-
101 Shillibeer, George
SUBJECT AREA: Land transport[br]fl. early nineteenth century[br]English coachbuilder who introduced the omnibus to London.[br]Little is known of Shillibeer's early life except that he was for some years resident in France. He served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy before joining the firm of Hatchetts in Long Acre, London, to learn coachbuilding. He set up as a coachbuilder in Paris soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and prospered. Early in the 1820s Jacques Laffite ordered two improved buses from Shillibeer. Their success prompted Shillibeer to sell up his business and return to London to start a similar service. His first two buses in London ran for the first time on 4 July 1829, from the Yorkshire Stingo at Paddington to the Bank, a distance of 9 miles (14 km) which had taken three hours by the existing short-stagecoaches. Shillibeer's vehicle was drawn by three horses abreast, carried twenty-two passengers at a charge of one shilling for the full journey or sixpence for a part-journey. These fares were a third of that charged for an inside seat on a short-stagecoach. The conductors were the sons of friends of Shillibeer from his naval days. He was soon earning £1,000 per week, each bus making twelve double journeys a day. Dishonesty was rife among the conductors, so Shillibeer fitted a register under the entrance step to count the passengers; two of the conductors who had been discharged set out to wreck the register and its inventor. Expanded routes were soon being travelled by a larger fleet but the newly formed Metropolitan Police force complained that the buses were too wide, so the next buses had only two horses and carried sixteen passengers inside with two on top. Shillibeer's partner, William Morton, failed as competition grew. Shillibeer sold out in 1834 when he had sixty buses, six hundred horses and stabling for them. He started a long-distance service to Greenwich, but a competing railway opened in 1835 and income declined; the Official Stamp and Tax Offices seized the omnibuses and the business was bankrupted. Shillibeer then set up as an undertaker, and prospered with a new design of hearse which became known as a "Shillibeer".[br]Further ReadingA.Bird, 1969, Road Vehicles, London: Longmans Industrial Archaeology Series.IMcN -
102 Stephenson, Robert
[br]b. 16 October 1803 Willington Quay, Northumberland, Englandd. 12 October 1859 London, England[br]English engineer who built the locomotive Rocket and constructed many important early trunk railways.[br]Robert Stephenson's father was George Stephenson, who ensured that his son was educated to obtain the theoretical knowledge he lacked himself. In 1821 Robert Stephenson assisted his father in his survey of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway and in 1822 he assisted William James in the first survey of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. He then went to Edinburgh University for six months, and the following year Robert Stephenson \& Co. was named after him as Managing Partner when it was formed by himself, his father and others. The firm was to build stationary engines, locomotives and railway rolling stock; in its early years it also built paper-making machinery and did general engineering.In 1824, however, Robert Stephenson accepted, perhaps in reaction to an excess of parental control, an invitation by a group of London speculators called the Colombian Mining Association to lead an expedition to South America to use steam power to reopen gold and silver mines. He subsequently visited North America before returning to England in 1827 to rejoin his father as an equal and again take charge of Robert Stephenson \& Co. There he set about altering the design of steam locomotives to improve both their riding and their steam-generating capacity. Lancashire Witch, completed in July 1828, was the first locomotive mounted on steel springs and had twin furnace tubes through the boiler to produce a large heating surface. Later that year Robert Stephenson \& Co. supplied the Stockton \& Darlington Railway with a wagon, mounted for the first time on springs and with outside bearings. It was to be the prototype of the standard British railway wagon. Between April and September 1829 Robert Stephenson built, not without difficulty, a multi-tubular boiler, as suggested by Henry Booth to George Stephenson, and incorporated it into the locomotive Rocket which the three men entered in the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway's Rainhill Trials in October. Rocket, was outstandingly successful and demonstrated that the long-distance steam railway was practicable.Robert Stephenson continued to develop the locomotive. Northumbrian, built in 1830, had for the first time, a smokebox at the front of the boiler and also the firebox built integrally with the rear of the boiler. Then in Planet, built later the same year, he adopted a layout for the working parts used earlier by steam road-coach pioneer Goldsworthy Gurney, placing the cylinders, for the first time, in a nearly horizontal position beneath the smokebox, with the connecting rods driving a cranked axle. He had evolved the definitive form for the steam locomotive.Also in 1830, Robert Stephenson surveyed the London \& Birmingham Railway, which was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1833. Stephenson became Engineer for construction of the 112-mile (180 km) railway, probably at that date the greatest task ever undertaken in of civil engineering. In this he was greatly assisted by G.P.Bidder, who as a child prodigy had been known as "The Calculating Boy", and the two men were to be associated in many subsequent projects. On