Background
Mr. Liu Chen-hua was born at Wanhsien, Zhili province in 1890.
Mr. Liu Chen-hua was born at Wanhsien, Zhili province in 1890.
Mr. Liu entered the Yu Teh School, Paoting from which he graduated in 1912. After a year and a half spent in the Peking Government University he was one of eight students who won four-year scholarships to the Hong Kong University. He entered as a Freshman the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1914.
Four years later Mr. Liu graduated with the degree of B. S. C. His notes and papers were sent for the inspection of the London University authorities, who pronounced them of the highest excellence. Hong Kong University also forwarded records of his work to the National Board of Education in Peking.
Mr. Liu went to Tientsin in 1918 to become Professor of Prime Movers and Machine Designs. At Yu Teh he remained three years, giving special courses in workshop appliances and other technical branches and organized the Yu Teh Iron Works as a department of the school. About one hundred students were sent to France as a Board of Education in Peking. During his stay in Paoting he also found time to invent two irrigating machines which later were awarded certificates of honor by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce and the Zhili Provincial Exhibition of Engineering Products, held in Tianjin.
In 1921 Mr. Liu accepted the Chair of Physics, Farm Motors and Farm Machinery in the newly established Hubei University at Paoting and later assumed the Presidency of Peiyang University in Tianjin.
Mr. Liu was an untiring worker with the pen. He wrote in Chinese the following books which were published in Shanghai by the Commercial Press. Applied Mechanics (now in its third edition), Steam Engines and Internal Combustion Engines. He was the author of a textbook on physics for university classes and engaged in preparing a volume entitled Farm Motors and Farm Machinery.