Details

This IEE file on the organisation called The Institution of British Engineers (IBE) contains papers dating from 1932 to 1953. It appears that the IBE was effectively ‘a trading name’ owned by a company called Engineering Delegacy Limited which was incorporated in 1928 in order to establish and maintain one or more British institutions of engineering. It does not appear that the IBE was incorporated itself, at least in its early days. The largest shareholder in Engineering Delegacy was Cyril Alfred Bonnard, who was the Director of Studies of a correspondence school called The Technological Institute of Great Britain. The Technological Institute of GB had a prospectus which devoted 2 pages to the IBE and the privileges of membership and it offered to prepare persons for the IBE examination on payment of a fee. Several letters in the IEE file say that membership could be obtained by election without taking any examinations. An IBE letter from 1933 stated, ‘the Institution of British Engineers is an altruistic, corporate and professional body with a membership designed to include all professional engineers of whatever particular branch. It has at the present time, a membership of approximately 2,500, …….”. The IBE occupied a room in Windsor House, Victoria Street, London. An internal IEE note from 1939 states that IBE membership was then 3,000 and privileges of membership, amongst other things included; a diploma indicating class of membership; a silver medal with the name of the member inscribed; and receipt of the Institution’s journal called 'the British engineer'. Much of the correspondence in the file, which includes communications with the Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Board of Trade and others, discusses the merits of the organisation. [Complete file of 105 pages of correspondence has been digitised plus a copy of the IBE journal, 'the British engineer', from December 1952, which was also enclosed in the file]