Jim Shannon
SHANNON, James William (Jim), FIEAust CPEng (1928-2022)
Jim was born at the Moora District Hospital on June 22, 1928, the eldest son of farmer William Arthur Shannon and his wife teacher and nurse Gertrude Ethel Mary Shannon nee Harris. The family had a strong connection to Dalwallinu with his mother’s family being farming pioneers of the district and Jim’s mother being an early teacher in the town. Jim’s father became Secretary of Dalwallinu Roads Board in June 1946.
Jim first grew up at his parent’s farm at Walgoolan. His first school was at Walgoolan where he travelled the one and half miles to school by walking, then trike and finally by push bike. Around age seven, he moved with his parents to a farm at Nugadong, north of Dalwallinu. He attended High School at Northam, a six hour train journey south of Nugadong. Jim passed his Junior in 1944, gaining a six subject pass.
In February 1945 he was awarded a Senior Engineering Scholarship for study at Perth Technical College. He took subjects at Perth Technical College from 1946 to 1953. He had gained employment with Hoskins Engineering and Foundry as a trainee engineer and draughtsman being allowed time off from work to attend lectures and laboratory sessions.
Hoskins Engineering and Foundry became Vickers Hoskins in 1956. Jim remained with the company through the restructure and took on more senior roles as the company expanded.
This was a time when heavy engineering manufacturing was expanding in Australia and Jim was involved in the design of overhead cranes and other heavy engineering components for the mining, steel making and chemical industries, including manufacture of the liquid oxygen tanks for the Woomera rocket range. Container handling cranes were designed, built and commissioned around the bigger ports in Australia and New Zealand.
Jim ultimately became Technical Director for Vickers Hoskins WA and was involved with developing handling equipment for intermodal handling of shipping containers. A comprehensive paper authored by Jim and published by JW Shannon Engineers in 2016 is titled Australian Innovation in Cargo Containerisation - Innovation that led the world. This paper is also available from https://www.shaneng.com.au/history.html.
Jim was an inventor and had a number of patents in his name principally in the areas of container handing cranes and mining crushers. Of particular note, Jim is the original inventor (registered in the US Patents Office as Patent 3677599) of a self-aligning latching mechanism on container spreaders which allows for damage and misalignment of the container pockets. This device and subsequent improvements is used universally on thousands of container spreaders around the world.
In 1953, Jim married nurse Elaine May Treharne.
Jim retired from Vickers Hoskins and established J W Shannon Engineers.
He joined the Institution of Engineers, Australia, as a Student Member in 1948 and became a Member in 1959. He later became a Fellow and achieved Chartered status.
Jim died in Brisbane on September 2, 2022.
References:
North Eastern Courier, 9.2.1945.
Shannon, J. W., Australian Innovation in Cargo Containerisation - Innovation that led the world, JW Shannon Engineers, 2016.
