and+elsewhere

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

From 1844 until 1962, the Clyde shipyard of William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, produced over 1,500 ships, trained innumerable students of all nationalities in shipbuilding and marine engineering, and for the seventy-plus years of their existence were accepted worldwide as the leaders in the application of science to ship design and construction. Until the closure of the yard members of the Denny family were among the partners and later directors of the firm: they included men as distinguished as Dr Peter Denny (1821(?)–95), Sir Archibald Denny (1860–1936) and Sir Maurice Denny (1886– 1955), the main collaborator in the design of the Denny-Brown ship stabilizer.

One of the most influential of this shipbuilding family was William Denny, now referred to as William 3! His early education was at Dumbarton, then on Jersey and finally at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, before he commenced an apprenticeship at his father's shipyard. From the outset he not only showed great aptitude for learning and hard work but also displayed an ability to create good relationships with all he came into contact with. At the early age of 21 he was admitted a partner of the shipbuilding business of William Denny and Brothers, and some years later also of the associated engineering firm of Denny \& Co. His deep-felt interest in what is now known as industrial relations led him in 1871 to set up a piecework system of payment in the shipyard. In this he was helped by the Yard Manager, Richard Ramage, who later was to found the Leith shipyard, which produced the world's most elegant steam yachts. This research was published later as a pamphlet called The Worth of Wages, an unusual and forward-looking action for the 1860s, when Denny maintained that an absentee employer should earn as much contempt and disapproval as an absentee landlord! In 1880 he initiated an awards scheme for all company employees, with grants and awards for inventions and production improvements. William Denny was not slow to impose new methods and to research naval architecture, a special interest being progressive ship trials with a view to predicting effective horsepower. In time this led to his proposal to the partners to build a ship model testing tank beside the Dumbarton shipyard; this scheme was completed in 1883 and was to the third in the world (after the Admiralty tank at Torquay, managed by William Froude and the Royal Netherlands Navy facility at Amsterdam, under B.J. Tideman. In 1876 the Denny Shipyard started work with mild-quality shipbuilding steel on hulls for the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and in 1879 the world's first two ships of any size using this weight-saving material were produced: they were the Rotomahana for the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand and the Buenos Ayrean for the Allan Line of Glasgow. On the naval-architecture side he was involved in Denny's proposals for standard cross curves of stability for all ships, which had far-reaching effects and are now accepted worldwide. He served on the committee working on improvements to the Load Line regulations and many other similar public bodies. After a severe bout of typhoid and an almost unacceptable burden of work, he left the United Kingdom for South America in June 1886 to attend to business with La Platense Flotilla Company, an associate company of William Denny and Brothers. In March the following year, while in Buenos Aires, he died by his own hand, a death that caused great and genuine sadness in the West of Scotland and elsewhere.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

[br]

[br]

[br]

He was the fifth child of Charles and Ann Stalcrop Evans, and by the age of 15 he had four sisters and seven brothers. Nothing is known of his schooling, but at the age of 17 he was apprenticed to a Newport wheelwright and wagon-maker. At 19 he was enrolled in a Delaware Militia Company in the Revolutionary War but did not see active service. About this time he invented a machine for bending and cutting off the wires in textile carding combs. In July 1782, with his younger brother, Joseph, he moved to Tuckahoe on the eastern shore of the Delaware River, where he had the basic idea of the automatic flour mill. In July 1782, with his elder brothers John and Theophilus, he bought part of his father's Newport farm, on Red Clay Creek, and planned to build a mill there. In 1793 he married Sarah Tomlinson, daughter of a Delaware farmer, and joined his brothers at Red Clay Creek. He worked there for some seven years on his automatic mill, from about 1783 to 1790.

