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3 Holland, John Philip
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 29 February 1840 Liscanor, Co. Clare, Irelandd. 12 August 1915 Newark, New Jersey, USA[br]Irish/American inventor of the successful modern submarine[br]Holland was educated first in his native town and later in Limerick, a seaport bustling with coastal trade ships. His first job was that of schoolteacher, and as such he worked in various parts of Ireland until he was about 32 years old. A combination of his burning patriotic zeal for Ireland and his interest in undersea technology (then in its infancy) made him consider designs for underwater warships for use against the British Royal Navy in the fight for Irish independence. He studied all known works on the subject and commenced drawing plans, but he was unable to make real headway owing to a lack of finance.In 1873 he travelled to the United States, ultimately settling in New Jersey and continuing in the profession of teaching. His work on submarine design continued, but in 1875 he suffered a grave setback when the United States Navy turned down his designs. Help came from an unexpected source, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenian Society, which had been founded in Dublin and New York in 1858. Financial help enabled Holland to build a 4 m (13 ft) one-person craft, which was tested in 1878, and then a larger boat of 19 tonnes' displacement that was tested with a crew of three to depths of 20 m (65 ft) in New York's harbour in 1883. Known as the Fenian Ram, it embodied most of the principles of modern submarines, including weight compensation. The Fenians commandeered this boat, but they were unable to operate it satisfactorily and it was relegated to history.Holland continued work, at times independently and sometimes with others, and continuously advocated submarines to the United States Navy. In 1895 he was successful in winning a contract for US$150,000 to build the US Submarine Plunger at Baltimore. With too much outside interference, this proved an unsatisfactory venture. However, with only US$5,000 of his capital left, Holland started again and in 1898 he launched the Holland at Elizabeth, New Jersey. This 16 m (52 ft) vessel was successful, and in 1900 it was purchased by the United States Government.Six more boats were ordered by the Americans, and then some by the Russians and the Japanese. The British Royal Navy ordered five, which were built by Vickers Son and Maxim (now VSEL) at Barrow-in-Furness in the years up to 1903, commencing their long run of submarine building. They were licensed by another well-known name, the Electric Boat Company, which had formerly been the J.P.Holland Torpedo Boat Company.Holland now had some wealth and was well known. He continued to work, trying his hand at aeronautical research, and in 1904 he invented a respirator for use in submarine rescue work. It is pleasing to record that one of his ships can be seen to this day at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport: HM Submarine Holland No. 1, which was lost under tow in 1913 but salvaged and restored in the 1980s.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOrder of the Rising Sun, Japan, 1910.Bibliography1900, "The submarine boat and its future", North American Review (December). Holland wrote several other articles of a similar nature.Further ReadingR.K.Morris, 1966 John P.Holland 1841–1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine, Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute.F.W.Lipscomb, 1975, The British Submarine, London: Conway Maritime Press. A.N.Harrison, 1979, The Development of HM Submarines from Holland No. 1 (1901) toPorpoise (1930), Bath: MoD Ships Department (internal publication).FMW -
4 Issigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine (Alec)
[br]b. 18 November 1906 Smyrna (now Izmir), Turkeyd. 2 October 1988 Birmingham, England[br]British automobile designer whose work included the Morris Minor and the Mini series.[br]His father was of Greek descent but was a naturalized British subject in Turkey who ran a marine engineering business. After the First World War, the British in Turkey were evacuated by the Royal Navy, the Issigonis family among them. His father died en route in Malta, but the rest of the family arrived in England in 1922. Alec studied engineering at Battersea Polytechnic for three years and in 1928 was employed as a draughtsman by a firm of consulting engineers in Victoria Street who were working on a form of automatic transmission. He had occasion to travel frequently in the Midlands at this time and visited many factories in the automobile industry. He was offered a job in the drawing office at Humber and lived for a couple of years in Kenilworth. While there he met Robert Boyle, Chief Engineer of Morris Motors (see Morris, William Richard), who offered him a job at Cowley. There he worked at first on the design of independent front suspension. At Morris Motors, he designed the Morris Minor, which entered production in 1948 and continued to be manufactured until 1971. Issigonis disliked mergers, and after the merger of Morris with Austin to form the British Motor Corporation (BMC) he left to join Alvis in 1952. The car he designed there, a V8 saloon, was built as a prototype but was never put into production. Following his return to BMC to become Technical Director in 1955, his most celebrated design was the Mini series, which entered production in 1959. This was a radically new concept: it was unique for its combination of a transversely mounted engine in unit with the gearbox, front wheel drive and rubber suspension system. This suspension system, designed in cooperation with Alex Moulton, was also a fundamental innovation, developed from the system designed by Moulton for the earlier Alvis prototype. Issigonis remained as Technical Director of BMC until his retirement.[br]Further ReadingPeter King, 1989, The Motor Men. Pioneers of the British Motor Industry, London: Quiller Press.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Issigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine (Alec)
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5 Arnold, John
