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81 Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside
[br]b. 26 November 1810 Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, Englandd. 27 December 1900 Cragside, Northumbria, England[br]English inventor, engineer and entrepreneur in hydraulic engineering, shipbuilding and the production of artillery.[br]The only son of a corn merchant, Alderman William Armstrong, he was educated at private schools in Newcastle and at Bishop Auckland Grammar School. He then became an articled clerk in the office of Armorer Donkin, a solicitor and a friend of his father. During a fishing trip he saw a water-wheel driven by an open stream to work a marble-cutting machine. He felt that its efficiency would be improved by introducing the water to the wheel in a pipe. He developed an interest in hydraulics and in electricity, and became a popular lecturer on these subjects. From 1838 he became friendly with Henry Watson of the High Bridge Works, Newcastle, and for six years he visited the Works almost daily, studying turret clocks, telescopes, papermaking machinery, surveying instruments and other equipment being produced. There he had built his first hydraulic machine, which generated 5 hp when run off the Newcastle town water-mains. He then designed and made a working model of a hydraulic crane, but it created little interest. In 1845, after he had served this rather unconventional apprenticeship at High Bridge Works, he was appointed Secretary of the newly formed Whittle Dene Water Company. The same year he proposed to the town council of Newcastle the conversion of one of the quayside cranes to his hydraulic operation which, if successful, should also be applied to a further four cranes. This was done by the Newcastle Cranage Company at High Bridge Works. In 1847 he gave up law and formed W.G.Armstrong \& Co. to manufacture hydraulic machinery in a works at Elswick. Orders for cranes, hoists, dock gates and bridges were obtained from mines; docks and railways.Early in the Crimean War, the War Office asked him to design and make submarine mines to blow up ships that were sunk by the Russians to block the entrance to Sevastopol harbour. The mines were never used, but this set him thinking about military affairs and brought him many useful contacts at the War Office. Learning that two eighteen-pounder British guns had silenced a whole Russian battery but were too heavy to move over rough ground, he carried out a thorough investigation and proposed light field guns with rifled barrels to fire elongated lead projectiles rather than cast-iron balls. He delivered his first gun in 1855; it was built of a steel core and wound-iron wire jacket. The barrel was multi-grooved and the gun weighed a quarter of a ton and could fire a 3 lb (1.4 kg) projectile. This was considered too light and was sent back to the factory to be rebored to take a 5 lb (2.3 kg) shot. The gun was a complete success and Armstrong was then asked to design and produce an equally successful eighteen-pounder. In 1859 he was appointed Engineer of Rifled Ordnance and was knighted. However, there was considerable opposition from the notably conservative officers of the Army who resented the intrusion of this civilian engineer in their affairs. In 1862, contracts with the Elswick Ordnance Company were terminated, and the Government rejected breech-loading and went back to muzzle-loading. Armstrong resigned and concentrated on foreign sales, which were successful worldwide.The search for a suitable proving ground for a 12-ton gun led to an interest in shipbuilding at Elswick from 1868. This necessitated the replacement of an earlier stone bridge with the hydraulically operated Tyne Swing Bridge, which weighed some 1450 tons and allowed a clear passage for shipping. Hydraulic equipment on warships became more complex and increasing quantities of it were made at the Elswick works, which also flourished with the reintroduction of the breech-loader in 1878. In 1884 an open-hearth acid steelworks was added to the Elswick facilities. In 1897 the firm merged with Sir Joseph Whitworth \& Co. to become Sir W.G.Armstrong Whitworth \& Co. After Armstrong's death a further merger with Vickers Ltd formed Vickers Armstrong Ltd.In 1879 Armstrong took a great interest in Joseph Swan's invention of the incandescent electric light-bulb. He was one of those who formed the Swan Electric Light Company, opening a factory at South Benwell to make the bulbs. At Cragside, his mansion at Roth bury, he installed a water turbine and generator, making it one of the first houses in England to be lit by electricity.Armstrong was a noted philanthropist, building houses for his workforce, and endowing schools, hospitals and parks. His last act of charity was to purchase Bamburgh Castle, Northumbria, in 1894, intending to turn it into a hospital or a convalescent home, but he did not live long enough to complete the work.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1859. FRS 1846. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers; Institution of Civil Engineers; British Association for the Advancement of Science 1863. Baron Armstrong of Cragside 1887.Further ReadingE.R.Jones, 1886, Heroes of Industry', London: Low.D.J.Scott, 1962, A History of Vickers, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside
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82 Austin, Herbert, Baron Austin
[br]b. 8 November 1866 Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire, Englandd. 23 May 1941 Lickey Grange, near Bromsgrove, Herefordshire, England[br]English manufacturer of cars.[br]The son of Stephen (or Steven) Austin, a farmer of Wentworth, Yorkshire, he was educated at Rotherham Grammar School and then went to Australia with an uncle in 1884. There he became apprenticed as an engineer at the Langlands Foundry in Melbourne. He moved to the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company, and soon after became its Manager; in 1893 he returned to England, where he became Production Manager to the English branch of the same company in Birmingham. The difficulties of travel in Australia gave him an idea of the advantages of motor-driven vehicles, and in 1895 he produced the first Wolseley car. In 1901 he was appointed to the Wolseley board, and from 1911 he was Chairman.His first car was a three-wheeler. An improved model was soon available, and in 1901 the Wolseley company took over the machine tool and motor side of Vickers Sons and Maxim and traded under the name of the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company. Herbert Austin was the General Manager. In 1905 he decided to start his own company and formed the Austin Motor Company Ltd, with works at Longbridge, near Birmingham. With a workforce of 270, the firm produced 120 cars in 1906; by 1914 a staff of 2,000 were producing 1,000 cars a year. The First World War saw production facilities turned over to the production of aeroplanes, guns and ammunition.Peacetime brought a return to car manufacture, and 1922 saw the introduction of the 7 hp "Baby Austin", a car for the masses. Many other models followed. By 1937 the original Longbridge factory had grown to 220 acres, and the staff had increased to over 16,000, while the number of cars produced had grown to 78,000 per year.Herbert Austin was a philanthropist who endowed many hospitals and not a few universities; he was created a Baron in 1936.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaron 1936.Further Reading1941, Austin Magazine (June).IMcNBiographical history of technology > Austin, Herbert, Baron Austin
