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  • 61 hemisphere

    ['hemisfiə]
    (one half of the Earth: Singapore and the British Isles are in the northern hemisphere.) hemisfære; halvkugle
    * * *
    ['hemisfiə]
    (one half of the Earth: Singapore and the British Isles are in the northern hemisphere.) hemisfære; halvkugle

    English-Danish dictionary > hemisphere

  • 62 World War II

    (1939-1945)
       In the European phase of the war, neutral Portugal contributed more to the Allied victory than historians have acknowledged. Portugal experienced severe pressures to compromise her neutrality from both the Axis and Allied powers and, on several occasions, there were efforts to force Portugal to enter the war as a belligerent. Several factors lent Portugal importance as a neutral. This was especially the case during the period from the fall of France in June 1940 to the Allied invasion and reconquest of France from June to August 1944.
       In four respects, Portugal became briefly a modest strategic asset for the Allies and a war materiel supplier for both sides: the country's location in the southwesternmost corner of the largely German-occupied European continent; being a transport and communication terminus, observation post for spies, and crossroads between Europe, the Atlantic, the Americas, and Africa; Portugal's strategically located Atlantic islands, the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde archipelagos; and having important mines of wolfram or tungsten ore, crucial for the war industry for hardening steel.
       To maintain strict neutrality, the Estado Novo regime dominated by Antônio de Oliveira Salazar performed a delicate balancing act. Lisbon attempted to please and cater to the interests of both sets of belligerents, but only to the extent that the concessions granted would not threaten Portugal's security or its status as a neutral. On at least two occasions, Portugal's neutrality status was threatened. First, Germany briefly considered invading Portugal and Spain during 1940-41. A second occasion came in 1943 and 1944 as Great Britain, backed by the United States, pressured Portugal to grant war-related concessions that threatened Portugal's status of strict neutrality and would possibly bring Portugal into the war on the Allied side. Nazi Germany's plan ("Operation Felix") to invade the Iberian Peninsula from late 1940 into 1941 was never executed, but the Allies occupied and used several air and naval bases in Portugal's Azores Islands.
       The second major crisis for Portugal's neutrality came with increasing Allied pressures for concessions from the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944. Led by Britain, Portugal's oldest ally, Portugal was pressured to grant access to air and naval bases in the Azores Islands. Such bases were necessary to assist the Allies in winning the Battle of the Atlantic, the naval war in which German U-boats continued to destroy Allied shipping. In October 1943, following tedious negotiations, British forces began to operate such bases and, in November 1944, American forces were allowed to enter the islands. Germany protested and made threats, but there was no German attack.
       Tensions rose again in the spring of 1944, when the Allies demanded that Lisbon cease exporting wolfram to Germany. Salazar grew agitated, considered resigning, and argued that Portugal had made a solemn promise to Germany that wolfram exports would be continued and that Portugal could not break its pledge. The Portuguese ambassador in London concluded that the shipping of wolfram to Germany was "the price of neutrality." Fearing that a still-dangerous Germany could still attack Portugal, Salazar ordered the banning of the mining, sale, and exports of wolfram not only to Germany but to the Allies as of 6 June 1944.
       Portugal did not enter the war as a belligerent, and its forces did not engage in combat, but some Portuguese experienced directly or indirectly the impact of fighting. Off Portugal or near her Atlantic islands, Portuguese naval personnel or commercial fishermen rescued at sea hundreds of victims of U-boat sinkings of Allied shipping in the Atlantic. German U-boats sank four or five Portuguese merchant vessels as well and, in 1944, a U-boat stopped, boarded, searched, and forced the evacuation of a Portuguese ocean liner, the Serpa Pinto, in mid-Atlantic. Filled with refugees, the liner was not sunk but several passengers lost their lives and the U-boat kidnapped two of the ship's passengers, Portuguese Americans of military age, and interned them in a prison camp. As for involvement in a theater of war, hundreds of inhabitants were killed and wounded in remote East Timor, a Portuguese colony near Indonesia, which was invaded, annexed, and ruled by Japanese forces between February 1942 and August 1945. In other incidents, scores of Allied military planes, out of fuel or damaged in air combat, crashed or were forced to land in neutral Portugal. Air personnel who did not survive such crashes were buried in Portuguese cemeteries or in the English Cemetery, Lisbon.
       Portugal's peripheral involvement in largely nonbelligerent aspects of the war accelerated social, economic, and political change in Portugal's urban society. It strengthened political opposition to the dictatorship among intellectual and working classes, and it obliged the regime to bolster political repression. The general economic and financial status of Portugal, too, underwent improvements since creditor Britain, in order to purchase wolfram, foods, and other materials needed during the war, became indebted to Portugal. When Britain repaid this debt after the war, Portugal was able to restore and expand its merchant fleet. Unlike most of Europe, ravaged by the worst war in human history, Portugal did not suffer heavy losses of human life, infrastructure, and property. Unlike even her neighbor Spain, badly shaken by its terrible Civil War (1936-39), Portugal's immediate postwar condition was more favorable, especially in urban areas, although deep-seated poverty remained.
