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61 Wollaston, William Hyde
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 6 August 1766 East Dereham, Norfolk, Englandd. 22 December 1828 London, England[br]English chemist and metallurgist who discovered palladium and rhodium, pioneer in the fabrication of platinum.[br]Wollaston qualified in medicine at Cambridge University but gave up his practice in 1800 to devote himself to chemistry and metallurgy, funded from the profits from making malleable platinum. In partnership with Smithson Tennant, a friend from his Cambridge days, he worked on the extraction of platinum by dissolving it in aqua regia. In 1802 he found that in addition to platinum the solution contained a new metal, which he named palladium. Two years later he identified another new metal, rhodium.Wollaston developed a method of forming platinum by means of powder metallurgy and was the first to produce malleable and ductile platinum on a commercial scale. He produced platinum vessels for sulphuric acid manufacture and scientific apparatus such as crucibles. He devised an elegant method for forming fine platinum wire. He also applied his inventive talents to improving scientific apparatus, including the sextant and microscope and a reflecting goniometer for measuring crystal angles. In 1807 he was appointed Joint Secretary of the Royal Society with Sir Humphry Davy, which entailed a heavy workload and required them to referee all the papers submitted to the Society for publication.Wollaston's output of platinum began to decline after 1822. Due to ill health he ceased business operations in 1828 and at last made public the details of his secret platinum fabrication process. It was fully described in the Bakerian Lecture he delivered to the Royal Society on 28 November 1828, shortly before his death.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1793.BibliographyHis scientific papers were published in various journals, nearly all listed in the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers.Further ReadingThere is no good general biography, the best general account being the entry inDictionary of Scientific Biography.D.McDonald, 1960, A History of Platinum from the Earliest Times to the Eighteen- Eighties, London (provides a good discussion of his work on platinum).M.E.Weeks, 1939, "The discovery of the elements", Journal of Chemical Education: 184–5.ASDBiographical history of technology > Wollaston, William Hyde
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62 Abney, William de Wiveleslie
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 24 July 1843 Englandd. 2 December 1920 England[br]English photographic scientist, inventor and author.[br]Abney began his career as an officer in the Army and was an instructor in chemistry in the Royal Engineers at Chatham, where he made substantial use of photography as a working tool. He retired from the Army in 1877 and joined the Science and Art Department at South Kensington. It was at Abney's suggestion that a collection of photographic equipment and processes was established in the South Kensington Museum (later to become the Science Museum Photography Collection).Abney undertook significant researches into the nature of gelatine silver halide emulsions at a time when they were being widely adopted by photographers. Perhaps his most important practical innovations were the introduction of hydroquinone as a developing agent in 1880 and silver gelatine citrochloride emulsions for printing-out paper (POP) in 1882. However, Abney was at the forefront of many aspects of photographic research during a period of great innovation and change in photography. He devised new techniques of photomechanical printing and conducted significant researches in the fields of photochemistry and spectral analysis. Abney published throughout his career for both the specialist scientist and the more general photographic practitioner.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKCB 1900. FRS 1877. Served at different times as President of the Royal Astronomical, Royal Photographic and Physical Societies. Chairman, Royal Society of Arts.Further ReadingObituary, 1921, Proceedings of the Royal Society (Series A) 99. J.M.Eder, 1945, History of Photography, trans. E.Epstein, New York.JWBiographical history of technology > Abney, William de Wiveleslie
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63 Albone, Daniel
[br]b. c.1860 Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, Englandd. 1906 England[br]English engineer who developed and manufactured the first commercially successful lightweight tractor.[br]The son of a market gardener, Albone's interest lay in mechanics, and by 1880 he had established his own business as a cycle maker and repairer. His inventive mind led to a number of patents relating to bicycle design, but his commercial success was particularly assisted by his achievements in cycle racing. From this early start he diversified his business, designing and supplying, amongst other things, axle bearings for the Great Northern Railway, and also building motor cycles and several cars. It is possible that he began working on tractors as early as 1896. Certainly by 1902 he had built his first prototype, to the three-wheeled design that was to remain in later production models. Weighing only 30 cwt, yet capable of pulling two binders or a two-furrow plough, Albone's Ivel tractor was ahead of anything in its time, and its power-to-weight ratio was to be unrivalled for almost a decade. Albone's commercial success was not entirely due to the mechanical tractor's superiority, but owed a considerable amount to his ability as a showman and demonstrator. He held two working demonstrations a month in the village of Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, where the tractors were made. The tractor was named after the river Ivel, which flowed through the village. The Ivel tractor gained twenty-six gold and silver medals at agricultural shows between 1902 and 1906, and was a significant contributor to Britain's position as the world's largest exporter of tractors between 1904 and 1914. Albone tried other forms of his tractor to increase its sales. He built a fire engine, and also an armoured vehicle, but failed to impress the War Office with its potential.Albone died at the age of 46. His tractor continued in production but remained essentially unimproved, and the company finally lost its sales to other designs, particularly those of American origin.[br]Further ReadingDetailed contemporary accounts of tractor development occur in the British periodical Implement and Machinery Review. Accounts of the Ivel appear in "The Trials of Agricultural Motors", Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (1910), pp. 179–99. A series of general histories by Michael Williams have been published by Blandfords, of which Classic Farm Tractors (1984) includes an entry on the Ivel.AP -
