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61 Owen, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 14 May 1771 Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Walesd. 17 November 1858 Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales[br]Welsh cotton spinner and social reformer.[br]Robert Owen's father was also called Robert and was a saddler, ironmonger and postmaster of Newtown in Montgomeryshire. Robert, the younger, injured his digestion as a child by drinking some scalding hot "flummery", which affected him for the rest of his life. He developed a passion for reading and through this visited London when he was 10 years old. He started work as a pedlar for someone in Stamford and then went to a haberdasher's shop on old London Bridge in London. Although he found the work there too hard, he stayed in the same type of employment when he moved to Manchester.In Manchester Owen soon set up a partnership for making bonnet frames, employing forty workers, but he sold the business and bought a spinning machine. This led him in 1790 into another partnership, with James M'Connel and John Kennedy in a spinning mill, but he moved once again to become Manager of Peter Drink-water's mill. These were all involved in fine spinning, and Drinkwater employed 500 people in one of the best mills in the city. In spite of his youth, Owen claims in his autobiography (1857) that he mastered the job within six weeks and soon improved the spinning. This mill was one of the first to use Sea Island cotton from the West Indies. To have managed such an enterprise so well Owen must have had both managerial and technical ability. Through his spinning connections Owen visited Glasgow, where he met both David Dale and his daughter Anne Caroline, whom he married in 1799. It was this connection which brought him to Dale's New Lanark mills, which he persuaded Dale to sell to a Manchester consortium for £60,000. Owen took over the management of the mills on 1 January 1800. Although he had tried to carry out social reforms in the manner of working at Manchester, it was at New Lanark that Owen acquired fame for the way in which he improved both working and living conditions for the 1,500-strong workforce. He started by seeing that adequate food and groceries were available in that remote site and then built both the school and the New Institution for the Formation of Character, which opened in January 1816. To the pauper children from the Glasgow and Edinburgh slums he gave a good education, while he tried to help the rest of the workforce through activities at the Institution. The "silent monitors" hanging on the textile machines, showing the performance of their operatives, are famous, and many came to see his social experiments. Owen was soon to buy out his original partners for £84,000.Among his social reforms were his efforts to limit child labour in mills, resulting in the Factory Act of 1819. He attempted to establish an ideal community in the USA, to which he sailed in 1824. He was to return to his village of "Harmony" twice more, but broke his connection in 1828. The following year he finally withdrew from New Lanark, where some of his social reforms had been abandoned.[br]Bibliography1857, The Life of Robert Owen, Written by Himself, London.Further ReadingG.D.H.Cole, 1965, Life of Robert Owen (biography).J.Butt (ed.), 1971, Robert Owen, Prince of Cotton Spinners, Newton Abbot; S.Pollard and J.Salt (eds), 1971, Robert Owen, Prophet of the Poor. Essays in Honour of theTwo-Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth, London (both describe Owen's work at New Lanark).RLH -
62 Riefler, Sigmund
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 9 August 1847 Maria Rain, Germanyd. 21 October 1912 Munich, Germany[br]German engineer who invented the precision clock that bears his name.[br]Riefler's father was a scientific-instrument maker and clockmaker who in 1841 had founded the firm of Clemens Riefler to make mathematical instruments. After graduating in engineering from the University of Munich Sigmund worked as a surveyor, but when his father died in 1876 he and his brothers ran the family firm. Sigmund was responsible for technical development and in this capacity he designed a new system of drawing-instruments which established the reputation of the firm. He also worked to improve the performance of the precision clock, and in 1889 he was granted a patent for a new form of escapement. This escapement succeeded in reducing the interference of the clock mechanism with the free swinging of the pendulum by impulsing the pendulum through its suspension strip. It proved to be the greatest advance in precision timekeeping since the introduction of the dead-beat escapement about two hundred years earlier. When the firm of Clemens Riefler began to produce clocks with this escapement in 1890, they replaced clocks with Graham's dead-beat escapement as the standard regulator for use in observatories and other applications where the highest precision was required. In 1901 a movement was fitted with electrical rewind and was encapsulated in an airtight case, at low pressure, so that the timekeeping was not affected by changes in barometric pressure. This became the standard practice for precision clocks. Although the accuracy of the Riefler clock was later surpassed by the Shortt free-pendulum clock and the quartz clock, it remained in production until 1965, by which time over six hundred instruments had been made.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFranklin Institute John Scott Medal 1894. Honorary doctorate, University of Munich 1897. Vereins zur Förderung des Gewerbefleisses in Preussen Gold Medal 1900.Bibliography1907, Präzisionspendeluhren und Zeitdienstanlagen fürSternwarten, Munich (for a complete bibliography see D.Riefler below).Further ReadingD.Riefler, 1981, Riefler-Präzisionspendeluhren, Munich (the definitive work on Riefler and his clock).A.L.Rawlings, 1948, The Science of Clocks and Watches, 2nd edn; repub. 1974 (a technical assessment of the Riefler escapement in its historical context).See also: Marrison, Warren AlvinDV -
63 Shaw, Percy