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 1735/6 Bodmin (?), Cornwall, Englandd. 25 August 1799 Eltham, London, England[br]English clock, watch, and chronometer maker who invented the isochronous helical balance spring and an improved form of detached detent escapement.[br]John Arnold was apprenticed to his father, a watchmaker, and then worked as an itinerant journeyman in the Low Countries and, later, in England. He settled in London in 1762 and rapidly established his reputation at Court by presenting George III with a miniature repeating watch mounted in a ring. He later abandoned the security of the Court for a more precarious living developing his chronometers, with some financial assistance from the Board of Longitude. Symbolically, in 1771 he moved from the vicinity of the Court at St James's to John Adam Street, which was close to the premises of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures \& Commerce.By the time Arnold became interested in chronometry, Harrison had already demonstrated that longitude could be determined by means of a timekeeper, and the need was for a simpler instrument that could be sold at an affordable price for universal use at sea. Le Roy had shown that it was possible to dispense with a remontoire by using a detached escapement with an isochronous balance; Arnold was obviously thinking along the same lines, although he may not have been aware of Le Roy's work. By 1772 Arnold had developed his detached escapement, a pivoted detent which was quite different from that used on the European continent, and three years later he took out a patent for a compensation balance and a helical balance spring (Arnold used the spring in torsion and not in tension as Harrison had done). His compensation balance was similar in principle to that described by Le Roy and used riveted bimetallic strips to alter the radius of gyration of the balance by moving small weights radially. Although the helical balance spring was not completely isochronous it was a great improvement on the spiral spring, and in a later patent (1782) he showed how it could be made more truly isochronous by shaping the ends. In this form it was used universally in marine chronometers.Although Arnold's chronometers performed well, their long-term stability was less satisfactory because of the deterioration of the oil on the pivot of the detent. In his patent of 1782 he eliminated this defect by replacing the pivot with a spring, producing the spring detent escapement. This was also done independendy at about the same time by Berthoud and Earnshaw, although Earnshaw claimed vehemently that Arnold had plagiarized his work. Ironically it was Earnshaw's design that was finally adopted, although he had merely replaced Arnold's pivoted detent with a spring, while Arnold had completely redesigned the escapement. Earnshaw also improved the compensation balance by fusing the steel to the brass to form the bimetallic element, and it was in this form that it began to be used universally for chronometers and high-grade watches.As a result of the efforts of Arnold and Earnshaw, the marine chronometer emerged in what was essentially its final form by the end of the eighteenth century. The standardization of the design in England enabled it to be produced economically; whereas Larcum Kendall was paid £500 to copy Harrison's fourth timekeeper, Arnold was able to sell his chronometers for less than one-fifth of that amount. This combination of price and quality led to Britain's domination of the chronometer market during the nineteenth century.[br]Bibliography30 December 1775, "Timekeepers", British patent no. 1,113.2 May 1782, "A new escapement, and also a balance to compensate the effects arising from heat and cold in pocket chronometers, and for incurving the ends of the helical spring…", British patent no. 1,382.Further ReadingR.T.Gould, 1923, The Marine Chronometer: Its History and Development, London; reprinted 1960, Holland Press (provides an overview).V.Mercer, 1972, John Arnold \& Son Chronometer Makers 1726–1843, London.See also: Phillips, EdouardDV -
6 Berliner, Emile
SUBJECT AREA: Recording[br]b. 20 May 1851 Hannover, Germanyd. 3 August 1929 Montreal, Canada[br]German (naturalized American) inventor, developer of the disc record and lateral mechanical replay.[br]After arriving in the USA in 1870 and becoming an American citizen, Berliner worked as a dry-goods clerk in Washington, DC, and for a period studied electricity at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. He invented an improved microphone and set up his own experimental laboratory in Washington, DC. He developed a microphone for telephone use and sold the rights to the Bell Telephone Company. Subsequently he was put in charge of their laboratory, remaining in that position for eight years. In 1881 Berliner, with his brothers Joseph and Jacob, founded the J.Berliner Telephonfabrik in Hanover, the first factory in Europe specializing in telephone equipment.Inspired by the development work performed by T.A. Edison and in the Volta Laboratory (see C.S. Tainter), he analysed the existing processes for recording and reproducing sound and in 1887 developed a process for transferring lateral undulations scratched in soot into an etched groove that would make a needle and diaphragm vibrate. Using what may be regarded as a combination of the Phonautograph of Léon Scott de Martinville and the photo-engraving suggested by Charles Cros, in May 1887 he thus demonstrated the practicability of the laterally recorded groove. He termed the apparatus "Gramophone". In November 1887 he applied the principle to a glass disc and obtained an inwardly spiralling, modulated groove in copper and zinc. In March 1888 he took the radical step of scratching the lateral vibrations directly onto a rotating zinc disc, the surface of which was protected, and the subsequent etching created the groove. Using well-known principles of printing-plate manufacture, he developed processes for duplication by making a negative mould from which positive copies could be pressed in a thermoplastic compound. Toy gramophones were manufactured in Germany from 1889 and from 1892–3 Berliner manufactured both records and gramophones in the USA. The gramophones were hand-cranked at first, but from 1896 were based on a new design by E.R. Johnson. In 1897–8 Berliner spread his activities to England and Germany, setting up a European pressing plant in the telephone factory in Hanover, and in 1899 a Canadian company was formed. Various court cases over patents removed Berliner from direct running of the reconstructed companies, but he retained a major economic interest in E.R. Johnson's Victor Talking Machine Company. In later years Berliner became interested in aeronautics, in particular the autogiro principle. Applied acoustics was a continued interest, and a tile for controlling the acoustics of large halls was successfully developed in the 1920s.[br]Bibliography16 May 1888, Journal of the Franklin Institute 125 (6) (Lecture of 16 May 1888) (Berliner's early appreciation of his own work).1914, Three Addresses, privately printed (a history of sound recording). US patent no. 372,786 (basic photo-engraving principle).US patent no. 382,790 (scratching and etching).US patent no. 534,543 (hand-cranked gramophone).Further ReadingR.Gelatt, 1977, The Fabulous Phonograph, London: Cassell (a well-researched history of reproducible sound which places Berliner's contribution in its correct perspective). J.R.Smart, 1985, "Emile Berliner and nineteenth-century disc recordings", in WonderfulInventions, ed. Iris Newson, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, pp. 346–59 (provides a reliable account).O.Read and W.L.Welch, 1959, From Tin Foil to Stereo, Indianapolis: Howard W.Sams, pp. 119–35 (provides a vivid account, albeit with less precision).GB-N -
