successful+company

1. v/i go

( funzionare) work

andare via ( partire) leave

di macchia come out

andare bene suit

taglia fit

andare a cavallo ride

andare a passeggio walk

andare a male go off

andare a finire turn out

andare in bicicletta cycle

come va? how are you?, how are things?

non mi va di vestito it doesn't fit me

non mi va di venire I don't feel like coming

2. m: coll'andare del tempo with the passage of time

a lungo andare in the long run

* * *

andare¹ v. intr.

1 to go*; ( in auto) to drive*; ( a piedi) to walk: andiamo a lavorare tutti i giorni, we go to work every day; è appena andato a scuola, he's just gone to school; vado da mia zia domani, I'm going to my auntie's tomorrow; andiamo, è tardi!, let's go, it's late!; va a Londra questo treno?, is this train going to London?; questa nave va in Australia, this ship is going to (o is bound for o is sailing to) Australia; dovrò per forza andarci in auto, I've no option but to drive there; è una bella giornata, perché non ci vai a piedi?, it's a nice day, why don't you walk there?; andò col pensiero ai giorni della sua infanzia, he thought back to when he was a child; andò con lo sguardo al gruppo di persone davanti all'ingresso, he glanced over (o across) at the people in front of the entrance; dove va il sale?, where does the salt go?; le sedie vanno in cucina, the chairs go in the kitchen // queste banconote non vanno più, these banknotes are no longer in circulation; andare in treno, per nave, in autobus, to go by train, by boat, by bus; andare in aereo, to go by plane (o to fly); andare in bicicletta, to go by bicycle (o by bike), to cycle (o to bike); sai andare in bicicletta?, can you ride a bicycle?; andare a cavallo, to go on horseback (o to ride) // andare all'estero, to go abroad; andare in campagna, to go to the country; andare in città, to go to town; andare in vacanza, to go on holiday; andare al cinema, to go to the pictures; andare a mangiare, to go to eat; andare a dormire, to go to bed; andare in campeggio, to go camping; andare a nuotare, to go swimming; andare a fare un giro in bicicletta, in automobile, to go for a ride, for a drive; andare a fare una passeggiata, to go for a walk; andare a cavalcare, to go riding; andare a giocare a tennis, a football, to go to play tennis, football // andare avanti, to go on; ( avanzare) to advance; ( precedere) to go ahead // andare avanti e indietro, to go backwards and forwards, to go to and fro // andare dentro, to go inside; ( in prigione) to be sent to prison (o to go inside) // andare dentro e fuori, to go in and out // andare fuori, to go out // andare dietro a qlcu., to follow s.o.; ( corteggiare) to run after s.o. // andare oltre, to go beyond (o to go over); (fig.) to go too far (o to exaggerate); andare troppo oltre, troppo in là, (anche fig.) to go too far // andare su, giù, to go up, down // andare lontano, to go far; (fig.) to distinguish oneself; to be successful // andare per le lunghe, to go on and on

2 ( funzionare) to work: il mio computer va bene, my computer works well; il riscaldamento va ancora?, is the heating still working? // andare bene, male, ( di orologio) to be right, wrong; andare avanti, indietro, ( di orologio) to be fast, slow

3 ( procedere) to go*; to get* on: come va l'inglese?, how are you getting on with your English?; come vanno gli affari?, how is business going?; la ditta è andata proprio bene, male l'anno scorso, the firm did well, badly last year; ''Come va la vita?'' ''Va'', ''How is life treating you?'' ''Not too badly'' // così va il mondo!, that's the way of the world! // andare di bene in meglio, to go better and better; andare di male in peggio, to go from bad to worse // far andare le cose per il verso giusto, to get things to go properly

4 ( succedere) to happen: come va che sei sempre stanco?, how come you're always so tired?; vada come vada!, whatever happens!

5 ( convenire, confarsi) to suit: ci andrebbe bene il treno delle cinque, the five o'clock train would suit us; ti andrebbe bene per domani sera?, would tomorrow evening suit you (o be all right for you)?

6 (andar bene, di indumento) to fit: queste scarpe non mi vanno più, these shoes don't fit me any more; è così cresciuto che non gli va più niente, he has outgrown all his clothes

7 ( occorrere) to need: vanno tanti soldi per una vacanza come quella, a holiday like that would cost a lot of money; per un abito così ci vanno tre metri di stoffa, you'll need three metres of material for a dress like that; ti andrebbe bene una bella dormita, what you need is a good sleep

8 ( piacere) to like (costr. pers.); ( sentirsi di) to feel* like (costr. pers.): ti andrebbe qlco. da bere?; would you like sthg. to drink?; il tuo comportamento non mi va affatto, I don't like your behaviour at all; non mi va di uscire stasera, I don't feel like going out this evening

9 ( essere di moda) to be in (fashion): quel tipo di scarpe non va più, shoes like that aren't in any more (o are out); va molto il nero quest'anno, black is in (fashion) this year // andare per la maggiore, to be very fashionable

10 ( essere venduto) to sell*: il suo ultimo romanzo è andato a ruba, his latest novel sold like hot cakes

11 (essere, sentirsi) to be, to feel*: va molto orgoglioso della sua nuova casa, he's very proud of his new house

12 ( avvicinarsi) to be about: la spesa andrà sui 100.000 euro, the cost will be about 100,000 euros // andare per, to be almost: va per i 15 ( anni), he is almost fifteen // va per la pensione, he is almost retired

13 andare a, ( con idea di futuro) to be going to, to be about: lo spettacolo andava a incominciare, the show was about (o was going) to begin

14 ( dover essere) to have to be; must be: questa pianta va tenuta all'ombra, this plant has (o is) to be kept in the shade; questo interruttore non va toccato, this switch mustn't be touched

15 ( con valore ausiliare di 'essere') to be, to get*: rischia di andare perduto, it's likely to get lost; se non vado errato, if I'm not mistaken

16 (seguito da ger. per indicare la continuità di un'azione) to be + -ing: va peggiorando ogni giorno, he is getting worse every day; vanno dicendo che è partito, they are saying he's left

