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81 Ivatt, Henry Alfred
[br]b. 16 September 1851 Cambridgeshire, Englandd. 25 October 1923 Haywards Heath, Sussex, England[br]English locomotive engineer, noted for the introduction of 4–4–2-type locomotives to Britain.[br]H.A.Ivatt initially joined the London \& North Western Railway as an apprentice at Crewe Works, and in 1877 moved to the Great Southern \& Western Railway in Ireland, eventually succeeding J.A.F. Aspinall as Locomotive Engineer at its works in Inchicore, Dublin. In 1896 he moved back to England to become Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway. Weights of express trains were increasing rapidly there, and in 1898 Ivatt introduced his "Atlantic", or 4–4–2 type, the first locomotive of this wheel arrangement in Britain, which had originated in the USA only three years earlier. It was not until 1902, however, that he took full advantage of its potential, when he introduced an Atlantic with a wide firebox and a larger boiler. Both types were successful and even more so when superheated and fitted with piston valves some years later. The first locomotive of each type to be built is now preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.[br]Further ReadingE.L.Ahrons, 1927, The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825–1925, The Locomotive Publishing Co.C.Hamilton Ellis, 1959, British Railway History, Vol. II: 1877–1947, London: George Allen \& Unwin, pp. 195 and 268–9.PJGR -
82 Worsdell, Nathaniel
[br]b. 10 October 1809 London, Englandd. 24 July 1886 Birkenhead, England[br]English coachbuilder and inventor.[br]Worsdell \& Son, Coachbuilders, was set up in Liverpool by Thomas Clarke Worsdell and his son Nathaniel in 1827. They were introduced to George Stephenson and built the tender for Rocket. More importantly, they designed and built for the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway coaches of a type comprising three coach bodies, of contemporary road-coach pattern, mounted together on a rail-wagon underframe. This became the prototype for the conventional, compartment railway coach. Nathaniel Worsdell subsequently became Carriage Superintendent of the Grand Junction Railway and patented the first mail-bag-exchange apparatus early in 1838. The terms he required for its use by the Post Office were too steep, however, and the first bagexchange apparatus of the type subsequently used extensively on British railways was designed later the same year by John Ramsey, a senior Post Office clerk.[br]Further ReadingJ.Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles (the article on Worsdell is derived from family records).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan.P.J.G.Ransom, 1990, The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved, London: Heinemann.PJGR -
83 Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
[br]b. 25 August 1851 Liverpool, Englandd. 19 January 1937 Woking, England[br]English mechanical engineer, pioneer of the automatic vacuum brake for railway trains and of railway electrification.[br]Aspinall's father was a QC, Recorder of Liverpool, and Aspinall himself became a pupil at Crewe Works of the London \& North Western Railway, eventually under F.W. Webb. In 1875 he was appointed Manager of the works at Inchicore, Great Southern \& Western Railway, Ireland. While he was there, some of the trains were equipped, on trial, with continuous brakes of the non-automatic vacuum type. Aspinall modified these to make them automatic, i.e. if the train divided, brakes throughout both parts would be applied automatically. Aspinall vacuum brakes were subsequently adopted by the important Great Northern, Lancashire \& Yorkshire, and London \& North Western Railways.In 1883, aged only 32, Aspinall was appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Southern \& Western Railway, but in 1886 he moved in the same capacity to the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway, where his first task was to fit out the new works at Horwich. The first locomotive was completed there in 1889, to his design. In 1899 he introduced a 4–4–2, the largest express locomotive in Britain at the time, some of which were fitted with smokebox superheaters to Aspinall's design.Unusually for an engineer, in 1892 Aspinall was appointed General Manager of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway. He electrified the Liverpool-Southport line in 1904 at 600 volts DC with a third rail; this was an early example of main-line electrification, for it extended beyond the Liverpool suburban area. He also experimented with 3,500 volt DC overhead electrification of the Bury-Holcombe Brook branch in 1913, but converted this to 1,200 volts DC third rail to conform with the Manchester-Bury line when this was electrified in 1915. In 1918 he was made a director of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1917. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1909. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1918.Further ReadingH.A.V.Bulleid, 1967, The Aspinall Era, Shepperton: Ian Allan (provides a good account of Aspinall and his life's work).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan, Ch. 19 (a good brief account).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
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84 Clegg, Samuel