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83 Baekeland, Leo Hendrik
[br]b. 14 November 1863 Saint-Martens-Latern, Belgiumd. 23 February 1944 Beacon, New York, USA[br]Belgian/American inventor of the Velox photographic process and the synthetic plastic Bakélite.[br]The son of an illiterate shoemaker, Baekeland was first apprenticed in that trade, but was encouraged by his mother to study, with spectacular results. He won a scholarship to Gand University and graduated in chemistry. Before he was 21 he had achieved his doctorate, and soon afterwards he obtained professorships at Bruges and then at Gand. Baekeland seemed set for a distinguished academic career, but he turned towards the industrial applications of chemistry, especially in photography.Baekeland travelled to New York to further this interest, but his first inventions met with little success so he decided to concentrate on one that seemed to have distinct commercial possibilities. This was a photographic paper that could be developed in artificial light; he called this "gas light" paper Velox, using the less sensitive silver chloride as a light-sensitive agent. It proved to have good properties and was easy to use, at a time of photography's rising popularity. By 1896 the process began to be profitable, and three years later Baekeland disposed of his plant to Eastman Kodak for a handsome sum, said to be $3–4 million. That enabled him to retire from business and set up a laboratory at Yonkers to pursue his own research, including on synthetic resins. Several chemists had earlier obtained resinous products from the reaction between phenol and formaldehyde but had ignored them. By 1907 Baekeland had achieved sufficient control over the reaction to obtain a good thermosetting resin which he called "Bakélite". It showed good electrical insulation and resistance to chemicals, and was unchanged by heat. It could be moulded while plastic and would then set hard on heating, with its only drawback being its brittleness. Bakelite was an immediate success in the electrical industry and Baekeland set up the General Bakelite Company in 1910 to manufacture and market the product. The firm grew steadily, becoming the Bakélite Corporation in 1924, with Baekeland still as active President.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Electrochemical Society 1909. President, American Chemical Society 1924. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1936.Further ReadingJ.Gillis, 1965, Leo Baekeland, Brussels.A.R.Matthis, 1948, Leo H.Baekeland, Professeur, Docteur ès Sciences, chimiste, inventeur et grand industriel, Brussels.J.K.Mumford, 1924, The Story of Bakélite.C.F.Kettering, 1947, memoir on Baekeland, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 24 (includes a list of his honours and publications).LRD -
84 Caird, Sir James
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 2 January 1864 Glasgow, Scotlandd. 27 September 1954 Wimbledon, London, England[br]Scottish shipowner and shipbuilder.[br]James Caird was educated at Glasgow Academy. While the connections are difficult to unravel, it is clear he was related to the Cairds of Greenock, whose shipyard on the Clyde built countless liners for the P \& O Company, and to the Caird family who were munificent benefactors of Dundee and the Church of Scotland.In 1878 Caird joined a firm of East India Merchants in Glasgow, but later went to London. In 1890 he entered the service of Turnbull, Martin \& Co., managers of the Scottish Shire Line of Steamers; he quickly rose to become Manager, and by 1903 he was the sole partner and owner. In this role his business skill became apparent, as he pioneered (along with the Houlder and Federal Lines) refrigerated shipping connections between the United Kingdom and Australia and New Zealand. In 1917 he sold his shipping interests to Messrs Cayzer Irvine, managers of the Clan Line.During the First World War, Caird set up a new shipyard on the River Wye at Chepstow in Wales. Registered in April 1916, the Standard Shipbuilding and Engineering Company took over an existing shipbuilder in an area not threatened by enemy attacks. The purpose of the yard was rapid building of standardized merchant ships during a period when heavy losses were being sustained because of German U-boat attacks. Caird was appointed Chairman, a post he held until the yard came under full government control later in the war. The shipyard did not meet the high expectations of the time, but it did pioneer standard shipbuilding which was later successful in the USA, the UK and Japan.Caird's greatest work may have been the service he gave to the councils which helped form the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. He used all his endeavours to ensure the successful launch of the world's greatest maritime museum; he persuaded friends to donate, the Government to transfer artefacts and records, and he gave of his wealth to purchase works of art for the nation. Prior to his death he endowed the Museum with £1.25 million, a massive sum for the 1930s, and this (the Caird Fund) is administered to this day by the Trustees of Greenwich.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaronet 1928 (with the title Sir James Caird of Glenfarquhar).Further ReadingFrank C.Bowen, 1950, "The Chepstow Yards and a costly venture in government shipbuilding", Shipbuilding and Shipping Record (14 December).FMW -
85 Camm, Sir Sydney
[br]b. 5 August 1893 Windsor, Berkshire, Englandd. 12 March 1966 Richmond, Surrey, England[br]English military aircraft designer.[br]He was the eldest of twelve children and his father was a journeyman carpenter, in whose footsteps Camm followed as an apprentice woodworker. He developed an early interest in aircraft, becoming a keen model maker in his early teens and taking a major role in founding a local society to this end, and in 1912 he designed and built a glider able to carry people. During the First World War he worked as a draughtsman for the aircraft firm Martinsyde, but became increasingly involved in design matters as the war progressed. In 1923 Camm was recruited by Sopwith to join his Hawker Engineering Company as Senior Draughtsman, but within two years had risen to be Chief Designer. His first important contribution was to develop a method of producing metal aircraft, using welded steel tubes, and in 1926 he designed his first significant aircraft, the Hawker Horsley torpedo-bomber, which briefly held the world long-distance record before it was snatched by Charles Lindbergh in his epic New York-Paris flight in 1927. His Hawker Hart light bomber followed in 1928, after which came his Hawker Fury fighter.By the mid-1930s Camm's reputation as a designer was such that he was able to wield significant influence on the Air Ministry when Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft specifications were being drawn up. His outstanding contribution came, however, with the unveiling of his Hawker Hurricane in 1935. This single-seater fighter was to prove one of the backbones of the RAF during 1939–45, but during the war he also designed two other excellent fighters: the Tempest and the Typhoon. After the Second World War Camm turned to jet aircraft, producing in 1951 the Hawker Hunter fighter/ground-attack aircraft, which saw lengthy service in the RAF and many other air forces. His most revolutionary contribution was the design of the Harrier jump-jet, beginning with the P.1127 prototype in 1961, followed by the Kestrel three years later. These were private ventures, but eventually the Government saw the enormous merit in the vertical take-off and landing concept, and the Harrier came to fruition in 1967. Sadly Camm, who was on the Board of Sopwith Hawker Siddeley Group, died before the aircraft came into service. He is permanently commemorated in the Camm Memorial Hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon, London.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCBE 1941. Knighted 1953. Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society 1918, Fellow 1932, President 1954–5, Gold Medal 1958. Daniel Guggenheim Medal (USA) 1965.Further ReadingAlan Bramson, 1990, Pure Luck: The Authorized Biography of Sir Thomas Sopwith, 1888–1989, Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens (provides information about Camm and his association with Sopwith).Dictionary of National Biography, 1961–70.CM -
