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101 Mavor, Henry Alexander
[br]b. 1858 Stranraer, Scotlandd. 16 July 1915 Mauchline, Ayrshire, Scotland[br]Scottish engineer who pioneered the use of electricity for lighting, power and the propulsion of ships.[br]Mavor came from a distinguished Scottish family with connections in medicine, industry and the arts. On completion of his education at Glasgow University, he joined R.J.Crompton \& Co.; then in 1883, along with William C.Muir, he established the Glasgow firm which later became well known as Mavor and Coulson. It pioneered the supply of electricity to public undertakings and equipped the first two generating stations in Scotland. Mavor and his fellow directors appreciated the potential demand by industry in Glasgow for electricity. Two industries were especially well served; first, the coal-mines, where electric lighting and power transformed efficiency and safety beyond recognition; and second, marine engineering. Here Mavor recognized the importance of the variable-speed motor in working with marine propellers which have a tighter range of efficient working speeds. In 1911 he built a 50 ft (15 m) motor launch, appropriately named Electric Arc, at Dumbarton and fitted it with an alternating-current motor driven by a petrol engine and dynamo. Within two years British shipyards were building electrically powered ships, and by the beginning of the First World War the United States Navy had a 20,000-ton collier with this new form of propulsion.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsVice-President, Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland 1894–6.BibliographyMavor published several papers on electric power supply, distribution and the use of electricity for marine purposes in the Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland between the years 1890 and 1912.Further ReadingMavor and Coulson Ltd, 1911, Electric Propulsion of Ships, Glasgow.FMW -
102 Maybach, Wilhelm
[br]b. 9 February 1846 Heilbronn, Württemberg, Germanyd. 14 December 1929 Stuttgart, Germany[br]German engineer and engine designer, inventor of the spray carburettor.[br]Orphaned at the age of 10, Maybach was destined to become one of the world's most renowned engine designers. From 1868 he was apprenticed as a draughtsman at the Briiderhaus Engineering Works in Reurlingen, where his talents were recognized by Gottlieb Daimler, who was Manager and Technical Director. Nikolaus Otto had by then developed his atmospheric engine and reorganized his company, Otto \& Langen, into Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, of which he appointed Daimler Manager. After employment at a machine builders in Karlsruhe, in 1872 Maybach followed Daimler to Deutz where he worked as a partner on the design of high-speed engines: his engines ran at up to 900 rpm, some three times as fast as conventional engines of the time. Maybach made improvements to the timing, carburation and other features. In 1881 Daimler left the Deutz Company and set up on his own as a freelance inventor, moving with his family to Bad Cannstatt; in April 1882 Maybach joined him as Engineer and Designer to set up a partnership to develop lightweight high-speed engines suitable for vehicles. A motor cycle appeared in 1885 and a modified horse-drawn carriage was fitted with a Maybach engine in 1886. Other applications to small boats, fire-engine pumps and small locomotives quickly followed, and the Vee engine of 1890 that was fitted into the French Peugeot automobiles had a profound effect upon the new sport of motor racing. In 1895 Daimler won the first international motor race and the same year Maybach became Technical Director of the Daimler firm. In 1899 Emil Jellinek, Daimler agent in France and also Austro-Hungarian consul, required a car to compete with Panhard and Levassor, who had been victorious in the Paris-Bordeaux race; he wanted more power and a lower centre of gravity, and turned to Maybach with his requirements, the 35 hp Daimler- Simplex of 1901 being the outcome. Its performance and road holding superseded those of all others at the time; it was so successful that Jellinek immediately placed an order for thirty-six cars. His daughter's name was Mercedes, after whom, when the merger of Daimler and Benz came about, the name Mercedes-Benz was adopted.In his later years, Maybach designed the engine for the Zeppelin airships. He retired from the Daimler Company in 1907.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsSociety of German Engineers Grashof Medal (its highest honour). In addition to numerous medals and titles from technical institutions, Maybach was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Stuttgart Institute of Technology.Further ReadingF.Schidberger, Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach and Karl Benz, Stuttgart: Daimler Benz AG.1961, The Annals of Mercedes-Benz Motor Vehicles and Engines, 2nd edn, Stuttgart: Daimler Benz AG.E.Johnson, 1986, The Dawn of Motoring.KAB / IMcN -
103 Mees, Charles Edward Kenneth
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1882 Wellingborough, Englandd. 1960 USA[br]Anglo-American photographic scientist and Director of Research at the Kodak Research Laboratory.[br]The son of a Wesleyan minister, Mees was interested in chemistry from an early age and studied at St Dunstan's College in Catford, where he met Samuel E.Sheppard, with whom he went on to University College London in 1900. They worked together on a thesis for BSc degrees in 1903, developing the work begun by Hurter and Driffield on photographic sensitometry. This and other research papers were published in 1907 in the book Investigations on the Theory of the Photographic Process, which became a standard reference work. After obtaining a doctorate in 1906, Mees joined the firm of Wratten \& Wainwright (see F.C.L.Wratten), manufacturers of dry plates in Croydon; he started work on 1 April 1906, first tackling the problem of manufacturing colour-sensitive emulsions and enabling the company to market the first fully panchromatic plates from the end of that year.During the next few years Mees ran the commercial operation of the company as Managing Director and carried out research into new products, including filters for use with the new emulsions. In January 1912 he was visited by George Eastman, the American photographic manufacturer, who asked him to go to Rochester, New York, and set up a photographic research laboratory in the Kodak factory there. Wratten was prepared to release Mees on condition that Eastman bought the company; thus, Wratten and Wainwright became part of Kodak Ltd, and Mees left for America. He supervised the construction of a building in the heart of Kodak Park, and the building was fully equipped not only as a research laboratory, but also with facilities for coating and packing sensitized materials. It also had the most comprehensive library of photographic books in the world. Work at the laboratory started at the beginning of 1913, with a staff of