The first meeting of the Norwich Engineering society with about 60 engineers was held on 12th November 1923. This was the result of a proposal by Mr A. E. Collins, the City Engineer of Norwich, to form a non-trade group bringing together every branch of engineering in order to exchange and develop ideas and experiences. At this first meeting Mr Collins spoke of the traffic and congestion in Norwich! The society was not active during the war but the first meeting after was re-convened on 1st October 1945 and the lecture programme was restarted.
A vast number of meetings have been held on new and developing topics relative to the period, such as, aircraft and London tube tunnelling in the 20’s, television in the 30’s, atomic energy, gas turbines, jet airliners, rocket propelled armaments in the 50’s, all reflecting cutting-edge developments of the time.
Today’s lecture programme continues the tradition of focussing on new and developing technologies in engineering with talks by leading professionals in their fields on topics such as; renewable energy and carbon reduction techniques, AI and its impact on society, developments in space and associated technologies. A number of our talks also reflect the past reviewing historic technologies and people.
Our archive of lectures is substantial and open to all members and corporate members and provides a wealth of information in addition to the knowledge of individual members who are happy to share and discuss technical information. Many of the lectures are available via YouTube and some historical documents may be accessed here. In addition, there is a vast wealth of archived documents within the society.
The Society has in the past supported local education institutions and is always open to discuss new educational links with suitable institutions in a drive to seek new ways of awakening an interest in engineering amongst our younger people of today.
Membership of Norwich Engineering society is open to anyone with an interest in engineering in any of its forms.