938-Jan. 1940 by the Institution of Civil Engineers, London; Feb. 1940-Dec. 1967 by the Institute of Marine Engineers in cooperation with the Institution of Naval Architects.

• ... Scarcely less active in the various undertakings was Nicholas Proctor Burgh, well known in the 'seventies as the author of various works on steam and marine steam machinery. He had been in practice as a consultant since 1859 and had become a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1870. He was elected the first president of the Institution of Marine Engineers, the first vice-president being E. B. Barnard, another consulting marine engineer. The first treasurer was J. S. Stames, a maker of distillers, ventilators, hearths, etc., for ships while the members of the council included D. L. Selkirk, then London agent for W. Simons & Company, Renfred & Bow,...

• It was proposed to found a museum of marine engineering and a reference library. A donor of books worth £5 was eligible for election as an honorary life member. An unusual feature was the proposal to grant gratuities to engineers sustaining losses through shipwreck. The objects of the Institution as declared were, indeed, admirable. In the first and third issues of the News was an unsigned article on "Marine Engines" clearly written by Burgh"and the third issue contained his presidential address, delivered on March 2nd, 1876. Tn this appeared the first hint that the Institution had sprung from an earlier association. Burgh dealt at length with the need for the Institution, and gave a comparative review of the marine engineer with his brother professionals.

• Next he turned to engines, boilers, steam and heat, and with regard to steam and heat he made some rather strange statements. "My investigations", he declared, "have given me the conclusion that latent heat is not an original but is a resultant and therefore merely a conventional term, and not the parent of sensible heat. Now. then, you will ask. what is heat? I answer that electricity is the origin — in fact, the only perpetual motion known, and when once the oxygen can amalgamate with carbon, then the sensible heat occurs. We now come to a simple solution, namely, that as electricity is the origin of heat, there must be electricity in steam, and from that we have to consider the best methods of preserving that electrical action, because it is motion."

• What Burgh's auditors thought of this is not recorded. He was a confirmed optimist, and, in his closing passages, announced that the Institution would start a Widow and Orphans Fund, which he was sure would be supported by manufacturing and shipping firms ; while he was "equally certain" that "from this evening the nation at large will be more aware of the gratitude they owe the British marine engineers." During 1876 and 1877 the News and the Institution seem to have progressed steadily, and from the pages of the former can be gleaned many interesting items of engineering history. Several times it contained a list of consulting marine engineers in London. One of these lists includes the famous names of Bramwell, Scott Russell, John Bourne, and Asplan Beldam, the last of whom became, in 1889, the first president of the present Institute of Marine Engineers. Papers read to the Institution included one by J. St. John S. Johnson, on "Detaching Boats from their Tackle at...

• ... states that the establishment of the Institution of Marine Engineers had led to the formation of a kindred society of Shanghai. The News for 1878 opened with a sketch of the work of John Bourne. The article was accompanied by an excellent portrait, the only one known to the present writer. Bourne was then 66. Trained for a surgeon, he turned to marine engineering at the age of 20, and had a remarkably varied and interesting career. He died soon after 1885, the actual date is not known to the writer. He was well known for his Treatise...

• ... It was then definitely revealed that there had previously existed a "Registry of Engineers" for sea-going engineers, that this had been transferred from the East End to the heart of the City, and had been renamed the "Associated Marine Engineers": and this, in turn became, in 1876, the Institution of Marine Engineers. Simultaneously with the appearance of this further statement of the aims of the Institution, the Council decided that meetings should be held fortnightly, and that the inspection of papers required from candidates to join the Registry should be...

-- Mdd (talk) 11:14, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

For more info see Institution of Marine Engineers, E. B. Barnard, Asplan Beldam and John Bourne on gracesguide.co.uk. -- Mdd (talk) 11:24, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

George Sayers Bain, ‎G. B. Woolven (1979). A Bibliography of British Industrial Relations. p. 96 lists:

Smith, Edgar C. "An early marine engineering institution." Engineering, CLI, 2 (4 April 194O, 275-6.

Institution of Marine Engineers, 1876-79

Apparently the "Institution of Marine Engineers" was an early marine engineering institution, which was founded in 1876 and lasted 3 years. In 1889 another Institute of Marine Engineers was founded with Asplan Beldam as its first president. Burgh delivered his first presidential address on March 2nd, 1876, in which he suggested that the Institution had sprung from an earlier association...

-- Mdd (talk) 12:09, 4 June 2015 (UTC)