His system for the automatic flour mill consisted of bucket elevators to raise the grain, a horizontal screw conveyor, other conveying devices and a "hopper boy" to cool and dry the meal before gathering it into a hopper feeding the bolting cylinder. Together these components formed the automatic process, from incoming wheat to outgoing flour packed in barrels. At that time the idea of such automation had not been applied to any manufacturing process in America. The mill opened, on a non-automatic cycle, in 1785. In January 1786 Evans applied to the Delaware legislature for a twenty-five-year patent, which was granted on 30 January 1787 although there was much opposition from the Quaker millers of Wilmington and elsewhere. He also applied for patents in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Hampshire. In May 1789 he went to see the mill of the four Ellicot brothers, near Baltimore, where he was impressed by the design of a horizontal screw conveyor by Jonathan Ellicot and exchanged the rights to his own elevator for those of this machine. After six years' work on his automatic mill, it was completed in 1790. In the autumn of that year a miller in Brandywine ordered a set of Evans's machinery, which set the trend toward its general adoption. A model of it was shown in the Market Street shop window of Robert Leslie, a watch-and clockmaker in Philadelphia, who also took it to England but was unsuccessful in selling the idea there.

In 1790 the Federal Plant Laws were passed; Evans's patent was the third to come within the new legislation. A detailed description with a plate was published in a Philadelphia newspaper in January 1791, the first of a proposed series, but the paper closed and the series came to nothing. His brother Joseph went on a series of sales trips, with the result that some machinery of Evans's design was adopted. By 1792 over one hundred mills had been equipped with Evans's machinery, the millers paying a royalty of $40 for each pair of millstones in use. The series of articles that had been cut short formed the basis of Evans's The Young Millwright and Miller's Guide, published first in 1795 after Evans had moved to Philadelphia to set up a store selling milling supplies; it was 440 pages long and ran to fifteen editions between 1795 and 1860.

Evans was fairly successful as a merchant. He patented a method of making millstones as well as a means of packing flour in barrels, the latter having a disc pressed down by a toggle-joint arrangement. In 1801 he started to build a steam carriage. He rejected the idea of a steam wheel and of a low-pressure or atmospheric engine. By 1803 his first engine was running at his store, driving a screw-mill working on plaster of Paris for making millstones. The engine had a 6 in. (15 cm) diameter cylinder with a stroke of 18 in. (45 cm) and also drove twelve saws mounted in a frame and cutting marble slabs at a rate of 100 ft (30 m) in twelve hours. He was granted a patent in the spring of 1804. He became involved in a number of lawsuits following the extension of his patent, particularly as he increased the licence fee, sometimes as much as sixfold. The case of Evans v. Samuel Robinson, which Evans won, became famous and was one of these. Patent Right Oppression Exposed, or Knavery Detected, a 200-page book with poems and prose included, was published soon after this case and was probably written by Oliver Evans. The steam engine patent was also extended for a further seven years, but in this case the licence fee was to remain at a fixed level. Evans anticipated Edison in his proposal for an "Experimental Company" or "Mechanical Bureau" with a capital of thirty shares of $100 each. It came to nothing, however, as there were no takers. His first wife, Sarah, died in 1816 and he remarried, to Hetty Ward, the daughter of a New York innkeeper. He was buried in the Bowery, on Lower Manhattan; the church was sold in 1854 and again in 1890, and when no relative claimed his body he was reburied in an unmarked grave in Trinity Cemetery, 57th Street, Broadway.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

[br]

[br]

[br]

Morris was the son of Frederick Morris, then a draper. He was the eldest of a family of seven, all of whom, except for one sister, died in childhood. When he was 3 years old, his father moved to Cowley, near Oxford, where he attended the village school. After a short time with a local bicycle firm he set up on his own at the age of 16 with a capital of £4. He manufactured pedal cycles and by 1902 he had designed a motor cycle and was doing car-repair work. By 1912, at the Motor Show, he was able to announce his first car, the 8.9 hp, two-seater Morris Oxford with its characteristic "bull-nose". It could perform at up to 50 mph (80 km/h) and 50 mpg (5.65 1/100 km). It cost £165.

Though untrained, Morris was a born engineer as well as a natural judge of character. This enabled him to build up a reliable team of assistants in his growing business, with an order for four hundred cars at the Motor Show in 1912. Much of his business was built up in the assembly of components manufactured by outside suppliers. In he moved out of his initial premises by New College in Longwall and bought land at Cowley, where he brought out his second model, the 11.9hp Morris Oxford. This was after the First World War, during which car production was reduced to allow the manufacture of tanks and munitions. He was awarded the OBE in 1917 for his war work. Morris Motors Ltd was incorporated in 1919, and within fifteen months sales of cars had reached over 3,000 a year. By 1923 he was producing 20,000 cars a year, and in 1926 50,000, equivalent to about one-third of Britain's output. With the slump, a substantial overdraft, and a large stock of unsold cars, Morris took the bold decision to cut the prices of cars in stock, which then sold out within three weeks. Other makers followed suit, but Morris was ahead of them.

