(Reprinted from April 1946 Issue, American Foundryman)

Peter L. Simpson Award Will Be Fifth A.F.A. Gold Medal

The Peter L. Simpson gold medal of A.F.A., a new Association award, was made recently by the contribution of $5,000 of the National Engineering Co., Chicago, for endowment of an Award Fund that would make possible the honoring of current achievement within the industry.

Proffered to the Association by past President H.S. Simpson, the endowment was accepted by the A.F.A. Board of Directors and will be awarded for the first time at the 50th Anniversary Foundry Congress in Cleveland May 6-10.

The first recipient of the new medal is Howard F. Taylor, formerly of Naval Research Laboratory, and now Research Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

In accepting the generous offer of Mr. Simpson, the award agreement includes all the general conditions associated with the John H. Whiting, John A. Penton, Wm. H. McFadden and Joseph S. Seaman medal awards which have been bestowed periodically by the Association since 1924. In one respect however, the Peter L. Simpson award will differ from the others in that it is intended that a medal shall be conferred each year upon some person "who shall, by his individual effort, achieve very noteworthy results toward the achievement of those objects for which the Association was formed."

Thus the purpose is to confer the annual award for meritorious accomplishment occurring during the year preceding each A.F.A. Annual Meeting. The decision as to achievements deemed worthy of recognition rests with the A.F.A. Board of Awards consisting of the last 7 living past presidents of the Association

When past President H. S. Simpson, Chairman of the Board, National Engineering Co., tendered the new endowment fund, he did so as a memorial to his father the late Peter L. Simpson. Its acceptance by unanimous action of the Board of Directors, was accompanied by the following motion:

"That A.F.A. accept with gratitude the generous offer of H. S. Simpson to endow an A.F.A. Memorial Fund in memory of the late Peter L. Simpson, and that a special committee of the Board is appointed to confer with the donor at the earliest possible date, to the end that the greatest good by accomplished for the foundry industry in honor of one of its outstanding pioneers:"

Peter L. Simpson (1846-1917) was born in Scotland where he served his foundry apprenticeship before coming to Canada at the age of 21. He worked first in a foundry at Petersborough, Ontario, and later in Toronto before entering the United States in the employ of the former Younglove Massey Company, Cleveland. While there, he was responsible for making the first steel castings manufactured west of the Alleghenies.

Mr. Simpson built and operated his own foundry in Cleveland for a number of years before becoming Foundry Superintendent of the former North Star Iron Works, Minneapolis. It was there that his inventive genius became apparent, resulting in production of the first gear molding machine, as well as the first dry press brick machine.

Traveled Widely

Moving to Chicago in 1889, he operated the National Brick Machinery Company and subsequently traveled to many parts of the world. Many of his developments in sand mixing equipment have been carried on by the National Engineering Company, Chicago, of which he was the first President.

Like many other self-educated men with a natural mechanical bent, Peter L. Simpson was long intensely interested in the spreading of greater knowledge among young men entering the industry and it is this interest which is typified on the Peter L. Simpson gold medal of A.F.A. which now bears his name.