As members will now be aware, this month sees the beginning of the session that celebrates a double anniversary for the Institution-75 years since its founding, in 1908, and 50 years since the granting of the Royal Charter in 1934. A number of events are planned to mark the anniversaries, details of which have been announced over the past few months; a permanent memento is the 200-page hardback volume Structural engineering-two centuries of British achievement which is now available.
The traditional 3-year engineering degree course (4-year in Scotland), with additional periods in industry for sandwich course students, has been modified and updated continuously over the years and has set the standards and syllabus for the basic education of the engineer. This was true even when, formerly, many engineers received their education other than through a degree. Whether or not the standard course is long enough has been debated for some time, and the wider discussion triggered by the Finniston Report on this topic was particularly welcomed by engineering teachers in universities and polytechnics. Since then, disappointment has inevitably been felt that, in the present atmosphere of retrenchment in tertiary education, Government policy-expressed through the DES and the UGC-has much reduced the prospects for major change. Professor Michael Horne
The 75 years of the Institution have seen not only vast changes in the activities of the construction industry, but also a significant change in the nature of structural engineering. In earlier days, the structural engineer, acting as an independent professional, had an undefined role which did not clearly crystallise until several years later. The 19th century had seen a construction industry slowly developing through the road, canal and railway construction phases to a clearly-defined role at the end of the industrial revolution. In these formative years the engineer frequently changed from one side of the industry to the other, from designer to manager. Sometimes, he preferred to secure his profit from a straightforward construction contract whereas, under more difficult or competitive conditions, he opted for a salary or fee which was smaller but more certain. John Derrington
Design is deciding what you are going to make before you make it; and, as society’s needs have grown and new knowledge become available, the structural engineering designer has become more important. Yet many of the problems that we, as engineers, find difficult to solve today will become easy to solve tomorrow. So we will have new problems and should not only adjust to change but attempt to lead it. Professor Edmund Happold
From its inception as the Concrete Institute in 1908, the Institution of Structural Engineers, as it became in 1922, has constantly been operating within a framework of change-technical, social, and economic. In common with most professional bodies, the Institution has adapted to the changes and responded to the challenges during its 75 years, by so doing thus defining and creating its role. The celebration of the 50th Anniversary was marked by a Golden Jubilee Issue of The Structural Engineer and a conference in which the response to change was clearly presented for the first half-century. This special issue attempts to do likewise for the past quarter-century, a period during which the rate of change has certainly been greater than before. Roy Rowe
The first registered address of the Concrete Institute-forerunner of the Institution- was, at the date of its incorporation on 22 February 1909, 1 Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, London; in March 1910 the infant Institute moved into a suite of rooms at 8 Waterloo Mansions, Pall Mall, followed, a year later in March 1911, by a further move into more extensive accommodation, including a room for meetings and discussions, at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, which remained the headquarters until 1923. In that year, new premises were found in Abbey House, Victoria Street, but members missed a meeting room for their regular discussions. This facility was restored by a move in 1926 to no. 10 Upper Belgrave Street. Cyril Morgan
An Anniversary is an appropriate occasion to look both backwards and forwards since, in almost every field of knowledge or skill, study of the past is helpful in deciding what to do in the future. James Sutherland
Although I have spenthe greater part of my career as a mechanical engineer in the process industry, and the manufacturing of equipment for the same industry, I have always had the greatest respect for structural engineers, ever since I struggled as an undergraduate to grasp the concepts of moment distribution and plastic theory in the bending of beams. So it gives me great pleasure to address you, the structural engineers, through this special issue of your journal. Kenneth Miller
The Fellowship of Engineering was established under the aegis of the CEI Royal Charter on the initiative of HRH Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and a group of distinguished engineers. Oleg Kerensky
An anniversary is a time to stand and take stock, as well as a time to celebrate. In the field of law and its impacts on structural engineering, there are a number of matters that are of interest, if not concern, to members of the Institution. Thomas Akroyd
One of the primary reasons for the existence of our Institution is to serve the structural engineering interests of our society in the best possible way. We certainly have other objectives, and I know that these objectives have been expressed on a number of occasions and in a number of different ways. I think that they are best embodied in our definition of structural engineering, as ‘the science and art of designing and making, with economy and elegance, buildings, bridges, frameworks, and other similar structures so that they can safely resist the forces to which they may be subjected’. Peter Dunican
Origins In the earlier days of civilisation, the safety of a structure depended entirely on the designer’s and builder’s intuition and experience. Many fine structures were built, some of which stand today; but there were many failures and these served to develop the designer’s understanding of structural behaviour. The Rt. Hon. the Lord Penney
Verulam today This 75th Anniversary issue of The Structural Engineer provides us with an excuse for considering briefly the purpose of the Verulam column and what we are aiming to achieve. Verulam