THE HISTORY OF OUR INSTITUTE

CONFERENCES AND EXHIBITIONS

The second section I was to cover was the history of the corrosion conference and exhibitions.  The development of the Institute’s Technical Committee during the 1970’s resulted in a number of one day conferences with table top exhibitions being held in conjunction with different Branches throughout the UK.  At the end of the 70’s the technical committee decided that they would hold a two-day National UK Corrosion Conference in London. At the same time an attempt was made to start a separate NACE UK Section, all of which was covered in my previous May/June issue, number 89.  It is with great personal regret that our working arrangement with NACE fell apart, in the way it did, but it was inevitable once we became competitors rather than partners, for this excellent 10 year working arrangement to cease.  I only hope that all those who have learned the lessons of our past history can revive this relationship, in the future.

The formation of the CCEJV coincided with the first National UK Conference, which meant that the event that had been organised for the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square in 1980 was joined by the newly formed CCEJV.  There were 16 technical presentations and 12 work group meetings at this event with over 200 delegates attending for the two days, with a £3,000 surplus, which in those days was like winning the lottery! We then progressed with further events being held in the Cairn Hotel in Harrogate in 1981, the Cunard International Hotel in London in 1982 and the Metropole in Birmingham  in 1983. 

The 1983 event was the first of the break away from the Morgan Grampian Group and although we were not permitted to use the name of Correx, since this had been acquired by Morgan Grampian, we flagged it up, with the catchy title, “UK Corrosion 83, the National Conference and Exhibition of the Institution of Corrosion Science and Technology and joint venture with NACE”, some mouthful, but it took off.
As set out in the previous May-June 2009 issue number 89 history section, the 83 event with the Exhibition and Conference organised by our Institute resulted in over 100 exhibitors and 800 conference delegates attending the three day event and this remains our best ever attendance to this day.

After our success of UK Corrosion 83, in 1984 we took on the major Wembley Conference Centre, with our own Conference and Exhibition and delegate numbers remained in excess of 500, after Wembley in 85 we move to Harrogate and in 86 back to Birmingham, still organising our own exhibitions, but with a different exhibition contractor.  In 1987 we moved to Brighton for two successive years, since the 87 event was successful and we decided to organise and hire the same venue for our combined event with EuroCorr 1988 and although our conferences traditionally had been held in November or the very end of October, this second event with EuroCorr was held in the first week of October from the 3rd to 5th in 1988.

With the arrival of Keith Vincent and the move from Birmingham to Leighton Buzzard, our 1989 event was held in Blackpool, and was administered by the Leighton Buzzard Office, with the timing changed to the middle of November and this was the last event where we were working (only just) with the newly formed CEA.  Following the split with NACE the 1990 conference was held at Sandown Park Racecourse and was organised by the Institute of Corrosion in conjunction with the European Federation of Corrosion during the last week of October.  In 1991 the event reverted back to Manchester, where it was administered by IBC and again in 1992. 

There was a break in 93 and the conference reverted to the South Coast in 1994 at Bournemouth International Centre, with the exhibition being organised by the Turret Group, the former company of Hill Media, our current Correx organisers. There was then again another break and in 1999 attempts were made to organise a joint conference with BINDT and although this went ahead, entitled NDT 99 and UK Corrosion 99 there were over 100 papers over 24 sessions, but only 19 were corrosion related and when the repeat of this exercise was discussed for Torquay in 2000, our Institute declined to proceed, in view of the BINDT domination of the previous event.

Two very successful conferences were held in 2001, an ICorr/NACE project entitled Corrosion Odyssey 2001, incorporating UK Corrosion 2001, this event although a financial liability was technically successful. 
The 2002 event was held in Cardiff and again this was similar to Edinburgh, in that it was a financial liability, but a great technical success.  The Institute then reverted to the original venue in Harrogate at the Cairn Hotel where UK Corrosion 2003 was held with table-top exhibitions also organised by the Institute. 
Similar small events have been held at Manchester and also at Sheffield, but much of the original databases and exhibitor details had been lost and so these events organised by Manchester University and OCCA showed that the event organising was on a decline and the exhibition virtually non existent.

The formation of Correx Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of 
Corrosion, which we were able to get as soon as the name had been dispensed with by the Morgan Grampian Group and its successors, was used to revive the exhibition and conference at the NEC building in Birmingham along side Surface World, organised successfully in the past by Hill Media.  A report on this event was covered in issue 92 – Nov/Dec issue recently circulated.

