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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

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Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.

It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.

Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.

In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.

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See also: Pilcher, Percy Sinclair

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Mercer began work at the age of 9 as a bobbinwinder and then a hand-loom weaver. He had no formal education in chemistry but taught himself and revealed remarkable ability in both theoretical and applied aspects of the subject. He became the acknowledged "father of textile chemistry" and the Royal Society elected him Fellow in 1850. His name is remembered in connection with the lustrous "mercerized" cotton which, although not developed commercially until 1890, arose from his discovery, c. 1844, of the effect of caustic soda on cotton linters. He also discovered that cotton could be dissolved in a solution of copper oxide in ammonia, a phenomenon later exploited in the manufacture of artificial silk. As a youth, Mercer experimented at home with dyeing processes and soon acquired sufficient skill to set up as an independent dyer. Most of his working life was, however, spent with the calico-printing firm of Oakenshaw Print Works in which he eventually became a partner, and it was there that most of his experimental work was done. The association was a very appropriate one, for it was a member of this firm's staff who first recognized Mercer's potential talent and took the trouble in his spare time to teach him reading, writing and arithmetic. Mercer developed manganese-bronze colours and researched into catalysis and the ferrocyanides. Among his innovations was the chlorination of wool in order to make it print as easily as cotton. It was many years later that it was realized that this treatment also conferred valuable shrink-resisting qualities. Becoming interested in photochemistry, he devised processes for photographic printing on fabric. Queen Victoria was presented with a handkerchief printed in this way when she visited the Great Exhibition of 1851, of which Mercer was a juror. A photograph of Mercer himself on cloth is preserved in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. He presented papers to the British Association and was a member of the Chemical Society.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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Agricola was a physician, scientist and metallurgist of note and it was this which led to the publication of De Re Metallica. He studied at Leipzig University and between 1518 and 1522 he was a school teacher in Zwickau. Eventually he settled as a physician in Chemnitz. Later he continued his medical practice at Joachimstal in the Erzgebirge. This town was newly built to serve the mining community in what was at the time the most important ore-mining field in both Germany and Europe.

As a physician in the sixteenth century he would naturally have been concerned with the development of medicines, which would have led him to research the medical properties of ores and base metals. He studied the mineralogy of his area, and the mines, and the miners who were working there. He wrote several books in Latin on geology and mineralogy. His important work during that period was a glossary of mineralogical and mining terms in both Latin and German. It is, however, De Re Metallica for which he is best known. This large volume contains twelve books which deal with mining and metallurgy, including an account of glassmaking. Whilst one can understand the text of this book very easily, the quality of the illustrative woodcuts should not be neglected. These illustrations detail the mines, furnaces, forges and the plant associated with them, unfortunately the name of the artist is unknown. The importance of the work lies in the fact that it is an assemblage of information on all the methods and practices current at that time. The book was clearly intended as a textbook of mining and mineralogy and as such it would have been brought to England by German engineers when they were employed by the Mines Royal in the Keswick area in the late sixteenth century. In addition to his studies in preparation for De Re Metallica, Agricola was an "adventurer" holding shares in the Gottesgab mine in the Erzegebirge.

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SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

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As with the Renaissance artists and architects of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Italy, Boulle worked as a young man in varied media, as a painter, engraver and metalworker an in mosaic techniques. It was in the 1660s that he turned more specifically to furniture and in the following decade, under the patronage of Louis XIV, that he became a leading ébéniste or cabinet-maker, In 1672 the King's Controller-General, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, recommended Boulle as an outstanding cabinet-maker and he was appointed ébéniste du roi. From then he spent the rest of his life working in the royal palaces, notably the Louvre and Versailles, and also carried out commissions for the French aristocracy and from abroad, particularly Spain and Germany.

