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meanwhile (other)

  • 1 meanwhile

    Синонимический ряд:
    1. during (other) at; during; in; in the act of; whilst
    2. for the time being (other) for the time being; in the meantime
    3. while (other) all the while; at the same time as; at the time; in the middle of; pending; the whole time; when; while

    English-Russian base dictionary > meanwhile

  • 2 for the time being

    1. пока; в данное время

    for the being — пока; на время

    2. пока; на некоторое время
    Синонимический ряд:
    1. at the moment (adj.) at present; at the moment; for now; for the present; temporarily
    2. meanwhile (other) in the meantime; meanwhile
    3. temporarily (other) briefly; fleetingly; for a little while; for a short time; for a short while; for now; for the moment; for the present; temporarily; transiently

    English-Russian base dictionary > for the time being

  • 3 Historical Portugal

       Before Romans described western Iberia or Hispania as "Lusitania," ancient Iberians inhabited the land. Phoenician and Greek trading settlements grew up in the Tagus estuary area and nearby coasts. Beginning around 202 BCE, Romans invaded what is today southern Portugal. With Rome's defeat of Carthage, Romans proceeded to conquer and rule the western region north of the Tagus, which they named Roman "Lusitania." In the fourth century CE, as Rome's rule weakened, the area experienced yet another invasion—Germanic tribes, principally the Suevi, who eventually were Christianized. During the sixth century CE, the Suevi kingdom was superseded by yet another Germanic tribe—the Christian Visigoths.
       A major turning point in Portugal's history came in 711, as Muslim armies from North Africa, consisting of both Arab and Berber elements, invaded the Iberian Peninsula from across the Straits of Gibraltar. They entered what is now Portugal in 714, and proceeded to conquer most of the country except for the far north. For the next half a millennium, Islam and Muslim presence in Portugal left a significant mark upon the politics, government, language, and culture of the country.
       Islam, Reconquest, and Portugal Created, 714-1140
       The long frontier struggle between Muslim invaders and Christian communities in the north of the Iberian peninsula was called the Reconquista (Reconquest). It was during this struggle that the first dynasty of Portuguese kings (Burgundian) emerged and the independent monarchy of Portugal was established. Christian forces moved south from what is now the extreme north of Portugal and gradually defeated Muslim forces, besieging and capturing towns under Muslim sway. In the ninth century, as Christian forces slowly made their way southward, Christian elements were dominant only in the area between Minho province and the Douro River; this region became known as "territorium Portu-calense."
       In the 11th century, the advance of the Reconquest quickened as local Christian armies were reinforced by crusading knights from what is now France and England. Christian forces took Montemor (1034), at the Mondego River; Lamego (1058); Viseu (1058); and Coimbra (1064). In 1095, the king of Castile and Léon granted the country of "Portu-cale," what became northern Portugal, to a Burgundian count who had emigrated from France. This was the foundation of Portugal. In 1139, a descendant of this count, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself "King of Portugal." He was Portugal's first monarch, the "Founder," and the first of the Burgundian dynasty, which ruled until 1385.
       The emergence of Portugal in the 12th century as a separate monarchy in Iberia occurred before the Christian Reconquest of the peninsula. In the 1140s, the pope in Rome recognized Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal. In 1147, after a long, bloody siege, Muslim-occupied Lisbon fell to Afonso Henriques's army. Lisbon was the greatest prize of the 500-year war. Assisting this effort were English crusaders on their way to the Holy Land; the first bishop of Lisbon was an Englishman. When the Portuguese captured Faro and Silves in the Algarve province in 1248-50, the Reconquest of the extreme western portion of the Iberian peninsula was complete—significantly, more than two centuries before the Spanish crown completed the Reconquest of the eastern portion by capturing Granada in 1492.
       Consolidation and Independence of Burgundian Portugal, 1140-1385
       Two main themes of Portugal's early existence as a monarchy are the consolidation of control over the realm and the defeat of a Castil-ian threat from the east to its independence. At the end of this period came the birth of a new royal dynasty (Aviz), which prepared to carry the Christian Reconquest beyond continental Portugal across the straits of Gibraltar to North Africa. There was a variety of motives behind these developments. Portugal's independent existence was imperiled by threats from neighboring Iberian kingdoms to the north and east. Politics were dominated not only by efforts against the Muslims in
       Portugal (until 1250) and in nearby southern Spain (until 1492), but also by internecine warfare among the kingdoms of Castile, Léon, Aragon, and Portugal. A final comeback of Muslim forces was defeated at the battle of Salado (1340) by allied Castilian and Portuguese forces. In the emerging Kingdom of Portugal, the monarch gradually gained power over and neutralized the nobility and the Church.
       The historic and commonplace Portuguese saying "From Spain, neither a good wind nor a good marriage" was literally played out in diplomacy and war in the late 14th-century struggles for mastery in the peninsula. Larger, more populous Castile was pitted against smaller Portugal. Castile's Juan I intended to force a union between Castile and Portugal during this era of confusion and conflict. In late 1383, Portugal's King Fernando, the last king of the Burgundian dynasty, suddenly died prematurely at age 38, and the Master of Aviz, Portugal's most powerful nobleman, took up the cause of independence and resistance against Castile's invasion. The Master of Aviz, who became King João I of Portugal, was able to obtain foreign assistance. With the aid of English archers, Joao's armies defeated the Castilians in the crucial battle of Aljubarrota, on 14 August 1385, a victory that assured the independence of the Portuguese monarchy from its Castilian nemesis for several centuries.
       Aviz Dynasty and Portugal's First Overseas Empire, 1385-1580
       The results of the victory at Aljubarrota, much celebrated in Portugal's art and monuments, and the rise of the Aviz dynasty also helped to establish a new merchant class in Lisbon and Oporto, Portugal's second city. This group supported King João I's program of carrying the Reconquest to North Africa, since it was interested in expanding Portugal's foreign commerce and tapping into Muslim trade routes and resources in Africa. With the Reconquest against the Muslims completed in Portugal and the threat from Castile thwarted for the moment, the Aviz dynasty launched an era of overseas conquest, exploration, and trade. These efforts dominated Portugal's 15th and 16th centuries.
       The overseas empire and age of Discoveries began with Portugal's bold conquest in 1415 of the Moroccan city of Ceuta. One royal member of the 1415 expedition was young, 21-year-old Prince Henry, later known in history as "Prince Henry the Navigator." His part in the capture of Ceuta won Henry his knighthood and began Portugal's "Marvelous Century," during which the small kingdom was counted as a European and world power of consequence. Henry was the son of King João I and his English queen, Philippa of Lancaster, but he did not inherit the throne. Instead, he spent most of his life and his fortune, and that of the wealthy military Order of Christ, on various imperial ventures and on voyages of exploration down the African coast and into the Atlantic. While mythology has surrounded Henry's controversial role in the Discoveries, and this role has been exaggerated, there is no doubt that he played a vital part in the initiation of Portugal's first overseas empire and in encouraging exploration. He was naturally curious, had a sense of mission for Portugal, and was a strong leader. He also had wealth to expend; at least a third of the African voyages of the time were under his sponsorship. If Prince Henry himself knew little science, significant scientific advances in navigation were made in his day.
       What were Portugal's motives for this new imperial effort? The well-worn historical cliche of "God, Glory, and Gold" can only partly explain the motivation of a small kingdom with few natural resources and barely 1 million people, which was greatly outnumbered by the other powers it confronted. Among Portuguese objectives were the desire to exploit known North African trade routes and resources (gold, wheat, leather, weaponry, and other goods that were scarce in Iberia); the need to outflank the Muslim world in the Mediterranean by sailing around Africa, attacking Muslims en route; and the wish to ally with Christian kingdoms beyond Africa. This enterprise also involved a strategy of breaking the Venetian spice monopoly by trading directly with the East by means of discovering and exploiting a sea route around Africa to Asia. Besides the commercial motives, Portugal nurtured a strong crusading sense of Christian mission, and various classes in the kingdom saw an opportunity for fame and gain.
       By the time of Prince Henry's death in 1460, Portugal had gained control of the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeiras, begun to colonize the Cape Verde Islands, failed to conquer the Canary Islands from Castile, captured various cities on Morocco's coast, and explored as far as Senegal, West Africa, down the African coast. By 1488, Bar-tolomeu Dias had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and thereby discovered the way to the Indian Ocean.
       Portugal's largely coastal African empire and later its fragile Asian empire brought unexpected wealth but were purchased at a high price. Costs included wars of conquest and defense against rival powers, manning the far-flung navel and trade fleets and scattered castle-fortresses, and staffing its small but fierce armies, all of which entailed a loss of skills and population to maintain a scattered empire. Always short of capital, the monarchy became indebted to bankers. There were many defeats beginning in the 16th century at the hands of the larger imperial European monarchies (Spain, France, England, and Holland) and many attacks on Portugal and its strung-out empire. Typically, there was also the conflict that arose when a tenuously held world empire that rarely if ever paid its way demanded finance and manpower Portugal itself lacked.
       The first 80 years of the glorious imperial era, the golden age of Portugal's imperial power and world influence, was an African phase. During 1415-88, Portuguese navigators and explorers in small ships, some of them caravelas (caravels), explored the treacherous, disease-ridden coasts of Africa from Morocco to South Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope. By the 1470s, the Portuguese had reached the Gulf of Guinea and, in the early 1480s, what is now Angola. Bartolomeu Dias's extraordinary voyage of 1487-88 to South Africa's coast and the edge of the Indian Ocean convinced Portugal that the best route to Asia's spices and Christians lay south, around the tip of southern Africa. Between 1488 and 1495, there was a hiatus caused in part by domestic conflict in Portugal, discussion of resources available for further conquests beyond Africa in Asia, and serious questions as to Portugal's capacity to reach beyond Africa. In 1495, King Manuel and his council decided to strike for Asia, whatever the consequences. In 1497-99, Vasco da Gama, under royal orders, made the epic two-year voyage that discovered the sea route to western India (Asia), outflanked Islam and Venice, and began Portugal's Asian empire. Within 50 years, Portugal had discovered and begun the exploitation of its largest colony, Brazil, and set up forts and trading posts from the Middle East (Aden and Ormuz), India (Calicut, Goa, etc.), Malacca, and Indonesia to Macau in China.
       By the 1550s, parts of its largely coastal, maritime trading post empire from Morocco to the Moluccas were under siege from various hostile forces, including Muslims, Christians, and Hindi. Although Moroccan forces expelled the Portuguese from the major coastal cities by 1550, the rival European monarchies of Castile (Spain), England, France, and later Holland began to seize portions of her undermanned, outgunned maritime empire.
       In 1580, Phillip II of Spain, whose mother was a Portuguese princess and who had a strong claim to the Portuguese throne, invaded Portugal, claimed the throne, and assumed control over the realm and, by extension, its African, Asian, and American empires. Phillip II filled the power vacuum that appeared in Portugal following the loss of most of Portugal's army and its young, headstrong King Sebastião in a disastrous war in Morocco. Sebastiao's death in battle (1578) and the lack of a natural heir to succeed him, as well as the weak leadership of the cardinal who briefly assumed control in Lisbon, led to a crisis that Spain's strong monarch exploited. As a result, Portugal lost its independence to Spain for a period of 60 years.
       Portugal under Spanish Rule, 1580-1640
       Despite the disastrous nature of Portugal's experience under Spanish rule, "The Babylonian Captivity" gave birth to modern Portuguese nationalism, its second overseas empire, and its modern alliance system with England. Although Spain allowed Portugal's weakened empire some autonomy, Spanish rule in Portugal became increasingly burdensome and unacceptable. Spain's ambitious imperial efforts in Europe and overseas had an impact on the Portuguese as Spain made greater and greater demands on its smaller neighbor for manpower and money. Portugal's culture underwent a controversial Castilianization, while its empire became hostage to Spain's fortunes. New rival powers England, France, and Holland attacked and took parts of Spain's empire and at the same time attacked Portugal's empire, as well as the mother country.
       Portugal's empire bore the consequences of being attacked by Spain's bitter enemies in what was a form of world war. Portuguese losses were heavy. By 1640, Portugal had lost most of its Moroccan cities as well as Ceylon, the Moluccas, and sections of India. With this, Portugal's Asian empire was gravely weakened. Only Goa, Damão, Diu, Bombay, Timor, and Macau remained and, in Brazil, Dutch forces occupied the northeast.
       On 1 December 1640, long commemorated as a national holiday, Portuguese rebels led by the duke of Braganza overthrew Spanish domination and took advantage of Spanish weakness following a more serious rebellion in Catalonia. Portugal regained independence from Spain, but at a price: dependence on foreign assistance to maintain its independence in the form of the renewal of the alliance with England.
       Restoration and Second Empire, 1640-1822