THE MAGAZINES OVER THE YEARS

Finally, in this section I would like to cover the development of the member’s magazines as it has progressed over the years.  Initially the BACE Newsletter was produced by an automatic copying process, purely in black and white and it was dealt with in-house by Dr Tiratsoo’s publishing company.  Following the name change to the Institution of Corrosion Technology, the bulletin continued in a similar format, but two colours were used at great expense!  At the time of the third change of name to the Institution of Corrosion Science and Technology, the magazine was still entitled ‘Bulletin’, but had increased to 8 or 10 pages and some issues had at least four colour present in the illustrations. 
These bulletins continued right up until October 1982, but it was at that time that a major change was decided upon by the Council and the new magazine was entitled “Industrial Corrosion”. It was interesting to look at the list of members included in that very last October bulletin, which sadly included the obituary for Tim French-Mullen, but eminent names such as M D Allen,  D W Harvey, M D Foskitt and I C Sellars were all included in the membership list.  The Editor of the new Industrial Corrosion journal was Colin Bryer and Colin is till involved with certain aspects of the ICorr and Correx publicity.

It was good to see that Brian Tunnard was still the Honorary Editor of the publication and remained so on the transfer to Industrial Corrosion, right the way through until the final change to Corrosion Management and the publishers to our current publishing company, Square One, when Brian Tunnard stood down, a position he held for over 30 years and will be remembered by many of our existing members and it was for that reason that he was included in our special group of ten VIP’s for our 50th Anniversary celebrations at the Thames Barrier.

The name Industrial Corrosion was felt that this did not cover the general corrosion subject matter and a number of alternative names were considered, with Council finally deciding on the current title, ‘Corrosion Management’.  Corrosion Management was launched in 1994 and continued to be edited by Colin Bryer with Brian Tunnard as the Chairman of the Editorial Team.  This continued until the publishing contract was transferred from Impact Limited, Colin Bryer’s company, to Deeson Publicatons in Kent during early 2000.  In view of some difficulties with the new publishers, the contract was again transferred from Deesons to our current publishers at Square One in 2002, where it has remained ever since, with Brian Tunnard standing down and Bob Akid taking over as Technical Editor.

In our first issue of 2010, the Jan/Feb issue, number 93, a report was produced for this issue of the magazine entitled ‘A New Year Presentation’.  I was invited to give this first lecture of the new year  by the London Branch, which gave me the opportunity to pay a tribute to Harry Hatley, whose funeral I attended on the first working day of 2010, (another VIP at our 50th Anniversary and a founder member of BACE). 
The second part of my New Year presentation, which was delivered in three parts, gave me an opportunity to review the six parts of the history of the Institute, which I briefly summarised for the benefit of London Branch Members and also to be able to refresh my own memory on what I had said earlier in the year.  I took the opportunity of selecting from my historical research of our Institute, three President’s actions that had occurred of great merit during the 50 years. In third place I selected, Redvers Parkins (President 1982/83) for his involvement with NACE, the CCEJV and CEA.  In second place was Dr T P Hoar, President 1969/70 for his involvement with the DTI Committee on the cost of corrosion.
In first place as being the most significant achievement for the Institute, in my personal view over 50 years, I placed John O’Shea, President 2000/2002, for the acquisition of Corrosion House.  Something, which had been attempted by the Institute on many occasions in the past, but never previously achieved.  This was indeed coupled with the two major conferences and exhibitions in Edinburgh, Scotland and Cardiff, Wales, as well at conferences in Dublin and Cork, Ireland.  He was also responsible for introducing recognition by the Science Council for our members Chartered Scientist status.

As some of you may have read in our issue number 89 last May, there was a short articled entitled, - “Inter Institute liaison”, this brief article described discussions ongoing between ICorr and BINDT, which started in 2007/2008 on a “President to President” basis, the Trustees and Council have been progressing these discussions and in my final article on our history, entitled, - “The New Millennium and where are we going, 2000-2009 and Beyond”, I hope to update the membership on the outcome of these discussions and how they will affect the future of our Institute.

If any member has any comments or corrections I would be very pleased to hear from them at our Leighton Buzzard office.

David H Deacon