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1964: Vice-Admiral Sir Frank Trowbridge Mason
Vice-Admiral Sir Frank Trowbridge Mason (1900-1988)
79th President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Mason was born in Ipswich, England in 1900.
He was educated at Ipswich School and entered the Royal Navy in 1918. He served for two years as a cadet and midshipman on the HMS Collingwood and HMS Queen Elizabeth, before volunteering to specialize in engineering. Under the Selborne-Fisher scheme of 1903, which aimed to put engineers into the mainstream of naval life, he received special training at the Royal Naval colleges at Greenwich and Keyham.
In 1928, Mason was appointed to HMS Rodney, which was a new battleship which was encountering severe problems with her 16-inch guns. Mason’s experiences with these guns led him to specialize in ordnance engineering. He was appointed for a time to the firm of Vickers at Elswick and served for three years in the naval ordnance department.
After a series of promotions, and more spells with the Naval Ordnance Department, he was appointed Fleet Gunnery Engineer Officer to the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, and was promoted to Captain (E). The following year he returned to the Naval Ordnance Department in the Admiralty, and in 1947, he became Chief Gunnery Engineer Officer and Deputy Director of Naval Ordnance. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral (E) and from 1950 to 1952 held the position of Deputy Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet. He was promoted to Vice-Admiral (E) in 1953 and was made Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet. In 1953, he was appointed CB and in 1955 KCB.
The Selborne-Fisher scheme under which Mason trained was ended in 1923, leaving the navy at a technological disadvantage with the outbreak of the Second World War. Mason and others put much effort into reinstating it, and in 1956, a new scheme was implemented.
Mason was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1964 and was President of the Institute of Marine Engineers in 1967. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
He died in 1988.
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