       Foreign affairs and empire dominated the restoration era and aftermath, and Portugal again briefly enjoyed greater European power and prestige. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was renewed and strengthened in treaties of 1642, 1654, and 1661, and Portugal's independence from Spain was underwritten by English pledges and armed assistance. In a Luso-Spanish treaty of 1668, Spain recognized Portugal's independence. Portugal's alliance with England was a marriage of convenience and necessity between two monarchies with important religious, cultural, and social differences. In return for legal, diplomatic, and trade privileges, as well as the use during war and peace of Portugal's great Lisbon harbor and colonial ports for England's navy, England pledged to protect Portugal and its scattered empire from any attack. The previously cited 17th-century alliance treaties were renewed later in the Treaty of Windsor, signed in London in 1899. On at least 10 different occasions after 1640, and during the next two centuries, England was central in helping prevent or repel foreign invasions of its ally, Portugal.
       Portugal's second empire (1640-1822) was largely Brazil-oriented. Portuguese colonization, exploitation of wealth, and emigration focused on Portuguese America, and imperial revenues came chiefly from Brazil. Between 1670 and 1740, Portugal's royalty and nobility grew wealthier on funds derived from Brazilian gold, diamonds, sugar, tobacco, and other crops, an enterprise supported by the Atlantic slave trade and the supply of African slave labor from West Africa and Angola. Visitors today can see where much of that wealth was invested: Portugal's rich legacy of monumental architecture. Meanwhile, the African slave trade took a toll in Angola and West Africa.
       In continental Portugal, absolutist monarchy dominated politics and government, and there was a struggle for position and power between the monarchy and other institutions, such as the Church and nobility. King José I's chief minister, usually known in history as the marquis of Pombal (ruled 1750-77), sharply suppressed the nobility and the
       Church (including the Inquisition, now a weak institution) and expelled the Jesuits. Pombal also made an effort to reduce economic dependence on England, Portugal's oldest ally. But his successes did not last much beyond his disputed time in office.
       Beginning in the late 18th century, the European-wide impact of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon placed Portugal in a vulnerable position. With the monarchy ineffectively led by an insane queen (Maria I) and her indecisive regent son (João VI), Portugal again became the focus of foreign ambition and aggression. With England unable to provide decisive assistance in time, France—with Spain's consent—invaded Portugal in 1807. As Napoleon's army under General Junot entered Lisbon meeting no resistance, Portugal's royal family fled on a British fleet to Brazil, where it remained in exile until 1821. In the meantime, Portugal's overseas empire was again under threat. There was a power vacuum as the monarch was absent, foreign armies were present, and new political notions of liberalism and constitutional monarchy were exciting various groups of citizens.
       Again England came to the rescue, this time in the form of the armies of the duke of Wellington. Three successive French invasions of Portugal were defeated and expelled, and Wellington succeeded in carrying the war against Napoleon across the Portuguese frontier into Spain. The presence of the English army, the new French-born liberal ideas, and the political vacuum combined to create revolutionary conditions. The French invasions and the peninsular wars, where Portuguese armed forces played a key role, marked the beginning of a new era in politics.
       Liberalism and Constitutional Monarchy, 1822-1910
       During 1807-22, foreign invasions, war, and civil strife over conflicting political ideas gravely damaged Portugal's commerce, economy, and novice industry. The next terrible blow was the loss of Brazil in 1822, the jewel in the imperial crown. Portugal's very independence seemed to be at risk. In vain, Portugal sought to resist Brazilian independence by force, but in 1825 it formally acknowledged Brazilian independence by treaty.
       Portugal's slow recovery from the destructive French invasions and the "war of independence" was complicated by civil strife over the form of constitutional monarchy that best suited Portugal. After struggles over these issues between 1820 and 1834, Portugal settled somewhat uncertainly into a moderate constitutional monarchy whose constitution (Charter of 1826) lent it strong political powers to exert a moderating influence between the executive and legislative branches of the government. It also featured a new upper middle class based on land ownership and commerce; a Catholic Church that, although still important, lived with reduced privileges and property; a largely African (third) empire to which Lisbon and Oporto devoted increasing spiritual and material resources, starting with the liberal imperial plans of 1836 and 1851, and continuing with the work of institutions like the Lisbon Society of Geography (established 1875); and a mass of rural peasants whose bonds to the land weakened after 1850 and who began to immigrate in increasing numbers to Brazil and North America.
       Chronic military intervention in national politics began in 19th-century Portugal. Such intervention, usually commencing with coups or pronunciamentos (military revolts), was a shortcut to the spoils of political office and could reflect popular discontent as well as the power of personalities. An early example of this was the 1817 golpe (coup) attempt of General Gomes Freire against British military rule in Portugal before the return of King João VI from Brazil. Except for a more stable period from 1851 to 1880, military intervention in politics, or the threat thereof, became a feature of the constitutional monarchy's political life, and it continued into the First Republic and the subsequent Estado Novo.
       Beginning with the Regeneration period (1851-80), Portugal experienced greater political stability and economic progress. Military intervention in politics virtually ceased; industrialization and construction of railroads, roads, and bridges proceeded; two political parties (Regenerators and Historicals) worked out a system of rotation in power; and leading intellectuals sparked a cultural revival in several fields. In 19th-century literature, there was a new golden age led by such figures as Alexandre Herculano (historian), Eça de Queirós (novelist), Almeida Garrett (playwright and essayist), Antero de Quental (poet), and Joaquim Oliveira Martins (historian and social scientist). In its third overseas empire, Portugal attempted to replace the slave trade and slavery with legitimate economic activities; to reform the administration; and to expand Portuguese holdings beyond coastal footholds deep into the African hinterlands in West, West Central, and East Africa. After 1841, to some extent, and especially after 1870, colonial affairs, combined with intense nationalism, pressures for economic profit in Africa, sentiment for national revival, and the drift of European affairs would make or break Lisbon governments.
       Beginning with the political crisis that arose out of the "English Ultimatum" affair of January 1890, the monarchy became discredtted and identified with the poorly functioning government, political parties splintered, and republicanism found more supporters. Portugal participated in the "Scramble for Africa," expanding its African holdings, but failed to annex territory connecting Angola and Mozambique. A growing foreign debt and state bankruptcy as of the early 1890s damaged the constitutional monarchy's reputation, despite the efforts of King Carlos in diplomacy, the renewal of the alliance in the Windsor Treaty of 1899, and the successful if bloody colonial wars in the empire (1880-97). Republicanism proclaimed that Portugal's weak economy and poor society were due to two historic institutions: the monarchy and the Catholic Church. A republic, its stalwarts claimed, would bring greater individual liberty; efficient, if more decentralized government; and a stronger colonial program while stripping the Church of its role in both society and education.
       As the monarchy lost support and republicans became more aggressive, violence increased in politics. King Carlos I and his heir Luís were murdered in Lisbon by anarchist-republicans on 1 February 1908. Following a military and civil insurrection and fighting between monarchist and republican forces, on 5 October 1910, King Manuel II fled Portugal and a republic was proclaimed.
       First Parliamentary Republic, 1910-26
       Portugal's first attempt at republican government was the most unstable, turbulent parliamentary republic in the history of 20th-century Western Europe. During a little under 16 years of the republic, there were 45 governments, a number of legislatures that did not complete normal terms, military coups, and only one president who completed his four-year term in office. Portuguese society was poorly prepared for this political experiment. Among the deadly legacies of the monarchy were a huge public debt; a largely rural, apolitical, and illiterate peasant population; conflict over the causes of the country's misfortunes; and lack of experience with a pluralist, democratic system.
       The republic had some talented leadership but lacked popular, institutional, and economic support. The 1911 republican constitution established only a limited democracy, as only a small portion of the adult male citizenry was eligible to vote. In a country where the majority was Catholic, the republic passed harshly anticlerical laws, and its institutions and supporters persecuted both the Church and its adherents. During its brief disjointed life, the First Republic drafted important reform plans in economic, social, and educational affairs; actively promoted development in the empire; and pursued a liberal, generous foreign policy. Following British requests for Portugal's assistance in World War I, Portugal entered the war on the Allied side in March 1916 and sent armies to Flanders and Portuguese Africa. Portugal's intervention in that conflict, however, was too costly in many respects, and the ultimate failure of the republic in part may be ascribed to Portugal's World War I activities.
       Unfortunately for the republic, its time coincided with new threats to Portugal's African possessions: World War I, social and political demands from various classes that could not be reconciled, excessive military intervention in politics, and, in particular, the worst economic and financial crisis Portugal had experienced since the 16th and 17th centuries. After the original Portuguese Republican Party (PRP, also known as the "Democrats") splintered into three warring groups in 1912, no true multiparty system emerged. The Democrats, except for only one or two elections, held an iron monopoly of electoral power, and political corruption became a major issue. As extreme right-wing dictatorships elsewhere in Europe began to take power in Italy (1922), neighboring Spain (1923), and Greece (1925), what scant popular support remained for the republic collapsed. Backed by a right-wing coalition of landowners from Alentejo, clergy, Coimbra University faculty and students, Catholic organizations, and big business, career military officers led by General Gomes da Costa executed a coup on 28 May 1926, turned out the last republican government, and established a military government.
       The Estado Novo (New State), 1926-74
       During the military phase (1926-32) of the Estado Novo, professional military officers, largely from the army, governed and administered Portugal and held key cabinet posts, but soon discovered that the military possessed no magic formula that could readily solve the problems inherited from the First Republic. Especially during the years 1926-31, the military dictatorship, even with its political repression of republican activities and institutions (military censorship of the press, political police action, and closure of the republic's rowdy parliament), was characterized by similar weaknesses: personalism and factionalism; military coups and political instability, including civil strife and loss of life; state debt and bankruptcy; and a weak economy. "Barracks parliamentarism" was not an acceptable alternative even to the "Nightmare Republic."
       Led by General Óscar Carmona, who had replaced and sent into exile General Gomes da Costa, the military dictatorship turned to a civilian expert in finance and economics to break the budget impasse and bring coherence to the disorganized system. Appointed minister of finance on 27 April 1928, the Coimbra University Law School professor of economics Antônio de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970) first reformed finance, helped balance the budget, and then turned to other concerns as he garnered extraordinary governing powers. In 1930, he was appointed interim head of another key ministry (Colonies) and within a few years had become, in effect, a civilian dictator who, with the military hierarchy's support, provided the government with coherence, a program, and a set of policies.
       For nearly 40 years after he was appointed the first civilian prime minister in 1932, Salazar's personality dominated the government. Unlike extreme right-wing dictators elsewhere in Europe, Salazar was directly appointed by the army but was never endorsed by a popular political party, street militia, or voter base. The scholarly, reclusive former Coimbra University professor built up what became known after 1932 as the Estado Novo ("New State"), which at the time of its overthrow by another military coup in 1974, was the longest surviving authoritarian regime in Western Europe. The system of Salazar and the largely academic and technocratic ruling group he gathered in his cabinets was based on the central bureaucracy of the state, which was supported by the president of the republic—always a senior career military officer, General Óscar Carmona (1928-51), General Craveiro Lopes (1951-58), and Admiral Américo Tómaz (1958-74)—and the complicity of various institutions. These included a rubber-stamp legislature called the National Assembly (1935-74) and a political police known under various names: PVDE (1932-45), PIDE (1945-69),
       and DGS (1969-74). Other defenders of the Estado Novo security were paramilitary organizations such as the National Republican Guard (GNR); the Portuguese Legion (PL); and the Portuguese Youth [Movement]. In addition to censorship of the media, theater, and books, there was political repression and a deliberate policy of depoliticization. All political parties except for the approved movement of regime loyalists, the União Nacional or (National Union), were banned.
       The most vigorous and more popular period of the New State was 1932-44, when the basic structures were established. Never monolithic or entirely the work of one person (Salazar), the New State was constructed with the assistance of several dozen top associates who were mainly academics from law schools, some technocrats with specialized skills, and a handful of trusted career military officers. The 1933 Constitution declared Portugal to be a "unitary, corporative Republic," and pressures to restore the monarchy were resisted. Although some of the regime's followers were fascists and pseudofascists, many more were conservative Catholics, integralists, nationalists, and monarchists of different varieties, and even some reactionary republicans. If the New State was authoritarian, it was not totalitarian and, unlike fascism in Benito Mussolini's Italy or Adolf Hitler's Germany, it usually employed the minimum of violence necessary to defeat what remained a largely fractious, incoherent opposition.
