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1950-1959: Vera Brew

In the Autumn 1970 edition of The Woman Engineer*, journal of the Women’s Engineering Society, career talks by three women were published. Two of those women had studied at the Borough Polytechnic – Madeleine Nobbs in the late 1930s and Vera Brew in the late 1950s. Thanks to the article, it’s possible to trace Vera’s career.

Vera was born in 1928 and came from Workington on the Cumbrian coast. We don’t know when or why she moved to London, but her article in The Woman Engineer says that she joined the Heating and Ventilating Department of London County Council in 1954 to work as a draughtsman. Her interest in knowing more about the subject led her to evening classes at the Borough Polytechnic and she gained her Ordinary National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering in 1959. Her subjects included Applied Mechanics, Applied Heat and Mathematics. By this time she had also discovered that she couldn’t go any further in her GLC department and applied to the Civil Service instead.

Vera’s new job was as a design draughtsman in the Ministry of Public Building and Works, and alongside her new job she returned to the Borough Polytechnic to study for her HNC in Mechanical Engineering. This was an evening course and included courses on Strength of Materials, Mechanics of Fluids and Theory of Machines, as well as more Mathematics. Strictly speaking, Vera’s HND was from the National College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering, which was a sister college to the Borough Polytechnic. Based in what is now called the Faraday Building of LSBU, the National College merged with the Borough Polytechnic and City of Westminster College in 1970 to become the Polytechnic of the South Bank. The two organisations always had a very close relationship, and although Vera was studying at the College her exam results are included with the Borough Polytechnic’s records.

After 8 years with the Ministry, Vera spent a year on a project working for a large project on buildings in the Persian Gulf with £5 million worth air conditioning – although still based in London. The project involved executive training which would help her upgrade to professional engineer status, but at the end of the year she realised that the professional engineer job in the Ministry wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Vera wanted to remain more involved in the technical side of the work, so took at job at the North West Metropolitan Hospital Board as the Main Grade Engineer. The Board covered Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, north west London, and Spelthorne and as engineer Vera covered all aspects of projects, from feasibility studies through to testing and commissioning the final installation.

*Available online here

1950-1959: Vera Brew

In the Autumn 1970 edition of The Woman Engineer*, journal of the Women’s Engineering Society, career talks by three women were published. Two of those women had studied at the Borough Polytechnic – Madeleine Nobbs in the late 1930s and Vera Brew in the late 1950s. Thanks to the article, it’s possible to trace Vera’s career.

Vera was born in 1928 and came from Workington on the Cumbrian coast. We don’t know when or why she moved to London, but her article in The Woman Engineer says that she joined the Heating and Ventilating Department of London County Council in 1954 to work as a draughtsman. Her interest in knowing more about the subject led her to evening classes at the Borough Polytechnic and she gained her Ordinary National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering in 1959. Her subjects included Applied Mechanics, Applied Heat and Mathematics. By this time she had also discovered that she couldn’t go any further in her GLC department and applied to the Civil Service instead.

Vera’s new job was as a design draughtsman in the Ministry of Public Building and Works, and alongside her new job she returned to the Borough Polytechnic to study for her HNC in Mechanical Engineering. This was an evening course and included courses on Strength of Materials, Mechanics of Fluids and Theory of Machines, as well as more Mathematics. Strictly speaking, Vera’s HND was from the National College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering, which was a sister college to the Borough Polytechnic. Based in what is now called the Faraday Building of LSBU, the National College merged with the Borough Polytechnic and City of Westminster College in 1970 to become the Polytechnic of the South Bank. The two organisations always had a very close relationship, and although Vera was studying at the College her exam results are included with the Borough Polytechnic’s records.

After 8 years with the Ministry, Vera spent a year on a project working for a large project on buildings in the Persian Gulf with £5 million worth air conditioning – although still based in London. The project involved executive training which would help her upgrade to professional engineer status, but at the end of the year she realised that the professional engineer job in the Ministry wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Vera wanted to remain more involved in the technical side of the work, so took at job at the North West Metropolitan Hospital Board as the Main Grade Engineer. The Board covered Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, north west London, and Spelthorne and as engineer Vera covered all aspects of projects, from feasibility studies through to testing and commissioning the final installation.

*Available online here