Frederick Benjamin Porges

Engineer. Emigrated to England. No children.

1913-1917 : Primary School in Vienna. 1917-1924 : Secondary School (Realschule) in Vienna. Declared me unanimously ripe for entering a Technical University. 1924-1930 : Studied Mechanical Engineering at the Vienna Technical University, for the last 2 years. additionally Internal Combustion Engines. Passed the Rigorosum unanimously "very well" (sehr gut). 1930-1932 : Worked for Henri, Maurice and Dick Farman in Boulogne-Billancourt (France), a well-known company manufacturing Luxury Motor Cars, Aircraft and Aircraft Engines. In due course I was charged with the design, fabrication and final testing of their 18T 12 Cylinder Aircraft Engine. There I designed my first seals to prevent leakage between compressors and engines. 1932-1936 : Invited to work in USSR as Head Engineer of the Engine Department of the “Central Scientific Research Institute for the Design of Aircraft Engines (ZIAM)” and as Head Engineer of the Engine Department of the "Scientific Research and Projecting institute of the Auto-Tractor Industry (NATI) 1934: Married in Moscow Marianne Raubitschek, a childhood friend, Dentist with her Surgery in the centre of Vienna. 1936-1938: Had to leave the USSR because he refused to become Soviet Citizens and Members of the Communist Party. We hoped to settle in England but could not find suitable jobs. An old friend who worked in the Oil Industry suggested to me to change to oil and after I learned some months in the Antwerp Redeventza Refinery we moved to Trieste where I worked in the Aquila Refinery. 1938-1945 : Invited to come to England as Chief Engineer of the Solvent Refining and Dewaxing (Edeleanu) Plant of the Manchester Oil Refinery under construction. 1945-1993 : Before the end of the war I suggested to thee Managing Director of MOR the formation of a separate company for the. fabrication and sale of the seals which I had further developed and successfully used in the USSR, in Trieste and. in Manchester. He agreed and the company was founded with me as Managing Director under the name of Flexibox Ltd, a shares investment of £600, a disused air-raid shelter, one second-hand lathe and one workman. The first two or three years were rather difficult but then the company developed and by now has seventeen subsidiaries all over the world, manufacturing not only seals but shaft couplings and related units, used in all sorts of industry. PS: On May 12, 1993 the University of Manchester has conferred upon me the Degree of Master of Science (honoris causa). Marianne developed Alzheimer's Disease in 1985 and died in 1990. After a marriage of 56 years I could not even think of ever going into our secondary home in Ste. Maxime and I sold it as well as our yacht, funding with the total receipt the "Ben and Marianne Porges Chair" at the Manchester University. I hope that it will help to find a cure for this terrible illness of which in Great Britain alone suffer 750,000 and the world over many millions.