17 ( con valore pleonastico o rafforzativo): dove sei andato a cacciarti?, where have you been hiding?; andare a finire bene, to end well; andare a finire male, to come to a bad end; è andato a finire nel lago, it ended up in the lake; andare in scena, to be put on // ( radio, tv) andare in onda, to be on (o broadcast) // (sport): andare a canestro, to score a point; andare a rete, to score a goal; andare al tappeto, ( di pugile) to be knocked out // (tip.) andare in macchina, to go to press // andare all'asta, to be auctioned off // andare alla deriva, to go adrift, to drift; (fig.) to drift with the tide // andare a picco, a fondo, to sink; andare a fondo di qlco., to dig into sthg.; andare fino in fondo, to carry on to the end // andare a gambe all'aria, to tumble // andare all'altro mondo, al Creatore, (fam.) to kick the bucket // andare all'inferno, in paradiso, to go to hell, to heaven // andare per la propria strada, per i fatti propri, to go one's own way // andare fuori strada, to leave the road // andare in cerca di guai, to look for trouble // andare a male, ( di cibo) to go off (o to go bad) // andare a monte, to fall through // andare per il sottile, to split hairs (o to be very particular); non andare per il sottile, to be rather rough // andare per le lunghe, to go on and on // lasciar andare un pugno, uno schiaffo a qlcu., to let fly a punch, a slap at s.o.; lascia andare!, forget it!; lasciarsi andare, to let oneself go // ma va là, andiamo!, oh, come on (o come off it)!; andiamo, coraggio!, cheer up! // va da sé che hai torto, it goes without saying, you're wrong // va' al diavolo!, go to hell!; va' a morire ammazzato!, drop dead!, go to hell!; va' in malora!, go to the devil! // andare a Canossa, to eat humble pie // andare in brodo di giuggiole, to be ecstatic; andare in visibilio per qlco., to go crazy about sthg. // è andata!, ( è finita), it's over and done with!, ( ha avuto successo) it's gone off well! // se la va, la va!, we'll be lucky if it works // e vada per questa volta, we'll let it pass for this time // andare a donne, to womanize // andare a letto con qlcu., to go to bed with s.o. // andare di corpo, to empty one's bowels.

◘ andarsene v.intr.pron.

1 to go* (away), to leave*: se ne è andato appena finito il concerto, he left as soon as the concert ended; te ne vai di già?, are you going already; vattene, non ti voglio più vedere!, go away, I don't want to see you again! // se ne è andato l'anno scorso ( è morto), he passed away last year

2 ( di macchia) to come* off.

andare² s.m.

1 a lungo andare, in the long run // a tutt'andare, (anche fig.) without ceasing // con l'andare del tempo, with the passing of time; c'era tutto un andare e venire, there was a continual coming and going // di quest'andare finirà presto i suoi soldi, at this rate he'll soon get through his money

2 ( andatura) gait, walk.

* * *

1. vi irreg (aus essere)

1) (gen) to go

2)

3)

4) (funzionare) to work

5)

6) (essere venduto) to sell, (essere di moda) to be fashionable

7)

8)

9)

10) (+ avverbio, preposizione)

2. sm

* * *

verbo intransitivo (aus. essere)

1) (spostarsi, muoversi) to go*

2) (andare via, partire) to go*

3) (per indicare attività svolte regolarmente)

4) (seguito da a + infinito)

5) (procedere con un veicolo)

6) (portare) [strada, corridoio] to go*, to lead* (a to); [treno, ecc.] to go* (a to), to be* bound (a for)

7) (finire)

8) (procedere)

9) (funzionare) to go*, to work

10) (vendersi)

11) (piacere)

12) (calzare)

13) (dover essere collocato) to go*

14) (di età)

15) (con il gerundio)

16) (seguito da participio passato) (dover essere)

17) andarci

18) andare avanti (avanzare) to go* ahead, to go* along; (proseguire) to go* on, to keep* going; [ orologio] to run* fast, to be* fast

19) andare bene (essere appropriato) to suit, to be* OK, to be* all right

20) andare contro (infrangere)

21) andare a finire (avere un certo esito) to finish up, to wind* up colloq.

22) andare fuori to go* out

23) andare giù to go* down, to get* down; [ azioni] to go* down, to come* down

24) andare indietro to go* back, to get* back; [ orologio] to be* slow, to run* slow

25) andare male (svolgersi negativamente) [affari, esame, colloquio] to go* badly; (non riuscire)

26) andare su (salire) to go* up; (aumentare) [temperatura, prezzi] to go* up, to rise*

27) andare via (partire) to go* away, to get* away, to leave*; (sparire)

verbo pronominale andarsene

1) (andare via, partire) to go* away, to get* away, to leave*, to go* off

2) (sparire)

3) eufem. (morire) to go*, to pass away

verbo impersonale andarne (essere in gioco)

••

sostantivo maschile

* * *

/an'dare/ [6]

Oltre ai molti significati e usi idiomatici del verbo andare, ampiamente trattati nella voce qui sotto, vanno sottolineate le differenze tra inglese e italiano quando andare è seguito da un altro verbo. - Andare + a + infinito è reso in inglese con to go seguito da un sintagma preposizionale ( andare a fare una passeggiata = to go for a walk), da to + infinito ( è andata a prendere del vino = she's gone to get some wine), dal gerundio ( andare a sciare = to go skiing) oppure da un verbo coordinato con and ( andai a rispondere al telefono = I went and answered the phone). - Quando andare è seguito in italiano da un verbo al gerundio, va reso con to be o to get: la mia salute va migliorando = my health is getting better, i nemici si andavano avvicinando = the enemies were approaching. - Quando andare è seguito da un verbo al participio passato, esso va reso con il passivo di dovere o con un semplice passivo: va fatto subito = it must be done immediately, le tasse vanno pagate = taxes must be payed, i miei bagagli andarono perduti all'aeroporto = my luggage was lost at the airport.

I verbo intransitivo

 (aus. essere)

 1 (spostarsi, muoversi) to go*; dove vai? where are you going? where are you off to? andare a Roma, negli Stati Uniti, in Spagna to go to Rome, to the (United) States, to Spain; andare in città, in campagna, al mare to go to town, to the country, to the seaside; andare a casa to go home; andare verso casa, verso sud to go o head homeward(s), south; andare in treno, aereo to go by train, plane; andare a piedi to walk, to go on foot; andare in macchina to drive, to go by car; non so andare in bicicletta I can't ride a bicycle; andare a cavallo to ride (a horse); andando al mercato... on the way to the market...; vado e torno I'll be back in a minute o right back; vado io! (a rispondere alla porta) I'll get it!

 2 (andare via, partire) to go*; devo andare I must go o be going; andare in vacanza to go on holiday

 3 (per indicare attività svolte regolarmente) andare a scuola, al lavoro to go to school, work; andare a pesca, a sciare to go fishing, skiing; andare dal dottore, dal parrucchiere to go to the doctor's, hairdresser's; andare in o all'ospedale to go to hospital BE o the hospital AE

 4 (seguito da a + infinito) andare a fare una passeggiata to go for a walk; andare a fare un viaggio to go on a journey; è andato a prendere del vino he's gone to get some wine; va' a dirle che... go and tell her that...; andare a fare spese to go shopping; (enfatico) è andato a dirlo a tutti! he's gone and told everybody! va' a sapere! don't ask me! who knows? va' a capirci qualcosa! just try and work that out!