       Portugal experienced other effects, especially during 1939-42, as there was an influx of about a million war refugees, an infestation of foreign spies and other secret agents from 60 secret intelligence services, and the residence of scores of international journalists who came to report the war from Lisbon. There was also the growth of war-related mining (especially wolfram and tin). Portugal's media eagerly reported the war and, by and large, despite government censorship, the Portuguese print media favored the Allied cause. Portugal's standard of living underwent some improvement, although price increases were unpopular.
       The silent invasion of several thousand foreign spies, in addition to the hiring of many Portuguese as informants and spies, had fascinating outcomes. "Spyland" Portugal, especially when Portugal was a key point for communicating with occupied Europe (1940-44), witnessed some unusual events, and spying for foreigners at least briefly became a national industry. Until mid-1944, when Allied forces invaded France, Portugal was the only secure entry point from across the Atlantic to Europe or to the British Isles, as well as the escape hatch for refugees, spies, defectors, and others fleeing occupied Europe or Vichy-controlled Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Through Portugal by car, ship, train, or scheduled civil airliner one could travel to and from Spain or to Britain, or one could leave through Portugal, the westernmost continental country of Europe, to seek refuge across the Atlantic in the Americas.
       The wartime Portuguese scene was a colorful melange of illegal activities, including espionage, the black market, war propaganda, gambling, speculation, currency counterfeiting, diamond and wolfram smuggling, prostitution, and the drug and arms trade, and they were conducted by an unusual cast of characters. These included refugees, some of whom were spies, smugglers, diplomats, and business people, many from foreign countries seeking things they could find only in Portugal: information, affordable food, shelter, and security. German agents who contacted Allied sailors in the port of Lisbon sought to corrupt and neutralize these men and, if possible, recruit them as spies, and British intelligence countered this effort. Britain's MI-6 established a new kind of "safe house" to protect such Allied crews from German espionage and venereal disease infection, an approved and controlled house of prostitution in Lisbon's bairro alto district.
       Foreign observers and writers were impressed with the exotic, spy-ridden scene in Lisbon, as well as in Estoril on the Sun Coast (Costa do Sol), west of Lisbon harbor. What they observed appeared in noted autobiographical works and novels, some written during and some after the war. Among notable writers and journalists who visited or resided in wartime Portugal were Hungarian writer and former communist Arthur Koestler, on the run from the Nazi's Gestapo; American radio broadcaster-journalist Eric Sevareid; novelist and Hollywood script-writer Frederick Prokosch; American diplomat George Kennan; Rumanian cultural attache and later scholar of mythology Mircea Eliade; and British naval intelligence officer and novelist-to-be Ian Fleming. Other notable visiting British intelligence officers included novelist Graham Greene; secret Soviet agent in MI-6 and future defector to the Soviet Union Harold "Kim" Philby; and writer Malcolm Muggeridge. French letters were represented by French writer and airman, Antoine Saint-Exupery and French playwright, Jean Giroudoux. Finally, Aquilino Ribeiro, one of Portugal's premier contemporary novelists, wrote about wartime Portugal, including one sensational novel, Volframio, which portrayed the profound impact of the exploitation of the mineral wolfram on Portugal's poor, still backward society.
       In Estoril, Portugal, the idea for the world's most celebrated fictitious spy, James Bond, was probably first conceived by Ian Fleming. Fleming visited Portugal several times after 1939 on Naval Intelligence missions, and later he dreamed up the James Bond character and stories. Background for the early novels in the James Bond series was based in part on people and places Fleming observed in Portugal. A key location in Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953) is the gambling Casino of Estoril. In addition, one aspect of the main plot, the notion that a spy could invent "secret" intelligence for personal profit, was observed as well by the British novelist and former MI-6 officer, while engaged in operations in wartime Portugal. Greene later used this information in his 1958 spy novel, Our Man in Havana, as he observed enemy agents who fabricated "secrets" for money.
       Thus, Portugal's World War II experiences introduced the country and her people to a host of new peoples, ideas, products, and influences that altered attitudes and quickened the pace of change in this quiet, largely tradition-bound, isolated country. The 1943-45 connections established during the Allied use of air and naval bases in Portugal's Azores Islands were a prelude to Portugal's postwar membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > World War II