[br]b. 1889 Yorkshire, England d. 1975[br]English inventor of the "catseye" reflecting roadstud.[br]Little is known of Shaw's youth, but in the 1930s he was running a comparatively successful business repairing roads. One evening in 1933, he was driving to his home in Halifax, West Yorkshire; it was late, dark and foggy and only the reflection of his headlights from the tram-tracks guided him and kept him on the road. He decided to find or make an alternative to tramlines, which were not universal and by that time were being taken up as trams were being replaced with diesel buses.Shaw needed a place to work and bought the old Boothtown Mansion, a cloth-merchant's house built in the mid-eighteenth century. There he devoted himself to the production of a prototype of the reflecting roadstud, inspired by the reflective nature of a cat's eyes. Shaw's design consisted of a prism backed by an aluminium mirror, set in pairs in a rubber casing; when traffic passed over the stud, the prisms would be wiped clean as the casing was depressed. In 1934, Shaw obtained permission from the county surveyor to lay, at his own expense, a short stretch of catseyes on a main highway near his home: fifty were laid at Brightlington cross-roads, an accident blackspot near Bradford. This was inspected by a number of surveyors in 1936. The first order for catseyes had already been placed in 1935, for a pedestrian crossing in Baldon, Yorkshire. There were alternative designs in existence, particularly in France, and in 1937 the Ministry of Transport laid an 8 km (5 mile) stretch in Oxfordshire with sample lengths of different types of studs. After two years, most of them had fractured, become displaced or ceased to reflect; only the product of Shaw's company, Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd, was still in perfect condition. The outbreak of the Second World War brought blackout regulations, which caused a great boost to sales of reflecting roadstuds; orders reached some 40,000 per week. Production was limited, however, due to the shortage of rubber supplies after the Japanese overran South-East Asia; until the end of the war, only about 12,000 catseyes were produced a year.Over fifty million catseyes have been installed in Britain, where on average there are about two hundred and fifty catseyes in each kilometre of road, if laid in a single line. The success of Shaw's invention brought him great wealth, although he continued to live in the same house, without curtains—which obstructed his view—or carpets—which harboured odours and germs. He had three Rolls-Royce cars, and four television sets which were permanently switched on while he was at home, each tuned to a different channel.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOBE 1965.Further ReadingE.de Bono (ed.), 1979, Eureka, London: Thames \& Hudson."Percy's bright idea", En Route (the magazine of the Caravan Club), reprinted in The Police Review, 23 March 1983.IMcN -
64 Spooner, Charles Easton
[br]b. 1818 Maentwrog, Merioneth (now Gwynedd), Walesd. 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]Bibliography1869, 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 ReadingJ.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.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Spooner, Charles Easton
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65 Trueta, Joseph
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 28 October 1897 Barcelona, Spaind. 19 January 1977 Barcelona, Spain[br]Spanish surgeon who specialized in the treatment of trauma and invented the "Trueta" technique of wound management.[br]Trueta studied medicine at Barcelona University and graduated in 1921. He held successive surgical appointments until in 1929 he was appointed to the Caja de Provision y Socorro, an organization handling 40,000 cases of injury per year. In 1935, soon after becoming Chief Surgeon in Catalonia, he was confronted by the special problems presented by the casualties of the Spanish Civil War.With a Nationalist victory imminent in 1939, he moved to England where his special skills were recognized, and at the outbreak of the Second World War he was appointed to the Wing-field Hospital and the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford. After an interregnum at the end of the war, in 1949 he was appointed Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Oxford, and held this post until his retirement in 1965, when he was able to return to Spain.His technique of wound management stressed the importance of wound cleansing, excision of non-viable tissue, drainage and immobilization, and was particularly timely in that the advent of penicillin permitted the practical pursuit of new concepts in the treatment not only of the soft tissues, but also of bone infection. He was engaged in many other research projects, in particular those concerned with "crush syndrome" and its renal implications.[br]Bibliography1939, Treatment of Wounds and Fractures with special reference to the closed method, London.1943, The Principles and Practice of War Surgery with special reference to the Biological Method of Treatment of Wounds and Fractures, London.1980, Trueta: Surgeon in War and Peace, trans. M.Strubell and M.Strubell, London (autobiography).MG -
66 Zeiss, Carl
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 11 September 1816 Weimar, Thuringia, Germanyd. 3 December 1888 Jena, Saxony, Germany[br]German lens manufacturer who introduced scientific method to the production of compound microscopes and made possible the production of the first anastigmatic photographic objectives.