[br]b. 2 March 1781 Manchester, Englandd. 8 January 1861 Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London, England[br]English inventor and gas engineer.[br]Clegg received scientific instruction from John Dalton, the founder of the atomic theory, and was apprenticed to Boulton \& Watt. While at their Soho factory in Birmingham, he assisted William Murdock with his experiments on coal gas. He left the firm in 1804 and set up as a gas engineer on his own account. He designed and installed gas plant and lighting in a number of factories, including Henry Lodge's cotton mill at Sowerby Bridge and in 1811 the Jesuit College at Stoneyhurst in Lancashire, the first non-industrial establishment to be equipped with gas lighting.Clegg moved to London in 1813 and successfully installed gas lighting at the premises of Rudolf Ackermann in the Strand. His success in the manufacture of gas had earned him the Royal Society of Arts Silver Medal in 1808 for furthering "the art of gas production", and in 1813 it brought him the appointment of Chief Engineer to the first gas company, the Chartered Gas, Light \& Coke Company. He left in 1817, but remained in demand to set up gas works and advise on the formation of gas companies. Throughout this time there flowed from Clegg a series of inventions of fundamental importance in the gas industry. While at Lodge's mill he had begun purifying gas by adding lime to the gas holder, and at Stoneyhurst this had become a separate lime purifier. In 1815, and again in 1818, Clegg patented the wet-meter which proved to be the basis for future devices for measuring gas. He invented the gas governor and, favouring the horizontal retort, developed the form which was to become standard for the next forty years. But after all this, Clegg joined a concern in Liverpool which failed, taking all his possessions with it. He made a fresh start in Lisbon, where he undertook various engineering works for the Portuguese government. He returned to England to find railway construction gathering pace, but he again backed a loser by engaging in the ill-fated atmospheric-rail way project. He was finally discouraged from taking part in further enterprises, but he received a government appointment as Surveying Officer to conduct enquiries in connection with the various Bills on gas that were presented to Parliament. Clegg also contributed to his son's massive treatise on the manufacture of coal gas.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society of Arts Silver Medal 1808.Further ReadingMinutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1862) 21:552–4.S.Everard, 1949, The History of the Gas light and Coke Company, London: Ernest Benn.LRD -
85 Cubitt, William
[br]b. 1785 Dilham, Norfolk, Englandd. 13 October 1861 Clapham Common, Surrey, England[br]English civil engineer and contractor.[br]The son of a miller, he received a rudimentary education in the village school. At an early age he was helping his father in the mill, and in 1800 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. After four years he returned to work with his father, but, preferring to leave the parental home, he not long afterwards joined a firm of agricultural-machinery makers in Swanton in Norfolk. There he acquired a reputation for making accurate patterns for the iron caster and demonstrated a talent for mechanical invention, patenting a self-regulating windmill sail in 1807. He then set up on his own as a millwright, but he found he could better himself by joining the engineering works of Ransomes of Ipswich in 1812. He was soon appointed their Chief Engineer, and after nine years he became a partner in the firm until he moved to London in 1826. Around 1818 he invented the treadmill, with the aim of putting prisoners to useful work in grinding corn and other applications. It was rapidly adopted by the principal prisons, more as a means of punishment than an instrument of useful work.From 1814 Cubitt had been gaining experience in civil engineering, and upon his removal to London his career in this field began to take off. He was engaged on many canal-building projects, including the Oxford and Liverpool Junction canals. He accomplished some notable dock works, such as the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Middlesborough docks and the coal drops on the river Tees. He improved navigation on the river Severn and compiled valuable reports on a number of other leading rivers.The railway construction boom of the 1840s provided him with fresh opportunities. He engineered the South Eastern Railway (SER) with its daringly constructed line below the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover; the railway was completed in 1843, using massive charges of explosive to blast a way through the cliffs. Cubitt was Consulting Engineer to the Great Northern Railway and tried, with less than his usual success, to get the atmospheric system to work on the Croydon Railway.When the SER began a steamer service between Folkestone and Boulogne, Cubitt was engaged to improve the port facilities there and went on to act as Consulting Engineer to the Boulogne and Amiens Railway. Other commissions on the European continent included surveying the line between Paris and Lyons, advising the Hanoverian government on the harbour and docks at Hamburg and directing the water-supply works for Berlin.Cubitt was actively involved in the erection of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; in recognition of this work Queen Victoria knighted him at Windsor Castle on 23 December 1851.Cubitt's son Joseph (1811–72) was also a notable civil engineer, with many railway and harbour works to his credit.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1851. FRS 1830. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1850 and 1851.Further ReadingObituary, 1862, Minutes of 'the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 21:552– 8.LRD -
86 Ericsson, John
