Richard John Durley

Richard John Durley MBE (11 February 1868 – 13 August 1948) was Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University (1901–1912), one of three commission members for the design of the University of British Columbia and, during World War I, Officer-in-Charge of Gauges and Standards in the Canadian Ministry of Munitions Department of Inspection.

After the war he was appointed a founding vice-chairman and secretary of the Canadian Engineering Standards Committee with Sir John Kennedy acting as chairman. In 1919, he was appointed Secretary of the Canadian Engineering Standards Association and in 1925 was appointed Secretary of the Engineering Institute of Canada until his retirement in 1938. His father, the descendant of a long line of yeoman farmers, died when Durley was an infant and his mother became a schoolteacher to raise the family. He was educated at Bedford Modern School, then at University College, Bristol, and University College London. and in 1894 became chief lecturer in engineering at the Municipal Technical College in Hull. He was made a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1905. He was a member of the University Club of Montreal and the Rideau Club in Ottawa; his entry in Who's Who in 1926 lists his interests as sailing, shooting and fishing. He married Elizabeth Schwill of New York; they had a daughter and a son, Thomas Richard, who also became an engineer.

Durley died in Montreal, Canada on 13 August 1948.

Selected work See also 1st edition, 1903