[br]After completing his early education in Weimar, Zeiss became an apprentice to the engineer Dr Frederick Koerner. As part of his training, Zeiss was required to travel widely and he visited Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart and Darmstadt to study his trade. In 1846 he set up a business of his own, an optical workshop in Jena, where he began manufacturing magnifying glasses and microscopes. Much of his work was naturally for the university there and he had the co-operation of some of the University staff in the development of precision instruments. By 1858 he was seeking to make more expensive compound microscopes, but he found the current techniques primitive and laborious. He decided that it was necessary to introduce scientific method to the design of the optics, and in 1866 he sought the advice of a professor of physics at the University of Jena, Ernst Abbe (1840–1905). It took Zeiss until 1869 to persuade Abbe to join his company, and two difficult years were spent working on the calculations before success was achieved. Within a few more years the Zeiss microscope had earned a worldwide reputation for quality. Abbe became a full partner in the Zeiss business in 1875. In 1880 Abbe began an association with Friedrich Otte Schott that was to lead to the establishment of the famous Jena glass works in 1884. With the support of the German government, Jena was to become the centre of world production of new optical glasses for photographic objectives.In 1886 the distinguished mathematician and optician Paul Rudolph joined Zeiss at Jena. After Zeiss's death, Rudolph went on to use the characteristics of the new glass to calculate the first anastigmatic lenses. Immediately successful and widely imitated, the anastigmats were also the first of a long series of Zeiss photographic objectives that were to be at the forefront of lens design for years to come. Abbe took over the management of the company and developed it into an internationally famous organization.[br]Further ReadingL.W.Sipley, 1965, Photography's Great Inventors, Philadelphia (a brief biography). J.M.Eder, 1945, History of Photography, trans. E.Epstean, New York.K.J.Hume, 1980, A History of Engineering Metrology, London, 122–32 (includes a short account of Carl Zeiss and his company).JW / RTS -
67 About the Authors
Douglas L. Wheeler (A.B., Dartmouth College, M.A. and Ph.D., Boston University) is professor of history emeritus, University of New Hampshire, Durham. He taught history in that institution's Department of History from 1965 to 2002, and, from 1995 to 2002, he held a chair, the Prince Henry the Navigator Professorship. He has been a research associate, African Studies Center, Boston University and an affiliate, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. He has also been a visiting professor at Boston University; University College, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); and Morgan State College. He was also Richard Welch Fellow in Advanced Research on the History of Intelligence at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University (1984-85). In the 1980s, he served as general secretary of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (SSPHS) and was one of the founders of the International Conference Group on Portugal (1972-2002). He was founding editor of the Portuguese Studies Review, a semiannual academic journal. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of six other books on Portugal, Angola, and espionage history, including Republican Portugal: A Political History ( 1910-1926), A Ditadura Militar Portuguesa, 1926-1933, and (with Lawrence S. Graham), In Search of Modern Portugal: The Revolution and Its Consequences. Among the periodicals in which he has published articles are Foreign Affairs, USA Today Magazine, International Herald Tribune, and The Christian Science Monitor. In 1993, he was decorated by the Government of Portugal with the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator medal and in 2004, with the Order of Merit.Walter C. Opello Jr. (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder) is professor of political science, State University of New York, Oswego. Before joining the faculty at that institution, he was professor of political science, University of Mississippi, Oxford, from 1976 to 1987. Since the 1970s, he has carried out research in Portugal as a Fulbright Scholar (1981 and 1984) and as a Gulbenkian Foundation Scholar (1978 and 1980). In 1989, he was the director for research on Portugal's regions, carried out by the European Integrations and Regions Project under the auspices of the European Universities Institute, Florence, Italy. Professor Opello has published more than 50 journal articles, book chapters, books, and book reviews pertaining to Portugal's politics and government. His Portugal-related books are Portugal's Political Development: A Comparative Political Approach and Portugal: From Monarchy to Pluralist Democracy. -
68 Bruce, David
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. c.1801 USAd. 13 September 1892 USA[br]American inventor of the first successful typecaster.[br]He was the son of David Bruce, typefounder, who introduced stereotyping into the USA. As a boy, he was employed on various tasks about the typefoundry and printing works of D. \& G. Bruce until 1819, when he was apprenticed to William Fry of Philadelphia, at that time the most eminent printer in America. However, he ran away from Fry and returned to his father, from whom he continued to learn the typefounder's trade. Around 1828 he moved to Albany, where he took charge of a typefoundry. Two years later he was back in New York and joined the firm of George Bruce \& Co. In 1834 he moved to New Jersey, where he set about producing the improved form of typecasting machine for which he is chiefly known. Having achieved success, he set up in business again in New York and remained there until his retirement some twenty-five years before his death. Bruce in fact invented the first effective typecasting machine in New York in 1838 and patented it the same year. His machine incorporated a force pump to drive the molten metal from the pot into the mould. The machine, operated by a wheel turned by hand, could produce forty sorts of various sizes per minute. The machine speeded up the production of type: between 3,000 and 7,000 pieces of type could be cast by hand, whereas these figures were raised to between 12,000 and 20,000 by the casting machine. The Bruce caster was not introduced into Britain until 1853. It was later supplanted by improved machines, notably that invented by Wicks.[br]Bibliography1887, letter, Inland Printer (September) (provides some biographical details).Further ReadingObituary, 1892, Inland Printer (November): 150.James Moran, 1965, The Composition of Reading Matter, London: Wace (provides some details of the Bruce machine).LRD -
