Person

Lawson, Robert (1880 - 1949)

OBE

Born
29 February 1880
Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Died
5 August 1949
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Electrical engineer

Summary

Robert Lawson, OBE MIEAust, was the Chief Engineer, Postmaster-General's Department, Commonwealth of Australia, from 1936 until 1945. For more than twenty years before that, he held senior engineering positions within the Department in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.

From 1940 for the duration of the War, Lawson was appointed to the Air Board as Fifth Member in the capacity of Director-General of Production and Supply, and to the Aircraft Production Commission. From 1942 to 1944 he was Staff Business Manager, Royal Australian Air Force, and in 1944 was appointed Technical Assistant to the Chief of Air Staff.

He also took a prominent part in the activities of the Standards Association of Australia, as a member of the Council, as Chairman of the Committee on X-Ray-Equipment, and as Chairman of the Victorian Committee on Quality Control. He was also active within the Institution of Engineers Australia, as a foundation member in 1919, as Chairman of the Melbourne Division 1922, as Chairman of the Sydney Division 1930, and was a member of its Council for many years.

His distinguished service to engineering was recognised when he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division) in 1939, and when he was awarded the Peter Nicol Russell Memorial Medal in 1948.

Details

Chronology

1890s
Education - The Institute, Liverpool
c. 1896
Education - Polytechnic, London
1900s
Education - London University
1904 - 1914
Career position - Engineering Department, British Post Office, Manchester and London, England
1908
Career event - Published paper 'Wireless Telephony' Institute of Post Office Electrical Engineers, England
1910
Career event - Published paper 'Automatic Telephony' Institute of Post Office Electrical Engineers, England
1914
Life event - Migrated to Victoria, to take up a position with the Postmaster-General's Department
1914 - 1916
Career position - Engineer, Chief Electrical Engineer's Office, G.P.O., Melbourne, Postmaster-General's Department
1916 - 1918
Career event - Member, South Australian Institute of Engineers
1916 - 1918
Career position - State Engineer (later Chief Electrical Engineer), South Australia, Postmaster-General's Department
1918 - 1924
Career position - State Engineer, Victoria, Postmaster-General's Department
1919
Career event - Foundation Associate Member (AMIEAust), Institution of Engineers Australia
1920
Career event - Member (MIEAust), Institution of Engineers Australia
1921 - 1922
Career position - Member of Council, Institution of Engineers Australia
1922
Career position - Chairman, Melbourne Division, Institution of Engineers Australia
1924 - 1933
Career position - State Engineer (later Superintending Engineer), New South Wales, Postmaster-General's Department
1925
Career position - Member of Council, Institution of Engineers Australia
1927 - 1933
Career position - Member of Council, Institution of Engineers Australia
1930
Career position - Chairman, Sydney Division, Institution of Engineers Australia
1930s
Career position - Member of Council, Standards Association of Australia
1930s
Career position - Chairman, Committee on X-Ray-Equipment, Standards Association of Australia
1933 - 1936
Career position - Deputy-Director of Posts and Telegraphs, Victoria, Postmaster-General's Department
1936 - 1945
Career position - Chief Engineer, Postmaster-General's Department
1939
Award - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) - Chief Engineer of the PMG Department
1940 - 1945
Career position - Member representing the Air Board, Aircraft Production Commission
1940 - 1945
Career position - Fifth Member of the Air Board, Director-General of Production and Supply
1940s
Career position - Chairman, Victorian Committee on Quality Control, Standards Association of Australia
1942 - 1944
Career position - Staff Business Manager, Royal Australian Air Force
1944 - 1945
Career position - Technical Assistant to the Chief of Air Staff
1945
Life event - Retired
1946 - 1949
Career position - Board of Business Administration, Department of Treasury, Commonwealth of Australia
1948
Award - Peter Nicol Russell Memorial Medal - Career Achievement Award in Engineering. Institution of Engineers Australia
1949
Life event - Cremated, Springvale Crematorium

Related Corporate Bodies

  • Institution of Engineers, Australia (1919 - )

    Councillor 1921 - 1922, 1925, 1927 - 1933; Chairman, Sydney Division 1930; Chairman, Melbourne Division 1922

  • Postmaster-General's Department (1901 - 1975)

    Chief Engineer 1936 - 1945; Deputy-Director of Posts and Telegraphs, Victoria 1933 - 1936; State Engineer (later Superintending Engineer), New South Wales 1924 - 1933; State Engineer, Victoria 1918 - 1924; State Engineer (later Chief Electrical Engineer), South Australia 1916 - 1918; Engineer, Chief Electrical Engineer's Office, Melbourne 1914 - 1916.

  • Standards Association of Australia (1929 - 1988)

    Member of Council; Chairman of the Committee on X-Ray-Equipment; Chairman of the Victorian Committee on Quality Control;

Published resources

Journal Articles

  • 'Peter Nicol Russell Memorial Medal: 1948 Award [Robert Lawson, OBE MIEAust]', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 20 (1948), 194. Details
  • 'Obituary [Robert Lawson OBE MIEAust]', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 21 (1949), 139. Details
  • Institution of Engineers Australia, 'Twenty-ninth Annual Report [1948]', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 21 (1949), 10-23. 'Prizes - Peter Nicol Russell Memorial Medal (1948 Award), to Mr Robert Lawson, OBE MIEAust, Melbourne Division', p.12. Details
  • Lawson, R, 'Recent Developments in Post Office Engineering', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1 (1929), 345-. Details
  • Lawson, R., 'Erection of a wireless station, and some notes on commercial working', South Australian Institute of Engineers: Biennial proceedings 1916 - 1917 (1917), 167-183, https://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/zper/i14966505/zperi14966505_1916-1917.pdf. Details
  • Lawson, R., 'Automatic Telephone Exchange, Collingwood, Victoria', Commonwealth Engineer, 9 (8) (1922), 258-261. Details
  • Lawson, R., 'A Modern Broadcasting Station (Chairman's Address, Sydney)', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 3 (1931), 176-. Details
  • Lawson, R., 'Sydney-Newcastle-Maitland Telephone and Telegraph Cable', Journal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 11 (1939), 301-. Details

See also

  • Alexander, John A. ed., Who's who in Australia 1944 (Melbourne, Victoria: The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, 1944), 906 pp. Details
  • Langevad, Bob, 'Chapter 12: Telecommunications' in Sydney: from settlement to city: an engineering history of Sydney, Don Fraser, ed. (Crows Nest, New South Wales: Engineers Australia, 1989), pp. 241-256. Details

Ken McInnes

EOAS ID: biogs/P007265b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 November (Ballambar - Gariwerd calendar - early summer - season of butterflies)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#ballambar
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P007265b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260