1927: Sir Henry Fowler

Sir Henry Fowler (1870-1938)

42nd President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Fowler was born in Evesham in 1870. He studied at Mason Science College, Birmingham from 1885 to 1887. He then commenced his apprenticeship at the Horwich Works of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. He served in the shops until 1891 when he obtained a Whitworth Exhibition and was transferred to the test room. Three years later he became chief inspector of materials and in the following year, he was appointed gas manager to the company.

Around this time, he became interested in automobiles and was associated with important motor-car trials at Crystal Palace in 1897. In 1900, he was appointed gas engineer to the Midland Railway, and was later assistant works manager and works manager at Derby.

During the First World War, he was appointed Director of Production to the Ministry of Munitions in 1915, and Assistant Director-General of Aircraft Production in 1917. In 1918, he went to America and Canada as Chairman of the first Inter-Allied Conference on the Standardization of Aircraft Components.

On the incorporation of the Midland Railway in 1923 into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, he was made deputy chief mechanical engineer, and two years later he was made chief mechanical engineer. He was responsible for the design of the Royal Scot class of 4-6-0 locomotives in 1927, and for an experimental modification of the design in 1930 to accommodate a Schmidt high-pressure boiler. The following year, Sir Henry was appointed as assistant to the vice-president for research and development.

He was President of the Engineering Section of the British Association in 1923, and President of the Institute of Metals in 1932. He acted as joint general secretary of the International Railway Congress Association in 1925.

He died on 16 October 1938.

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