South Wales Institute of Engineers Educational Trust

About Us

About SWIEET

South Wales Institute of Engineers (SWIE) was founded in 1857 as a learned society for engineers and scientists in the region. It maintained an active programme arranging lectures, excursions, and publishing the Proceedings of the South Wales Institute of Engineers.

The organisation was founded at a meeting at the Castle Hotel, Merthyr, when William Menelaus  (10 March 1818 – 30 March 1882) became its first president.  William Menelaus championed the Bessemer process at Dowlais and the changeover to steel in the nineteenth century.

In 2007, the body was re-constituted as South Wales Institute of Engineers Educational Trust 2007 (SWIEET2007).

Proceedings of the South Wales Institute of Engineers

The Proceedings contain scholarly and popular articles on engineering, technology, and scientific and economic topics from 1859 onwards. They are an invaluable historical resource.

It was initially published as Transactions of the South Wales Institute of Engineers (from Vol. 1 in 1859 to Vol. 62 in 1946), then renamed the  Proceedings of the South Wales Institute of Engineers (from Vol. 63 in 1947 to Vol. 99 in 1991). In 1992 it was renamed Engineering South Wales.

The former headquarters in Cardiff, built in 1893 for the South Wales Institute of Engineers with a large library extension in 1907.