Chester Waters Larner
Chester Waters Larner (1881-1942)
1944 Obituary [1]
CHESTER WATERS LARNER who for many years was prominent as a designer and constructor of hydraulic turbines in the U.S.A., was the president of the Larner Engineering Company, Philadelphia, Pa.
He was born in 1881 and received his technical education from 1894 to 1897 at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. After two years' employment as a clerk in the office of the Standard Oil Company at Baltimore he became an instructor of mathematics in the University of Chicago. Two years later, he was appointed hydraulic turbine designer to Messrs. William Cramp and Sons, ship and engine builders, Philadelphia, a position which he held until 1906, when for a brief period he was engineering assistant to the president of the Worthington Pump and Machinery Company, New York City. He then received an appointment as hydraulic engineer to the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Company, of Cleveland, Ohio and for the next ten years was responsible for the design, construction and installation of hydraulic turbines aggregating over 1,000,000 i.h.p.
In 1918 he went into business on his own account and became president of the Larner-Johnson Valve and Engineering Company, Philadelphia. Three years later he formed the Larner Engineering Company of which he was also president. In addition in 1918 he was appointed constructional engineer in the hydraulic turbine department of Messrs. William Cramp and Sons and continued to hold these joint appointments until the time of his death which occurred on 13th June 1942. He was the author of a book entitled "Characteristics of Modem Hydraulic Turbines" and was the patentee of various patents covering "Lamer-Johnson Valves". Mr. Lamer was elected a Member of the Institution in 1926. He was also a Member of the American Societies of Mechanical and Civil Engineers, and of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.