       With the tumultuous Second Republic and the subsequent civil war in nearby Spain, the regime felt threatened and reinforced its defenses. During what Salazar rightly perceived as a time of foreign policy crisis for Portugal (1936-45), he assumed control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From there, he pursued four basic foreign policy objectives: supporting the Nationalist rebels of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and concluding defense treaties with a triumphant Franco; ensuring that General Franco in an exhausted Spain did not enter World War II on the Axis side; maintaining Portuguese neutrality in World War II with a post-1942 tilt toward the Allies, including granting Britain and the United States use of bases in the Azores Islands; and preserving and protecting Portugal's Atlantic Islands and its extensive, if poor, overseas empire in Africa and Asia.
       During the middle years of the New State (1944-58), many key Salazar associates in government either died or resigned, and there was greater social unrest in the form of unprecedented strikes and clandestine Communist activities, intensified opposition, and new threatening international pressures on Portugal's overseas empire. During the earlier phase of the Cold War (1947-60), Portugal became a steadfast, if weak, member of the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and, in 1955, with American support, Portugal joined the United Nations (UN). Colonial affairs remained a central concern of the regime. As of 1939, Portugal was the third largest colonial power in the world and possessed territories in tropical Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe Islands) and the remnants of its 16th-century empire in Asia (Goa, Damão, Diu, East Timor, and Macau). Beginning in the early 1950s, following the independence of India in 1947, Portugal resisted Indian pressures to decolonize Portuguese India and used police forces to discourage internal opposition in its Asian and African colonies.
       The later years of the New State (1958-68) witnessed the aging of the increasingly isolated but feared Salazar and new threats both at home and overseas. Although the regime easily overcame the brief oppositionist threat from rival presidential candidate General Humberto Delgado in the spring of 1958, new developments in the African and Asian empires imperiled the authoritarian system. In February 1961, oppositionists hijacked the Portuguese ocean liner Santa Maria and, in following weeks, African insurgents in northern Angola, although they failed to expel the Portuguese, gained worldwide media attention, discredited the New State, and began the 13-year colonial war. After thwarting a dissident military coup against his continued leadership, Salazar and his ruling group mobilized military repression in Angola and attempted to develop the African colonies at a faster pace in order to ensure Portuguese control. Meanwhile, the other European colonial powers (Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain) rapidly granted political independence to their African territories.
       At the time of Salazar's removal from power in September 1968, following a stroke, Portugal's efforts to maintain control over its colonies appeared to be successful. President Americo Tomás appointed Dr. Marcello Caetano as Salazar's successor as prime minister. While maintaining the New State's basic structures, and continuing the regime's essential colonial policy, Caetano attempted wider reforms in colonial administration and some devolution of power from Lisbon, as well as more freedom of expression in Lisbon. Still, a great deal of the budget was devoted to supporting the wars against the insurgencies in Africa. Meanwhile in Asia, Portuguese India had fallen when the Indian army invaded in December 1961. The loss of Goa was a psychological blow to the leadership of the New State, and of the Asian empire only East Timor and Macau remained.
       The Caetano years (1968-74) were but a hiatus between the waning Salazar era and a new regime. There was greater political freedom and rapid economic growth (5-6 percent annually to late 1973), but Caetano's government was unable to reform the old system thoroughly and refused to consider new methods either at home or in the empire. In the end, regime change came from junior officers of the professional military who organized the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) against the Caetano government. It was this group of several hundred officers, mainly in the army and navy, which engineered a largely bloodless coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974. Their unexpected action brought down the 48-year-old New State and made possible the eventual establishment and consolidation of democratic governance in Portugal, as well as a reorientation of the country away from the Atlantic toward Europe.
       Revolution of Carnations, 1974-76
       Following successful military operations of the Armed Forces Movement against the Caetano government, Portugal experienced what became known as the "Revolution of Carnations." It so happened that during the rainy week of the military golpe, Lisbon flower shops were featuring carnations, and the revolutionaries and their supporters adopted the red carnation as the common symbol of the event, as well as of the new freedom from dictatorship. The MFA, whose leaders at first were mostly little-known majors and captains, proclaimed a three-fold program of change for the new Portugal: democracy; decolonization of the overseas empire, after ending the colonial wars; and developing a backward economy in the spirit of opportunity and equality. During the first 24 months after the coup, there was civil strife, some anarchy, and a power struggle. With the passing of the Estado Novo, public euphoria burst forth as the new provisional military government proclaimed the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and abolished censorship, the political police, the Portuguese Legion, Portuguese Youth, and other New State organizations, including the National Union. Scores of political parties were born and joined the senior political party, the Portuguese Community Party (PCP), and the Socialist Party (PS), founded shortly before the coup.
       Portugal's Revolution of Carnations went through several phases. There was an attempt to take control by radical leftists, including the PCP and its allies. This was thwarted by moderate officers in the army, as well as by the efforts of two political parties: the PS and the Social Democrats (PPD, later PSD). The first phase was from April to September 1974. Provisional president General Antonio Spínola, whose 1974 book Portugal and the Future had helped prepare public opinion for the coup, met irresistible leftist pressures. After Spinola's efforts to avoid rapid decolonization of the African empire failed, he resigned in September 1974. During the second phase, from September 1974 to March 1975, radical military officers gained control, but a coup attempt by General Spínola and his supporters in Lisbon in March 1975 failed and Spínola fled to Spain.
       In the third phase of the Revolution, March-November 1975, a strong leftist reaction followed. Farm workers occupied and "nationalized" 1.1 million hectares of farmland in the Alentejo province, and radical military officers in the provisional government ordered the nationalization of Portuguese banks (foreign banks were exempted), utilities, and major industries, or about 60 percent of the economic system. There were power struggles among various political parties — a total of 50 emerged—and in the streets there was civil strife among labor, military, and law enforcement groups. A constituent assembly, elected on 25 April 1975, in Portugal's first free elections since 1926, drafted a democratic constitution. The Council of the Revolution (CR), briefly a revolutionary military watchdog committee, was entrenched as part of the government under the constitution, until a later revision. During the chaotic year of 1975, about 30 persons were killed in political frays while unstable provisional governments came and went. On 25 November 1975, moderate military forces led by Colonel Ramalho Eanes, who later was twice elected president of the republic (1976 and 1981), defeated radical, leftist military groups' revolutionary conspiracies.
       In the meantime, Portugal's scattered overseas empire experienced a precipitous and unprepared decolonization. One by one, the former colonies were granted and accepted independence—Guinea-Bissau (September 1974), Cape Verde Islands (July 1975), and Mozambique (July 1975). Portugal offered to turn over Macau to the People's Republic of China, but the offer was refused then and later negotiations led to the establishment of a formal decolonization or hand-over date of 1999. But in two former colonies, the process of decolonization had tragic results.
       In Angola, decolonization negotiations were greatly complicated by the fact that there were three rival nationalist movements in a struggle for power. The January 1975 Alvor Agreement signed by Portugal and these three parties was not effectively implemented. A bloody civil war broke out in Angola in the spring of 1975 and, when Portuguese armed forces withdrew and declared that Angola was independent on 11 November 1975, the bloodshed only increased. Meanwhile, most of the white Portuguese settlers from Angola and Mozambique fled during the course of 1975. Together with African refugees, more than 600,000 of these retornados ("returned ones") went by ship and air to Portugal and thousands more to Namibia, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.
       The second major decolonization disaster was in Portugal's colony of East Timor in the Indonesian archipelago. Portugal's capacity to supervise and control a peaceful transition to independence in this isolated, neglected colony was limited by the strength of giant Indonesia, distance from Lisbon, and Portugal's revolutionary disorder and inability to defend Timor. In early December 1975, before Portugal granted formal independence and as one party, FRETILIN, unilaterally declared East Timor's independence, Indonesia's armed forces invaded, conquered, and annexed East Timor. Indonesian occupation encountered East Timorese resistance, and a heavy loss of life followed. The East Timor question remained a contentious international issue in the UN, as well as in Lisbon and Jakarta, for more than 20 years following Indonesia's invasion and annexation of the former colony of Portugal. Major changes occurred, beginning in 1998, after Indonesia underwent a political revolution and allowed a referendum in East Timor to decide that territory's political future in August 1999. Most East Timorese chose independence, but Indonesian forces resisted that verdict until
       UN intervention in September 1999. Following UN rule for several years, East Timor attained full independence on 20 May 2002.
       Consolidation of Democracy, 1976-2000
       After several free elections and record voter turnouts between 25 April 1975 and June 1976, civil war was averted and Portugal's second democratic republic began to stabilize. The MFA was dissolved, the military were returned to the barracks, and increasingly elected civilians took over the government of the country. The 1976 Constitution was revised several times beginning in 1982 and 1989, in order to reempha-size the principle of free enterprise in the economy while much of the large, nationalized sector was privatized. In June 1976, General Ram-alho Eanes was elected the first constitutional president of the republic (five-year term), and he appointed socialist leader Dr. Mário Soares as prime minister of the first constitutional government.
       From 1976 to 1985, Portugal's new system featured a weak economy and finances, labor unrest, and administrative and political instability. The difficult consolidation of democratic governance was eased in part by the strong currency and gold reserves inherited from the Estado Novo, but Lisbon seemed unable to cope with high unemployment, new debt, the complex impact of the refugees from Africa, world recession, and the agitation of political parties. Four major parties emerged from the maelstrom of 1974-75, except for the Communist Party, all newly founded. They were, from left to right, the Communists (PCP); the Socialists (PS), who managed to dominate governments and the legislature but not win a majority in the Assembly of the Republic; the Social Democrats (PSD); and the Christian Democrats (CDS). During this period, the annual growth rate was low (l-2 percent), and the nationalized sector of the economy stagnated.
       Enhanced economic growth, greater political stability, and more effective central government as of 1985, and especially 1987, were due to several developments. In 1977, Portugal applied for membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU) since 1993. In January 1986, with Spain, Portugal was granted membership, and economic and financial progress in the intervening years has been significantly influenced by the comparatively large investment, loans, technology, advice, and other assistance from the EEC. Low unemployment, high annual growth rates (5 percent), and moderate inflation have also been induced by the new political and administrative stability in Lisbon. Led by Prime Minister Cavaco Silva, an economist who was trained abroad, the PSD's strong organization, management, and electoral support since 1985 have assisted in encouraging economic recovery and development. In 1985, the PSD turned the PS out of office and won the general election, although they did not have an absolute majority of assembly seats. In 1986, Mário Soares was elected president of the republic, the first civilian to hold that office since the First Republic. In the elections of 1987 and 1991, however, the PSD was returned to power with clear majorities of over 50 percent of the vote.
       Although the PSD received 50.4 percent of the vote in the 1991 parliamentary elections and held a 42-seat majority in the Assembly of the Republic, the party began to lose public support following media revelations regarding corruption and complaints about Prime Minister Cavaco Silva's perceived arrogant leadership style. President Mário Soares voiced criticism of the PSD's seemingly untouchable majority and described a "tyranny of the majority." Economic growth slowed down. In the parliamentary elections of 1995 and the presidential election of 1996, the PSD's dominance ended for the time being. Prime Minister Antônio Guterres came to office when the PS won the October 1995 elections, and in the subsequent presidential contest, in January 1996, socialist Jorge Sampaio, the former mayor of Lisbon, was elected president of the republic, thus defeating Cavaco Silva's bid. Young and popular, Guterres moved the PS toward the center of the political spectrum. Under Guterres, the PS won the October 1999 parliamentary elections. The PS defeated the PSD but did not manage to win a clear, working majority of seats, and this made the PS dependent upon alliances with smaller parties, including the PCP.