7 Butler, Edward
[br]b. 1863d. 1940[br]English motoring pioneer, designer of a motor tricycle.[br]In 1884 Butler patented a design for a motor tricycle that was shown that year at the Stanley Cycle Show and in the following year at the Inventions Exhibition. In 1887 he patented his "Petrol-tricycle", which was built the following year. The cycle was steered through its two front wheels, while it was driven through its single rear wheel. The motor, which was directly connected to the rear wheel hub by means of overhung cranks, consisted of a pair of water-cooled 2 1/4 in. (57 mm) bore cylinders with an 8 in. (203 mm) stroke working on the Clerk two-stroke cycle. Ignition was by electric spark produced by a wiper breaking contact with the piston, adopted from Butler's own design of electrostatic ignition machine; this was later replaced by a Ruhmkorff coil and a battery. There was insufficient power with direct drive and the low engine speed of c.100 rpm, producing a road speed of approximately 12 mph (19 km/h), so Butler redesigned the engine with a 6 3/4 in. (171 mm) stroke and a four-stroke cycle with an epicyclic reduction gear drive of 4:1 and later 6:1 ratio which could run at 600 rpm. The combination of restrictive speed-limit laws and shortsightedness of his backers prevented development, despite successful road demonstrations. Interest was non-existent by 1895, and the following year this first English internal combustion engined motorcycle was broken up for the scrap value of some 163 lb (74 kg) of copper and brass contained in its structure.[br]Further ReadingC.F.Caunter, 1982, Motor Cycles, 3rd edn, London: HMSO/Science Museum.IMcN -
8 Case, Jerome Increase
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1819 Williamstown, Oswego County, New York, USAd. 1891 USA[br]American manufacturer and founder of the Case company of agricultural engineers.[br]J.I.Case was the son of a former and began his working life operating the family's Groundhog threshing machine. He moved into contract threshing, and used the money he earned to pay his way through a business academy. He became the agent for the Groundhog thresher in his area and at the age of 23 decided to move west, taking six machines with him. He sold five of these to obtain working capital, and in 1842 moved from Williamstown, New York, to Rochester, Wisconsin, where he established his manufacturing company. He produced the first combined thresher-winnower in the US in 1843. Two years later he moved to Racine, on the shores of Lake Michigan in the same state. Within four years the Case company became Racine's biggest company and largest employer, a position it was to retain into the twentieth century. As early as 1860 Case was shipping threshing machines around the Horn to California.Apart from having practical expertise Case was also a skilled demonstrator, and it was this combination which resulted in the sure growth of his company. In 1869 he produced his first portable steam engine and in 1876 his first traction engine. By the mid 1870s he was selling a significant proportion of the machines in use in America. By 1878 Case threshing machines had penetrated the European market, and in 1885 sales to South America began. Case also became the world's largest manufacturer of steam engines.J.I.Case himself, whilst still actively involved with the company, also became involved in politics. He was Mayor of Racine for three terms and State Senator for two. He was also President of the Manufacturers' National Bank of Racine and Founder of the First National Bank of Burlington. He founded the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters and was President of the Racine County Agricultural Society. He had time for sport and was owner of the world's all-time champion trotter-pacer.Continued expansion of the company after J.I. Case's death led eventually to its acquisition by Tenneco in 1967, and in 1985 the company took over International Harvester. As Case I.H. it continues to produce a full range of agricultural, earth-moving and heavy-transport equipment.[br]Further ReadingDespite the size and importance of the company he created, very little has been written about Case. On particular anniversaries the company has produced celebratory publications, and surprisingly these still seem to be the main source of information about him.R.B.Gray, 1975, The Agricultural Tractor 1855–1950, American Society of Agricultural Engineers (traces the history of power on the farm, in which Case and his machines played such an important role).AP -
9 Coade, Eleanor
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]b. 24 June 1733 Exeter, Devon, Englandd. 18 November 1821 Camberwell, London, England[br]English proprietor of the Coade Factory, making artificial stone.[br]Born Elinor Coade, she never married but adopted, as was customary in business in the eighteenth century, the courtesy title of Mrs. Following the bankruptcy and death of her father, George Coade, in Exeter, Eleanor and her mother (also called Eleanor) moved to London and founded the works at Lambeth, South London, in 1769 that later became famous as the Coade factory. The factory was located at King's Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall. During the eighteenth century, several attempts had been made in other businesses to manufacture a durable, malleable artificial stone that would be acceptable to architects for decorative use. These substances were not very successful, but Coade stone was different. Although stories are legion about the secret formula supposedly used in this artificial stone, modern methods have established the exact formula.Coade stone was a stoneware ceramic material fired in a kiln. The body was remarkable in that it shrank only 8 per cent in drying and firing: this was achieved by using a combination of china clay, sand, crushed glass and grog (i.e. crushed and ground, previously fired stoneware). The Coade formula thus included a considerable proportion of material that, having been fired once already, was unshrinkable. Mrs Coade's name for the firm, Coade's Lithodipyra Terra-Cotta or Artificial Stone Manufactory (where "Lithodipyra" is a term derived from three Greek words meaning "stone", "twice" and "fire"), made reference to the custom of including such material (such as in Josiah Wedgwood's basalt and jasper ware). The especially low rate of shrinkage rendered the material ideal for making extra-life-size statuary, and large architectural, decorative features to be incorporated into stone buildings.Coade stone was widely used for such purposes by leading architects in Britain and Ireland from the 1770s until the 1830s, including Robert Adam, Sir Charles Barry, Sir William Chambers, Sir John Soane, John Nash and James Wyatt. Some architects introduced the material abroad, as far as, for example, Charles Bulfinch's United States Bank in Boston, Massachusetts, and Charles Cameron's redecoration for the Empress Catherine of the great palace