69 Dolby, Ray M.
[br]b. 1933 Portland, Oregon, USA[br]American electronics engineer who developed professional systems for noise reduction.[br]He was employed by Ampex Corporation from 1949 to 1957 and received a BSc in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1957. He studied in England and received a PhD in physics from Cambridge University in 1961. He was a United Nations adviser in India 1963–5 and established the Dolby Laboratories in London in 1965. The Dolby Laboratories continuously developed systems for background-noise reduction, and in 1966 introduced Dolby A for professional tape and film formats. In 1968 Dolby B was developed and quickly found its use in the Philips Compact Cassette, which had become the new consumer medium for music. In 1981 Dolby C was an improvement designed for the consumer market, but it also was used in professional video equipment. In 1986 Dolby SR was introduced for professional sound recording. It is a common feature that the equipment has to be in a good state of calibration in order to obtain the advantages of these compander systems.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOBE 1986.GB-N -
70 Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 6 April 1890 Kediri, Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia)d. 23 December 1939 New York, USA[br]Dutch designer of German fighter aircraft during the First World War and of many successful airliners during the 1920s and 1930s.[br]Anthony Fokker was born in Java, where his Dutch father had a coffee plantation. The family returned to the Netherlands and, after schooling, young Anthony went to Germany to study aeronautics. With the aid of a friend he built his first aeroplane, the Spin, in 1910: this was a monoplane capable of short hops. By 1911 Fokker had improved the Spin and gained a pilot's licence. In 1912 he set up a company called Fokker Aeroplanbau at Johannistal, outside Berlin, and a series of monoplanes followed.When war broke out in 1914 Fokker offered his designs to both sides, and the Germans accepted them. His E I monoplane of 1915 caused a sensation with its manoeuvrability and forward-firing machine gun. Fokker and his collaborators improved on the French deflector system introduced by Raymond Saulnier by fitting an interrupter gear which synchronized the machine gun to fire between the blades of the rotating propeller. The Fokker Dr I triplane and D VII biplane were also outstanding German fighters of the First World War. Fokker's designs were often the work of an employee who received little credit: nevertheless, Fokker was a gifted pilot and a great organizer. After the war, Fokker moved back to the Netherlands and set up the Fokker Aircraft Works in Amsterdam. In 1922, however, he emigrated to the USA and established the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation in New Jersey. His first significant success there came the following year when one of his T-2 monoplanes became the first aircraft to fly non-stop across the USA, from New York to San Diego. He developed a series of civil aircraft using the well-proven method of construction he used for his fighters: fuselages made from steel tubes and thick, robust wooden wings. Of these, probably the most famous was the F VII/3m, a high-wing monoplane with three engines and capable of carrying about ten passengers. From 1925 the F VII/3m airliner was used worldwide and made many record-breaking flights, such as Lieutenant-Commander Richard Byrd's first flight over the North Pole in 1926 and Charles Kingsford-Smith's first transpacific flight in 1928. By this time Fokker had lost interest in military aircraft and had begun to see flight as a means of speeding up global communications and bringing people together. His last years were spent in realizing this dream, and this was reflected in his concentration on the design and production of passenger aircraft.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Netherlands Aeronautical Society Gold Medal 1932.Bibliography1931, The Flying Dutchman: The Life of Anthony Fokker, London: Routledge \& Sons (an interesting, if rather biased, autobiography).Further ReadingA.R.Weyl, 1965, Fokker: The Creative Years, London; reprinted 1988 (a very detailed account of Fokker's early work).Thijs Postma, 1979, Fokker: Aircraft Builders to the World, Holland; 1980, English edn, London (a well-illustrated history of Fokker and the company).Henri Hegener, 1961, Fokker: The Man and His Aircraft, Letchworth, Herts.JDS / CMBiographical history of technology > Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard
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71 Heald, James Nichols
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 21 September 1864 Barre, Massachusetts, USAd. 7 May 1931 Worcester, Massachusetts, USA[br]American mechanical engineer and machine-tool manufacturer who concentrated on grinding machines.[br]James N.Heald was the son of Leander S.Heald and was educated at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1884. He then joined the firm that had been established by his grandfather, Stephen Heald, in 1826; this was a machine shop and foundry then known as S.Heald \& Son. When his grandfather died in 1888, James Heald took over the management of the business, which then became known as L.S.Heald \& Son. He concentrated on the manufacture of grinding machines and in 1903 bought out his father's interest and organized the Heald Machine Company. James Heald then began the development of a series of grinding machines designed to meet the needs of the expanding automobile industry. Special machines were produced for grinding piston rings making use of the recently invented magnetic chuck, and for cylinder bores he introduced the planetary grinder. Heald was a member of the National Machine Tool Builders' Association and served as its Treasurer and on its Board of Directors. He was elected a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1917 and was also a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers.[br]Further ReadingRobert S.Woodbury, 1959, History of the Grinding Machine, Cambridge, Mass (describes his grinding machines).L.T.C.Rolt, 1965, Tools for the Job, London; repub. 1986 (describes his grinding machines).RTS -
