Evan Parry (30 November 1865 – 17 December 1938) was a Welsh

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

noted for his pioneering work in New Zealand.

History

He was born in

Llanddeiniolen Llanddeiniolen (; ) is a community in the county of Gwynedd, Wales, and is from Cardiff and from London. It comprises the hamlet also called Llanddeiniolen, and the villages of Deiniolen, Bethel, Dinorwig, Rhiwlas, Brynrefail and Penisar ...

Carnarvonshire Caernarfonshire (; , ), previously spelled Caernarvonshire or Carnarvonshire, was one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was located in the north-west of Wales. Geography The county ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, the son of William Parry, a slate quarry manager, and his wife Eliza, née Williams. He was educated at Bangor and studied for his BSc at

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

. He secured an engineering position at the

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century ...

power station and subsequently for the

British Thomson-Houston British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industry, heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Originally founded to sell products from the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, it soon became a manufac ...

company. In 1897 he began work for the American-born

Horace Field Parshall Horace Field Parshall (9 September 1865–12 December 1932) was an electrical engineer specialising in rotating electrical machines, railway traction, and electrical distribution. Born in America, he worked for General Electric, later moving ...

, an engineer with a lucrative business electrifying tramways in Dublin, Glasgow, Bristol and elsewhere. In 1911 he was appointed the first electrical engineer for New Zealand's Public Works Department and was immediately involved in the construction and installation of the

Lake Coleridge Lake Coleridge () is in inland Canterbury, New Zealand's South Island. It is located northwest of Methven and has a surface area of . The lake is situated in an over-deepened valley formed by a glacier over 20,000 years ago in the Pleistocene ...

hydroelectric power station, which was opened in 1914. He left for other employment in England in 1919; his successor was Australian-born engineer Lawrence Birks (1874–1924), who fell ill in Adelaide on his way to London, where he was to have represented New Zealand at the inaugural World Power Conference in 1924, and returned to Wellington, where he died a few months later. The paper which he was to have read to the conference was instead delivered by his old colleague and mentor Evan Parry.

Sources

Te Ara - The encyclopedia of New Zealand: Evan Parry

References

1865 births 1938 deaths Welsh emigrants to New Zealand New Zealand electrical engineers 19th-century British engineers 20th-century New Zealand engineers People from Llanddeiniolen {{UK-engineer-stub