Morris was part-founder of the Pressed Steel Company, set up to produce car bodies at Cowley. A clever operation with the shareholding of the Morris Motors Company allowed Morris a substantial overall profit to provide expansion capital. By 1931 his "empire" comprised, in addition to Morris Motors, the MG Car Company, the Wolseley Company, the SU Carburettor Company and Morris Commercial Cars. In 1936, the value of Morris's financial interest in the business was put at some £16 million.

William Morris was a frugal man and uncomplicated, having little use for all the money he made except to channel it to charitable purposes. It is said that in all he gave away some £30 million during his lifetime, much of it invested by the recipients to provide long-term benefits. He married Elizabeth Anstey in 1904 and lived for thirty years at Nuffield Place. He lived modestly, and even after retirement, when Honorary President of the British Motor Corporation, the result of a merger between Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company, he drove himself to work in a modest 10 hp Wolseley. His generosity benefited many hospitals in London, Oxford, Birmingham and elsewhere. Oxford Colleges were another class of beneficiary from his largesse.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

Almost all of Watson's life was spent in or around the City of Glasgow; his formal education was at the city's High School and at the age of 16 he entered the yard and drawing offices of Robert Napier's Govan Shipyard. Three years later he crossed the River Clyde and started work in the design office of the Pointhouse Shipyard of A. \& J.Inglis, and there received the necessary grounding of a naval architect. Dr John Inglis, the Principal of the firm, encouraged Watson, ensured that he was involved in advanced design work and allowed him to build a yacht in a corner of the shipyard in his spare time.

At the early age of 22 Watson set up as a naval architect with his own company, which is still in existence 120 years later. In 1875, assisted by two carpenters, Watson built the 5-ton yacht Vril to his own design. This vessel was the first with an integral heavy lead keel and its success ensured that design contracts flowed to him for new yachts for the Clyde and elsewhere. His enthusiasm and increasing skill were recognized and soon he was working on the ultimate: the America's Cup challengers Thistle, Valkyrie II, Valkyrie III and Shamrock II. The greatest accolade was the contract for the design of the J Class yacht Britannia, built by D. \& W.Henderson of Glasgow in 1893 for the Prince of Wales.

The company of G.L.Watson became the world's leading designer of steam yachts, and it was usual for it to offer a full design service as well as supervise construction in any part of the world. Watson took a deep interest in the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was its technical consultant for many years. One of his designs, the Watson Lifeboat, was a stalwart in its fleet for many years. In public life he lectured, took an active part in the debates on yacht racing and was recognized as Britain's leading designer.

[br]

   Located in Alcobaça, Leiria district, this is Portugal's largest church and premier religious monument in Gothic style. Alcobaça was established by the first Portuguese king, Afonso Henriques, in the 12th century. According to tradition, its foundation followed the king's wish after the relief of the town of Santarém from the Moors. The king chose Cistercian monks, recently arrived from France, to oversee the project and administer the establishment. Construction of what became a Cistercian abbey and church began only in 1178. After many delays, the church was finally completed and dedicated in 1252, although parts of the building were unfinished. The massive structure is in the shape of a Latin cross, and the naves are over 60 feet high. Various Portuguese kings and their families are buried in Alcobaça; here also are the famous tombs of the ill-fated Dona Inês de Castro and King Pedro I.

   Among 18th-century visitors and travelers who made the beauty and wonder of Alcobaça famous in England and elsewhere was the wealthy English eccentric and writer William Beckford, whose 1835 account of his visits to Alcobaça, in effect, put Portugal on the map of English travelers henceforth.

    See also Architecture.

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

Barlow had little formal academic education, but by his own efforts rectified this deficiency. His contributions to various periodicals ensured that he became recognized as a man of considerable scientific understanding. In 1801, through competitive examination, he became Assistant Mathematics Master at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and some years later was promoted to Professor. He resigned from this post in 1847, but retained full salary in recognition of his many public services.

