John Appleyard
APPLEYARD, John A, BSc MSc CEng MIMechE (1933-2023)
University of WA academic specializing in thermodynamics, served as head of Mechanical Engineering Department.
John was born on May 14, 1933, at Babbington, Nottinghamshire, the son of Leonard Appleyard and his wife Gladys Mary Appleyard (nee Shawcroft).
John was educated at Heanor Grammar School in Derbyshire. He completed a science degree at Leeds University before commencing work with Bristol Aeroplane Company, as a research engineer, in 1955. The company became Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd in 1959. In 1960 he was appointed as Lecturer at the University of Northern Nigeria, later to be known as Ahmadu Bello University.
John married Sheila Mercer in 1955 and they had two sons, Stephen and Clive.
John, Sheila and their two young sons arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on September 13, 1963, on the ”Arcadia”. John had been appointed to a mechanical engineering lecturing position at the University of Western Australia.
His arrival coincided with rapid expansion in the engineering school. The mechanical engineering department had only started a few years earlier with the appointment of Prof. David Allen-Williams in 1958. A new engineering building opened in 1961, just in time for the iron and nickel mining booms in Western Australia that drove a demand for more engineers, particularly mechanicals. While only a dozen or so graduated annually in mechanical engineering in the late 1960s, annual graduations had tripled by 1980.
In 1970, he was awarded a Master of Science from the Loughborough University, for his thesis “Labour Turnover and Job Attitudes in a Polymer Engineering Factory”.
John led a significant expansion in the teaching and laboratory support for thermodynamics, gas turbines and fluid dynamics, his own areas of specialization. He also had a keen appreciation for economics and taught engineering finance for many years. He helped create extremely popular courses that combined studies in engineering and commerce, enabling engineering students to study in the UWA Business School for part of their degrees.
By 1979, John was Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and a year later was appointed Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, serving a 5-year term till 1986, succeeding Prof. Bob Brown who had joined CSIRO as head of the Division of Manufacturing Technology. He served a second term from 1991 till 1996 and then served as Acting Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in 1997, retiring in 1998. John was known for being a financially astute department head, bequeathing significant surpluses to his successors to enjoy.
John was a keen golfer and member of the Chidley Point Golf Club for several decades.
John died on May 14, 2023, aged 90 years. He was survived by his wife of 67 years, Sheila and by his elder son, Stephen.
James Trevelyan, June 2024, Western Australia
References:
Margaret A Sacks (editor), The WAY 79 Who is Who, Crawley Publishers, Nedlands, 1980
James Trevelyan, personal communication 2023.