Before the advent of Boulle, the quality furniture made for the French court and aristocracy had come from foreign craftsmen, particularly Domenico Cucci of Italy and Pierre Colle of the Low Countries. Boulle made his name as their equal in his development of new forms of furniture such as his bureaux and commodes, the immense variety of his designs and their architectural quality, the beauty of his sculptural, gilded mounts, and the development of his elaborate marquetry. He was a leading exponent of the contemporary styles, which meant the elaborately rich baroque forms in the time of Louis XIV and the more delicate rococo elegance in that of Louis XV. The technique to which Boulle gave his name (sometimes referred to in its German spelling of Bühl) incorporated a rich variety of veneering materials into his designs: in particular, he used tortoiseshell and brass with ebony. Even greater richness was created with the introduction of an engraved design upon the brass surfaces. Further delicate elaboration derived from the use of paired panels of decoration to be used in reverse form in one piece, or two matching pieces, of furniture. In one panel, designated as première partie, the marquetry took the form of brass upon tortoiseshell, while in the other (contre-partie) the tortoiseshell was set into the brass background.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Joseph Crossley was the second son of John, the founder of a carpet-weaving firm in Halifax. He did not figure much in public life for he was essentially a business man. It was under his direct superintendence that most of the extensions at Dean Clough Mill, Halifax, were built, and to a very great degree the successful working of the vast establishment that these mills became, covering fifteen acres, was due to him. In 1864 the firm became a limited-liability company, worth over a million pounds c.1880.

The company's vital patents for the power-driven carpet looms were taken out in his name. The first, in 1850 in the names of Joseph Crossley, George Collier and James Hudson, was for weaving carpets in a manner similar to the way velvet was woven, with the pile warp threads passing over wires. After a couple of picks of weft, a wire was inserted from the side over the main warp threads but under the pile warp threads. These were lowered and another couple of weft shoots bound in the pile warp. The pile was cut with a knife running along a slot in the top of the wire, and then the wire was removed. There was a further patent in 1851, in the name of Joseph Crossley alone, for improvements in the manufacture of Brussels and cut-pile carpets. An interesting part of this patent was the use of a partly coloured warp to make patterns in the carpets. These vital patents gave the Crossley brothers their dominance in carpet weaving; production on their power looms was six times quicker than by hand. Like his brothers, one of whom was Francis Crossley, he was a great benefactor to charities. The brothers built the Crossley Orphan Home at a cost of £50,000 and endowed it with about £3,000 a year.

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SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Photography, film and optics, Recording, Telecommunications

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De Forest was born into the family of a Congregational minister that moved to Alabama in 1879 when the father became President of a college for African-Americans; this was a position that led to the family's social ostracism by the white community. By the time he was 13 years old, De Forest was already a keen mechanical inventor, and in 1893, rejecting his father's plan for him to become a clergyman, he entered the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Following his first degree, he went on to study the propagation of electromagnetic waves, gaining a PhD in physics in 1899 for his thesis on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", probably the first US thesis in the field of radio.

He then joined the Western Electric Company in Chicago where he helped develop the infant technology of wireless, working his way up from a modest post in the production area to a position in the experimental laboratory. There, working alone after normal working hours, he developed a detector of electromagnetic waves based on an electrolytic device similar to that already invented by Fleming in England. Recognizing his talents, a number of financial backers enabled him to set up his own business in 1902 under the name of De Forest Wireless Telegraphy Company; he was soon demonstrating wireless telegraphy to interested parties and entering into competition with the American Marconi Company.

Despite the failure of this company because of fraud by his partners, he continued his experiments; in 1907, by adding a third electrode, a wire mesh, between the anode and cathode of the thermionic diode invented by Fleming in 1904, he was able to produce the amplifying device now known as the triode valve and achieve a sensitivity of radio-signal reception much greater than possible with the passive carborundum and electrolytic detectors hitherto available. Patented under the name Audion, this new vacuum device was soon successfully used for experimental broadcasts of music and speech in New York and Paris. The invention of the Audion has been described as the beginning of the electronic era. Although much development work was required before its full potential was realized, the Audion opened the way to progress in all areas of sound transmission, recording and reproduction. The patent was challenged by Fleming and it was not until 1943 that De Forest's claim was finally recognized.

Overcoming the near failure of his new company, the De Forest Radio Telephone Company, as well as unsuccessful charges of fraudulent promotion of the Audion, he continued to exploit the potential of his invention. By 1912 he had used transformer-coupling of several Audion stages to achieve high gain at radio frequencies, making long-distance communication a practical proposition, and had applied positive feedback from the Audion output anode to its input grid to realize a stable transmitter oscillator and modulator. These successes led to prolonged patent litigation with Edwin Armstrong and others, and he eventually sold the manufacturing rights, in retrospect often for a pittance.

During the early 1920s De Forest began a fruitful association with T.W.Case, who for around ten years had been working to perfect a moving-picture sound system. De Forest claimed to have had an interest in sound films as early as 1900, and Case now began to supply him with photoelectric cells and primitive sound cameras. He eventually devised a variable-density sound-on-film system utilizing a glow-discharge modulator, the Photion. By 1926 De Forest's Phonofilm had been successfully demonstrated in over fifty theatres and this system became the basis of Movietone. Though his ideas were on the right lines, the technology was insufficiently developed and it was left to others to produce a system acceptable to the film industry. However, De Forest had played a key role in transforming the nature of the film industry; within a space of five years the production of silent films had all but ceased.