[br]b. 31 July 1803 Farnebo, Swedend. 8 March 1899 New York, USA[br]Swedish (naturalized American 1848) engineer and inventor.[br]The son of a mine owner and inspector, Ericsson's first education was private and haphazard. War with Russia disrupted the mines and the father secured a position on the Gotha Canal, then under construction. He enrolled John, then aged 13, and another son as cadets in a corps of military engineers engaged on the canal. There John was given a sound education and training in the physical sciences and engineering. At the age of 17 he decided to enlist in the Army, and on receiving a commission he was drafted to cartographic survey duties. After some years he decided that a career outside the Army offered him the best opportunities, and in 1826 he moved to London to pursue a career of mechanical invention.Ericsson first developed a heat (external combustion) engine, which proved unsuccessful. Three years later he designed and constructed the steam locomotive Novelty, which he entered in the Rainhill locomotive trials on the new Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. The engine began by performing promisingly, but it later broke down and failed to complete the test runs. Later he devised a self-regulating lead (1835) and then, more important and successful, he invented the screw propeller, patented in 1835 and installed in his first screw-propelled ship of 1839. This work was carried out independently of Sir Francis Pettit Smith, who contemporaneously developed a four-bladed propeller that was adopted by the British Admiralty. Ericsson saw that with screw propulsion the engine could be below the waterline, a distinct advantage in warships. He crossed the Atlantic to interest the American government in his ideas and became a naturalized citizen in 1848. He pioneered the gun turret for mounting heavy guns on board ship. Ericsson came into his own during the American Civil War, with the construction of the epoch-making warship Monitor, a screw-propelled ironclad with gun turret. This vessel demonstrated its powers in a signal victory at Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862.Ericsson continued to design warships and torpedoes, pointing out to President Lincoln that success in war would now depend on technological rather than numerical superiority. Meanwhile he continued to pursue his interest in heat engines, and from 1870 to 1888 he spent much of his time and resources in pursuing research into alternative energy sources, such as solar power, gravitation and tidal forces.[br]Further ReadingW.C.Church, 1891, Life of John Ericsson, 2 vols, London.LRD -
87 Laithwaite, Eric Roberts
[br]b. 14 June 1921 Atherton, Lancashire, England[br]English engineer, notable contributor to the development of linear electric motors.[br]Laithwaite's education at Kirkham Grammar School and Regent Street Polytechnic, London, was followed by service in the Royal Air Force. After entering Manchester University in 1946 and graduating in 1949, he joined the university staff and became Secretary to the Inaugural Conference of the Ferranti Mark I computer. In 1964 he moved to Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, and became Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering. From 1967 to 1976 he also held the post of External Professor of Applied Electricity at the Royal Institution. Research into the use of linear induction motors as shuttle drives in weaving looms was followed by investigations into their application to conveyors in industrial processes and as high-speed propulsion units for railway vehicles. With considerable involvement in a tracked hovercraft project in the 1960s and 1970s, he proposed the concept of transverse flux and the magnetic river high-speed linear induction machine. Linear motors and electromagnetic levitation have been applied to high-speed propulsion in the United States, France and Japan.Laithwaite has written five books and over one hundred papers on the subjects of linear motors and electromagnetic levitation. Two series of Christmas lectures were presented by him at the Royal Institution.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society S.G.Brown Medal 1966. Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers Nikola Tesla Award 1986.Bibliography1966, Induction Machines for Special Purposes, London.1970, Propulsion Without Wheels, London (discusses properties and applications of linear induction motors).1977 (ed.), Transport Without Wheels, London (describes the design and applications of linear electric motors).1987, A History of Linear Electric Motors, London (provides a general historical survey).Further ReadingB.Bowers, 1982, A History of Electric Light and Power, London, pp. 261–4 (provides an account of early linear motors).M.Poloujadoff, 1980, The Theory of Linear Induction Motors, Oxford (for a comparison of analytical methods recommended by various investigators).GWBiographical history of technology > Laithwaite, Eric Roberts
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88 Lartigue, Charles François Marie-Thérèse
[br]b. 1834 Toulouse, France d. 1907[br]French engineer and businessman, inventor of the Lartigue monorail.[br]Lartigue worked as a civil engineer in Algeria and while there invented a simple monorail for industrial or agricultural use. It comprised a single rail carried on trestles; vehicles comprised a single wheel with two tubs suspended either side, like panniers. These were pushed or pulled by hand or, occasionally, hauled by mule. Such lines were used in Algerian esparto-grass plantations.In 1882 he patented a monorail system based on this arrangement, with important improvements: traction was to be mechanical; vehicles were to have two or four wheels and to be able to be coupled together; and the trestles were to have, on each side, a light guide rail upon which horizontal rollers beneath the vehicles would bear. Early in 1883 the Lartigue Railway Construction Company was formed in London and two experimental prototype monorails were subsequently demonstrated in public. One, at the Paris Agricultural Exhibition, had an electric locomotive that was built in two parts, one either side of the rail to maintain balance, hauling small wagons. The other prototype, in London, had a small, steam locomotive with two vertical boilers and was designed by Anatole Mallet. By now Lartigue had become associated with F.B. Behr. Behr was Managing Director of the construction company and of the Listowel \& Ballybunion Railway Company, which obtained an Act of Parliament in 1886 to built a Lartigue monorail railway in the South West of Ireland between those two places. Its further development and successful operation are described in the article on Behr in this volume.A much less successful attempt to establish a Lartigue monorail railway took place in France, in the départment of Loire. In 1888 the council of the département agreed to a proposal put forward by Lartigue for a 10 1/2 mile (17 km) long monorail between the towns of Feurs and Panissières: the agreement was reached on the casting vote of the Chairman, a contact of Lartigue. A concession was granted to successive companies with which Lartigue was closely involved, but construction of the line was attended by muddle, delay and perhaps fraud, although it was completed sufficiently for trial trains to operate. The locomotive had two horizontal boilers, one either side of the track. But the inspectors of the department found deficiencies in the completeness and probable safety of the railway; when they did eventually agree to opening on a limited scale, the company claimed to have insufficient funds to do so unless monies owed by the department were paid. In the end the concession was forfeited and the line dismantled. More successful was an electrically operated Lartigue mineral line built at mines in the eastern Pyrenees.It appears to have reused equipment from the electric demonstration line, with modifications, and included gradients as steep as 1 in 12. There was no generating station: descending trains generated the electricity to power ascending ones. This line is said to have operated for at least two years.[br]Bibliography1882, French patent no. 149,301 (monorail system). 1882, British patent no. 2,764 (monorail system).Further ReadingD.G.Tucker, 1984, "F.B.Behr's development of the Lartigue monorail", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 55 (describes Lartigue and his work).P.H.Chauffort and J.-L.Largier, 1981, "Le monorail de Feurs à Panissières", Chemin defer régionaux et urbains (magazine of the Fédération des Amis des Chemins de FerSecondaires) 164 (in French; describes Lartigue and his work).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Lartigue, Charles François Marie-Thérèse
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89 Page, Charles Grafton
[br]b. 25 January 1812 Salem, Massachusetts, USAd. 5 May 1868 Washington, DC, USA[br]American scientist and inventor of electric motors.[br]Page graduated from Harvard in 1832 and subsequently attended Boston Medical School. He began to practise in Salem and also engaged in experimental research in electricity, discovering the improvement effected by substituting bundles of iron wire for solid bars in induction coils. He also created a device which he termed a Dynamic Multiplier, the prototype of the auto-transformer. Following a period in medical practice in Virginia, in 1841 he became one of the first two principal examiners in the United States Patent Office. He also held the Chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy at Columbian College, later George Washington University, between 1844 and 1849.A prolific inventor, Page completed several large electric motors in which reciprocating action was converted to rotary motion, and invested an extravagant sum of public money in a foredoomed effort to develop a 10-ton electric locomotive powered by primary batteries. This was unsuccessfully demonstrated in April 1851 on the Washington-Baltimore railway and seriously damaged his reputation. Page approached Thomas Davenport with an offer of partnership, but Davenport refused.After leaving the Patent Office in 1852 he became a patentee himself and advocated the reform of the patent procedures. Page returned to the Patent Office in 1861, and later persuaded Congress to pass a special Act permitting him to patent the induction coil. This was the cause, after his death, of protracted and widely publicized litigation.[br]Bibliography1867, History of Induction: The American Claim to the Induction Coil and itsElectrostatic Developments, Washington, DC.Further ReadingR.C.Post, 1976, Physics, Patents and Politics, New York (a biography which treats Page as a focal point for studying the American patent system).——1976, "Stray sparks from the induction coil: the Volta prize and the Page patent", Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical Engineers 64: 1,279–86 (a short account).W.J.King, 1962, The Development of Electrical Technology in the 19th Century, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, Paper 28.GW -
90 Saxby, John
[br]b. 17 August 1821 Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, Englandd. 22 April 1913 Hassocks, Sussex, England[br]English railway signal engineer, pioneer of interlocking.[br]In the mid-1850s Saxby was a foreman in the Brighton Works of the London Brighton \& South Coast Railway, where he had no doubt become familiar with construction of semaphore signals of the type invented by C.H. Gregory; the London-Brighton line was one of the first over which these were installed. In the 1850s points and signals were usually worked independently, and it was to eliminate the risk of accident from conflicting points and signal positions that Saxby in 1856 patented an arrangement by which related points and signals would be operated simultaneously by a single lever.Others were concerned with the same problem. In 1855 Vignier, an employee of the Western Railway of France, had made an interlocking apparatus for junctions, and in 1859 Austin Chambers, who worked for the North London Railway, installed at Kentish Town Junction an interlocking lever frame in which a movement that depended upon another could not even commence until the earlier one was completed. He patented it early in 1860; Saxby patented his own version of such an apparatus later the same year. In 1863 Saxby left