Order of the Engineer – A  Short History

During the construction of the Quebec Bridge in Canada in the year 1907 the bridge, whose 1,800 foot main span was to be the largest cantilever structure in the world, collapsed under its own weight because of an error in the design engineer’s calculations. The bridge was redesigned but it suffered a second accident in 1916, when its center span fell while being hoisted into place, further embarrassing the engineering community. Finally, in 1917 the bridge was completed and stood across the St. Lawrence River as a symbolic gateway under which European immigrants sailed into Canada. The bridge stands today as still the longest cantilever span in the world and serves as a reminder to Canadian engineers to take care with their designs and to persevere in the face of adversity.

The first “Iron Ring Ceremony” was held at the University of Toronto in 1925. Tradition has it that the rings were fabricated from the wreckage of that 1907 collapse of the Quebec Bridge. The ring’s circular shape has been said to symbolize the continuity of the engineering profession and the circle is also an appropriate symbol of the engineering design process which is iterative. That the “iron” ring was made from the bridge wreckage is apocryphal because the bridge was not made out of wrought iron that it could easily be hammered into a faceted band, but of steel. The persistent telling of the rings coming from the wreckage and being worn on the drawing and writing hand serves as a constant reminder of the fallibility of an engineer and the consequences of error.

In time, the Iron Ring Ceremony came to be known among engineers in the United States; and in the early 1950’s Lloyd Chacey, an Ohioan, wrote to the Corporate of the Seven Wardens charged with the administration of the Ritual in Canada about extending the ceremony beyond the Canadian borders. In the 19790’s the first “Order of the Engineering Ceremony” was held at Cleveland State University and by the 1980’s the fledgling steel ring ceremony had taken place in more than 30 states with tens of thousands of young and old engineers having recited the Obligation. Nevertheless, it is rare to encounter an engineer in the U.S. who wears a little finger ring; but wherever they practice, the hundreds of thousands of engineers who do wear the iron or steel ring on the little finger of their working hand to do thus daily remind themselves and their colleagues of their obligation to society and to their profession.