About Us

Established in 1898 the Society has a long and distinguished history. Our members are spread throughout the country, and indeed throughout the world, though our headquarters building (Marshall House) is in South London.

General meetings are held at Marshall House, usually on the first Saturday of the month. These cover a wide variety of topics of interest to model engineers and those of like mind. Meetings for those with special interests, such as Gauge 1 and the Engine Builders’ Group are also held. Marshall House has its own fully equipped lecture room. Facilities include amplified sound with a hearing aid loop and a video projector linked to a PC, TV receiver and camera. These facilities are used at regular meetings as well as for the training courses. Recently, audio-visual links have been installed to enable distant members to share some of the meetings online and to contribute to discussion.

Visits are organised to places of interest, usually two visits a year. Visits have included the Thames barrier,  the Thames tunnel constructed by the Brunels, the motorsport and aviation museums at Brooklands and Farnborough, the Morgan Motor Company and the National Theatre to see the engineering involved with changing stage sets.

The Society ‘house’ magazine, The Journal, contains news of the Society as well as interesting articles written by members. There are six editions a year, and for many members The Journal is the key reason for being a member.

We have run training courses for more than ten years, with the current range covering pretty much everyone from the novice needing advice setting up a workshop and ideas for a first project through to the milling machine and grinding your own lathe tools.

Marshall House also has extensive library and workshop facilities available to all members. The workshops, housed in the basement, are comprehensive. Apart from the equipment listed below, a wide range of tooling and measuring equipment is available for members’ use. Although some special items are available for general use, members are encouraged to supply their own small cutting tools.

Equipment available includes both small and large capacity vertical milling machines, surface and tool and cutter grinders, belt sanding machines, lathes with capacities up to 20in. swing, power saws and drilling machines. CNC milling and routing facilities together with access to CAD/CAM software are being added to the basement workshops and an electronics workshop is available to all members on an upper floor.

SMEE maintains stands at the major model engineering exhibitions to meet existing members and recruit new members, and this web-site has a section that is accessible only to members. The members area contains information on group projects being run, shared learning and the members interest groups, where like-minded members encourage others.

SMEE Digital Group

The Digital Group is a sub-group within SMEE, open to all SMEE members. It is a place to share knowledge, ask questions, and generally join in with a community of people with an interest in a wide range of digital topics within the model engineer’s workshop. See here for more information.