twenty recruited from America and England, including Mees's collaborator of earlier years, Sheppard. Under Mees's direction there flowed from the Kodak research Laboratory a constant stream of discoveries, many of them leading to new products. Among these were the 16 mm amateur film-making system launched in 1923; the first amateur colour-movie system, Kodacolor, in 1928; and 8 mm home movies, in 1932. His support for the young experimenters Mannes and Godowsky, who were working on colour photography, led to their joining the Research Laboratory and to the introduction of the first multi-layer colour film, Kodachrome, in 1935. Eastman had agreed from the beginning that as much of the laboratory's work as possible should be published, and Mees himself wrote prolifically, publishing over 200 articles and ten books. While he made significant contributions to the understanding of the photographic process, particularly through his early research, it is his creation and organization of the Kodak Research Laboratory that is his lasting memorial. His interests were many and varied, including Egyptology, astronomy, marine biology and history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS.Bibliography1961, From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film, New York (partly autobiographical).BCBiographical history of technology > Mees, Charles Edward Kenneth
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104 Mond, Ludwig
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 7 March 1839 Cassel, Germanyd. 11 December 1909 London, England[br]German (naturalized English) industrial chemist.[br]Born into a prosperous Jewish merchant family, Mond studied at the Polytechnic in Cassel and then under the distinguished chemists Hermann Kolbe at Marburg and Bunsen at Heidelberg from 1856. In 1859 he began work as an industrial chemist in various works in Germany and Holland. At this time, Mond was pursuing his method for recovering sulphur from the alkali wastes in the Leblanc soda-making process. Mond came to England in 1862 and five years later settled permanently, in partnership with John Hutchinson \& Co. at Widnes, to perfect his process, although complete success eluded him. He became a naturalized British subject in 1880.In 1872 Mond became acquainted with Ernest Solvay, the Belgian chemist who developed the ammonia-soda process which finally supplanted the Leblanc process. Mond negotiated the English patent rights and set up the first ammoniasoda plant in England at Winnington in Cheshire, in partnership with John Brunner. After overcoming many difficulties by incessant hard work, the process became a financial success and in 1881 Brunner, Mond \& Co. was formed, for a time the largest alkali works in the world. In 1926 the company merged with others to form Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd (ICI). The firm was one of the first to adopt the eight-hour day and to provide model dwellings and playing fields for its employees.From 1879 Mond took up the production of ammonia and this led to the Mond producer-gas plant, patented in 1883. The process consisted of passing air and steam over coal and coke at a carefully regulated temperature. Ammonia was generated and, at the same time, so was a cheap and useful producer gas. Mond's major discovery followed the observation in 1889 that carbon monoxide could combine with nickel in its ore at around 60°C to form a gaseous compound, nickel carbonyl. This, on heating to a higher temperature, would then decompose to give pure nickel. Mond followed up this unusual way of producing and purifying a metal and by 1892 had succeeded in setting up a pilot plant to perfect a large-scale process and went on to form the Mond Nickel Company.Apart from being a successful industrialist, Mond was prominent in scientific circles and played a leading role in the setting up of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1881. The success of his operations earned him great wealth, much of which he donated for learned and charitable purposes. He formed a notable collection of pictures which he bequeathed to the National Gallery.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1891.Bibliography1885, "On the origin of the ammonia-soda process", Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 4:527–9.1895. "The history of the process of nickel extraction", Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 14:945–6.Further ReadingJ.M.Cohen, 1956, The Life of Ludwig Mond, London: Methuen. Obituary, 1918, Journal of the Chemical Society 113:318–34.F.C.Donnan, 1939, Ludwig Mond 1839–1909, London (a valuable lecture).LRD -
105 Morris, William Richard, Viscount Nuffield
[br]b. 10 October 1877 Worcester, Englandd. 22 August 1963 Nuffield Place, England[br]English industrialist, car manufacturer and philanthropist.[br]Morris was the son of Frederick Morris, then a draper. He was the eldest of a family of seven, all of whom, except for one sister, died in childhood. When he was 3 years old, his father moved to Cowley, near Oxford, where he attended the village school. After a short time with a local bicycle firm he set up on his own at the age of 16 with a capital of £4. He manufactured pedal cycles and by 1902 he had designed a motor cycle and was doing car-repair work. By 1912, at the Motor Show, he was able to announce his first car, the 8.9 hp, two-seater Morris Oxford with its characteristic "bull-nose". It could perform at up to 50 mph (80 km/h) and 50 mpg (5.65 1/100 km). It cost £165.Though untrained, Morris was a born engineer as well as a natural judge of character. This enabled him to build up a reliable team of assistants in his growing business, with an order for four hundred cars at the Motor Show in 1912. Much of his business was built up in the assembly of components manufactured by outside suppliers. In he moved out of his initial premises by New College in Longwall and bought land at Cowley, where he brought out his second model, the 11.9hp Morris Oxford. This was after the First World War, during which car production was reduced to allow the manufacture of tanks and munitions. He was awarded the OBE in 1917 for his war work. Morris Motors Ltd was incorporated in 1919, and within fifteen months sales of cars had reached over 3,000 a year. By 1923 he was producing 20,000 cars a year, and in 1926 50,000, equivalent to about one-third of Britain's output. With the slump, a substantial overdraft, and a large stock of unsold cars, Morris took the bold decision to cut the prices of cars in stock, which then sold out within three weeks. Other makers followed suit, but Morris was ahead of them.Morris was part-founder of the Pressed Steel Company, set up to produce car bodies at Cowley. A clever operation with the shareholding of the Morris Motors Company allowed Morris a substantial overall profit to provide expansion capital. By 1931 his "empire" comprised, in addition to Morris Motors, the MG Car Company, the Wolseley Company, the SU Carburettor Company and Morris Commercial Cars. In 1936, the value of Morris's financial interest in the business was put at some £16 million.William Morris was a frugal man and uncomplicated, having little use for all the money he made except to channel it to charitable purposes. It is said that in all he gave away some £30 million during his lifetime, much of it invested by the recipients to provide long-term benefits. He married Elizabeth Anstey in 1904 and lived for thirty years at Nuffield Place. He lived modestly, and even after retirement, when Honorary President of the British Motor Corporation, the result of a merger between Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company, he drove himself to work in a modest 10 hp Wolseley. His generosity benefited many hospitals in London, Oxford, Birmingham and elsewhere. Oxford Colleges were another class of beneficiary from his largesse.