 5 (procedere con un veicolo) andare veloce, a 50 km/h to drive fast, to travel at 50 km/h

 6 (portare) [strada, corridoio] to go*, to lead* (a to); [treno, ecc.] to go* (a to), to be* bound (a for); andare a sud [ strada] to head o bear south

 7 (finire) andare in terra to fall on the floor o to the ground; andare fuori strada to go o swerve off the road

 8 (procedere) com'è andata la serata? how did the evening go? come vanno gli affari? how's business? come va la scuola? how are things at school? cosa c'è che non va? what's wrong o the matter? (stare) come va il piede? how's your foot?

 9 (funzionare) to go*, to work; la sua macchina ha qualcosa che non va there's something wrong with her car; andare a benzina to run on petrol

 10 (vendersi) il libro sta andando bene the book is selling (well); (essere di moda) quest'inverno vanno (di moda) i cappotti lunghi the fashion is for long coats this winter

 11 (piacere) ti va un gelato? do you feel like o do you fancy an ice cream? oggi non mi va di studiare today I don't feel like studying

 12 (calzare) questa gonna mi va stretta this skirt is a tight fit

 13 (dover essere collocato) to go*; dove vanno questi piatti? where do these plates go? (essere utilizzabile) il piatto non va in forno the dish is not ovenproof

 14 (di età) va per i quaranta he's going on forty

 15 (con il gerundio) andare migliorando to be getting better o improving; la situazione va complicandosi the situation is getting more and more complicated

 16 (seguito da participio passato) (dover essere) l'esercizio va fatto the exercise must be done; (essere, risultare) i bagagli andarono perduti the luggage was lost

 17 andarci andarci piano con to go easy o light on [ alcolici]; vacci piano, è delicato be careful, it's delicate; vacci piano! easy does it! andarci pesante (essere severo) to come on strong; andarci pesante con to be heavy on [ ingrediente]

 18 andare avanti (avanzare) to go* ahead, to go* along; (proseguire) to go* on, to keep* going; [ orologio] to run* fast, to be* fast; non si può andare avanti così! this really won't do!

 19 andare bene (essere appropriato) to suit, to be* OK, to be* all right; non va per niente bene that's not good at all; hai visto qualcosa che possa andare bene? did you see anything suitable? (essere gradito, stare bene) lunedì (ti) va bene? does Monday suit you? mi va bene it suits me fine; va benissimo! that's great! (essere accettabile) quello che dice lui, va bene what he says goes; qualsiasi scusa andrà bene any excuse will do; (calzare) quel vestito non mi va bene that dress doesn't fit me; (essere adatto) la chiave va bene per questa serratura the key fits this lock; (abbinarsi) andare bene insieme [colori, mobili] to go together, to be a good match; andare bene con [colore, mobile] to go with; (svolgersi positivamente) [festa, operazione] to go well; va tutto bene? is everything all right? are you OK? se tutto va bene if all goes well, all being well; mi è andata bene I was lucky, it worked out well for me; gli è andata bene che it was just as well for him that; (riuscire) andare bene a scuola to do well at school o in one's schoolwork; andare bene in matematica to be good at o to do well in maths

 20 andare contro (infrangere) andare contro la legge to break the law; andare contro le convinzioni di qcn. to go against sb.'s beliefs

 21 andare a finire (avere un certo esito) to finish up, to wind* up colloq.; andare a finire bene to turn out well; va a finire che si fanno male they'll end up hurting themselves; (venire a trovarsi) dov'è andata a finire la mia penna? where has my pen got to? where did my pen go? non so dove vanno a finire tutti i miei soldi! I don't know where all my money goes (to)!

 22 andare fuori to go* out; andare a cena fuori to dine out, to go out for dinner

 23 andare giù to go* down, to get* down; [ azioni] to go* down, to come* down; non mi va giù it sticks in my craw o throat (anche fig.)

 24 andare indietro to go* back, to get* back; [ orologio] to be* slow, to run* slow

 25 andare male (svolgersi negativamente) [affari, esame, colloquio] to go* badly; (non riuscire) andare male a scuola to do badly o poorly at school; andare male in matematica to be bad at maths

 26 andare su (salire) to go* up; (aumentare) [temperatura, prezzi] to go* up, to rise*

 27 andare via (partire) to go* away, to get* away, to leave*; (sparire) la macchia non va via the stain won't come out

II andarsene verbo pronominale

 1 (andare via, partire) to go* away, to get* away, to leave*, to go* off; vattene! get out! go away!

 2 (sparire) ecco che se ne vanno le mie possibilità di vittoria! there go my chances of winning! questo raffreddore non vuole andare this cold just won't go away

 3 eufem. (morire) to go*, to pass away

III andarne verbo impersonale

  (essere in gioco) ne va della mia reputazione my reputation is at stake

IDIOMS

ma va' là! you don't say! andiamo! (dai, muoviamoci) let's go! (su, suvvia) come on! comunque vada whatever happens; vada come vada whatever! come va la vita? how's life (treating you)? va bene (it's) all right, alright, good, OK, that's fine; va da sé it goes without saying; così va il mondo that's how o the way it goes! that's the way the cookie crumbles colloq.; va' a quel paese drop dead! get lost! va' al diavolo! o all'inferno! colloq. go to the devil o to hell! va' a farti fottere! volg. fuck you! o la va o la spacca! sink or swim! do or die! dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei prov. you can tell a man by the company he keeps.

————————

/an'dare/

sostantivo m.

tutto questo andare e venire all this toing and froing, all these comings and goings; con l'andare del tempo as time goes by, with the passing of time; a lungo andare in the long run o term; a tutto andare (a tutta velocità) at top speed; fa errori a tutto andare (a tutto spiano) he makes one mistake after another.

