George Henry Poke
George Henry Poke (1845-1891)
1893 Obituary [1]
GEORGE HENRY POKE was born at Plympton, Devonshire, in 1845.
His father dying when he was very young, he was educated at the Greenwich school for orphans of mariners, and served his time for five years from 1860 in the factory of the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich, as an engineer student for the navy.
In 1865 he resigned the service, and went to the Small-Arms Factory for about nine months, both in the drawing-office and shops.
He next joined the Woolwich gas works as engineer, and from there went to the Royal Arsenal.
In 1868 he received the government appointment of assistant engineer in India, in which capacity he went to Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves and Co., Bolton, on supervision work. Later in the same year he went out to India as assistant engineer in the Small-Arms Ammunition Factory, Madras.
In 1870 he was transferred to the factory at Kirkee; and in 1882 was appointed chief engineer of the Government Gun-Carriage Factory, Bombay.
In 1890 he returned to England on furlough for eighteen months, of which the last twelve were converted into duty in the Royal Carriage Department, Woolwich Arsenal.
Whilst returning to India he died of apoplexy on board the steamer "Peshawur" in the Red Sea, on 29th September 1891, in the forty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at sea.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1890.