64 Archimedes of Syracuse
[br]b. 287 BCd. 212 BC[br]Greek engineer who made the first measurement of specific gravity.[br]He studied in Alexandria, after which he returned to Syracuse where he spent most of the rest of his life. He made many mathematical discoveries, including the most accurate calculation of pi made up to that time. In engineering he was the founder of the science of hydrostatics. He is well known for the discovery of "Archimedes" Law', that a body wholly or partly immersed in a fluid loses weight equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. He thus made the first measurement of specific gravity.Archimedes also proved the law of the lever and developed the theory of mechanical advantage, boasting to his cousin Hieron, "Give me a place to stand on and with a lever I will move the whole world." To prove his point, he launched one of the biggest ships built up to that date. During his time in Egypt, he devised the "Archimedean Screw", still used today in Middle Eastern countries for pumping water. He also built an astronomical instrument to demonstrate the movements of the heavenly bodies, a form of orrery.He was General of Ordnance to Heiron, and when the Romans besieged Syracuse, a legionary came across Archimedes drawing geometrical diagrams in the sand. Archimedes immediately told him to 'Keep off and the soldier killed him. He also experimented with burning glasses and mirrors for setting fire to wooden ships.[br]Further ReadingL.Sprague de Camp, 1963, Ancient Engineers, Souvenir Press. E.J.Dijksterhuis, 1956, Archimedes, Copenhagen: Munksgaard.IMcN -
65 Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
[br]b. 25 August 1851 Liverpool, Englandd. 19 January 1937 Woking, England[br]English mechanical engineer, pioneer of the automatic vacuum brake for railway trains and of railway electrification.[br]Aspinall's father was a QC, Recorder of Liverpool, and Aspinall himself became a pupil at Crewe Works of the London \& North Western Railway, eventually under F.W. Webb. In 1875 he was appointed Manager of the works at Inchicore, Great Southern \& Western Railway, Ireland. While he was there, some of the trains were equipped, on trial, with continuous brakes of the non-automatic vacuum type. Aspinall modified these to make them automatic, i.e. if the train divided, brakes throughout both parts would be applied automatically. Aspinall vacuum brakes were subsequently adopted by the important Great Northern, Lancashire \& Yorkshire, and London \& North Western Railways.In 1883, aged only 32, Aspinall was appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Southern \& Western Railway, but in 1886 he moved in the same capacity to the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway, where his first task was to fit out the new works at Horwich. The first locomotive was completed there in 1889, to his design. In 1899 he introduced a 4–4–2, the largest express locomotive in Britain at the time, some of which were fitted with smokebox superheaters to Aspinall's design.Unusually for an engineer, in 1892 Aspinall was appointed General Manager of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway. He electrified the Liverpool-Southport line in 1904 at 600 volts DC with a third rail; this was an early example of main-line electrification, for it extended beyond the Liverpool suburban area. He also experimented with 3,500 volt DC overhead electrification of the Bury-Holcombe Brook branch in 1913, but converted this to 1,200 volts DC third rail to conform with the Manchester-Bury line when this was electrified in 1915. In 1918 he was made a director of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1917. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1909. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1918.Further ReadingH.A.V.Bulleid, 1967, The Aspinall Era, Shepperton: Ian Allan (provides a good account of Aspinall and his life's work).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan, Ch. 19 (a good brief account).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
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66 Austin, Herbert, Baron Austin
[br]b. 8 November 1866 Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire, Englandd. 23 May 1941 Lickey Grange, near Bromsgrove, Herefordshire, England[br]English manufacturer of cars.[br]The son of Stephen (or Steven) Austin, a farmer of Wentworth, Yorkshire, he was educated at Rotherham Grammar School and then went to Australia with an uncle in 1884. There he became apprenticed as an engineer at the Langlands Foundry in Melbourne. He moved to the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company, and soon after became its Manager; in 1893 he returned to England, where he became Production Manager to the English branch of the same company in Birmingham. The difficulties of travel in Australia gave him an idea of the advantages of motor-driven vehicles, and in 1895 he produced the first Wolseley car. In 1901 he was appointed to the Wolseley board, and from 1911 he was Chairman.His first car was a three-wheeler. An improved model was soon available, and in 1901 the Wolseley company took over the machine tool and motor side of Vickers Sons and Maxim and traded under the name of the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company. Herbert Austin was the General Manager. In 1905 he decided to start his own company and formed the Austin Motor Company Ltd, with works at Longbridge, near Birmingham. With a workforce of 270, the firm produced 120 cars in 1906; by 1914 a staff of 2,000 were producing 1,000 cars a year. The First World War saw production facilities turned over to the production of aeroplanes, guns and ammunition.Peacetime brought a return to car manufacture, and 1922 saw the introduction of the 7 hp "Baby Austin", a car for the masses. Many other models followed. By 1937 the original Longbridge factory had grown to 220 acres, and the staff had increased to over 16,000, while the number of cars produced had grown to 78,000 per year.Herbert Austin was a philanthropist who endowed many hospitals and not a few universities; he was created a Baron in 1936.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaron 1936.Further Reading1941, Austin Magazine (June).IMcNBiographical history of technology > Austin, Herbert, Baron Austin