the London Brighton \& South Coast Railway to enter into a partnership with J.S.Farmer and established Saxby \& Farmer's railway signalling works at Kilburn, London. The firm manufactured, installed and maintained signalling equipment for many prominent railway companies. Its interlocking frames made possible installation of complex track layouts at increasingly busy London termini possible.In 1867 Saxby \& Farmer purchased Chambers's patent of 1860, Later developments by the firm included effective interlocking actuated by lifting a lever's catch handle, rather than by the lever itself (1871), and an improved locking frame known as the "gridiron" (1874). This was eventually superseded by tappet interlocking, which had been invented by James Deakin of the rival firm Stevens \& Co. in 1870 but for which patent protection had been lost through non-renewal.Saxby \& Farmer's equipment was also much used on the European continent, in India and in the USA, to which it introduced interlocking. A second manufacturing works was set up in 1878 at Creil (Oise), France, and when the partnership terminated in 1888 Saxby moved to Creil and managed the works himself until he retired to Sussex in 1900.[br]Bibliography1856, British patent no. 1,479 (simultaneous operation of points and signals). 1860, British patent no. 31 (a true interlocking mechanism).1867, jointly with Farmer, British patent no. 538 (improvements to the interlocking mechanism patented in 1860).1870, jointly with Farmer, British patent no. 569 (the facing point lock by plunger bolt).1871, jointly with Farmer, British patent no. 1,601 (catch-handle actuated interlocking) 1874, jointly with Farmer, British patent no. 294 (gridiron frame).Further ReadingWestinghouse Brake and Signal Company, 1956, John Saxby (1821–1913) and His Part in the Development of Interlocking and of the Signalling Industry, London (published to mark the centenary of the 1856 patent).PJGR -
91 Siemens, Dr Ernst Werner von
[br]b. 13 December 1816 Lenthe, near Hanover, Germanyd. 6 December 1892 Berlin, Germany[br]German pioneer of the dynamo, builder of the first electric railway.[br]Werner von Siemens was the eldest of a large family and after the early death of his parents took his place at its head. He served in the Prussian artillery, being commissioned in 1839, after which he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and physics. In 1847 Siemens and J.G. Halske formed a company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens und Halske, to manufacture a dial telegraph which they had developed from an earlier instrument produced by Charles Wheatstone. In 1848 Siemens obtained his discharge from the army and he and Halske constructed the first long-distance telegraph line on the European continent, between Berlin and Frankfurt am Main.Werner von Siemens's younger brother, William Siemens, had settled in Britain in 1844 and was appointed agent for the Siemens \& Halske company in 1851. Later, an English subsidiary company was formed, known from 1865 as Siemens Brothers. It specialized in manufacturing and laying submarine telegraph cables: the specialist cable-laying ship Faraday, launched for the purpose in 1874, was the prototype of later cable ships and in 1874–5 laid the first cable to run direct from the British Isles to the USA. In charge of Siemens Brothers was another brother, Carl, who had earlier established a telegraph network in Russia.In 1866 Werner von Siemens demonstrated the principle of the dynamo in Germany, but it took until 1878 to develop dynamos and electric motors to the point at which they could be produced commercially. The following year, 1879, Werner von Siemens built the first electric railway, and operated it at the Berlin Trades Exhibition. It comprised an oval line, 300 m (985 it) long, with a track gauge of 1 m (3 ft 3 1/2 in.); upon this a small locomotive hauled three small passenger coaches. The locomotive drew current at 150 volts from a third rail between the running rails, through which it was returned. In four months, more than 80,000 passengers were carried. The railway was subsequently demonstrated in Brussels, and in London, in 1881. That same year Siemens built a permanent electric tramway, 1 1/2 miles (2 1/2 km) long, on the outskirts of Berlin. In 1882 in Berlin he tried out a railless electric vehicle which drew electricity from a two-wire overhead line: this was the ancestor of the trolleybus.In the British Isles, an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1880 for the Giant's Causeway Railway in Ireland with powers to work it by "animal, mechanical or electrical power"; although Siemens Brothers were electrical engineers to the company, of which William Siemens was a director, delays in construction were to mean that the first railway in the British Isles to operate regular services by electricity was that of Magnus Volk.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary doctorate, Berlin University 1860. Ennobled by Kaiser Friedrich III 1880, after which he became known as von Siemens.Further ReadingS.von Weiher, 1972, "The Siemens brothers, pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45 (describes the Siemens's careers). C.E.Lee, 1979, The birth of electric traction', Railway Magazine (May) (describes Werner Siemens's introduction of the electric railway).Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1979) 50: 82–3 (describes Siemens's and Halske's early electric telegraph instruments).Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1961) 33: 93 (describes the railless electric vehicle).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Siemens, Dr Ernst Werner von
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92 Stephenson, John
