Thomas Harold Smith
Thomas Harold Smith (1879-1950)
1951 Obituary [1]
"Captain THOMAS HAROLD SMITH, M.B .E., was in the service of the Public Works Department of the Egyptian Government for over twenty years, and as chief mechanical engineer to the main drainage section of the Ministry was responsible for the design and erection of all machinery in connection with the drainage installation of Cairo and Port Said. In addition he supervised the specifications for the various contracts including the main pumping station and the power station at Port Said.
Captain Smith was born in 1879 and on leaving King Edward's School, Birmingham, continued his studies in France at the Lycee de Rennes. His theoretical training in mechanical and electrical engineering was obtained at the technical school and the university in Birmingham. On the conclusion of a three-year pupilage, in 1900, with Messrs. John Hands and Sons, Ltd., Birmingham, engineers, in the course of which he passed through all the shops, he was shortly afterwards placed in charge of the drawing office.
In 1903 he joined the staff of Messrs. James Simpson and Company, Ltd., Newark, waterworks engineers, as leading draughtsman and mechanical assistant. In addition to these duties he found time to take charge of the engineering department of the Newark Technical School and to act as lecturer. He took up his appointment in the Public Works Department at Cairo in 1909. Six years later he received a commission in the Royal Engineers and served with the rank of captain in Egypt and Palestine until the close of hostilities in 1918.
During this period he acted as adviser in mechanical engineering to the engineer-in-chief, R.E., and was responsible, as inspector of machinery, for the equipment of workshops for the Expeditionary Force, in addition to the design of all water supplies to the troops in Palestine, which involved the pipe-line across the desert with its reservoirs, as well as the water works at Jerusalem.
On his return from Egypt, he joined the Board of Directors of A. Macklow-Smith, Ltd., testing engineers. After his retirement in 1930 Captain Smith resided in Buckingham, where his death occurred on 18th May 1950 at the age of seventy. He was keenly interested in local affairs and served five times as Mayor. He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1907 and transferred to Membership ten years later. He was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. "