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67 Baekeland, Leo Hendrik
[br]b. 14 November 1863 Saint-Martens-Latern, Belgiumd. 23 February 1944 Beacon, New York, USA[br]Belgian/American inventor of the Velox photographic process and the synthetic plastic Bakélite.[br]The son of an illiterate shoemaker, Baekeland was first apprenticed in that trade, but was encouraged by his mother to study, with spectacular results. He won a scholarship to Gand University and graduated in chemistry. Before he was 21 he had achieved his doctorate, and soon afterwards he obtained professorships at Bruges and then at Gand. Baekeland seemed set for a distinguished academic career, but he turned towards the industrial applications of chemistry, especially in photography.Baekeland travelled to New York to further this interest, but his first inventions met with little success so he decided to concentrate on one that seemed to have distinct commercial possibilities. This was a photographic paper that could be developed in artificial light; he called this "gas light" paper Velox, using the less sensitive silver chloride as a light-sensitive agent. It proved to have good properties and was easy to use, at a time of photography's rising popularity. By 1896 the process began to be profitable, and three years later Baekeland disposed of his plant to Eastman Kodak for a handsome sum, said to be $3–4 million. That enabled him to retire from business and set up a laboratory at Yonkers to pursue his own research, including on synthetic resins. Several chemists had earlier obtained resinous products from the reaction between phenol and formaldehyde but had ignored them. By 1907 Baekeland had achieved sufficient control over the reaction to obtain a good thermosetting resin which he called "Bakélite". It showed good electrical insulation and resistance to chemicals, and was unchanged by heat. It could be moulded while plastic and would then set hard on heating, with its only drawback being its brittleness. Bakelite was an immediate success in the electrical industry and Baekeland set up the General Bakelite Company in 1910 to manufacture and market the product. The firm grew steadily, becoming the Bakélite Corporation in 1924, with Baekeland still as active President.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Electrochemical Society 1909. President, American Chemical Society 1924. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1936.Further ReadingJ.Gillis, 1965, Leo Baekeland, Brussels.A.R.Matthis, 1948, Leo H.Baekeland, Professeur, Docteur ès Sciences, chimiste, inventeur et grand industriel, Brussels.J.K.Mumford, 1924, The Story of Bakélite.C.F.Kettering, 1947, memoir on Baekeland, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 24 (includes a list of his honours and publications).LRD -
68 Birdseye, Clarence
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 9 December 1886 Brooklyn, New York, USAd. 7 October 1956 USA[br]American inventor of the fast-freezing method of food preservation.[br]Clarence Birdseye went to high school at Montclair in New Jersey, and from there to Amherst College between 1906 and 1910. He became a field naturalist on the US Department of Agriculture's survey of 1910 to 1912, and during the following five years worked as a fur trader. He was the Purchasing Agent for the US Navy Corps between 1917 and 1919, and acted as Assistant to the President of the US Fisherman's Association between 1920 and 1922.Birdseye was a keen fisherman, and during his time in Labrador learnt how to fast-freeze his catch in the wind. He formed the Birdseye Seafood Company in 1923 and pioneered the development of quick-freezing methods for the preservation of dressed seafood. His first company went bankrupt, but he quickly formed the General Seafoods Corporation. He filed his first patent in 1924 for the plate freezer, and in the late 1920s developed the double belt freezer. In 1929 Birdseye's company was bought out for $22 million, Birdseye himself receiving $1 million. He was an active member of the American Fisherman's Society, the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Mammalogists and the Institute of Food Technologists.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNutrition Foundation Stephen M.Babcock Award 1949.Further ReadingW.H.Clark and J.Moynahan, Famous Leaders of Industry (gives a brief account of Birdseye's life).1982, Frozen Food Age (August) (an account of the development of the industry he created).AP -
69 Black, Harold Stephen
[br]b. 14 April 1898 Leominster, Massachusetts, USAd. 11 December 1983 Summitt, New Jersey, USA[br]American electrical engineer who discovered that the application of negative feedback to amplifiers improved their stability and reduced distortion.[br]Black graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, in 1921 and joined the Western Electric Company laboratories (later the Bell Telephone Laboratories) in New York City. There he worked on a variety of electronic-communication problems. His major contribution was the discovery in 1927 that the application of negative feedback to an amplifier, whereby a fraction of the output signal is fed back to the input in the opposite phase, not only increases the stability of the amplifier but also has the effect of reducing the magnitude of any distortion introduced by it. This discovery has found wide application in the design of audio hi-fi amplifiers and various control systems, and has also given valuable insight into the way in which many animal control functions operate.During the Second World War he developed a form of pulse code modulation (PCM) to provide a practicable, secure telephony system for the US Army Signal Corps. From 1963–6, after his retirement from the Bell Labs, he was Principal Research Scientist with General Precision Inc., Little Falls, New Jersey, following which he became an independent consultant in communications. At the time of his death he held over 300 patents.