He is remembered for several notable achievements, and for some experiments designed to overcome problems such as the deviation of compasses in iron ships. Here, he proposed the use of small iron plates designed to overcome other attractions: these were used by both the British and Russian navies. Optical experiments commenced around 1827 and in later years he carried out tests to optimize the size and shape of many parts used in the railways that were spreading throughout Britain and elsewhere at that time.

In 1814 he published mathematical tables of squares, cubes, square roots, cube roots and reciprocals of all integers from 1 to 10,000. This volume was of great value in ship design and other engineering processes where heavy numerical effort is required; it was reprinted many times, the last being in 1965 when it had been all but superseded by the calculator and the computer. In the preface to the original edition, Barlow wrote, "the only motive which prompted me to engage in this unprofitable task was the utility that I conceived might result from my labour… if I have succeeded in facilitating abstruse arithmetical calculations, then I have obtained the object in view."

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Caprotti graduated as a mechanical engineer at Turin Royal Polytechnic College and spent some years in the motor car industry. After researching the application of poppet valves to railway locomotives, he invented his rotary cam valve gear for poppet valves in 1915. Compared with usual slide and piston valves and valve gears, it offered independent timing of inlet and exhaust valves and a saving in weight. Valve gear to Caprotti's design was first fitted in 1920 to a 2−6−0 locomotive of the Italian State Railways, and was subsequently widely used there and elsewhere. Caprotti valve gear was first applied in Britain in 1926 to a Claughton class 4−6−0 of the London, Midland \& Scottish Railway, resulting in substantial fuel savings compared with a similar locomotive fitted with Walschaert's valve gear and piston valves. Others of the class were then fitted similarly. Caprotti valve gear never came into general use in Britain and its final application was in 1954 to British Railways class 8 4−6−2 no. 71000; this was intended as the prototype of a class of standard locomotives for express trains, but the class was never built, because diesel and electric locomotives took their place. Some components survived scrapping, and a reconstruction of the locomotive is in working order.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

Chapelon's technical education at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, was interrupted by extended military service during the First World War. From experience of observing artillery from the basket of a captive balloon, he developed a method of artillery fire control which was more accurate than that in use and which was adopted by the French army.

In 1925 he joined the motive-power and rolling-stock department of the Paris-Orléans Railway under Chief Mechanical Engineer Maurice Lacoin and was given the task of improving the performance of its main-line 4–6–2 locomotives, most of them compounds. He had already made an intensive study of steam locomotive design and in 1926 introduced his Kylchap exhaust system, based in part on the earlier work of the Finnish engineer Kyläla. Chapelon improved the entrainment of the hot gases in the smokebox by the exhaust steam and so minimized back pressure in the cylinders, increasing the power of a locomotive substantially. He also greatly increased the cross-sectional area of steam passages, used poppet valves instead of piston valves and increased superheating of steam. PO (Paris-Orléans) 4–6–2s rebuilt on these principles from 1929 onwards proved able to haul 800-ton trains, in place of the previous 500-ton trains, and to do so to accelerated schedules with reduced coal consumption. Commencing in 1932, some were converted, at the time of rebuilding, into 4–8–0s to increase adhesive weight for hauling heavy trains over the steeply graded Paris-Toulouse line.

Chapelon's principles were quickly adopted on other French railways and elsewhere.

H.N. Gresley was particularly influenced by them. After formation of the French National Railways (SNCF) in 1938, Chapelon produced in 1941 a prototype rebuilt PO 2–10–0 freight locomotive as a six-cylinder compound, with four low-pressure cylinders to maximize expansive use of steam and with all cylinders steam-jacketed to minimize heat loss by condensation and radiation. War conditions delayed extended testing until 1948–52. Meanwhile Chapelon had, by rebuilding, produced in 1946 a high-powered, three-cylinder, compound 4–8–4 intended as a stage in development of a proposed range of powerful and thermally efficient steam locomotives for the postwar SNCF: a high-speed 4–6–4 in this range was to run at sustained speeds of 125 mph (200 km/h). However, plans for improved steam locomotives were then overtaken in France by electriflcation and dieselization, though the performance of the 4–8–4, which produced 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) at the drawbar for the first time in Europe, prompted modification of electric locomotives, already on order, to increase their power.