  • 63 britannique

    britannique [bʀitanik]
    1. adjective
    2. masculine noun, feminine noun
    Britannique Briton, Britisher (US)
    * * *
    bʀitanik

    un/une Britannique — a British man/woman

    * * *
    bʀitanik nmf

    un Britannique — a British person, a Briton

    * * *
    britannique ⇒ Les nationalités adj British.
    [britanik] adjectif
    Britannique adjectif
    Britannique nom masculin et féminin
    Briton, Britisher (US)

    Dictionnaire Français-Anglais > britannique

  • 64 británico

    británico
    ◊ -ca adjetivo
    British ■ sustantivo masculino, femenino British person, Briton; los británicos the British, British people
    británico,-a
    I adjetivo British
    las Islas Británicas, the British Isles
    II sustantivo masculino y femenino
    1 Briton
    2 los británicos, the British ' británico' also found in these entries: Spanish: billón - británica - señor - baño - inglés - médula - tener English: absent - born - Brit - British - decline - imperial mile - practice - practise - redcoat - through - unionist - answer - Britisher - Briton - Downing Street - home

    English-spanish dictionary > británico

  • 65 Britanniques

    bʀitanik
    adjectif féminin pluriel
    * * *
    Britanniques ⇒ Les îles adj fpl les îles Britanniques the British Isles.

    Dictionnaire Français-Anglais > Britanniques

  • 66 island

    1.
    ISLAND [IN, ON] Существительное island 'остров' употребляется с предлогами in и on; словосочетания in the island и on the island синонимичны (соответствуют русскому 'на острове'). In the island употребляется, когда речь идет о крупных островах (обычно группах островов): in the Canary Islands, in the Philippine Islands. On the island употребляется главным образом с названиями небольших, малонаселенных или необитаемых островов: on the Christmas Island, а также в тех случаях, когда существительное island употребляется без географического названия: on an isolated island, on a small coral island. 2. ISLAND, ISLE Английские island и isle (вариант существительного island) дифференцированы в употреблении в современном языке. Island является наиболее широко распространенным словом и употребляется как в сочетании с именем собственным, обозначающим название острова, так и в случаях, когда оно отсутствует (в географических названиях island, как правило, стоит после имени собственного, обозначающего название острова). Например: the Channel Island, the Andaman Islands, the West India Islands, а также small island, picturesque island и т. д. Сфера употребления существительного isle ограничена рядом исторически сложившихся географических названий. Слово isle может стоять как до, так и после имени собственного, обозначающего название острова. Например: the British Isles, the Isle of Wight, the Stilly Isles, the Isle of Thanet и т. д. Isle употребляется также в языке поэзии.