1. be·ste·hen * irreg vt

1) ( erfolgreich abschließen)

etw [mit etw dat] \bestehen to pass sth [with sth];

sie bestand ihre Prüfung mit Auszeichnung she got a distinction in her exam, she passed her exam with distinction;

etw nicht \bestehen to fail sth;

eine Probe [o Aufgabe] \bestehen to stand the test [of sth];

jdn \bestehen lassen to let sb pass [an exam];

die Prüfer ließen ihn nicht \bestehen the examiners failed him

2) (geh: durchstehen)

etw \bestehen to come through sth [in one piece], to survive sth;

einen Kampf \bestehen to win a fight

3) ( andauern)

etw \bestehen lassen to retain sth;

ein Gebäude \bestehen lassen to leave a building standing;

getrennte Haushalte \bestehen lassen to continue [living] with separate domestic arrangements [or households];

eine Abmachung \bestehen lassen to let an arrangement continue, to leave an arrangement as it is

1) ( existieren) to be;

es \bestehen Zweifel [an etw] there are doubts [about sth];

es besteht kein Zweifel there is no doubt;

es \bestehen gute Aussichten, dass... the prospects of... are good;

es besteht die Gefahr, dass... there is a danger of [or that]...;

besteht noch Hoffnung? is there still a chance?;

es besteht kaum noch Hoffnung, dass... there is almost no chance of...;

es besteht der Verdacht, dass sie für eine andere Macht spioniert hat she is suspected of spying for another power;

bei uns besteht der Brauch.... we have a tradition of...;

\bestehen bleiben ( weiterhin existieren) to last; Hoffnung to remain; Tradition to prevail; Wetter to persist;

( weiterhin gelten) Versprechen, Wort to hold good, to remain

2) mit Zeitangabe to exist, to be in existence;

das Unternehmen besteht jetzt schon 50 Jahre the company is 50 years old [or has been in existence for 50 years];

3) ( sich zusammensetzen)

aus etw \bestehen to consist [or be composed] of [or ( form) comprise] sth; Material to be made of

4) ( beinhalten)

in etw dat \bestehen to consist in sth;

jds Aufgabe besteht darin, etw zu tun sb's job consists in doing [or it's sb's job to do] sth;

jds Chance besteht darin, dass... sb's chance lies in...;

das Problem besteht darin, dass... the problem is that...;

die Schwierigkeit besteht in/darin, dass... the difficulty lies in...;

der Unterschied besteht in/darin, dass... the difference lies in...

5) ( standhalten)

vor jdm/etw \bestehen to survive [or hold one's own [or stand one's ground] against] sb/sth;

vor jds dat kritischem Auge \bestehen to survive sb's critical eye;

vor der Kritik \bestehen to stand up to criticism [or a review];

neben jdm/etw \bestehen to compare [well] to [or with] sb/sth;

ich kann nicht neben ihr \bestehen I don't compare with her

6) ( durchkommen)

[in etw dat] [mit etw] \bestehen to pass [sth] [with sth];

ich habe bestanden! - gratuliere! I've passed! - congratulations!

7) ( insistieren)

auf etw dat \bestehen to insist that sth, to insist on sth;

ich bestehe auf der Erfüllung Ihrer Verpflichtungen! I insist that you fulfil your obligations!;

darauf \bestehen, dass... to insist that...;

wenn Sie darauf \bestehen! if you insist!;

auf einer Meinung \bestehen to stick to an opinion [or to one's guns] ( prov)

2. Be·ste·hen <-s> nt kein pl

1) ( Vorhandensein)

das \bestehen einer S. gen the existence of sth;

das 25-jährige \bestehen der Firma wurde gefeiert the company celebrated its 25th birthday;

seit [dem] \bestehen einer S. gen since the establishment of sth; Schule, Verein etc founding; Geschäftsverbindung setting-up, establishment

2) ( Beharren)

jds gen \bestehen auf etw dat sb's insistence on sth;

jds \bestehen darauf, dass... sb's insistence that...

3) ( das Durchkommen)

das \bestehen einer S. gen Prüfung, Test the passing of sth; Probezeit successful completion; schwierige Situation surviving, coming through; Gefahren overcoming

the use of accounting methods to hide aspects of a company’s financial dealings in order to make the company appear more or less successful than it is in reality (slang)

an annual award to a company that has achieved significant performance improvement through the successful application of company-wide quality control. The Deming Prize was established in recognition of the work carried out by W. Edwards Deming in postwar Japan to improve manufacturing quality by reducing the potential for error. The Deming Prize has been awarded annually since 1951 by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers. Contenders have to be able to demonstrate that, by applying the disciplines outlined by the assessment components, the productivity, growth, and financial performance of the organization have been improved. Entrants require substantial resource in order to be able to submit their entry, which can take years to prepare. The focus of the Deming Prize reflects a rigor for the identification and elimination of defects through teamwork. The prize was also the first to apply the process of self-assessment, which has been adopted by other models such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the EFQM Excellence Model.

the facilitation of learning through the Internet or an intranet. E-learning is a development from computerbased training and consists of self-contained learning materials and resources that can be used at the pace and convenience of the learner. An e-learning package normally incorporates some form of test that can demonstrate how much an e-learner has assimilated from a course, as well as some form of monitoring to enable managers to check the use of the system of e-learning. Successful elearning depends largely on the selfmotivation of individuals to study effectively. Because it is Internet-based, it has excellent potential to respond to a company’s rapidly changing needs and offer new learning opportunities relevant to a company’s new position very quickly.

Also known as electronic learning

the possession of shares in a company, in whole or in part, by the workers. There are various forms of employee ownership that give employees a greater or lesser stake in the business. These include: employee stock ownership plans, employee buyouts, cooperatives, and employee trusts. Ownership does not necessarily lead to greater employee participation in decision making, although the evidence suggests that where employees are involved in this, the company is more successful.

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Having made a fortune with his patented automobile lamp, Blériot started experimenting with model aircraft in about 1900. He tried a flapping-wing layout which, surprisingly, did fly, but a full-size version was a failure. Blériot tried out a wide variety of designs: a biplane float-glider built with Gabriel Voisin; a powered float-plane with ellipsoidal biplane wings; a canard (tail-first) monoplane; a tandem monoplane; and in 1907 a monoplane of conventional layout. This last was not an immediate success, but it led to the Type XI in which Blériot made history by flying from France to England on 25 July 1909.

Without a doubt, Blériot was an accomplished pilot and a successful manufacturer of aircraft, but he sometimes employed others as designers (a fact not made known at the time). It is now accepted that much of the credit for the design of the Type XI should go to Raymond Saulnier, who later made his name with the Morane-Saulnier Company.

Blériot-Aéronautique became one of the leading manufacturers of aircraft and by the outbreak of war in 1914 some eight hundred aircraft had been produced. By 1918, aircraft were being built at the rate of eighteen per day. The Blériot company continued to produce aircraft until it was nationalized in 1937.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Public utilities

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Brush graduated from the University of Michigan in 1869 and worked for several years as a chemist. Believing that electric arc lighting would be commercially successful if the equipment could be improved, he completed his first dynamo in 1875 and a simplified arc lamp. His original system operated a maximum of four lights, each on a separate circuit, from one dynamo. Brush envisaged a wider market for his product and by 1879 had available on arc lighting system principally intended for street and other outdoor illumination. He designed a dynamo that generated a high voltage and which, with a carbon-pile regulator, provided an almost constant current permitting the use of up to forty lamps on one circuit. He also improved arc lamps by incorporating a slipping-clutch regulating mechanism and automatic means of bringing into use a second set of carbons, thereby doubling the period between replacements.