Tsarkoe Selo (now Pushkin), near St Petersburg. The material so resembles stone that it is often mistaken for it, but it is so hard and resistant to weather that it retains sharpness of detail much longer than the natural substance. The many famous British buildings where Coade stone was used include the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Carlton House and the Sir John Soane Museum (all of which are located in London), St George's Chapel at Windsor, Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, and Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland.Apart from the qualities of the material, the Coade firm established a high reputation for the equally fine quality of its classical statuary. Mrs Coade employed excellent craftsmen such as the sculptor John Bacon (1740–99), whose work was mass-produced by the use of moulds. One famous example which was widely reproduced was the female caryatid from the south porch of the Erechtheion on the acropolis of Athens. A drawing of this had appeared in the second edition of Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens in 1789, and many copies were made from the original Coade model; Soane used them more than once, for example on the Bank of England and his own houses in London.Eleanor Coade was a remarkable woman, and was important and influential on the neo-classical scene. She had close and amicable relations with leading architects of the day, notably Robert Adam and James Wyatt. The Coade factory was enlarged and altered over the years, but the site was finally cleared during 1949–50 in preparation for the establishment of the 1951 Festival of Britain.[br]Further ReadingA.Kelly, 1990, Mrs Coade's Stone, pub. in conjunction with the Georgian Group (an interesting, carefully written history; includes a detailed appendix on architects who used Coade stone and buildings where surviving work may be seen).DY -
10 Dancer, John Benjamin
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1812 Englandd. 1887 England[br]English instrument maker and photographer, pioneer of microphotography.[br]The son of a scientific instrument maker, Dancer was educated privately in Liverpool, where from 1817 his father practised his trade. John Benjamin became a skilled instrument maker in his own right, assisting in the family business until his father's death in 1835. He set up on his own in Liverpool in 1840 and in Manchester in 1841. In the course of his career Dancer made instruments for several of the leading scientists of the day, his clients including Brewster, Dalton and Joule.Dancer became interested in photography as soon as the new art was announced in 1839 and practised the processes of both Talbot and Daguerre. It was later claimed that as early as 1839 he used an achromatic lens combination to produce a minute image on a daguerreotype plate, arguably the world's first microphotograph and the precursor of modern microfilm. It was not until the introduction of Archer's wet-collodion process in 1851 that Dancer was able to perfect the technique however. He went on to market a long series of microphotographs which proved extremely popular with both the public and contemporary photographers. It was examples of Dancer's microphotographs that prompted the French photographer Dagron to begin his work in the same field. In 1853 Dancer constructed a binocular stereoscopic camera, the first practicable instrument of its type. In an improved form it was patented and marketed in 1856.Dancer also made important contributions to the magic lantern. He was the first to suggest the use of limelight as an illuminant, pioneered the use of photographic lantern slides and devised an ingenious means of switching gas from one lantern illuminant to another to produce what were known as dissolving views. He was a resourceful innovator in other fields of instrumentation and suggested several other minor improvements to scientific apparatus before his working life was sadly terminated by the loss of his sight.[br]Further ReadingAnon., 1973, "John Benjamin Dancer, originator of microphotography", British Journal of Photography (16 February): 139–41.H.Gernsheim and A.Gernsheim, 1969, The History of Photography, rev. edn, London.JW -
11 Goldmark, Peter Carl
[br]b. 2 December 1906 Budapest, Hungaryd. 7 December 1977 Westchester Co., New York, USA[br]Austro-Hungarian engineer who developed the first commercial colour television system and the long-playing record.[br]After education in Hungary and a period as an assistant at the Technische Hochschule, Berlin, Goldmark moved to England, where he joined Pye of Cambridge and worked on an experimental thirty-line television system using a cathode ray tube (CRT) for the display. In 1936 he moved to the USA to work at Columbia Broadcasting Laboratories. There, with monochrome television based on the CRT virtually a practical proposition, he devoted his efforts to finding a way of producing colour TV images: in 1940 he gave his first demonstration of a working system. There then followed a series of experimental field-sequential colour TV systems based on segmented red, green and blue colour wheels and drums, where the problem was to find an acceptable compromise between bandwidth, resolution, colour flicker and colour-image breakup. Eventually he arrived at a system using a colour wheel in combination with a CRT containing a panchromatic phosphor screen, with a scanned raster of 405 lines and a primary colour rate of 144 fields per second. Despite the fact that the receivers were bulky, gave relatively poor, dim pictures and used standards totally incompatible with the existing 525-line, sixty fields per second interlaced monochrome (black and white) system, in 1950 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), anxious to encourage postwar revival of the industry, authorized the system for public broadcasting. Within eighteen months, however, bowing to pressure from the remainder of the industry, which had formed its own National Television Systems Committee (NTSC) to develop a much more satisfactory, fully compatible system based on the RCA three-gun shadowmask CRT, the FCC withdrew its approval.While all this was going on, Goldmark had also been working on ideas for overcoming the poor reproduction, noise quality, short playing-time (about four minutes) and limited robustness and life of the long-established 78 rpm 12 in. (30 cm) diameter shellac gramophone record. The recent availability of a new, more robust, plastic material, vinyl, which had a lower surface noise, enabled him in 1948 to reduce the groove width some three times to 0.003 in. (0.0762 mm), use a more lightly loaded synthetic sapphire stylus and crystal transducer with improved performance, and reduce the turntable speed to 33 1/3 rpm, to give thirty minutes of high-quality music per side. This successful development soon led to the availability of stereophonic recordings, based on the ideas of Alan Blumlein at EMI in the 1930s.In 1950 Goldmark became a vice-president of CBS, but he still found time to develop a scan conversion system for relaying television pictures to Earth from the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. He also almost brought to the market a domestic electronic video recorder (EVR) system based on the thermal distortion of plastic film by separate luminance and coded colour signals, but this was overtaken by the video cassette recorder (VCR) system, which uses magnetic tape.