Alfred Philip Chalkley
Alfred Philip Chalkley (1886-1959) of 'Motor Boat and Yachting', 'The Motor Ship' and 'The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine'. Temple Press
1959 Obituary [1]
MARINE engineers and especially those concerned with the production and operation of oil engines will have learned with great regret of the death of Alfred Philip Chalkley, who died in London on Sunday, April 19. With his death the technical press has lost one of its most distinguished and respected members and one who had been associated with the publication of technical journals for forty-seven years.
A. P. Chalkley, who was born in 1886, graduated at King's College, University of London (Faculty of Engineering), taking his B.Sc. (Engineering) degree in 1905, subsequently joining C. A. Parsons and Co., Ltd., at Newcastle upon Tyne.
There he was concerned with the development of steam turbines and was one of the company's guarantee engineers on the maiden voyage of the first "Mauretania." He became greatly interested in the development of the internal combustion engine, a form of engine with which he was to be closely associated during the rest of his life, and in those early days spent some time in Munich in collaboration with Dr. Rudolph Diesel.
His work in this form of prime mover provided the material for a book, entitled Diesel Engines for Land and Marine Work, which was published in 1912 and which subsequently became a standard work on the subject, and was translated into French, German and Russian. This venture into authorship also marked the beginning of his long association with the technical press, for in the same year he joined the staff of Temple Press, Ltd., and was appointed editor of Motor Boat and Yachting, a position which he continued to occupy until 1955.
In 1933 he became the founder editor of The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine, but perhaps the journal with which he was most closely associated in the minds of his many friends is The Motor Ship, which he founded in 1920 and through the medium of which he supported the development and employment of the oil engine.
Mr. Chalkley was appointed editorial director in 1944 and continued actively to occupy this position until his death, and to be responsible, in particular, for The Motor Ship.