Brush's multiple electric arc lighting system was first demonstrated in Cleveland and by 1880 had been adopted in a number of American cities, including New York, Boston and Philadelphia. It was also employed in many European towns until incandescent lamps, for which the Brush dynamo was unsuitable, came into use. To market his apparatus, Brush promoted local lighting companies and thereby secured local capital.

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See also: Hammond, Robert

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

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Around 1850, the exciting new metal aluminium began to be produced by the process developed by Sainte-Claire Deville. However, it remained expensive on account of the high cost of one of the raw materials, sodium. It was another thirty years before Castner became the first to work successfully the process for producing sodium, which consisted of heating sodium hydroxide with charcoal at a high temperature. Unable to interest American backers in the process, Castner took it to England and set up a plant at Oldbury, near Birmingham. At the moment he achieved commercial success, however, the demand for cheap sodium plummeted as a result of the development of the electrolytic process for producing aluminium. He therefore sought other uses for cheap sodium, first converting it to sodium peroxide, a bleaching agent much used in the straw-hat industry. Much more importantly, Castner persuaded the gold industry to use sodium instead of potassium cyanide in the refining of gold. With the "gold rush", he established a large market in Australia, the USA, South Africa and elsewhere, but the problem was to meet the demand, so Castner turned to the electrolytic method. At first progress was slow because of the impure nature of the sodium hydroxide, so he used a mercury cathode, with which the released sodium formed an amalgam. It then reacted with water in a separate compartment in the cell to form sodium hydroxide of a purity hitherto unknown in the alkali industry; chlorine was a valuable by-product.

In 1894 Castner began to seek international patents for the cell, but found he had been anticipated in Germany by Kellner, an Austrian chemist. Preferring negotiation to legal confrontation, Castner exchanged patents and processes with Kellner, although the latter's had been less successful. The cell became known as the Castner-Kellner cell, but the process needed cheap electricity and salt, neither of which was available near Oldbury, so he set up the Castner-Kellner Alkali Company works at Runcorn in Cheshire; at the same time, a pilot plant was set up in the USA at Saltville, Virginia, with a larger plant being established at Niagara Falls.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Francis Crossley was the youngest of three brothers employed in their father's carpet-weaving business in Halifax and who took over the running of the company on their father's death in 1837. Francis seems to have been the one with technical ability, for it was he who saw the possibilities of weaving by power. Growth of the company was rapid through his policy of acquiring patents and then improving them, and it was soon at the forefront of the carpet-manufacturing trade. He had taken out rights on the patents of John Hill of Manchester, but his experiments with Hill's looms for weaving carpets were not successful.

In the spring of 1850 Francis asked a textile inventor, George Collier of Barnsley, to develop a power loom for carpet manufacture. Collier produced a model that was a distinct advance on earlier looms, and Francis engaged him to perfect a power loom for weaving tapestry and Brussels carpets. After a great deal of money had been expended, a patent was taken out in 1850 in the name of his brother, Joseph Crossley, for a loom that could weave velvet as well as carpets and included some of the ideas of the American E.B. Bigelow. This new loom proved to be a great advance on all the earlier ones, and thus brought the Crossleys a great fortune from both sales of patent rights and the production of carpets from their mills, which were soon enlarged.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Francis Crossley was Mayor of Halifax in 1849 and 1850, but Hogg gives this position to his elder brother John. In 1852 Francis was returned to Parliament as the Liberal member for Halifax, and in 1859 he became the member for the West Riding. Among his benefactions, in 1855 he gave to the town of Halifax a twelve-acre park that cost £41,300; a statue of him was erected there. In the same year he endowed twenty-one almshouses. In 1863 a baronetcy was conferred upon him in recognition of his commercial and public services, which he continued to perform until his death. In 1870 he gave the London Missionary Society £20,000, their largest single donation up to that time, and another £10,000 to the Congregational Pastor's Retiring Fund. He became ill when on a journey to the Holy Land in 1869, but although he made a partial recovery he grew worse again towards the end of 1871 and died early in the following year. He left £800,000 in his will.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Curtiss started his career in the bicycle business, then became a designer of motor-cycle engines, and in 1904 he designed and built an airship engine. The success of his engine led to him joining the Aerial Experimental Association (AEA), founded by the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Working with the AEA, Curtiss built several engines and designed a biplane, June Bug, in which he won a prize for the first recorded flight of over 1 km (1,100yd) in the USA. In 1909 Curtiss joined forces with Augustus M.Herring, who had earlier flown Octave Chanute's gliders, to form the Herring-Curtiss Company. Their Gold Bug was a success and led to the Golden Flyer, in which Glenn Curtiss won the Gordon Bennett Cup at Rheims in France with a speed of 75.7 km/h (47 mph). At this time the Wright brothers accused Curtiss and the new Curtiss Aeroplane Company of infringing their patent rights, and a bitter lawsuit ensued. The acrimony subsided during the First World War and in 1929 the two companies merged to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