       In the local elections in December 2001, the PSD's criticism of PS's heavy public spending allowed the PSD to take control of the key cities of Lisbon, Oporto, and Coimbra. Guterres resigned, and parliamentary elections were brought forward from 2004 to March 2002. The PSD won a narrow victory with 40 percent of the votes, and Jose Durão Barroso became prime minister. Having failed to win a majority of the seats in parliament forced the PSD to govern in coalition with the right-wing Popular Party (PP) led by Paulo Portas. Durão Barroso set about reducing government spending by cutting the budgets of local authorities, freezing civil service hiring, and reviving the economy by accelerating privatization of state-owned enterprises. These measures provoked a 24-hour strike by public-sector workers. Durão Barroso reacted with vows to press ahead with budget-cutting measures and imposed a wage freeze on all employees earning more than €1,000, which affected more than one-half of Portugal's work force.
       In June 2004, Durão Barroso was invited by Romano Prodi to succeed him as president of the European Commission. Durão Barroso accepted and resigned the prime ministership in July. Pedro Santana Lopes, the leader of the PSD, became prime minister. Already unpopular at the time of Durão Barroso's resignation, the PSD-led government became increasingly unpopular under Santana Lopes. A month-long delay in the start of the school year and confusion over his plan to cut taxes and raise public-sector salaries, eroded confidence even more. By November, Santana Lopes's government was so unpopular that President Jorge Sampaio was obliged to dissolve parliament and hold new elections, two years ahead of schedule.
       Parliamentary elections were held on 20 February 2005. The PS, which had promised the electorate disciplined and transparent governance, educational reform, the alleviation of poverty, and a boost in employment, won 45 percent of the vote and the majority of the seats in parliament. The leader of the PS, José Sôcrates became prime minister on 12 March 2005. In the regularly scheduled presidential elections held on 6 January 2006, the former leader of the PSD and prime minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, won a narrow victory and became president on 9 March 2006. With a mass protest, public teachers' strike, and street demonstrations in March 2008, Portugal's media, educational, and social systems experienced more severe pressures. With the spreading global recession beginning in September 2008, Portugal's economic and financial systems became more troubled.
       Owing to its geographic location on the southwestern most edge of continental Europe, Portugal has been historically in but not of Europe. Almost from the beginning of its existence in the 12th century as an independent monarchy, Portugal turned its back on Europe and oriented itself toward the Atlantic Ocean. After carving out a Christian kingdom on the western portion of the Iberian peninsula, Portuguese kings gradually built and maintained a vast seaborne global empire that became central to the way Portugal understood its individuality as a nation-state. While the creation of this empire allows Portugal to claim an unusual number of "firsts" or distinctions in world and Western history, it also retarded Portugal's economic, social, and political development. It can be reasonably argued that the Revolution of 25 April 1974 was the most decisive event in Portugal's long history because it finally ended Portugal's oceanic mission and view of itself as an imperial power. After the 1974 Revolution, Portugal turned away from its global mission and vigorously reoriented itself toward Europe. Contemporary Portugal is now both in and of Europe.
       The turn toward Europe began immediately after 25 April 1974. Portugal granted independence to its African colonies in 1975. It was admitted to the European Council and took the first steps toward accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1976. On 28 March 1977, the Portuguese government officially applied for EEC membership. Because of Portugal's economic and social backwardness, which would require vast sums of EEC money to overcome, negotiations for membership were long and difficult. Finally, a treaty of accession was signed on 12 June 1985. Portugal officially joined the EEC (the European Union [EU] since 1993) on 1 January 1986. Since becoming a full-fledged member of the EU, Portugal has been steadily overcoming the economic and social underdevelopment caused by its imperial past and is becoming more like the rest of Europe.
       Membership in the EU has speeded up the structural transformation of Portugal's economy, which actually began during the Estado Novo. Investments made by the Estado Novo in Portugal's economy began to shift employment out of the agricultural sector, which, in 1950, accounted for 50 percent of Portugal's economically active population. Today, only 10 percent of the economically active population is employed in the agricultural sector (the highest among EU member states); 30 percent in the industrial sector (also the highest among EU member states); and 60 percent in the service sector (the lowest among EU member states). The economically active population numbers about 5,000,000 employed, 56 percent of whom are women. Women workers are the majority of the workforce in the agricultural and service sectors (the highest among the EU member states). The expansion of the service sector has been primarily in health care and education. Portugal has had the lowest unemployment rates among EU member states, with the overall rate never being more than 10 percent of the active population. Since joining the EU, the number of employers increased from 2.6 percent to 5.8 percent of the active population; self-employed from 16 to 19 percent; and employees from 65 to 70 percent. Twenty-six percent of the employers are women. Unemployment tends to hit younger workers in industry and transportation, women employed in domestic service, workers on short-term contracts, and poorly educated workers. Salaried workers earn only 63 percent of the EU average, and hourly workers only one-third to one-half of that earned by their EU counterparts. Despite having had the second highest growth of gross national product (GNP) per inhabitant (after Ireland) among EU member states, the above data suggest that while much has been accomplished in terms of modernizing the Portuguese economy, much remains to be done to bring Portugal's economy up to the level of the "average" EU member state.
       Membership in the EU has also speeded up changes in Portuguese society. Over the last 30 years, coastalization and urbanization have intensified. Fully 50 percent of Portuguese live in the coastal urban conurbations of Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Aveiro, Coimbra, Viseu, Évora, and Faro. The Portuguese population is one of the oldest among EU member states (17.3 percent are 65 years of age or older) thanks to a considerable increase in life expectancy at birth (77.87 years for the total population, 74.6 years for men, 81.36 years for women) and one of the lowest birthrates (10.59 births/1,000) in Europe. Family size averages 2.8 persons per household, with the strict nuclear family (one or two generations) in which both parents work being typical. Common law marriages, cohabitating couples, and single-parent households are more and more common. The divorce rate has also increased. "Youth Culture" has developed. The young have their own meeting places, leisure-time activities, and nightlife (bars, clubs, and discos).
       All Portuguese citizens, whether they have contributed or not, have a right to an old-age pension, invalidity benefits, widowed persons' pension, as well as payments for disabilities, children, unemployment, and large families. There is a national minimum wage (€385 per month), which is low by EU standards. The rapid aging of Portugal's population has changed the ratio of contributors to pensioners to 1.7, the lowest in the EU. This has created deficits in Portugal's social security fund.
       The adult literacy rate is about 92 percent. Illiteracy is still found among the elderly. Although universal compulsory education up to grade 9 was achieved in 1980, only 21.2 percent of the population aged 25-64 had undergone secondary education, compared to an EU average of 65.7 percent. Portugal's higher education system currently consists of 14 state universities and 14 private universities, 15 state polytechnic institutions, one Catholic university, and one military academy. All in all, Portugal spends a greater percentage of its state budget on education than most EU member states. Despite this high level of expenditure, the troubled Portuguese education system does not perform well. Early leaving and repetition rates are among the highest among EU member states.
       After the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Portugal created a National Health Service, which today consists of 221 hospitals and 512 medical centers employing 33,751 doctors and 41,799 nurses. Like its education system, Portugal's medical system is inefficient. There are long waiting lists for appointments with specialists and for surgical procedures.
       Structural changes in Portugal's economy and society mean that social life in Portugal is not too different from that in other EU member states. A mass consumption society has been created. Televisions, telephones, refrigerators, cars, music equipment, mobile phones, and personal computers are commonplace. Sixty percent of Portuguese households possess at least one automobile, and 65 percent of Portuguese own their own home. Portuguese citizens are more aware of their legal rights than ever before. This has resulted in a trebling of the number of legal proceeding since 1960 and an eight-fold increase in the number of lawyers. In general, Portuguese society has become more permissive and secular; the Catholic Church and the armed forces are much less influential than in the past. Portugal's population is also much more culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse, a consequence of the coming to Portugal of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from former African colonies.
       Portuguese are becoming more cosmopolitan and sophisticated through the impact of world media, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. A prime case in point came in the summer and early fall of 1999, with the extraordinary events in East Timor and the massive Portuguese popular responses. An internationally monitored referendum in East Timor, Portugal's former colony in the Indonesian archipelago and under Indonesian occupation from late 1975 to summer 1999, resulted in a vote of 78.5 percent for rejecting integration with Indonesia and for independence. When Indonesian prointegration gangs, aided by the Indonesian military, responded to the referendum with widespread brutality and threatened to reverse the verdict of the referendum, there was a spontaneous popular outpouring of protest in the cities and towns of Portugal. An avalanche of Portuguese e-mail fell on leaders and groups in the UN and in certain countries around the world as Portugal's diplomats, perhaps to compensate for the weak initial response to Indonesian armed aggression in 1975, called for the protection of East Timor as an independent state and for UN intervention to thwart Indonesian action. Using global communications networks, the Portuguese were able to mobilize UN and world public opinion against Indonesian actions and aided the eventual independence of East Timor on 20 May 2002.
       From the Revolution of 25 April 1974 until the 1990s, Portugal had a large number of political parties, one of the largest Communist parties in western Europe, frequent elections, and endemic cabinet instability. Since the 1990s, the number of political parties has been dramatically reduced and cabinet stability increased. Gradually, the Portuguese electorate has concentrated around two larger parties, the right-of-center Social Democrats (PSD) and the left-of-center Socialist (PS). In the 1980s, these two parties together garnered 65 percent of the vote and 70 percent of the seats in parliament. In 2005, these percentages had risen to 74 percent and 85 percent, respectively. In effect, Portugal is currently a two-party dominant system in which the two largest parties — PS and PSD—alternate in and out of power, not unlike the rotation of the two main political parties (the Regenerators and the Historicals) during the last decades (1850s to 1880s) of the liberal constitutional monarchy. As Portugal's democracy has consolidated, turnout rates for the eligible electorate have declined. In the 1970s, turnout was 85 percent. In Portugal's most recent parliamentary election (2005), turnout had fallen to 65 percent of the eligible electorate.
       Portugal has benefited greatly from membership in the EU, and whatever doubts remain about the price paid for membership, no Portuguese government in the near future can afford to sever this connection. The vast majority of Portuguese citizens see membership in the EU as a "good thing" and strongly believe that Portugal has benefited from membership. Only the Communist Party opposed membership because it reduces national sovereignty, serves the interests of capitalists not workers, and suffers from a democratic deficit. Despite the high level of support for the EU, Portuguese voters are increasingly not voting in elections for the European Parliament, however. Turnout for European Parliament elections fell from 40 percent of the eligible electorate in the 1999 elections to 38 percent in the 2004 elections.
       In sum, Portugal's turn toward Europe has done much to overcome its backwardness. However, despite the economic, social, and political progress made since 1986, Portugal has a long way to go before it can claim to be on a par with the level found even in Spain, much less the rest of western Europe. As Portugal struggles to move from underde-velopment, especially in the rural areas away from the coast, it must keep in mind the perils of too rapid modern development, which could damage two of its most precious assets: its scenery and environment. The growth and future prosperity of the economy will depend on the degree to which the government and the private sector will remain stewards of clean air, soil, water, and other finite resources on which the tourism industry depends and on which Portugal's world image as a unique place to visit rests. Currently, Portugal is investing heavily in renewable energy from solar, wind, and wave power in order to account for about 50 percent of its electricity needs by 2010. Portugal opened the world's largest solar power plant and the world's first commercial wave power farm in 2006.
       An American documentary film on Portugal produced in the 1970s described this little country as having "a Past in Search of a Future." In the years after the Revolution of 25 April 1974, it could be said that Portugal is now living in "a Present in Search of a Future." Increasingly, that future lies in Europe as an active and productive member of the EU.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Historical Portugal