86 Clegg, Samuel
[br]b. 2 March 1781 Manchester, Englandd. 8 January 1861 Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London, England[br]English inventor and gas engineer.[br]Clegg received scientific instruction from John Dalton, the founder of the atomic theory, and was apprenticed to Boulton \& Watt. While at their Soho factory in Birmingham, he assisted William Murdock with his experiments on coal gas. He left the firm in 1804 and set up as a gas engineer on his own account. He designed and installed gas plant and lighting in a number of factories, including Henry Lodge's cotton mill at Sowerby Bridge and in 1811 the Jesuit College at Stoneyhurst in Lancashire, the first non-industrial establishment to be equipped with gas lighting.Clegg moved to London in 1813 and successfully installed gas lighting at the premises of Rudolf Ackermann in the Strand. His success in the manufacture of gas had earned him the Royal Society of Arts Silver Medal in 1808 for furthering "the art of gas production", and in 1813 it brought him the appointment of Chief Engineer to the first gas company, the Chartered Gas, Light \& Coke Company. He left in 1817, but remained in demand to set up gas works and advise on the formation of gas companies. Throughout this time there flowed from Clegg a series of inventions of fundamental importance in the gas industry. While at Lodge's mill he had begun purifying gas by adding lime to the gas holder, and at Stoneyhurst this had become a separate lime purifier. In 1815, and again in 1818, Clegg patented the wet-meter which proved to be the basis for future devices for measuring gas. He invented the gas governor and, favouring the horizontal retort, developed the form which was to become standard for the next forty years. But after all this, Clegg joined a concern in Liverpool which failed, taking all his possessions with it. He made a fresh start in Lisbon, where he undertook various engineering works for the Portuguese government. He returned to England to find railway construction gathering pace, but he again backed a loser by engaging in the ill-fated atmospheric-rail way project. He was finally discouraged from taking part in further enterprises, but he received a government appointment as Surveying Officer to conduct enquiries in connection with the various Bills on gas that were presented to Parliament. Clegg also contributed to his son's massive treatise on the manufacture of coal gas.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society of Arts Silver Medal 1808.Further ReadingMinutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1862) 21:552–4.S.Everard, 1949, The History of the Gas light and Coke Company, London: Ernest Benn.LRD -
87 Cockerell, Christopher Sydney
[br]b. 4 June 1910 Cambridge, England[br]British designer and engineer who invented the hovercraft.[br]He was educated at Gresham's School in Holt and at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, where he graduated in engineering in 1931; he was made an Honorary Fellow in 1974. Cockerell entered the engineering firm of W.H.Allen \& Sons of Bedford as a pupil in 1931, and two years later he returned to Cambridge to engage in radio research for a further two years. In 1935 he joined Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, working on very high frequency (VHF) transmitters and direction finders. During the Second World War he worked on airborne navigation and communication equipment, and later he worked on radar. During this period he filed thirty six patents in the fields of radio and navigational systems.In 1950 Cockerell left Marconi to set up his own boat-hire business on the Norfolk Broads. He began to consider how to increase the speed of boats by means of air lubrication. Since the 1870s engineers had at times sought to reduce the drag on a boat by means of a thin layer of air between hull and water. After his first experiments, Cockerell concluded that a significant reduction in drag could only be achieved with a thick cushion of air. After experimenting with several ways of applying the air-cushion principle, the first true hovercraft "took off" in 1955. It was a model in balsa wood, 2 ft 6 in. (762 mm) long and weighing 4½ oz. (27.6 g); it was powered by a model-aircraft petrol engine and could travel over land or water at 13 mph (20.8 km/h). Cockerell filed his first hovercraft patent on 12 December 1955. The following year he founded Hovercraft Ltd and began the search for a manufacturer. The government was impressed with the invention's military possibilities and placed it on the secret list. The secret leaked out, however, and the project was declassified. In 1958 the National Research and Development Corporation decided to give its backing, and the following year Saunders Roe Ltd with experience of making flying boats, produced the epoch-making SR N1, a hovercraft with an air cushion produced by air jets directed downwards and inwards arranged round the periphery of the craft. It made a successful crossing of the English Channel, with the inventor on board.Meanwhile Cockerell had modified the hovercraft so that the air cushion was enclosed within flexible skirts. In this form it was taken up by manufacturers throughout the world and found wide application as a passenger-carrying vehicle, for military transport and in scientific exploration and survey work. The hover principle found other uses, such as for air-beds to relieve severely burned patients and for hover mowers.The development of the hovercraft has occupied Cockerell since then and he has been actively involved in the several companies set up to exploit the invention, including Hovercraft Development Ltd and British Hovercraft Corporation. In the 1970s and 1980s he took up the idea of the generation of electricity by wavepower; he was Founder of Wavepower Ltd, of which he was Chairman from 1974 to 1982.[br]Principal Honours find DistinctionsKnighted 1969. CBE 1955. FRS 1967.LRDBiographical history of technology > Cockerell, Christopher Sydney
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88 Colpitts, Edwin Henry
