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61 Darby, Abraham
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1678 near Dudley, Worcestershire, Englandd. 5 May 1717 Madely Court, Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, England[br]English ironmaster, inventor of the coke smelting of iron ore.[br]Darby's father, John, was a farmer who also worked a small forge to produce nails and other ironware needed on the farm. He was brought up in the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and this community remained important throughout his personal and working life. Darby was apprenticed to Jonathan Freeth, a malt-mill maker in Birmingham, and on completion of his apprenticeship in 1699 he took up the trade himself in Bristol. Probably in 1704, he visited Holland to study the casting of brass pots and returned to Bristol with some Dutch workers, setting up a brassworks at Baptist Mills in partnership with others. He tried substituting cast iron for brass in his castings, without success at first, but in 1707 he was granted a patent, "A new way of casting iron pots and other pot-bellied ware in sand without loam or clay". However, his business associates were unwilling to risk further funds in the experiments, so he withdrew his share of the capital and moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. There, iron ore, coal, water-power and transport lay close at hand. He took a lease on an old furnace and began experimenting. The shortage and expense of charcoal, and his knowledge of the use of coke in malting, may well have led him to try using coke to smelt iron ore. The furnace was brought into blast in 1709 and records show that in the same year it was regularly producing iron, using coke instead of charcoal. The process seems to have been operating successfully by 1711 in the production of cast-iron pots and kettles, with some pig-iron destined for Bristol. Darby prospered at Coalbrookdale, employing coke smelting with consistent success, and he sought to extend his activities in the neighbourhood and in other parts of the country. However, ill health prevented him from pursuing these ventures with his previous energy. Coke smelting spread slowly in England and the continent of Europe, but without Darby's technological breakthrough the ever-increasing demand for iron for structures and machines during the Industrial Revolution simply could not have been met; it was thus an essential component of the technological progress that was to come.Darby's eldest son, Abraham II (1711–63), entered the Coalbrookdale Company partnership in 1734 and largely assumed control of the technical side of managing the furnaces and foundry. He made a number of improvements, notably the installation of a steam engine in 1742 to pump water to an upper level in order to achieve a steady source of water-power to operate the bellows supplying the blast furnaces. When he built the Ketley and Horsehay furnaces in 1755 and 1756, these too were provided with steam engines. Abraham II's son, Abraham III (1750–89), in turn, took over the management of the Coalbrookdale works in 1768 and devoted himself to improving and extending the business. His most notable achievement was the design and construction of the famous Iron Bridge over the river Severn, the world's first iron bridge. The bridge members were cast at Coalbrookdale and the structure was erected during 1779, with a span of 100 ft (30 m) and height above the river of 40 ft (12 m). The bridge still stands, and remains a tribute to the skill and judgement of Darby and his workers.[br]Further ReadingA.Raistrick, 1989, Dynasty of Iron Founders, 2nd edn, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (the best source for the lives of the Darbys and the work of the company).H.R.Schubert, 1957, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry AD 430 to AD 1775, London: Routledge \& Kegan Paul.LRD -
62 Mansfield, Charles Blachford
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 8 May 1819 Rowner, Hampshire, Englandd. 26 February 1855 London, England[br]English chemist, founder of coal-tar chemistry.[br]Mansfield, the son of a country clergyman, was educated privately at first, then at Winchester College and at Cambridge; ill health, which dogged his early years, delayed his graduation until 1846. He was first inclined to medicine, but after settling in London, chemistry seemed to him to offer the true basis of the grand scheme of knowledge he aimed to establish. After completing the chemistry course at the Royal College of Chemistry in London, he followed the suggestion of its first director, A.W.von Hofmann, of investigating the chemistry of coal tar. This work led to a result of great importance for industry by demonstrating the valuable substances that could be extracted from coal tar. Mansfield obtained pure benzene, and toluene by a process for which he was granted a patent in 1848 and published in the Chemical Society's journal the same year The following year he published a pamphlet on the applications of benzene.Blessed with a private income, Mansfield had no need to support himself by following a regular profession. He was therefore able to spread his brilliant talents in several directions instead of confining them to a single interest. During the period of unrest in 1848, he engaged in social work with a particular concern to improve sanitation. In 1850, a description of a balloon machine in Paris led him to study aeronautics for a while, which bore fruit in an influential book, Aerial Navigation (London, 1851). He then visited Paraguay, making a characteristically thorough and illuminating study of conditions there. Upon his return to London in 1853, Mansfield resumed his chemical studies, especially on salts. He published his results in 1855 as Theory of Salts, his most important contribution to chemical theory.Mansfield was in the process of preparing specimens of benzene for the Paris Exhibition of 1855 when a naphtha still overflowed and caught fire. In carrying it to a place of safety, Mansfield sustained injuries which unfortunately proved fatal.