The relationship between the Society of Merchant Venturers and the Faculty of Engineering has been acknowledged throughout the faculty's growth. The Queen's Building included a memorial tablet that was unveiled by Winston Churchill. The tablet reads:

This tablet commemorates the establishment and provision of the Faculty of Engineering in the University from 1910 to 1950 by the Society of Merchant Venturers: Robert Sinclair, Master, 1953.¹

Churchill's unveiling was reported widely in the press, for example the Edinburgh Evening News stated that Winston Churchill, the university's 'longest-standing Chancellor' made a tour of the £1 million Department of Engineering and '[unveiled] a tablet recording the close association of the city's Society of Merchant Venturers with the University'.²The acknowledgement of the relationship was echoed at the building's opening on 5 December 1958 by the Queen. A contemporary report from the faculty stated that the 'University, after forty years of its invaluable help from the Society of Merchant Venturers, now has its Faculty of Engineering housed in the midst of the other university departments...'.³ Again it was stated that a plaque 'placed on record the Merchant Venturers' contribution to sustaining the Faculty of Engineering'.⁴ The plaque (and the relationship more generally) was clearly held in high esteem, as a photograph of it was included in the booklet that accompanied the Queen Elizabeth's opening of the building in December 1958 (Figure 5).

1. ^ Severn, The Faculty p.73
2. ^ Edinburgh Evening News, 26 November 1954, p.7, The British Newspaper Archive
3. ^ J. F. Baker, 'Science and Technology in the University of Bristol: Opening of the Queen's Building,' Nature no.4656 (1959) p.217-219
4. ^ Don Charleton, A University for Bristol (1984) p.61
5. ^ University of Bristol Specila Collections, DM 883 Engineering Department/MUTC Correspondence