Arthur Mellen Wellington (1847-1895)
Editor of 'Engineering News'
Born at Waltham, Mass., USA
1895 Obituary [1]
ARTHUR MELLEN WELLINGTON was born in Waltham, Mass., U.S.A., on the 20th of December, 1847. He was descended on his father’s side from an old New England family, which had resided on a rocky hillside farm in the town of Lexington, Mass., since the time of the early colonists.
He graduated at the Boston Latin School, and then, when only sixteen years old, began to study the profession by apprenticeship to a practising engineer.
From 1863 to 1866 he was an articled pupil in the office of Mr. John B. Henck, of Boston, well known to engineers as the author of 'Henck’s Field-Book.' His first work after leaving Mr. Henck’s office was an engagement in the engineering corps of the Brooklyn Park Department, under Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, where he served as leveller and assistant engineer.
In 1868 he obtained his first post on railway work, a field in which he was to win enduring fame. This was on the Blue Ridge Railroad in South Carolina, where he remained for a year as transitman, having charge of a locating party. He then went to the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad in New York and for nearly a year served on that line as an assistant engineer. In 1870, when twenty-three years of age, he was placed in charge of a division of the Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia Railroad, and, notwithstanding his youth, he was soon advanced to the position of Principal Assistant.
After remaining with that Company two-and-a-half years, he became locating engineer of the Michigan Midland Railroad, and later was Engineer-in-Charge of the Toledo, Canada Southern and Detroit Railroad.
The panic years of 1873-74 put a sudden stop to railway construction, and Mr, Wellington, in common with hundreds of other engineers, found his occupation gone and no demand for his services in any new position. In his application for membership of the American Society of Civil Engineers, made in 1881, he said : “ 1874-78, was engaged in miscellaneous professional, business and literary occupations more interesting than lucrative, and not always particularly interesting.” I n later years, how-ever, he was accustomed to refer to this period of enforced idleness-so far as idleness was possible to a man of his restless energy-as a blessing in disguise. Hard as it was for the young engineer to leave the professional work in which he was intensely interested and making satisfactory advancement, it caused him to use his enforced leisure for the study of the broader problems in connection with the profession and to lay the foundations for the more important work of the later years of his life. Mr. Wellington’s first literary venture was made in 1874, when he was only twenty-seven years of age. It was “ The Computation from Diagrams of Railway Earthwork,” a book which was the outcome of the methods he had worked out for expediting his computations on the railways on which he was engaged. This book was very favourably received, and in the intervals during the years1874-78, when other occupations failed him, it was natural that he should again turn his attention in the direction of contributing to the literature of the profession, and upon the subject in which he had had the most experience-railway location. His great work, and that by which his fame as an engineer was firmly established,“ The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways,” was begun in 1875, as a few notes in preparation for an anticipated location. It was afterwards expanded into a magazine article and was first published in the Railroad Gazette in the latter part of 1876, as a series of articles on “ The Justifiable Expenditure for Improvements in Railway Alignment.” These articles were reprinted in book-form in 1877, and the attention of engineers and railway men was t once attracted to their writer as an engineer of uncommon brilliancy and abi1ity.lI n 1878 Mr. Wellington accepted the position of Principal Assistant to Mr. Charles Latimer, Chief Engineer of the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railway. His duties there were, from one point of view, less to his taste than the work of railway location; nevertheless, the three years spent on that line gave him an opportunity of gaining experience in railway operating details and of acquiring a fund of information, of which at a later date he made good use.
In the summer of 1878, through the courtesy of Mr. Charles Paine, then Chief Engineer and General Manager of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, Mr. Wellington carried out an extended series of experiments on the resistance of rolling-stock, the results of which were presented in a paper read before the American Society of Civil Engineers on the 15th of January,1879. Those experiments were made chiefly by dropping cars down a known grade, and had much influence in establishing formulas for train-resistance at low velocities. I n the following winter he carried out a series of tests on journal friction at low velocities, the results of which, however, were not made public until 1884, when they were embodied in a paper read by him before the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is an excellent illustration of the thoroughness and absorbing interest with which he undertook the solution of any engineering problem, that having made the train-resistance tests above noted and finding in the results some elements of uncertainty, he carried out in the little leisure which his regular duties gave him a further elaborate series of tests to settle the doubtful points. After spending three years on the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railway, Mr. Wellington accepted in March, 1881, the post of Engineer-in-Charge of Location and Surveys on the Mexican National Railway. Some of the most interesting portions of his work on that line were described in a Paper read by him before the American Society of Civil Engineers in July, 1886.
