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121 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 -
122 Fabre, Henri
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 29 November 1882 Marseilles, Franced. June 1984 France[br]French engineer, designer of the first seaplane, in which he made the first flight from water.[br]After obtaining a degree in engineering, Fabre specialized in hydrodynamics. Around 1904 he developed an interest in flying and followed the progress of early French aviators such as Archdeacon, Voisin and Blériot who were experimenting with float-gliders. Fabre carried out many experiments during the following years, including airflow tests on various surfaces and hydrodynamic tests on different designs for floats. He also built a propeller-driven motor car to develop the most efficient design for a propeller. In 1909 he built his first "hydro-aeroplane", but it failed to fly. By March 1910 he built a new float plane which was very different from contemporary French aeroplanes. It was a tail-first (canard) monoplane and had unusual Warren girder spars exposed to the airstream. The engine was a conventional Gnome rotary mounted at the rear of the machine. On 28 March 1910 Fabre, who had no previous experience of flying, decided he was ready to test his hydro-aeroplane. First he made several straight runs to test the planing properties of his three floats, then he made several short hops. In the afternoon Fabre took off from the harbour at La Mède near Marseille before official witnesses: he was able to claim the first flight by a powered seaplane. His hydro-aeroplane is preserved in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris.Despite several accidents, Fabre continued to improve his design and in October of 1910 Glenn Curtiss, the American designer, visited Fabre to compare notes. A year later Curtiss built the first of his many successful seaplanes. Fabre did not continue as an aircraft designer, but he went on to design and manufacture floats for other people.[br]Bibliography1980, J'ai vu naître l'aviation, Grenoble (autobiography).JDS -
123 Field, Cyrus West
SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications[br]b. 30 November 1819 Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USAd. 12 July 1892 New York City, New York, USA[br]American financier and entrepreneur noted for his successful promotion of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.[br]At the age of 15 Field left home to seek his fortune in New York, starting work on Broadway as an errand boy for $1 per week. Returning to Massachusetts, in 1838 he became an assistant to his brother Matthew, a paper-maker, leaving to set up his own business two years later. By the age of 21 he was also a partner in a New York firm of paper wholesalers, but this firm collapsed because of large debts. Out of the wreckage he set up Cyrus W.Field \& Co., and by 1852 he had paid off all the debts. With $250,000 in the bank he therefore retired and travelled in South America. Returning to the USA, he then became involved with the construction of a telegraph line in Newfoundland by an English engineer, F.N. Osborne. Although the company collapsed, he had been fired by the dream of a transatlantic cable and in 1854 was one of the founders of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company. He began to promote surveys and hold discussions with British telegraph pioneers and with Isambard Brunel, who was then building the Great Eastern steamship. In 1856 he helped to set up the Atlantic Telegraph Company in Britain and, as a result of his efforts and those of the British physicist and inventor Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), work began in 1857 on the laying of the first transatlantic cable from Newfoundland to Ireland. After many tribulations the cable was completed on 5 August 1857, but it failed after barely a month. Following several unsuccessful attempts to repair and replace it, the cable was finally completed on 27 July 1866. Building upon his success, Field expanded his business interests. In 1877 he bought a controlling interest in and was President of the New York Elevated Railroad Company. He also helped develop the Wabash Railroad and became owner of the New York Mail and Express newspaper; however, he subsequently suffered large financial losses.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCongressional Gold Medal.Further ReadingA.C.Clarke, 1958, Voice Across the Sea, London: Frederick Muller (describes the development of the transatlantic telegraph).H.M.Field, 1893, Story of the Atlantic Telegraph (also describes the transatlantic telegraph development).L.J.Judson (ed.), 1893, Cyrus W.Field: His Life and Work (a complete biography).KF -
124 Ford, Henry