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Morris N.Liebmann Award 1945. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Vladimir K. Zworykin Award 1961.Bibliography1951, with J.W.Christensen and J.J.Reeves, "Colour television. USA Standard", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 39: 1,288 (describes the development and standards for the short-lived field-sequential colour TV standard).1949, with R.Snepvangers and W.S.Bachman, "The Columbia long-playing microgroove recording system", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 37:923 (outlines the invention of the long-playing record).Further ReadingE.W.Herold, 1976, "A history of colour television displays", Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 64:1,331.See also: Baird, John LogieKF -
12 Gutenberg, Johann Gensfleisch zum
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. c. 1394–9 Mainz, Germanyd. 3 February 1468 Mainz, Germany[br]German inventor of printing with movable type.[br]Few biographical details are known of Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg, yet it has been said that he was responsible for Germany's most notable contribution to civilization. He was a goldsmith by trade, of a patrician family of the city of Mainz. He seems to have begun experiments on printing while a political exile in Strasbourg c. 1440. He returned to Mainz between 1444 and 1448 and continued his experiments, until by 1450 he had perfected his invention sufficiently to justify raising capital for its commercial exploitation.Circumstances were propitious for the invention of printing at that time. Rises in literacy and prosperity had led to the formation of a social class with the time and resources to develop a taste for reading, and the demand for reading matter had outstripped the ability of the scribes to satisfy it. The various technologies required were well established, and finally the flourishing textile industry was producing enough waste material, rag, to make paper, the only satisfactory and cheap medium for printing. There were others working along similar lines, but it was Gutenberg who achieved the successful adaptation and combination of technologies to arrive at a process by which many identical copies of a text could be produced in a wide variety of forms, of which the book was the most important. Gutenberg did make several technical innovations, however. The two-piece adjustable mould for casting types of varying width, from T to "M", was ingenious. Then he had to devise an oil-based ink suitable for inking metal type, derived from the painting materials developed by contemporary Flemish artists. Finally, probably after many experiments, he arrived at a metal alloy of distinctive composition suitable for casting type.In 1450 Gutenberg borrowed 800 guldens from Johannes Fust, a lawyer of Mainz, and two years later Fust advanced a further 800 guldens, securing for himself a partnership in Gutenberg's business. But in 1455 Fust foreclosed and the bulk of Gutenberg's equipment passed to Peter Schöffer, who was in the service of Fust and later married his daughter. Like most early printers, Gutenberg seems not to have appreciated, or at any rate to have been able to provide for, the great dilemma of the publishing trade, namely the outlay of considerable capital in advance of each publication and the slowness of the return. Gutenberg probably retained only the type for the 42- and 36-line bibles and possibly the Catholicon of 1460, an encyclopedic work compiled in the thirteenth century and whose production pointed the way to printing's role as a means of spreading knowledge. The work concluded with a short descriptive piece, or colophon, which is probably by Gutenberg himself and is the only output of his mind that we have; it manages to omit the names of both author and printer.Gutenberg seems to have abandoned printing after 1460, perhaps due to failing eyesight as well as for financial reasons, and he suffered further loss in the sack of Mainz in 1462. He received a kind of pension from the Archbishop in 1465, and on his death was buried in the Franciscan church in Mainz. The only major work to have issued for certain from Gutenberg's workshop is the great 42-line bible, begun in 1452 and completed by August 1456. The quality of this Graaf piece of printing is a tribute to Gutenberg's ability as a printer, and the soundness of his invention is borne out by the survival of the process as he left it to the world, unchanged for over three hundred years save in minor details.[br]Further ReadingA.Ruppel, 1967, Johannes Gutenberg: sein Leben und sein Werk, 3rd edn, Nieuwkoop: B.de Graaf (the standard biography), A.M.L.de Lamartine, 1960, Gutenberg, inventeur de l'imprimerie, Tallone.Scholderer, 1963, Gutenberg, Inventor of Printing, London: British Museum.S.H.Steinberg, 1974, Five Hundred Years of Printing 3rd edn, London: Penguin (provides briefer details).LRDBiographical history of technology > Gutenberg, Johann Gensfleisch zum
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13 Howe, Elias
[br]b. 9 July 1819 Spencer, Massachusetts, USAd. 3 October 1867 Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA[br]American inventor of one of the earliest successful sewing machines.[br]Son of Elias Howe, a farmer, he acquired his mechanical knowledge in his father's mill. He left school at 12 years of age and was apprenticed for two years in a machine shop in Lowell, Massachusetts, and later to an instrument maker, Ari Davis in Boston, Massachusetts, where his master's services were much in demand by Harvard University. Fired by a desire to invent a sewing machine, he utilized the experience gained in Lowell to devise a shuttle carrying a lower thread and a needle carrying an upper thread to make lock-stitch in straight lines. His attempts were so rewarding that he left his job and was sustained first by his father and then by a partner. By 1845 he had built a machine that worked at 250 stitches per minute, and the following year he patented an improved machine. The invention of the sewing machine had an enormous impact on the textile industry, stimulating demand for cloth because making up garments became so much quicker. The sewing machine was one of the first mass-produced consumer durables and was essentially an American invention. William Thomas, a London manufacturer of shoes, umbrellas and corsets, secured the British rights and persuaded Howe to come to England to apply it to the making of shoes. This Howe did, but he quarrelled with Thomas after less than one year. He returned to America to face with his partner, G.W.Bliss, a bigger fight over his patent (see I.M. Singer), which was being widely infringed. Not until 1854 was the case settled in his favour. This litigation threatened the very existence of the new industry, but the Great Sewing Machine Combination, the first important patent-pooling arrangement in American history, changed all this. For a fee of $5 on every domestically-sold machine and $1 on every exported one, Howe contributed to the pool his patent of 1846 for a grooved eye-pointed needle used in conjunction with a lock-stitch-forming shuttle. Howe's patent was renewed in 1861; he organized and equipped a regiment during the Civil War with the royalties. When the war ended he founded the Howe Machine Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.