Annual Report of the Council. xlix 



Osborne Reynolds was born at Belfast, August 23rd, 1842. 

 He came of a clerical family. His grandfather, the Rev. Osborne 

 S. Reynolds, had been a scholar of Gonville and Caius College, 

 Cambridge, and afterwards rector of Debach with Boulge, 

 Suffolk. His father, the Rev. Osborne Reynolds, was thirteenth 

 wrangler in 1837 (the year of (jreen and Sylvester), subsequently 

 Fellow of Queens' College, Principal of the Belfast Collegiate 

 School, headmaster of Dedhain Grammar School, Essex, and 

 finally, in his turn, rector of Debach. It was to his father that 

 he owed his early education, first at the Dedham School, and 

 afterwards privately. After a short period with a tutor he entered, 

 in 1861, the workshop of Mr. E. Hayes, mechanical engineer, 

 at Stoney Stratford, in order "to learn in the shortest time 

 possible how work should be done, and ... to be made a 

 working mechanic before going to Cambridge." In 1863 he 

 went to Cambridge, to his father's College, Queens', of which 

 he became a Fellow in 1867, after graduating as seventh wrangler. 

 Immediately afterwards he entered the oiTfice of John Lawson, 

 civil enjiineer, of London. 



In 1868 he was elected to the newly instituted professorship 

 of engineering in the Owens College, which he held until his 

 practical retirement in 1905. This was almost the first chair of 

 the kind in England, although similar professorships had existed 

 for some time in Scotland, and had been held by such men as 

 James Thomson, Rankine, and deeming Jenkin. It is possible, 

 indeed, that Reynolds was influenced to some extent by the 

 tradition of these chairs. With Rankine, at any rate, for whom 

 he professed the greatest admiration, he had strong affinities, 

 in the wide range of his scientific interests, in the clearness of 

 his intuitions, and in the courage and tenacity with which he 

 attacked difificult and complicated problems. 



Reynolds became a member of our Society in 1869, and 

 from that time onwards was a constant attendant at its meetings. 

 He took an active share in its business, and contributed many 

 important papers. He was Secretary from 1874 to 1883, ^'""d 