In the following decade De Forest applied the Audion to the development of medical diathermy. Finally, after spending most of his working life as an independent inventor and entrepreneur, he worked for a time during the Second World War at the Bell Telephone Laboratories on military applications of electronics.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Synthetic materials, Textiles

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The introduction of one type of artificial fibre encouraged chemists to look for more. J.T.Dickson and J.R. Whinfield discovered one such fibre in 1941 when they derived polyester from terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. Dickson, a 21-year-old Edinburgh graduate, was working under Whinfield at the Calico Printers' Association research laboratory at Broad Oak Print Works in Accrington. He was put onto fibre research: probably in April, but certainly by 5 July 1941, a murky-looking resin had been synthesized, out of which Dickson successfully drew a filament, which was named "Terylene" by its discoverers. Owing to restrictions imposed in Britain during the Second World War, this fibre was developed initially by the DuPont Company in the USA, where it was marketed under the name "Dacron". When Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) were able to manufacture it in Britain, it acquired the brand name "Terylene" and became very popular. Under the microscope, Terylene appears identical to nylon: longitudinally, it is completely devoid of any structure and the filaments appear as glass rods with a perfectly circular cross-section. The uses of Terylene are similar to those of nylon, but it has two advantages. First, it can be heat-set by exposing the fabric to a temperature about 30°C higher than is likely to be encountered in everyday use, and therefore can be the basis for "easy-care" clothing such as drip-dry shirts. It can be blended with other fibres such as wool, and when pressed at a high temperature the creases are remarkably durable. It is also remarkably resistant to chemicals, which makes it particularly suitable for industrial purposes under conditions where other textile materials would be degraded rapidly. Dickson later worked for ICI.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Coming from a family that had originated in East Anglia, his first name was that of an early British king and was to typify his unusual and refreshing zest for life. Fox commenced his professional career as an apprentice with the flying boat and high-speed craft builders Messrs S.E.Saunders, and shortly after the outbreak of the First World War he was conscripted into the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1920 he made his first transatlantic crossing under sail, a much greater adventure then than now, and returned to the United Kingdom as deck-hand on a ship bound for Liverpool. He was to make the crossing under sail twice more. Shortly after his marriage in 1925, he purchased the old Floating Bridge at Cowes and converted it to living accommodation, workshops and drawing offices. By the 1930s his life's work was in full swing, with designs coming off his drawing board for some of the most outstanding mass-produced craft ever built, as well as for some remarkable one-off yachts. His experimentation with every kind of sailing craft, and even with the Eskimo kayak, gave him the knowledge and experience that made his name known worldwide. During the Second World War he designed and produced the world's first airborne parachuted lifeboat. Despite what could be described as a robust lifestyle, coupled with interests in music, art and horseriding, Fox continued to produce great designs and in the late 1940s he introduced the Firefly, followed by the beautiful Flying Fifteen class of racing keel boats. One of his most unusual vessels was Britannia, the 24 ft (7.3 m) waterline craft that John Fairfax was to row across the Atlantic. Later came Britannia II, which Fairfax took across the Pacific!

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After Menzies conceived his idea of breaking off coal with machines in 1761, many inventors subsequently followed his proposals through into the practice of underground working. More than one century later, Garforth became one of the principal pioneers of machine-holing combined with the longwall method of working in order to reduce production costs and increase the yield of coal. Having been appointed agent to Pope \& Pearson's Collieries, West Yorkshire, in 1879, of which company he later became Managing Director and Chairman, he gathered a great deal of experience with different methods of cutting coal. The first disc machine was exhibited in London as early as 1851, and ten years later a pick machine was invented. In 1893 he introduced an improved type of deep undercutting machine, his "diamond" disc coal-cutter, driven by compressed air, which also became popular on the European continent.