Chapelon retired from the SNCF in 1953, but continued to act as a consultant. His principles were incorporated into steam locomotives built in France for export to South America, and even after the energy crisis of 1973 he was consulted on projects to build improved, high-powered steam locomotives for countries with reserves of cheap coal. The eventual fall in oil prices brought these to an end.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

Pihl trained as an engineer at Göteborg, Sweden, and then moved to London, where he worked under Robert Stephenson during 1845 and 1846. In 1850 he returned to Norway and worked with the English contractors building the first railway in Norway, the Norwegian Trunk Railway from Kristiania to Eidsvold, for which the English standard gauge was used. Subsequently he worked in England for a year, but in 1856 joined the Norwegian government's Road Department, which was to have responsibility for railways. In 1865 a distinct Railway Department was set up, and Pihl became Director for State Railway Construction. Because of the difficulties of the terrain and limited traffic, Pihl recommended that in the case of two isolated lines to be built the outlay involved in ordinary railways would not be justified, and that they should be built to the narrow gauge of 3 ft 6 in. (1.07 m). His recommendation was accepted by the Government in 1857 and the two lines were built to this gauge and opened during 1861–4. Six of their seven locomotives, and all their rolling stock, were imported from Britain. The lines cost £3,000 and £5,000 per mile, respectively; a standard-gauge line built in the same period cost £6,400 per mile.

Subsequently, many hundreds of miles of Norwegian railways were built to 3 ft 6 in. (1.07 m) gauge under Pihl's direction. They influenced construction of railways to this gauge in Australia, Southern Africa, New Zealand, Japan and elsewhere. However, in the late 1870s controversy arose in Norway over the economies that could in fact be gained from the 3 ft 6 in. (1,07 m) gauge. This controversy in the press, in discussion and in the Norwegian parliament became increasingly acrimonious during the next two decades; the standard-gauge party may be said to have won with the decision in 1898, the year after Pihl's death, to build the Bergen-Oslo line to standard gauge.

[br]

See also: Fox, Sir Charles; Inoue Masaru; Spooner, Charles Easton

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

Schanck first went to sea in the merchant service, but in 1758 he was transferred to the Royal Navy. After four years as an able seaman, he was made a midshipman (a rare occurrence in those days), and by perseverance was commissioned Lieutenant in 1776 and appointed to command a small vessel operating in the St Lawrence. Being known as an inventive and practical officer, he was soon placed in charge of shipbuilding operations for the British on the Great Lakes and quickly constructed a small fleet that operated on Lake Champlain and elsewhere. He was promoted Captain in 1783. In earlier years Schanck had built a small sliding-keel yacht and sailed it in Boston Harbor. The Admiralty accepted the idea and tested two similar small craft, one with and the other without sliding keels. The success of the keels encouraged the authorities to build further craft of increasing size, culminating in the Lady Nelson, which carried out many surveys in Australian waters at the end of the eighteenth century. Service with the Army and the transport board followed, when his special knowledge and skill were used to the full in the waterways of the Netherlands. Schanck rose to the rank of full Admiral, and advised not only the British Government on coastal defence but other groups on many aspects of hull design.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Samuel's father, William, was a respected independent farmer who died when his son was aged 14; the young Slater was apprenticed to his father's friend, Jedediah Strutt for six and a half years at the beginning of 1783. He showed mathematical ability and quickly acquainted himself thoroughly with cotton-spinning machinery made by Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton. After completing his apprenticeship, he remained for a time with the Strutts to act as Supervisor for a new mill.

At that time it was forbidden to export any textile machinery or even drawings or data from England. The emigration of textile workers was forbidden too, but in September 1789 Slater left for the United States in disguise, having committed the details of the construction of the cotton-spinning machinery to memory. He reached New York and was employed by the New York Manufacturing Company.