[br]b. 30 July 1863 Dearborn, Michigan, USAd. 7 April 1947 Dearborn, Michigan, USA[br]American pioneer motor-car maker and developer of mass-production methods.[br]He was the son of an Irish immigrant farmer, William Ford, and the oldest son to survive of Mary Litogot; his mother died in 1876 with the birth of her sixth child. He went to the village school, and at the age of 16 he was apprenticed to Flower brothers' machine shop and then at the Drydock \& Engineering Works in Detroit. In 1882 he left to return to the family farm and spent some time working with a 1 1/2 hp steam engine doing odd jobs for the farming community at $3 per day. He was then employed as a demonstrator for Westinghouse steam engines. He met Clara Jane Bryant at New Year 1885 and they were married on 11 April 1888. Their only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born on 6 November 1893.At that time Henry worked on steam engine repairs for the Edison Illuminating Company, where he became Chief Engineer. He became one of a group working to develop a "horseless carriage" in 1896 and in June completed his first vehicle, a "quadri cycle" with a two-cylinder engine. It was built in a brick shed, which had to be partially demolished to get the carriage out.Ford became involved in motor racing, at which he was more successful than he was in starting a car-manufacturing company. Several early ventures failed, until the Ford Motor Company of 1903. By October 1908 they had started with production of the Model T. The first, of which over 15 million were built up to the end of its production in May 1927, came out with bought-out steel stampings and a planetary gearbox, and had a one-piece four-cylinder block with a bolt-on head. This was one of the most successful models built by Ford or any other motor manufacturer in the life of the motor car.Interchangeability of components was an important element in Ford's philosophy. Ford was a pioneer in the use of vanadium steel for engine components. He adopted the principles of Frederick Taylor, the pioneer of time-and-motion study, and installed the world's first moving assembly line for the production of magnetos, started in 1913. He installed blast furnaces at the factory to make his own steel, and he also promoted research and the cultivation of the soya bean, from which a plastic was derived.In October 1913 he introduced the "Five Dollar Day", almost doubling the normal rate of pay. This was a profit-sharing scheme for his employees and contained an element of a reward for good behaviour. About this time he initiated work on an agricultural tractor, the "Fordson" made by a separate company, the directors of which were Henry and his son Edsel.In 1915 he chartered the Oscar II, a "peace ship", and with fifty-five delegates sailed for Europe a week before Christmas, docking at Oslo. Their objective was to appeal to all European Heads of State to stop the war. He had hoped to persuade manufacturers to replace armaments with tractors in their production programmes. In the event, Ford took to his bed in the hotel with a chill, stayed there for five days and then sailed for New York and home. He did, however, continue to finance the peace activists who remained in Europe. Back in America, he stood for election to the US Senate but was defeated. He was probably the father of John Dahlinger, illegitimate son of Evangeline Dahlinger, a stenographer employed by the firm and on whom he lavished gifts of cars, clothes and properties. He became the owner of a weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which became the medium for the expression of many of his more unorthodox ideas. He was involved in a lawsuit with the Chicago Tribune in 1919, during which he was cross-examined on his knowledge of American history: he is reputed to have said "History is bunk". What he actually said was, "History is bunk as it is taught in schools", a very different comment. The lawyers who thus made a fool of him would have been surprised if they could have foreseen the force and energy that their actions were to release. For years Ford employed a team of specialists to scour America and Europe for furniture, artefacts and relics of all kinds, illustrating various aspects of history. Starting with the Wayside Inn from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, buildings were bought, dismantled and moved, to be reconstructed in Greenfield Village, near Dearborn. The courthouse where Abraham Lincoln had practised law and the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers built their first primitive aeroplane were added to the farmhouse where the proprietor, Henry Ford, had been born. Replicas were made of Independence Hall, Congress Hall and the old City Hall in Philadelphia, and even a reconstruction of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory was installed. The Henry Ford museum was officially opened on 21 October 1929, on the fiftieth anniversary of Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb, but it continued to be a primary preoccupation of the great American car maker until his death.Henry Ford was also responsible for a number of aeronautical developments at the Ford Airport at Dearborn. He introduced the first use of radio to guide a commercial aircraft, the first regular airmail service in the United States. He also manufactured the country's first all-metal multi-engined plane, the Ford Tri-Motor.Edsel became President of the Ford Motor Company on his father's resignation from that position on 30 December 1918. Following the end of production in May 1927 of the Model T, the replacement Model A was not in production for another six months. During this period Henry Ford, though officially retired from the presidency of the company, repeatedly interfered and countermanded the orders of his son, ostensibly the man in charge. Edsel, who died of stomach cancer at his home at Grosse Point, Detroit, on 26 May 1943, was the father of Henry Ford II. Henry Ford died at his home, "Fair Lane", four years after his son's death.[br]Bibliography1922, with S.Crowther, My Life and Work, London: Heinemann.Further ReadingR.Lacey, 1986, Ford, the Men and the Machine, London: Heinemann. W.C.Richards, 1948, The Last Billionaire, Henry Ford, New York: Charles Scribner.IMcN -