Besides the considerable economic advantages it created, the use of machinery for mining coal increased the safety of working in hard and thin seams. The improvement of safety in mining technology was always his primary concern, and as a result of his inventions and his many publications he became the leading figure in the British coal mining industry at the beginning of the twentieth century; safety lamps still carry his name. In 1885 he invented a firedamp detector, and following a severe explosion in 1886 he concentrated on coal-dust experiments. From the information he obtained of the effect of stone-dust on a coal-dust explosion he proposed the stone-dust remedy to prevent explosions of coal-dust. As a result of discussions which lasted for decades and after he had been entrusted with the job of conducting the British coal-dust experiments, in 1921 an Act made it compulsory in all mines which were not naturally wet throughout to treat all roads with incombustible dust so as to ensure that the dust always consisted of a mixture containing not more than 50 per cent combustible matter. In 1901 Garforth erected a surface gallery which represented the damaged roadways of a mine and could be filled with noxious fumes to test self-contained breathing apparata. This gallery formed the model from which all the rescue-stations existing nowadays have been developed.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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The name Joseph Gillott became synonymous with pen making at a time when the basic equipment for writing was undergoing a change. The quill pen had served writers for centuries, but attempts had been made since the seventeenth century to improve on it. The first major technical development was the steel nib, which began to be made c.1829. The steel nib was still little known in Birmingham in 1839, but ten years later it was in common use. Its stiffness was at first a drawback, but Gillott was among the first to improve its flexibility by introducing three slots, which later became standard practice. Mechanical methods of manufacture made the pen cheaper and improved its quality. In 1840 Gillott issued a "precept" informing the public that he was pen maker to the Queen and that he had been manufacturing pens for twenty years at his Victoria Works in Birmingham. He announced the successful reception by the public of his new patent pen. There were also special "warranted school" pens designed for the various grades of writing taught in schools. Finally, he warned against inferior imitations and recommended the public to buy only those pens stamped with his name.

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SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

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Frank Hornby left school at the age of 16 and worked as a clerk, at first for his father, a provision merchant, and later for D.H.Elliott, an importer of meat and livestock, for whom he became Managing Clerk. As a youth he was interested in engineering and in his own small workshop he became a skilled amateur mechanic. He made toys for his children and c.1900 he devised a constructional toy kit consisting of perforated metal strips which could be connected by bolts and nuts. He filed a patent application in January 1901 and, having failed to interest established toy manufacturers, he set up a small business in partnership with his employer, D.H. Elliott, who provided financial support. The kits were sold at first under the name of Mechanics Made Easy, but by 1907 the name Meccano had been registered as a trade mark. The business expanded rapidly and in 1908 Elliott withdrew from the partnership and Hornby continued on his own account, the company being incorporated as Meccano Ltd. Although parts for Meccano were produced at first by various manufacturers, Hornby soon acquired premises to produce all the components under his own control, and between 1910 and 1913 he established his own factory on a 5-acre (2-hectare) site at Binn's Road, Liverpool. The Meccano Magazine, a monthly publication with articles of general engineering interest, developed from a newsletter giving advice on the use of Meccano, and from the first issue in 1916 until 1924 was edited by Frank Hornby. In 1920 he introduced the clockwork Hornby trains, followed by the electric version five years later. These were gauge "0" (1 1/4 in./32 mm); the smaller gauge "00", or Hornby Dublo, was a later development. Another product of Meccano Ltd was the series of model vehicles known as Dinky toys, introduced in 1934.

Frank Hornby served as a Member of Parliament for the Everton Division of Liverpool from 1931 to 1935.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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The name of Le Corbusier is synonymous with the International style of modern architecture and city planning, one utilizing functionalist designs carried out in twentieth-century materials with modern methods of construction. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, born in the watch-making town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Jura mountain region, was the son of a watch engraver and dial painter. In the years before 1918 he travelled widely, studying building in many countries. He learned about the use of reinforced concrete in the studio of Auguste Perret and about industrial construction under Peter Behrens. In 1917 he went to live in Paris and spent the rest of his life in France; in 1920 he adopted the name of Le Corbusier, one derived from that of his ancestors (Le Corbesier), and ten years later became a French citizen.