    Difficulties of the English language (lexical reference) English-Russian dictionary > island

  • 67 Spooner, Charles Easton

    [br]
    b. 1818 Maentwrog, Merioneth (now Gwynedd), Wales
    d. 18 November 1889 Portmadoc (now Porthmadog), Wales
    [br]
    English engineer, pioneer of narrow-gauge steam railways.
    [br]
    At the age of 16 Charles Spooner helped his father, James, to build the Festiniog Railway, a horse-and-gravity tramroad; they maintained an even gradient and kept costs down by following a sinuous course along Welsh mountainsides and using a very narrow gauge. This was probably originally 2 ft 1 in. (63.5 cm) from rail centre to rail centre; with the introduction of heavier, and therefore wider, rails the gauge between them was reduced and was eventually standardized at 1 ft 11 1/2 in (60 cm). After James Spooner's death in 1856 Charles Spooner became Manager and Engineer of the Festiniog Railway and sought to introduce steam locomotives. Widening the gauge was impracticable, but there was no precedent for operating a public railway of such narrow gauge by steam. Much of the design work for locomotives for the Festiniog Railway was the responsibility of C.M.Holland, and many possible types were considered: eventually, in 1863, two very small 0–4–0 tank locomotives, with tenders for coal, were built by George England.
    These locomotives were successful, after initial problems had been overcome, and a passenger train service was introduced in 1865 with equal success. The potential for economical operation offered by such a railway attracted widespread attention, the more so because it had been effectively illegal to build new passenger railways in Britain to other than standard gauge since the Gauge of Railways Act of 1846.
    Spooner progressively improved the track, alignment, signalling and rolling stock of the Festiniog Railway and developed it from a tramroad to a miniaturized main line. Increasing traffic led to the introduction in 1869 of the 0–4–4–0 double-Fairlie locomotive Little Wonder, built to the patent of Robert Fairlie. This proved more powerful than two 0–4–0s and impressive demonstrations were given to engineers from many parts of the world, leading to the widespread adoption of narrow-gauge railways. Spooner himself favoured a gauge of 2 ft 6 in. (76 cm) or 2 ft 9 in. (84 cm). Comparison of the economy of narrow gauges with the inconvenience of a break of gauge at junctions with wider gauges did, however, become a continuing controversy, which limited the adoption of narrow gauges in Britain.
    Bogie coaches had long been used in North America but were introduced to Britain by Spooner in 1872, when he had two such coaches built for the Festiniog Railway. Both of these and one of its original locomotives, though much rebuilt, remain in service.
    Spooner, despite some serious illnesses, remained Manager of the Festiniog Railway until his death.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1869, jointly with G.A.Huddart, British patent no. 1,487 (improved fishplates). 1869, British patent no. 2,896 (rail-bending machinery).
    1871, Narrow Gauge Railways, E. \& F.N.Spon (includes his description of the Festiniog Railway, reports of locomotive trials and his proposals for narrow-gauge railways).
    Further Reading
    J.I.C.Boyd, 1975, The Festiniog Railway, Blandford: Oakwood Press; C.E.Lee, 1945, Narrow-Gauge Railways in North Wales, The Railway Publishing Co. (both give good descriptions of Spooner and the Festiniog Railway).
    C.Hamilton Ellis, 1965, Railway Carriages in the British Isles, London: George Allen \& Unwin, pp. 181–3. Pihl, Carl Abraham.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Spooner, Charles Easton

  • 68 brytyjski

    adj
    * * *
    a.
    British; akcent brytyjski British accent; brytyjska odmiana angielskiego British English; Wyspy Brytyjskie geogr. the British Isles; Brytyjska Wspólnota Narodów polit. the British Commonwealth.

    The New English-Polish, Polish-English Kościuszko foundation dictionary > brytyjski

  • 69 Британские острова

    2) Geography: the British Isles (у сев.-зап. побережья Европы, Атлантический ок., гос-ва Великобритания и Ирландия)

    Универсальный русско-английский словарь > Британские острова

  • 70 Británica

    f., (m. - británico)
    * * *
    ----
    * Comunidad Británica de Naciones, la = Commonwealth, the.
    * * *
    * Comunidad Británica de Naciones, la = Commonwealth, the.
    * * *

    británico,-a
    I adjetivo British
    las Islas Británicas, the British Isles
    II sustantivo masculino y femenino
    1 Briton
    2 los británicos, the British
    ' británica' also found in these entries:
    Spanish:
    billón
    - flema
    - mancomunidad
    English:
    B.T.U.
    - BBC
    - BMA
    - lord
    - royal
    - Briton
    - RAF
    * * *
    I adj British
    II m, británica f Briton, Brit fam

