What’s with that Thingy on my Pinkie?

By Leanne Whiteley, 4B Civil

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, Jonathan Bida, wrote a great article about the history of the Iron Ring Ceremony. The article stemmed from an email he received from a friend indicating that he would be unable to attend the Iron Ring Ceremony and wanted to know where he could pick up his ring. I have made some slight changes to the article, but the article is essentially the same. Please read on.

The ceremony - The Calling of an Engineer - is having its 79th birthday this year. Almost a century ago, Professor Herbert Haultain, a Civil Engineering Professor from the University of Toronto, was speaking at a meeting in Montreal, where seven past presidents of the Engineering Institute of Canada, as well as, other engineers were in attendance. He suggested that there needed to be some sort of institution to bind together all of the members of the engineering profession. He also suggested that there be developed an obligation, in the form of a statement of ethics, to which all engineering graduates could subscribe. His ideas were well received, and Haultain proceeded to contact Rudyard Kipling (Not to be confused with Rhubarb Kipling or Rudyard Killings). Kipling had made reference to the works of engineers often in his poetry and in other written works, so he seemed best suited for the task. Kipling, quite enthusiastically, came back with an obligation and a ceremony, which he named “The Ritual of the Calling of the Engineer”. The Ritual is administered by The Corporation of the Seven Wardens Inc, of which the original seven past presidents were the first Wardens. This corporation is responsible for administration of the Ritual and is not associated with any university or engineering organization. The corporation has created camps in various locations in Canada each with their own Camp Wardens.

Although the details of the ceremony are not public domain, the relevance of the ceremony can be explained. The Iron Ring does not represent an engineer’s qualifications, but rather exists to remind all engineers that we are obligated to live and act by high standards of professional conduct. Many people think that the rings were originally made from the steel of a collapsed bridge near Quebec City. On August 29th, 1907, near the end of seven years of construction, the bridge collapsed under the weight of a locomotive loaded with steel; seventy-five people lost their lives. It was determined that the disaster could have been avoided if not for errors in judgement on the part of the bridge's engineers. Nine years later, on September 11th, 1916, another attempt to build a bridge over the same river resulted in another tragedy and a loss of ten lives. The bridge was finally completed in 1917. Alas, the rings are not made from the steel of the collapsed bridge. Despite this merely being an engineering fairy tale, the lesson it teaches should be understood and it can be appreciated how a disaster like this can be so well associated with the meaning of the iron rings. These rings are not simply a piece of jewellery to wave around to your friends, they represent a very serious duty we have to society, to remind us that what we do actually affects other people.

In eleven days, my fellow graduates and I will receive our Iron Rings. We will take an oath and we will accept a responsibility that we must maintain throughout our professional careers. I, like Jonathan Bida, also plan to be banging the darn thing on every lamppost and forehead from here to Halifax.