In January 1790 he met Moses Brown in Providence, Rhode Island, and on 5 April 1790 he signed a contract to construct Arkwright's spinning machinery for Almy \& Brown. It took Slater more than a year to get the machinery operational because of the lack of skilled mechanics and tools, but by 1793 the mill was running under the name of Almy, Brown \& Slater. In October 1791 Slater had married Hannah Wilkinson, and in 1798 he set up his own mill in partnership with his father-in-law, Orziel Wilkinson. This mill was built in Pawtucket, near the first mill, but other mills soon followed in Smithville, Rhode Island, and elsewhere. Slater was the Incorporator, and for the first fifteen years was also President of the Manufacturer's Bank in Pawtucket. It was in his business role and as New England's first industrial capitalist that Slater made his most important contributions to the emergence of the American textile industry.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Bigelow was born in West Boyleston, Massachusetts, where his father struggled as a farmer, wheelwright, and chairmaker. Before he was 20, Bigelow had many different jobs, among them farm labourer, clerk, violin player and cotton-mill employee. In 1830, he went to Leicester Academy, Massachusetts, but he could not afford to go on to Harvard. He sought work in Boston, New York and elsewhere, making various inventions.

The most important of his early inventions was the power loom of 1837 for making coach lace. This loom contained all the essential features of his carpet looms, which he developed and patented two years later. He formed the Clinton Company for manufacturing carpets at Leicester, Massachusetts, but the factory became so large that its name was adopted for the town. The next twenty years saw various mechanical discoveries, while his range of looms was extended to cover Brussels, Wilton, tapestry and velvet carpets. Bigelow has been justly described as the originator of every fundamental device in these machines, which were amongst the largest textile machines of their time. The automatic insertion and withdrawal of strong wires with looped ends was the means employed to raise the looped pile of the Brussels carpets, while thinner wires with a knife blade at the end raised and then severed the loops to create the rich Wilton pile. At the Great Exhibition in 1851, it was declared that his looms made better carpets than any from hand looms. He also developed other looms for special materials.

He became a noted American economist, writing two books about tariff problems, advocating that the United States should not abandon its protectionist policies. In 1860 he was narrowly defeated in a Congress election. The following year he was a member of the committee that established the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

[br]

[br]

[br]

Around 1850, the exciting new metal aluminium began to be produced by the process developed by Sainte-Claire Deville. However, it remained expensive on account of the high cost of one of the raw materials, sodium. It was another thirty years before Castner became the first to work successfully the process for producing sodium, which consisted of heating sodium hydroxide with charcoal at a high temperature. Unable to interest American backers in the process, Castner took it to England and set up a plant at Oldbury, near Birmingham. At the moment he achieved commercial success, however, the demand for cheap sodium plummeted as a result of the development of the electrolytic process for producing aluminium. He therefore sought other uses for cheap sodium, first converting it to sodium peroxide, a bleaching agent much used in the straw-hat industry. Much more importantly, Castner persuaded the gold industry to use sodium instead of potassium cyanide in the refining of gold. With the "gold rush", he established a large market in Australia, the USA, South Africa and elsewhere, but the problem was to meet the demand, so Castner turned to the electrolytic method. At first progress was slow because of the impure nature of the sodium hydroxide, so he used a mercury cathode, with which the released sodium formed an amalgam. It then reacted with water in a separate compartment in the cell to form sodium hydroxide of a purity hitherto unknown in the alkali industry; chlorine was a valuable by-product.

In 1894 Castner began to seek international patents for the cell, but found he had been anticipated in Germany by Kellner, an Austrian chemist. Preferring negotiation to legal confrontation, Castner exchanged patents and processes with Kellner, although the latter's had been less successful. The cell became known as the Castner-Kellner cell, but the process needed cheap electricity and salt, neither of which was available near Oldbury, so he set up the Castner-Kellner Alkali Company works at Runcorn in Cheshire; at the same time, a pilot plant was set up in the USA at Saltville, Virginia, with a larger plant being established at Niagara Falls.

[br]

[etˈæl, AM etˈɑ:l]

adv abbrev of et alii et al.

* * *

et al. abk

1. et alia, and other things

2. et alibi, and elsewhere

3. et alii, and other persons

et al. abk

1. et alia, and other things

2. et alibi, and elsewhere

3. et alii, and other persons