[br]Further ReadingObituary, 1867, Engineer 24.Obituary, 1867, Practical Magazine 5.F.G.Harrison, 1892–3, Biographical Sketches of Pre-eminent Americans (provides a good account of Howe's life and achievements).N.Salmon, 1863, History of the Sewing Machine from the Year 1750, with a biography of Elias Howe, London (tells the history of sewing machines).F.B.Jewell, 1975, Veteran Sewing Machines, A Collector's Guide, Newton Abbot (a more modern account of the history of sewing machines).C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. V, Oxford: Clarendon Press (covers the mechanical developments).D.A.Hounshell, 1984, From the American System to Mass Production 1800–1932. TheDevelopment of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore (examines the role of the American sewing machine companies in the development of mass-production techniques).RLH -
14 Ilgner, Karl
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 27 July 1862 Neisse, Upper Silesia (now Nysa, Poland)d. 18 January 1921 Berthelsdorf, Silesia[br]German electrical engineer, inventor of a transformer for electromotors.[br]Ilgner graduated from the Gewerbeakademie (the forerunner of the Technical University) in Berlin. As the representative of an electric manufacturing company in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) from 1897, he was confronted with the fact that there were no appropriate drives for hoisting-engines or rolling-plants in steelworks. Two problems prevented the use of high-capacity electric motors in the mining as well as in the iron and steel industry: the reactions of the motors on the circuit at the peak point of stress concentration; and the complicated handling of the control system which raised the risks regarding safety. Having previously been head of the department of electrical power transmission in Hannover, he was concerned with the development of low-speed direct-current motors powered by gas engines.It was Harry Ward Leonard's switchgear for direct-current motors (USA, 1891) that permitted sudden and exact changes in the speed and direction of rotation without causing power loss, as demonstrated in the driving of a rolling sidewalk at the Paris World Fair of 1900. Ilgner connected this switchgear to a large and heavy flywheel which accumulated the kinetic energy from the circuit in order to compensate shock loads. With this combination, electric motors did not need special circuits, which were still weak, because they were working continuously and were regulated individually, so that they could be used for driving hoisting-engines in mines, rolling-plants in steelworks or machinery for producing tools and paper. Ilgner thus made a notable advance in the general progress of electrification.His transformer for hoisting-engines was patented in 1901 and was commercially used inter alia by Siemens \& Halske of Berlin. Their first electrical hoisting-engine for the Zollern II/IV mine in Dortmund gained international reputation at the Düsseldorf exhibition of 1902, and is still preserved in situ in the original machine hall of the mine, which is now a national monument in Germany. Ilgner thereafter worked with several companies to pursue his conception, became a consulting engineer in Vienna and Breslau and had a government post after the First World War in Brussels and Berlin until he retired for health reasons in 1919.[br]Bibliography1901, DRP no. 138, 387 1903, "Der elektrische Antrieb von Reversier-Walzenstraßen", Stahl und Eisen 23:769– 71.Further ReadingW.Kroker, "Karl Ilgner", Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. X, pp. 134–5. W.Philippi, 1924, Elektrizität im Bergbau, Leipzig (a general account).K.Warmbold, 1925, "Der Ilgner-Umformer in Förderanlagen", Kohle und Erz 22:1031–36 (a detailed description).WK -
15 Jacquard, Joseph-Marie
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 7 July 1752 Lyons, Franced. 7 August 1834 Oullines, France[br]French developer of the apparatus named after him and used for selecting complicated patterns in weaving.[br]Jacquard was apprenticed at the age of 12 to bookbinding, and later to type-founding and cutlery. His parents, who had some connection with weaving, left him a small property upon their death. He made some experiments with pattern weaving, but lost all his inheritance; after marrying, he returned to type-founding and cutlery. In 1790 he formed the idea for his machine, but it was forgotten amidst the excitement of the French Revolution, in which he fought for the Revolutionists at the defence of Lyons. The machine he completed in 1801 combined earlier inventions and was for weaving net. He was sent to Paris to demonstrate it at the National Exposition and received a bronze medal. In 1804 Napoleon granted him a patent, a pension of 1,500 francs and a premium on each machine sold. This enabled him to study and work at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers to perfect his mechanism for pattern weaving. A method of selecting any combination of leashes at each shoot of the weft had to be developed, and Jacquard's mechanism was the outcome of various previous inventions. By taking the cards invented by Falcon in 1728 that were punched with holes like the paper of Bouchon in 1725, to select the needles for each pick, and by placing the apparatus above the loom where Vaucanson had put his mechanism, Jacquard combined the best features of earlier inventions. He was not entirely successful because his invention failed in the way it pressed the card against the needles; later modifications by Breton in 1815 and Skola in 1819 were needed before it functioned reliably. However, the advantage of Jacquard's machine was that each pick could be selected much more quickly than on the earlier draw looms, which meant that John Kay's flying shuttle could be introduced on fine pattern looms because the weaver no longer had to wait for the drawboy to sort out the leashes for the next pick. Robert Kay's drop box could also be used with different coloured wefts. The drawboy could be dispensed with because the foot-pedal operating the Jacquard mechanism could be worked by the weaver. Patterns could be changed quickly by replacing one set of cards with another, but the scope of the pattern was more limited than with the draw loom. Some machines that were brought into use aroused bitter hostility. Jacquard suffered physical violence, barely escaping with his life, and his machines were burnt by weavers at Lyons. However, by 1812 his mechanism began to be generally accepted and had been applied to 11,000 draw-looms in France. In 1819 Jacquard received a gold medal and a Cross of Honour for his invention. His machines reached England c.1816 and still remain the basic way of weaving complicated patterns.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFrench Cross of Honour 1819. National Exposition Bronze Medal 1801.Further ReadingA.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London.C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press.R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (covers the introduction of pattern weaving and the power loom).RLH -