    Spanish-English dictionary > Británica

  • 71 Vest-maðr

    m. a man from the West, κατ. ἐξ. one from the British Isles, esp. the Irish, Landn. 36, whence Vestmanna-eyjar, the Isles of the Westmen, i. e. of the Irish who were slain there, see Landn.; Hildir ok Hallgeirr vóru Vestmenn, Landn. 344.

    Íslensk-ensk orðabók > Vest-maðr

  • 72 oltremanica

    oltremanica agg. beyond the (English) Channel // paesi d'oltremanica, the British Isles
    ◆ avv. across the Channel: andare oltremanica, to go across the (English) Channel (o to cross the English Channel).
    * * *
    [oltre'manika] 1.
    sostantivo maschile invariabile
    2.
    avverbio across, beyond the (English) Channel
    * * *
    oltremanica
    /oltre'manika/
    I m.inv.
      d'oltremanica British
     across, beyond the (English) Channel.

    Dizionario Italiano-Inglese > oltremanica

  • 73 isle

    ISLAND, ISLE
    Английские island и isle (вариант существительного island) дифференцированы в употреблении в современном языке. Island является наиболее широко распространенным словом и употребляется как в сочетании с именем собственным, обозначающим название острова, так и в случаях, когда оно отсутствует (в географических названиях island, как правило, стоит после имени собственного, обозначающего название острова). Например: the Channel Island, the Andaman Islands, the West India Islands, а также small island, picturesque island и т. д. Сфера употребления существительного isle ограничена рядом исторически сложившихся географических названий. Слово isle может стоять как до, так и после имени собственного, обозначающего название острова. Например: the British Isles, the Isle of Wight, the Stilly Isles, the Isle of Thanet и т. д. Isle употребляется также в языке поэзии.

    Difficulties of the English language (lexical reference) English-Russian dictionary > isle

  • 74 британский

    1. british
    2. British
    Синонимический ряд:
    английский (прил.) английский

    Русско-английский большой базовый словарь > британский

  • 75 britannico

    [bri'tanniko] britannico -a, -ci, -che
    1. agg
    2. sm/f
    British person, Briton

    Nuovo dizionario Italiano-Inglese > britannico

  • 76 Behr, Fritz Bernhard

    [br]
    b. 9 October 1842 Berlin, Germany
    d. 25 February 1927
    [br]
    German (naturalized British in 1876) engineer, promoter of the Lartigue monorail system.
    [br]
    Behr trained as an engineer in Britain and had several railway engineering appointments before becoming associated with C.F.M.-T. Lartigue in promoting the Lartigue monorail system in the British Isles. In Lartigue's system, a single rail was supported on trestles; vehicles ran on the rail, their bodies suspended pannier-fashion, stabilized by horizontal rollers running against light guide rails fixed to the sides of the trestles. Behr became Managing Director of the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway Company, which in 1888 opened its Lartigue system line between those two places in the south-west of Ireland. Three locomotives designed by J.T.A. Mallet were built for the line by Hunslet Engine Company, each with two horizontal boilers, one either side of the track. Coaches and wagons likewise were in two parts. Technically the railway was successful, but lack of traffic caused the company to go bankrupt in 1897: the railway continued to operate until 1924.
    Meanwhile Behr had been thinking in terms far more ambitious than a country branch line. Railway speeds of 150mph (240km/h) or more then lay far in the future: engineers were uncertain whether normal railway vehicles would even be stable at such speeds. Behr was convinced that a high-speed electric vehicle on a substantial Lartigue monorail track would be stable. In 1897 he demonstrated such a vehicle on a 3mile (4.8km) test track at the Brussels International Exhibition. By keeping the weight of the motors low, he was able to place the seats above rail level. Although the generating station provided by the Exhibition authorities never operated at full power, speeds over 75mph (120 km/h) were achieved.
    Behr then promoted the Manchester-Liverpool Express Railway, on which monorail trains of this type running at speeds up to 110mph (177km/h) were to link the two cities in twenty minutes. Despite strong opposition from established railway companies, an Act of Parliament authorizing it was made in 1901. The Act also contained provision for the Board of Trade to require experiments to prove the system's safety. In practice this meant that seven miles of line, and a complete generating station to enable trains to travel at full speed, must be built before it was known whether the Board would give its approval for the railway or not. Such a condition was too severe for the scheme to attract investors and it remained stillborn.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    H.Fayle, 1946, The Narrow Gauge Railways of Ireland, Greenlake Publications, Part 2, ch. 2 (describes the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway and Behr's work there).
    D.G.Tucker, 1984, "F.B.Behr's development of the Lartigue monorail", Transactions of
    the Newcomen Society 55 (covers mainly the high speed lines).
    See also: Brennan, Louis
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Behr, Fritz Bernhard