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsViscount 1938; Baron (Lord Nuffield) 1934; Baronet 1929; OBE 1917; GBE 1941; CH 1958. FRS 1939. He was a doctor of seven universities and an honorary freeman of seven towns.Further ReadingR.Jackson, 1964, The Nuffield Story.P.W.S.Andrews and E.Brunner, The Life of Lord Nuffield.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Morris, William Richard, Viscount Nuffield
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106 Mouriés, Hippolyte Mège
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 24 October 1817 Draguignan, Franced. 1880 France[br]French inventor of margarine.[br]The son of a schoolmaster. Mouriés became a chemist's assistant in his home town at the age of 16. He then spent a period of training in Aix-enProvence, and in 1838 he moved to Paris, where he became Assistant to the Resident Pharmacist at the Hotel Dieu Hospital. He stayed there until 1846 but never sat his final exams. His main success during this period was with the drug Copahin, which was used against syphilis; he invented an oral formulation of the drug by treating it with nitric acid. In the 1840s he took out various patents relating to tanning and to sugar extraction, and in the 1850s he turned his attention to food research. He developed a health chocolate with his calcium phosphate protein, and also developed a method that made it possible to gain 14 per cent more white bread from a given quantity of wheat. He lectured on this process in Berlin and Brussels and was awarded two gold medals. After 1862 he concentrated his research on fats. His margarine process was based on the cold saponification of milk in fat emulsions and was patented in both France and Britain in 1869. These experiments were carried out at the Ferme Impériale de La Faisanderie in Vincennes, the personal property of the Emperor, and it is therefore likely that they were State-funded. He sold his knowledge to the Dutch firm Jurgens in 1871, and between 1873 and 1874 he also sold his British, American and Prussian rights. His final patent, in 1875, was for canned meat.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNapoleon III awarded him the Légion d'honneur for his work on wheat and bread.Further ReadingJ.H.van Stuyvenberg (ed.), Margarine: An Economic, Social and Scientific History, 1869–1969 (provides a brief outline of the life of Mouriés in a comprehensive history of his discovery).APBiographical history of technology > Mouriés, Hippolyte Mège
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107 Mudge, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 1715 Exeter, Englandd. 14 November 1794 Walworth, England[br]English clock-and watchmaker who invented the lever escapement that was ultimately used in all mechanical watches.[br]Thomas Mudge was the son of a clergyman and schoolmaster who, recognizing his son's mechanical aptitude, apprenticed him to the eminent London clock-and watchmaker George Graham. Mudge became free of the Clockmakers' Company in 1738 and set up on his own account after Graham's death in 1751. Around 1755 he formed a partnership with William Dutton, another apprentice of Graham. The firm produced conventional clocks and watches of excellent quality, but Mudge had also established a reputation for making highly innovative individual pieces. The most significant of these was the watch with a detached-lever escapement that he completed in 1770, although the idea had occurred to him as early as 1754. This watch was purchased by George III for Queen Charlotte and is still in the Royal Collection. Shortly afterwards Mudge moved to Plymouth, to devote his time to the perfection of the marine chronometer, leaving the London business in the hands of Dutton. The chronometers he produced were comparable in performance to those of John Harrison, but like them they were too complicated and expensive to be produced in quantity.Mudge's patron, Count Bruhl, recognized the potential of the detached-lever escapement, but Mudge was too involved with his marine chronometers to make a watch for him. He did, however, provide Bruhl with a large-scale model of his escapement, from which the Swiss expatriate Josiah Emery was able to make a watch in 1782. Over the next decade Emery made a limited number of similar watches for wealthy clients, and it was the performance of these watches that demonstrated the worth of the escapement. The detached-lever escapement took some time to be adopted universally, but this was facilitated in the nineteenth century by the development of a cheaper form, the pin lever.By the end of the century the detached-lever escapement was used in one form or another in practically all mechanical watches and portable clocks. If a watch is to be a good timekeeper the balance must be free to swing with as little interference as possible from the escapement. In this respect the cylinder escapement is an improvement on the verge, although it still exerts a frictional force on the balance. The lever escapement is a further improvement because it detaches itself from the balance after delivering the impulse which keeps it oscillating.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsClockmaker to George III 1776.Further ReadingT.Mudge, Jr, 1799, A Description with Plates of the Time-Keeper Invented by the Late Mr. Thomas Mudge, London (contains a tract written by his father and the text of his letters to Count Bruhl).C.Clutton and G.Daniels, 1986, Watches, 4th edn, London (provides further biographical information and a good account of the history of the lever watch).R.Good, 1978, Britten's Watch \& Clock Maker's Handbook Dictionary and Guide, 16th edn, London, pp. 190–200 (provides a good technical description of Mudge's lever escapement and its later development).DV -
