William John
Naval Architect. ( - 26th Dec 1890).
Worked for Lloyd's Shipping.
Became a member of the Institution of Naval Architects.
1881 Left Lloyd's to become General Manager of Barrow Shipbuilding Co. [1]
1891 Obituary [2]
WILLIAM JOHN was born at Narberth, in Pembrokeshire, and was educated in the Royal Dockyard at Pembroke, and at the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. He was one of the most esteemed and distinguished students of the latter school.
After leaving the Royal School of Naval Architecture in 1867, Mr. John was employed for several years in the construction department at the Admiralty. Much of his work there consisted of original investigation into the effects of the many modifications that were then being introduced into the designs of war-ships. It was thus that he was led to put the results of calculations of the righting moments of ships at various angles of inclination into the form of a curve, and thus to give a continuous representation of the stability at all angles. This was applied to the case of H.M.S. Captain, and the deficiency of stability possessed by her was thus disclosed only a few days before she was lost.
In 1872 Mr. John left the Admiralty for the service of Lloyd's Register Society. A number of papers were read by him before the Institution of Naval Architects between 1872 and 1881, when he left Lloyd's to become the general manager of the Barrow Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. These papers are on "The Strength of Iron Ships," read in 1874; on " The Strains of Iron Ships," "The Stability of Ships," and "The Transverse and other Strains of Ships," read in 1877; on " The Royal Naval College and the Mercantile Marine," in 1878; and on " The Cellular Construction of Merchant Ships," in 1880.
During the nine years Mr. John was at Lloyd's, he was the scientific assistant to Mr. Martell, the chief surveyor; and there, as at the Admiralty, he was largely employed upon original investigations, such as those relating to the strength of ships, and the strains to which they are subjected at sea, the strength of masts, rigging, &c. Mr. John's work upon the latter subject was embodied in a report published by Lloyd's Register Society, "On the Masting of Ships."
Mr. John was a Fellow of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, a member of Council of the Institution of Naval Architects, and a member of the late Board of Trade Committee on Life-Saving Appliances in Ships. He became a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1879, and spoke at several meetings on shipbuilding subjects.
1891 Obituary [3]
1891 Obituary [4]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Engineer 1891/01/02
- ↑ 1891 Iron and Steel Institute: Obituaries
- ↑ The Engineer 1891/01/02
- ↑ Engineering 1891 Jan-Jun: Index: General Index