Mr. Norman Abraham Esserman
24 July 1896 - 5 November 1982 - Australia
Affiliation to CIRP
1952 Foundation Member
Strong supporter of CIRP objectives and the
development of manufacturing engineering; contributed to STC-P
- President of Royal Society of Victoria 1935-1936 (Australia)
- Officer-in-Charge of Metrology section CSIRO National Standards Laboratory (NSL) 1940-1958
- Chief, CSIRO Division of Metrology 1945-1961
- Elected to the International Committee of Weights and Measures in October 1954
- Director of CSIRO National Standards Laboratory 1958-1961
- First Jack Finlay National Award received from Institution of Production Engineering
Accomplishments
Norman Esserman graduated Bachelor of Science (BSc) from the University of Sydney in 1916 . He travelled to the United Kingdom early in 1917 to join the Australian Munitions Procurement Group and undertook further studies at the Royal College of Science in London.
He was a student of Professor A. E. Conrady, the eminent exponent of optical design. From 1923 to 1938 he was a physicist at the Munitions Supply Laboratory in Maribyrnong, Victoria. In the late 1930’s, Esserman, together with a group of younger scientists, undertook intensive liaison at the National Physics Laboratory, Teddington, UK, in preparation for the establishment of Australia’s National Standards Laboratory at Chippendale in Sydney.
He can be credited with a major role in establishing and developing a national metrology institute (NMI) with a professional and scientific record of world standing and in advancing the growth of precision manufacturing in Australian industry.