Institution of Mechanical Engineers

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent engineering society, headquartered in central London, that represents mechanical engineers. With over 111,000 members in 140 countries, working across industries such as railway, automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, energy, biomedical and construction, the Institution is licensed by the Engineering Council (EngC) to assess candidates for inclusion on its Register of Chartered Engineers.

The Institution was founded at the Queen's Hotel, Birmingham, by George Stephenson in 1847 (following an informal meeting at locomotive designer Charles Beyer's house in Cecil Street, Manchester). It received a Royal Charter in 1930. The Institution's headquarters, purpose-built for the Institution in 1899, are situated at One Birdcage Walk, London. The first woman to be elected to the Institution was Verena Holmes in 1919.

Origins

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was founded on 27 January 1847, in the Queen's Hotel next to Curzon Street railway station in Birmingham by the railway pioneer George Stephenson and others. The founding of the Institution is said to have been spurred by outrage that George Stephenson, the most famous mechanical engineer of the age, had been refused admission to the Institution of Civil Engineers unless he sent in "a probationary essay as proof of his capacity as an engineer". However this account has been challenged as an exaggeration: though there was certainly coolness between Stephenson and the Institution of Civil Engineers, it is more likely that the motivation behind the founding of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was simply the need for a specific home for the growing number of mechanical engineers employed in the burgeoning railway and manufacturing industries.