Reverend Dr Ewan Christian Brew Corlett,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from arou ...

(11 February 1923 – August 2005) was a British author,

naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture by occupation Design occupations Occupations Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's rol ...

and consultant. He was pivotal to the restoration of the SS ''Great Britain'' from a sandbank in the

Falklands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Du ...

, to

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. He also wrote several papers on the subject of naval architecture and books on the SS ''Great Britain''. He was educated at King William's College, Isle of Man. He then went on to read engineering science at

Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

, from 1941 to 1944 before working for the Naval Construction Department of the Admiralty. After the war he did a PhD in naval architecture at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

. From 1952 onwards he was with Burness, Corlett & Partners, Naval Architects and Marine Consultants. In 1967 he wrote a letter to ''

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'' stating that the historic ship SS ''Great Britain'', was lying abandoned in the Falklands, and should be restored if possible. From his letter great support was created to survey and restore the ship. In 1974 Corlett was appointed a trustee of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

at Greenwich. He was then subsequently made

, a Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

. He was also an honorary member of the Institute of Navigation and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1990 he was a member of the Board of Inquiry into the ''Herald of Free Enterprise'' disaster He designed such boats as the West Marine Ltd. (Peel Engineering) Midshoreman and Offshoreman.

References

* Dumpleton, Bernard; Muriel Miller (2002)
Brunel's Three Ships
Intellect Books, .
The Times Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Corlett, Ewan British naval architects Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford 1923 births 2005 deaths People educated at King William's College Alumni of King's College, Newcastle