Curtiss had started experimenting with water-based aircraft in 1908, but it was not until 1911 that he managed to produce a successful float-plane. He then co-operated with the US Navy in developing catapults to launch aircraft from ships at sea. During the First World War, Curtiss produced the JN-4 Jenny trainer, which became probably his best-known design. This sturdy bi-plane continued in service long after the war and was extensively used by "barnstorming" pilots at air shows and for early mail flights. In 1919 a Navy-Curtiss NC-4 flying boat achieved the first flight across the Atlantic, having made the crossing in stages, refuelling en route. Curtiss himself, however, had little interest in aviation in his later years and turned his attention to real-estate development in Florida.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Davidson, son of an Aberdeen merchant, attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, between 1819 and 1822: his studies included mathematics, mechanics and chemistry. He subsequently joined his father's grocery business, which from time to time received enquiries for yeast: to meet these, Davidson began to manufacture yeast for sale and from that start built up a successful chemical manufacturing business with the emphasis on yeast and dyes. About 1837 he started to experiment first with electric batteries and then with motors. He invented a form of electromagnetic engine in which soft iron bars arranged on the periphery of a wooden cylinder, parallel to its axis, around which the cylinder could rotate, were attracted by fixed electromagnets. These were energized in turn by current controlled by a simple commutaring device. Electric current was produced by his batteries. His activities were brought to the attention of Michael Faraday and to the scientific world in general by a letter from Professor Forbes of King's College, Aberdeen. Davidson declined to patent his inventions, believing that all should be able freely to draw advantage from them, and in order to afford an opportunity for all interested parties to inspect them an exhibition was held at 36 Union Street, Aberdeen, in October 1840 to demonstrate his "apparatus actuated by electro-magnetic power". It included: a model locomotive carriage, large enough to carry two people, that ran on a railway; a turning lathe with tools for visitors to use; and a small printing machine. In the spring of 1842 he put on a similar exhibition in Edinburgh, this time including a sawmill. Davidson sought support from railway companies for further experiments and the construction of an electromagnetic locomotive; the Edinburgh exhibition successfully attracted the attention of the proprietors of the Edinburgh 585\& Glasgow Railway (E \& GR), whose line had been opened in February 1842. Davidson built a full-size locomotive incorporating his principle, apparently at the expense of the railway company. The locomotive weighed 7 tons: each of its two axles carried a cylinder upon which were fastened three iron bars, and four electromagnets were arranged in pairs on each side of the cylinders. The motors he used were reluctance motors, the power source being zinc-iron batteries. It was named Galvani and was demonstrated on the E \& GR that autumn, when it achieved a speed of 4 mph (6.4 km/h) while hauling a load of 6 tons over a distance of 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km); it was the first electric locomotive. Nevertheless, further support from the railway company was not forthcoming, although to some railway workers the locomotive seems to have appeared promising enough: they destroyed it in Luddite reaction. Davidson staged a further exhibition in London in 1843 without result and then, the cost of battery chemicals being high, ceased further experiments of this type. He survived long enough to see the electric railway become truly practicable in the 1880s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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Dickson was born in France of English and Scottish parents. As a young man of almost 19 years, he wrote in 1879 to Thomas Edison in America, asking for a job. Edison replied that he was not taking on new staff at that time, but Dickson, with his mother and sisters, decided to emigrate anyway. In 1883 he contacted Edison again, and was given a job at the Goerk Street laboratory of the Edison Electric Works in New York. He soon assumed a position of responsibility as Superintendent, working on the development of electric light and power systems, and also carried out most of the photography Edison required. In 1888 he moved to the Edison West Orange laboratory, becoming Head of the ore-milling department. When Edison, inspired by Muybridge's sequence photographs of humans and animals in motion, decided to develop a motion picture apparatus, he gave the task to Dickson, whose considerable skills in mechanics, photography and electrical work made him the obvious choice. The first experiments, in 1888, were on a cylinder machine like the phonograph, in which the sequence pictures were to be taken in a spiral. This soon proved to be impractical, and work was delayed for a time while Dickson developed a new ore-milling machine. Little progress with the movie project was made until George Eastman's introduction in July 1889 of celluloid roll film, which was thin, tough, transparent and very flexible. Dickson returned to his experiments in the spring of 1891 and soon had working models of a film camera and viewer, the latter being demonstrated at the West Orange laboratory on 20 May 1891. By the early summer of 1892 the project had advanced sufficiently for commercial exploitation to begin. The Kinetograph camera used perforated 35 mm film (essentially the same as that still in use in the late twentieth century), and the kinetoscope, a peep-show viewer, took fifty feet of film running in an endless loop. Full-scale manufacture of the viewers started in 1893, and they were demonstrated on a number of occasions during that year. On 14 April 1894 the first kinetoscope parlour, with ten viewers, was opened to the public in New York. By the end of that year, the kinetoscope was seen by the public all over America and in Europe. Dickson had created the first commercially successful cinematograph system. Dickson left Edison's employment on 2 April 1895, and for a time worked with Woodville Latham on the development of his Panoptikon projector, a projection version of the kinetoscope. In December 1895 he joined with Herman Casier, Henry N.Marvin and Elias Koopman to form the American Mutoscope Company. Casier had designed the Mutoscope, an animated-picture viewer in which the sequences of pictures were printed on cards fixed radially to a drum and were flipped past the eye as the drum rotated. Dickson designed the Biograph wide-film camera to produce the picture sequences, and also a projector to show the films directly onto a screen. The large-format images gave pictures of high quality for the period; the Biograph went on public show in America in September 1896, and subsequently throughout the world, operating until around 1905. In May 1897 Dickson returned to England and set up as a producer of Biograph films, recording, among other subjects, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897, Pope Leo XIII in 1898, and scenes of the Boer War in 1899 and 1900. Many of the Biograph subjects were printed as reels for the Mutoscope to produce the "what the butler saw" machines which were a feature of fairgrounds and seaside arcades until modern times. Dickson's contact with the Biograph Company, and with it his involvement in cinematography, ceased in 1911.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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He was the fifth child of Charles and Ann Stalcrop Evans, and by the age of 15 he had four sisters and seven brothers. Nothing is known of his schooling, but at the age of 17 he was apprenticed to a Newport wheelwright and wagon-maker. At 19 he was enrolled in a Delaware Militia Company in the Revolutionary War but did not see active service. About this time he invented a machine for bending and cutting off the wires in textile carding combs. In July 1782, with his younger brother, Joseph, he moved to Tuckahoe on the eastern shore of the Delaware River, where he had the basic idea of the automatic flour mill. In July 1782, with his elder brothers John and Theophilus, he bought part of his father's Newport farm, on Red Clay Creek, and planned to build a mill there. In 1793 he married Sarah Tomlinson, daughter of a Delaware farmer, and joined his brothers at Red Clay Creek. He worked there for some seven years on his automatic mill, from about 1783 to 1790.

His system for the automatic flour mill consisted of bucket elevators to raise the grain, a horizontal screw conveyor, other conveying devices and a "hopper boy" to cool and dry the meal before gathering it into a hopper feeding the bolting cylinder. Together these components formed the automatic process, from incoming wheat to outgoing flour packed in barrels. At that time the idea of such automation had not been applied to any manufacturing process in America. The mill opened, on a non-automatic cycle, in 1785. In January 1786 Evans applied to the Delaware legislature for a twenty-five-year patent, which was granted on 30 January 1787 although there was much opposition from the Quaker millers of Wilmington and elsewhere. He also applied for patents in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Hampshire. In May 1789 he went to see the mill of the four Ellicot brothers, near Baltimore, where he was impressed by the design of a horizontal screw conveyor by Jonathan Ellicot and exchanged the rights to his own elevator for those of this machine. After six years' work on his automatic mill, it was completed in 1790. In the autumn of that year a miller in Brandywine ordered a set of Evans's machinery, which set the trend toward its general adoption. A model of it was shown in the Market Street shop window of Robert Leslie, a watch-and clockmaker in Philadelphia, who also took it to England but was unsuccessful in selling the idea there.