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitute of Electronic and Radio Engineers Lamme Medal 1957.Bibliography1934, "Stabilised feedback amplifiers", Electrical Engineering 53:114 (describes the principles of negative feedback).21 December 1937, US patent no. 2,106,671 (for his negative feedback discovery.1947, with J.O.Edson, "Pulse code modulation", Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 66:895.1946, "A multichannel microwave radio relay system", Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 65:798.1953, Modulation Theory, New York: D.van Nostrand.1988, Laboratory Management: Principles \& Practice, New York: Van Nostrand Rheinhold.Further ReadingFor early biographical details see "Harold S. Black, 1957 Lamme Medalist", Electrical Engineering (1958) 77:720; "H.S.Black", Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Spectrum (1977) 54.KF -
70 Bodmer, Johann Georg
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines, Textiles, Weapons and armour[br]b. 9 December 1786 Zurich, Switzerlandd. 30 May 1864 Zurich, Switzerland[br]Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor.[br]John George Bodmer (as he was known in England) showed signs of great inventive ability even as a child. Soon after completing his apprenticeship to a local millwright, he set up his own work-shop at Zussnacht. One of his first inventions, in 1805, was a shell which exploded on impact. Soon after this he went into partnership with Baron d'Eichthal to establish a cotton mill at St Blaise in the Black Forest. Bodmer designed the water-wheels and all the machinery. A few years later they established a factory for firearms and Bodmer designed special machine tools and developed a system of interchangeable manufacture comparable with American developments at that time. More inventions followed, including a detachable bayonet for breech-loading rifles and a rifled, breech-loading cannon for 12 lb (5.4 kg) shells.Bodmer was appointed by the Grand Duke of Baden to the posts of Director General of the Government Iron Works and Inspector of Artillery. He left St Blaise in 1816 and entered completely into the service of the Grand Duke, but before taking up his duties he visited Britain for the first time and made an intensive five-month tour of textile mills, iron works, workshops and similar establishments.In 1821 he returned to Switzerland and was engaged in setting up cotton mills and other engineering works. In 1824 he went back to England, where he obtained a patent for his improvements in cotton machinery and set up a mill near Bolton incorporating his ideas. His health failing, he was obliged to return to Switzerland in 1828, but he was soon busy with engineering works there and in France. In 1833 he went to England again, first to Bolton and four years later to Manchester in partnership with H.H.Birley. In the next ten years he patented many more inventions in the fields of textile machinery, steam engines and machine tools. These included a balanced steam engine, a mechanical stoker, steam engine valve gear, gear-cutting machines and a circular planer or vertical lathe, anticipating machines of this type later developed in America by E.P. Bullard. The metric system was used in his workshops and in gearing calculations he introduced the concept of diametral pitch, which then became known as "Manchester Pitch". The balanced engine was built in stationary form and in two locomotives, but although their running was remarkably smooth the additional complication prevented their wider use.After the death of H.H.Birley in 1846, Bodmer removed to London until 1848, when he went to Austria. About 1860 he returned to his native town of Zurich. He remained actively engaged in all kinds of inventions up to the end of his life. He obtained fourteen British patents, each of which describes many inventions; two of these patents were extended beyond the normal duration of fourteen years. Two others were obtained on his behalf, one by his brother James in 1813 for his cannon and one relating to railways by Charles Fox in 1847. Many of his inventions had little direct influence but anticipated much later developments. His ideas were sound and some of his engines and machine tools were in use for over sixty years. He was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1835.[br]Bibliography1845, "The advantages of working stationary and marine engines with high-pressure steam, expansively and at great velocities; and of the compensating, or double crank system", Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 4:372–99.1846, "On the combustion of fuel in furnaces and steam-boilers, with a description of Bodmer's fire-grate", Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 5:362–8.Further ReadingObituary, 1868–9, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 28:573–608.H.W.Dickinson, 1929–30, "Diary of John George Bodmer, 1816–17", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 10:102–14.D.Brownlie, 1925–6, John George Bodmer, his life and work, particularly in relation to the evolution of mechanical stoking', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 6:86–110.W.O.Henderson (ed.), 1968, Industrial Britain Under the Regency: The Diaries of Escher, Bodmer, May and de Gallois 1814–1818, London: Frank Cass (a more complete account of his visit to Britain).RTS -
71 Bollée, Ernest-Sylvain