  • 4 Stephenson, George

    [br]
    b. 9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, England
    d. 12 August 1848 Tapton House, Chesterfield, England
    [br]
    English engineer, "the father of railways".
    [br]
    George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.
    In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.
    In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.
    It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.
    During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.
    In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.
    On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.
    At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.
    In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.
    The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.
    Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.
    Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.
    Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.
    He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on its formation in 1847. Order of Leopold (Belgium) 1835. Stephenson refused both a knighthood and Fellowship of the Royal Society.
    Bibliography
    1815, jointly with Ralph Dodd, British patent no. 3,887 (locomotive drive by connecting rods directly to the wheels).
    1817, jointly with William Losh, British patent no. 4,067 (steam springs for locomotives, and improvements to track).
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, Longman (the best modern biography; includes a bibliography).
    S.Smiles, 1874, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, rev. edn, London (although sycophantic, this is probably the best nineteenthcentury biography).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Stephenson, George

  • 5 when

    1. n время; дата

    when Queen Anne was alive — в незапамятные времена;

    there comes a time when — приходит время, когда

    2. adv когда?
    3. adv когда, который

    the day when I met you — день, когда я вас встретил

    say when — скажи, когда довольно

    4. cj (одновременное действие) когда; когда бы ни

    when he listens to music, he falls asleep — он засыпает, когда слушает музыку

    it was ten minutes to nine when he returned — когда он вернулся, было уже без десяти девять

    find out when he will come — разузнай, когда он придёт

    5. cj после того, как; как только; когда

    you can go when the work is done — когда работа будет сделана, можете идти

    hardly … when — лишь только …, как

    up to the date when — до того дня, когда

    6. cj затем; тогда; когда

    he remained in the army until 1916, when he left the service — он оставался в армии до 1916 а затем ушёл в отставку

    when I am out of here … — когда я уеду отсюда …

    7. cj хотя; когда как; несмотря на то, что

    they built the bridge in three months when everyone thought it would take a year — они построили мост за три месяца, хотя все думали, что на это уйдёт год

    8. cj если, раз

    how convince him when he will not listen? — как убедить его, если он и слушать не хочет?

    Синонимический ряд:
    1. as soon as (other) as soon as; directly; immediately; once
    2. at what time (other) at that moment; at what time; at which instant; at which moment; how long ago; how soon; in the event that; just as soon as; on what occasion
    3. then (other) again; anon; then
    4. while (other) at the same time as; at the time; during the time that; during this time; just after; just as; meanwhile; while; whilst

    English-Russian base dictionary > when

  • 6 Economy

       Portugal's economy, under the influence of the European Economic Community (EEC), and later with the assistance of the European Union (EU), grew rapidly in 1985-86; through 1992, the average annual growth was 4-5 percent. While such growth rates did not last into the late 1990s, portions of Portugal's society achieved unprecedented prosperity, although poverty remained entrenched. It is important, however, to place this current growth, which includes some not altogether desirable developments, in historical perspective. On at least three occasions in this century, Portugal's economy has experienced severe dislocation and instability: during the turbulent First Republic (1911-25); during the Estado Novo, when the world Depression came into play (1930-39); and during the aftermath of the Revolution of 25 April, 1974. At other periods, and even during the Estado Novo, there were eras of relatively steady growth and development, despite the fact that Portugal's weak economy lagged behind industrialized Western Europe's economies, perhaps more than Prime Minister Antônio de Oliveira Salazar wished to admit to the public or to foreigners.
       For a number of reasons, Portugal's backward economy underwent considerable growth and development following the beginning of the colonial wars in Africa in early 1961. Recent research findings suggest that, contrary to the "stagnation thesis" that states that the Estado Novo economy during the last 14 years of its existence experienced little or no growth, there were important changes, policy shifts, structural evolution, and impressive growth rates. In fact, the average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate (1961-74) was about 7 percent. The war in Africa was one significant factor in the post-1961 economic changes. The new costs of finance and spending on the military and police actions in the African and Asian empires in 1961 and thereafter forced changes in economic policy.
       Starting in 1963-64, the relatively closed economy was opened up to foreign investment, and Lisbon began to use deficit financing and more borrowing at home and abroad. Increased foreign investment, residence, and technical and military assistance also had effects on economic growth and development. Salazar's government moved toward greater trade and integration with various international bodies by signing agreements with the European Free Trade Association and several international finance groups. New multinational corporations began to operate in the country, along with foreign-based banks. Meanwhile, foreign tourism increased massively from the early 1960s on, and the tourism industry experienced unprecedented expansion. By 1973-74, Portugal received more than 8 million tourists annually for the first time.
       Under Prime Minister Marcello Caetano, other important economic changes occurred. High annual economic growth rates continued until the world energy crisis inflation and a recession hit Portugal in 1973. Caetano's system, through new development plans, modernized aspects of the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors and linked reform in education with plans for social change. It also introduced cadres of forward-looking technocrats at various levels. The general motto of Caetano's version of the Estado Novo was "Evolution with Continuity," but he was unable to solve the key problems, which were more political and social than economic. As the boom period went "bust" in 1973-74, and growth slowed greatly, it became clear that Caetano and his governing circle had no way out of the African wars and could find no easy compromise solution to the need to democratize Portugal's restive society. The economic background of the Revolution of 25 April 1974 was a severe energy shortage caused by the world energy crisis and Arab oil boycott, as well as high general inflation, increasing debts from the African wars, and a weakening currency. While the regime prescribed greater Portuguese investment in Africa, in fact Portuguese businesses were increasingly investing outside of the escudo area in Western Europe and the United States.
       During the two years of political and social turmoil following the Revolution of 25 April 1974, the economy weakened. Production, income, reserves, and annual growth fell drastically during 1974-76. Amidst labor-management conflict, there was a burst of strikes, and income and productivity plummeted. Ironically, one factor that cushioned the economic impact of the revolution was the significant gold reserve supply that the Estado Novo had accumulated, principally during Salazar's years. Another factor was emigration from Portugal and the former colonies in Africa, which to a degree reduced pressures for employment. The sudden infusion of more than 600,000 refugees from Africa did increase the unemployment rate, which in 1975 was 10-15 percent. But, by 1990, the unemployment rate was down to about 5-6 percent.
       After 1985, Portugal's economy experienced high growth rates again, which averaged 4-5 percent through 1992. Substantial economic assistance from the EEC and individual countries such as the United States, as well as the political stability and administrative continuity that derived from majority Social Democratic Party (PSD) governments starting in mid-1987, supported new growth and development in the EEC's second poorest country. With rapid infrastruc-tural change and some unregulated development, Portugal's leaders harbored a justifiable concern that a fragile environment and ecology were under new, unacceptable pressures. Among other improvements in the standard of living since 1974 was an increase in per capita income. By 1991, the average minimum monthly wage was about 40,000 escudos, and per capita income was about $5,000 per annum. By the end of the 20th century, despite continuing poverty at several levels in Portugal, Portugal's economy had made significant progress. In the space of 15 years, Portugal had halved the large gap in living standards between itself and the remainder of the EU. For example, when Portugal joined the EU in 1986, its GDP, in terms of purchasing power-parity, was only 53 percent of the EU average. By 2000, Portugal's GDP had reached 75 percent of the EU average, a considerable achievement. Whether Portugal could narrow this gap even further in a reasonable amount of time remained a sensitive question in Lisbon. Besides structural poverty and the fact that, in 2006, the EU largesse in structural funds (loans and grants) virtually ceased, a major challenge for Portugal's economy will be to reduce the size of the public sector (about 50 percent of GDP is in the central government) to increase productivity, attract outside investment, and diversify the economy. For Portugal's economic planners, the 21st century promises to be challenging.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Economy

  • 7 entre

    Del verbo entrar: ( conjugate entrar) \ \
    entré es: \ \
    1ª persona singular (yo) pretérito indicativo

    entre es: \ \
    1ª persona singular (yo) presente subjuntivo
    3ª persona singular (él/ella/usted) presente subjuntivo
    3ª persona singular (él/ella/usted) imperativo
    Multiple Entries: algo entre     entrar     entre
    entrar ( conjugate entrar) verbo intransitivo 1 ( acercándose) to come in; ( alejándose) to go in; hazla entre tell her to come in, show her in; entró corriendo he ran in, he came running in; ¿se puede entre con el coche? can you drive in?; había gente entrando y saliendo there were people coming and going; ¿cómo entró? how did he get in?; entre en or (esp AmL) a algo ‹a edificio/habitación› to go into sth; entró en el or al banco she went into the bank 2 (en etapa, estado) entre en algo ‹en periodo/guerra/negociaciones› to enter sth; entró en coma he went into a coma 3
    a) (introducirse, meterse):
    ◊ cierra la puerta, que entra frío close the door, you're letting the cold in;
    me entró arena en los zapatos I've got sand in my shoes
    ◊ ¿entrará por la puerta? will it get through the door?;
    (+ me/te/le etc): el zapato no le entra he can't get his shoe on; no me entra la segunda (Auto) I can't get it into second (gear) 4 [ hambre] (+ me/te/le etc):
    ◊ le entró hambre she felt o got hungry;
    me ha entrado la duda I'm beginning to have my doubts; me entró sueño I got o began to feel sleepy 5 ( empezar) to start, begin;
    ◊ entró de aprendiz he started o began as an apprentice
    6 ( incorporarse) entre en or (esp AmL) a algo ‹en empresa/ejército/club› to join sth; ‹ en convento› to enter sth; el año que entré en or a la universidad the year I started college I've just joined the association 7 ( estar incluido): ¿cuántas entran en un kilo? how many do you get in a kilo? verbo transitivo ( traer) to bring in; ( llevar) to take in;
    ◊ ¿cómo van a entre el sofá? how are they going to get the sofa in?

