COLCHESTER ENGINEERING SOCIETY

The Beginning
At the First public meeting held in the Colchester Technical College, North Hill on 24 February 1944, Mr. Edward Paxman was installed as Founder President. The names of the elected Founder Members can be seen in the Records.

Edward Paxman

Each year the Society organised a Winter Session of Works and other interesting visits, programmes for which are shown in these Records. Subsequently the society has organised programmes of winter lectures and summer visits. A series of exhibitions was also arranged in 1945,1946,1947 and 1948 to illustrate the engineering prowess of the area. These exhibitions attracted much public attention and are well illustrated in these Records

To complement and extend the scope of the lectures and to attract a wider public audience, a decision was taken in 1966 to hold bi-annual lectures to be given on a popular subject with an engineering bias by eminent national lecturers. These lectures arc named the Edward Paxman Lectures in memory of the Society's Founder President who died in March 1949. The first was given in 1967 by Graham Hill. They have been a great success, well attended by enthusiastic audiences.

On the Social side the Society held a Ladies Night and Dance every October, when the Society was generally honoured by the presence of the Mayor and Mayoress and the local Member of Parliament. Photographs and Menu Cards shown in the Archives provide happy memories of these occasions. A less formal but equally successful function, a Supper Dance, was held in March of each year. These were discontinued in 1983 and the Presidents Dinner in October each year took their place.

A close relationship has existed for many years between our Society and the Engineering Societies of Chelmsford and Ipswich.

The Society has been well served by its Presidents and Officers during the course of its existence. Membership has remained fairly constant close to 300 and the Society is financially sound. (Based on extracts from the Society's Records.)

Shown here are the two publications on the Society's History. The first on the 50 years 1944 to 1994. The second on the 10 years 1994 to 2004 was produced by Ron & Isobel Hook for the Society's Diamond Jubilee . This book matches the book that was published for the Golden Jubilee covering the 50 years of the Society's existence. The new book extends the coverage to the Diamond Jubilee and therefore is an essential continuation of the history of the Society.

The books are available from Ron Hook, 01206 822458, for a contribution of £2 towards printing costs.

The Secretary and President have spent some time in trying to assemble CES papers for submission to the Essex Records Office. The archive has, of course, existed for a long time but has been somewhat neglected in recent years. Ron Hook has kindly undertaken the task of tidying up what exists, arranging the collection into some sort of logical order and adding more recent documents to the archive. This is undoubtedly a daunting task but Ron has taken it on with great enthusiasm and has asked for a mention of what is happening. Ron is very keen for anyone who has any items which could be regarded as Society Archive material to contact him with a view to including such items during this review and is available on 01206 822458

The catalogue of the Essex Records Office can be accessed online as SEAX on http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/login.asp

You may enter Seax by clicking the Guest button and give access to the titles of most of the CES archives. This will give you full search facilities, but you will not be able to order documents or save searches.
The Essex Records Office tells us that SEAX is essentially a catalogue, whose aim is to tell researchers what exists. Technically we can attach images to the catalogue descriptions (a so-called 'Image Search' will find these), but so far only a very small proportion of our holdings are available in this way and they do not include the CES records. A link to SEAX would allow your users to find out what we have by searching for (say) the expression "colchester engineering", but not to see the documents themselves.

Tribute by John Bennett-Powell - Thanksgiving Service 17th November 2004
THE EARLY DAYS
Geoffrey Bone and I first met in Farnborough, Hampshire, at the Royal Aircraft establishment. It was August 1940. We were both due to be posted to Ladywood Works, Lutterworth, to join Power Jets Ltd and Frank Whittle's team, which was working on the design and development of gas turbines for the jet propulsion of aircraft. He was a Pilot Officer, RAF Volunteer reserve. It was the start of a close friendship, which lasted until his death. We travelled north on the same day, and found ourselves booked into the Hind Hotel, where several other PJ engineers were already staying.
At that time, the big problem with the engine was combustion. Much higher rates of heat release were required than the best current boiler practice. So to start with, we were occupied running test rigs, burning, and wading about in, kerosene.
Geoffrey managed to leave the test pits for transfer to Brownsover Hall, Rugby, where Whittle had moved his office to avoid the increasing congestion at Lutterworth. The desk work didn't last long, because early in the New Year, the first engine designed and built for flight - the W1 - was delivered by its manufacturers, the BT-H Co of Rugby. Geoff was put in charge of testing which took place in one of the new test houses at Lutterworth.
Meanwhile, the Gloster Aircraft Company had been constructing the E28/39 aircraft in which the W1 was to be installed for flight trials. To prove its suitability for flight, the engine had to undergo a 25-hour test: this was duly completed under Geoff's control, and the engine thereby cleared for 10 hours running in flight.
The installation of the W1 in the E28/39 was carried out under Geoffrey's supervision, in secrecy, at a disused garage in Cheltenham. The flight trials had been arranged to take place at Cranwell where the RAF college had a runway of sufficient length and relatively remote.
The weather on 15th May 1941 had improved sufficiently for Gloster's chief test pilot, Gerry Sayer, to decide to fly. The first flight was successful, and over the next week or so, the permitted 10 hours were accomplished without incident. In fact, the only attention given to the engine during this period comprised routine checks on the lubricating oil tank level.
This was a truly historic event, which led over a couple of decades after the war to the complete transformation of aerial transport world wide.
Before concluding, I must refer to two organisations with which Geoff was closely involved, although neither belongs to the Early Days. Firstly, the Reactionaries, whose membership comprised nearly all the Power Jets team - formed in 1946 and still going strong if inevitably of diminishing numbers. Helped by a succession of dedicated secretaries, members have maintained their friendship, and in 1998, donated some £24,000 to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for the Whittle Reactionaries Prize Fund. As you may imagine, Geoff was a most generous contributor.
Secondly, the Sir Frank Whittle Commemorative Trust, founded in Lutterworth also in 1998 to promote his memory and achievements, was also generously supported by Geoff. Some evidence of their efforts may be seen on road roundabouts at Lutterworth and Farnborough, where full-size replicas of the E28 aircraft have been erected.
To Frank Whittle belongs the credit for the concept and design of the engine and perseverance against many obstacles to see his aims realised. But if it had not been for Geoffrey's dedication and determination to ensure faultless performance, and thereby 100% successful flight trials, further progress might have been delayed for months or even years.
I am grateful to Tony for inviting me to speak about the early days, an honour I much appreciate. I have concentrated on the flight trials, because they have always seemed to me not only to have been of major importance in themselves, but an achievement which must have meant as much - possibly more - to Geoff as any of his many successful accomplishments during the remainder of his professional career.
Well done, Geoff! Well done indeed!