1919: Mervyn Frederick Ryan

Mervyn Frederick Ryan (1883-1952)

President of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers

MERVYN PREDERICE RYAN, C.B.E., was born at Valetta, Malta, on December 22nd, 1883. He was educated at Stonyhurst College and University College,
Nottingham. 

In 1902, he became a pupil at the Derby Locomotive Works of the Midland Railway. In 1906 he went to the United States of America
to continue his practical training, first in the Testing Department of the General Electric Company and then with the Motive Power Department of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 

Ryan returned to England where he returned to the Midland Railway as Piecework Inspector before being appointed as Assistant to the Works
Manager. From 1911 to 1913 he was Resident Locomotive Superintendent of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and in 1913 he became
Assistant Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the London and South Western Railway.

During the First World War he was transferred to the Ministry of Munitions and succeeded Sir Henry Bowler as Director of Munitions Gauges. He received a CBE in 1918 as recognition of his service in this role.

After the war he returned to the London and South Western Railway as Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer. In 1919 he went to Argentina first as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Central Argentine Railway and then successively Assistant General Manager (1925), General Manager (1928), and Managing Director (1945) of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway.

Ryan retired from the Central Argentine Railway in 1947 to become responsible to the Argentine Government for the management of all the
previously British-owned railways.  

He became the railway member of the missions sent by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to India (in 1949) and Thailand (in 1950).

He died on April 28th 1952.

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