    entre preposición 1
    a) (dos personas, cosas) between;
    está entre las dos casas it's between the two houses; entre paréntesis in brackets; cuando hablan entre los dos when they talk to each other
    b) (más de dos personas, cosas) among;
    entre otras cosas among other things; se perdió entre la muchedumbre he disappeared into the crowd; entre estas cuatro paredes within these walls
    c) (indicando cooperación, distribución):
    le hicimos con regalo entre todos we all got together and brought him a present; repártelos entre los niños/entre todos share them out among the children/between everybody 2 ( en expresiones de tiempo): llegaré entre las tres y las cuatro I'll be arriving between three and four; cualquier semana entre julio y agosto any week in July or August 3 ■ adverbio (esp AmL):
    ◊ entre más come más/menos engorda the more he eats the more/less he puts on weight

    entrar
    I verbo intransitivo
    1 to come in, go in, enter: los ladrones entraron por la ventana, the burglars entered through the window ➣ Ver nota en ir
    2 (encajar) to fit: esta llave no entra, this key doesn't fit
    3 (estar incluido) to be included: eso no entra en el precio, that's not included in the price
    4 (en una organización, partido) to join, get into: entró en el club, he was admitted to the club
    5 (en una situación) to go into: el avión entró en barrena, the plane went into a spin
    entrar en calor, to warm up
    6 (comenzar) el mes que entra, next month, the coming month
    7 (sobrevenir) to come over: le entraron ganas de llorar, he felt like crying
    me entró un ataque de histeria, I went into hysterics
    8 (agradar) no me entran las lentejas, I don't like lentils
    II verbo transitivo
    1 to bring in: entra las sillas, take the chairs in
    2 Inform to enter Locuciones: entrar en la cabeza: no me entra en la cabeza que hayas hecho eso, I can't understand why you have done that
    ni entrar ni salir, to play no part in the matter: en cuestiones sentimentales ni entro ni salgo, I steer well clear of touchy subjects
    entre preposición
    1 (señalando límites) between: ponlo entre tú y ella, put it between you and her
    entre azul y verde, between blue and green (con la colaboración de) lo haremos entre Pedro, Pablo y yo, Peter, Paul and myself will do it between us
    2 (rodeado de) among(st)
    estoy entre amigos, I'm among friends (incluido en) está entre los primeros de la clase, he's among the best students of his class En general, entre se traduce por between cuando se refiere a dos cosas y among o amongst (más antiguo) cuando se refiere a más de dos. Sin embargo, se puede emplear between, junto con un verbo de movimiento, cuando queremos indicar que un conjunto de cosas se dividió en dos grupos: El río fluye entre los árboles. The river flows between the trees.
    ' entre' also found in these entries: Spanish: abismal - abismo - abordaje - aclarar - adherencia - analogía - apareamiento - barrera - bastante - bastidor - bien - caballero - caballo - cada - camaradería - camino - ceja - cerrarse - clara - claro - comillas - compenetración - competencia - conexión - confianza - confundirse - congruencia - considerada - considerado - contarse - corporativismo - correlación - cruce - desnivel - despertarse - dicotomía - diente - disidencia - distanciamiento - dividir - dividirse - dudar - economía - entendimiento - escaramuza - escoger - espada - estragos - estrechar - estrechamiento English: ability - alike - already - amid - among - amongst - angular - antagonism - antipathy - backstage - barrel - barrier - behind - between - blue-collar - bond - bonding - border - bracket - cement - chip in - choose - chuckle - circulate - civilian - clash - close - club - connect - connected - dart - derby - devil - differentiate - discriminate - distinction - distinguish - divide - dole out - enter - entrails - equal - equality - evenly - exit poll - export - fall out - fatalism - feature - fence

    English-spanish dictionary > entre

  • 8 during

    prep в продолжение, в течение; во время

    during my tenancy — за то время, что я там жил

    in term, during term — в течение семестра

    Синонимический ряд:
    1. for (other) for; over; through; throughout
    2. while (other) all the while; at the same time as; at the time; in the middle of; meanwhile; pending; the whole time; when; while

    English-Russian base dictionary > during

  • 9 in

    1. a расположенный внутри, внутренний
    2. a направленный вовнутрь
    3. adv внутри
    4. adv с внутренней стороны
    5. v диал. окружать, огораживать
    6. prep внутрь; в

    in the daytime — в дневное время, днём

    in the days of, in the time of — во времена

    in good time — незамедлительно; своевременно; заблаговременно

    act in pais — акт, совершённый вне судебного заседания

    7. prep др. в, на

    in answer, in reply — в ответ

    in haste — в спешке, второпях

    in accordance with — в соответствии с, согласно

    books packed in dozens — книги, упакованные по двенадцать штук

    in cases — указывает на сферу проявления признака или область действия в, на, по

    he is advanced in years — он уже в годах, он уже не молод

    one in ten — каждый десятый, один из десяти

    Синонимический ряд:
    1. stylish (adj.) a la mode; chic; dashing; exclusive; fashionable; modish; posh; sharp; smart; snappy; stylish; swank; swish; tonish; tony; trig; ultrafashionable; with-it
    2. pull (noun) clout; influence; pull
    3. during (other) at; during; during the process of; in the act of; meanwhile; occupied with; while; whilst; within the period
    4. inside of (other) enclosed in; in the midst of; inside of; located in; not out of; pertaining to; surrounded by; within; within the boundaries of

    English-Russian base dictionary > in

  • 10 Senefelder, Alois

    SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing
    [br]
    b. 6 November 1771 Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic)
    d. 26 February 1834 Munich, Germany
    [br]
    German inventor of lithography.
    [br]
    Soon after his birth, Senefelder's family moved to Mannheim, where his father, an actor, had obtained a position in the state theatre. He was educated there, until he gained a scholarship to the university of Ingolstadt. The young Senefelder wanted to follow his father on to the stage, but the latter insisted that he study law. He nevertheless found time to write short pieces for the theatre. One of these, when he was 18 years old, was an encouraging success. When his father died in 1791, he gave up his studies and took to a new life as poet and actor. However, the wandering life of a repertory actor palled after two years and he settled for the more comfortable pursuit of playwriting. He had some of his work printed, which acquainted him with the art of printing, but he fell out with his bookseller. He therefore resolved to carry out his own printing, but he could not afford the equipment of a conventional letterpress printer. He began to explore other ways of printing and so set out on the path that was to lead to an entirely new method.
    He tried writing in reverse on a copper plate with some acid-resisting material and etching the plate, to leave a relief image that could then be inked and printed. He knew that oily substances would resist acid, but it required many experiments to arrive at a composition of wax, soap and charcoal dust dissolved in rainwater. The plates wore down with repeated polishing, so he substituted stone plates. He continued to etch them and managed to make good prints with them, but he went on to make the surprising discovery that etching was unnecessary. If the image to be printed was made with the oily composition and the stone moistened, he found that only the oily image received the ink while the moistened part rejected it. The printing surface was neither raised (as in letterpress printing) nor incised (as in intaglio printing): Senefelder had discovered the third method of printing.
    He arrived at a workable process over the years 1796 to 1799, and in 1800 he was granted an English patent. In the same year, lithography (or "writing on stone") was introduced into France and Senefelder himself took it to England, but it was some time before it became widespread; it was taken up by artists especially for high-quality printing of art works. Meanwhile, Senefelder improved his techniques, finding that other materials, even paper, could be used in place of stone. In fact, zinc plates were widely used from the 1820s, but the name "lithography" stuck. Although he won world renown and was honoured by most of the crowned heads of Europe, he never became rich because he dissipated his profits through restless experimenting.
    With the later application of the offset principle, initiated by Barclay, lithography has become the most widely used method of printing.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1911, Alois Senefelder, Inventor of Lithography, trans. J.W.Muller, New York: Fuchs \& Line (Senefelder's autobiography).
    Further Reading
    W.Weber, 1981, Alois Senefelder, Erfinder der Lithographie, Frankfurt-am-Main: Polygraph Verlag.
    M.Tyman, 1970, Lithography 1800–1950, London: Oxford University Press (describes the invention and its development; with biographical details).
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Senefelder, Alois

  • 11 Yeoman, Thomas

    SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering
    [br]
    b. c. 1700 probably near Northampton, England
    d. 24 January 1781 London, England
    [br]
    English surveyor and civil engineer.
    [br]
    Very little is known of his early life, but he was clearly a skilful and gifted engineer who had received comprehensive practical training, for in 1743 he erected the machinery in the world's first water-powered cotton mill at Northampton on the river Nene. In 1748 he invented a weighing machine for use by turnpike trusts for weighing wagons. Until 1757 he remained in Northampton, mainly surveying enclosures and turnpike roads and making agricultural machinery. He also gained a national reputation for building and installing very successful ventilating equipment (invented by Dr Stephen Hales) in hospitals, prisons and ships, including some ventilators of Yeoman's own design in the Houses of Parliament.
    Meanwhile he developed an interest in river improvements, and in 1744 he made his first survey of the River Nene between Thrapston and Northampton; he repeated the survey in 1753 and subsequently gave evidence in parliamentary proceedings in 1756. The following year he was in Gloucestershire surveying the line of the Stroudwater Canal, an operation that he repeated in 1776. Also in 1757, he was appointed Surveyor to the River Ivel Navigation in Bedfordshire. In 1761 he was back on the Nene. During 1762–5 he carried out surveys for the Chelmer \& Blackwater Navigation, although the work was not undertaken for another thirty years. In 1765 he reported on land-drainage improvements for the Kentish Sour. It was at this time that he became associated with John Smeaton in a major survey in 1766 of the river Lea for the Lee Navigation Trustees, having already made some surveys with Joseph Nickalls near Waltham Abbey in 1762. Yeoman modified some of Smeaton's proposals and on 1 July 1767 was officially appointed Surveyor to the Lee Navigation Trustees, a post he retained until 1771. He also advised on the work to create the Stort Navigation, and at the official opening on 24 October 1769 he made a formal speech announcing: "Now is Bishops Stortford open to all the ports of the world." Among his other works were: advice on Ferriby Sluice on the River Ancholme (1766); reports on the Forth \& Clyde Canal, the North Level and Wisbech outfall on the Nene, the Coventry Canal, and estimates for the Leeds and Selby Canal (1768–71); estimates for the extension of the Medway Navigation from Tonbridge to Edenbridge (1771); and between 1767 and 1777 he was consulted, with other engineers, by the City of London on problems regarding the Thames.
    He joined the Northampton Philosophical Society shortly after its formation in 1743 and was President several times before he moved to London. In 1760 he became a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and in 1763 he was chosen as joint Chairman of the Committee on Mechanics—a position he held until 1778. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 12 January 1764. On the formation of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, the forerunner of the present Institution of Civil Engineers, he was elected first President in 1771, remaining as such until his illness in 1780.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1764. President, Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1771–80; Treasurer 1771–7.
    JHB

    Biographical history of technology > Yeoman, Thomas

  • 12 come to hand

    (come to (smb.'s) hand(s))
    1) прийти, быть полученным (особ. о письме)

    Meanwhile as José, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning, I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may eventually come to hand. (A. C. Doyle, ‘The Lost World’, ch. VIII) — Пока же я отправляю это письмо с Хосе, который поранил себе руку в бамбуковых зарослях и требует, чтобы его отпустили. Надеюсь, что письмо все-таки придет по назначению.

    It was not often that a letter demanding decision... came to her hands past the kind and just censorship of Horace Pendyce. (J. Galsworthy, ‘The Country House’, part I, ch. VII) — В ее руки не так часто попадали письма, миновавшие любезную и справедливую цензуру Хораса Пендиса, а тем более такие, которые требовали принятия решения...

    She has been reading aimlessly anything that came to her hand... (Th. Dreiser, ‘The Financier’, ch. XLVIII) — Она читала без разбора все, что попадало ей под руку...

    ...men described and named new birds, when such came to hand. (E. Seton-Thompson, ‘Lobo: the King of Currumpaw and Other Stories’, ‘The Voice in the Tamaracks’) —...когда неизвестная доселе птица попадала к ним в руки, они описывали ее и давали ей название.

    Large English-Russian phrasebook > come to hand

  • 13 the joint in smb.'s armour

    чьё-л. слабое место; ≈ ахиллесова пята; см. тж. a chink in smb's armour

    The Plutocracy, by virtue of its possession of the government raised their taxes. It was the weak joint in their armour. Neither buying nor selling, they had no money and in the end their land was sold to pay the taxes. (J. London, ‘The Iron Heel’, ch. XIII) — Плутократия, в руках которой была административная власть, повысила налоги. Это было ахиллесовой пятой фермеров. Не покупая и не продавая ничего, они, конечно, не имели денег, и в конце концов их фермы были проданы с молотка за недоимки.