72 Stanier, Sir William Arthur
[br]b. 27 May 1876 Swindon, Englandd. 27 September 1965 London, England[br]English Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London Midland \& Scottish Railway, the locomotive stock of which he modernized most effectively.[br]Stanier's career started when he was Office Boy at the Great Western Railway's Swindon works. He was taken on as a pupil in 1892 and steady promotion elevated him to Works Manager in 1920, under Chief Mechanical Engineer George Churchward. In 1923 he became Principal Assistant to Churchward's successor, C.B.Collett. In 1932, at the age of 56 and after some forty years' service with the Great Western Railway (GWR), W.A.Stanier was appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London Midland \& Scottish Railway (LMS). This, the largest British railway, had been formed by the amalgamation in 1923 of several long-established railways, including the London \& North Western and the Midland, that had strong and disparate traditions in locomotive design. A coherent and comprehensive policy had still to emerge; Stanier did, however, inherit a policy of reducing the number of types of locomotives, in the interest of economy, by the withdrawal and replacement of small classes, which had originated with constituent companies.Initially as replacements, Stanier brought in to the LMS a series of highly successful standard locomotives; this practice may be considered a development of that of G.J.Churchward on the GWR. Notably, these new locomotives included: the class 5, mixed-traffic 4–6–0; the 8F heavy-freight 2–8–0; and the "Duchess" 4–6–2 for express passenger trains. Stanier also built, in 1935, a steam-turbine-driven 4–6–2, which became the only steam-turbine locomotive in Britain to have an extended career in regular service, although the economies it provided were insufficient for more of the type to be built. From 1932–3 onwards, and initially as part of a programme to economize on shunting costs by producing a single-manned locomotive, the LMS started to develop diesel shunting locomotives. Stanier delegated much of the responsibility for these to C.E.Fairburn. From 1939 diesel-electric shunting locomotives were being built in quantity for the LMS: this was the first instance of adoption of diesel power on a large scale by a British main-line railway. In a remarkably short time, Stanier transformed LMS locomotive stock, formerly the most backward of the principal British railways, to the point at which it was second to none. He was seconded to the Government as Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Production in 1942, and retired two years later.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1943. FRS 1944. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1941.Bibliography1955, "George Jackson Churchward", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 30 (Stanier provides a unique view of the life and work of his former chief).Further ReadingO.S.Nock, 1964, Sir William Stanier, An Engineering Biography, Shepperton: Ian Allan (a full-length biography).John Bellwood and David Jenkinson, 1976, Oresley and Stanier. A Centenary Tribute, London: HMSO (a comparative account).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1970, London Midland \& Scottish, Shepperton: Ian Allan.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Stanier, Sir William Arthur
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73 Voigtländer, Peter Wilhelm Friedrich
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1812 Vienna, Austria d. 1878[br]Austrian manufacturer of the first purpose-designed photographic objective; key member of a dynasty of optical instrument makers.[br]Educated at the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, Voigtländer travelled widely before taking over the family business in 1837. The business had been founded by Voigtländer's grandfather in 1756, and was continued by his father, Johann Friedrich, the inventor of the opera glass, and by the 1830s enjoyed one of the highest reputations in Europe. When Petzval made the calculations for the first purpose-designed photographic objective in 1840, it was inevitable that he should go to Peter Voigtländer for advice. The business went on to manufacture Petzval's lens, which was also fitted to an all-metal camera of totally original design by Voigtländer.The Petzval lens was an extraordinary commercial success and Voigtländer sold specimens all over the world. Unfortunately Petzval had no formal agreement with Voigtländer and made little financial gain from his design, a fact which was to lead to dispute and separation; the Voigtländer concern continued to prosper, however. To meet the increasing demand for his products, Peter Voigtländer built a new factory in Brunswick and closed the business in Vienna. The closure is seen by at least one commentator as the death blow to Vienna's optical industry, a field in which it was once preeminent. The Voigtländer dynasty continued long after Peter's death and the name enjoyed a reputation for high-quality photographic equipment well into the twentieth century.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHereditary Peerage bestowed by the Emperor of Austria 1868.Further ReadingL.W.Sipley, 1965, Photography's Great Inventors, Philadelphia (a brief biography). J.M.Eder, 1945, History of Photography, trans. E.Epstean, New York.JWBiographical history of technology > Voigtländer, Peter Wilhelm Friedrich
