Lawrence Birks
Lawrence Birks (1874-1924)
1925 Obituary [1]
LAWRENCE BIRKS was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on 19th May 1874, and was educated at the Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, and at the Adelaide University, where he took his B.Sc. degree in 1875 with triple honours, and in the following year won the Angas Engineering Scholarship which entitled him to three years' training in Great Britain. This period was spent at the University College, London, where he was in 1896 Senior Gilchrist Engineering Scholar, and in the workshops and testing departments of Messrs. Easton, Anderson and Goolden, of Erith, and of the Callendar Cable Co.
After spending some time as lecturer in electrical engineering at the Finsbury Technical College and at the Heriot Watt College, Edinburgh, he returned to Australia in 1900 and was appointed assistant engineer to the Sydney Electric Tramways.
In 1903 he became electrical engineer to the Christchurch City Council, New Zealand, in connexion with the first installation of electric power in that city, and later on he took up the duties of engineer and manager to the New Zealand Electrical Construction Co., a local organization formed for the purpose of constructing the Christchurch electric tramways.
On its completion Mr. Birks was appointed, in 1906, engineer-in-charge of public works at Rotorua.
In 1910 he became assistant to Mr. Evan Parry, chief electrical engineer to the New Zealand Government, and after carrying out much responsible preliminary work in connexion with the works at Lake Coleridge, under the Aid to Water Power Act, he was transferred to Christchurch in 1913 to supervise the construction of those important works and to manage the commercial side of the undertaking.
On the resignation of Mr. Parry in 1919, Mr. Birks was appointed to the position of Chief Electrical Engineer of the Public Works Department.
He died at Wellington, New Zealand, on 25th July 1924, at the age of fifty.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1912.