Hugh Ford (engineer)

Hugh Ford
Born	(1913-07-16)16 July 1913
Died	28 May 2010(2010-05-28) (aged 96)
Alma mater	Imperial College London
Spouse(s)	Wynyard Scholfield (1942–1991) Thelma Jensen (since 1993)
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society1 James Watt International Medal FREng
Scientific career
Institutions	Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial College London Great Western Railway

Sir Hugh Ford FREng² FRS¹ (16 July 1913 – 28 May 2010) was a British engineer. He was Professor of Applied Mechanics at Imperial College London from 1951 to 1978.³

Ford was educated at Northampton Grammar School and served an apprenticeship at the Great Western Railway. He studied at City & Guilds College (Imperial College London) on a Whitworth scholarship, where earned a first-class degree, and won the Bramwell Medal.⁴ He earned a PhD in heat transfer and fluid flow.⁵ During World War II, he worked at Imperial Chemical Industries in Cheshire. He studied operations at strip mills, earning the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal in 1948.⁵

Beginning in 1948, he was Reader in Applied Mechanics at Imperial College. He was president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers from 1977 to 1978. Ford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society¹ in 1967 and knighted in 1975. In 1970, he received the A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize. He was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Science) from the University of Bath in 1978. In 1985 he received the James Watt International Medal.

Shortly after his death Ford was featured on the BBC Radio 4 obituary program Last Word.⁶