Dyer, Henry

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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b. 1848 Scotland

d. 4 September 1918

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Scottish engineer and educator.

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Henry Dyer was educated at Andersen's College and Glasgow University. He was apprenticed to the Glasgow marine engineer Alexander Kirk, and in 1870 he became an early holder of a Whitworth Scholarship. He was recruited at the age of 24 to establish the Tokyo Engineers' College in 1873. He had been recommended to Matheson, the Scottish businessman who was acting for the Japanese government, by W.J.M. Rankine of Glasgow University, who regarded Dyer as one of his most outstanding students. Dyer secured the services of a team of able young British engineers and scientists to staff the college, which opened in 1873 with 56 students and became the Imperial College of Engineering. Together they gave the first generation of Japanese engineers a firm grounding in engineering theory and practice. Dyer served as Principal and Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering. He left Tokyo in 1882 and returned to Britain. The remainder of his career was rather an anticlimax, although he became an active supporter of the technical education movement and was involved in the development of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, of which he was a Life Governor.

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Further Reading

Who was Who, 1916–28.

W.H.Brock, 1981, "The Japanese connexion", BJHS 14:227–43.

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