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121 Beau de Rochas, Alphonse Eugène
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1815 Franced. 1893 France[br]French railway engineer, patentee of a four-stroke cycle engine.[br]Renowned more for his ideas on technical matters than his practical deeds, Beau de Rochas was a prolific thinker. Within a few years he proposed a rail tunnel beneath the English Channel, a submarine telegraph, a new kind of drive for canal boats, the use of steel for high-pressure boilers and a method of improving the adhesion of locomotive wheels travelling the Alps.The most notable of Beau de Rochas's ideas occurred in 1862 when he was employed as Ingenieur Attaché to the Central de Chemins. With remarkable foresight, he expressed the theoretical considerations for the cycle of operations for the now widely used four-stroke cycle engine. A French patent of 1862 lapsed with a failure to pay the annuity and thus the proposals for a new motive power lapsed into obscurity. Resurrected some twenty years later, the Beau de Rochas tract figures prominently in patent litigation cases. In 1885, a German court upheld a submission by a German patent lawyer that Otto's four-stroke engine of 1876 infringed the Beau de Rochas patent. It remains a mystery why Beau de Rochas never emerged at any time to defend his claims. In France he is regarded as the inventor of the four-stroke cycle engine.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsSociété d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, prize of 3000 francs, 1891.Bibliography1885, The Engineer 60:441 (an English translation of the Beau de Rochas tract).Further Reading1938, Bulletin de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale 137:209–39. 1962, Document pour l'histoire des techniques Cahier no. 2: pp. 3–42.B.Donkin, 1900, The Gas, Oil and Air Engine, London: p. 467.See also: Langen, EugenKABBiographical history of technology > Beau de Rochas, Alphonse Eugène
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122 Ericsson, John
[br]b. 31 July 1803 Farnebo, Swedend. 8 March 1899 New York, USA[br]Swedish (naturalized American 1848) engineer and inventor.[br]The son of a mine owner and inspector, Ericsson's first education was private and haphazard. War with Russia disrupted the mines and the father secured a position on the Gotha Canal, then under construction. He enrolled John, then aged 13, and another son as cadets in a corps of military engineers engaged on the canal. There John was given a sound education and training in the physical sciences and engineering. At the age of 17 he decided to enlist in the Army, and on receiving a commission he was drafted to cartographic survey duties. After some years he decided that a career outside the Army offered him the best opportunities, and in 1826 he moved to London to pursue a career of mechanical invention.Ericsson first developed a heat (external combustion) engine, which proved unsuccessful. Three years later he designed and constructed the steam locomotive Novelty, which he entered in the Rainhill locomotive trials on the new Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. The engine began by performing promisingly, but it later broke down and failed to complete the test runs. Later he devised a self-regulating lead (1835) and then, more important and successful, he invented the screw propeller, patented in 1835 and installed in his first screw-propelled ship of 1839. This work was carried out independently of Sir Francis Pettit Smith, who contemporaneously developed a four-bladed propeller that was adopted by the British Admiralty. Ericsson saw that with screw propulsion the engine could be below the waterline, a distinct advantage in warships. He crossed the Atlantic to interest the American government in his ideas and became a naturalized citizen in 1848. He pioneered the gun turret for mounting heavy guns on board ship. Ericsson came into his own during the American Civil War, with the construction of the epoch-making warship Monitor, a screw-propelled ironclad with gun turret. This vessel demonstrated its powers in a signal victory at Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862.Ericsson continued to design warships and torpedoes, pointing out to President Lincoln that success in war would now depend on technological rather than numerical superiority. Meanwhile he continued to pursue his interest in heat engines, and from 1870 to 1888 he spent much of his time and resources in pursuing research into alternative energy sources, such as solar power, gravitation and tidal forces.[br]Further ReadingW.C.Church, 1891, Life of John Ericsson, 2 vols, London.LRD -
123 Field, Joshua