[br]b. 19 July 1814 Clefmont (Haute-Marne), Franced. 11 September 1891 Le Mans, France[br]French inventor of the rotor-stator wind engine and founder of the Bollée manufacturing industry.[br]Ernest-Sylvain Bollée was the founder of an extensive dynasty of bellfounders based in Le Mans and in Orléans. He and his three sons, Amédée (1844–1917), Ernest-Sylvain fils (1846–1917) and Auguste (1847-?), were involved in work and patents on steam-and petrol-driven cars, on wind engines and on hydraulic rams. The presence of the Bollées' car industry in Le Mans was a factor in the establishment of the car races that are held there.In 1868 Ernest-Sylvain Bollée père took out a patent for a wind engine, which at that time was well established in America and in England. In both these countries, variable-shuttered as well as fixed-blade wind engines were in production and patented, but the Ernest-Sylvain Bollée patent was for a type of wind engine that had not been seen before and is more akin to the water-driven turbine of the Jonval type, with its basic principle being parallel to the "rotor" and "stator". The wind drives through a fixed ring of blades on to a rotating ring that has a slightly greater number of blades. The blades of the fixed ring are curved in the opposite direction to those on the rotating blades and thus the air is directed onto the latter, causing it to rotate at a considerable speed: this is the "rotor". For greater efficiency a cuff of sheet iron can be attached to the "stator", giving a tunnel effect and driving more air at the "rotor". The head of this wind engine is turned to the wind by means of a wind-driven vane mounted in front of the blades. The wind vane adjusts the wind angle to enable the wind engine to run at a constant speed.The fact that this wind engine was invented by the owner of a brass foundry, with all the gear trains between the wind vane and the head of the tower being of the highest-quality brass and, therefore, small in scale, lay behind its success. Also, it was of prefabricated construction, so that fixed lengths of cast-iron pillar were delivered, complete with twelve treads of cast-iron staircase fixed to the outside and wrought-iron stays. The drive from the wind engine was taken down the inside of the pillar to pumps at ground level.Whilst the wind engines were being built for wealthy owners or communes, the work of the foundry continued. The three sons joined the family firm as partners and produced several steam-driven vehicles. These vehicles were the work of Amédée père and were l'Obéissante (1873); the Autobus (1880–3), of which some were built in Berlin under licence; the tram Bollée-Dalifol (1876); and the private car La Mancelle (1878). Another important line, in parallel with the pumping mechanism required for the wind engines, was the development of hydraulic rams, following the Montgolfier patent. In accordance with French practice, the firm was split three ways when Ernest-Sylvain Bollée père died. Amédée père inherited the car side of the business, but it is due to Amédée fils (1867– 1926) that the principal developments in car manufacture came into being. He developed the petrol-driven car after the impetus given by his grandfather, his father and his uncle Ernest-Sylvain fils. In 1887 he designed a four-stroke single-cylinder engine, although he also used engines designed by others such as Peugeot. He produced two luxurious saloon cars before putting Torpilleur on the road in 1898; this car competed in the Tour de France in 1899. Whilst designing other cars, Amédée's son Léon (1870–1913) developed the Voiturette, in 1896, and then began general manufacture of small cars on factory lines. The firm ceased work after a merger with the English firm of Morris in 1926. Auguste inherited the Eolienne or wind-engine side of the business; however, attracted to the artistic life, he sold out to Ernest Lebert in 1898 and settled in the Paris of the Impressionists. Lebert developed the wind-engine business and retained the basic "stator-rotor" form with a conventional lattice tower. He remained in Le Mans, carrying on the business of the manufacture of wind engines, pumps and hydraulic machinery, describing himself as a "Civil Engineer".The hydraulic-ram business fell to Ernest-Sylvain fils and continued to thrive from a solid base of design and production. The foundry in Le Mans is still there but, more importantly, the bell foundry of Dominique Bollée in Saint-Jean-de-Braye in Orléans is still at work casting bells in the old way.[br]Further ReadingAndré Gaucheron and J.Kenneth Major, 1985, The Eolienne Bollée, The International Molinological Society.Cénomane (Le Mans), 11, 12 and 13 (1983 and 1984).KM -
72 Boulle, André-Charles
SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors[br]b. 11 November 1642 Paris, Franced. 29 February 1732 Paris, France[br]French cabinet-maker noted for his elaborate designs and high-quality technique in marquetry using brass and tortoiseshell.[br]As with the Renaissance artists and architects of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Italy, Boulle worked as a young man in varied media, as a painter, engraver and metalworker an in mosaic techniques. It was in the 1660s that he turned more specifically to furniture and in the following decade, under the patronage of Louis XIV, that he became a leading ébéniste or cabinet-maker, In 1672 the King's Controller-General, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, recommended Boulle as an outstanding cabinet-maker and he was appointed ébéniste du roi. From then he spent the rest of his life working in the royal palaces, notably the Louvre and Versailles, and also carried out commissions for the French aristocracy and from abroad, particularly Spain and Germany.Before the advent of Boulle, the quality furniture made for the French court and aristocracy had come from foreign craftsmen, particularly Domenico Cucci of Italy and Pierre Colle of the Low Countries. Boulle made his name as their equal in his development of new forms of furniture such as his bureaux and commodes, the immense variety of his designs and their architectural quality, the beauty of his sculptural, gilded mounts, and the development of his elaborate marquetry. He was a leading exponent of the contemporary styles, which meant the elaborately rich baroque forms in the time of Louis XIV and the more delicate rococo elegance in that of Louis XV. The technique to which Boulle gave his name (sometimes referred to in its German spelling of Bühl) incorporated a rich variety of veneering materials into his designs: in particular, he used tortoiseshell and brass with ebony. Even greater richness was created with the introduction of an engraved design upon the brass surfaces. Further delicate elaboration derived from the use of paired panels of decoration to be used in reverse form in one piece, or two matching pieces, of furniture. In one panel, designated as première partie, the marquetry took the form of brass upon tortoiseshell, while in the other (contre-partie) the tortoiseshell was set into the brass background.[br]Further ReadingJ.Fleming and H.Honour, 1977, The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts: Allen Lane, pp. 107–9.1982, The History of Furniture: Orbis (contains many references to Boulle).DY -
