John Mackintosh Mackay Munro FRSE MIME MICE (1853-1925) was a Scottish businessman and electrical engineer.

Life

He was born in Glasgow in 1853 the son of David Munro, engineer, who had founded Munro & Anderson in 1840. The family lived at 55 Malta Street.[1] He was educated at Glasgow Academy then studied at Anderson's College.

In March 1880 he tried to set up a telephone exchange in Glasgow, but abandoned the project due to "patent difficulties".[2] If successful this would have been one of the first exchanges in Britain.

In 1894 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, James Thomson Bottomley, Magnus Maclean, and Alexander Galt.[3]

In 1906 he became Chairman of the Institute of Electrical Engineers.[4]

Up until 1910 he lived at Hawarden, 59 Partickhill Road then moved to Blythswood Square for his final years.[5] In that year, following the death of his father, he became Director and Partner in Anderson & Munro.

He died on 29 December 1925.

Family

He was father to Donald Smeaton Munro (b.1879), who also became an engineer and was involved in converting Edinburgh's gas lights to electricity.[6] His daughter Elsie Smeaton Munro (1880–1961) became a writer; and his son Ion was a diplomat and journalist, as well as a collector of rare books.

References

  1. ↑ Glasgow Post Office Directory 1853
  2. ↑ The Engineering Review vol 25
  3. ↑ Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  4. ↑ Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical Engineers 1906
  5. ↑ Glasgow Post Office Directories 1909 and 1911
  6. ↑ Who's Who in Engineering J E Sears


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