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Next pageThis is a special edition of the Caius Engineer, published to mark the award of a Personal Chair in Control Engineering to Dr. Malcolm Smith, just before the end of last term. When I started to prepare this edition I initially wondered what else I could put in it apart from this first sentence, but I soon realised that there were lots of things relating to Malcolm's appointment that I knew nothing about. For example, why do we call the occupants of chairs Professors? When did Professors first appear on the scene and, for that matter, when were the Universities in which they profess first founded? How old is Control Engineering as a discipline and who were the first control Engineers? I thought that the answers would be easy to find, but rather to my surprise it's proved to be quite difficult and in the short time available I have not been able to answer most of these questions. On the other hand, it has been a stimulating project. I hope that you will also find my discoveries of interest and that you might be encouraged to carry out your own research on these topics. Please let me know if you find out anything of interest.
Derek Ingram