  • 77 Bulleid, Oliver Vaughan Snell

    [br]
    b. 19 September 1882 Invercargill, New Zealand
    d. 25 April 1970 Malta
    [br]
    New Zealand (naturalized British) locomotive engineer noted for original experimental work in the 1940s and 1950s.
    [br]
    Bulleid's father died in 1889 and mother and son returned to the UK from New Zealand; Bulleid himself became a premium apprentice under H.A. Ivatt at Doncaster Works, Great Northern Railway (GNR). After working in France and for the Board of Trade, Bulleid returned to the GNR in 1912 as Personal Assistant to Chief Mechanical Engineer H.N. Gresley. After a break for war service, he returned as Assistant to Gresley on the latter's appointment as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London \& North Eastern Railway in 1923. He was closely associated with Gresley during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
    In 1937 Bulleid was appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway (SR). Concentration of resources on electrification had left the Southern short of up-to-date steam locomotives, which Bulleid proceeded to provide. His first design, the "Merchant Navy" class 4–6– 2, appeared in 1941 with chain-driven valve gear enclosed in an oil-bath, and other novel features. A powerful "austerity" 0−6−0 appeared in 1942, shorn of all inessentials to meet wartime conditions, and a mixed-traffic 4−6−2 in 1945. All were largely successful.
    Under Bulleid's supervision, three large, mixed-traffic, electric locomotives were built for the Southern's 660 volt DC system and incorporated flywheel-driven generators to overcome the problem of interruptions in the live rail. Three main-line diesel-electric locomotives were completed after nationalization of the SR in 1948. All were carried on bogies, as was Bulleid's last steam locomotive design for the SR, the "Leader" class 0−6−6−0 originally intended to meet a requirement for a large, passenger tank locomotive. The first was completed after nationalization of the SR, but the project never went beyond trials. Marginally more successful was a double-deck, electric, suburban, multiple-unit train completed in 1949, with alternate high and low compartments to increase train capacity but not length. The main disadvantage was the slow entry and exit by passengers, and the type was not perpetuated, although the prototype train ran in service until 1971.
    In 1951 Bulleid moved to Coras Iompair Éireann, the Irish national transport undertaking, as Chief Mechanical Engineer. There he initiated a large-scale plan for dieselization of the railway system in 1953, the first such plan in the British Isles. Simultaneously he developed, with limited success, a steam locomotive intended to burn peat briquettes: to burn peat, the only native fuel, had been a long-unfulfilled ambition of railway engineers in Ireland. Bulleid retired in 1958.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    Bulleid took out six patents between 1941 and 1956, covering inter alia valve gear, boilers, brake apparatus and wagon underframes.
    Further Reading
    H.A.V.Bulleid, 1977, Bulleid of the Southern, Shepperton: Ian Allan (a good biography written by the subject's son).
    C.Fryer, 1990, Experiments with Steam, Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens (provides details of the austerity 0–6–0, the "Leader" locomotive and the peat-burning locomotive: see Chs 19, 20 and 21 respectively).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Bulleid, Oliver Vaughan Snell