73 Briggs, Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. February 1561 Warley Wood, Yorkshire, Englandd. 26 January 1630 Oxford, England[br]English mathematician who invented common, or Briggsian, logarithms and whose writings led to their general acceptance throughout Europe.[br]After education at Warley Grammar School, Briggs entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1577 and became a fellow in 1588. Having been Reader of the Linacre Lecture in 1592, he was appointed to the new Chair in Geometry at Gresham House (subsequently Gresham College), London, in 1596. Shortly after, he concluded that the logarithms developed by John Napier would be much more useful if they were calculated to the decimal base 10, rather than to the base e (the "natural" number 2.71828…), a suggestion with which Napier concurred. Until the advent of modern computing these decimal logarithms were invaluable for the accurate calculations involved in surveying, navigation and astronomy. In 1619 he accepted the Savilian Chair in Geometry at Oxford University, having two years previously published the base 10 logarithms of 1,000 numbers. The year 1624 saw the completion of his monumental Arithmetica Logarithmica, which contained fourteen-figure logarithms of 30,000 numbers, together with their trigonometric sines to fifteen decimal places and their tangents and secants to ten places![br]Bibliography1617, Logarithmorum Chilias Primi (the first published reference to base 10 logarithms). 1622, A Treatise of the North West Passage to the South Sea: Through the Continent ofVirginia and by Fretum Hudson.1633, Arithmetica Logarithmica, Gouda, the Netherlands; pub. in 1633 as Trigonmetria Britannica, London.Further ReadingE.T.Bell, 1937, Men of Mathematics, London: Victor Gollancz. See also Burgi, Jost.KF -
74 Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard
[br]b. 26 April 1769 Hacqueville, Normandy, Franced. 12 December 1849 London, England[br]French (naturalized American) engineer of the first Thames Tunnel.[br]His mother died when he was 7 years old, a year later he went to college in Gisors and later to the Seminary of Sainte-Nicaise at Rouen. From 1786 to 1792 he followed a career in the French navy as a junior officer. In Rouen he met Sophie Kingdom, daughter of a British Navy contractor, whom he was later to marry. In July 1793 Marc sailed for America from Le Havre. He was to remain there for six years, and became an American citizen, occupying himself as a land surveyor and as an architect. He became Chief Engineer to the City of New York. At General Hamilton's dinner table he learned that the British Navy used over 100,000 ship's blocks every year; this started him thinking how the manufacture of blocks could be mechanized. He roughed out a set of machines to do the job, resigned his post as Chief Engineer and sailed for England in February 1799.In London he was shortly introduced to Henry Maudslay, to whom he showed the drawings of his proposed machines and with whom he placed an order for their manufacture. The first machines were completed by mid-1803. Altogether Maudslay produced twenty-one machines for preparing the shells, sixteen for preparing the sheaves and eight other machines.In February 1809 he saw troops at Portsmouth returning from Corunna, the victors, with their lacerated feet bound in rags. He resolved to mechanize the production of boots for the Army and, within a few months, had twenty-four disabled soldiers working the machinery he had invented and installed near his Battersea sawmill. The plant could produce 400 pairs of boots and shoes a day, selling at between 9s. 6d. and 20s. a pair. One day in 1817 at Chatham dockyard he observed a piece of scrap keel timber, showing the ravages wrought by the shipworm, Teredo navalis, which, with its proboscis protected by two jagged concave triangular shells, consumes, digests and finally excretes the ship's timbers as it gnaws its way through them. The excreted material provided material for lining the walls of the tunnel the worm had drilled. Brunel decided to imitate the action of the shipworm on a large scale: the Thames Tunnel was to occupy Marc Brunel for most of the remainder of his life. Boring started in March 1825 and was completed by March 1843. The project lay dormant for long periods, but eventually the 1,200 ft (366 m)-long tunnel was completed. Marc Isambard Brunel died at the age of 80 and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1814. Vice-President, Royal Society 1832.Further ReadingP.Clements, 1970, Marc Isambard Brunel, London: Longmans Green.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard
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75 Bullard, Edward Payson
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 18 April 1841 Uxbridge, Massachusetts, USAd. 22 December 1906 Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA[br]American mechanical engineer and machine-tool manufacturer who designed machines for boring.