testing+methods

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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From 1844 until 1962, the Clyde shipyard of William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, produced over 1,500 ships, trained innumerable students of all nationalities in shipbuilding and marine engineering, and for the seventy-plus years of their existence were accepted worldwide as the leaders in the application of science to ship design and construction. Until the closure of the yard members of the Denny family were among the partners and later directors of the firm: they included men as distinguished as Dr Peter Denny (1821(?)–95), Sir Archibald Denny (1860–1936) and Sir Maurice Denny (1886– 1955), the main collaborator in the design of the Denny-Brown ship stabilizer.

One of the most influential of this shipbuilding family was William Denny, now referred to as William 3! His early education was at Dumbarton, then on Jersey and finally at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, before he commenced an apprenticeship at his father's shipyard. From the outset he not only showed great aptitude for learning and hard work but also displayed an ability to create good relationships with all he came into contact with. At the early age of 21 he was admitted a partner of the shipbuilding business of William Denny and Brothers, and some years later also of the associated engineering firm of Denny \& Co. His deep-felt interest in what is now known as industrial relations led him in 1871 to set up a piecework system of payment in the shipyard. In this he was helped by the Yard Manager, Richard Ramage, who later was to found the Leith shipyard, which produced the world's most elegant steam yachts. This research was published later as a pamphlet called The Worth of Wages, an unusual and forward-looking action for the 1860s, when Denny maintained that an absentee employer should earn as much contempt and disapproval as an absentee landlord! In 1880 he initiated an awards scheme for all company employees, with grants and awards for inventions and production improvements. William Denny was not slow to impose new methods and to research naval architecture, a special interest being progressive ship trials with a view to predicting effective horsepower. In time this led to his proposal to the partners to build a ship model testing tank beside the Dumbarton shipyard; this scheme was completed in 1883 and was to the third in the world (after the Admiralty tank at Torquay, managed by William Froude and the Royal Netherlands Navy facility at Amsterdam, under B.J. Tideman. In 1876 the Denny Shipyard started work with mild-quality shipbuilding steel on hulls for the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and in 1879 the world's first two ships of any size using this weight-saving material were produced: they were the Rotomahana for the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand and the Buenos Ayrean for the Allan Line of Glasgow. On the naval-architecture side he was involved in Denny's proposals for standard cross curves of stability for all ships, which had far-reaching effects and are now accepted worldwide. He served on the committee working on improvements to the Load Line regulations and many other similar public bodies. After a severe bout of typhoid and an almost unacceptable burden of work, he left the United Kingdom for South America in June 1886 to attend to business with La Platense Flotilla Company, an associate company of William Denny and Brothers. In March the following year, while in Buenos Aires, he died by his own hand, a death that caused great and genuine sadness in the West of Scotland and elsewhere.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Mining and extraction technology

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Educated at Wittenberg University during 1547–8, Ercker obtained in 1554, through one of his wife's relatives, the post of Assayer from the Elector Augustus at Dresden. From then on he took a succession of posts in mining and metallurgy. In 1555 he was Chief Consultant and Supervisor of all matters relating to mines, but for some unknown reason was demoted to Warden of the Mint at Annaberg. In 1558 he travelled to the Tyrol to study the mines in that region, and in the same year Prince Henry of Brunswick appointed him Warden, then Master, of the Mint at Goslar. Ercker later moved to Prague where, through another of his wife's relatives, he was appointed Control Tester at Kutna Hora. It was there that he wrote his best-known book, Die Beschreibung allfürnemisten mineralischen Ertz, which drew him to the attention of the Emperor Maximilian, who made him Courier for Mining and a clerk of the Supreme Court of Bohemia. The next Emperor, Rudolf II, a noted patron of science and alchemy, promoted Ercker to Chief Inspector of Mines and ennobled him in 1586 with the title Von Schreckenfels'. His second wife managed the mint at Kutna Hora and his two sons became assayers. These appointments gained him much experience of the extraction and refining of metals. This first bore fruit in a book on assaying, Probierbüchlein, printed in 1556, followed by one on minting, Münzbuch, in 1563. His main work, Die Beschreibung, was a systematic review of the methods of obtaining, refining and testing the alloys and minerals of gold, silver, copper, antimony, mercury and lead. The preparation of acids, salts and other compounds is also covered, and his apparatus is fully described and illustrated. Although Ercker used Agricola's De re metattica as a model, his own work was securely based on his practical experience. Die Beschreibung was the first manual of analytical and metallurgical chemistry and influenced later writers such as Glauber on assaying. After the first edition in Prague came four further editions in Frankfurt-am-Main.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Telecommunications

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Halske moved to Berlin when he was a young man, and in 1844 was working for the university, at first independently and then jointly with F. Bötticher, developing and building electric medical appliances. In 1845 he met Werner von Siemens and together they became founder members of the Berlin Physics Society. It was in Halske's workshop that Siemens, assisted by the skill of the former, was able to work out his inventions in telegraphy. In 1847 the two men entered into partnership to manufacture telegraph equipment, laying the foundations of the successful firm of Siemens \& Halske. At the outset, before Werner von Siemens gave up his army career, Halske acted as the sole manager of the firm and was also involved in testing the products. Inventions they developed included electric measuring instruments and railway signalling equipment, and they installed many telegraph lines, notably those for the Russian Government. When gutta-percha became available on the market, the two men soon developed an extrusion process for applying this new material to copper conductors. To the disappointment of Halske, who was opposed to mass production, the firm introduced series production and piece wages in 1857. The expansion of the business, particularly into submarine cable laying, caused some anxiety to Halske, who left the firm on amicable terms in 1867. He then worked for a few years developing the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin and became a town councillor.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Photography, film and optics

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William Taylor served an apprenticeship from 1880 to 1885 in London with Paterson and Cooper, electrical engineers and instrument makers. He studied at the Finsbury Technical College under Professors W.E.Ayrton (1847–1908) and John Perry (1850–1920). He remained with Paterson and Cooper until 1887, when he joined his elder brother, who had set up in Leicester as a manufacturer of optical instruments. The firm was then styled T.S. \& W.Taylor and a few months later, when H.W.Hobson joined them as a partner, it became Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, as it was known for many years.

William Taylor was mainly responsible for technical developments in the firm and he designed the special machine tools required for making lenses and their mountings. However, his most notable work was in originating methods of measuring and gauging screw threads. He proposed a standard screw-thread for lens mountings that was adopted by the Royal Photographic Society, and he served on screw thread committees of the British Standards Institution and the British Association. His interest in golf led him to study the flight of the golf ball, and he designed and patented the "Dimple" golf ball and a mechanical driving machine for testing golf balls.

He was an active member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, being elected Associate Member in 1894, Member in 1901 and Honorary Life Member in 1936. He served on the Council from 1918 and was President in 1932. He took a keen interest in engineering education and advocated the scientific study of materials, processes and machine tools, and of management. His death occurred suddenly while he was helping to rescue his son's car from a snowdrift.

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