  • 78 Vignoles, Charles Blacker

    [br]
    b. 31 May 1793 Woodbrook, Co. Wexford, Ireland
    d. 17 November 1875 Hythe, Hampshire, England
    [br]
    English surveyor and civil engineer, pioneer of railways.
    [br]
    Vignoles, who was of Huguenot descent, was orphaned in infancy and brought up in the family of his grandfather, Dr Charles Hutton FRS, Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After service in the Army he travelled to America, arriving in South Carolina in 1817. He was appointed Assistant to the state's Civil Engineer and surveyed much of South Carolina and subsequently Florida. After his return to England in 1823 he established himself as a civil engineer in London, and obtained work from the brothers George and John Rennie.
    In 1825 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) lost their application for an Act of Parliament, discharged their engineer George Stephenson and appointed the Rennie brothers in his place. They in turn employed Vignoles to resurvey the railway, taking a route that would minimize objections. With Vignoles's route, the company obtained its Act in 1826 and appointed Vignoles to supervise the start of construction. After Stephenson was reappointed Chief Engineer, however, he and Vignoles proved incompatible, with the result that Vignoles left the L \& MR early in 1827.
    Nevertheless, Vignoles did not sever all connection with the L \& MR. He supported John Braithwaite and John Ericsson in the construction of the locomotive Novelty and was present when it competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He attended the opening of the L \& MR in 1830 and was appointed Engineer to two railways which connected with it, the St Helens \& Runcorn Gap and the Wigan Branch (later extended to Preston as the North Union); he supervised the construction of these.
    After the death of the Engineer to the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway, Vignoles supervised construction: the railway, the first in Ireland, was opened in 1834. He was subsequently employed in surveying and constructing many railways in the British Isles and on the European continent; these included the Eastern Counties, the Midland Counties, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyme \& Manchester (which proved for him a financial disaster from which he took many years to recover), and the Waterford \& Limerick. He probably discussed rail of flat-bottom section with R.L. Stevens during the winter of 1830–1 and brought it into use in the UK for the first time in 1836 on the London \& Croydon Railway: subsequently rail of this section became known as "Vignoles rail". He considered that a broader gauge than 4 ft 8½ in. (1.44 m) was desirable for railways, although most of those he built were to this gauge so that they might connect with others. He supported the atmospheric system of propulsion during the 1840s and was instrumental in its early installation on the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway's Dalkey extension. Between 1847 and 1853 he designed and built the noted multi-span suspension bridge at Kiev, Russia, over the River Dnieper, which is more than half a mile (800 m) wide at that point.
    Between 1857 and 1863 he surveyed and then supervised the construction of the 155- mile (250 km) Tudela \& Bilbao Railway, which crosses the Cantabrian Pyrenees at an altitude of 2,163 ft (659 m) above sea level. Vignoles outlived his most famous contemporaries to become the grand old man of his profession.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society 1829. FRS 1855. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1869–70.
    Bibliography
    1830, jointly with John Ericsson, British patent no. 5,995 (a device to increase the capability of steam locomotives on grades, in which rollers gripped a third rail).
    1823, Observations upon the Floridas, New York: Bliss \& White.
    1870, Address on His Election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
    Further Reading
    K.H.Vignoles, 1982, Charles Blacker Vignoles: Romantic Engineer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (good modern biography by his great-grandson).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Vignoles, Charles Blacker

