Peck, John Frederick

Professor John Frederick Peck, Wh Ex, BSc (Eng), ACGI, C Eng, FICE, FIMechE (3 March 1897-3 April 1971) was an Emeritus Professor of Loughborough University of Technology; and former Head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Loughborough College of Technology. John Peck began his career as an engineering apprentice at Chatham Dockyard 1912-18 and served as an engine room artificer on destroyers and light cruisers during the First World War. After the war he won a Whitworth Exhibition and a Royal Scholarship to City & Guilds Engineering College, graduating with a first class degree in engineering. He taught at Portsmouth Municipal College 1921-26 before taking up an appointment at Loughborough College. He was Head of the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering 1942-54 and became Head of the separated Department of Civil Engineering at Loughborough College of Technology 1954-62. His specialist field was hydraulic engineering, for which he won an international reputation. He worked as a consultant for many water boards, river authorities, fen drainage boards and pumping machinery companies. In 1951 he was awarded the Ludwig Mond Medal by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for his experimental work on hydraulic machinery. He also worked on specific Loughborough College projects like the levelling of the campus, the construction of the swimming pool and stadium, the design and building of the College's first hydraulic laboratory, and the organisation of the Department's Summer Surveying Camps.