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1786 Hackney, London, Englandd. 11 August 1863 Balham Hill, Surrey, England[br]English mechanical engineer, co-founder of the Institution of Civil Engineers.[br]Joshua Field was educated at a boarding school in Essex until the age of 16, when he obtained employment at the Royal Dockyards at Portsmouth under the Chief Mechanical Superintendent, Simon Goodrich (1773–1847), and later in the drawing office at the Admiralty in Whitehall. At this time, machinery for the manufacture of ships' blocks was being made for the Admiralty by Henry Maudslay, who was in need of a competent draughtsman, and Goodrich recommended Joshua Field. This was the beginning of Field's long association with Maudslay; he later became a partner in the firm which was for many years known as Maudslay, Sons \& Field. They undertook a variety of mechanical engineering work but were renowned for marine steam engines, with Field being responsible for much of the design work in the early years. Joshua Field was the eldest of the eight young men who in 1818 founded the Institution of Civil Engineers; he was the first Chairman of the Institution and later became a vice-president. He was the only one of the founders to be elected President and was the first mechanical engineer to hold that office. James Nasmyth in his autobiography relates that Joshua Field kept a methodical account of his technical discussions in a series of note books which were later indexed. Some of these diaries have survived, and extracts from the notes he made on a tour of the industrial areas of the Midlands and the North West in 1821 have been published.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1836. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1848–9. Member, Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1835; President 1848.Bibliography1925–6, "Joshua Field's diary of a tour in 1821 through the Midlands", introd. and notes J.W.Hall, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 6:1–41.1932–3, "Joshua Field's diary of a tour in 1821 through the provinces", introd. and notes E.C. Smith, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 13:15–50.RTS -
124 Hancock, Walter
[br]b. 16 June 1799 Marlborough, Wiltshire, England d. 14 May 1852[br]English engineer and promoter of steam locomotion on common roads.[br]He was the sixth son of James Hancock, a cabinet-maker and merchant of Marlborough, Wiltshire. Initially Walter was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweller in London, but he soon turned his attention to engineering. In 1824 he invented a steam engine in which the cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible bags of several layers of canvas and rubber solution, which were alternately filled with steam. The engine worked satisfactorily at Hancock's works in Stratford and its simplicity and lightness suggested its suitability for road carriages. Initial experiments were not very successful, but Hancock continued to experiment. After many trials in and around London, the Infant began a regular run between Stratford and London in February 1831. The following year he built the Era for the London and Brighton Steam Carriage Company. The Enterprise was next put on the road, by the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company in April 1833. The Autopsy started to run from Finsbury Square to Pentonville in October of the same year and ran alternately with the Erin between the City and Paddington. Hancock's interest in steam road locomotion continued until about 1840, by which time he had built ten carriages. But by then public interest had declined and most of the companies involved had failed. Later, he turned his attention to indiarubber, working with his brother Thomas Hancock. In 1843 he obtained a patent for cutting rubber into sheets and for a method of preparing a solution of rubber.[br]Bibliography1838, Narrative of Twelve Years of Experiments (1824–1836) Demonstrative of the Practicability and Advantages of Employing Steam Carriages on Common Roads, London.IMcN -
125 Hero of Alexandria
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Photography, film and optics, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c.62 AD Alexandria[br]Alexandrian mathematician and mechanician.[br]Nothing is known of Hero, or Heron, apart from what can be gleaned from the books he wrote. Their scope and style suggest that he was a teacher at the museum or the university of Alexandria, writing textbooks for his students. The longest book, and the one with the greatest technological interest, is Pneumatics. Some of its material is derived from the works of the earlier writers Ctesibius of Alexandria and Philo of Byzantium, but many of the devices described were invented by Hero himself. The introduction recognizes that the air is a body and demonstrates the effects of air pressure, as when air must be allowed to escape from a closed vessel before water can enter. There follow clear descriptions of a variety of mechanical contrivances depending on the effects of either air pressure or heated gases. Most of the devices seem trivial, but such toys or gadgets were popular at the time and Hero is concerned to show how they work. Inventions with a more serious purpose are a fire pump and a water organ. One celebrated gadget is a sphere that is set spinning by jets of steam—an early illustration of the reaction principle on which modern jet propulsion depends.M echanics, known only in an Arabic version, is a textbook expounding the theory and practical skills required