Bernard Crossland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Bernard Crossland (born 1923) is an engineering educator with a career spanning some seven decades. He was made a Freeman of the City of London in 1987 and was knighted in 1990 for services to Northern Ireland.
Upon leaving school in 1940 he gained employment as an engineering apprentice with Rolls-Royce, gaining his education through part-time study cumulating in the award of a PhD from the University of Bristol in 1953.
His teaching career began at Luton Technical College in 1945, and, after teaching at Bristol University he became Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The Queen's University of Belfast, where he went on to act as Pro-Vice Chancellor before his retirement in 1982. He was president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1986.
After retirement, Sir Bernard became involved in the investigation of several accidents, the most noteworthly of which was the King's Cross Fire where he headed up the scientific committee which established the cause of the fire and made recommendations to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.
Sir Bernard is currently an Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at The Queen's University of Belfast, where a building, housing the Computer Science department, is named after him.
