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1 Blumlein, Alan Dower
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Photography, film and optics, Recording, Telecommunications[br]b. 29 June 1903 Hampstead, London, Englandd. 7 June 1942[br]English electronics engineer, developer of telephone equipment, highly linear electromechanical recording and reproduction equipment, stereo techniques, video and radar technology.[br]He was a very bright scholar and received a BSc in electrical technology from City and Guilds College in 1923. He joined International Western Electric (later to become Standard Telephone and Cables) in 1924 after a period as an instructor/demonstrator at City and Guilds. He was instrumental in the design of telephone measuring equipment and in international committee work for standards for long-distance telephony.From 1929 Blumlein was employed by the Columbia Graphophone Company to develop an electric recording cutterhead that would be independent of Western Electric's patents for the system developed by Maxfield and Harrison. He attacked the problems in a most systematic fashion, and within a year he had developed a moving-coil cutterhead that was much more linear than the iron-cored systems known at the time. Eventually Blumlein designed a complete line of recording equipment, from microphone and through-power amplifiers. The design was used by Columbia; after the merger with the Gramophone Company in 1931 to form Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd (later known as EMI) it became the company standard, certainly for coarse-groove records, until c.1950.Blumlein became interested in stereophony (binaural sound), and developed and demonstrated a complete line of equipment, from correctly placed microphones via two-channel records and stereo pick-ups to correctly placed loudspeakers. The advent of silent surfaces of vinyl records made this approach commercial from the late 1950s. His approach was independent and quite different from that of A.C. Keller.His extreme facility for creating innovative solutions to electronic problems was used in EMI's development from 1934 to 1938 of the electronic television system, which became the BBC standard of 405 lines after the Second World War, when television broadcasting again became possible. Independent of official requirements, EMI developed a 60 MHz radar system and Blumlein was involved in the development of a centimetric radar and display system. It was during testing of this aircraft mounted equipment that he was killed in a crash.[br]BibliographyBlumlein was inventor or co-inventor of well over 120 patents, a complete list of which is to be found in Burns (1992; see below). The major sound-recording achievements are documented by British patent nos. 350,954, 350,998, 363,627 (highly linear cutterhead, 1930) and 394,325 (reads like a textbook on stereo technology, 1931).Further ReadingThe definitive biography of Blumlein has not yet been written; the material seems to have been collected, but is not yet available. However, R.W.Burns, 1992, "A.D.Blumlein, engineer extraordinary", Engineering Science and Education Journal (February): 19– 33 is a thorough account. Also B.J.Benzimra, 1967, "A.D. Blumlein: an electronics genius", Electronics \& Power (June): 218–24 provides an interesting summary.GB-N -
2 Preece, Sir William Henry
[br]b. 15 February 1834 Bryn Helen, Gwynedd, Walesd. 6 November 1913 Penrhos, Gwynedd, Wales[br]Welsh electrical engineer who greatly furthered the development and use of wireless telegraphy and the telephone in Britain, dominating British Post Office engineering during the last two decades of the nineteenth century.[br]After education at King's College, London, in 1852 Preece entered the office of Edwin Clark with the intention of becoming a civil engineer, but graduate studies at the Royal Institution under Faraday fired his enthusiasm for things electrical. His earliest work, as connected with telegraphy and in particular its application for securing the safe working of railways; in 1853 he obtained an appointment with the Electric and National Telegraph Company. In 1856 he became Superintendent of that company's southern district, but four years later he moved to telegraph work with the London and South West Railway. From 1858 to 1862 he was also Engineer to the Channel Islands Telegraph Company. When the various telegraph companies in Britain were transferred to the State in 1870, Preece became a Divisional Engineer in the General Post Office (GPO). Promotion followed in 1877, when he was appointed Chief Electrician to the Post Office. One of the first specimens of Bell's telephone was brought to England by Preece and exhibited at the British Association meeting in 1877. From 1892 to 1899 he served as Engineer-in-Chief to the Post Office. During this time he made a number of important contributions to telegraphy, including the use of water as part of telegraph circuits across the Solent (1882) and the Bristol Channel (1888). He also discovered the existence of inductive effects between parallel wires, and with Fleming showed that a current (thermionic) flowed between the hot filament and a cold conductor in an incandescent lamp.Preece was distinguished by his administrative ability, some scientific insight, considerable engineering intuition and immense energy. He held erroneous views about telephone transmission and, not accepting the work of Oliver Heaviside, made many errors when planning trunk circuits. Prior to the successful use of Hertzian waves for wireless communication Preece carried out experiments, often on a large scale, in attempts at wireless communication by inductive methods. These became of historic interest only when the work of Maxwell and Hertz was developed by Guglielmo Marconi. It is to Preece that credit should be given for encouraging Marconi in 1896 and collaborating with him in his early experimental work on radio telegraphy.While still employed by the Post Office, Preece contributed to the development of numerous early public electricity schemes, acting as Consultant and often supervising their construction. At Worcester he was responsible for Britain's largest nineteenth-century public hydro-electric station. He received a knighthood on his retirement in 1899, after which he continued his consulting practice in association with his two sons and Major Philip Cardew. Preece contributed some 136 papers and printed lectures to scientific journals, ninety-nine during the period 1877 to 1894.