Le Corbusier's long working life spanned a career divided into three distinct parts. Between 1905 and 1916 he designed a number of simple and increasingly modern houses; the years 1921 to 1940 were ones of research and debate; and the twenty years from 1945 saw the blossoming of his genius. After 1917 Le Corbusier gained a reputation in Paris as an architect of advanced originality. He was particularly interested in low-cost housing and in improving accommodation for the poor. In 1923 he published Vers une architecture, in which he planned estates of mass-produced houses where all extraneous and unnecessary features were stripped away and the houses had flat roofs and plain walls: his concept of "a machine for living in". These white boxes were lifted up on stilts, his pilotis, and double-height living space was provided internally, enclosed by large areas of factory glazing. In 1922 Le Corbusier exhibited a city plan, La Ville contemporaine, in which tall blocks made from steel and concrete were set amongst large areas of parkland, replacing the older concept of city slums with the light and air of modern living. In 1925 he published Urbanisme, further developing his socialist ideals. These constituted a major reform of the industrial-city pattern, but the ideas were not taken up at that time. The Depression years of the 1930s severely curtailed architectural activity in France. Le Corbusier designed houses for the wealthy there, but most of his work prior to 1945 was overseas: his Centrosoyus Administration Building in Moscow (1929–36) and the Ministry of Education Building in Rio de Janeiro (1943) are examples. Immediately after the end of the Second World War Le Corbusier won international fame for his Unité d'habitation theme, the first example of which was built in the boulevard Michelet in Marseille in 1947–52. His answer to the problem of accommodating large numbers of people in a small space at low cost was to construct an immense all-purpose block of pre-cast concrete slabs carried on a row of massive central supports. The Marseille Unité contains 350 apartments in eight double storeys, with a storey for shops half-way up and communal facilities on the roof. In 1950 he published Le Modular, which described a system of measurement based upon the human male figure. From this was derived a relationship of human and mathematical proportions; this concept, together with the extensive use of various forms of concrete, was fundamental to Le Corbusier's later work. In the world-famous and highly personal Pilgrimage Church of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp (1950–5), Le Corbusier's work was in Expressionist form, a plastic design in massive rough-cast concrete, its interior brilliantly designed and lit. His other equally famous, though less popular, ecclesiastical commission showed a contrasting theme, of "brutalist" concrete construction with uncompromisingly stark, rectangular forms. This is the Dominican Convent of Sainte Marie de la Tourette at Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle near Lyon, begun in 1956. The interior, in particular, is carefully worked out, and the lighting, from both natural and artificial sources, is indirect, angled in many directions to illuminate vistas and planes. All surfaces are carefully sloped, the angles meticulously calculated to give optimum visual effect. The crypt, below the raised choir, is painted in bright colours and lit from ceiling oculi.

One of Le Corbusier's late works, the Convent is a tour de force.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Lister was descended from one of the old Yorkshire families, the Cunliffe Listers of Manningham, and was the fourth son of his father Ellis. After attending a school on Clapham Common, Lister would not go to university; his family hoped he would enter the Church, but instead he started work with the Liverpool merchants Sands, Turner \& Co., who frequently sent him to America. In 1837 his father built for him and his brother a worsted mill at Manningham, where Samuel invented a swivel shuttle and a machine for making fringes on shawls. It was here that he first became aware of the unhealthy occupation of combing wool by hand. Four years later, after seeing the machine that G.E. Donisthorpe was trying to work out, he turned his attention to mechanizing wool-combing. Lister took Donisthorpe into partnership after paying him £12,000 for his patent, and developed the Lister-Cartwright "square nip" comber. Until this time, combing machines were little different from Cartwright's original, but Lister was able to improve on this with continuous operation and by 1843 was combing the first fine botany wool that had ever been combed by machinery. In the following year he received an order for fifty machines to comb all qualities of wool. Further combing patents were taken out with Donisthorpe in 1849, 1850, 1851 and 1852, the last two being in Lister's name only. One of the important features of these patents was the provision of a gripping device or "nip" which held the wool fibres at one end while the rest of the tuft was being combed. Lister was soon running nine combing mills. In the 1850s Lister had become involved in disputes with others who held combing patents, such as his associate Isaac Holden and the Frenchman Josué Heilmann. Lister bought up the Heilmann machine patents and afterwards other types until he obtained a complete monopoly of combing machines before the patents expired. His invention stimulated demand for wool by cheapening the product and gave a vital boost to the Australian wool trade. By 1856 he was at the head of a wool-combing business such as had never been seen before, with mills at Manningham, Bradford, Halifax, Keighley and other places in the West Riding, as well as abroad.

