Obituary

Dr. Eric Gerard, of Liège, Belgium, one of the best-known professors of electrical engineering in the world, and president of the Belgian National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission, died in Paris on March 27, 1916. Dr. Gerard was in Petrograd when the war broke out, and since then had lived in London and Paris. Eric Gerard was born in Liège September 22, 1856, and was graduated from the School of Mines in that city in 1878. Entering the Belgium Telegraph Department, he was sent to Paris for further study. He returned to Liège as secretary of the Belgian section of the exposition in 1881, and in the same year was appointed secretary of the International Congress on Electrical Units. He succeeded Professor De Large in the chair of telegraphy and other applications of electricity in the School of Mines at Liège, and when Senator Montefiore founded, in 1883, the Institut Electrotechnique Montfiore in Liège, Dr. Gerard was chosen as its director, and occupied that post up to the time of his death. He organized its laboratories and devised many electrical instruments and methods of measurement, and was the very first teacher of electrical engineering in the world, as this was the first educational institution to give courses in electrotechnics. Dr. Gerard later became a member of the faculty of the University of Liège, and was also inspector-general of telegraphs for Belgium. He was the Belgian representative to the Electrical Congress in Chicago in 1893 in connection with the exposition, and on his subsequent tour of this country made many friends among American engineers and scientists. He was also a delegate at Paris in 1900. Dr. Gerard was one of the founders of the International Electrotechnical Commission. He was a prolific writer on technical subjects, which he handled with especial clearness and literary skill.