A tribute to William Lockwood Marsh, founder and first editor of AEAT

Citation

Savage, T. (1999), "A tribute to William Lockwood Marsh, founder and first editor of AEAT", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 71 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.1999.12771baf.001

A tribute to William Lockwood Marsh, founder and first editor of AEAT

A tribute to William Lockwood Marsh, founder and first editor of AEAT

The March/April 1999 issue of Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology marks 70 years of publication. The journal appeared, under its original title Aircraft Engineering, in March 1929. Its founder and editor until his retirement in 1962, was the late Lt.-Colonel William Lockwood Marsh, OBE, MA, LLB, FAIAA, MSAE, FRAeS.

Lockwood Marsh was a man of many parts; a barrister by training, director of the Sheffield steel manufacturers Marsh Brothers, he became interested in aeronautics in 1908, and wrote a number of articles for the aeronautical press. For some months, following the outbreak of World War I, he commanded the Sheffield Division of the Anti-aircraft Corps, and in 1915 became in charge of records in the Airship Service of the RNAS, editing or writing all official manuals and text-books. In 1917 he became a member of the civil Air Transport Committee and head of the Equipment Branch, Admiralty Transport Departments; and in 1919 he entered the Department of Civil Aviation at the Air Ministry. Lockwood Marsh was responsible for the organization of the International Air Congress, held in London at the invitation of the Government. He was its secretary and edited its 1,000-page report.

In 1925 he wrote a paper on Cayley's airships, and in the following year attacked, in a letter to The Times, the waste by the government on the Brennan helicopter, recording that the Royal Aeronautical Society three years before had pointed out that the limitations of the design were such as to render expenditure unjustified.

Lockwood Marsh served as secretary to the Royal Aeronautical Society from 1920 to 1925. He was very much interested in the history of aeronautics. In 1924 he published a volume of aeronautical prints and drawings and in 1927 a brief history of flight. He made a hobby of collecting aeronautical books and possessed a fine library containing many rare volumes. He was largely responsible for building the foundations of the invaluable library of the Royal Aeronautical Society. In 1930 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, his proposal form being signed by Sir Henry Tizard, Lord Brabazon, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland and H.E. Wimperis.

Lockwood Marsh died in 1963, but the journal he founded continues, as it has for 70 years, to provide the aeronautical world with information on the latest technologies available to the industry.

Terry SavageEditor