108 Noyce, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 12 December 1927 Burlington, Iowa, USA[br]American engineer responsible for the development of integrated circuits and the microprocessor chip.[br]Noyce was the son of a Congregational minister whose family, after a number of moves, finally settled in Grinnell, some 50 miles (80 km) east of Des Moines, Iowa. Encouraged to follow his interest in science, in his teens he worked as a baby-sitter and mower of lawns to earn money for his hobby. One of his clients was Professor of Physics at Grinnell College, where Noyce enrolled to study mathematics and physics and eventually gained a top-grade BA. It was while there that he learned of the invention of the transistor by the team at Bell Laboratories, which included John Bardeen, a former fellow student of his professor. After taking a PhD in physical electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953, he joined the Philco Corporation in Philadelphia to work on the development of transistors. Then in January 1956 he accepted an invitation from William Shockley, another of the Bell transistor team, to join the newly formed Shockley Transistor Company, the first electronic firm to set up shop in Palo Alto, California, in what later became known as "Silicon Valley".From the start things at the company did not go well and eventually Noyce and Gordon Moore and six colleagues decided to offer themselves as a complete development team; with the aid of the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation was born. It was there that in 1958, contemporaneously with Jack K. Wilby at Texas Instruments, Noyce had the idea for monolithic integration of transistor circuits. Eventually, after extended patent litigation involving study of laboratory notebooks and careful examination of the original claims, priority was assigned to Noyce. The invention was most timely. The Apollo Moon-landing programme announced by President Kennedy in May 1961 called for lightweight sophisticated navigation and control computer systems, which could only be met by the rapid development of the new technology, and Fairchild was well placed to deliver the micrologic chips required by NASA.In 1968 the founders sold Fairchild Semicon-ductors to the parent company. Noyce and Moore promptly found new backers and set up the Intel Corporation, primarily to make high-density memory chips. The first product was a 1,024-bit random access memory (1 K RAM) and by 1973 sales had reached $60 million. However, Noyce and Moore had already realized that it was possible to make a complete microcomputer by putting all the logic needed to go with the memory chip(s) on a single integrated circuit (1C) chip in the form of a general purpose central processing unit (CPU). By 1971 they had produced the Intel 4004 microprocessor, which sold for US$200, and within a year the 8008 followed. The personal computer (PC) revolution had begun! Noyce eventually left Intel, but he remained active in microchip technology and subsequently founded Sematech Inc.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFranklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1966. National Academy of Engineering 1969. National Academy of Science. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honour 1978; Cledo Brunetti Award (jointly with Kilby) 1978. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1979. National Medal of Science 1979. National Medal of Engineering 1987.Bibliography1955, "Base-widening punch-through", Proceedings of the American Physical Society.30 July 1959, US patent no. 2,981,877.Further ReadingT.R.Reid, 1985, Microchip: The Story of a Revolution and the Men Who Made It, London: Pan Books.KF -
109 Perret, Auguste
[br]b. 12 February 1874 Ixelles, near Brussels, Belgiumd. 26 February 1954 Le Havre (?), France[br]French architect who pioneered and established building design in reinforced concrete in a style suited to the modern movement.[br]Auguste Perret belonged to the family contracting firm of A. \& G.Perret, which early specialized in the use of reinforced concrete. His eight-storey building at 25 bis Rue Franklin in Paris, built in 1902–3, was the first example of frame construction in this material and established its viability for structural design. Both ground plan and façade are uncompromisingly modern, the simplicity of the latter being relieved by unobtrusive faience decoration. The two upper floors, which are set back, and the open terrace roof garden set a pattern for future schemes. All of Perret's buildings had reinforced-concrete structures and this was clearly delineated on the façade designs. The concept was uncommon in Europe at the time, when eclecticism still largely ruled, but was derived from the late nineteenth-century skyscraper façades built by Louis Sullivan in America. In 1905–6 came Perret's Garage Ponthieu in Paris; a striking example of exposed concrete, it had a central façade window glazed in modern design in rich colours. By the 1920s ferroconcrete was in more common use, but Perret still led the field in France with his imaginative, bold use of the material. His most original structure is the Church of Notre Dame at Le Raincy on the outskirts of Paris (1922–3). The imposing exterior with its tall tower in diminishing stages is finely designed, but the interior has magnificence. It is a wide, light church, the segmented vaulted roof supported on slender columns. The whole structure is in concrete apart from the glass window panels, which extend the full height of the walls all around the church. They provide a symphony of colour culminating in deep blue behind the altar. Because of the slenderness of the columns and the richness of the glass, this church possesses a spiritual atmosphere and unimpeded sight and sound of and from the altar for everyone. It became the prototype for churches all over Europe for decades, from Moser in prewar Switzerland to Spence's postwar Coventry Cathedral.In a long working life Perret designed buildings for a wide range of purposes, adhering to his preference for ferroconcrete and adapting its use according to each building's needs. In the 1940s he was responsible for the railway station at Amiens, the Atomic Centre at Saclay and, one of his last important works, the redevelopment after wartime damage of the town centre of Le Havre. For the latter, he laid out large open squares enclosed by prefabricated units, which display a certain monotony, despite the imposing town hall and Church of St Joseph in the Place de L'Hôtel de Ville.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident des Réunions Internationales des Architectes. American Society of the French Legion of Honour Gold Medal 1950. Elected after the Second World War to the Institut de France. First President of the International Union of Architects on its creation in 1948. RIBA Royal Gold Medal 1948.Further ReadingP.Blater, 1939, "Work of the architect A.Perret", Architektura SSSR (Moscow) 7:57 (illustrated article).1848 "Auguste Perret: a pioneer in reinforced concrete", Civil Engineers' Review, pp.296–300.Peter Collins, 1959, Concrete: The Vision of a New Architecture: A Study of Auguste Perret and his Precursors, Faber \& Faber.Marcel Zahar, 1959, D'Une Doctrine d'Architecture: Auguste Perret, Paris: Vincent Fréal.DY -
110 Planté, Raimond Louis Gaston
