Isaac Fern Kinnard was born in 1892 in Burnaby, Canada. His hometown in Canada was Marshville where his father William was a merchant. Kinnard graduated from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and was then able to come to a British university through a college plan made available by the Canadian army after World War I. He had been stationed in Seaford, Sussex when he made an application to the University of Glasgow to study Engineering. He was a student there from 1918-1919 and took classes in Electrical Engineering I and II. He was unable to complete his examinations as he was required to return to London, preparatory for a return to Canada. From 1919-1922 he was a research engineer with Westinghouse. From 1930 he was engineering manager of the General Electric Meter and Instrument Department in West Lynn, Massachusetts, where he contributed to the development of the magnetic suspension watthour meter, modern long-scale electric instruments, photographic exposure meters, aircraft gyroscopes, flow meters, temperature indicators and radiation instruments. Kinnard was Chairman of the General Electric Magnetic Materials Committee and a member of the company's Engineering Research Council. He was a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers Board of Examiners, 1946-1950 and served on the Instruments and Measurement Committee for 18 years, including two years as the Chairman. As a member of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Kinnard became the Chairman of their Electrical Measuring Equipment Committee in 1952.
It was also in 1952 that he was awarded the Lamme Gold Medal "for his outstanding contributions in design and developments in instrumentation and measurements". The award was established by Benjamin Garver Lamme 1864-1924 , who was chief engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co, for a member of the AIEE "who has shown meritorious achievement in the development of electrical apparatus or machinery." Isaac Kinnard wrote the following publication: Kinnard, I.Applied Electrical Measurements . Westinghouse , 1956 .
From the guide to the Papers of Isaac Fern Kinnard, b 1892, electrical engineering student, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 1953, (Glasgow University Archives Service)