16 Johansson, Carl Edvard
[br]b. 15 March 1864 Orebro, Swedend. 30 September 1943 Eskilstuna, Sweden[br]Swedish metrologist and inventor of measuring-gauge blocks.[br]Carl Edvard Johansson was first apprenticed to a shoemaker, but he soon abandoned that career. In 1882 he went to America to join his brother Arvid working at a sawmill in the summer; in winter the brothers obtained further general education at the Gustavus Adolphus College at St Peter, Minnesota. They returned to Sweden in November 1884 and in the following year Carl obtained employment with a small engineering firm which rented a workshop in the government small-arms factory at Eskilstuna. In his spare time he attended the Eskilstuna Technical College and in 1888 he was accepted as an apprentice armourer inspector. After completion of his apprenticeship he was appointed an armourer inspector, and it was in his work of inspection that he realized that the large number of gauges then required could be reduced if several accurate gauges could be used in combination. This was in 1896, and the first set of gauges was made for use in the rifle factory. With these, any dimension between 1 mm and 201 mm could be made up to the nearest 0.01 mm, the gauges having flat polished surfaces that would adhere together by "wringing". Johansson obtained patents for the system from 1901, but it was not until c.1907 that the sets of gauges were marketed generally. Gauges were made in inch units for Britain and America—slightly different as the standards were not then identical. Johansson formed his own company to manufacture the gauges in 1910, but he did not give up his post in the rifle factory until 1914. By the 1920s Johansson gauges were established as the engineering dimensional standards for the whole world; the company also made other precision measuring instruments such as micrometers and extensometers. A new company, C.E.Johansson Inc., was set up in America for manufacture and sales, and the gauges were extensively used in the American automobile industry. Henry Ford took a special interest and Johansson spent several years in a post with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, until he returned to Sweden in 1936.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary Doctorates, Gustavus Adolphus College, St Peter and Wayne University, Detroit. Swedish Engineering Society John Ericsson Gold Medal. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Gold Medal.Further ReadingK.J.Hume, 1980, A History of Engineering Metrology, London, pp. 54–66 (a short biography).RTS -
17 Krylov, Alexei Nicolaevitch
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 15 August 1863 Visyoger, Siberiad. 26 October 1945 Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russia[br]Russian academician and naval architect) exponent of a rigorous mathematical approach to the study of ship motions.[br]After schooling in France and Germany, Krylov returned to St Petersburg (as it then was) and in 1878 entered the Naval College. Upon graduating, he started work with the Naval Hydrographic Department; the combination of his genius and breadth of interest became apparent, and from 1888 until 1890 he undertook simultaneously a two-year university course in mathematics and a naval architecture course at his old college. On completion of his formal studies, Krylov commenced fifty years of service to the academic bodies of St Petersburg, including eight years as Superintendent of the Russian Admiralty Ship Model Experiment Tank. For many years he was Professor of Naval Architecture in the city, reorganizing the methods of teaching of his profession in Russia. It was during this period that he laid the foundations of his remarkable research and published the first of his many books destined to become internationally accepted in the fields of waves, rolling, ship motion and vibration. Practical work was not overlooked: he was responsible for the design of many vessels for the Imperial Russian Navy, including the battleships Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk, and went on, as Director of Naval Construction, to test anti-rolling tanks aboard military vessels in the North Atlantic in 1913. Following the Revolution, Krylov was employed by the Soviet Union to re-establish scientific links with other European countries, and on several occasions he acted as Superintendent in the procurement of important technical material from overseas. In 1919 he was appointed Head of the Marine Academy, and from then on participated in many scientific conferences and commissions, mainly in the shipbuilding field, and served on the Editorial Board of the well-respected Russian periodical Sudostroenie (Shipbuilding). The breadth of his personal research was demonstrated by the notable contributions he made to the Russian development of the gyro compass.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember, Russian Academy of Science 1814. Royal Institution of Naval Architects Gold Medal 1898. State Prize of the Soviet Union (first degree). Stalin Premium for work on compass deviation.BibliographyKrylov published more than 500 books, papers and articles; these have been collected and published in twelve volumes by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 1942, My Memories (autobiography).AK / FMWBiographical history of technology > Krylov, Alexei Nicolaevitch
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18 Le Chatelier, Henri Louis
