Bromsgrove Rail User Group

The discussion continued later that afternoon in McConnell's house at Bromsgrove railway station and it was decided McConnell would circulate various members of the mechanical engineering profession with a view to setting up such a specialist body. McConnell sent circulars out and more meetings were called, culminating in a meeting held in the Queens Hotel at Curzon Street Station on 27th January 1847 when the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was officially founded. George Stephenson was elected President, Archibald Slate the secretary and James McConnell the Chairman. All three had been at the Lickey Incline discussion a few months previously.

 

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers

McConnell's circular (written in his house at Bromsgrove Railway Station) committed the new institution to promote inter alia, the essential element of communication between engineers so as to ensure that innovations and progressive thinking especially on aspects of safety might be mutually shared. This later formed the manifesto of the new Institution and it is pleasing that an original copy of his circular survives to this day in the Institution's archives in London. From an original list of 70 members, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers today has no less than 80 000 members, including 11,000 overseas.