Joining nations 1947-1990

13

THE BIRTH OF THE IIW

But his contribution was by no means only of a general order. His background gave him a keen interest in the safety of welded structures and it was at his instigation and under his chairmanship that Commission V Testing and Measurement was set up. In recog– nition of his unique service, the Governing Council invited him in 1954 to accept life membership of the Executive Council on which he served up to his death in 1969. When he received the Edstrom Medal in 1967 he made a moving speech from which the following is a quotation: Nous pouvons regarder avec fierte ce que nous laissons derriere nous, mais qui n'est qu'une moisson a ses debuts, car qu'est-ce que vingt ans dans l'histoire des temps? Mais, pour moi, la faveur que vous me faites est encore bien autre chose. Car, au moment ou une vie active approche de son terme, le feu qui brfile au coeur de l'homme et qui eclaire pour Jui le cours de sa carriere passee, met en relief, plus que toute autre chose, la figure tres chere de ceux avec qui ii a travaille et Jutte, ceux a qui l'a lie !'oeuvre commune et auxquels va sa propre reconnaissance ... * On the expiry of his term of office as one of the first Vice– Presidents of the IIW, Professor Albert Portevin was similarly offered a seat for life on the Executive Council with the title of Founder Vice-President and he thus continued at the heart of the Institute's affairs until his death in 1962. A distinguished metallurgist, he had been one of the pioneers in the scientific study of welding and as such played a leading part in the foundation and subsequent direction of the Ecole Superieure de Soudure Autogene which, during the 1930s, led the world in teaching welding technology at post-graduate level. Similarly, in the IIW, Professor Portevin was a moving spirit in the creation of Commission XIV Welding Instruction. The author of numerous important papers ~nd a master of lucidity and precision both in speech and writing, his work received national and inter– national recognition, as exemplified by his election as Academician in France and as a Fellow of the Royal Society in the UK, to mention * We can look back .with pride on what we leave behind us although it is only the beginning of the harvest, for what is twenty years in the context of history? But, for me, the privilege which you have conferred upon me is something quite different. For, at the moment when an active life is drawing to its close, the fi re which burns in a man's heart and ' hich illuminates fo r him the course of his past career, throws into relief, more than anything else, the cherished lineaments of those with whom he has worked and struggled, those \\~th whom he has been associated in the common task and to whom he owes a debt of grati tude.