[br]b. 9 January 1872 Pointe de Bute, Canadad. 6 March 1949 Orange, New Jersey, USA[br]Canadian physicist and electrical engineer responsible for important developments in electronic-circuit technology.[br]Colpitts obtained Bachelor's degrees at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, and Harvard in 1894 and 1896, respectively, followed by a Master's degree at Harvard in 1897. After two years as assistant to the professor of physics there, he joined the American Bell Telephone Company. When the Bell Company was reorganized in 1907, he moved to the Western Electric branch of the company in New York as Head of the Physical Laboratories. In 1911 he became a director of the Research Laboratories, and in 1917 he became Assistant Chief Engineer of the company. During this time he invented both the push-pull amplifier and the Colpitts oscillator, both major developments in communications. In 1917, during the First World War, he spent some time in France helping to set up the US Signal Corps Research Laboratories. Afterwards he continued to do much, both technically and as a manager, to place telephone communications on a firm scientific basis, retiring as Vice-President of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941 he was recalled from retirement and appointed Director of the Engineering Foundation to work on submarine warfare techniques, particularly echo-ranging.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsOrder of the Rising Sun, Japan, 1938. US Medal of Merit 1948.Bibliography1919, with E.B.Craft, "Radio telephony", Proceedings of the American Institution of Electrical Engineers 38:337.1921, with O.B.Blackwell, "Carrier current telephony and telegraphy", American Institute of Electrical Engineers Transactions 40:205.11 September 1915, US reissue patent no. 15,538 (control device for radio signalling).28 August 1922, US patent no. 1,479,638 (multiple signal reception).Further ReadingM.D.Fagen, 1975, A History of Engineering \& Science in the Bell System, Vol. 1, Bell Laboratories.See also: Hartley, Ralph V.L.KF -
89 Dickinson, John
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 29 March 1782d. 11 January 1869 London, England[br]English papermaker and inventor of a papermaking machine.[br]After education at a private school, Dickinson was apprenticed to a London stationer. In 1806 he started in business as a stationer, in partnership with George Longman; they transferred to 65 Old Bailey, where the firm remained until their premises were destroyed during the Second World War. In order to secure the supply of paper and be less dependent on the papermakers, Dickinson turned to making paper on his own account. In 1809 he acquired Apsley Mill, near Hemel Hempstead on the river Gade in Hertfordshire. There, he produced a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges which, unlike the paper then in use, did not smoulder, thus reducing the risk of undesired explosions. The new paper proved very useful during the Napoleonic War.Dickinson developed a continuous papermaking machine about the same time as the Fourdrinier brothers, but his worked on a different principle. Instead of a continuous flat wire screen, Dickinson used a wire-covered cylinder which dipped into the dilute pulp as it revolved. A felt-covered roller removed the layer of wet pulp, which was then subjected to drying, as in the Fourdrinier machine. The latter was first in use at Frogmore, just upstream from Apsley Mill on the river Gade. Dickinson patented his machine in 1809 and claimed that it was superior for some kinds of paper. In feet, both types of machine have survived, in much enlarged and modified form: the Fourdrinier for general papermaking, the Dickinson cylinder for the making of board. In 1810 Dickinson acquired the nearby Nash Mill, and over the years he extended the scope of his papermaking business, introducing many technical improvements. Among his inventions was a machine to paste together continuous webs of paper to form cardboard. Another, patented in 1829, was a process for incorporating threads of cotton, flax or silk into the body of the paper to make forgery more difficult. He became increasingly prosperous, overcoming labour disputes with unemployed hand-papermakers. and lawsuits against a canal company which threatened the water supply to his mills. Dickinson was the first to use percolation gauges to predict river flow, and his work on water supply brought him election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1845.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1845.Further ReadingR.H.Clapperton, 1967, The Paper-making Machine, Oxford: Pergamon Press, pp. 331–5 (provides a biography and full details of Dickinson's inventions).LRD -
90 Donkin, Bryan I
[br]b. 22 March 1768 Sandoe, Northumberland, Englandd. 27 February 1855 London, England[br]English mechanical engineer and inventor.[br]It was intended that Bryan Donkin should follow his father's profession of surveyor and land agent, so he spent a year or so in that occupation before he was apprenticed to John Hall, millwright of Dartford, Kent. Donkin remained with the firm after completing his apprenticeship, and when the Fourdrinier brothers in 1802 introduced from France an invention for making paper in continuous lengths they turned to John Hall for help in developing the machine: Donkin was chosen to undertake the work. In 1803 the Fourdriniers established their own works in Bermondsey, with Bryan Donkin in charge. By 1808 Donkin had acquired the works, but he continued to manufacture paper-making machines, paying a royalty to the patentees. He also undertook other engineering work including water-wheels for driving paper and other mills. He was also involved in the development of printing machinery and the preservation of food in airtight containers. Some of these improvements were patented, and he also obtained patents relating to gearing, steel pens, paper-making and railway wheels. Other inventions of Bryan Donkin that were not patented concerned revolution counters and improvements in accurate screw threads for use in graduating mathematical scales. Donkin was elected a member of the Society of Arts in 1803 and was later Chairman of the Society's Committee of Mechanics and a Vice-President of the society. He was also a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1818 a group of eight young men founded the Institution of Civil Engineers; two of them were apprentices of Bryan Donkin and he encouraged their enterprise. After a change in the rules permitted the election of members over the age of 35, he himself became a member in 1821. He served on the Council and became a Vice- President, but he resigned from the Institution in 1848.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1838. Vice-President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1826–32, 1835–45. Member, Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1835; President 1843. Society of Arts Gold Medal 1810, 1819.Further ReadingS.B.Donkin, 1949–51, "Bryan Donkin, FRS, MICE 1768–1855", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 27:85–95.RTS -
91 Field, Joshua