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74 Zhang Sixun (Chang Ssu-Hsun)
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. fl. late 10th century[br]Chinese astronomer and clockmaker who built the earliest recorded astronomical clock tower with a hydromechanical escapement.[br]Most clepsydra clocks, such as that of al-Jarazi, measured time continuously by the constant flow of a liquid and most mechanical clocks measure time discontinuously by means of an escapement. The clepsydra clock devised by Zhang Sixun in 976 and completed in 979 was unusual as it incorporated an escapement. It consisted of a large wheel with buckets around its periphery. A constant stream of water was directed into one of the buckets until it reached a predetermined weight, this released the wheel, allowing it to rotate to a new position where the process was repeated (this mechanism may have been introduced by the Chinese astronomer and mathematician Zhang Heng in the second century). The water was later replaced by mercury to prevent freezing in winter. With suitable gearing the movement of the wheel was used to drive a celestial globe, a carousel for written time announcements and jacks for audible time signals. This clock has not survived and is known only from the work Hsin I Hsiang Fa Yao (New Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe System Essentials), which was printed in 1172 and is ascribed to Su Song. This work also describes two similar but later astronomical clock towers with water-wheel escape-ments. Several models of the water-wheel escapement have been constructed from the description in this work.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham (ed.), 1965, Science and Civilisation in China Vol. IV.2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 38, 111, 165, 463, 469–71, 490, 524, 527–8, 533, 540.J.H.Combridge, 1975, "The astronomical clocktowers of Chang Ssu-Hsun and his successors, A.D. 976 to 1126", Antiquarian Horology 9: 288–301.J.Needham, Wang Ling and J.de Solla Price, 1986, Heavenly Clockwork. The Great Astronomical Clocks of Medieval China (2nd edn with supplement by J.H.Combridge), London (for a broader view of Chinese horology).J.H.Combridge, 1979, "Clockmaking in China", in The Country Life International Dictionary of Clocks, ed. Alan Smith, London.DVBiographical history of technology > Zhang Sixun (Chang Ssu-Hsun)
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75 Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma
[br]b. 30 July 1889 Mourum (near Moscow), Russiad. 29 July 1982 New York City, New York, USA[br]Russian (naturalized American 1924) television pioneer who invented the iconoscope and kinescope television camera and display tubes.[br]Zworykin studied engineering at the Institute of Technology in St Petersburg under Boris Rosing, assisting the latter with his early experiments with television. After graduating in 1912, he spent a time doing X-ray research at the Collège de France in Paris before returning to join the Russian Marconi Company, initially in St Petersburg and then in Moscow. On the outbreak of war in 1917, he joined the Russian Army Signal Corps, but when the war ended in the chaos of the Revolution he set off on his travels, ending up in the USA, where he joined the Westinghouse Corporation. There, in 1923, he filed the first of many patents for a complete system of electronic television, including one for an all-electronic scanning pick-up tube that he called the iconoscope. In 1924 he became a US citizen and invented the kinescope, a hard-vacuum cathode ray tube (CRT) for the display of television pictures, and the following year he patented a camera tube with a mosaic of photoelectric elements and gave a demonstration of still-picture TV. In 1926 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Pittsburgh and in 1928 he was granted a patent for a colour TV system.In 1929 he embarked on a tour of Europe to study TV developments; on his return he joined the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as Director of the Electronics Research Group, first at Camden and then Princeton, New Jersey. Securing a budget to develop an improved CRT picture tube, he soon produced a kinescope with a hard vacuum, an indirectly heated cathode, a signal-modulation grid and electrostatic focusing. In 1933 an improved iconoscope camera tube was produced, and under his direction RCA went on to produce other improved types of camera tube, including the image iconoscope, the orthicon and image orthicon and the vidicon. The secondary-emission effect used in many of these tubes was also used in a scintillation radiation counter. In 1941 he was responsible for the development of the first industrial electron microscope, but for most of the Second World War he directed work concerned with radar, aircraft fire-control and TV-guided missiles.After the war he worked for a time on high-speed memories and medical electronics, becoming Vice-President and Technical Consultant in 1947. He "retired" from RCA and was made an honorary vice-president in 1954, but he retained an office and continued to work there almost up until his death; he also served as Director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1954 until 1962.