In 1790 the Federal Plant Laws were passed; Evans's patent was the third to come within the new legislation. A detailed description with a plate was published in a Philadelphia newspaper in January 1791, the first of a proposed series, but the paper closed and the series came to nothing. His brother Joseph went on a series of sales trips, with the result that some machinery of Evans's design was adopted. By 1792 over one hundred mills had been equipped with Evans's machinery, the millers paying a royalty of $40 for each pair of millstones in use. The series of articles that had been cut short formed the basis of Evans's The Young Millwright and Miller's Guide, published first in 1795 after Evans had moved to Philadelphia to set up a store selling milling supplies; it was 440 pages long and ran to fifteen editions between 1795 and 1860.

Evans was fairly successful as a merchant. He patented a method of making millstones as well as a means of packing flour in barrels, the latter having a disc pressed down by a toggle-joint arrangement. In 1801 he started to build a steam carriage. He rejected the idea of a steam wheel and of a low-pressure or atmospheric engine. By 1803 his first engine was running at his store, driving a screw-mill working on plaster of Paris for making millstones. The engine had a 6 in. (15 cm) diameter cylinder with a stroke of 18 in. (45 cm) and also drove twelve saws mounted in a frame and cutting marble slabs at a rate of 100 ft (30 m) in twelve hours. He was granted a patent in the spring of 1804. He became involved in a number of lawsuits following the extension of his patent, particularly as he increased the licence fee, sometimes as much as sixfold. The case of Evans v. Samuel Robinson, which Evans won, became famous and was one of these. Patent Right Oppression Exposed, or Knavery Detected, a 200-page book with poems and prose included, was published soon after this case and was probably written by Oliver Evans. The steam engine patent was also extended for a further seven years, but in this case the licence fee was to remain at a fixed level. Evans anticipated Edison in his proposal for an "Experimental Company" or "Mechanical Bureau" with a capital of thirty shares of $100 each. It came to nothing, however, as there were no takers. His first wife, Sarah, died in 1816 and he remarried, to Hetty Ward, the daughter of a New York innkeeper. He was buried in the Bowery, on Lower Manhattan; the church was sold in 1854 and again in 1890, and when no relative claimed his body he was reburied in an unmarked grave in Trinity Cemetery, 57th Street, Broadway.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Anthony Fokker was born in Java, where his Dutch father had a coffee plantation. The family returned to the Netherlands and, after schooling, young Anthony went to Germany to study aeronautics. With the aid of a friend he built his first aeroplane, the Spin, in 1910: this was a monoplane capable of short hops. By 1911 Fokker had improved the Spin and gained a pilot's licence. In 1912 he set up a company called Fokker Aeroplanbau at Johannistal, outside Berlin, and a series of monoplanes followed.

When war broke out in 1914 Fokker offered his designs to both sides, and the Germans accepted them. His E I monoplane of 1915 caused a sensation with its manoeuvrability and forward-firing machine gun. Fokker and his collaborators improved on the French deflector system introduced by Raymond Saulnier by fitting an interrupter gear which synchronized the machine gun to fire between the blades of the rotating propeller. The Fokker Dr I triplane and D VII biplane were also outstanding German fighters of the First World War. Fokker's designs were often the work of an employee who received little credit: nevertheless, Fokker was a gifted pilot and a great organizer. After the war, Fokker moved back to the Netherlands and set up the Fokker Aircraft Works in Amsterdam. In 1922, however, he emigrated to the USA and established the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation in New Jersey. His first significant success there came the following year when one of his T-2 monoplanes became the first aircraft to fly non-stop across the USA, from New York to San Diego. He developed a series of civil aircraft using the well-proven method of construction he used for his fighters: fuselages made from steel tubes and thick, robust wooden wings. Of these, probably the most famous was the F VII/3m, a high-wing monoplane with three engines and capable of carrying about ten passengers. From 1925 the F VII/3m airliner was used worldwide and made many record-breaking flights, such as Lieutenant-Commander Richard Byrd's first flight over the North Pole in 1926 and Charles Kingsford-Smith's first transpacific flight in 1928. By this time Fokker had lost interest in military aircraft and had begun to see flight as a means of speeding up global communications and bringing people together. His last years were spent in realizing this dream, and this was reflected in his concentration on the design and production of passenger aircraft.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Steam and internal combustion engines

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He was the sixth son of James Hancock, a cabinet-maker and merchant of Marlborough, Wiltshire. Initially Walter was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweller in London, but he soon turned his attention to engineering. In 1824 he invented a steam engine in which the cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible bags of several layers of canvas and rubber solution, which were alternately filled with steam. The engine worked satisfactorily at Hancock's works in Stratford and its simplicity and lightness suggested its suitability for road carriages. Initial experiments were not very successful, but Hancock continued to experiment. After many trials in and around London, the Infant began a regular run between Stratford and London in February 1831. The following year he built the Era for the London and Brighton Steam Carriage Company. The Enterprise was next put on the road, by the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company in April 1833. The Autopsy started to run from Finsbury Square to Pentonville in October of the same year and ran alternately with the Erin between the City and Paddington. Hancock's interest in steam road locomotion continued until about 1840, by which time he had built ten carriages. But by then public interest had declined and most of the companies involved had failed. Later, he turned his attention to indiarubber, working with his brother Thomas Hancock. In 1843 he obtained a patent for cutting rubber into sheets and for a method of preparing a solution of rubber.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Metallurgy

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Edward Geisler Herbert was educated at Nottingham High School in 1876–87, and at University College, London, in 1887–90, graduating with a BSc in Physics in 1889 and remaining for a further year to take an engineering course. He began his career as a premium apprentice at the Nottingham works of Messrs James Hill \& Co, manufacturers of lace machinery. In 1892 he became a partner with Charles Richardson in the firm of Richardson \& Herbert, electrical engineers in Manchester, and when this partnership was dissolved in 1895 he carried on the business in his own name and began to produce machine tools. He remained as Managing Director of this firm, reconstituted in 1902 as a limited liability company styled Edward G.Herbert Ltd, until his retirement in 1928. He was joined by Charles Fletcher (1868–1930), who as joint Managing Director contributed greatly to the commercial success of the firm, which specialized in the manufacture of small machine tools and testing machinery.

