ANDERSON, Ralph Blyth, Dr.

  Events

• Education: Primary and Secondary Education, 1925-1933, Milton School, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (Formerly Southern Rhodesia). Was often first or second in his class, gained his rugby cap and was awarded a Beit Engineering Scholarship in 1933.

• Employment: Coordinator National Programme for Energy Research (Transportation) in the Foundation for Research Development (FRD) of the CSIR, Jan 1983-Dec 1987, Pretoria. The Programme entailed funding research at CSIR Institutes and Universities in alternate fuels for transportation as well as in alternative transport modes such as electric vehicles, and the coordinator was expected to ensure the smooth running of the various projects to achieve positive results.
In 1998, the National Energy Council was formed where he served as an Acting Coordinator and later Adviser for research in the energy field, until the Council was absorbed by the Government Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs in about 1991, when he finally retired from formal employment.

• Employment: Senior Research Officer with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in May 1965, Pretoria South Africa. In 1966 he was appointed to the post of Head, Power Electrical Engineering, of the National Electrical Engineering Research Institute of the Council, and finished in Dec 1982 as Assistant Director. His specific area of research was that of the development of lightning flash counters, and his research team carried out the first measurements of the lightning flash density in Southern Africa over a period of 11 years. He was a member of Working Group 33.01(Lightning) of CIGRE (International Conference on Large Electric Systems at High Tension) from 1963 and was appointed it's Convenor in Jan 1970 a position he held until Sep 1984. During his employment at the CSIR he completed the requirement for a degree of Ph.D. which was awarded in Dec 1972. He has published many technical papers on the subject of lightning, the last two with colleagues, were published in 2002. These both dealt with proving a new theory of how lightning can cause injuries to people when striking near them.

• Employment: Electrical Engineer by the Southern Rhodesia Electricity Commision, Jan 1938-May 1965, Salisbury (Now Harare). His final position was Chief Electrical Contracts Engineer responsible for the specification, tendering and recommendation of purchase all transmission and distribution materials required. During this time he also undertook research on the effect of lightning on powerlines and equipment and jointly with his colleague Richard Dawson Jenner, (now deceased) presented two papers on that subject to the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers. The first in 1948, received the award of an Institute Premium, and the second, in 1954, merited Gold Medals for the authors.Theprevious presentation of a Gold medal by the Institute was to Rendell and Gaff in 1933.

• Military Service. Dr. Anderson served during WW2 in the !st Battalion Rhodesia Regiment with HQ in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia

• Professional Societies: Membership, 1955 to date, Southern Rhodesia, South Africa And The United Kingdom. 1955:Member Rhodesian Institution of Engineers
1962:Member and later Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (London)
1966:Fellow of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) and later was elected an Honorary Member.
1979:Elected President of the SAIEE

• BSc (Eng) Degree: in Electrical Engineering, Dec 1937, University Of Capetown, South Africa.

• Curiculum Vitae: Curiculum Vitae.

Ralph married Helena Elizabeth DAVEL, daughter of Willem Marthinus DAVEL and Helena Elizabeth PRETORIUS, on Sep 4, 1939 in Salisbury (Now Harare). (Helena Elizabeth DAVEL was born on Sep 26, 1918 in Shishumbi Farm, Fort Victoria, Zimbabwe, died on Jun 28, 1996 in Pretoria South Africa and was cremated in Ashes presently at 50 Queen Elizabeth Rd. Harare, Zimbabwe.)

• Historical: Date of Marriage, Sep 4, 1939, Salisbury (Now Harare). was the day following the declaration by the Brittain of War with Germany. The marriage was undertaken at a Magistrate's office after which her spouse attested in the Rhodesian Army, but was refused as being designated a person in the employ of an essential industry.