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsZworykin received some twenty-seven awards and honours for his contributions to television engineering and medical electronics, including the Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1965; US Medal of Science 1966; and the US National Hall of Fame 1977.Bibliography29 December 1923, US patent no. 2,141, 059 (the original iconoscope patent; finally granted in December 1938!).13 July 1925, US patent no. 1,691, 324 (colour television system).1930, with D.E.Wilson, Photocells and Their Applications, New York: Wiley. 1934, "The iconoscope. A modern version of the electric eye". Proceedings of theInstitute of Radio Engineers 22:16.1946, Electron Optics and the Electron Microscope.1940, with G.A.Morton, Television; revised 1954.1949, with E.G.Ramberg, Photoelectricity and Its Applications. 1958, Television in Science and Industry.Further ReadingJ.H.Udelson, 1982, The Great Television Race: History of the Television Industry 1925– 41: University of Alabama Press.KFBiographical history of technology > Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma
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76 Ellehammer, Jacob Christian Hansen
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 14 June 1871 South Zealand, Denmarkd. b. 20 May 1946 Copenhagen, Denmark[br]Danish inventor who took out some four hundred patents for his inventions, including aircraft.[br]Flying kites as a boy aroused Ellehammer's interest in aeronautics, and he developed a kite that could lift him off the ground. After completing an apprenticeship, he started his own manufacturing business, whose products included motor cycles. He experimented with model aircraft as a sideline and used his mo tor-cycle experience to build an aero engine during 1903–4. It had three cylinders radiating from the crankshaft, making it, in all probability, the world's first air-cooled radial engine. Ellehammer built his first full-size aircraft in 1905 and tested it in January 1906. It ran round a circular track, was tethered to a central mast and was unmanned. A more powerful engine was needed, and by September Ellehammer had improved his engine so that it was capable of lifting him for a tethered flight. In 1907 Ellehammer produced a new five-cylinder radial engine and installed it in the first manned tri-plane, which made a number of free-flight hops. Various wing designs were tested and during 1908–9 Ellehammer developed yet another radial engine, which had six cylinders arranged in two rows of three. Ellehammer's engines had a very good power-to-weight ratio, but his aircraft designs lacked an understanding of control; consequently, he never progressed beyond short hops in a straight line. In 1912 he built a helicopter with contra-rotating rotors that was a limited success. Ellehammer turned his attention to his other interests, but if he had concentrated on his excellent engines he might have become a major aero engine manufacturer.[br]Bibliography1931, Jeg fløj [I Flew], Copenhagen (Ellehammer's memoirs).Further ReadingC.H.Gibbs-Smith, 1965, The Invention of the Aeroplane 1799–1909, London (contains concise information on Ellehammer's aircraft and their performance).J.H.Parkin, 1964, Bell and Baldwin, Toronto (provides more detailed descriptions).JDSBiographical history of technology > Ellehammer, Jacob Christian Hansen
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77 Fox, James
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. c.1760d. 1835 Derby, England[br]English machine-tool builder.[br]Very little is known about the life of James Fox, but according to Samuel Smiles (1863) he was as a young man a butler in the service of the Reverend Thomas Gisborne of Foxhall Lodge, Staffordshire. His mechanical abilities were evident from his spare-time activities in the handling of tools and so impressed his employer that he supplied the capital to enable Fox to set up a business in Derby for the manufacture of machinery for the textile and lacemaking industries. To construct this machinery, Fox had to build his own machine tools and later, in the early nineteenth century, made them for sale, some being exported to France, Germany and Poland. He was renowned for his lathes, some of which were quite large; one built in 1830 has been preserved and is 22 ft (6.7 m) long with a swing of 27 in. (69 cm). He was responsible for many improve-ments in the design of the lathe and he also built some of the earliest planing machines (the first, it has been claimed, as early as 1814) and a gear-cutting machine, although this was apparently for cutting wooden patterns for cast gears. The business was continued by his sons Joseph and James (who died in 1859 aged 69) and into the 1860s by the sons of Joseph.[br]Further ReadingS.Smiles, 1863, Industrial Biography, London, reprinted 1967, Newton Abbot (makes brief mention of Fox).Letters relating to the invention of the planing machine can be found in Engineer 14 (1862): 189, 204, 219, 246 and 247.His lathes are described in: R.S.Woodbury, 1961, History of the Lathe to 1850, Cleveland, Ohio; L.T.C.Rolt, 1965, Tools for the Job, London; repub. 1986; W.Steeds, 1969, A History of Machine Tools 1700–1910, Oxford.RTS -
