35 Facts About Alfred Pippard

Alfred John Sutton Pippard was a British civil engineer and academic.

Alfred Pippard worked for a Bristol based consulting engineer and for the Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley Joint Water Board in his early career.

At the start of the First World War Alfred Pippard joined the Admiralty Air Department where he studied aircraft stresses.

Alfred Pippard gained his Doctorate of Science from Bristol in 1920 and took up the chair in Civil Engineering at University College, Cardiff in 1922.

Alfred Pippard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1954 and was pro-rector of Imperial college for the next year.

Alfred Pippard retired in 1956 and began a lecture tour of the United States and received honorary degrees from Bristol, Birmingham and Brunel Universities.

Alfred Pippard's family had a strong connection with the construction industry and included masons, stonecutters and plasterers.

The elder Alfred Pippard was a renowned craftsman and worked on Yeovil Post Office, the offices of the Western Gazette, Yeovil Girls' High School, a bank in Weymouth and several private houses, often working as his own architect and drawing up the plans.

Alfred Pippard attended several kindergarten schools before progressing to Yeovil School after which it was presumed that he would enter into the family business.

Alfred Pippard spent one year working for a local architect and engineer and studying for the London Matriculation exam which he passed in the summer of 1908 and started at the college in the autumn of that year.

Alfred Pippard graduated from Bristol with first class honours in 1911.

The laws of the Institution of Civil Engineers at the time required prospective members to undertake articled work for two years for a corporate member and Alfred Pippard arranged to work for Mr Cotterell of Bristol, the father of one of his friends who he had undertaken work for with his father as a joiner.

Alfred Pippard completed his apprenticeship in 1913 and obtained a position as assistant engineer to the Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley Joint Water Board, he did not enjoy this routine work and disliked his district.

Alfred Pippard began repaying his mother's financial assistance in 1915 and deeply regretted her death in 1921 before he could make any substantial contribution to her retirement.

Alfred Pippard's name was brought to the attention of HC Watts, who was a university classmate and a member of the technical section of the Admiralty Air Department.

Alfred Pippard accepted a post as a technical advisor to the director of the department in January 1915.

Alfred Pippard was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours of 1918.

Alfred Pippard joined an engineering consultancy in 1919 which was set up by Alec Ogilvie, an Air Department engineer, and several colleagues.

Alfred Pippard preferred his work as a visiting lecturer at Imperial College, London which he had started in 1919 and applied, and was accepted, for the chair of engineering at University College, Cardiff in 1922.

Alfred Pippard wrote a series of scripts for radio broadcasts, including two made for schools.

In 1928 Alfred Pippard was invited to take over the chair of civil engineering at Bristol University which he accepted.

At Bristol Alfred Pippard implemented many of the modernising methods he has developed at Cardiff and continued his work on the R100 and R101.

Alfred Pippard took part in the first test flight of the R101 but due to political pressure for quick development he was unable to finish his structural report before the R101 crashed on her final test flight on 5 October 1930, spelling the end for airship development in the United Kingdom.

However Alfred Pippard was so affected by the episode, particularly as several of his friends were among the 48 dead, that he withdrew from the field of aeronautical engineering and thereafter concentrated on civil engineering.

Alfred Pippard moved to Imperial College in London in 1933 and took over the running of the civil engineering department there where he actively encouraged a more research centric teaching method.

Alfred Pippard himself remained involved with the department's research, being particularly interested in the structural aspects of dams.

Alfred Pippard was influential in the career of Letitia Chitty, recruiting the then promising mathematician to work at the Admiralty Air Department during World War I, an experience that prompted her to switch to engineering.

Alfred Pippard later joined Pippard at Imperial College working on aircraft and airship structural analysis projects.

The section had little work to do and Alfred Pippard found himself bored, especially compared to his frantic work with the Air Department during the First World War.

Fortunately the government's decision to allow university students to complete their degrees before compulsory national service meant that Alfred Pippard could spend four days of his week lecturing at Imperial College whilst remaining a member of the committee, a practice he continued for the rest of the war.

Alfred Pippard was elected to the council of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1944 in which he continued to sit for the next fifteen years, advocating an increased academic presence in that body.

Alfred Pippard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1954 and became pro-rector of Imperial College the next year.

In 1966 Alfred Pippard was awarded honorary degrees from both Bristol and Birmingham Universities and from Brunel University in 1968.

Alfred Pippard continued to write on the theory of structures throughout his retirement and over the course of his life authored more than 80 academic papers and six books.

Alfred Pippard died in Putney, London on 2 November 1969 and the memorial service was held at St Margaret's Church in Westminster.