Death of T. Commerford Martin

T. Commerford Martin, President of the Institute 1887–88, died suddenly on Saturday, May 17, 1924. Mr. Martin was recuperating from a serious operation at his summer home in Massachusetts when taken ill. He was born in London in 1856. He entered the Countess of Huntington College as a theological student. In 1877 he came to America and took up work in the laboratory of Thos. Edison, chiefly on phonographs, telephones, etc. In 1879 he went to Jamaica, West Indies where he edited a paper until 1882. He then returned to the U.S. and edited the “Operator” and in 1883 got out the first issue of the “Electrical World” and he continued as editor of that Journal and its components until 1909, when he became Executive Secretary of the National Electric Light Association. Mr. Martin who was a founder and charter member, has held every office in this Institute except that of Treasurer and it was only in our last issue, May, that an appreciation of his life and work as one of the the leaders of the A. I. E. E. was published.