[br]Bibliography1851, Aerial Navigation, London. 1855, Theory of Salts, London.Further ReadingE.R.Ward, 1969, "Charles Blachford Mansfield, 1819–1855, coal tar chemist and social reformer", Chemistry and Industry 66:1,530–7 (offers a good and well-documented account of his life and achievements).LRDBiographical history of technology > Mansfield, Charles Blachford
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63 Mouriés, Hippolyte Mège
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 24 October 1817 Draguignan, Franced. 1880 France[br]French inventor of margarine.[br]The son of a schoolmaster. Mouriés became a chemist's assistant in his home town at the age of 16. He then spent a period of training in Aix-enProvence, and in 1838 he moved to Paris, where he became Assistant to the Resident Pharmacist at the Hotel Dieu Hospital. He stayed there until 1846 but never sat his final exams. His main success during this period was with the drug Copahin, which was used against syphilis; he invented an oral formulation of the drug by treating it with nitric acid. In the 1840s he took out various patents relating to tanning and to sugar extraction, and in the 1850s he turned his attention to food research. He developed a health chocolate with his calcium phosphate protein, and also developed a method that made it possible to gain 14 per cent more white bread from a given quantity of wheat. He lectured on this process in Berlin and Brussels and was awarded two gold medals. After 1862 he concentrated his research on fats. His margarine process was based on the cold saponification of milk in fat emulsions and was patented in both France and Britain in 1869. These experiments were carried out at the Ferme Impériale de La Faisanderie in Vincennes, the personal property of the Emperor, and it is therefore likely that they were State-funded. He sold his knowledge to the Dutch firm Jurgens in 1871, and between 1873 and 1874 he also sold his British, American and Prussian rights. His final patent, in 1875, was for canned meat.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNapoleon III awarded him the Légion d'honneur for his work on wheat and bread.Further ReadingJ.H.van Stuyvenberg (ed.), Margarine: An Economic, Social and Scientific History, 1869–1969 (provides a brief outline of the life of Mouriés in a comprehensive history of his discovery).APBiographical history of technology > Mouriés, Hippolyte Mège
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64 Nobel, Alfred Bernhard
[br]b. 21 October 1833 Stockholm, Swedend. 10 December 1896 San Remo, Italy[br]Swedish industrialist, inventor of dynamite, founder of the Nobel Prizes.[br]Alfred's father, Immanuel Nobel, builder, industrialist and inventor, encouraged his sons to follow his example of inventiveness. Alfred's education was interrupted when the family moved to St Petersburg, but was continued privately and was followed by a period of travel. He thus acquired a good knowledge of chemistry and became an excellent linguist.During the Crimean War, Nobel worked for his father's firm in supplying war materials. The cancellation of agreements with the Russian Government at the end of the war bankrupted the firm, but Alfred and his brother Immanuel continued their interest in explosives, working on improved methods of making nitroglycerine. In 1863 Nobel patented his first major invention, a detonator that introduced the principle of detonation by shock, by using a small charge of nitroglycerine in a metal cap with detonating or fulminating mercury. Two years later Nobel set up the world's first nitroglycerine factory in an isolated area outside Stockholm. This led to several other plants and improved methods for making and handling the explosive. Yet Nobel remained aware of the dangers of liquid nitroglycerine, and after many experiments he was able in 1867 to take out a patent for dynamite, a safe, solid and pliable form of nitroglycerine, mixed with kieselguhr. At last, nitroglycerine, discovered by Sobrero in 1847, had been transformed into a useful explosive; Nobel began to promote a worldwide industry for its manufacture. Dynamite still had disadvantages, and Nobel continued his researches until, in 1875, he achieved blasting gelatin, a colloidal solution of nitrocellulose (gun cotton) in nitroglycerine. In many ways it proved to be the ideal explosive, more powerful than nitroglycerine alone, less sensitive to shock and resistant to moisture. It was variously called Nobel's Extra Dynamite, blasting gelatin and gelignite. It immediately went into production.Next, Nobel sought a smokeless powder for military purposes, and in 1887 he obtained a nearly smokeless blasting powder using nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose with 10 per cent camphor. Finally, a progressive, smokeless blasting powder was developed in 1896 at his San Remo laboratory.Nobel's interests went beyond explosives into other areas, such as electrochemistry, optics and biology; his patents amounted to 355 in various countries. However, it was the manufacture of explosives that made him a multimillionaire. At his death he left over £2 million, which he willed to funding awards "to those who during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind".[br]Bibliography1875, On Modern Blasting Agents, Glasgow (his only book).Further ReadingH.Schuck et al., 1962, Nobel, the Man and His Prizes, Amsterdam.E.Bergengren, 1962, Alfred Nobel, the Man and His Work, London and New York (includes a supplement on the prizes and the Nobel institution).LRD -