His inventive genius also extended to other fields. In 1848 he patented automatic compressed air brakes for railways, and in 1853 alone he took out twelve patents for various textile machines. He then tried to spin waste silk and made a second commercial career, turning what was called "chassum" and hitherto regarded as refuse into beautiful velvets, silks, plush and other fine materials. Waste silk consisted of cocoon remnants from the reeling process, damaged cocoons and fibres rejected from other processes. There was also wild silk obtained from uncultivated worms. This is what Lister saw in a London warehouse as a mass of knotty, dirty, impure stuff, full of bits of stick and dead mulberry leaves, which he bought for a halfpenny a pound. He spent ten years trying to solve the problems, but after a loss of £250,000 and desertion by his partner his machine caught on in 1865 and brought Lister another fortune. Having failed to comb this waste silk, Lister turned his attention to the idea of "dressing" it and separating the qualities automatically. He patented a machine in 1877 that gave a graduated combing. To weave his new silk, he imported from Spain to Bradford, together with its inventor Jose Reixach, a velvet loom that was still giving trouble. It wove two fabrics face to face, but the problem lay in separating the layers so that the pile remained regular in length. Eventually Lister was inspired by watching a scissors grinder in the street to use small emery wheels to sharpen the cutters that divided the layers of fabric. Lister took out several patents for this loom in his own name in 1868 and 1869, while in 1871 he took out one jointly with Reixach. It is said that he spent £29,000 over an eleven-year period on this loom, but this was more than recouped from the sale of reasonably priced high-quality velvets and plushes once success was achieved. Manningham mills were greatly enlarged to accommodate this new manufacture.

In later years Lister had an annual profit from his mills of £250,000, much of which was presented to Bradford city in gifts such as Lister Park, the original home of the Listers. He was connected with the Bradford Chamber of Commerce for many years and held the position of President of the Fair Trade League for some time. In 1887 he became High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and in 1891 he was made 1st Baron Masham. He was also Deputy Lieutenant in North and West Riding.

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SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

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Maughan was a decorative painter in the Clerkenwell district of London. He invented the first instantaneous domestic water-heater, which did not utilize solid fuel. He christened his device a geyser, taking the name from the Icelandic word geysir, which is the name of a specific hot spring there and means "gusher". He patented the geyser on 23 December 1868. In his design the cold water entered from the top of the apparatus, then flowed downwards by means of constricting wires to be heated by hot gases rising from the burner below. Hot water then flowed into the bath or sink. No flue was fitted to conduct tainted air and gases from the bathroom. An impressive example of Maughan's geyser is on display in the Science Museum in London. The fittings are of brass and the casing is painted in marbled green, it stands on three curved legs and displays the Royal Arms.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Orphaned at the age of 10, Maybach was destined to become one of the world's most renowned engine designers. From 1868 he was apprenticed as a draughtsman at the Briiderhaus Engineering Works in Reurlingen, where his talents were recognized by Gottlieb Daimler, who was Manager and Technical Director. Nikolaus Otto had by then developed his atmospheric engine and reorganized his company, Otto \& Langen, into Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, of which he appointed Daimler Manager. After employment at a machine builders in Karlsruhe, in 1872 Maybach followed Daimler to Deutz where he worked as a partner on the design of high-speed engines: his engines ran at up to 900 rpm, some three times as fast as conventional engines of the time. Maybach made improvements to the timing, carburation and other features. In 1881 Daimler left the Deutz Company and set up on his own as a freelance inventor, moving with his family to Bad Cannstatt; in April 1882 Maybach joined him as Engineer and Designer to set up a partnership to develop lightweight high-speed engines suitable for vehicles. A motor cycle appeared in 1885 and a modified horse-drawn carriage was fitted with a Maybach engine in 1886. Other applications to small boats, fire-engine pumps and small locomotives quickly followed, and the Vee engine of 1890 that was fitted into the French Peugeot automobiles had a profound effect upon the new sport of motor racing. In 1895 Daimler won the first international motor race and the same year Maybach became Technical Director of the Daimler firm. In 1899 Emil Jellinek, Daimler agent in France and also Austro-Hungarian consul, required a car to compete with Panhard and Levassor, who had been victorious in the Paris-Bordeaux race; he wanted more power and a lower centre of gravity, and turned to Maybach with his requirements, the 35 hp Daimler- Simplex of 1901 being the outcome. Its performance and road holding superseded those of all others at the time; it was so successful that Jellinek immediately placed an order for thirty-six cars. His daughter's name was Mercedes, after whom, when the merger of Daimler and Benz came about, the name Mercedes-Benz was adopted.