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCB 1894. Knighted (KCB) 1899. FRS 1881. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers, 1880. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1880, 1893. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1898–9. Chairman, Royal Society of Arts 1901–2.BibliographyPreece produced numerous papers on telegraphy and telephony that were presented as Royal Institution Lectures (see Royal Institution Library of Science, 1974) or as British Association reports.1862–3, "Railway telegraphs and the application of electricity to the signaling and working of trains", Proceedings of the ICE 22:167–93.Eleven editions of Telegraphy (with J.Sivewright), London, 1870, were published by 1895.1883, "Molecular radiation in incandescent lamps", Proceedings of the Physical Society 5: 283.1885. "Molecular shadows in incandescent lamps". Proceedings of the Physical Society 7: 178.1886. "Electric induction between wires and wires", British Association Report. 1889, with J.Maier, The Telephone.1894, "Electric signalling without wires", RSA Journal.1898, "Aetheric telegraphy", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.Further ReadingJ.J.Fahie, 1899, History of Wireless Telegraphy 1838–1899, Edinburgh: Blackwood. E.Hawkes, 1927, Pioneers of Wireless, London: Methuen.E.C.Baker, 1976, Sir William Preece, F.R.S. Victorian Engineer Extraordinary, London (a detailed biography with an appended list of his patents, principal lectures and publications).D.G.Tucker, 1981–2, "Sir William Preece (1834–1913)", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 53:119–36 (a critical review with a summary of his consultancies).GW / KFBiographical history of technology > Preece, Sir William Henry
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3 Perry, John
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 14 February 1850 Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, Ireland (now Northern Ireland)d. 4 August 1920 London, England[br]Irish engineer, mathematician and technical-education pioneer.[br]Educated at Queens College, Belfast, Perry became Physics Master at Clifton College in 1870 until 1874. This was followed by a brief period of study under Sir William Thomson in Glasgow. He was then appointed Professor of Engineering at the Imperial College of Japan in Tokyo, where he formed a remarkable research partnership with W.E. Ayrton. On his return to England he became Professor of Engineering and Mathematics at City and Guilds College, Finsbury. Perry was the co-inventor with Ayrton of many electrical measuring instruments between 1880 and 1890, including an energy meter incorporating pendulum clocks and the first practicable portable ammeter and voltmeter, the latter being extensively used until superseded by instruments of greater accuracy. An optical indicator for high-speed steam engines was among Perry's many patents. Having made a notable contribution to education, particularly in the teaching of mathematics, he turned his attention in the latter period of his life to the improvement of the gyrostatic compass.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1885. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1900. Whitworth Scholar 1870.Bibliography28 April 1883, jointly with Ayrton, British patent no. 2,156 (portable ammeter and voltmeter).1900, England's Neglect of Science, London (for Perry's collected papers on technical education).Further ReadingObituary, 1920, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 58:901–2.D.W.Jordan, 1985, "The cry for useless knowledge: education for a new Victorian technology", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 132 (Part A): 587– 601.GW -
4 Shoenberg, Isaac
[br]b. 1 March 1880 Kiev, Ukrained. 25 January 1963 Willesden, London, England[br]Russian engineer and friend of Vladimir Zworykin; Director of Research at EMI, responsible for creating the team that successfully developed the world's first all-electronic television system.[br]After his initial engineering education at Kiev Polytechnic, Shoenberg went to London to undertake further studies at the Royal College of Science. In 1905 he returned to Russia and rose to become Chief Engineer of the Russian Wireless Telegraphy Company. He then returned to England, where he was a consultant in charge of the Patent Department and then joint General Manager of the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company (see Marconi). In 1929 he joined the Columbia Graphophone Company, but two years later this amalgamated with the Gramophone Company, by then known as His Master's voice (HMV), to form EMI (Electric and Musical Industries), a company in which the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had a significant shareholding. Appointed Director of the new company's Research Laboratories in 1931, Shoenberg gathered together a team of highly skilled engineers, including Blumlein, Browne, Willans, McGee, Lubszynski, Broadway and White, with the objective of producing an all-electronic television system suitable for public broadcasting. A 150-line system had already been demonstrated using film as the source material; a photoemissive camera tube similar to Zworykin's iconoscope soon followed. With alternate demonstrations of the EMI system and the mechanical system of Baird arranged with the object of selecting a broadcast system for the UK, Shoenberg took the bold decision to aim for a 405-line "high-definition" standard, using interlaced scanning based on an RCA patent and further developed by Blumlein. This was so successful that it was formally adopted as the British standard in 1935 and regular broadcasts, the first in the world, began in 1937. It is a tribute to Shoenberg's vision and the skills of his team that this standard was to remain in use, apart from the war years, until finally superseded in 1985.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1954. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1954.Further ReadingA.D.Blumlein et al., 1938, "The Marconi-EMI television system", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 83:729 (provides a description of the development of the 405-line system).For more background information, see Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Television. From Early Days to the Present, November 1986, Institution of Electrical Engineers Publication No. 271.KF
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