125 Gartside
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1760s England[br]English manufacturer who set up what was probably the first power-driven weaving shed.[br]A loom on which more than one ribbon could be woven at once may have been invented by Anton Möller at Danzig in 1586. It arrived in England from the Low Countries and was being used in London by 1616 and in Lancashire by 1680. Means were being devised in Switzerland c.1730 for driving these looms by power, but this was prohibited because it was feared that these looms would deprive other weavers of work. In England, a patent was taken out by John Kay of Bury and John Stell of Keighley in 1745 for improvements to these looms and it is probably that Gartside received permission to use this invention. In Manchester, Gartside set up a mill with swivel looms driven by a water-wheel; this was probably prior to 1758, because a man was brought up at the Lancaster Assizes in March of that year for threatening to burn down "the Engine House of Mr. Gartside in Manchester, Merchant". He set up his factory near Garrett Hall on the south side of Manchester and it may still have been running in 1764. However, the enterprise failed because it was necessary for each loom to be attended by one person in order to prevent any mishap occurring, and therefore it was more economic to use hand-frames, which the operatives could control more easily.[br]Further ReadingJ.Aikin, 1795, A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester, London (provides the best account of Gartside's factory).Both R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester; and A.P.Wadsworth and J. de L.Mann, 1931, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, Manchester, make use of Aikin's material as they describe the development of weaving.A.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (covers the development of narrow fabric weaving).RLH -
126 Ged, William
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 1690 Edinburgh, Scotlandd. 19 October 1749 Edinburgh, Scotland[br]Scottish inventor of stereotyping.[br]While in business as a goldsmith and jeweller, he came across the earliest known attempt to make stereotypes, that by Van der Meys of Leiden in the sixteenth century. He soldered types to the bases of a bed of type, but the process proved too expensive to be adopted. Ged took out a patent of privilege in 1725 to develop Mey's method, agreeing with a printer that if they could make casts of made-up pages of type they "would make a fortune". After many experiments to find a suitable metal, he arrived at an alloy similar to type metal. However, Ged's efforts to promote his stereotypes were blocked by the indifference of the printers and the opposition of the compositors. He tried his luck in London but failed again for much the same reason as in Edinburgh. Thither he returned, but he died in poverty.[br]Further ReadingJ.Nichols, 1781, Biographical Memoir of William Ged (the 1819 edition includes "Supplementary narrative of William Ged and his inventions, written by his daughter").LRD -
127 Gillette, King Camp
[br]b. 5 January 1855 Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USAd. 9 July 1932 Los Angeles, California, USA[br]American inventor and manufacturer, inventor of the safety razor.[br]Gillette's formal education in Chicago was brought to an end when a disastrous fire destroyed all his father's possessions. Forced to fend for himself, he worked first in the hardware trade in Chicago and New York, then as a travelling salesman. Gillette inherited the family talent for invention, but found that his successful inventions barely paid for those that failed. He was advised by a previous employer, William Painter (inventor of the Crown Cork), to look around for something that could be used widely and then thrown away. In 1895 he succeeded in following that advice of inventing something which people could use and then throw away, so that they would keep coming back for more. An idea came to him while he was honing an old-fashioned razor one morning; he was struck by the fact that only a short piece of the whole length of a cutthroat razor is actually used for shaving, as well as by the potentially dangerous nature of the implement. He "rushed out to purchase some pieces of brass, some steel ribbon used for clock springs, a small hand vise and some files". He thought of using a thin steel blade sharpened on each side, placed between two plates and held firmly together by a handle. Though coming