78 Li Jie (Li Chieh)
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]fl. 1085–1110 China[br]Chinese architect who revised the Chinese treatise on architectural method, Ying Zao Fa Shi.[br]He was a first-rate architect and from 1092 was an assistant in the Directorate of Buildings and Construction. He must have shown promise as an architect for he was commissioned to revise the old manuals of architecture. The work was completed in 1100 and printed three years later as the treatise for which he is best known, the Ying Zao Fa Shi (Treatise on Architectural Method). This work has been called the greatest and definitive treatise of any age in the millennial tradition of Chinese architecture. The work is noted for the comprehensive range of constructions covered and the thoroughness of its instruction to architects. The detailed instructions for the construction and shaping of woodwork are not found in European literature until the eighteenth century. The illustrations are fine and the excellence of the constructional drawings makes them the earliest working drawings. He was a distinguished practising builder, as well as a writer, for he erected administrative offices, palace apartments, gates and gate towers, together with the ancestral temples of the Sung dynasty as well as Buddhist temples.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, Vols IV. 2, pp. 49, 549, 551; 1971, IV. 3, pp. 84–5, 107.LRD -
79 Blériot, Louis
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1 July 1872 Cambrai, Franced. 2 August 1936 Paris, France[br]French aircraft manufacturer and pilot who in 1909 made the first flight across the English Channel in an aeroplane.[br]Having made a fortune with his patented automobile lamp, Blériot started experimenting with model aircraft in about 1900. He tried a flapping-wing layout which, surprisingly, did fly, but a full-size version was a failure. Blériot tried out a wide variety of designs: a biplane float-glider built with Gabriel Voisin; a powered float-plane with ellipsoidal biplane wings; a canard (tail-first) monoplane; a tandem monoplane; and in 1907 a monoplane of conventional layout. This last was not an immediate success, but it led to the Type XI in which Blériot made history by flying from France to England on 25 July 1909.Without a doubt, Blériot was an accomplished pilot and a successful manufacturer of aircraft, but he sometimes employed others as designers (a fact not made known at the time). It is now accepted that much of the credit for the design of the Type XI should go to Raymond Saulnier, who later made his name with the Morane-Saulnier Company.Blériot-Aéronautique became one of the leading manufacturers of aircraft and by the outbreak of war in 1914 some eight hundred aircraft had been produced. By 1918, aircraft were being built at the rate of eighteen per day. The Blériot company continued to produce aircraft until it was nationalized in 1937.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCommandeur de la Légion d'honneur. Daily Mail £1,000 prize for the first cross-Channel aeroplane flight.Further ReadingC.H.Gibbs-Smith, 1965, The Invention of the Aeroplane 1799–1909, London (contains a list of all Blériot's early aircraft).J.Stroud, 1966, European Transport Aircraft since 1920, London (for information about Blériot's later aircraft).For information relating to the cross-Channel flight, see: C.Fontaine, 1913, Comment Blériota traversé la, Manche, Paris.T.D.Crouch, 1982, Blériot XI, the Story of a Classic Aircraft, Washington, DC: National Air \& Space Museum.JDS -
80 Carbutt, John
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1832 Sheffield, Englandd. 1905 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA[br]Anglo-American photographer and photographic manufacturer.[br]Carbutt emigrated in 1853 from England to the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life. He began working as a photographer in Chicago, where he soon earned a considerable reputation and became the official photographer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1870 he purchased the American rights of Woodbury's photomechanical printing process and established a business to produce Woodburytypes in Philadelphia. In 1879 Carbutt set up the first successful gelatine halide dry-plate factory in America. A year later he was elected first President of the Photographers' Association of America. He began experimenting with flexible film supports in 1884 and was the first to produce satisfactory flat films on celluloid commercially. The first kinetoscope film strips used by Thomas Edison were supplied by Carbutt. Carbutt's celluloid films were exported to Europe, where nothing comparable was available at the time. He was also a pioneer manufacturer of orthochromatic plates, X-ray plates and photographic colour filters.[br]Further ReadingObituary, 1905, Journal of the Franklin Institute: 461–3. L.W.Shipley, 1965, Photography's Great Inventors, Philadelphia.G.Hendricks, 1961, The Edison Motion Picture Myth (makes reference to aspects of Carbutt's work on celluloid).JW
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