During the three years 1881-84 he remained in Mexico, first in the service of the Mexican National Railway, and later as Assistant General Manager and Chief Engineer-in-Charge of the Location of the Mexican Central Railway, under Mr. Rudolph Fink. But the work of railway location, congenial as it was, Mr. Wellington was soon to exchange for an occupation still better suited to his taste. In 1884 he returned to the United States and entered the field of technical journalism, becoming one of the editors of the Railroad Gazette. His experience in writing books, and as a contributor to various journals, had already familiarised him with literary work and had revealed an exceptional talent for it, and he entered upon this new field of labour with a zeal and ability which at once attracted attention. Whileupon the staff of the Railroad Gazette, he edited the revised edition of the ‘‘ Car-Builders’ Dictionary,” and his leisure was devoted topreparing for the press the second edition of his work on “ Railway Location,” whichwas finally published inthespring of 1887.The value of this work had been well proved by the demand forit: the first edition was soon exhausted and the price for second-hand copies rose higher and higher until as much as $20 was paidfor a single copy.In January, 1887, Mr. Wellington transferredhis services toEngineering Ncws as one of the editors in chief and part owner.The influence of hisenergywas at once seen inevery department. In hiseditorial work he combined in wonderfulmeasurethevaluablequalities of industryandoriginality, for whichhewas conspicuous. Ifheedited a letter for publication inthe correspondence column, it was sure to suggest some idea to him which he would add as editorial comment. If he prepareaa note for the ‘cEngineering News ” page, it was seldom a colourless-recital ; some piquant criticism would be thrown in. His industrywas measureless; he never dropped a proposed scheme merely OILaccount of the amount of labour involved, but seemed to regardit rather as a sort of challenge and undertook it with the greaterrelish.Mr. Wellington found time during the years following 1887 for.occasional service as a Consulting Engineer. Among the more inz-portant works on which he gave advice werethe eliminationof gradecrossings a t Buffalo, the improvement of railwayterminals atToronto, and the foundationsof the Board of Trade Building in thatcity. In the summer of 1888 he made an extended examinationof theCanadian Pacific Railway system, and later gave experttestimonyin the suitbetween that company and theCanadian Government, inwhich the characterof the construction taken over by theCompanywasin question. He was a member of the Board of Engineerswhich examined and approved the estimates of the NicaraguaCanal Company in 1890. I n 1893 hewas called before the.Massachusetts legislature with reference to the proposed invasionof Boston Common by the West End Street Railway, and at his.suggestion theTremontStreet subway,now under constructionby the city, was decided upon as the best plan for effecting thedesiredimprovement. Thelast work whichhe undertook as itConsulting Engineer was the improvement of the railway lines i nthe Island of Jamaica, where he spent two months in the springof 1893.Reference has already been made to Mr. Wellington’s contribu-tions a t different timestotheTransactions of the American.Society of Civil Engineers. He became a Member of that Societyin 1881, and was always among its most enthusiastic supporters,Atlater dateshe was electedtomembership in the AmericanSociety of Mechanical Engineers,the CanadianSociety ofCiviDEngineers and the Engineers’ Clubof New York City.In the summer of 1892 Mr. Wellington took a vacation of threeweeks, but instead of leaving the city, as was his usual custom, he.devoted his leisure to working out some ideas in thermodynamicswhich had occurred tohimyears before. I t was characteristioindeed of the man and of his innate love for work that he chose t ospend his leisure in such a manner, rather thanin pleasure-seeking,of the ordinary sort. The result of his study was the inventionof anentirelynewtype of thermodynamicengine, designed to.convert heat into mechanical work with a much smaller percentage of loss than the best existing steam-engines. Henceforward thedevelopment of hisinvention became the all-absorbing work of‘his life, and in his earnestness and zeal all thought of care for his.health was forgotten. It had always been his habit to work farinto the night when the hours of the day were not sufficient, butin his labours upon this latest child of his brain, his eagerness was such that he was no longer able to turn his thoughts away from it, even in the few hours which he allowed himself for rest. Even his iron constitution could not bear up under such a strain, and early in 1894 he found himself physically unable to go on with hiswork. Entirerestbroughttemporary relief, butnot,unfortu-nately,therestorationto a healthy condition of the over-taxed organism. During the eighteen months from the firstconceptionof his invention until the failure of his health, Mr. Wellington’s contributions to the columns of Engineering News became less fre-quent, until they ceased entirely in May, 1894. He had at thattime completed his invention and had made good progress in ex-periments as to its practical and commercial development. How great a trial it was to dropwork upon it, when so near completion,only those closest to him could realize; but the sanguine and resourceful temperament which had been hisstayinevery dis-appointment was evident here, and he made preparations for the European trip which his physicians advised, with the same good humour as if it were a mere pleasure journey and in entire accord with his inclinations. While travelling in Norway in August, 1894, Mr. Wellington’s disease suddenly assumed an acute form, and serious htemorrhageof the kidneys occurred, so persistent as to threaten an immediate. Fatal termination. It was at length arrested, however, and in September he was sufficiently improved in health to return to the United States. His malady was a rare and peculiar one, baffling the physician’s skill. A period of several weeks, in which he would apparently make steady progress towards restored health, would be followed by a sudden return of haemorrhage and a loss of more ground than had been gained. Such alternations are even more calculated to depress the spirit than a steady downward progress ; but all through these trying months &h. Wellington’s sanguine cheerfulness never failed. On the15th of May, 1895,an operation for the removal of the diseased kidney was per-formed with success. But, besides the disease atthis point, there was a chronic weakness of the heart, and at 9.30 P.M. on the following day that organ refused to perform its work. Mr. Wellington was by nature a man of intense convictions, his standard of right was high, and compromise with anything which did not reach that standard was always difficult for him to make. In every cause that appealed to his interest, his inclination was always to espouse whichever side he believed to be right and to labour ardently for its success. With such a temperament, it was natural that he should occasionally make enemies, especially among those who knew little or nothing of him personally and could not therefore understand that no real malice lay behind the quick, cutting remark, the caustic comment or the keen satire from his pen. But to those whose privilege it was to know him intimately, the good-heartedness of the man was always evident. Mr. Wellington was elected a Member of the Institution on the5th of February, 1889.