Edwin Hoyt Lockwood papers

Edwin Hoyt Lockwood was born October 31, 1866, in New Canaan, Connecticut. He prepared for Yale at the New Canaan Seminary and received his Ph.B. from Sheffield Scientific School in 1888. He continued to be associated with the scientific divisions of Yale until his death. He received his M.E. in 1892 and his Ph.D. in 1901. He began as an instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and continued in that department steadily rising in rank until he was appointed Robert Higgins Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1927. He was a member of the American Society of Engineers, The Society of Automotive Engineers, the Society of Mechanical Heating and Ventilating Engineers, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and other engineering societies. He contributed articles to The Journal of Automotive Engineers, Power, The Scientific American, and the Yale Alumni Weekly. He also wrote a pamphlet on mechanical drawing (Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor, 1892), and contributed a chapter on perspective to John Clayton Tracy's Introductory Course in Mechanical Drawing(New York, 1898).

His real reputation came not from mechanical drawing, but from the development of experimental mechanical and automotive engineering in which he played a part. He came to be respected as the leading authority in the scientific aspects of automotive design and testing, and in the late 1920's performed automotive tests on new models for the companies which produced them. His tests were as authoritative as the road tests conducted by independent testing companies today, in the days before road tests became standard.