Lynn Kirkham
KIRKHAM, Lynnell Owen (Lynn), BE (1944-2020)
Teacher, Engineer, Organ Builder, Researcher
Lynnell Owen Kirkham was born on 26th June 1944 to engineer William (Bill) Kirkham, founder of Kayes Engineering Pty Ltd in Subiaco, a spare car and truck parts business near the old Metters factory off Salvado Road. The company provided engine reconditioning and performance-enhancing parts such as specially profiled cam shafts and carburettors for popular makes of car. Lynn helped his father with his sideline hobby building speedway cars for the popular Claremont Showgrounds racetrack. Bill Kirkham played saxophone in dance bands, fostering Lynn’s love for music.
Lynn gained a prestigious scholarship to attend Perth Modern School from 1957 to 1961 and commenced his formal engineering studies at The University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1963, completing his Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1967. He continued postgraduate studies, researching electromagnetic forming with experiments and computer simulations, while at the same time developing his love for organ music with a large recording collection.
By 1972, Lynn was also tutoring and lecturing part time in the UWA mechanical engineering school, with some consulting projects now and then. In 1972, under Ronald Sharp’s supervision, he helped to install and then maintain the Perth Concert Hall pipe organ, taking over full responsibility because Sharp was needed to install the Sydney Opera House organ.
Even with the latest electronic controls, Lynn found it was a taxing job to keep it tuned and performing consistently. He was passionate about optimizing the air control valves on which the finest sounds depended. He spent several months in Germany learning the latest methods for building pipe organs. By the time he returned, he was convinced that mechanical linkages from the keyboard to the pipe valves using modern materials would provide a sound quality better than the best electronic controls. Before he could persuade the concert hall to appreciate the opportunity to re-engineer their organ, he was approached by a local organist, Annette Goerke, to construct a traditional German pipe organ in her home.
Trinity College commissioned him to build another organ. Lynn took 18 months extended leave from UWA and this second instrument was completed in 1984. This instrument is widely regarded as equalling the best in Europe at the time. Lynn had ambitions to take up organ building as a second career, but found that the limited opportunities to construct organs with such high standards of perfection could not sustain a regular income.
Lynn was by now a full-time lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, teaching mechanics and dynamics to first year students and mechanical design to third years. Lynn led the then annual Gledden Tour, taking 20 final year students to Europe for the first time. He had raised sufficient funds from sponsors to cover nearly the full cost for students, and set them up with open dated return tickets so they could spend the rest of their summer in Europe if they wanted to.
Lynn was passionate about the need for mechanical engineering students to design and build small racing cars, an interest he had inherited from his father. In 2000, Lynn worked with Dr Angus Tavner, leading a large team of students entering the Formula SAE racing car competition for the first time. Teams in successive years gradually improved on their designs, winning the Australian competition and then competing internationally.
Lynn coached them in mechanical design. He would spend hours with each student, sitting beside them at CAD workstations or poring over drawings, taking them on as novices and a month or so later launching them as high-tech machine designers working on some of the latest race car technologies. With such a tight schedule, the design had to be completed within a few weeks to ensure that the parts could be made, assembled, tested, adjusted, re-tested in time. Some years, adjustments were still being made at the competition itself. He also taught them patience and exemplified persistence, helping them to learn that success comes with practice and high quality work.
Rather than point out student mistakes, he would foresee problems and call the relevant students in “for a chat” and gently lead them to spot their own errors. Lynn’s talent as a supervisor lay in his ability to draw out of each student the very best work that they were capable of, and this was fundamental to the success of the team. When time ran short, Lynn would even make fixtures himself to ease some difficult assembly tasks, presenting them with the comment “wood is a very underrated engineering material!” This phrase is still regularly quoted by members of the motorsport team more than 10 years after Lynn retired.
With Angus and later Chris Rowles, he inspired the students to take on the best in the world and win. For that, our students needed technology from the ‘bleeding edge’ of Formula One racing. Seeking the best composite structural materials, and inspired by Lynn, the students invented a way to cure the entire car chassis without an autoclave. Later they would sell the technology to Boeing. His students won top international motorsport trophies and even the world championship in 2008.
Lynn’s contributions were recognised with a series of teaching awards and, after persuasion from colleagues, finally successfully applied for promotion to Assistant Professor just before retiring in 2009.
Lynn suffered a major stroke in April 2020 and died a few days later on 12th April.
James Trevelyan Emeritus Professor and Colleague Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Western Australia
References:
Web article: PRIMOTIPO 'Brabham’s ‘Repco Special’ #7 Speedway Midget…'
Web article: UWA News 'UWA Motorsport launch their ninth race car'
Web article: Western Australian Organ Society - Trinity College Organ
Web article: Western Australian Organ Society - Tribute to Lynn Kirkham
In The Pipeline (Journal of Western Australian Organ Society) 24:2 May 2020
The Perth Modernian e-Newsletter, Perth Modernian Society, 2:20 Issue 45, August 2020
Organ Historical Trust of Australia Perth City Organs
