FIFTY YEARS OF NAVAL ENGINEERING IN RETROSPECT. PART I: 1888–1898

Abstract

On September 30, 1888, a little group of officers of the Engineer Corps of the United States Navy met in one of the offices of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, and dedicated themselves to the formation of a society whose aim would be to advance the art of Naval Engineering, and particularly to provide for the proper presentation and preservation of trial trip data, and to provide a place of record for the debatable questions which were being met and settled as the first large Naval expansion following the Civil War slowly gained momentum.No minutes of that historic meeting are now extant. Through information developed subsequently from diaries, and from conversations in later life which have been had with officers who were present, we know that the name, “The American Society of Naval Engineers,” was adopted at the suggestion of Mr. A. M. Mattice, then an officer of the Engineer Corps. The diary of Rear Admiral G. W. Baird, U. S. N., states that those present included: W. S. Moore, A. M. Mattice, W. H. Nauman, F. C. Bieg, G. Kaemmerling, W. H. Chambers, R. S. Griffin, and others. Some twenty‐five years later, Rear Admiral John R. Edwards in an article discussing the organization of the Society considered that it was more than probable that the following names might be added to the list: C. H. DeValin, B. C. Bryan, W. H. Allen, Stacy Potts, H. P. Norton, W. D. Weaver, R. B. Higgins, Victor Blue and Ward Winchell. It is also known that Benjamin F. Isherwood, the then Engineer‐in‐Chief George W. Melville, Fred G. McKean, W. M. McFarland, and Emil Theiss did much to get the young organisation under way.It is interesting to note that in the organizing meeting each officer present solemnly contributed a quarter toward the treasury, and that Chief Engineer N. P. Towne was elected President and Passed Assistant Engineer R. S. Griffin was made the Secretary‐Treasurer. A quarterly issue of a Journal was decided upon, and in due course the first number made its appearance in February, 1889. The Journal has been published regularly since that time, gaining slowly and regularly in its circulation and prestige until today it goes to over one thousand members, and in addition goes by subscription to some six hundred libraries, colleges, admiralties, and industrial concerns all over the world.From its earliest beginning up to the present time, the Society has adhered to one aim, “the advancement of Naval Engineering,” and maintained its objective as a non‐profit making scientific association. Over its fifty years of life its cost to sustaining members has always been five dollars a year, and that despite a doubling and trebling of the cost of production of its Journal. Over the years it has, in addition, built up a sufficient back‐log of funds to tide production over periods of financial stress and retrogression. It is in a sound financial position today.No discussion of the Society's history could be considered complete without paying tribute to the firm of R. Beresford, the printers, who for half a century now have sent the Journal to press. In the early years, Mr. R. Beresford himself supervised the difficult and arduous job of reducing to type the highly technical articles continuously presented, and puzzled out a clear rendition of the involved and complicated formulae found in every issue. His daughter has succeeded him most ably, and has inherited the pride he felt in getting out the publication, a matter which has been of inestimable value to the many secretary‐treasurers.To commemorate the lapse of this fifty years of engineering endeavor, marked as it has been with an almost inconceivable advance in efficiency and progress, it has seemed appropriate to include in the four numbers of the Journal to be published this year, a running resume of that accomplishment, largely gleaned from old numbers of the Journal itself. This monumental and very difficult task has been undertaken by the author, and it is hoped that it will prove to be timely and interesting. As will be noted from the subject, the present article will deal principally with the ten‐year period which commenced with the organization of the Society, and which culminated with the Spanish‐American War in 1898. The second article will cover the next ten years, culminating with the arrival of the first American turbine‐driven battleship in 1908. The third article will deal with the period 1908 to 1921, thus carrying us to the Washington Treaty era, while the last article will bring us from that point briefly up to date.