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1786 Hackney, London, Englandd. 11 August 1863 Balham Hill, Surrey, England[br]English mechanical engineer, co-founder of the Institution of Civil Engineers.[br]Joshua Field was educated at a boarding school in Essex until the age of 16, when he obtained employment at the Royal Dockyards at Portsmouth under the Chief Mechanical Superintendent, Simon Goodrich (1773–1847), and later in the drawing office at the Admiralty in Whitehall. At this time, machinery for the manufacture of ships' blocks was being made for the Admiralty by Henry Maudslay, who was in need of a competent draughtsman, and Goodrich recommended Joshua Field. This was the beginning of Field's long association with Maudslay; he later became a partner in the firm which was for many years known as Maudslay, Sons \& Field. They undertook a variety of mechanical engineering work but were renowned for marine steam engines, with Field being responsible for much of the design work in the early years. Joshua Field was the eldest of the eight young men who in 1818 founded the Institution of Civil Engineers; he was the first Chairman of the Institution and later became a vice-president. He was the only one of the founders to be elected President and was the first mechanical engineer to hold that office. James Nasmyth in his autobiography relates that Joshua Field kept a methodical account of his technical discussions in a series of note books which were later indexed. Some of these diaries have survived, and extracts from the notes he made on a tour of the industrial areas of the Midlands and the North West in 1821 have been published.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1836. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1848–9. Member, Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1835; President 1848.Bibliography1925–6, "Joshua Field's diary of a tour in 1821 through the Midlands", introd. and notes J.W.Hall, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 6:1–41.1932–3, "Joshua Field's diary of a tour in 1821 through the provinces", introd. and notes E.C. Smith, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 13:15–50.RTS -
92 Fox, Samson
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Metallurgy, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 11 July 1838 Bowling, near Bradford, Yorkshire, Englandd. 24 October 1903 Walsall, Staffordshire, England[br]English engineer who invented the corrugated boiler furnace.[br]He was the son of a cloth mill worker in Leeds and at the age of 10 he joined his father at the mill. Showing a mechanical inclination, he was apprenticed to a firm of machine-tool makers, Smith, Beacock and Tannett. There he rose to become Foreman and Traveller, and designed and patented tools for cutting bevelled gears. With his brother and one Refitt, he set up the Silver Cross engineering works for making special machine tools. In 1874 he founded the Leeds Forge Company, acting as Managing Director until 1896 and then as Chairman until shortly before his death.It was in 1877 that he patented his most important invention, the corrugated furnace for steam-boilers. These furnaces could withstand much higher pressures than the conventional form, and higher working pressures in marine boilers enabled triple-expansion engines to be installed, greatly improving the performance of steamships, and the outcome was the great ocean-going liners of the twentieth century. The first vessel to be equipped with the corrugated furnace was the Pretoria of 1878. At first the furnaces were made by hammering iron plates using swage blocks under a steam hammer. A plant for rolling corrugated plates was set up at Essen in Germany, and Fox installed a similar mill at his works in Leeds in 1882.In 1886 Fox installed a Siemens steelmaking plant and he was notable in the movement for replacing wrought iron with steel. He took out several patents for making pressed-steel underframes for railway wagons. The business prospered and Fox opened a works near Chicago in the USA, where in addition to wagon underframes he manufactured the first American pressed-steel carriages. He later added a works at Pittsburgh.Fox was the first in England to use water gas for his metallurgical operations and for lighting, with a saving in cost as it was cheaper than coal gas. He was also a pioneer in the acetylene industry, producing in 1894 the first calcium carbide, from which the gas is made.Fox took an active part in public life in and around Leeds, being thrice elected Mayor of Harrogate. As a music lover, he was a benefactor of musicians, contributing no less than £45,000 towards the cost of building the Royal College of Music in London, opened in 1894. In 1897 he sued for libel the author Jerome K.Jerome and the publishers of the Today magazine for accusing him of misusing his great generosity to the College to give a misleading impression of his commercial methods and prosperity. He won the case but was not awarded costs.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society of Arts James Watt Silver Medal and Howard Gold Medal. Légion d'honneur 1889.Bibliography1877, British Patent nos. 1097 and 2530 (the corrugated furnace or "flue", as it was often called).Further ReadingObituary, 1903, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: 919–21.Obituary, 1903, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (the fullest of the many obituary notices).G.A.Newby, 1993, "Behind the fire doors: Fox's corrugated furnace 1877 and the high pressure steamship", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 64.LRD -
93 Harwood, John
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 1893 Bolton, Englandd. 9 August 1964[br]English watchmaker, inventor and producer of the first commercial self-winding wrist watch.[br]John Harwood served an apprenticeship as a watch repairer in Bolton, and after service in the First World War he obtained a post with a firm of jewellers in Douglas, Isle of Man. He became interested in the self-winding wrist watch, not because of the convenience of not having to wind it, but because of its potential to keep the mainspring fully wound and to exclude dust and moisture from the watch movement. His experience at the bench had taught him that these were the most common factors to affect adversely the reliability of watches. Completely unaware of previous work in this area, in 1922 he started experimenting and two years later he had produced a serviceable model for which he was granted a patent in 1924. The watch operated on the pedometer principle, the mainspring being wound by a pivoted weight that oscillated in the watch case as a result of the motion of the arm. The hands of his watch were set by rotating the bezel surrounding the dial, dispensing with the usual winding/hand-setting stem which allowed dust and moisture to enter the watch case. He took the watch to Switzerland, but he was unable to persuade the watchmaking firms to produce it until he had secured independent finance to cover the cost of tooling. The Harwood Self-Winding Watch Company Ltd was set up in 1928 to market the watches, but although several thousand were produced the company became a victim of the slump and closed down in 1932. The first practical self-winding watch also operated on the pedometer principle and is attributed to Abraham-Louis Perrellet (1770). The method was refined by Breguet in France and by Recordon, who patented the device in England, but it proved troublesome and went out of fashion. There was a brief revival of interest in self-winding watches towards the end of the nineteenth century, but they never achieved great popularity until after the Second World War, when they used either self-winding mechanisms similar to that devised by Harwood or weights which rotated in the case.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBritish Horological Institute Gold Medal 1957.Bibliography1 September 1924, Swiss patent no. 106,582.Further ReadingA.Chapuis and E.Jaquet, 1956, The History of the Self-Winding Watch, London (provides general information)."How the automatic wrist watch was invented", 1957, Horological Journal 99:612–61 (for specific information).DV -
