THE appointment of Dr. A. G. Pugsley to the chair of civil engineering at the University of Bristol has been announced. As an acknowledged authority on structures, he will be able to maintain a tradition established by his predecessors, J. F. Baker and A. J. Sutton Pippard. Dr. Pugsley was educated at Rutlish School, Merton, took his London degree in engineering at the Battersea Polytechnic, and followed this by an apprenticeship to civil engineering at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, under Colonel H. Mitchell. He then joined the staff of the Royal Airship Works, Cardington, and was engaged upon problems of structural design until the establishment was broken up by the Government's decision to discontinue airship development following the accidental loss of the R. 101. He transferred to similar work on heavier-than-air craft at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and later was appointed head of the Structural and Mechanical Engineering Department there. During part of this period he held the appointment, by arrangement with the Air Ministry, of part-time lecturer on aircraft structures in the postgraduate Aeronautics Department of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, South Kensington, London. He resigned this in 1941 owing to pressure of official duties at Farnborough.
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