Huntington, Alfred Kirby

Title

Prof

First name(s)

Alfred Kirby

Surname

Huntington

Position(s) held at King's College London

• Professor of Metallurgy (1879-1919)
• Evening Class Lecturer, Metallurgy (1881-1896)

Education & professional details

School, college and/or university attended

Royal School of Mines (1874 -1877)

Professional activities

Prof A.K. Huntington was a founding member and active committee member of the Royal Aero Club and a specialist in aeroplane design and manufacture.

• Associate, Royal School of Mines
• Fellow, Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain
• Member, Physical Society
• Member, British Association
• Member, Institute of Mining and Metallurgy

Publications ^Ref: *4

• Royal Society Transactions with Prof. Hartley
• "Progress in the Manufacture of Steel", Popular Science Monthly 19  (October 1881)
• with Charles Loudon Bloxam, Metals: Their Properties and Treatment (London, Longmans, Green, and Co: 1888; 1904)

Personal details

Date of birth ^Ref: *1

1852

Place of birth ^Ref: *1

Ipswich, Suffolk

Date of death ^{Refs: *2 *5}

17th April 1920

Place of death ^Ref: *2

London

Obituary ^Ref: *5

Prof. A. K. Huntington:

By the regretted death, on April 17 (1920), at sixty-four years of age, of Prof. Alfred Kirby Huntington so shortly after relinquishing the chair of metallurgy at King's College, University of London, which he had occupied since 1879, British technical science loses one of its old guard, and both metallurgy and aviation are the poorer by the loss of an indefatigable worker and an outstanding personality.

1920 Institute of Metals, Obituaries

Family details

Son of Francis H and Amelia Huntington. Married to Maud Greenhill in 1879. Huntington adopted Ulick Hethersett Huntington (c.1908-)

Notes ^Ref: *6

Professor Alfred Kirby Huntington was a British professor of metallurgy, author and aviation pioneer. He flew balloons and an aircraft of his own design. He originally was a keen balloonist and took part in the first Aero Club race, which took place at Ranelagh Club on 7 July 1906. He moved on from balloons to aeroplanes and flew a plane of his own design, the Dunne-Huntington triplane. The Dunne-Huntington triplane was an unusual machine, variously referred to as a triplane, a biplane or a monoplane. The original design came from John William Dunne during the winter of 1907-1908. The layout was passed to Professor Huntington, who completed the detailed drawings. The aeroplane was kept and flown on the Isle of Sheppy and is where Huntington is named on the Aviation Memorial in Eastchurch.

Huntington lived at Totteridge, Herts (1861); Abbeaville House, Arkwright Road, Hampstead, London NW (28 years and married) (1879); 14 Buckingham St. Westminster (1901); and Guilstead House, Sittingbourne, Kent (1911).

Prof. Huntington was described as a "strange man" who was known sometimes to sleep at night in his own laboratory.