    Catherine it seems had chanced to get her fingers through exactly that joint in his armour. (H. G. Wells, ‘Meanwhile’, book II) — Кэтрин, видимо, удалось нащупать его слабое место.

    ‘Here, you want to go an' shadder a few manners the next time you go shaddering,’ miss Sellers jeered, singling out, with feminine swiftness and accuracy, the weak joint in the other's armour. (J. B. Priestley, ‘Angel Pavement’, ch. V) — - Не мешало бы тебе, когда будешь заниматься слежкой, заодно поучиться у своих "подопечных" хорошим манерам, - съязвила мисс Селлерс, выбрав со свойственной женщинам в таких случаях быстротой и точностью слабое место в броне противника.

    Large English-Russian phrasebook > the joint in smb.'s armour

  • 14 at the time

    1. в это время
    2. в то время

    to tell the time — показывать время; показывать, который час

    time interrupt — временное прерывание; прерывание по времени

    Синонимический ряд:
    while (other) all the while; at the same time as; during; in the middle of; meanwhile; pending; the whole time; when; while

    English-Russian base dictionary > at the time

  • 15 in the middle of

    middle position — среднее положение; положение посередине

    Синонимический ряд:
    while (other) all the while; at the same time as; at the time; during; meanwhile; pending; the whole time; when; while

    English-Russian base dictionary > in the middle of

  • 16 just as

    1. точно так же; как
    2. также
    Синонимический ряд:
    while (other) at the same time as; at the time; during the time that; during this time; just after; meanwhile; when; while; whilst

    English-Russian base dictionary > just as

  • 17 back

    back [bæk]
    vers l'arrière ⇒ 1 (a) re + verbe ⇒ 1 (b), 1 (c) de derrière ⇒ 2 (a) arrière ⇒ 2 (a), 3 (g) dos ⇒ 3 (a)-(c), 3 (e), 3 (f) fond ⇒ 3 (d) reculer ⇒ 4 (a), 5 (a) financer ⇒ 4 (b) parier sur ⇒ 4 (c)
    (a) (towards the rear) vers l'arrière, en arrière;
    ∎ he stepped back il a reculé d'un pas, il a fait un pas en arrière;
    ∎ I pushed back my chair j'ai reculé ma chaise;
    ∎ she tied her hair back elle a attaché ses cheveux;
    ∎ he glanced back il a regardé derrière lui;
    ∎ house set or standing back from the road maison écartée du chemin ou en retrait
    ∎ to come back revenir;
    ∎ to go back (return) retourner;
    ∎ to go or turn back (retrace footsteps) rebrousser chemin;
    ∎ American familiar to go back on sb (betray) doubler qn;
    ∎ we went back home nous sommes rentrés (à la maison);
    ∎ my headache's back j'ai de nouveau mal à la tête, mon mal de tête a recommencé;
    ∎ they'll be back on Monday ils rentrent ou ils seront de retour lundi;
    ∎ I'll be right back je reviens tout de suite;
    ∎ I'll be back (threat) vous me reverrez;
    ∎ we expect him back tomorrow il doit rentrer demain;
    ∎ as soon as you get back dès votre retour;
    ∎ is he back at work? a-t-il repris le travail?;
    ∎ he's just back from Moscow il arrive ou rentre de Moscou;
    ∎ we went to town and back nous avons fait un saut en ville;
    ∎ he went to his aunt's and back il a fait l'aller et retour chez sa tante;
    ∎ the trip to Madrid and back takes three hours il faut trois heures pour aller à Madrid et revenir;
    ∎ meanwhile, back in Washington entre-temps, à Washington;
    ∎ back home, there's no school on Saturdays chez moi ou nous, il n'y a pas d'école le samedi;
    ∎ Commerce the back-to-school sales les soldes fpl de la rentrée
    ∎ she wants her children back elle veut qu'on lui rende ses enfants;
    ∎ he went back to sleep il s'est rendormi;
    ∎ business soon got back to normal les affaires ont vite repris leur cours normal;
    ∎ miniskirts are coming back (in fashion) les minijupes reviennent à la mode
    ∎ six pages back six pages plus haut;
    ∎ back in the 17th century au 17ème siècle;
    ∎ as far back as I can remember d'aussi loin que je m'en souvienne;
    ∎ back in November déjà au mois de novembre;
    ∎ familiar ten years back il y a dix ans□
    (e) (in reply, in return)
    ∎ you should ask for your money back vous devriez demander un remboursement ou qu'on vous rembourse;
    ∎ I hit him back je lui ai rendu son coup;
    ∎ if you kick me I'll kick you back si tu me donnes un coup de pied, je te le rendrai;
    ∎ she smiled back at him elle lui a répondu par un sourire;
    ∎ to write back répondre (par écrit);
    ∎ to get one's own back (on sb) prendre sa revanche (sur qn);
    ∎ that's her way of getting back at you c'est sa façon de prendre sa revanche sur toi
    (a) (rear → door, garden) de derrière; (→ wheel) arrière (inv); (→ seat) arrière (inv), de derrière;
    ∎ the back legs of a horse les pattes fpl arrière d'un cheval;
    ∎ back entrance entrée f située à l'arrière;
    ∎ the back room is the quietest la pièce qui donne sur l'arrière est la plus calme;
    ∎ the back page of the newspaper la dernière page du journal;
    ∎ to put sth on the back burner remettre qch à plus tard
    (b) (quiet → lane, road) écarté, isolé
    (c) (overdue) arriéré
    (d) Linguistics (vowel) postérieur
    3 noun
    ∎ back pain mal m de dos;
    ∎ to have a back problem avoir des problèmes de dos;
    ∎ she carried her baby on her back elle portait son bébé sur son dos;
    ∎ I fell flat on my back je suis tombé à la renverse ou sur le dos;
    ∎ we lay on our backs nous étions allongés sur le dos;
    ∎ my back aches j'ai mal au dos;
    ∎ the cat arched its back le chat a fait le gros dos;
    ∎ I only saw them from the back je ne les ai vus que de dos;
    ∎ she sat with her back to the window elle était assise le dos tourné à la fenêtre;
    ∎ sitting with one's back to the light assis à contre-jour;
    ∎ he was sitting with his back to the wall il était assis, dos au mur;
    ∎ figurative to have one's back to the wall être au pied du mur;
    ∎ to turn one's back on sb tourner le dos à qn; figurative abandonner qn;
    ∎ when my back was turned quand j'avais le dos tourné;
    ∎ you had your back to me tu me tournais le dos;
    ∎ they have the police at their backs (in support) ils ont la police avec eux; (in pursuit) ils ont la police à leurs trousses;
    ∎ with an army at his back (supporting him) soutenu par une armée;
    ∎ to do sth behind sb's back faire qch dans le dos de qn;
    ∎ he laughs at you behind your back il se moque de vous quand vous avez le dos tourné ou dans votre dos;
    ∎ to talk about sb behind their back dire du mal de qn dans son dos;
    ∎ the decision was taken behind my back la décision a été prise derrière mon dos;
    ∎ he went behind my back to the boss il est allé voir le patron derrière mon dos ou à mon insu;
    ∎ to be flat on one's back (bedridden) être alité ou cloué au lit;
    ∎ familiar get off my back! fiche-moi la paix!;
    ∎ mind your backs! attention, s'il vous plaît!;
    ∎ the rich live off the backs of the poor les riches vivent sur le dos des pauvres;
    ∎ to put sb's back up énerver qn;
    ∎ to put one's back into sth mettre toute son énergie dans qch;
    ∎ familiar that's it, put your back into it! allez, un peu de nerf!;
    ∎ to put one's back out se faire mal au dos;
    ∎ I'll be glad to see the back of her je serai content de la voir partir ou d'être débarrassé d'elle
    (b) (part opposite the front → gen) dos m, derrière m; (→ of coat, shirt, door) dos m; (→ of vehicle, building, head) arrière m; (→ of train) queue f; (→ of book) fin f;
    ∎ to sit in the back (of car) monter à l'arrière;
    ∎ to sit at the back (of bus) s'asseoir à l'arrière;
    ∎ the carriage at the back of the train la voiture en queue de ou du train;
    ∎ at the back of the book à la fin du livre;
    ∎ the garden is out or round the back le jardin se trouve derrière la maison;
    ∎ the dress fastens at the back or American in back la robe s'agrafe dans le dos;
    ∎ there was an advert on the back of the bus il y avait une publicité à l'arrière du bus;
    ∎ familiar she's got a face like the back of a bus elle est moche comme un pou
    (c) (other side → of hand, spoon, envelope) dos m; (→ of carpet, coin, medal) revers m; (→ of fabric) envers m; (→ of page) verso m; Finance (→ of cheque) dos m, verso m;
    ∎ I know this town like the back of my hand je connais cette ville comme ma poche;
    ∎ familiar you'll feel the back of my hand in a minute! tu vas en prendre une!
    (d) (farthest from the front → of cupboard, room, stage) fond m;
    ∎ back of the mouth arrière-bouche f;
    ∎ back of the throat arrière-gorge f;
    ∎ we'd like a table at the or in the very back nous voudrions une table tout au fond;
    ∎ familiar in the back of beyond en pleine brousse, au diable vauvert;
    ∎ it was always there at the back of his mind that… l'idée ne le quittait pas que…;
    ∎ it's something to keep at the back of your mind c'est quelque chose à ne pas oublier;
    ∎ I've had it or it's been at the back of my mind for ages j'y pense depuis longtemps, ça fait longtemps que ça me travaille
    (e) (binding) dos m
    (f) (of chair) dos m, dossier m
    (g) Sport arrière m;
    ∎ (full) back arrière m;
    ∎ right/left back arrière m droit/gauche
    (a) (move backwards → bicycle, car) reculer; (→ horse) faire reculer; (→ train) refouler;
    ∎ I backed the car into the garage j'ai mis la voiture dans le garage en marche arrière;
    ∎ she backed him into the next room elle l'a fait reculer dans la pièce d'à côté
    (b) Commerce (support financially → company, venture) financer, commanditer; Finance (→ loan) garantir;
    ∎ Finance to back a bill avaliser ou endosser un effet
    (c) (encourage → efforts, person, venture) encourager, appuyer, soutenir; Politics (→ candidate, bill) soutenir;
    ∎ we backed her in her fight against racism nous l'avons soutenue dans sa lutte contre le racisme;
    (d) (bet on) parier sur, miser sur;
    ∎ Sport to back a winner (horse, team) parier ou miser sur un gagnant; Finance & Commerce (company, stock) bien placer son argent; figurative jouer la bonne carte;
    ∎ figurative to back the wrong horse parier ou miser sur le mauvais cheval
    (e) Textiles (strengthen, provide backing for → curtain, material) doubler; (→ picture, paper) renforcer
    (f) Music (accompany) accompagner
    (g) Nautical (sail) masquer
    (a) (go in reverse → car, train) faire marche arrière; (→ horse, person) reculer;
    ∎ the car backed into the driveway la voiture est entrée en marche arrière dans l'allée;
    ∎ I backed into my neighbour's car je suis rentré dans la voiture de mon voisin en reculant;
    ∎ I backed into a corner je me suis retiré dans un coin
    (b) (wind) tourner en sens inverse des aiguilles d'une montre
    ∎ to go back and forth (person) faire des allées et venues; (machine, piston) faire un mouvement de va-et-vient;
    ∎ his eyes darted back and forth il regardait de droite à gauche
    devant derrière, à l'envers;
    ∎ you've got your pullover on back to front tu as mis ton pull devant derrière
    American derrière
    ►► Technology back boiler = ballon d'eau chaude situé derrière un foyer;
    Press back copy vieux numéro m;
    Australian & New Zealand back country campagne f, arrière-pays m inv;
    back door (of building) porte f de derrière; Finance financement m déguisé;
    ∎ figurative to get in through or by the back door être pistonné;
    (a) (of car, bus) arrière m; (of train) queue f
    (b) North of England (autumn) arrière-saison f, automne m;
    ∎ the back end of the year l'arrière-saison;
    Linguistics back formation dérivation f régressive;
    American back haul = trajet de retour d'un camion;
    Finance back interest arrérages mpl, intérêts mpl arriérés;
    Press back issue vieux numéro m;
    Golf the back nine les neuf derniers trous mpl;
    Press back number vieux numéro m;
    Banking back office back-office m;
    back office staff personnels mpl de back-office;
    Commerce back orders commandes fpl en souffrance;
    back page dernière page f;
    Football back pass passe f en retrait;
    back passage Anatomy rectum m; (alley) ruelle f;
    back pay rappel m de salaire;
    Cinema & Theatre back projection rétroprojection f;
    back rent arriéré m de loyer;
    back road petite route f;
    back room (in house) pièce f de derrière; (in shop) arrière-boutique f; (for research) laboratoire m de recherche secret;
    back seat siège m arrière;
    ∎ figurative to take a back seat (job, project) passer au second plan; (person) s'effacer;
    back shift (people) = équipe du soir;
    ∎ I hate the back shift je déteste être du soir;
    ∎ to work or be on the back shift être (de l'équipe) du soir;
    Linguistics back slang ≃ verlan m;
    back straight ligne f (droite) d'en face;
    back street petite rue f;
    ∎ I grew up in the back streets of Chicago j'ai été élevé dans les mauvais quartiers de Chicago;
    Horseracing back stretch (on race course) ligne f d'en face;
    American familiar back talk impertinence□ f, insolence□ f;
    Finance back taxes arriéré m d'impôts
    (a) (car) faire marche arrière
    (b) (person) (se) reculer;
    ∎ she backed away from him elle a reculé devant lui;
    ∎ figurative they have backed away from making a decision ils se sont abstenus de prendre une décision
    (accept defeat → in argument) admettre qu'on est dans son tort; (→ in conflict) faire marche arrière;
    ∎ he finally backed down on the issue of membership il a fini par céder sur la question de l'adhésion
    (a) (withdraw) reculer;
    ∎ familiar figurative back off, will you! fiche-moi la paix!, lâche-moi les baskets!
    (b) American (accept defeat → in argument) admettre qu'on est dans son tort; (→ in conflict) faire marche arrière
    (have back facing towards) donner sur (à l'arrière);
    ∎ the house backs onto the river l'arrière de la maison donne sur la rivière
    (a) (car) sortir en marche arrière; (person) sortir à reculons
    (b) figurative (withdraw) se dérober, tirer son épingle du jeu;
    ∎ don't back out now! ne faites pas marche arrière maintenant!;
    ∎ they backed out of the deal ils se sont retirés de l'affaire;
    ∎ to back out of a contract se rétracter ou se retirer d'un contrat;
    ∎ he's trying to back out (of it) il voudrait se dédire
    ➲ back up
    (a) (car) faire marche arrière
    (b) (drain) se boucher; (water) refouler
    (a) (car, horse) faire reculer; (train) refouler
    (b) (support → claim, story) appuyer, soutenir; (→ person) soutenir, épauler, seconder;
    ∎ to back sb up in an argument donner raison à qn;
    ∎ her story is backed up by eye witnesses sa version des faits est confirmée par des témoins oculaires;
    ∎ he backed this up with a few facts il a étayé ça avec quelques faits
    (c) Computing (data, file) sauvegarder
    ∎ traffic is backed up for 5 miles ≃ il y a un embouteillage sur 8 km
    Computing sauvegarder
    ✾ Film 'Back to the Future' Zemeckis 'Retour vers le futur'