the London \& Birmingham Railway there were long and deep cuttings to be excavated and difficult tunnels to be bored, notoriously at Kilsby. The line was opened in 1838.In 1837 Stephenson provided facilities for W.F. Cooke to make an experimental electrictelegraph installation at London Euston. The directors of the London \& Birmingham Railway company, however, did not accept his recommendation that they should adopt the electric telegraph and it was left to I.K. Brunel to instigate the first permanent installation, alongside the Great Western Railway. After Cooke formed the Electric Telegraph Company, Stephenson became a shareholder and was Chairman during 1857–8.Earlier, in the 1830s, Robert Stephenson assisted his father in advising on railways in Belgium and came to be increasingly in demand as a consultant. In 1840, however, he was almost ruined financially as a result of the collapse of the Stanhope \& Tyne Rail Road; in return for acting as Engineer-in-Chief he had unwisely accepted shares, with unlimited liability, instead of a fee.During the late 1840s Stephenson's greatest achievements were the design and construction of four great bridges, as part of railways for which he was responsible. The High Level Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle and the Royal Border Bridge over the Tweed at Berwick were the links needed to complete the East Coast Route from London to Scotland. For the Chester \& Holyhead Railway to cross the Menai Strait, a bridge with spans as long-as 460 ft (140 m) was needed: Stephenson designed them as wrought-iron tubes of rectangular cross-section, through which the trains would pass, and eventually joined the spans together into a tube 1,511 ft (460 m) long from shore to shore. Extensive testing was done beforehand by shipbuilder William Fairbairn to prove the method, and as a preliminary it was first used for a 400 ft (122 m) span bridge at Conway.In 1847 Robert Stephenson was elected MP for Whitby, a position he held until his death, and he was one of the exhibition commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the early 1850s he was Engineer-in-Chief for the Norwegian Trunk Railway, the first railway in Norway, and he also built the Alexandria \& Cairo Railway, the first railway in Africa. This included two tubular bridges with the railway running on top of the tubes. The railway was extended to Suez in 1858 and for several years provided a link in the route from Britain to India, until superseded by the Suez Canal, which Stephenson had opposed in Parliament. The greatest of all his tubular bridges was the Victoria Bridge across the River St Lawrence at Montreal: after inspecting the site in 1852 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief for the bridge, which was 1 1/2 miles (2 km) long and was designed in his London offices. Sadly he, like Brunel, died young from self-imposed overwork, before the bridge was completed in 1859.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1849. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1849. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1856. Order of St Olaf (Norway). Order of Leopold (Belgium). Like his father, Robert Stephenson refused a knighthood.Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (a good modern biography).J.C.Jeaffreson, 1864, The Life of Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (the standard nine-teenth-century biography).M.R.Bailey, 1979, "Robert Stephenson \& Co. 1823–1829", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 50 (provides details of the early products of that company).J.Kieve, 1973, The Electric Telegraph, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.PJGR -
103 Stuart, Herbert Akroyd
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1864 Halifax, Englandd. 1927 Perth, Australia[br]English inventor of an oil internal-combustion engine.[br]Stuart's involvement with engines covered a period of less than ten years and was concerned with a means of vaporizing the heavier oils for use in the so-called oil engines. Leaving his native Yorkshire for Bletchley in Buckinghamshire, Stuart worked in his father's business, the Bletchley Iron and Tin Plate works. After finishing grammar school, he worked as an assistant in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the City and Guilds of London Technical College. He also formed a connection with the Finsbury Technical College, where he became acquainted with Professor William Robinson, a distinguished engineer eminent in the field of internal-combustion engines.Resuming work at Bletchley, Stuart carried out experiments with engines. His first patent was concerned with new methods of vaporizing the fuel, scavenging systems and improvement of speed control. Two further patents, in 1890, specified substantial improvements and formed the basis of later engine designs. In 1891 Stuart joined forces with R.Hornsby and Sons of Grantham, a firm founded in 1815 for the manufacture of machinery and steam engines. Hornsby acquired all rights to Stuart's engine patents, and their superior technical resources ensured substantial improvements to Stuart's early design. The Hornsby-Ackroyd engines, introduced in 1892, were highly successful and found wide acceptance, particularly in agriculture. With failing health, Stuart's interest in his engine work declined, and in 1899 he emigrated to Australia, where in 1903 he became a partner in importing gas engines and gas-producing plants. Following his death in 1927, under the terms of his will he was interred in England; sadly, he also requested that all papers and materials pertaining to his engines be destroyed.[br]BibliographyJuly 1886, British patent no. 9,866 (fuel vapourization methods, scavenging systems and improvement of speed control; the patent describes Stuart as Mechanical Engineer of Bletchley Iron Works).1890, British patent no. 7,146 and British patent no. 15,994 (describe a vaporizing chamber connected to the working cylinder by a small throat).Further ReadingD.Clerk, 1895, The Gas and Oil Engine, 6th edn, London, pp. 420–6 (provides a detailed description of the Hornsby-Ackroyd engine and includes details of an engine test).T.Hornbuckle and A.K.Bruce, 1940, Herbert Akroyd Stuart and the Development of the Heavy Oil Engine, London: Diesel Engine Users'Association, p. 1.KAB -