[br]b. 4 July 1809 County Armagh, Ireland,d. 31 July 1893 New Rochelle, New York, USA.[br]Irish/American pioneer of tramways for urban transport, builder and innovator of streetcars.[br]Stephenson's parents emigrated to the United States when he was 2 years old; he was educated in public schools in New York, where his parents had settled, and at a Wesleyan seminary. He became a clerk in a store at 16, but in 1828 he apprenticed himself to a coachbuilder, Andrew Wade, of Broome Street, New York. His apprenticeship lasted two years, during which time he learned mechanical drawing in the evenings and started to design vehicles. He was employed for a year on carriage repair work and in 1831 he opened his own coach repair business. Within a year he had built New York's first omnibus; this was bought by Abraham Brower, Stephenson's former employer, who started the city's first bus service. Brower immediately ordered a further three buses from Stephenson, and a further horse-drawn car was ordered by the New York \& Harlem Railroad. He built the car used at the opening of the railroad on 26 November 1832, the first street railway in the world. Orders followed for cars for many street railroads in other cities in the eastern States, and business prospered until the financial panic of 1837. Stephenson's factory was forced to close but he managed to pay off his creditors in the next six years and started in business again, building only omnibuses and coaches to become recognized as the world's foremost builder of streetcars. His first car had four flanged wheels, and a body of three compartments slung on leather straps from an unsprung chassis. He built horse-drawn cars, cable cars, electric and open cars; by 1891 his factory had 500 employees and was producing some twenty-five cars a week. His first patent had been dated 23 April 1833 and was followed by some ten others. During the Civil War, his factory was turned over to the manufacture of pontoons and gun carriages. He married Julia Tiemann in 1833; they had two sons and a daughter. He lived at New Rochelle, New York, from 1865 until his death.[br]Further Reading"The original car builder", 1891, New York Tribune, 10 September.D.Malone (ed.), Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 9, New York: Charles Scribner.IMcN -
93 Volk, Magnus
[br]b. 19 October 1851 Brighton, Englandd. 20 May 1937 Brighton, England[br]English pioneer in the use of electric power; built the first electric railway in the British Isles to operate a regular service.[br]Volk was the son of a German immigrant clockmaker and continued the business with his mother after his father died in 1869, although when he married in 1879 his profession was described as "electrician". He installed Brighton's first telephone the same year and in 1880 he installed electric lighting in his own house, using a Siemens Brothers dynamo (see Siemens, Dr Ernst Werner von) driven by a Crossley gas engine. This was probably one of the first half-dozen such installations in Britain. Magnus Volk \& Co. became noted electrical manufacturers and contractors, and, inter alia, installed electric light in Brighton Pavilion in place of gas.By 1883 Volk had moved house. He had kept the dynamo and gas engine used to light his previous house, and he also had available an electric motor from a cancelled order. After approaching the town clerk of Brighton, he was given permission for a limited period to build and operate a 2 ft (61 cm) gauge electric railway along the foreshore. Using the electrical equipment he already had, Volk built the line, a quarter of a mile (400 m) long, in eight weeks. The car was built by a local coachbuilder, with the motor under the seat; electric current at 50 volts was drawn from one running rail and returned through the other.The railway was opened on 4 August 1883. It operated regularly for several months and then, permission to run it having been renewed, it was rebuilt for the 1884 season to 2 ft 9 in. (84 cm) gauge, with improved equipment. Despite storm damage from time to time, Volk's Electric Railway, extended in length, has become an enduring feature of Brighton's sea front. In 1887 Volk made an electric dogcart, and an electric van which he built for the Sultan of Turkey was probably the first motor vehicle built in Britain for export. In 1896 he opened the Brighton \& Rottingdean Seashore Electric Tramroad, with very wide-gauge track laid between the high-and low-tide lines, and a long-legged, multi-wheel car to run upon it, through the water if necessary. This lasted only until 1901, however. Volk subsequently became an early enthusiast for aircraft.[br]Further ReadingC.Volk, 1971, Magnus Volk of Brighton, Chichester: Phillimore (his life and career as described by his son).C.E.Lee, 1979, "The birth of electric traction", Railway Magazine (May).PJGR -
94 Doane, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Railways and locomotives[br]b. 20 September 1821 Orleans, Massachusetts, USAd. 22 October 1897 West Townsend, Massachusetts, USA[br]American mechanical engineer.[br]The son of a lawyer, he entered an academy in Cape Cod and, at the age of 19, the English Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, for five terms. He was then in the employ of Samuel L. Fenton of Charlestown, Massachusetts. He served a three-year apprenticeship, then went to the Windsor White River Division of the Vermont Central Railroad. He was Resident Engineer of the Cheshire Railroad at Walpote, New Hampshire, from 1847 to 1849, and then worked in independent practice as a civil engineer and surveyor until his death. He was involved with nearly all the railroads running out of Boston, especially the Boston \& Maine. In April 1863 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Hoosac Tunnel, which was already being built. He introduced new engineering methods, relocated the line of the tunnel and achieved great accuracy in the meeting of the borings. He was largely responsible for the development in the USA of the advanced system of tunnelling with machinery and explosives, and pioneered the use of compressed air in the USA. In 1869 he was Chief Engineer of the Burlington \& Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska, laying down some 240 miles (386 km) of track in four years. During this period he became interested in the building of a Congregational College at Crete, Nebraska, for which he gave the land and which was named after him. In 1873 he returned to Charlestown and was again appointed Chief Engineer of the Hoosac Tunnel. At the final opening of the tunnel on 9 February 1875 he drove the first engine through. He remained in charge of construction for a further two years.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, School of Civil Engineers.Further ReadingDuncan Malone (ed.), 1932–3, Dictionary of American Biography, New York: Charles Scribner.IMcN -