by the architect. It deals with a variety of questions of mechanics, such as the statics of a horizontal beam resting on vertical posts, the theory of the centre of gravity and equilibrium, largely derived from Archimedes, and the five ways of applying a relatively small force to exert a much larger one: the lever, winch, pulley, wedge and screw. Practical devices described include sledges for transporting heavy loads, cranes and a screw cutter.Hero's Dioptra describes instruments used in surveying, together with an odometer or device to indicate the distance travelled by a wheeled vehicle. Catoptrics, known only in Latin, deals with the principles of mirrors, plane and curved, enunciating that the angle of incidence is equal to that of reflection. Automata describes two forms of puppet theatre, operated by strings and drums driven by a falling lead weight attached to a rope wound round an axle. Hero's mathematical work lies in the tradition of practical mathematics stretching from the Babylonians through Islam to Renaissance Europe. It is seen most clearly in his Metrica, a treatise on mensuration.Of all his works, Pneumatics was the best known and most influential. It was one of the works of Greek science and technology assimilated by the Arabs, notably Banu Musa ibn Shakir, and was transmitted to medieval Western Europe.[br]BibliographyAll Hero's works have been printed with a German translation in Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia, 1899–1914, 5 vols, Leipzig. The book on pneumatics has been published as The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, 1851, trans. and ed. Bennet Wood-croft, London (facs. repr. 1971, introd. Marie Boas Hall, London and New York).Further ReadingA.G.Drachmann, 1948, "Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study in Ancient Pneumatics", Acta Hist. Sci. Nat. Med. 4, Copenhagen: Munksgaard.T.L.Heath, 1921, A History of Greek Mathematics, Oxford (still useful for his mathematical work).LRD -
126 Hoover, William Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors[br]b. 1849 New Berlin (now North Canton), Ohio, USAd. 25 February 1932 North Canton, Ohio, USA[br]American founder of the Electric Suction Company, which manufactured and successfully marketed the first practical and portable suction vacuum cleaner.[br]Hoover was descended from a Swiss farming family called Hofer who emigrated from Basle and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early eighteenth century. By 1832 the family had become tanners and lived near North Berlin in Ohio. In 1870 William Henry Hoover, who had studied at Mount Union College, bought the tannery with his brothers and soon expanded the business to make horse collars and saddlery. The firm expanded to become W.H.Hoover \& Co. In the early years of the first decade of the twentieth century, horses were beginning to be replaced by the internal combustion engine, so Hoover needed a new direction for his firm. This he found in the suction vacuum cleaner devised in 1907 by J.Murray Spangler, a cousin of Hoover's wife. The first successful cleaner of this type had been operating in England since 1901 (see Booth), but was not a portable model. Attracted by the development of the small electric motor, Spangler produced a vertical cleaner with such a motor that sucked the dust through the machine and blew it into a bag attached to the handle. Spangler applied for a patent for his invention on 14 September in the same year; it was granted for a carpet sweeper and cleaner on 2 June 1908, but Spangler was unable to market it himself and sold the rights to Hoover. The Model O machine, which ran on small wheels, was immediately manufactured and marketed. Hoover's model was the first electric, one-person-operated, domestic vacuum cleaner and was instantly successful, although the main expansion of the business was delayed for some time until the greater proportion of houses were wired for electricity. The Hoover slogan, "it beats as it sweeps as it cleans", came to be true in 1926 with the introduction of the Model 700, which was the first cleaner to offer triple-action cleaning, a process which beat, swept and sucked at the carpet. Further advances in the 1930s included the use of magnesium and the early plastics.[br]Further ReadingG.Adamson, 1969, Machines at Home, Lutterworth Press.How it Works: The Universal Encyclopaedia of Machines, Paladin. D.Yarwood, 1981, The British Kitchen, Batsford, Ch. 6.DY -
127 Hornblower, Jonathan