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 8 November 1850 Paris, Franced. 17 September 1926 Miribel-les-Echelle, France[br]French inventor of the rhodium—platinum thermocouple and the first practical optical pyrometer, and pioneer of physical metallurgy.[br]The son of a distinguished engineer, Le Chatelier entered the Ecole Polytechnique in 1869: after graduating in the Faculty of Mines, he was appointed Professor at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines in 1877. After assisting Deville with the purification of bauxite in unsuccessful attempts to obtain aluminium in useful quantities, Le Chatelier's work covered a wide range of topics and he gave much attention to the driving forces of chemical reactions. Between 1879 and 1882 he studied the mechanisms of explosions in mines, and his doctorate in 1882 was concerned with the chemistry and properties of hydraulic cements. The dehydration of such materials was studied by thermal analysis and dilatometry. Accurate temperature measurement was crucial and his work on the stability of thermocouples, begun in 1886, soon established the superiority of rhodium-platinum alloys for high-temperature measurement. The most stable combination, pure platinum coupled with a 10 per cent rhodium platinum positive limb, became known as Le Chatelier couple and was in general use throughout the industrial world until c. 1922. For applications where thermocouples could not be used, Le Chatelier also developed the first practical optical pyrometer. From hydraulic cements he moved on to refractory and other ceramic materials which were also studied by thermal analysis and dilatometry. By 1888 he was systematically applying such techniques to metals and alloys. Le Chatelier, together with Osmond, Worth, Genet and Charpy, was a leading member of that group of French investigators who established the new science of physical metallurgy between 1888 and 1900. Le Chatelier was determining the recalescence points in steels in 1888 and was among the first to study intermetallic compounds in a systematic manner. To facilitate such work he introduced the inverted microscope, upon which metallographers still depend for the routine examination of polished and etched metallurgical specimens under incident light. The principle of mobile equilibrium, developed independently by Le Chatelier in 1885 and F.Braun in 1886, stated that if one parameter in an equilibrium situation changed, the equilibrium point of the system would move in a direction which tended to reduce the effect of this change. This provided a useful qualitative working tool for the experimentalists, and was soon used with great effect by Haber in his work on the synthesis of ammonia.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsGrand Officier de la Légion d'honneur. Honorary Member of the Institute of Metals 1912. Iron and Steel Institute Bessemer Medal.Further ReadingF.Le Chatelier, 1969, Henri Le Chatelier.C.K.Burgess and H.L.Le Chatelier, The Measurement of High Temperature.ASDBiographical history of technology > Le Chatelier, Henri Louis
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19 Marsden, Samuel
[br]b. 1764 Parsley, Yorkshire, Englandd. 1838 Australia[br]English farmer whose breeding programme established the Australian wool industry.[br]Although his father was a farmer, at the age of 10 Samuel Marsden went to work as a blacksmith, and continued in that trade for ten years. He then decided to go into the Church, was educated at Hull Grammar School and Cambridge, and was ordained in 1793. He then emigrated to Australia, where he took up an appointment as Assistant Chaplain to the Colony. He was stationed at Parramatta, where he was granted 100 acres and bought a further 128 acres himself. In 1800 he became Principal Chaplain, and by 1802 he farmed the third largest farm in the colony. Initially he was able to obtain only two Marino rams and was forced to crossbreed with imported Indian stock. However, with this combination he was able to improve wool quality dramatically, and this stock provided the basis of his breeding stock. In 1807 he returned to Britain, taking 160 lb of wool with him. This was woven into 40 yards (36.5 m) of cloth in a mill near Leeds, and from this Marsden had a suit made which he wore when he visited George III. The latter was so impressed with the cloth that he presented Marsden with five Marino ewes in lamb, with which he returned to Australia. By 1811 he was sending more than 5,000 lb of wool back to the UK each year. In 1814 Marsden concentrated more on Church matters and made the first of seven missionary visits to New Zealand. He made the last of these excursions the year before his death.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsVice-President, New South Wales Agricultural Society (on its foundation) 1821.Further ReadingMichael Ryder, 1983, Sheep and Man, Duckworth (a definitive study on sheep history that deals in detail with Marsden's developments).AP -
20 Parseval, August von
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1861d. 22 February 1942 Berlin, Germany[br]German designer of tethered observation balloons and non-rigid airships.[br]Major von Parseval and his colleague Captain von Sigsfeld were serving in the German army during the 1890s when improved military observation from the air was being pursued. Tethered observation balloons, raised and lowered by a winch, had been used since 1794, but in strong winds a spherical balloon became very unstable. Manned kites were being developed by "Colonel" S.F. Cody, in Britain, and others, but kites were a problem if the wind dropped. A very successful compromise was achieved in 1897 by von Parseval and von Sigsfeld, who developed a kite-balloon, the Drachen ("Dragon"), which was elongated like an airship and fitted with large inflated fins. It was attached to its tethering cable in such a way that it flew with a positive incidence (nose up) to the wind, thus producing some lift—like a kite. The combination of these factors made the kite-balloon very stable. Other countries followed suit and a version designed by the Frenchman Albert Caquot was widely used during the First World War for observing the results of artillery fire. Caquot balloons were also used around London as a barrage to obstruct enemy aircraft, and "barrage balloons" were widely used during the Second World War. After working at a government balloon factory in Berlin where non-rigid airships were built, von Parseval designed his own non-rigid airship. The Parseval I which flew in 1906 was small, but larger and faster non-rigids followed. These were built by Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft m.b.H. of Berlin founded in 1908 to build and operate Parseval airships. The British Admiralty ordered three Parseval airships, two to be built by Vickers of Barrow (who had built the rigid airship R 1 Mayfly in 1911), and one to be built in Berlin. This one was flown from Berlin to Farnborough in 1913 and joined the Vickers-built Parseval in the Naval Air Service. During the First World War, Parseval airships had the unique distinction of serving on both sides. Three small Parseval airships were built between 1929 and 1932 for use in advertising.[br]Further ReadingA.Hildebrandt, 1908, Airships Past and Present, London (describes the kite-balloon). Fred Gütschow, 1985, Das Luftschiff, Stuttgart (includes a record of all the airships). Basil Clarke, 1961, The History of Airships, London (provides limited coverage of von Parseval's work).Basil Collier, 1974, The Airship: A History, London (provides limited coverage of von Parseval's work).
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