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 22 April 1834 Orthez, Franced. 21 May 1889 Paris, France[br]French physicist and inventor of a secondary electric cell from which was developed the widely used lead-acid storage battery.[br]After a scientific training at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Planté obtained an appointment as a Laboratory Assistant to Becquerel. Later, when he was employed as a chemist in the Parisian electroplating firm of Christofle et Cie, he carried out investigations into polarization in electrical cells, which led to his discovery of the lead-acid accumulator in 1859. This cell, with lead plates in an electrolyte of dilute sulphuric acid, had the characteristics of a storage device for electrical energy. Its performance was improved considerably if it was repeatedly charged and discharged, the active material being formed electrochemically from the lead of the plate itself. At the time of its discovery the Planté cell had little practical application and it was not until satisfactory dynamos were introduced that its commercial exploitation was possible. The cell was improved by Faure and later by Swan and others. The lead-acid cell became considerably important in the early days of electricity supply and later for electric traction and automobile use. The results of Planté's researches were communicated to the Academy of Sciences and published in various scientific periodicals. He devoted the last few years of his life to the study of atmospheric electricity.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1881. Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale Médaille d'Ampère.Bibliography1860, "Nouvelle Pile secondaire d'une grande puissance", Comptes rendus 50:640–2. See Recherches sur l'électricité, Paris, 1879.Further ReadingG.Wood Vinal, 1955, Storage Batteries, 4th edn, London (describes developments subsequent to Planté's work).E.W.Wade, 1902, Secondary Batteries, London.GWBiographical history of technology > Planté, Raimond Louis Gaston
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111 Poitevin, Alphonse Louise
[br]b. 1819 Conflans, Franced. 1882 Conflans, France[br]French chemical engineer who established the essential principles of photolithography, carbon printing and collotype printing.[br]Poitevin graduated as a chemical engineer from the Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1843. He was appointed as a chemist with the Salines National de l'Est, a post which allowed him time for research, and he soon became interested in the recent invention of photography. He conducted a series of electrolytic experiments on daguerreotype plates in 1847 and 1848 which led him to propose a method of photochemical engraving on plates coated with silver or gold. In 1850 he joined the firm of Periere in Lyons, and the same year travelled to Paris. During the 1850s, Poitevin conducted a series of far-reaching experiments on the reactions of chromates with light, and in 1855 he took out two important patents which exploited the light sensitivity of bichromated gelatine. Poitevin's work during this period is generally recognized as having established the essential principles of photolithography, carbon printing and collotype printing, key steps in the development of modern photomechanical printing. His contribution to the advancement of photography was widely recognized and honours were showered upon him. Particularly welcome was the greater part of the 10,000 franc prize awarded by the Duke of Lynes, a wealthy art lover, for the discovery of permanent photographic printing processes. This sum was not sufficient to allow Poitevin to stop working, however, and in 1869 he resumed his career as a chemical engineer, first managing a glass works and then travelling to Africa to work in silver mines. Upon the death of his father he returned to his home town, where he remained until his own death in 1882.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1865. Paris Exposition Internationale Gold Medal for Services to Photography, 1878.BibliographyDecember 1855, British patent nos 2,815, 2,816.Further ReadingG.Tissandiers, 1876, A History and Handbook of Photography, trans. J.Thomson. J.M.Eder, 1945, History of Photography, trans. E.Epstean, New York.H.Gernsheim and A.Gernsheim, 1969, The History of Photography, rev. edn, London.JWBiographical history of technology > Poitevin, Alphonse Louise
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112 Porsche, Ferdinand
[br]b. 3 September 1875 Maffersdorf, Austriad. 30 January 1952 Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany[br]Austrian automobile engineer, designer of the Volkswagen car.[br]At the age of fifteen, Porsche built a complete electrical installation for his home. In 1894 he went to technical school in Vienna. Four years later he became Manager of the test department of the Bela Egger concern, which later became part of the Brown Boveri organization where he became the first Assistant in the calculating section. In 1899 he joined the long-established coachbuilders Jacob Lohner, and in 1902 a car of his design with mixed drive won the 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) class in the Exelberg races. In 1905 he joined the Austro-Daimler Company as Technical Director; his subsequent designs included an 85 hp mixed-drive racing car in 1907 and in 1912 an air-cooled aircraft engine which came to be known in later years as the "great-grandfather" of the Volkswagen engine. In 1916, he became Managing Director of Austro-Daimler.In 1921 he designed his first small car, which, appearing under the name of Sasch, won its class in the 1922 Targa Florio, a gruelling road-race in Italy. In 1923 Porsche left Austro-Daimler and joined the Daimler Company in Untertürk-heim, near Stuttgart, Germany. In 1929 he joined the firm of Steyr in Austria as a director and chief engineer, and in 1930 he set up his own independent design office in Stuttgart. In 1932 he visited Russia, and in the same year completed the design calculations for the Auto-Union racing car.In 1934, with his son Ferry (b. 1909), he prepared a plan for the construction of the German "people's car", a project initiated by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime; in June of that year he signed a contract for the design work on the Volkswagen. Racing cars of his design were also successful in 1934: the rear-engined Auto-Union won the German Grand Prix, and another Au to-Union car took the Flying Kilometre speed record at 327 km/h (203.2 mph). In 1935 Daimler-Benz started preproduction on the Volkswagen. The first trials of the cars took place in the autumn of 1936, and the following year thirty experimental cars were built by Daimler-Benz. In that year, Porsche visited the United States, where he met Henry Ford; in October an Auto-Union took the Flying Five Kilometre record at 404.3 km/h (251.2 mph). On 26 May 1938, the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory was laid in Wolfsburg, near Braunschweig, Germany.In October 1945 Ferdinand Porsche was arrested by a unit of the United States Army and taken to Hessen; the French army removed him to Baden-Baden, then to Paris and later to Dijon. During this time he was consulted by Renault engineers regarding the design of their 4CV and designed a diesel-engined tractor. He was finally released on 5 August 1947. His last major work before his death was the approval of the design for the Cisitalia Grand Prix car.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPoetting Medal 1905. Officer's Cross of Franz Josef 1916. Honorary PhD, Vienna Technical University 1916. Honorary PhD, University of Stuttgart 1924.Further ReadingK.Ludvigsen, 1983, Porsche: Excellence Was Expected: The Complete History of the Sports and Racing Cars, London: Frederick Muller.T.Shuler and G.Borgeson, 1985, "Origin and Evolution of the VW Beetle", AutomobileQuarterly (May).M.Toogood, 1991, Porsche—Germany's Legend, London: Apple Press.IMcN -