95 INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA
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96 Knight, John Peake
[br]b. 1828d. 1886[br]English railway engineer, inventor of the first road traffic lights in Britain.[br]Knight was initially employed as a clerk at the Midland Railway in Derby, and in 1846 he had a job in the audit office of the Brighton Railway. From 1854 to 1869 he was Superintendent of the South Eastern Railway and then became manager of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, a post he held until his death. During this period many improvements were put in hand, including the interlocking of signals, the block system, the incorporation of Westinghouse brakes (in 1878), Pullman cars (1877) and electric lighting.In 1868 it was decided to erect the first set of traffic lights in London in Bridge Street, New Palace Yard, Westminster, and the authorities naturally sought the advice of an engineer familiar with railway practice. Thus John Knight was called in, and red and green lights mounted on the ends of semaphore arms were duly installed. Unfortunately, a fault in the gas supply of this set of lights caused an explosion which killed a police constable.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsLieutenant-Colonel, Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps 1870–86. Associate, Institution of Civil Engineers 1872. Legion of Honour 1878.Further ReadingObituary, 1886, The Engineer 62.IMcN -
97 Reynolds, Richard
[br]b. 1 November 1735 Bristol, Englandd. 10 September 1816 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England[br]English ironmaster who invented iron rails.[br]Reynolds was born into a Quaker family, his father being an iron merchant and a considerable customer for the products of the Darbys (see Abraham Darby) of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire. After education at a Quaker boarding school in Pickwick, Wiltshire, Reynolds was apprenticed to William Fry, a grocer of Bristol, from whom he would have learned business methods. The year before the expiry of his apprenticeship in 1757, Reynolds was being sent on business errands to Coalbrookdale. In that year he met and married Hannah Darby, the daughter of Abraham Darby II. At the same time, he acquired a half-share in the Ketley ironworks, established not long before, in 1755. There he supervised not only the furnaces at Ketley and Horsehay and the foundry, but also the extension of the railway, linking this site to Coalbrookdale itself.On the death of Abraham Darby II in 1763, Reynolds took charge of the whole works during the minority of Abraham Darby III. During this period, the most notable development was the introduction by the Cranage brothers of a new way of converting pig-iron to wrought iron, a process patented in 1766 that used coal in a reverberatory furnace. This, with other processes for the same purpose, remained in use until superseded by the puddling process patented by Henry Cort in 1783 and 1784. Reynolds's most important innovation was the introduction of cast-iron rails in 1767 on the railway around Coalbrookdale. A useful network had been in operation for some time with wooden rails, but these wore out quickly and were expensive to maintain. Reynolds's iron rails were an immediate improvement, and some 20 miles (32 km) were laid within a short time. In 1768 Abraham Darby III was able to assume control of the Coalbrookdale works, but Reynolds had been extending his own interest in other ironworks and various other concerns, earning himself considerable wealth. When Darby was oppressed with loan repayments, Reynolds bought the Manor of Madely, which made him Landlord of the Coalbrookdale Company; by 1780 he was virtually banker to the company.[br]Further ReadingH.M.Rathbone, 1852, Letters of Richard Reynolds with a Memoir of his Life, London.A.Raistrick, 1989, Dynasty of Iron Founders, 2nd edn, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (contains many details of Reynolds's life).LRD -
98 Shaw, Percy
[br]b. 1889 Yorkshire, England d. 1975[br]English inventor of the "catseye" reflecting roadstud.[br]Little is known of Shaw's youth, but in the 1930s he was running a comparatively successful business repairing roads. One evening in 1933, he was driving to his home in Halifax, West Yorkshire; it was late, dark and foggy and only the reflection of his headlights from the tram-tracks guided him and kept him on the road. He decided to find or make an alternative to tramlines, which were not universal and by that time were being taken up as trams were being replaced with diesel buses.Shaw needed a place to work and bought the old Boothtown Mansion, a cloth-merchant's house built in the mid-eighteenth century. There he devoted himself to the production of a prototype of the reflecting roadstud, inspired by the reflective nature of a cat's eyes. Shaw's design consisted of a prism backed by an aluminium mirror, set in pairs in a rubber casing; when traffic passed over the stud, the prisms would be wiped clean as the casing was depressed. In 1934, Shaw obtained permission from the county surveyor to lay, at his own expense, a short stretch