In his later years, Maybach designed the engine for the Zeppelin airships. He retired from the Daimler Company in 1907.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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After graduating from Columbia University in 1896. Monell became a metallurgical engineer to the Carnegie Steel Company, rising in six years to be Assistant to the President. In 1900, while Manager of the company's open-hearth steelworks at Pittsburg, he patented a procedure for making high-carbon steel in basic conditions on the hearth of a fixed/stationary furnace; the method was intended to refine pig-iron containing substantial proportions of phosphorus and to do so relatively quickly. The process was introduced at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company in February 1900, where it continued in use for some years. In April 1902 Monell was among those who launched the International Nickel Company of New Jersey in order to bring together a number of existing nickel interests; he became the new company's President. In 1904–5, members of the company's metallurgical staff produced an alloy of about 70 parts nickel and 30 copper which seemed to show great commercial promise on account of its high resistance to corrosion and its good appearance. Monell agreed to the suggestion that the new alloy should be given his name; for commercial reasons it was marketed as "Monel metal". In 1917, following the entry of the USA into the First World War, Monell was commissioned Colonel in the US Army (Aviation) for overseas service, relinquishing his presidency of the International Nickel Company but remaining as a director. At the time of his death he was also a director in several other companies in the USA.

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See also: Stanley, Robert Crooks; Talbot, Benjamin

SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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He was born Edward Muggeridge, but later changed his name, taking the Saxon spelling of his first name and altering his surname, first to Muygridge and then to Muybridge. He emigrated to America in 1851, working in New York in bookbinding and selling as a commission agent for the London Printing and Publishing Company. Through contact with a New York daguerreotypist, Silas T.Selleck, he acquired an interest in photography that developed after his move to California in 1855. On a visit to England in 1860 he learned the wet-collodion process from a friend, Arthur Brown, and acquired the best photographic equipment available in London before returning to America. In 1867, under his trade pseudonym "Helios", he set out to record the scenery of the Far West with his mobile dark-room, christened "The Flying Studio".

His reputation as a photographer of the first rank spread, and he was commissioned to record the survey visit of Major-General Henry W.Halleck to Alaska and also to record the territory through which the Central Pacific Railroad was being constructed. Perhaps because of this latter project, he was approached by the President of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, to attempt to photograph a horse trotting at speed. There was a long-standing controversy among racing men as to whether a trotting horse had all four hooves off the ground at any point; Stanford felt that it did, and hoped than an "instantaneous" photograph would settle the matter once and for all. In May 1872 Muybridge photographed the horse "Occident", but without any great success because the current wet-collodion process normally required many seconds, even in a good light, for a good result. In April 1873 he managed to produce some better negatives, in which a recognizable silhouette of the horse showed all four feet above the ground at the same time.

Soon after, Muybridge left his young wife, Flora, in San Francisco to go with the army sent to put down the revolt of the Modoc Indians. While he was busy photographing the scenery and the combatants, his wife had an affair with a Major Harry Larkyns. On his return, finding his wife pregnant, he had several confrontations with Larkyns, which culminated in his shooting him dead. At his trial for murder, in February 1875, Muybridge was acquitted by the jury on the grounds of justifiable homicide; he left soon after on a long trip to South America.

He again took up his photographic work when he returned to North America and Stanford asked him to take up the action-photography project once more. Using a new shutter design he had developed while on his trip south, and which would operate in as little as 1/1,000 of a second, he obtained more detailed pictures of "Occident" in July 1877. He then devised a new scheme, which Stanford sponsored at his farm at Palo Alto. A 50 ft (15 m) long shed was constructed, containing twelve cameras side by side, and a white background marked off with vertical, numbered lines was set up. Each camera was fitted with Muybridge's highspeed shutter, which was released by an electromagnetic catch. Thin threads stretched across the track were broken by the horse as it moved along, closing spring electrical contacts which released each shutter in turn. Thus, in about half a second, twelve photographs were obtained that showed all the phases of the movement.

Although the pictures were still little more than silhouettes, they were very sharp, and sequences published in scientific and photographic journals throughout the world excited considerable attention. By replacing the threads with an electrical commutator device, which allowed the release of the shutters at precise intervals, Muybridge was able to take series of actions by other animals and humans. From 1880 he lectured in America and Europe, projecting his results in motion on the screen with his Zoopraxiscope projector. In August 1883 he received a grant of $40,000 from the University of Pennsylvania to carry on his work there. Using the vastly improved gelatine dry-plate process and new, improved multiple-camera apparatus, during 1884 and 1885 he produced over 100,000 photographs, of which 20,000 were reproduced in Animal Locomotion in 1887. The subjects were animals of all kinds, and human figures, mostly nude, in a wide range of activities. The quality of the photographs was extremely good, and the publication attracted considerable attention and praise.