113 Rankine, William John Macquorn
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 5 July 1820 Edinburgh, Scotlandd. 1872[br][br]Rankine was educated at Ayr Academy and Glasgow High School, although he appears to have learned much of his basic mathematics and physics through private study. He attended Edinburgh University and then assisted his father, who was acting as Superintendent of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. This introduction to engineering practice was followed in 1838 by his appointment as a pupil to Sir John MacNeill, and for the next four years he served under MacNeill on his Irish railway projects. While still in his early twenties, Rankine presented pioneering papers on metal fatigue and other subjects to the Institution of Civil Engineers, for which he won a prize, but he appears to have resigned from the Civils in 1857 after an argument because the Institution would not transfer his Associate Membership into full Membership. From 1844 to 1848 Rankine worked on various projects for the Caledonian Railway Company, but his interests were becoming increasingly theoretical and a series of distinguished papers for learned societies established his reputation as a leading scholar in the new science of thermodynamics. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853. At the same time, he remained intimately involved with practical questions of applied science, in shipbuilding, marine engineering and electric telegraphy, becoming associated with the influential coterie of fellow Scots such as the Thomson brothers, Napier, Elder, and Lewis Gordon. Gordon was then the head of a large and successful engineering practice, but he was also Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, and when he retired from the Chair to pursue his business interests, Rankine, who had become his Assistant, was appointed in his place.From 1855 until his premature death in 1872, Rankine built up an impressive engineering department, providing a firm theoretical basis with a series of text books that he wrote himself and most of which remained in print for many decades. Despite his quarrel with the Institution of Civil Engineers, Rankine took a keen interest in the institutional development of the engineering profession, becoming the first President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, which he helped to establish in 1857. Rankine campaigned vigorously for the recognition of engineering studies as a full university degree at Glasgow, and he achieved this in 1872, the year of his death. Rankine was one of the handful of mid-nineteenth century engineers who virtually created engineering as an academic discipline.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1853. First President, Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, 1857.Bibliography1858, Manual of Applied Mechanics.1859, Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers.1862, Manual of Civil Engineering.1869, Manual of Machinery and Millwork.Further ReadingJ.Small, 1957, "The institution's first president", Proceedings of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland: 687–97.H.B.Sutherland, 1972, Rankine. His Life and Times.ABBiographical history of technology > Rankine, William John Macquorn
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114 Rastrick, John Urpeth
[br]b. 26 January 1780 Morpeth, Englandd. 1 November 1856 Chertsey, England[br]English engineer whose career spanned the formative years of steam railways, from constructing some of the earliest locomotives to building great trunk lines.[br]John Urpeth Rastrick, son of an engineer, was initially articled to his father and then moved to Ketley Ironworks, Shropshire, c. 1801. In 1808 he entered into a partnership with John Hazledine at Bridgnorth, Shropshire: Hazledine and Rastrick built many steam engines to the designs of Richard Trevithick, including the demonstration locomotive Catch-Me-Who-Can. The firm also built iron bridges, notably the bridge over the River Wye at Chepstow in 1815–16.Between 1822 and 1826 the Stratford \& Moreton Railway was built under Rastrick's direction. Malleable iron rails were laid, in one of the first instances of their use. They were supplied by James Foster of Stourbridge, with whom Rastrick went into partnership after the death of Hazledine. In 1825 Rastrick was one of a team of engineers sent by the committee of the proposed Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) to carry out trials of locomotives built by George Stephenson on the Killingworth Waggonway. Early in 1829 the directors of the L \& MR, which was by then under construction, sent Rastrick and James Walker to inspect railways in North East England and report on the relative merits of steam locomotives and fixed engines with cable haulage. They reported, rather hesitantly, in favour of the latter, particularly the reciprocal system of Benjamin Thompson. In consequence the Rainhill Trials, at which Rastrick was one of the judges, were held that October. In 1829 Rastrick constructed the Shutt End colliery railway in Worcestershire, for which Foster and Rastrick built the locomotive Agenoria; this survives in the National Railway Museum. Three similar locomotives were built to the order of Horatio Allen for export to the USA.From then until he retired in 1847 Rastrick found ample employment surveying railways, appearing as a witness before Parliamentary committees, and supervising construction. Principally, he surveyed the southern part of the Grand Junction Railway, which was built for the most part by Joseph Locke, and the line from Manchester to Crewe which was eventually built as the Manchester \& Birmingham Railway. The London \& Brighton Railway (Croydon to Brighton) was his great achievement: built under Rastrick's supervision between 1836 and 1840, it included three long tunnels and the magnificent Ouse Viaduct. In 1845 he was Engineer to the Gravesend \& Rochester Railway, the track of which was laid through the Thames \& Medway Canal's Strood Tunnel, partly on the towpath and partly on a continuous staging over the water.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1837.Bibliography1829, with Walker, Report…on the Comparative Merits of Locomotive and Fixed Engines, Liverpool.Further ReadingC.F.Dendy Marshall, 1953, A History of Railway Locomotives Down to the End of the Year 1831, The Locomotive Publishing Co.R.E.Carlson, 1969, The Liverpool \& Manchester Railway Project 1821–1831, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.C.Hadfield and J.Norris, 1962, Waterways to Stratford, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles (covers Stratford and Moreton Railway).See also: Stephenson, RobertPJGR -
