Mervyn Frederick Ryan

MERVYN FREDERICK RYAN Mervyn Frederick Ryan, C.B.E., who died on the 28th April, 1952, was born on the 22nd December, 1883. He received his early education at Stonyhurst College; his engineering education at University College, Nottingham; and his practical training at the Midland Railway locomotive works, Derby, with the General Electric Co., Schenectady, and with the Pennsylvania Railroad. On completing his training in 1907 he returned to Derby, where he spent two years as a piece-work inspector, followed by two years as Assistant to the Locomotive Works Manager. In 1911 he was appointed Resident Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Somerset and Dorset Light Railway; and in 1913, Assistant Locomotive Superintendent of the London and South Western Railway, subsequently being made Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer. From 1915 to 1919 he was Director of Munitions (Gauges) in the Ministry of Munitions, and in recognition of his services he was made a C.B.E. In 1919 he went to Argentina to take up an appointment as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Central Argentine Railway. Later he became, in turn, General Manager of the Pacific Railway, and co-ordinator for the various railway systems. After the transfer of the British-owned railways to the Government, in which he took a prominent part, he was appointed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to survey the railways of India and Siam prior to the granting of loans to those countries for development purposes. With his passing, the British community in Argentina loses one of its outstanding personalities. He will be remembered particularly for his work in connection with British education in Argentina during and after the last war. As Vice- Chairman of the British Community Council and Chairman of the Education Committee he directed the planning of a scheme to enable more children of British descent to receive a better education. A keen sportsman in his youth, he continued as a sponsor of all kinds of sport throughout his life, and was President of the Argentine Hockey Association. In 1925 he climbed Mt. Aconcagua. He is survived by his widow and two sons by a former marriage. He lies buried at Puente del Inca, in the Andes. He joined The Institution as an Associate Member in 1921 and was elected a Member in 1925. He served on the Committee of the Argentine Local Centre (now the Argentine Branch) for various periods between 1928 and 1948, and was Chairman in 1928-30 and 1947-48. He was also a Member of The Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Institute of Transport, and a Past President of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers.

SECOND OBITUARY WITH WRONG BIRTH YEAR

MERVYN FREDERICK RYAN .1884-1952 RYAN was born in December 1884 and died in Argentina on April 28, 1952. He had a very varied career. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, where he rapidly came to the front and showed especial aptitude in science and mathematics. He made railway engineering his profession ; studied for a while at University College, Nottingham and, from 1903 to 1906, was a pupil in the Midland Railway Works, Derby. Thence he went to the United States to take an electrical course at Schenectady, followed by some practical experience of railway working on the Pennsylvania Railroad. On his return to England he filled several posts in the Midland Railway and the London & South-Western Railway

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and elsewhere ; but on the outbreak of World War I his services were requisitioned by the Government to assist Sir Henry Fowler in the Ministry of Munitions, in the production of precision instruments and fuses. Later he became Director of Munition Gauges and was awarded the C.B.E . In 1919 he went to the Argentine as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Central Argentine Railway, and henceforth made his home in the Argentine. In 1925 he became Assistant General Manager of the Buenos Aires & Pacific Railway, succeeding to the General Managership three years later, and retaining that post for seventeen years. Whilst holding this position he was closely associated with Sir Montague Eddy in the sale to the Argentine Government of the British-owned railways. For a short time he was ' Co-ordinator ' of all the various systems that had been taken over by the Argentine Government, until an Argentine Military Officer was appointed. He was then asked by the International Monetary Bank to go to India to survey the railways there, and thence on to Thailand for the same purpose ; and that about finished his professional activities. He was to have gone to Chile, but his health forbade. · It would be tedious to enumerate all his other activities, professional and social. He was a very popular member of the British community in Buenos Aires and appears to have been Chairman or Vice-Chairman at one time or another of most organisations flourishing in the country. He was a born leader of men and a first-rate organiser. Perhaps outside his profession, and mountaineering, Education took first place in his interests ; he was Vice-Chairman of the Education Committee which was largely responsible for a scheme which enabled more children of British descent to receive a better education than they had hitherto had the opportunity to obtain : and before leaving this country for the Argentine he had been closely associated with varions educational schemes. He was a great sportsman fishing and shooting chiefly, but at one time was an enthusiastic tennis player and a very keen golfer. He was elected to the Alpine Club in March 1926, and although he had only had one season in the Alps, he had put in five consecutive seasons in the Andes, culminating in 1925 with guideless ascents of Almacenes (17,IOO ft.), Tolosa (17,500 ft.) and Aconcagua (23,o8o ft.). He was, I think, a cousin of V. J. E. Ryan, with whom Geoffrey Young used to climb; and he married (as his second wife d. 1938) a niece of Waiter Larden. Although I proposed him for the Club I did not know him well : the first time I met him was in I 922, on the Gorner Glacier, when he was returning from the Betemps Cabane. When he learned of my connection with the Argentine, and I knowing of his, we soon improved the acquaintance and I heard all about his ambitions in the Andes. As a man, apart from his obvious professional gifts, he was forthright and cheerful, very charitable in a carefully unostentatious way, de~ lighting in his many friends, afraid of nothing, not even of death. For the last two years of his life he was ill with cancer, suffering more and more as the months went by. But he was quite undaunted, welcoming his friends and joking with them, and would discuss his approaching death with an interested curiosity such as an explorer ·might show in discussing a forthcoming expedition. At his own request he was buried in Puente del Inca, in the Andes, the starting point of Fitzgerald 's ascent of Aconcagua in 1897, and of his own. On his retirement he had intended to settle do\vn in Ireland and had in fact bought an estate there; but his illness prevented his ever occupying it. He leaves a widow, and two sons by his first marriage. S. YOUNG.