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1753 Cornwall (?), Englandd. 1815 Penryn, Cornwall, England[br]English mining engineer who patented an early form of compound steam engine.[br]Jonathan came from a family with an engineering tradition: his grandfather Joseph had worked under Thomas Newcomen. Jonathan was the sixth child in a family of thirteen whose names all began with "J". In 1781 he was living at Penryn, Cornwall and described himself as a plumber, brazier and engineer. As early as 1776, when he wished to amuse himself by making a small st-eam engine, he wanted to make something new and wondered if the steam would perform more than one operation in an engine. This was the foundation for his compound engine. He worked on engines in Cornwall, and in 1778 was Engineer at the Ting Tang mine where he helped Boulton \& Watt erect one of their engines. He was granted a patent in 1781 and in that year tried a large-scale experiment by connecting together two engines at Wheal Maid. Very soon John Winwood, a partner in a firm of iron founders at Bristol, acquired a share in the patent, and in 1782 an engine was erected in a colliery at Radstock, Somerset. This was probably not very successful, but a second was erected in the same area. Hornblower claimed greater economy from his engines, but steam pressures at that time were not high enough to produce really efficient compound engines. Between 1790 and 1794 ten engines with his two-cylinder arrangement were erected in Cornwall, and this threatened Boulton \& Watt's near monopoly. At first the steam was condensed by a surface condenser in the bottom of the second, larger cylinder, but this did not prove very successful and later a water jet was used. Although Boulton \& Watt proceeded against the owners of these engines for infringement of their patent, they did not take Jonathan Hornblower to court. He tried a method of packing the piston rod by a steam gland in 1781 and his work as an engineer must have been quite successful, for he left a considerable fortune on his death.[br]Bibliography1781, British patent no. 1,298 (compound steam engine).Further ReadingR.Jenkins, 1979–80, "Jonathan Hornblower and the compound engine", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 11.J.Tann, 1979–80, "Mr Hornblower and his crew, steam engine pirates in the late 18th century", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 51.J.Farey, 1827, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, Historical, Practical and Descriptive, reprinted 1971, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles (an almost contemporary account of the compound engine).D.S.L.Cardwell, 1971, From Watt to Clausius. The Rise of Thermo dynamics in the Early Industrial Age, London: Heinemann.H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press.R.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press.RLH -
128 McNaught, William
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 27 May 1813 Sneddon, Paisley, Scotlandd. 8 January 1881 Manchester, England[br]Scottish patentee of a very successful form of compounding beam engine with a high-pressure cylinder between the fulcrum of the beam and the connecting rod.[br]Although born in Paisley, McNaught was educated in Glasgow where his parents had moved in 1820. He followed in his father's footsteps and became an engineer through an apprenticeship with Robert Napier at the Vulcan Works, Washington Street, Glasgow. He also attended science classes at the Andersonian University in the evenings and showed such competence that at the age of 19 he was offered the position of being in charge of the Fort-Gloster Mills on the Hoogly river in India. He remained there for four years until 1836, when he returned to Scotland because the climate was affecting his health.His father had added the revolving cylinder to the steam engine indicator, and this greatly simplified and extended its use. In 1838 William joined him in the business of manufacturing these indicators at Robertson Street, Glasgow. While advising textile manufacturers on the use of the indicator, he realized the need for more powerful, smoother-running and economical steam engines. He provided the answer by placing a high-pressure cylinder midway between the fulcrum of the beam and the connecting rod on an ordinary beam engine. The original cylinder was retained to act as the low-pressure cylinder of what became a compound engine. This layout not only reduced the pressures on the bearing surfaces and gave a smoother-running engine, which was one of McNaught's aims, but he probably did not anticipate just how much more economical his engines would be; they often gave a saving of fuel up to 40 per cent. This was because the steam pipe connecting the two cylinders acted as a receiver, something lacking in the Woolf compound, which enabled the steam to be expanded properly in both cylinders. McNaught took out his patent in 1845, and in 1849 he had to move to Manchester because his orders in Lancashire were so numerous and the scope was much greater there than in Glasgow. He took out further patents for equalizing the stress on the working parts, but none was as important as his original one, which was claimed to have been one of the greatest improvements since the steam engine left the hands of James Watt. He was one of the original promoters of the Boiler Insurance and Steam Power Company and was elected Chairman in 1865, a position he retained until a short time before his death.[br]Bibliography1845, British patent no. 11,001 (compounding beam engine).Further ReadingObituary, Engineer 51.Obituary, Engineering 31.R.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (the fullest account of McNaught's proposals for compounding).RLH
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