from a family of inventors, Gillette had no formal technical education and was entirely ignorant of metallurgy. For six years he sought a way of making a cheap blade from sheet steel that could be hardened, tempered and sharpened to a keen edge.Gillette eventually found financial supporters: Henry Sachs, a Boston lamp manufacturer; his brother-in-law Jacob Heilbron; and William Nickerson, who had a considerable talent for invention. By skilled trial and error rather than expert metallurgical knowledge, Nickerson devised ways of forming and sharpening the blades, and it was these that brought commercial success. In 1901, the American Safety Razor Company, later to be renamed the Gillette Safety Razor Company, was set up. When it started production in 1903 the company was badly in debt, and managed to sell only fifty-one razors and 168 blades; but by the end of the following year, 90,000 razors and 12.4 million blades had been sold. A sound invention coupled with shrewd promotion ensured further success, and eight plants manufacturing safety razors were established in various parts of the world. Gillette's business experiences led him into the realms of social theory about the way society should be organized. He formulated his views in a series of books published over the years 1894 to 1910. He believed that competition led to a waste of up to 90 per cent of human effort and that want and crime would be eliminated by substituting a giant trust to plan production centrally. Unfortunately, the public in America, or anywhere else for that matter, were not ready for this form of Utopia; no omniscient planners were available, and human wants and needs were too various to be supplied by a single agency. Even so, some of his ideas have found favour: air conditioning and government provision of work for the unemployed. Gillette made a fortune from his invention and retired from active participation in the business in 1913, although he remained President until 1931 and Director until his death.[br]Bibliography"Origin of the Gillette razor", Gillette Blade (February/March).Further ReadingObituary, 1932, New York Times (11 July).J.Jewkes, D.Sawers and R.Stillerman, 1958, The Sources of Invention, London: Macmillan.LRD / IMcN -
128 Girard, Philippe de
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 1775 Franced. 1845[br]French developer of a successful flax-heckling machine for the preparation of fibres for power-spinning.[br]Early drawing and spinning processes failed to give linen yarn the requisite fineness and homogeneity. In 1810 Napoleon offered a prize of a million francs for a successful flax-spinning machine as part of his policy of stimulating the French textile industries. Spurred on by this offer, Girard suggested three improvements. He was too late to win the prize, but his ideas were patented in England in 1814, although not under his own name. He proposed that the fibres should be soaked in a very hot alkaline solution both before drawing and immediately before they went to the spindles. The actual drawing was to be done by passing the dried material through combs or gills that moved alternately; gill drawing was taken up in England in 1816. His method of wet spinning was never a commercial success, but his processes were adopted in part and developed in Britain and spread to Austria, Poland and France, for his ideas were essentially good and produced a superior product. The successful power-spinning of linen thread from flax depended primarily upon the initial processes of heckling and drawing. The heckling of the bundles or stricks of flax, so as to separate the long fibres of "line" from the shorter ones of "tow", was extremely difficult to mechanize, for each strick had to be combed on both sides in turn and then in the reverse direction. It was to this problem that Girard next turned his attention, inventing a successful machine in 1832 that subsequently was improved in England. The strick was placed between two vertical sheets of combs that moved opposite to each other, depositing the tow upon a revolving cylinder covered with a brush at the bottom of the machine, while the holder from which the strick was suspended moved up and down so as to help the teeth to penetrate deeper into the flax. The tow was removed from the cylinder at the bottom of the machine and taken away to be spun like cotton. The long line fibres were removed from the top of the machine and required further processing if the yarn was to be uniform.When N.L.Sadi Carnot's book Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu, was published in 1824, Girard made a favourable report on it.[br]Further ReadingM.Daumas (ed.), 1968, Histoire générale des techniques, Vol. III: L'Expansion duMachinisme, Paris.C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of'Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press. T.K.Derry and T.I.Williams, 1960, A Short History of Technology from the EarliestTimes to AD 1900, Oxford.W.A.McCutcheon, 1966–7, "Water power in the North of Ireland", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 39 (discusses the spinning of flax and mentions Girard).RLH
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