Joining nations 1947-1990

8

JOINING ATIONS

discussion of which had been deferred in Paris, and on the establish– ment of Commissions. It was agreed to recommend that five Com– missions should be initially set up, dealing respectively with gas welding, electric arc welding, resistance welding, documentation and education . Other subjects envisaged were testing and measurement, terminology, standardization, industrial applications and health and safety. The programme of the inaugural meeting of the IIW was also discussed; it included an assembly to constitute the Institute, a meeting of the Governing Council and a series of lectures, of which four were specified: Mr R Weck - The present position on residual stresses in welded structures Mr C G Keel - Oxy-acetylene pressure welding Professor A Portevin - Metallurgical problems of welding Professor T van Iterson - Brittle fractures Almost exactly a year after the creation of an international welding organisation was first mooted, the IIW was duly constituted by the representatives of 14 countries and 22 member societies meeting in Brussels on 9 June 1948 under the chairmanship of Mr Isaac. Some ·of these countries intimated that their adhesion was subject to confir– mation and in the event one society, the Australian Welding Institute, decided against becoming a founder member and only joined in 1954. There were thus initially 13 member countries which, together with the names of their member societies, are listed in Appendix I. The original constitution of the IIW limited membership to non– profit making bodies concerned with scientific or technical aspects of welding. This was intended to mean national welding societies and it was indeed these which constituted and still constitute the essential element in membership. As we have seen, such societies were diverse in origins and objectives and this diversity is reflected in the founder members of the IIW. Of these, the majority were organisations of modest size; some combined two or more functions such as research, teaching, inspec– tion, standardization and publishing; characteristic of this type of body were the Institut Beige de la Soudure (founded 1942), the Svetskommissionen (Sweden) (founded 193 1), the Societe Suisse de I' Acetylene (founded 1911), and the Instituto de la Soldadura (Spain) THE FOUNDER MEMBERS