104 Wratten, Frederick Charles Luther
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1840 Englandd. 8 April 1926 London, England[br]English inventor and manufacturer, founder of one of the first successful gelatine dry-plate companies.[br]He started his working life as a schoolteacher, but in his early twenties he moved to London to become a clerk with a photographic wholesaler, Soloman. There Wratten became interested in photography, and on the announcement of the new gelatine dry-plate processes he began to conduct his own experiments. In 1876 he devised a means of drying gelatine emulsions and removing excess silver with alcohol, and published details in 1877 and 1878. It was during this period that he formed a partnership with Henry Wainwright to manufacture and sell photographic materials. The mass production of gelatine dry plates was a British invention and monopoly, and the new firm of Wratten \& Wainwright was one of the first in the field and soon proved to be amongst the most successful. The business exported extensively to Europe, introducing a succession of plates of increasing sensitivity. Wratten continued to trade under the same name when his partner Wainwright died in 1882. His success continued, and in 1890 he moved the company to a newly equipped factory in Croydon, near London. Six years later Wratten incorporated as co-owners of the business his son, S.H.Wainwright and a young graduate from London University, C.E.Kenneth Mees. The newly constituted company soon introduced the first British panchromatic plates and filters. The introduction of Lumiere's Autochrome plates in 1907 prompted Wratten and Mees to take out a patent on a colour screen plate process of their own. The company also found work coating plates for other similar innovations. In 1912 the business was finally sold to George Eastman and Wratten and Mees joined Kodak Ltd at Harrow.[br]BibliographyWratten's early work on the action of alcohol on gelatine emulsions was described in a series of articles: 1877, Photographic News: 390, 49.1878, Photographic News: 121–3.1878, British Journal of Photography: 124–5.Further ReadingE.J.Wall, 1925, Three Colour Photography.C.E.K.Mees, 1961, From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film, New York.JWBiographical history of technology > Wratten, Frederick Charles Luther
Страницы
См. также в других словарях:
partner — A member of partnership or firm; one who has united with others to form a partnership in business. See also general partner partnership. @ dormant partners Those whose names are not known or do not appear as partners, but who nevertheless are… … Black's law dictionary
firm — {{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}} noun ADJECTIVE ▪ big, large, major ▪ medium sized ▪ small ▪ well known ▪ … Collocations dictionary
partner — / pɑ:tnə/ noun a person who works in a business and has an equal share in it with other partners ● I became a partner in a firm of solicitors … Dictionary of banking and finance
partner — part·ner n: one of two or more persons associated as joint principals in carrying on a business for the purpose of enjoying a joint profit: a member of a partnership; specif: a partner in a law firm dormant partner: silent partner in this entry… … Law dictionary
partner — [pärt′nər] n. [ME partener, altered (by assoc. with part,PART1) < parcener: see PARCENER] 1. a person who takes part in some activity in common with another or others; associate; specif., a) one of two or more persons engaged in the same… … English World dictionary
partner — Business associate who shares equity in a firm. Bloomberg Financial Dictionary * * * ▪ I. partner part‧ner 1 [ˈpɑːtnə ǁ ˈpɑːrtnər] noun [countable] 1. COMMERCE a company that works with another company in a particular activity, or invests in the… … Financial and business terms
partner — noun 1 in a marriage/relationship ADJECTIVE ▪ former, one time ▪ dominant ▪ She was the dominant partner in the relationship. ▪ female, male … Collocations dictionary
Partner — A partner is: *a member of a loving couple, often used to describe a member of a homosexual couple, or as a neutral term like significant other, that can apply to other unmarried couples *a friend who shares a common interest or participates in… … Wikipedia
partner — [[t]pɑ͟ː(r)tnə(r)[/t]] ♦♦ partners, partnering, partnered 1) N COUNT: oft poss N Your partner is the person you are married to or are having a romantic or sexual relationship with. Wanting other friends doesn t mean you don t love your partner … English dictionary
Partner (business rank) — A partner within the context of a law firm, accounting firm, or financial firm is a highly ranked position. Originally, these businesses were set up as legal partnerships in which the partners were entitled to a share of the profits of the… … Wikipedia
partner — I UK [ˈpɑː(r)tnə(r)] / US [ˈpɑrtnər] noun [countable] Word forms partner : singular partner plural partners *** Words that avoid giving offence partner: In British English, you can say partner to refer to a person who is the husband or wife of… … English dictionary
