Pounder, Cuthbert Coulson

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

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b. 10 May 1891 Hartlepool, England

d. 18 December 1982 Belfast (?), Northern Ireland

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English marine engineer and exponent of the slow-speed diesel engine.

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Pounder served an apprenticeship with Richardsons Westgarth, marine engineers in north east England. Shortly after, he moved to Harland \& Wolff of Belfast and there fulfilled his life's work. He rose to the rank of Director but is remembered for his outstanding leadership in producing the most advanced steam and diesel machinery installations of their time. Harland \& Wolff were the main licensees for the Burmeister \& Wain marine diesel system, and the Copenhagen company made most of the decisions on design; however, Pounder often found himself in the hot seat and once had the responsibility of concurring with the shipyard's decision to build three Atlantic liners with the largest diesel engines in the world, well beyond the accepted safe levels of extrapolation. With this, Belfast secured worldwide recognition as builders of diesel-driven liners. During the German occupation of Denmark (1940–5), the engineering department at Belfast worked on its own and through systematic research and experimentation built up a database of information that was invaluable in the postwar years.

Pounder was instrumental in the development of airless injection diesel fuel pumps. He was a stalwart supporter of all research and development, and while at Belfast was involved in the building of twelve hundred power units. While in his twenties, Pounder began a literary career which continued for sixty years. The bulk of his books and papers were on engineering and arguably the best known is his work on marine diesel engines, which ran to many editions. He was Chairman of Pametrada, the marine engineering research council of Great Britain, and later of the machinery committee of the British Ship Research Association. He regarded good relations within the industry as a matter of paramount importance.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

President, Institute of Marine Engineers; Denny Gold Medal 1839, 1959. Institution of Mechanical Engineers Ackroyd Stewart Award; James Clay ton Award.

Further Reading

Michael Moss and John R.Hume, 1986, Shipbuilders to the World, Belfast: Blackstaff.

FMW