Abstract
THE May issue of the journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers contains a foreword with the heading “Seventy Five Years”, describing the manner in which the eight founder members of the Institution met in May 1871, “To consider the expediency of farming society of Telegraph Engineers, having for object the general advancement of electrical and telegraphic science and more particularly for facilitating the exchange of information and ideas among its members”. At the outset the Society devoted most of its attention to electrical telegraphy, but in 1879 its scope was enlarged and its title changed to “The Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians”, in order to provide for the interest aroused by the commercial application of electric lighting. With the rapid development of electrical engineering the title was altered again, to “The Institution of Electrical Engineers”, in January 1889, when Sir William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, delivered the first presidential address to the new body, which was granted a royal charter of incorporation in 1921. During the seventy-five years of its existence, the Institution has become an important and influential body with nearly 13,500 corporate members and more than 15,000 members of other grades on its register. With the aid of the specialized sections formed in recent years to deal with the fields of installations, measurements, radio and transmission, the Institution caters for this vast membership by pursuing a steady, but vigorous, policy of promoting the general advancement of electrical science and engineering and their applications.
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Institution of Electrical Engineers. Nature 158, 194 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158194a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158194a0