65 Owens, Michael Joseph
[br]b. 1 January 1859 Mason County, Virginia, USAd. 27 December 1923 Toledo, Ohio, USA[br]American inventor of the automatic glass bottle making machine.[br]To assist the finances of a coal miner's family, Owens entered a glassworks at Wheeling, Virginia, at the tender age of 10, stoking coal into the "glory hole" or furnace where glass was resoftened at various stages of the hand-forming process. By the age of 15 he had become a glassblower.In 1888 Owens moved to the glassworks of Edward Drummond Libbey at Toledo, Ohio, where within three months he was appointed Superintendent and, not long after, a branch manager. In 1893 Owens supervised the company's famous exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. He had by then begun experiments that were to lead to the first automatic bottle-blowing machine. He first used a piston pump to suck molten glass into a mould, and then transferred the gathered glass over another mould into which the bottle was blown by reversing the pump. The first patents were taken out in 1895, followed by others incorporating improvements and culminating in the patent of 8 November 1904 for an essentially perfected machine. Eventually it was capable of producing four bottles a second, thus effecting a revolution in bottle making. Owens, with Libbey and others, set up the Owens Bottle Machine Company in 1903, which Owens himself managed from 1915 to 1919, becoming Vice-President from 1915 until his death. A plant was also established in Manchester in 1905.Besides this, Owens and Libbey first assisted Irving W.Colburn with his experiments on the continuous drawing of flat sheet glass and then in 1912 bought the patents, forming the Owens-Libbey Sheet Glass Company. In all, Owens was granted forty-five US patents, mainly relating to the manufacture and processing of glass. Owens's undoubted inventive genius was hampered by a lack of scientific knowledge, which he made good by judicious consultation.[br]Further Reading1923, Michael J.Owens (privately printed) (a series of memorial articles reprinted from various sources).G.S.Duncan, 1960, Bibliography of Glass, Sheffield: Society of Glass Manufacturers (cites references to Owens's papers and patents).LRD -
66 Parker, George Safford
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 1 November 1863 Shullsberg, Wisconsin, USAd. 19 July 1937 USA[br]American perfector of the fountain pen and founder of the Parker Pen Company.[br]Parker was born of English immigrant stock and grew up on his parents' farm in Iowa. He matriculated at Upper Iowa University and then joined the Valentine School of Telegraphy at Jamesville, Wisconsin: within a year he was on the staff. He supplemented his meagre school-master's pay by selling fountain pens to his students. He found that the pens needed constant attention, and his students were continually bringing them back to him for repair. The more he sold, the more he repaired. The work furnished him, first, with a detailed knowledge of the design and construction of the fountain pen and then with the thought that he could make a better pen himself. He gave up his teaching career and in 1888 began experimenting. He established his own company and in the following year he registered his first patent. The Parker Pen Company was formally incorporated on 8 March 1892.In the following years he patented many improvements, including the Lucky Curve pen and ink-feed system, patented in 1894. That was the real breakthrough for Parker and the pen was an immediate success. It solved the problem that had bedevilled the fountain pen before and since, by incorporating an ink-feed system that ensured a free and uniform flow of ink to where it was wanted, the nib, and not to other undesirable places.Parker established a reputation for manufacturing high-quality pens that looked good and worked well and reliably. The pens were in demand worldwide and the company grew.During the First World War, Parker introduced the Trench Pen for use on the Western Front. A tablet of pigment was inserted in a blind cap at the end of the pen. When this tablet was placed in the barrel and the barrel was filled with water, the pen was ready for use.Later developments included the Duofold pen, designed and launched in 1920. It had an enlarged ink capacity, a red barrel and a twentyfive-year guarantee on the nib. It became immensely popular with the public and was the flagship product throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, until the Vacumatic was launched in 1933.Parker handed over control of the company to this two sons, Kenneth and Russell, during the 1920s, remaining President until his retirement in 1933.[br]Further ReadingObituary, 1937, Jamesville Gazette 19 July (an appreciation by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright was published simultaneously). No biography has appeared, but Parker gave details of his career in an article in SystemsReview, October 1926.LRD -