  • 79 Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander

    [br]
    b. 13 April 1892 Brechin, Angus, Scotland
    d. 6 December 1973 Inverness, Scotland
    [br]
    Scottish engineer and scientific adviser known for his work on radar.
    [br]
    Following education at Brechin High School, Watson-Watt entered University College, Dundee (then a part of the University of St Andrews), obtaining a BSc in engineering in 1912. From 1912 until 1921 he was Assistant to the Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews, but during the First World War he also held various posts in the Meteorological Office. During. this time, in 1916 he proposed the use of cathode ray oscillographs for radio-direction-finding displays. He joined the newly formed Radio Research Station at Slough when it was opened in 1924, and 3 years later, when it amalgamated with the Radio Section of the National Physical Laboratory, he became Superintendent at Slough. At this time he proposed the name "ionosphere" for the ionized layer in the upper atmosphere. With E.V. Appleton and J.F.Herd he developed the "squegger" hard-valve transformer-coupled timebase and with the latter devised a direction-finding radio-goniometer.
    In 1933 he was asked to investigate possible aircraft counter-measures. He soon showed that it was impossible to make the wished-for radio "death-ray", but had the idea of using the detection of reflected radio-waves as a means of monitoring the approach of enemy aircraft. With six assistants he developed this idea and constructed an experimental system of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) in which arrays of aerials were used to detect the reflected signals and deduce the bearing and height. To realize a practical system, in September 1936 he was appointed Director of the Bawdsey Research Station near Felixstowe and carried out operational studies of radar. The result was that within two years the East Coast of the British Isles was equipped with a network of radar transmitters and receivers working in the 7–14 metre band—the so-called "chain-home" system—which did so much to assist the efficient deployment of RAF Fighter Command against German bombing raids on Britain in the early years of the Second World War.
    In 1938 he moved to the Air Ministry as Director of Communications Development, becoming Scientific Adviser to the Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940, then Deputy Chairman of the War Cabinet Radio Board in 1943. After the war he set up Sir Robert Watson-Watt \& Partners, an industrial consultant firm. He then spent some years in relative retirement in Canada, but returned to Scotland before his death.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1942. CBE 1941. FRS 1941. US Medal of Merit 1946. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1948. Franklin Institute Elliot Cresson Medal 1957. LLD St Andrews 1943. At various times: President, Royal Meteorological Society, Institute of Navigation and Institute of Professional Civil Servants; Vice-President, American Institute of Radio Engineers.
    Bibliography
    1923, with E.V.Appleton \& J.F.Herd, British patent no. 235,254 (for the "squegger"). 1926, with J.F.Herd, "An instantaneous direction reading radio goniometer", Journal of
    the Institution of Electrical Engineers 64:611.
    1933, The Cathode Ray Oscillograph in Radio Research.
    1935, Through the Weather Hours (autobiography).
    1936, "Polarisation errors in direction finders", Wireless Engineer 13:3. 1958, Three Steps to Victory.
    1959, The Pulse of Radar.
    1961, Man's Means to his End.
    Further Reading
    S.S.Swords, 1986, Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar, Stevenage: Peter Peregrinus.
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander

  • 80 Walschaert, Egide

    [br]
    b. 20 January 1820 Mechlin, Belgium
    d. 18 February 1901 Saint-Lilies, Brussels, Belgium
    [br]
    Belgian inventor of Walschaerrt valve gear for steam engines.
    [br]
    Walschaert was appointed Foreman of the Brussels Midi workshops of the Belgian State Railways in 1844, when they were opened, and remained in this position until 1885. He invented his valve gear the year he took up his appointment and was allowed to fit it to a 2–2–2 locomotive in 1848, the results being excellent. It was soon adopted in Belgium and to a lesser extent in France, but although it offered accessibility, light weight and mechanical efficiency, railways elsewhere were remarkably slow to take it up. It was first used in the British Isles in 1878, on a 0–4–4 tank locomotive built to the patent of Robert Fairlie, but was not used again there until 1890. By contrast, Fairlie had already used Walchaert's valve gear in 1873, on locomotives for New Zealand, and when New Zealand Railways started to build their own locomotives in 1889 they perpetuated it. The valve gear was only introduced to the USA following a visit by an executive of the Baldwin Locomotive Works to New Zealand ten years later. Subsequently it came to be used almost everywhere there were steam locomotives. Walschaert himself invented other improvements for steam engines, but none with lasting effect.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia, of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson (includes both a brief biography of Walschaert (p.
    502) and a technical description of his valve gear (p. 298)).
    E.L.Ahrons, 1927, The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825–1925, London: The Locomotive Publishing Co., pp. 224 and 289 (describes the introduction of the valve gear to Britain).
    J.B.Snell, 1964, Early Railways, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson, 103.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Walschaert, Egide

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