Background
Alexander Crombie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1851. He was the son of Edward R. Humphreys and Margaret (McNutt) Humphreys.
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Alexander Crombie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1851. He was the son of Edward R. Humphreys and Margaret (McNutt) Humphreys.
At the age of eight he was brought to Boston, Massachussets, by his parents, where he attended his father's private school. At fourteen he passed the preliminary examination for the United States Naval Academy but, barred from admission by his youth, he went to work in a Boston insurance office.
Since his duties in Bayonne & Greenville Gas Light Company took him into the operating branch of the business, he felt the need of technical training. Later his employers agreed to give him two mornings a week for attending classes at Stevens Institute of Technology on condition that he make up his work in the evenings, which he also used for studying. By exceptional application he completed the six years' course, for part-time attendance, in four years, and was graduated in 1881, at the age of thirty, with a special commendation from the faculty.
He removed to New York in 1866, and entered the employ of the New York Guaranty & Indemnity Company and was soon made receiving teller and assistant bookkeeper. So diligent and capable was he that in 1872 he became secretary-treasurer and, shortly afterward, superintendent of the Bayonne & Greenville Gas Light Company.
During his college years he served as vestryman, church treasurer, Sunday-school superintendent, a member of the board of education of Bayonne, N. J. , and foreman of the volunteer fire department. After graduation he became chief engineer for the Pintsch Lighting Company, for which he built oil-gas plants, conducted extensive experiments, and improved the business organization. When in 1885 he became superintendent and chief engineer for the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia, he showed similar ability both in technique and organization. While continuing to build gas plants for this company, he joined with Arthur G. Glasgow in 1892 to form the firm of Humphreys & Glasgow, designers and constructors of water-gas plants in all parts of the world, with headquarters in London; this firm built the first successful water-gas plant in England.
In 1894 he left the United Gas Improvement Company and organized the New York firm of Humphreys & Glasgow; he retired from the London firm in 1908, and in 1910 reorganized the New York firm as Humphreys & Miller, Inc. At that period the possibility that gas-engines might supplant steam engines gave additional importance to his researches and consulting practice; he also conducted researches on illumination, photometry, and candlepower. His practice was very profitable, and he was known as a leader in technology with a sound foundation of business ability.
In 1902, when he was fifty-one, he was asked to become president and chairman of the board of trustees of Stevens Institute, his alma mater, while still retaining his consulting practice. He accepted and served as its president for twenty-five years, being long past the usual age limit when he retired. To his work in education he brought the experience of a man of affairs and a successful consulting engineer. His presidential address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1912 reveals an engineer's dislike of waste, and the conservatism and high standards of a man accustomed to hard work and logical principles. Humphreys had the engineering trait of believing a thing to be either black or white, rather than gray; his consulting practice had trained him to advise his clients either "yes" or "no. "
His influence in engineering education was criticized for producing narrow and overspecialized technicians rather than adaptable and broadly educated scientists. His authority at the Institute was rarely questioned, and he showed little tendency to compromise. Andrew Carnegie was attracted to him, established endowments at Stevens, and made him a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In 1905 he published Lecture Notes on Some Business Features of Engineering.
He married on April 30, 1872, Eva Guillaudeu of Bergen Point, N. J. His two sons were drowned in the Nile in 1902 when the older tried to save the younger.