67 Perry, John
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 14 February 1850 Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, Ireland (now Northern Ireland)d. 4 August 1920 London, England[br]Irish engineer, mathematician and technical-education pioneer.[br]Educated at Queens College, Belfast, Perry became Physics Master at Clifton College in 1870 until 1874. This was followed by a brief period of study under Sir William Thomson in Glasgow. He was then appointed Professor of Engineering at the Imperial College of Japan in Tokyo, where he formed a remarkable research partnership with W.E. Ayrton. On his return to England he became Professor of Engineering and Mathematics at City and Guilds College, Finsbury. Perry was the co-inventor with Ayrton of many electrical measuring instruments between 1880 and 1890, including an energy meter incorporating pendulum clocks and the first practicable portable ammeter and voltmeter, the latter being extensively used until superseded by instruments of greater accuracy. An optical indicator for high-speed steam engines was among Perry's many patents. Having made a notable contribution to education, particularly in the teaching of mathematics, he turned his attention in the latter period of his life to the improvement of the gyrostatic compass.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1885. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1900. Whitworth Scholar 1870.Bibliography28 April 1883, jointly with Ayrton, British patent no. 2,156 (portable ammeter and voltmeter).1900, England's Neglect of Science, London (for Perry's collected papers on technical education).Further ReadingObituary, 1920, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 58:901–2.D.W.Jordan, 1985, "The cry for useless knowledge: education for a new Victorian technology", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 132 (Part A): 587– 601.GW -
68 Sorocold, George
SUBJECT AREA: Public utilities[br]b. probably Ashton-in-Makerfield, England fl. c. 1685–1715[br]English civil engineer who set up numerous water-driven pumping plants.[br]He began to practise in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire and later moved to London, where his most important work was carried out. Little is known of his birth or, indeed, of the date of his death, although it is thought that he may have been born in Ashton-in- Makerfield.His first known work was a water-driven pumping plant in Derby erected in 1693 to supply water to houses and to points in the town through pipes from the pumps by the river Derwent. These water-driven pumping plants and the delivery of water to various towns were the result of entrepreneurial development by groups of "adventurers". Sorocold went on to set up many more pumping plants, including those at Leeds Bridge (1694–5), Macclesfield, Wirksworth, Yarmouth, Portsmouth, Norwich and King's Lynn.His best-known work was the installation of a pumping plant at the north end of London Bridge to replace a sixteenth-century plant. This consisted of four water-wheels placed between the starlings of the bridge. As the bridge is situated on the tidal Thames, the water-wheels were contrived so that their shafts could be raised or lowered to meet the state of the tidal flow. Whilst the waterworks designed by Sorocold are well known, it is clear that he had come to be regarded as a consulting engineer. One scheme that was carried through was the creation of a navigation between the river Trent and Derby on the line of the river Derwent. He appeared as a witness for the Derwent Navigation Act in 1703. He also held a patent for "A new machine for cutting and sawing all sorts of boards, timber and stone, and twisting all kinds of ropes, cords and cables by the strength of horses of water": this illustrates that his knowledge of power sources was predominant in his practice.[br]Further ReadingR.Jenkins, 1936, "George Sorocold. A chapter in the history of public water supply", The Collected Papers of Rhys Jenkins, Newcomen Society.H.Beighton, 1731, article in The Philosophical Transactions (provides details of the London Bridge Waterworks).KM -
69 White, Canvass
[br]b. 1790 Whitesboro, New York, USAd. 1834 St Augustine, Florida, USA[br]American civil engineer.[br]Between 1807 and 1816 White worked for his father. He fought in the War of 1812, and worked his way to Russia and back in a merchantman; in 1817–18 he went to England and walked over 2,000 miles (3,220 km) over canal sites. After 1818 he was Principal Assistant to Benjamin Wright on the construction of the Erie Canal until its completion in 1825; he was the only one involved in this project who had any knowledge of European canal construction. He was particularly noted for the design of canal locks and their equipment; one of his main contributions was the discovery of the lime rock in New York State which could be converted into concrete, and in 1820 he obtained a patent for a waterproof cement. He supervised the Glen Falls feeder construction, and he was Chief Engineer for the Delaware and Raritan Canal in New Jersey and the Lehigh and Union canals in Pennsylvania.IMcN
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