94 Haynes, Elwood
[br]b. 14 October 1857 Portland, Indiana, USAd. 13 April 1925 Kokomo, Indiana, USA[br]American inventor ofStellite cobalt-based alloys, early motor-car manufacturer and pioneer in stainless steels.[br]From his early years, Haynes was a practising Presbyterian and an active prohibitionist. He graduated in 1881 at Worcester, Massachusetts, and a spell of teaching in his home town was interrupted in 1884–5 while he attended the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1886 he became permanently diverted by the discovery of natural gas in Portland. He was soon appointed Superintendent of the local gas undertaking, and then in 1890 he was hired by the Indiana Natural Gas \& Oil Company. While continuing his gas-company employment until 1901, Haynes conducted numerous metallurgical experiments. He also designed an automobile: this led to the establishment of the Haynes- Apperson Company at Kokomo as one of the earliest motor-car makers in North America. From 1905 the firm traded as the Haynes Automobile Company, and before its bankruptcy in 1924 it produced more than 50,000 cars. After 1905, Haynes found the first "Stellite" alloys of cobalt and chromium, and in 1910 he was publicizing the patented material. He then discovered the valuable hardening effect of tungsten, and in 1912 began applying the "improved" Stellite to cutting tools. Three years later, the Haynes Stellite Company was incorporated, with Haynes as President, to work the patents. It was largely from this source that Haynes became a millionaire in 1920. In April 1912, Haynes's attempt to patent the use of chromium with iron to render the product rustless was unsuccessful. However, he re-applied for a US patent on 12 March 1915 and, although this was initially rejected, he persevered and finally obtained recognition of his modified claim. The American Stainless Steel Company licensed the patents of Brearley and Haynes jointly in the USA until the 1930s.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsJohn Scott Medal 1919 (awarded for useful inventions).BibliographyHaynes was the author of more than twenty published papers and articles, among them: 1907, "Materials for automobiles", Proceedings of the American Society of MechanicalEngineers 29:1,597–606; 1910, "Alloys of nickel and cobalt with chromium", Journal of Industrial Engineeringand Chemistry 2:397–401; 1912–13, "Alloys of cobalt with chromium and other metals", Transactions of the American Institute of 'Mining Engineers 44:249–55;1919–20, "Stellite and stainless steel", Proceedings of the Engineering Society of WestPennsylvania 35:467–74.1 April 1919, US patent no. 1,299,404 (stainless steel).The four US patents worked by the Haynes Stellite Company were: 17 December 1907, patent no. 873,745.1 April 1913, patent no. 1,057,423.1 April 1913, patent no. 1,057, 828.17 August 1915, patent no. 1,150, 113.Further ReadingR.D.Gray, 1979, Alloys and Automobiles. The Life of Elwood Haynes, Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society (a closely documented biography).JKA -
95 Hertz, Heinrich Rudolph
[br]b. 22 February 1857 Hamburg, Germanyd. 1 January 1894 Bonn, Germany[br]German physicist who was reputedly the first person to transmit and receive radio waves.[br]At the age of 17 Hertz entered the Gelehrtenschule of the Johaneums in Hamburg, but he left the following year to obtain practical experience for a year with a firm of engineers in Frankfurt am Main. He then spent six months at the Dresden Technical High School, followed by year of military service in Berlin. At this point he decided to switch from engineering to physics, and after a year in Munich he studied physics under Helmholtz at the University of Berlin, gaining his PhD with high honours in 1880. From 1883 to 1885 he was a privat-dozent at Kiel, during which time he studied the electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell. In 1885 he succeeded to the Chair in Physics at Karlsruhe Technical High School. There, in 1887, he constructed a rudimentary transmitter consisting of two 30 cm (12 in.) rods with metal balls separated by a 7.5 mm (0.3 in.) gap at the inner ends and metallic plates at the outer ends, the whole assembly being mounted at the focus of a large parabolic metal mirror and the two rods being connected to an induction coil. At the other side of his laboratory he placed a 70 cm (27½ in.) diameter wire loop with a similar air gap at the focus of a second metal mirror. When the induction coil was made to create a spark across the transmitter air gap, he found that a spark also occurred at the "receiver". By a series of experiments he was not only able to show that the invisible waves travelled in straight lines and were reflected by the parabolic mirrors, but also that the vibrations could be refracted like visible light and had a similar wavelength. By this first transmission and reception of radio waves he thus confirmed the theoretical predictions made by Maxwell some twenty years earlier. It was probably in his experiments with this apparatus in 1887 that Hertz also observed that the voltage at which a spark was able to jump a gap was significantly reduced by the presence of ultraviolet light. This so-called photoelectric effect was subsequently placed on a theoretical basis by Albert Einstein in 1905. In 1889 he became Professor of Physics at the University of Bonn, where he continued to investigate the nature of electric discharges in gases at low pressure until his death after a long and painful illness. In recognition of his measurement of radio and other waves, the international unit of frequency of an oscillatory wave, the cycle per second, is now universally known as the Hertz.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society Rumford Medal 1890.BibliographyMuch of Hertz's work, including his 1890 paper "On the fundamental equations of electrodynamics for bodies at rest", is recorded in three collections of his papers which are available in English translations by D.E.Jones et al., namely Electric Waves (1893), Miscellaneous Papers (1896) and Principles of Mechanics (1899).Further ReadingJ.G.O'Hara and W.Pricha, 1987, Hertz and the Maxwellians, London: Peter Peregrinus. J.Hertz, 1977, Heinrich Hertz, Memoirs, Letters and Diaries, San Francisco: San Francisco Press.R.Appleyard, 1930, Pioneers of Electrical Communication.See also: Heaviside, OliverKFBiographical history of technology > Hertz, Heinrich Rudolph
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96 Hetzel, Max
