Lionel Simeon Marks


Lionel Simeon Marks was a British engineer and one of the pioneers of aeronautics. He was born and mostly educated in England, but in 1892 moved to the United States. During World War II he was a chief consulting engineer to the US Bureau of Aircraft Production. His Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers is considered as classical reference work.

Biography

Marks was born in Birmingham, England, where he graduated from Mason Science College in 1892 with a bachelor of science degree. He received a fellowship to study at the Cornell University, New York, United States. In 1894, he became professor of mechanical engineering at Harvard University and retired in 1940. In the early 1900s he was also professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On 21 June 1906 he married Josephine Preston Peabody, an American poet and dramatist. They had a daughter, Alison Peabody Marks, and a son, Lionel Peabody Marks.
Marks died of a heart attack in Providence, Rhode Island, aged 83.

Publications

His most famous work is Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, which was first published in 1916 as Mechanical Engineer's Handbook and contained 1836 pages. Its latest edition was compiled by 160 authors and comprised 1800 pages.
His other books include