    Un panorama unique de l'anglais et du français > back

  • 18 Chapelon, André

    [br]
    b. 26 October 1892 Saint-Paul-en-Cornillon, Loire, France
    d. 29 June 1978 Paris, France
    [br]
    French locomotive engineer who developed high-performance steam locomotives.
    [br]
    Chapelon's technical education at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, was interrupted by extended military service during the First World War. From experience of observing artillery from the basket of a captive balloon, he developed a method of artillery fire control which was more accurate than that in use and which was adopted by the French army.
    In 1925 he joined the motive-power and rolling-stock department of the Paris-Orléans Railway under Chief Mechanical Engineer Maurice Lacoin and was given the task of improving the performance of its main-line 4–6–2 locomotives, most of them compounds. He had already made an intensive study of steam locomotive design and in 1926 introduced his Kylchap exhaust system, based in part on the earlier work of the Finnish engineer Kyläla. Chapelon improved the entrainment of the hot gases in the smokebox by the exhaust steam and so minimized back pressure in the cylinders, increasing the power of a locomotive substantially. He also greatly increased the cross-sectional area of steam passages, used poppet valves instead of piston valves and increased superheating of steam. PO (Paris-Orléans) 4–6–2s rebuilt on these principles from 1929 onwards proved able to haul 800-ton trains, in place of the previous 500-ton trains, and to do so to accelerated schedules with reduced coal consumption. Commencing in 1932, some were converted, at the time of rebuilding, into 4–8–0s to increase adhesive weight for hauling heavy trains over the steeply graded Paris-Toulouse line.
    Chapelon's principles were quickly adopted on other French railways and elsewhere.
    H.N. Gresley was particularly influenced by them. After formation of the French National Railways (SNCF) in 1938, Chapelon produced in 1941 a prototype rebuilt PO 2–10–0 freight locomotive as a six-cylinder compound, with four low-pressure cylinders to maximize expansive use of steam and with all cylinders steam-jacketed to minimize heat loss by condensation and radiation. War conditions delayed extended testing until 1948–52. Meanwhile Chapelon had, by rebuilding, produced in 1946 a high-powered, three-cylinder, compound 4–8–4 intended as a stage in development of a proposed range of powerful and thermally efficient steam locomotives for the postwar SNCF: a high-speed 4–6–4 in this range was to run at sustained speeds of 125 mph (200 km/h). However, plans for improved steam locomotives were then overtaken in France by electriflcation and dieselization, though the performance of the 4–8–4, which produced 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) at the drawbar for the first time in Europe, prompted modification of electric locomotives, already on order, to increase their power.
    Chapelon retired from the SNCF in 1953, but continued to act as a consultant. His principles were incorporated into steam locomotives built in France for export to South America, and even after the energy crisis of 1973 he was consulted on projects to build improved, high-powered steam locomotives for countries with reserves of cheap coal. The eventual fall in oil prices brought these to an end.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1938, La Locomotive à vapeur, Paris: J.B.Bailière (a comprehensive summary of contemporary knowledge of every function of the locomotive).
    Further Reading
    H.C.B.Rogers, 1972, Chapelon, Genius of French Steam, Shepperton: Ian Allan.
    1986, "André Chapelon, locomotive engineer: a survey of his work", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 58 (a symposium on Chapelon's work).
    Obituary, 1978, Railway Engineer (September/October) (makes reference to the technical significance of Chapelon's work).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Chapelon, André

  • 19 Clerk, Sir Dugald

    [br]
    b. 31 March 1854 Glasgow, Scotland
    d. 12 November 1932 Ewhurst, Surrey, England
    [br]
    Scottish mechanical engineer, inventor of the two-stroke internal combustion engine.
    [br]
    Clerk began his engineering training at about the age of 15 in the drawing office of H.O.Robinson \& Company, Glasgow, and in his father's works. Meanwhile, he studied at the West of Scotland Technical College and then, from 1871 to 1876, at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. Here he worked under and then became assistant to the distinguished chemist T.E.Thorpe, who set him to work on the fractional distillation of petroleum, which was to be useful to him in his later work. At that time he had intended to become a chemical engineer, but seeing a Lenoir gas engine at work, after his return to Glasgow, turned his main interest to gas and other internal combustion engines. He pursued his investigations first at Thomson, Sterne \& Company (1877–85) and then at Tangyes of Birmingham (1886–88. In 1888 he began a lifelong partnership in Marks and Clerk, consulting engineers and patent agents, in London.
    Beginning his work on gas engines in 1876, he achieved two patents in the two following years. In 1878 he made his principal invention, patented in 1881, of an engine working on the two-stroke cycle, in which the piston is powered during each revolution of the crankshaft, instead of alternate revolutions as in the Otto four-stroke cycle. In this engine, Clerk introduced supercharging, or increasing the pressure of the air intake. Many engines of the Clerk type were made but their popularity waned after the patent for the Otto engine expired in 1890. Interest was later revived, particularly for application to large gas engines, but Clerk's engine eventually came into its own where simple, low-power motors are needed, such as in motor cycles or motor mowers.
    Clerk's work on the theory and design of gas engines bore fruit in the book The Gas Engine (1886), republished with an extended text in 1909 as The Gas, Petrol and Oil Engine; these and a number of papers in scientific journals won him international renown. During and after the First World War, Clerk widened the scope of his interests and served, often as chairman, on many bodies in the field of science and industry.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1917; FRS 1908; Royal Society Royal Medal 1924; Royal Society of Arts Alber Medal 1922.
    Further Reading
    Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, no. 2, 1933.
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Clerk, Sir Dugald

  • 20 Cockerell, Christopher Sydney

    [br]
    b. 4 June 1910 Cambridge, England
    [br]
    British designer and engineer who invented the hovercraft.
    [br]
    He was educated at Gresham's School in Holt and at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, where he graduated in engineering in 1931; he was made an Honorary Fellow in 1974. Cockerell entered the engineering firm of W.H.Allen \& Sons of Bedford as a pupil in 1931, and two years later he returned to Cambridge to engage in radio research for a further two years. In 1935 he joined Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, working on very high frequency (VHF) transmitters and direction finders. During the Second World War he worked on airborne navigation and communication equipment, and later he worked on radar. During this period he filed thirty six patents in the fields of radio and navigational systems.
    In 1950 Cockerell left Marconi to set up his own boat-hire business on the Norfolk Broads. He began to consider how to increase the speed of boats by means of air lubrication. Since the 1870s engineers had at times sought to reduce the drag on a boat by means of a thin layer of air between hull and water. After his first experiments, Cockerell concluded that a significant reduction in drag could only be achieved with a thick cushion of air. After experimenting with several ways of applying the air-cushion principle, the first true hovercraft "took off" in 1955. It was a model in balsa wood, 2 ft 6 in. (762 mm) long and weighing 4½ oz. (27.6 g); it was powered by a model-aircraft petrol engine and could travel over land or water at 13 mph (20.8 km/h). Cockerell filed his first hovercraft patent on 12 December 1955. The following year he founded Hovercraft Ltd and began the search for a manufacturer. The government was impressed with the invention's military possibilities and placed it on the secret list. The secret leaked out, however, and the project was declassified. In 1958 the National Research and Development Corporation decided to give its backing, and the following year Saunders Roe Ltd with experience of making flying boats, produced the epoch-making SR N1, a hovercraft with an air cushion produced by air jets directed downwards and inwards arranged round the periphery of the craft. It made a successful crossing of the English Channel, with the inventor on board.
    Meanwhile Cockerell had modified the hovercraft so that the air cushion was enclosed within flexible skirts. In this form it was taken up by manufacturers throughout the world and found wide application as a passenger-carrying vehicle, for military transport and in scientific exploration and survey work. The hover principle found other uses, such as for air-beds to relieve severely burned patients and for hover mowers.
    The development of the hovercraft has occupied Cockerell since then and he has been actively involved in the several companies set up to exploit the invention, including Hovercraft Development Ltd and British Hovercraft Corporation. In the 1970s and 1980s he took up the idea of the generation of electricity by wavepower; he was Founder of Wavepower Ltd, of which he was Chairman from 1974 to 1982.
    [br]
    Principal Honours find Distinctions
    Knighted 1969. CBE 1955. FRS 1967.
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Cockerell, Christopher Sydney

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