[br]b. 5 March 1921 Basle, Switzerland[br]Swiss electrical engineer who invented the tuning-fork watch.[br]Hetzel trained as an electrical engineer at the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich and worked for several years in the field of telecommunications before joining the Bulova Watch Company in 1950. At that time several companies were developing watches with electromagnetically maintained balances, but they represented very little advance on the mechanical watch and the mechanical switching mechanism was unreliable. In 1952 Hetzel started work on a much more radical design which was influenced by a transistorized tuning-fork oscillator that he had developed when he was working on telecommunications. Tuning forks, whose vibrations were maintained electromagnetically, had been used by scientists during the nineteenth century to measure small intervals of time, but Niaudet- Breguet appears to have been the first to use a tuning fork to control a clock. In 1866 he described a mechanically operated tuning-fork clock manufactured by the firm of Breguet, but it was not successful, possibly because the fork did not compensate for changes in temperature. The tuning fork only became a precision instrument during the 1920s, when elinvar forks were maintained in vibration by thermionic valve circuits. Their primary purpose was to act as frequency standards, but they might have been developed into precision clocks had not the quartz clock made its appearance very shortly afterwards. Hetzel's design was effectively a miniaturized version of these precision devices, with a transistor replacing the thermionic valve. The fork vibrated at a frequency of 360 cycles per second, and the hands were driven mechanically from the end of one of the tines. A prototype was working by 1954, and the watch went into production in 1960. It was sold under the tradename Accutron, with a guaranteed accuracy of one minute per month: this was a considerable improvement on the performance of the mechanical watch. However, the events of the 1920s were to repeat themselves, and by the end of the decade the Accutron was eclipsed by the introduction of quartz-crystal watches.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNeuchâtel Observatory Centenary Prize 1958. Swiss Society for Chronometry Gold Medal 1988.Bibliography"The history of the “Accutron” tuning fork watch", 1969, Swiss Watch \& Jewellery Journal 94:413–5.Further ReadingR.Good, 1960, "The Accutron", Horological Journal 103:346–53 (for a detailed technical description).J.D.Weaver, 1982, Electrical \& Electronic Clocks \& Watches, London (provides a technical description of the tuning-fork watch in its historical context).DV -
97 Holden, Sir Isaac
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 7 May 1807 Hurlet, between Paisley and Glasgow, Scotlandd. 13 August 1897[br]British developer of the wool-combing machine.[br]Isaac Holden's father, who had the same name, had been a farmer and lead miner at Alston in Cumbria before moving to work in a coal-mine near Glasgow. After a short period at Kilbarchan grammar school, the younger Isaac was engaged first as a drawboy to two weavers and then, after the family had moved to Johnstone, Scotland, worked in a cotton-spinning mill while attending night school to improve his education. He was able to learn Latin and bookkeeping, but when he was about 15 he was apprenticed to an uncle as a shawl-weaver. This proved to be too much for his strength so he returned to scholastic studies and became Assistant to an able teacher, John Kennedy, who lectured on physics, chemistry and history, which he also taught to his colleague. The elder Isaac died in 1826 and the younger had to provide for his mother and younger brother, but in 1828, at the age of 21, he moved to a teaching post in Leeds. He filled similar positions in Huddersfield and Reading, where in October 1829 he invented and demonstrated the lucifer match but did not seek to exploit it. In 1830 he returned because of ill health to his mother in Scotland, where he began to teach again. However, he was recommended as a bookkeeper to William Townend, member of the firm of Townend Brothers, Cullingworth, near Bingley, Yorkshire. Holden moved there in November 1830 and was soon involved in running the mill, eventually becoming a partner.In 1833 Holden urged Messrs Townend to introduce seven wool-combing machines of Collier's designs, but they were found to be very imperfect and brought only trouble and loss. In 1836 Holden began experimenting on the machines until they showed reasonable success. He decided to concentrate entirely on developing the combing machine and in 1846 moved to Bradford to form an alliance with Samuel Lister. A joint patent in 1847 covered improvements to the Collier combing machine. The "square motion" imitated the action of the hand-comber more closely and was patented in 1856. Five more patents followed in 1857 and others from 1858 to 1862. Holden recommended that the machines should be introduced into France, where they would be more valuable for the merino trade. This venture was begun in 1848 in the joint partnership of Lister \& Holden, with equal shares of profits. Holden established a mill at Saint-Denis, first with Donisthorpe machines and then with his own "square motion" type. Other mills were founded at Rheims and at Croix, near Roubaix. In 1858 Lister decided to retire from the French concerns and sold his share to Holden. Soon after this, Holden decided to remodel all their machinery for washing and carding the gill machines as well as perfecting the square comb. Four years of excessive application followed, during which time £20,000 was spent in experiments in a small mill at Bradford. The result fully justified the expenditure and the Alston Works was built in Bradford.Holden was a Liberal and from 1865 to 1868 he represented Knaresborough in Parliament. Later he became the Member of Parliament for the Northern Division of the Riding, Yorkshire, and then for the town of Keighley after the constituencies had been altered. He was liberal in his support of religious, charitable and political objectives. His house at Oakworth, near Keighley, must have been one of the earliest to have been lit by electricity.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaronet 1893.Bibliography1847, with Samuel Lister, British patent no. 11,896 (improved Collier combing machine). 1856. British patent no. 1,058 ("square motion" combing machine).1857. British patent no. 278 1857, British patent no. 279 1857, British patent no. 280 1857, British patent no. 281 1857, British patent no. 3,177 1858, British patent no. 597 1859, British patent no. 52 1860, British patent no. 810 1862, British patent no. 1,890 1862, British patent no. 3,394Further ReadingJ.Hogg (ed.), c.1888, Fortunes Made in Business, London (provides an account of Holden's life).Obituary, 1897, Engineer 84.Obituary, 1897, Engineering 64.E.M.Sigsworth, 1973, "Sir Isaac Holden, Bt: the first comber in Europe", in N.B.Harte and K.G.Ponting (eds), Textile History and Economic History, Essays in Honour ofMiss Julia de Lacy Mann, Manchester.W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (provides a good explanation of the square motion combing machine).RLH -
98 Johansson, Carl Edvard
[br]b. 15 March 1864 Orebro, Swedend. 30 September 1943 Eskilstuna, Sweden[br]Swedish metrologist and inventor of measuring-gauge blocks.