115 Rosenhain, Walter
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 24 August 1875 Berlin, Germanyd. 17 March 1934 Kingston Hill, Surrey, England[br]German metallurgist, first Superintendent of the Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Chemistry at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex.[br]His family emigrated to Australia when he was 5 years old. He was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, and attended Queen's College, University of Melbourne, graduating in physics and engineering in 1897. As an 1851 Exhibitioner he then spent three years at St John's College, Cambridge, under Sir Alfred Ewing, where he studied the microstructure of deformed metal crystals and abandoned his original intention of becoming a civil engineer. Rosenhain was the first to observe the slip-bands in metal crystals, and in the Bakerian Lecture delivered jointly by Ewing and Rosenhain to the Royal Society in 1899 it was shown that metals deformed plastically by a mechanism involving shear slip along individual crystal planes. From this conception modern ideas on the plasticity and recrystallization of metals rapidly developed. On leaving Cambridge, Rosenhain joined the Birmingham firm of Chance Brothers, where he worked for six years on optical glass and lighthouse-lens systems. A book, Glass Manufacture, written in 1908, derives from this period, during which he continued his metallurgical researches in the evenings in his home laboratory and published several papers on his work.In 1906 Rosenhain was appointed Head of the Metallurgical Department of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and in 1908 he became the first Superintendent of the new Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Chemistry. Many of the techniques he introduced at Teddington were described in his Introduction to Physical Metallurgy, published in 1914. At the outbreak of the First World War, Rosenhain was asked to undertake work in his department on the manufacture of optical glass. This soon made it possible to manufacture optical glass of high quality on an industrial scale in Britain. Much valuable work on refractory materials stemmed from this venture. Rosenhain's early years at the NPL were, however, inseparably linked with his work on light alloys, which between 1912 and the end of the war involved virtually all of the metallurgical staff of the laboratory. The most important end product was the well-known "Y" Alloy (4% copper, 2% nickel and 1.5% magnesium) extensively used for the pistons and cylinder heads of aircraft engines. It was the prototype of the RR series of alloys jointly developed by Rolls Royce and High Duty Alloys. An improved zinc-based die-casting alloy devised by Rosenhain was also used during the war on a large scale for the production of shell fuses.After the First World War, much attention was devoted to beryllium, which because of its strength, lightness, and stiffness would, it was hoped, become the airframe material of the future. It remained, however, too brittle for practical use. Other investigations dealt with impurities in copper, gases in aluminium alloys, dental alloys, and the constitution of alloys. During this period, Rosenhain's laboratory became internationally known as a centre of excellence for the determination of accurate equilibrium diagrams.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1913. President, Institute of Metals 1828–30. Iron and Steel Institute Bessemer Medal, Carnegie Medal.Bibliography1908, Glass Manufacture.1914, An Introduction to the Study of Physical Metallurgy, London: Constable. Rosenhain published over 100 research papers.Further ReadingJ.L.Haughton, 1934, "The work of Walter Rosenhain", Journal of the Institute of Metals 55(2):17–32.ASD -
116 Sellers, William
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 19 September 1824 Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USAd. 24 January 1905 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA[br]American mechanical engineer and inventor.[br]William Sellers was educated at a private school that had been established by his father and other relatives for their children, and at the age of 14 he was apprenticed for seven years to the machinist's trade with his uncle. At the end of his apprenticeship in 1845 he took charge of the machine shop of Fairbanks, Bancroft \& Co. in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1848 he established his own factory manufacturing machine tools and mill gearing in Philadelphia, where he was soon joined by Edward Bancroft, the firm becoming Bancroft \& Sellers. After Bancroft's death the name was changed in 1856 to William Sellers \& Co. and Sellers served as President until the end of his life. His machine tools were characterized by their robust construction and absence of decorative embellishments. In 1868 he formed the Edgemoor Iron Company, of which he was President. This company supplied the structural ironwork for the Centennial Exhibition buildings and much of the material for the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1873 he reorganized the William Butcher Steel Works, renaming it the Midvale Steel Company, and under his presidency it became a leader in the production of heavy ordnance. It was at the Midvale Steel Company that Frederick W. Taylor began, with the encouragement of Sellers, his experiments on cutting tools.In 1860 Sellers obtained the American rights of the patent for the Giffard injector for feeding steam boilers. He later invented his own improvements to the injector, which numbered among his many other patents, most of which related to machine tools. Probably Sellers's most important contribution to the engineering industry was his proposal for a system of screw threads made in 1864 and later adopted as the American national standard.Sellers was a founder member in 1880 of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and was also a member of many other learned societies in America and other countries, including, in Britain, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Iron and Steel Institute.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1889. President, Franklin Institute 1864–7.Further ReadingJ.W.Roe, 1916, English and American Tool Builders, New Haven; reprinted 1926, New York, and 1987, Bradley, Ill. (describes Sellers's work on machine tools).Bruce Sinclair, 1969, "At the turn of a screw: William Sellers, the Franklin Institute, and a standard American thread", Technology and Culture 10:20–34 (describes his work on screw threads).RTS -
