Dr. Francis Elgar, LL.D., F.R.S.

Abstract

THE sudden death of Dr. Francis Elgar, F.R.S., at Monte Carlo, on January 16, has deprived the profession of naval architecture of one of its most eminent representatives, and the loss will be felt throughout the world of science, in which he had made many friends. He came of a family which had for generations been connected with the great naval arsenal at Portsmouth, and was himself apprenticed there about fifty years ago. For nearly seventy years the Admiralty has maintained an admirable system of schools for its apprentices, and has provided facilities by which those who prove capable of benefiting thereby shall receive higher instruction in those branches of mathematics which are used in connection with shipbuilding, as well as in the operations and processes incidental to practical work in drawing offices and mould lofts. Elgar was one of the young men whose progress in the school secured advancement to higher instruction. Fortunately for his career, just at the period (in 1864) when he had completed the preliminary stages of training at Portsmouth, it was decided by the Admiralty and Science and Art Department to join forces and to establish the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at South Kensington. The Admiralty students at this school were selected by competitive examination in which apprentices in all the Royal dockyards took part. Elgar was one of eight young men chosen in this way from a very large number of candidates, and given an opportunity of passing through a three years' course of advanced study in the theory and practice of shipbuilding. This he did with distinction, and was awarded a first-class diploma of Fellow of the Royal School of Naval Architecture in 1867.