[br]Carl Edvard Johansson was first apprenticed to a shoemaker, but he soon abandoned that career. In 1882 he went to America to join his brother Arvid working at a sawmill in the summer; in winter the brothers obtained further general education at the Gustavus Adolphus College at St Peter, Minnesota. They returned to Sweden in November 1884 and in the following year Carl obtained employment with a small engineering firm which rented a workshop in the government small-arms factory at Eskilstuna. In his spare time he attended the Eskilstuna Technical College and in 1888 he was accepted as an apprentice armourer inspector. After completion of his apprenticeship he was appointed an armourer inspector, and it was in his work of inspection that he realized that the large number of gauges then required could be reduced if several accurate gauges could be used in combination. This was in 1896, and the first set of gauges was made for use in the rifle factory. With these, any dimension between 1 mm and 201 mm could be made up to the nearest 0.01 mm, the gauges having flat polished surfaces that would adhere together by "wringing". Johansson obtained patents for the system from 1901, but it was not until c.1907 that the sets of gauges were marketed generally. Gauges were made in inch units for Britain and America—slightly different as the standards were not then identical. Johansson formed his own company to manufacture the gauges in 1910, but he did not give up his post in the rifle factory until 1914. By the 1920s Johansson gauges were established as the engineering dimensional standards for the whole world; the company also made other precision measuring instruments such as micrometers and extensometers. A new company, C.E.Johansson Inc., was set up in America for manufacture and sales, and the gauges were extensively used in the American automobile industry. Henry Ford took a special interest and Johansson spent several years in a post with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, until he returned to Sweden in 1936.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary Doctorates, Gustavus Adolphus College, St Peter and Wayne University, Detroit. Swedish Engineering Society John Ericsson Gold Medal. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Gold Medal.Further ReadingK.J.Hume, 1980, A History of Engineering Metrology, London, pp. 54–66 (a short biography).RTS -
99 Kilby, Jack St Clair
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 8 November 1923 Jefferson City, Missouri, USA[br]American engineer who filed the first patents for micro-electronic (integrated) circuits.[br]Kilby spent most of his childhood in Great Bend, Kansas, where he often accompanied his father, an electrical power engineer, on his maintenance rounds. Working in the blizzard of 1937, his father borrowed a "ham" radio, and this fired Jack to study for his amateur licence (W9GTY) and to construct his own equipment while still a student at Great Bend High School. In 1941 he entered the University of Illinois, but four months later, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was enlisted in the US Army and found himself working in a radio repair workshop in India. When the war ended he returned to his studies, obtaining his BSEE from Illinois in 1947 and his MSEE from the University of Wisconsin. He then joined Centralab, a small electronics firm in Milwaukee owned by Globe-Union. There he filed twelve patents, including some for reduced titanate capacitors and for Steatite-packing of transistors, and developed a transistorized hearing-aid. During this period he also attended a course on transistors at Bell Laboratories. In May 1958, concerned to gain experience in the field of number processing, he joined Texas Instruments in Dallas. Shortly afterwards, while working alone during the factory vacation, he conceived the idea of making monolithic, or integrated, circuits by diffusing impurities into a silicon substrate to create P-N junctions. Within less than a month he had produced a complete oscillator on a chip to prove that the technology was feasible, and the following year at the 1ERE Show he demonstrated a germanium integrated-circuit flip-flop. Initially he was granted a patent for the idea, but eventually, after protracted litigation, priority was awarded to Robert Noyce of Fairchild. In 1965 he was commissioned by Patrick Haggerty, the Chief Executive of Texas Instruments, to make a pocket calculator based on integrated circuits, and on 14 April 1971 the world's first such device, the Pocketronic, was launched onto the market. Costing $150 (and weighing some 2½ lb or 1.1 kg), it was an instant success and in 1972 some 5 million calculators were sold worldwide. He left Texas Instruments in November 1970 to become an independent consultant and inventor, working on, amongst other things, methods of deriving electricity from sunlight.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFranklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1966. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers David Sarnoff Award 1966; Cledo Brunetti Award (jointly with Noyce) 1978; Medal of Honour 1986. National Academy of Engineering 1967. National Science Medal 1969. National Inventors Hall of Fame 1982. Honorary DEng Miami 1982, Rochester 1986. Honorary DSc Wisconsin 1988. Distinguished Professor, Texas A \& M University.Bibliography6 February 1959, US patent no. 3,138,743 (the first integrated circuit (IC); initially granted June 1964).US patent no. 3,819,921 (the Pocketronic calculator).Further ReadingT.R.Reid, 1984, Microchip. The Story of a Revolution and the Men Who Made It, London: Pan Books (for the background to the development of the integrated circuit). H.Queisser, 1988, Conquest of the Microchip, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.KF -
100 Martin, Sir James
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1893 Co. Down, Northern Irelandd. 5 January 1981 England[br]Irish military aircraft engineer, inventor of the ejector seat.[br]Martin acquired a general knowledge of engineering as an industrial worker in Belfast. In 1929 he established the Martin Aircraft Company, which was merged five years later with another concern to form the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company at Denham, Buckinghamshire. They became known for designing and constructing efficient, lightweight military aircraft, and Martin supervised personally every aspect of the work of his factory. During the Second World War they developed a number of aircraft weapons, including an explosive device carried on a bomber's wings for cutting the cables of barrage balloons, the flat-feed system for the 20 mm Hispano cannon used on British fighter planes and the twelve-gun pack mounted in the nose of the Havoc night fighter. Martin began devising means of rapid escape from a disabled fighter plane. First came a quick-release canopy for the Spitfire, followed by an improved form sliding on guides set in the fuselage. Then came the Martin-Baker seat, which ejected the pilot from his plane by an explosive charge. Ground tests were made to determine the rates of acceleration that could be tolerated by the pilot, and the first test in the air with a pilot took place in July 1946 at a speed of 320 mph (515 km/h) and an altitude of 8,000 ft (2,400 m). Its first use in a genuine emergency was in May 1949.After the Second World War, the firm specialized in making components, particularly the ejector seat, rather than complete aircraft. The higher speeds and altitudes of supersonic jet aircraft made it necessary to modify the ejector seat: a device to hold the pilot's legs together, to prevent their being broken, was incorporated. In addition, with the Institute of Aviation Medicine, Martin developed a face blind to prevent skin damage at low temperatures. Another modification was to allow the seat to fall freely for the first 10,000 ft (3,000 m) to enable the pilot to reach breathable air more quickly; in October 1959 a successful demonstration took place at 1,250 mph (2,000 km/h) and 40,000 ft (12,000 m) altitude. During the inventor's lifetime, it is estimated that his ejector seat saved the lives of some 4,700 airmen.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1965. Barbour Air Safety Award 1958. Cumberbatch Air Safety Trophy 1959. Royal Aero Club Gold Medal 1964.Further ReadingObituary, 1981, The Times.LRD
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