Michael Wood & Rikki Jones — 150 year interviews
Two generations of Whitworth Scholars — Dr Michael Wood (1953) and Rikki Jones (2014) — reflect on what the scholarship has meant across the decades.
As part of the #Whitworth150 series, the Society spoke with two Scholars from very different eras. Dr Michael Wood received his Whitworth Senior Scholarship in 1953 and went on to a distinguished academic career at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. Rikki Jones, a submarine structural engineer at Babcock, became a Scholar in 2014.
Both describe the scholarship as a turning point — Wood for the access it gave him to research and teaching, Jones for the way it valued his apprenticeship route into engineering and connected him with a network of like-minded engineers across industry and academia.
Their conversations bookend 60 years of Whitworth Scholars and underline the through-line of Sir Joseph's original intent: practical engineers, theoretically educated, contributing across generations.
Whitworth Summer Meeting, Preston — 9th & 10th July 2025
Hosted by President Rachael Hoyle, the 2025 Summer Meeting took members to BAE Systems Warton and the Helmshore Mills Textiles Museum.
New Award Holders' Visit to Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum
On Friday 21st February 2025, a group of new award recipients gathered at Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum as their first foray into the Society.
Celebrating 40 Years of the New Whitworth Awards Scheme
2024 marked 40 years since the Whitworth Scholarship Awards scheme was relaunched. A four-part series of reflections from across the decades.