of catseyes on a main highway near his home: fifty were laid at Brightlington cross-roads, an accident blackspot near Bradford. This was inspected by a number of surveyors in 1936. The first order for catseyes had already been placed in 1935, for a pedestrian crossing in Baldon, Yorkshire. There were alternative designs in existence, particularly in France, and in 1937 the Ministry of Transport laid an 8 km (5 mile) stretch in Oxfordshire with sample lengths of different types of studs. After two years, most of them had fractured, become displaced or ceased to reflect; only the product of Shaw's company, Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd, was still in perfect condition. The outbreak of the Second World War brought blackout regulations, which caused a great boost to sales of reflecting roadstuds; orders reached some 40,000 per week. Production was limited, however, due to the shortage of rubber supplies after the Japanese overran South-East Asia; until the end of the war, only about 12,000 catseyes were produced a year.Over fifty million catseyes have been installed in Britain, where on average there are about two hundred and fifty catseyes in each kilometre of road, if laid in a single line. The success of Shaw's invention brought him great wealth, although he continued to live in the same house, without curtains—which obstructed his view—or carpets—which harboured odours and germs. He had three Rolls-Royce cars, and four television sets which were permanently switched on while he was at home, each tuned to a different channel.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOBE 1965.Further ReadingE.de Bono (ed.), 1979, Eureka, London: Thames \& Hudson."Percy's bright idea", En Route (the magazine of the Caravan Club), reprinted in The Police Review, 23 March 1983.IMcN -
99 Woods, Granville
[br]b. 1856 Columbus, Ohio, USAd. 1919 New York (?), USA[br]African-American inventor of electrical equipment.[br]He was first apprenticed in Columbus as a machinist and blacksmith. In 1872 he moved to Missouri, where he was engaged as a fireman and then engine-driver on the Iron Mountain Railroad. In his spare time he devoted much time to the study of electrical engineering. In 1878 he went to sea for two years as engineer on a British vessel. He returned to Ohio, taking up his previous occupation as engine-driver, and in 1884 he achieved his first patent, for a locomotive firebox. However, the drive towards things electrical was too strong and he set up the Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to develop and market electrical inventions. Woods gained some fame as an inventor and became known as the "black Edison ". His first device, a telephone transmitter, was patented in December 1884 but faced stiff competition from similar inventions by Alexander Graham Bell and others. The following year he patented a device for transmitting messages in Morse code or by voice that was valuable enough to be bought up by the Bell Telephone Company. A stream of inventions followed, particularly for railway telegraph and electrical systems. This brought him into conflict with Edison, who was working in the same field. The US Patent Office ruled in Woods's favour; as a result of the ensuing publicity, one newspaper hailed Woods as the "greatest electrician in the world". In 1890 Woods moved to New York, where the opportunities for an electrical engineer seemed more favourable. He turned his attention to inventions that would improve the tram-car. One device enabled electric current to be transferred to the car with less friction than previously, incorporating a grooved wheel known as a "troller", whence came the popular term "trolley car".[br]Further ReadingP.P.James, 1989, The Real McCoy: African-American Invention and Innovation 1619– 1930, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 94–5.LRD -
100 Lenoir, Jean Joseph Etienne
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines, Telecommunications[br]b. 1822 Mussey-la-Ville, Belgiumd. 1900 Verenna Saint-Hildar, France[br]Belgian (naturalized French in 1870) inventor of internal combustion engines, an electroplating process and railway telegraphy systems.[br]Leaving his native village for Paris at the age of 16, Lenoir became a metal enameller. Experiments with various electroplating processes provided a useful knowledge of electricity that showed in many of his later ideas. Electric ignition, although somewhat unreliable, was a feature of the Lenoir gas engine which appeared in 1860. Resembling the steam engine of the day, Lenoir engines used a non-compression cycle of operations, in which the gas-air mixture of about atmospheric pressure was being ignited at one-third of the induction stroke. The engines were double acting. About five hundred of Lenoir's engines were built, mostly in Paris by M.Hippolyte Marinoni and by Lefébvre; the Reading Ironworks in England built about one hundred. Many useful applications of the engine are recorded, but the explosive shock that occurred on ignition, together with the unreliable ignition systems, prevented large-scale acceptance of the engine in industry. However, Lenoir's effort and achievements stimulated much discussion, and N.A. Otto is reported to have carried out his first experiments on a Lenoir engine.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsAcadémie des Sciences Prix Montyon Prize 1870. Société d'Encouragement, Silver Prize of 12,000 francs. Légion d'honneur 1881 (for his work in telegraphy).Bibliography8 February 1860, British patent no. 335 (the first Lenoir engine).1861, British patent no. 107 (the Lenoir engine).Further ReadingDugald Clerk, 1895, The Gas and Oil Engine, 6th edn, London, pp. 13–15, 30, 118, 203.World Who's Who in Science, 1968 (for an account of Lenoir's involvement in technology).KABBiographical history of technology > Lenoir, Jean Joseph Etienne
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