[br]Edward Payson Bullard served his apprenticeship at the Whitin Machine Works, Whitinsville, Massachusetts, and worked at the Colt Armory in Hartford, Connecticut, until 1863; he then entered the employ of Pratt \& Whitney, also in Hartford. He later formed a partnership with J.H.Prest and William Parsons manufacturing millwork and tools, the firm being known as Bullard \& Prest. In 1866 Bullard organized the Norwalk Iron Works Company of Norwalk, Connecticut, but afterwards withdrew and continued the business in Hartford. In 1868 the firm of Bullard \& Prest was dissolved and Bullard became Superintendent of a large machine shop in Athens, Georgia. He later organized the machine tool department of Post \& Co. at Cincinnati, and in 1872 he was made General Superintendent of the Gill Car Works at Columbus, Ohio. In 1875 he established a machinery business in Beekman Street, New York, under the name of Allis, Bullard \& Co. Mr Allis withdrew in 1877, and the Bullard Machine Company was organized.In 1880 Bullard secured entire control of the business and also became owner of the Bridgeport Machine Tool Works, Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1883 he designed his first vertical boring and turning mill with a single head and belt feed and a 37 in. (94 cm) capacity; this was the first small boring machine designed to do the accurate work previously done on the face plate of a lathe. In 1889 Bullard gave up his New York interests and concentrated his entire attention on manufacturing at Bridgeport, the business being incorporated in 1894 as the Bullard Machine Tool Company. The company specialized in the construction of boring machines, the design being developed so that it became essentially a vertical turret lathe. After Bullard's death, his son Edward Payson Bullard II (b. 10 July 1872 Columbus, Ohio, USA; d. 26 June 1953 Fairfield, Connecticut, USA) continued as head of the company and further developed the boring machine into a vertical multi-spindle automatic lathe which he called the "Mult-au-matic" lathe. Both father and son were members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.[br]Further ReadingJ.W.Roe, 1916, English and American Tool Builders, New Haven: Yale University Press; repub. 1926, New York and 1987, Bradley, Ill.: Lindsay Publications Inc. (describes Bullard's machines).RTS -
76 Byron, Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 12 December 1815 Piccadilly Terrace, London, Englandd. 23 November 1852 East Horsley, Surrey, England[br]English mathematician, active in the early development of the calculating machine.[br]Educated by a number of governesses in a number of houses from Yorkshire to Ealing, she was the daughter of a hypochondriac mother and her absent, separated, husband, the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. As a child a mysterious and undiagnosed illness deprived her "of the use of her limbs" and she was "obliged to use crutches". The complaint was probably psychosomatic as it cleared up when she was 17 and was about to attend her first court ball. On 8 July 1835 she was married to William King, 1st Earl of Lovelace. She later bore two sons and a daughter. She was an avid student of science and in particular mathematics, in the course of which Charles Babbage encouraged her. In 1840 Babbage was invited to Turin to present a paper on his analytical engine. In the audience was a young Italian military engineer, L.F.Menabrea, who was later to become a general in Garibaldi's army. The paper was written in French and published in 1842 in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève. This text was translated into English and published with extensive annotations by the Countess of Lovelace, appearing in Taylor's Scientific Memoirs. The Countess thoroughly understood and appreciated Babbage's machine and the clarity of her description was so great that it is undoubtedly the best contemporary account of the engine: even Babbage recognized the Countess's description as superior to his own. Ada often visited Babbage in his workshop and listened to his explanations of the structure and use of his engines. She shared with her husband a love of horse-racing and, with Babbage, tried to develop a system for backing horses. Babbage and the Earl apparently stopped their efforts in time, but the Countess lost so heavily that she had to pawn all her family jewels. Her losses at the 1851 Derby alone amounted to £3,200, while borrow-ing a further £1,800 from her husband. This situation involved her in being blackmailed. She became an opium addict due to persistent pain from gastritis, intermittent anorexia and paroxys-mal tachycardia. Charles Babbage was always a great comfort to her, not only for their shared mathematical interests but also as a friend helping in all manner of small services such as taking her dead parrot to the taxidermist. She died after a protracted illness, thought to be cancer, at East Horsley Towers.[br]Further ReadingD.Langley Moore, 1977, Ada, Countess of Lovelace: Byron's Legitimate Daughter, John Murray.P.Morrison and E.Morrison, 1961, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engine, Dover Publications.Biographical history of technology > Byron, Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace
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77 Caprotti, Arturo
[br]b. 22 March 1881 Cremona, Italyd. 9 February 1938 Milan, Italy[br]Italian engineer, inventor of Caprotti poppet valve gear for steam locomotives.[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]Further ReadingJohn Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson (contains a note about Caprotti (p. 497) and a description of the valve gear (p. 301).PJGR -
78 Charpy, Augustin Georges Albert
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1 September 1865 Ouillins, Rhône, Franced. 25 November 1945 Paris, France[br]French metallurgist, originator of the Charpy pendulum impact method of testing metals.[br]After graduating in chemistry from the Ecole Polytechnique in 1887, Charpy continued to work there on the physical chemistry of solutions for his doctorate. He joined the Laboratoire d'Artillerie de la Marine in 1892 and began to study the structure and mechanical properties of various steels in relation to their previous heat treatment. His first memoir, on the mechanical properties of steels quenched from various temperatures, was published in 1892 on the advice of Henri Le Chatelier. He joined the Compagnie de Chatillon Commentry Fourchamboult et Decazeville at their steelworks in Imphy in 1898, shortly after the discovery of Invar by G.E. Guillaume. Most of the alloys required for this investigation had been prepared at Imphy, and their laboratories were therefore well equipped with sensitive and refined dilatometric facilities. Charpy and his colleague L.Grenet utilized this technique in many of their earlier investigations, which were largely concerned with the transformation points of steel. He began to study the magnetic characteristics of