Alexander Russell (electrical engineer)

Alexander Russell, FRS (15 July 1861 – 14 January 1943) was a Scottish electrical engineer and educator. ^[1]

He was born in Ayr, Scotland and educated at Glasgow University (gaining an MA in Mathematics and Physics) and Caius College, Cambridge. He was later (in 1924) awarded a doctorate.

After teaching mathematics at Cheltenham College and the Oxford Military College, he took a post at Faraday House, in Southampton Row, London, which had been newly founded to train electrical engineers. In 1909 he became the Principal, a position he held until 1939. There he pioneered the sandwich course, whereby students had a year or so in the classroom and then experienced work in industry before returning to the classroom. He also wrote a number of articles for the journal Electrician which he later published in book form.

He acted as President or vice-President of a number of societies, including the presidency of the Physical Society in 1922–24 and of the Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1923. In 1924 he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, his citation acknowledging that he was "Distinguished for his knowledge of alternating current phenomena, inductances and electrostatics."^[2]

In 1940 he was awarded the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

He died in 1943 after a long illness. He had married Edith, the daughter of H.B.Ince, MP, and had a son and a daughter.

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