Around 1900 Herbert had discovered that hacksaw machines cut very much quicker when only a few teeth are in operation, and in 1902 he patented a machine which utilized this concept by automatically changing the angle of incidence of the blade as cutting proceeded. These saws were commercially successful, but by 1912, when his original patents were approaching expiry, Herbert and Fletcher began to develop improved methods of applying the rapid-saw concept. From this work the well-known Rapidor and Manchester saws emerged soon after the First World War. A file-testing machine invented by Herbert before the war made an autographic record of the life and performance of the file and brought him into close contact with the file and tool steel manufacturers of Sheffield. A tool-steel testing machine, working like a lathe, was introduced when high-speed steel had just come into general use, and Herbert became a prominent member of the Cutting Tools Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1919, carrying out many investigations for that body and compiling four of its Reports published between 1927 and 1933. He was the first to conceive the idea of the "tool-work" thermocouple which allowed cutting tool temperatures to be accurately measured. For this advance he was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal of the Institution in 1926.

His best-known invention was the Pendulum Hardness Tester, introduced in 1923. This used a spherical indentor, which was rolled over, rather than being pushed into, the surface being examined, by a small, heavy, inverted pendulum. The period of oscillation of this pendulum provided a sensitive measurement of the specimen's hardness. Following this work Herbert introduced his "Cloudburst" surface hardening process, in which hardened steel engineering components were bombarded by steel balls moving at random in all directions at very high velocities like gaseous molecules. This treatment superhardened the surface of the components, improved their resistance to abrasion, and revealed any surface defects. After bombardment the hardness of the superficially hardened layers increased slowly and spontaneously by a room-temperature ageing process. After his retirement in 1928 Herbert devoted himself to a detailed study of the influence of intense magnetic fields on the hardening of steels.

Herbert was a member of several learned societies, including the Manchester Association of Engineers, the Institute of Metals, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He retained a seat on the Board of his company from his retirement until the end of his life.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Herreshoff, or, as he was known, Captain Nat, was seventh in a family of nine, four of whom became blind in childhood. Association with such problems may have sharpened his appreciation of shape and form; indeed, he made a lengthy European small-boat trip with a blind brother. While working on yacht designs, he used three-dimensional models in conjunction with the sheer draught on the drawing-board. With many of the family being boatbuilders, he started designing at the age of 16 and then decided to make this his career. As naval architecture was not then a graduating subject, he studied mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While still studying, c.1867, he broke new ground by preparing direct reading time handicapping tables for yachts up to 110 ft (33.5 m) long. After working with the Corliss Company, he set up the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, in partnership with J.B.Herreshoff, as shipbuilders and engineers. Over the years their output included steam machinery, fishing vessels, pleasure craft and racing yachts. They built the first torpedo boat for the US Navy and another for the Royal Navy, the only such acquisition in the late nineteenth century. Herreshoff designed six of the world's greatest yachts, of the America's Cup, between 1890 and 1920. His accomplishments included new types of lightweight wood fasteners, new systems of framing, hollow spars and better methods of cutting sails. He continued to work full-time until 1935 and his work was internationally acclaimed. He maintained cordial relations with his British rivals Fife, Nicholson and G.L. Watson, and enjoyed friendship with his compatriot Edward Burgess. Few will ever match Herreshoff as an all-round engineer and designer.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Weapons and armour

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Frederick W.Howe attended local schools until the age of 16 and then entered the machine shop of Gay \& Silver at North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, as an apprentice and remained with that firm for nine years. He then joined Robbins, Kendall \& Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont, as Assistant to Richard S. Lawrence in designing machine tools. A year later (1848) he was made Plant Superintendent. During his time with this firm, Howe designed a profiling machine which was used in all gun shops in the United States: a barrel-drilling and rifling machine, and the first commercially successful milling machine. Robbins \& Lawrence took to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, England, a set of rifles built on the interchangeable system. The interest this created resulted in a visit of some members of the British Royal Small Arms Commission to America and subsequently in an order for 150 machine tools, jigs and fixtures from Robbins \& Lawrence, to be installed at the small-arms factory at Enfield. From 1853 to 1856 Howe was in charge of the design and building of these machines. In 1856 he established his own armoury at Newark, New Jersey, but transferred after two years to Middletown, Connecticut, where he continued the manufacture of small arms until the outbreak of the Civil War. He then became Superintendent of the armoury of the Providence Tool Company at Providence, Rhode Island, and served in that capacity until the end of the war. In 1865 he went to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to assist Elias Howe with the manufacture of his sewing machine. After the death of Elias Howe, Frederick Howe returned to Providence to join the Brown \& Sharpe Manufacturing Company. As Superintendent of that establishment he worked with Joseph R. Brown in the development of many of the firm's products, including machinery for the Wilcox \& Gibbs sewing machine then being made by Brown \& Sharpe. From 1876 Howe was in business on his own account as a consulting mechanical engineer and in his later years he was engaged in the development of shoe machinery and in designing a one-finger typewriter, which, however, was never completed. He was granted several patents, mainly in the fields of machine tools and firearms. As a designer, Howe was said to have been a perfectionist, making frequent improvements; when completed, his designs were always sound.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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The large and successful Lockheed Aircraft Corporation grew out of a small company founded by Allan and Malcolm Loughhead (pronounced "Lockheed") in 1913. The company employed many notable designers such as Jack Northrop, Jerry Vultee and Lloyd Stearman, but the most productive was "Kelly" Johnson. After studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, Johnson joined Lockheed in 1933 and gained experience in all the branches of the design department. By 1938 he had been appointed Chief Research Engineer and became involved with the design of the P-38 Lightning twin-boom fighter and the Constellation airliner. In 1943 he set up a super-secret research and development organization called Advanced Development Projects, but this soon became known as the "Skunk Works": the name came from a very mysterious factory which made potions from skunks in the popular comic strip Li'lAbner. The first aircraft designed and built by Johnson's small hand-picked team was the XP-80 Shooting Star prototype jet fighter, which was produced in just 143 days: it became the United States' first production jet fighter. At this stage the Skunk Works produced a prototype, then the main Lockheed factories took over the production run. The F-104 Starfighter and the C-130 Hercules transport were produced in this way and became widely used in many countries. In 1954 work began on the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft which was so secret that production was carried out within the Skunk Works. This made the headlines in 1960 when one was shot down over Russia. Probably the most outstanding of Johnson's designs was the SR-71 Blackbird of 1964, a reconnaissance aircraft capable of flying at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). Johnson was not only a great designer, he was also an outstanding manager, and his methods—including his "14 Rules"—have been widely followed. He retired from the Lockheed board in 1980, having been involved in the design of some forty aircraft.

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