Muybridge returned to England in 1894; his last publications were Animals in Motion (1899) and The Human Figure in Motion (1901). His influence on the world of art was enormous, over-turning the conventional representations of action hitherto used by artists. His work in pioneering the use of sequence photography led to the science of chronophotography developed by Marey and others, and stimulated many inventors, notably Thomas Edison to work which led to the introduction of cinematography in the 1890s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Given the same first name as his father, Johann, at his baptism, Ohm was generally known by the name of Georg to avoid confusion. While still a child he became interested in science and learned many of his basic skills from his father, a mechanical engineer. After basic education he attended the Gymnasium at Erlangen for a year, then in 1805 he entered the University of Erlangen. Probably for financial reasons, he left after three terms in 1806 and obtained a post as a mathematics tutor at a school in Gottstadt, Switzerland, where he may well have begun to experiment with electrical circuits. In 1811 he returned to Erlangen. He appears to have obtained his doctorate in the same year. After studying physics for a year, he became a tutor at the Studienanstalt (girls' secondary school) at Bamberg in Bavaria. There, in 1817, he wrote a book on the teaching of geometry in schools, as a result of which King Freidrich Wilhelm III of Prussia had him appointed Oberlehrer (Senior Master) in Mathematics and Physics at the Royal Consistory in Cologne. He continued his electrical experiments and in 1826 was given a year's leave of absence to concentrate on this work, which culminated the following year in publication of his "Die galvanische Kette", in which he demonstrated his now-famous Law, that the current in a resistor is proportional to the applied voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance. Because he published only a theoretical treatment of his Law, without including the supporting experimental evidence, his conclusions were widely ignored and ridiculed by the eminent German scientists of his day; bitterly disappointed, he was forced to resign his post at the Consistory. Reduced to comparative poverty he took a position as a mathematics teacher at the Berlin Military School. Fortunately, news of his discovery became more widely known, and in 1833 he was appointed Professor at the Nuremberg Polytechnic School. Two years later he was given the Chair of Higher Mathematics at the University of Erlangen and the position of State Inspector of Scientific Education. Honoured by the Royal Society of London in 1841 and 1842, in 1849 he became Professor of Physics at Munich University, apost he held until his death.

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See also: Thévénin, Léon Charles

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Otto's involvement in internal combustion engines was first prompted by his interest in Lenoir's coal-gas engine of 1860. He built his first engine in 1861; in 1864, Otto's engine came to the attention of Eugen Langen, who arranged for the capital to set up the world's first engine company, N.A.Otto and Company, in Cologne. In 1867 the Otto- Langen free-piston internal combustion engine was exhibited at the Paris Exposition, where it won the gold medal. The company continued to expand, and five years after the Paris triumph its name was changed to the Gasmotoren Fabrik; amongst Otto's colleagues at this time were Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach .

Otto is most famous for the development of the four-stroke cycle which was to bear his name. He patented his version of this in 1876, although the principle of the four-stroke cycle had been patented by Alphonse Beau de Rochas fourteen years previously; Otto was the first, however, to put the principle into practice with the "Otto Silent Engine". Many thousands of Otto fourstroke engines had already been built by 1886, when a German patent lawyer successfully claimed that Otto had infringed the Beau de Rochas patent, and Otto's patent was declared invalid.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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After graduating from Keble College, Oxford, Rawcliffe joined the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company in 1932 as a college apprentice, and later became a design engineer. This was followed by a period as a lecturer at Liverpool University, where he was able to extend his knowledge of the principles underlying the design and operation of electrical machines. In 1941 he became Head of the Electrical Engineering Department at the Robert Gordon Technical College, Aberdeen, and Lecturer in charge of Electrical Engineering at Aberdeen University. In 1944 Rawcliffe was appointed to the Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of Bristol, where he remained until his retirement in 1975. The reputation of his department was enhanced by the colleagues he recruited.

After 1954 he began research into polyphase windings, the basis of alternating-current machinery, and published papers concerned with the dual problems of frequency changing and pole changing. The result of this research was the discovery in 1957 of a technique for making squirrel-cage induction motors run at more than one speed. By reversing current in one part of the winding, the pole distribution and number were changed, and with it the speed of rotation.

Rawcliffe's name became synonymous with pole amplitude modulation, or PAM, the name given to this technique. Described by Rawcliffe as a new philosophy of windings, the technique led to a series of research papers, patents and licensing agreements in addition to consultancies to advise on application problems. Commercial exploitation of the new idea throughout Western Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States followed. In total he contributed twentyfive papers to the Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and some sixty British patent applications were filed.

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