William Griegson Pickvance
William Griegson Pickvance (1874-1942)
1943 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM GRIEGSON PICKEVANCE was well known in mechanical engineering circles in North Wales. He was born in 1874 at Bolton and received his technical education at the Bolton Technical School. After training as a pupil in mining engineering at Hulton Colliery, he gained further experience in mechanical and electrical engineering at various cotton mills, and in printing and general engineering works. In 1899 he became engineer to the Farnworth Co-operative Society, for whom he equipped a complete steam-driven electricity generating plant. An appointment followed in 1901 as assistant engineer in the electricity and tramways department of the Farnworth Urban District Council.
For two years he was engineer in charge of the electricity station at Malvern, but in 1907 he was appointed borough electrical engineer at Wrexham, a position which he held for thirteen years, during which time he carried out many alterations and extensions to the plant. It was, however, in 1915 that he became prominent as the originator and organizer of a national shell factory at Wrexham which eventually became the second largest of its kind in the country, the layout and equipment being entirely to his own designs. In the same year he was appointed by the Ministry of Munitions as engineer member of the Board of Management for the North Wales Munitions Area.
While controlling the Wrexham factory as resident director, he also designed the national factories at Portmadoc and Caernarvon and personally controlled the inspection of all shells produced in the North Wales area. In 1920, however, continued ill-health forced him to resign his position as borough electrical engineer. In the following year he began to practise as a consultant at Wrexham and he also became interested in the engineering firm of Pickvance, Ltd., of which he was managing director. From 1932 to 1937 he was resident technical and sales engineer for the north-western area to the Weston Electrical Instrument Company. Latterly, Mr. Pickvance had been living in retirement at Hastings, where his death occurred on 31st March 1942.
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1909, and was transferred to Membership in 1929. He was also a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and was a past-president of the North Wales Branch of the Association of Mining Electrical Engineers.