266 OBITUARY. 
for twelve years, and during his term of service there many important ships of the U. S. 
Navy were built. 
Mr. Benson in 1916 became affiliated with the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, 
Fore River Plant, Quincy, Mass. On April9, 1917, he was made superintendent of hull 
construction. On the outbreak of the World War, when the United States erected the Vic- 
tory Plant at Squantum, Mass., for the construction of destroyers, Mr. Benson was selected 
to take charge, where a world record was made in destroyer construction. 
Since 1921 Mr. Benson had been sales agent of the Fore River Plant of the Bethlehem 
Shipbuilding Corporation with an office in Boston. He also had charge of the repair work 
of which Fore River had made a specialty since the construction of its huge floating dry dock. 
Mr. Benson became a member of this Society in 1914. He died June 18, 1922, as the 
result of an automobile accident. 
EDWIN AMBROSE BURNSIDE 
MEMBER 
Captain Burnside was born at Middleport, Ohio, May 17, 1864. At the age of four- 
teen he entered the employ of the Campbell’s Creek Coal Company, Point Pleasant, W. Va., 
as a cabin boy and continued with that company for forty-four years, serving in various 
capacities up to the time of his death, when he was manager of transportation. Since 1894 
he had been engaged as captain of the steamers of the company, also in the construction and 
repair of steamers, towboats, etc., and in the design of hulls, engines and boilers for serv- 
ice on western rivers. He had no technical training, his experience being all practical, and 
he improved his knowledge of shipbuilding and kindred arts by his membership in various 
technical societies and his study of their transactions as well as marine journals and books 
on shipbuilding. 
Captain Burnside was an authority on the question of Ohio River matters and a lead- 
ing spirit in the work of the Great Kanawaha Improvement Association. This association at 
his death passed a resolution stating among other things as follows: 
“He unstintedly gave of his time and talents to the enlargement and upbuilding of river 
traffic, and without a doubt had a larger and more complete knowledge of the necessities 
for the development and improvement of rivers than any other man on the western waters.” 
Captain Burnside met his death by drowning on March 16, 1922, when the towboat 
Helper, owned by his company, capsized in a flood on the Ohio River. He was elected a 
member of this Society in November, 1911. 
SIR GEORGE JOHN CARTER, K. B. E. 
MEMBER 
George John Carter was born at Gosport, England, on May 24, 1860, and served his 
apprenticeship as a shipbuilder at the Portsmouth Dockyard, and continued to work in the 
drawing office there for four years after completing his apprenticeship. In 1886 he joined 
