Electric railways,
and other topics of current interest, had rapidly brought him into a
foremost place among English scientific men. During the last years of
his life, Siemens advanced from the shade of mere professional celebrity
into the strong light of public fame.
President of the British Association in 1882, and knighted in 1883,
Siemens was a member of numerous learned societies both at home and
abroad. In 1854 he became a Member of the Institution of Civil
Engineers; and in 1862 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He
was twice President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, besides being a Member of Council
of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and a Vice-President of the Royal
Institution. The Society of Arts, as we have already seen, was the first
to honour him in the country of his adoption, by awarding him a gold
medal for his regenerative condenser in 1850; and in 1883 he became its
chairman. Many honours were conferred upon him in the course of his
career--the Telford prize in 1853, gold medals at the various great
Exhibitions, including that of Paris in 1881, and a GRAND PRIX at the
earlier Paris Exhibition of 1867 for his regenerative furnace. In 1874
he received the Royal Albert Medal for his researches on heat, and in
1875 the Bessemer medal of the Iron and Steel Institute.
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