silicon steels in 1902, shortly after their use as transformer laminations had first been proposed by Hadfield and his colleagues in 1900. Charpy was the first to show that the magnetic hysteresis of these alloys decreased rapidly as their grain size increased.The first details of Charpy's pendulum impact testing machine were published in 1901, about two years before Izod read his paper to the British Association. As with Izod's machine, the energy of fracture was measured by the retardation of the pendulum. Charpy's test pieces, however, unlike those of Izod, were in the form of centrally notched beams, freely supported at each end against rigid anvils. This arrangement, it was believed, transmitted less energy to the frame of the machine and allowed the energy of fracture to be more accurately measured. In practice, however, the blow of the pendulum in the Charpy test caused visible distortion in the specimen as a whole. Both tests were still widely used in the 1990s.In 1920 Charpy left Imphy to become Director-General of the Compagnie des Aciéries de la Marine et Homecourt. After his election to the Académie des Sciences in 1918, he came to be associated with Floris Osmond and Henri Le Chatelier as one of the founders of the "French School of Physical Metallurgy". Around the turn of the century he had contributed much to the development of the metallurgical microscope and had helped to introduce the Chatelier thermocouple into the laboratory and to industry. He also popularized the use of platinum-wound resistance furnaces for laboratory purposes. After 1920 his industrial responsibilities increased greatly, although he continued to devote much of his time to teaching at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines in Paris, and at the Ecole Polytechnique. His first book, Leçons de Chimie (1892, Paris), was written at the beginning of his career, in association with H.Gautier. His last, Notions élémentaires de sidérurgie (1946, Paris), with P.Pingault as co-author, was published posthumously.[br]BibliographyCharpy published important metallurgical papers in Comptes rendus… Académie des Sciences, Paris.Further ReadingR.Barthélémy, 1947, "Notice sur la vie et l'oeuvre de Georges Charpy", Notices et discours, Académie des Sciences, Paris (June).M.Caullery, 1945, "Annonce du décès de M.G. Charpy" Comptes rendus Académie des Sciences, Paris 221:677.P.G.Bastien, 1963, "Microscopic metallurgy in France prior to 1920", Sorby Centennial Symposium on the History of Metallurgy, AIME Metallurgical Society Conference Vol.27, pp. 171–88.ASDBiographical history of technology > Charpy, Augustin Georges Albert
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79 Coffey, Aeneas
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 1779/80 Englandd. 26 November 1852 Bromley, England[br]English inventor of the Coffey still for fractional distillation.[br]As Surveyor and Inspector General of Excise in Ireland, Coffey was responsible for the suppression of the illicit distilling of alcohol. In 1818 he published a pamphlet refuting charges of oppression and brutality brought against him by Irish revenue officers. He seems to have hunted with the hounds, for as a distiller himself in Dublin, he patented in 1831 the improved form of still that bears his name. The still was quickly adopted by the whisky industry as it accomplished in a single operation what had previously required several stages using the old pot stills. It is still used in the making of potable spirits, and consists of two adjacent columns, an analyser and a rectifier. Steam is passed through the liquor in the analyser, which removes the volatile fraction, and is then fractionally condensed in the rectifier column; almost pure alcohol could be produced by this means.[br]Further ReadingE.J.Rothery, 1968, Annals of Science 24:53.LRD -
80 Congreve, Sir William
SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour[br]b. 20 May 1772 London, Englandd. 16 May 1828 Toulouse, France[br]English developer of military rockets.[br]He was the eldest son of Lieutenant-General Sir William Congreve, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery, Superintendent of Military Machines and Superintendent Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, and the daughter of a naval officer. Congreve passed through the Naval Academy at Woolwich and in 1791 was attached to the Royal Laboratory (formerly known as the Woolwich Arsenal), of which his father was then in command. In the 1790s, an Indian prince, Hyder Ali, had had some success against British troops with solid-fuelled rockets, and young Congreve set himself to develop the idea. By about 1806 he had made some 13,000 rockets, each with a range of about 2 km (1¼ miles). The War Office approved their use, and they were first tested in action at sea during the sieges of Boulogne and Copenhagen in 1806 and 1807 respectively. Congreve was commissioned to raise two companies of rocket artillery; in 1813 he commanded one of his rocket companies at the Battle of Leipzig, where although the rockets did little damage to the enemy, the noise and glare of the explosions had a considerable effect in frightening the French and caused great confusion; for this, the Tsar of Russia awarded Congreve a knighthood. The rockets were similarly effective in other battles, including the British attack on Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, in 1814; it is said that this was the inspiration for the lines "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" in Francis Scott Key's poem The Star Spangled Banner, which became the United States' national anthem.Congreve's father died in 1814, and he succeeded him in the baronetcy and as Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory and Superintendent of Military Machines, holding this post until his death. For the last ten years of his life he was Member of Parliament for Plymouth, having previously represented Gatton when elected for that constituency in 1812.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1812.Further ReadingF.H.Winter, 1990, The First Golden Age of Rocketry: Congreve and Hale Rockets of the Nine-teenth Century, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.IMcN
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