117 Siemens, Sir Charles William
[br]b. 4 April 1823 Lenthe, Germanyd. 19 November 1883 London, England[br]German/British metallurgist and inventory pioneer of the regenerative principle and open-hearth steelmaking.[br]Born Carl Wilhelm, he attended craft schools in Lübeck and Magdeburg, followed by an intensive course in natural science at Göttingen as a pupil of Weber. At the age of 19 Siemens travelled to England and sold an electroplating process developed by his brother Werner Siemens to Richard Elkington, who was already established in the plating business. From 1843 to 1844 he obtained practical experience in the Magdeburg works of Count Stolburg. He settled in England in 1844 and later assumed British nationality, but maintained close contact with his brother Werner, who in 1847 had co-founded the firm Siemens \& Halske in Berlin to manufacture telegraphic equipment. William began to develop his regenerative principle of waste-heat recovery and in 1856 his brother Frederick (1826–1904) took out a British patent for heat regeneration, by which hot waste gases were passed through a honeycomb of fire-bricks. When they became hot, the gases were switched to a second mass of fire-bricks and incoming air and fuel gas were led through the hot bricks. By alternating the two gas flows, high temperatures could be reached and considerable fuel economies achieved. By 1861 the two brothers had incorporated producer gas fuel, made by gasifying low-grade coal.Heat regeneration was first applied in ironmaking by Cowper in 1857 for heating the air blast in blast furnaces. The first regenerative furnace was set up in Birmingham in 1860 for glassmaking. The first such furnace for making steel was developed in France by Pierre Martin and his father, Emile, in 1863. Siemens found British steelmakers reluctant to adopt the principle so in 1866 he rented a small works in Birmingham to develop his open-hearth steelmaking furnace, which he patented the following year. The process gradually made headway; as well as achieving high temperatures and saving fuel, it was slower than Bessemer's process, permitting greater control over the content of the steel. By 1900 the tonnage of open-hearth steel exceeded that produced by the Bessemer process.In 1872 Siemens played a major part in founding the Society of Telegraph Engineers (from which the Institution of Electrical Engineers evolved), serving as its first President. He became President for the second time in 1878. He built a cable works at Charlton, London, where the cable could be loaded directly into the holds of ships moored on the Thames. In 1873, together with William Froude, a British shipbuilder, he designed the Faraday, the first specialized vessel for Atlantic cable laying. The successful laying of a cable from Europe to the United States was completed in 1875, and a further five transatlantic cables were laid by the Faraday over the following decade.The Siemens factory in Charlton also supplied equipment for some of the earliest electric-lighting installations in London, including the British Museum in 1879 and the Savoy Theatre in 1882, the first theatre in Britain to be fully illuminated by electricity. The pioneer electric-tramway system of 1883 at Portrush, Northern Ireland, was an opportunity for the Siemens company to demonstrate its equipment.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1883. FRS 1862. Institution of Civil Engineers Telford Medal 1853. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1872. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers 1872 and 1878. President, British Association 1882.Bibliography27 May 1879, British patent no. 2,110 (electricarc furnace).1889, The Scientific Works of C.William Siemens, ed. E.F.Bamber, 3 vols, London.Further ReadingW.Poles, 1888, Life of Sir William Siemens, London; repub. 1986 (compiled from material supplied by the family).S.von Weiher, 1972–3, "The Siemens brothers. Pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45:1–11 (a short, authoritative biography). S.von Weihr and H.Goetler, 1983, The Siemens Company. Its Historical Role in theProgress of Electrical Engineering 1847–1980, English edn, Berlin (a scholarly account with emphasis on technology).GWBiographical history of technology > Siemens, Sir Charles William
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118 Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson
[br]b. 31 October 1828 Sunderland, Englandd. 27 May 1914 Warlingham, Surrey, England[br]English chemist, inventor in Britain of the incandescent electric lamp and of photographic processes.[br]At the age of 14 Swan was apprenticed to a Sunderland firm of druggists, later joining John Mawson who had opened a pharmacy in Newcastle. While in Sunderland Swan attended lectures at the Athenaeum, at one of which W.E. Staite exhibited electric-arc and incandescent lighting. The impression made on Swan prompted him to conduct experiments that led to his demonstration of a practical working lamp in 1879. As early as 1848 he was experimenting with carbon as a lamp filament, and by 1869 he had mounted a strip of carbon in a vessel exhausted of air as completely as was then possible; however, because of residual air, the filament quickly failed.Discouraged by the cost of current from primary batteries and the difficulty of achieving a good vacuum, Swan began to devote much of his attention to photography. With Mawson's support the pharmacy was expanded to include a photographic business. Swan's interest in making permanent photographic records led him to patent the carbon process in 1864 and he discovered how to make a sensitive dry plate in place of the inconvenient wet collodian process hitherto in use. He followed this success with the invention of bromide paper, the subject of a British patent in 1879.Swan resumed his interest in electric lighting. Sprengel's invention of the mercury pump in 1865 provided Swan with the means of obtaining the high vacuum he needed to produce a satisfactory lamp. Swan adopted a technique which was to become an essential feature in vacuum physics: continuing to heat the filament during the exhaustion process allowed the removal of absorbed gases. The inventions of Gramme, Siemens and Brush provided the source of electrical power at reasonable cost needed to make the incandescent lamp of practical service. Swan exhibited his lamp at a meeting in December 1878 of the Newcastle Chemical Society and again the following year before an audience of 700 at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. Swan's failure to patent his invention immediately was a tactical error as in November 1879 Edison was granted a British patent for his original lamp, which, however, did not go into production. Parchmentized thread was used in Swan's first commercial lamps, a material soon superseded by the regenerated cellulose filament that he developed. The cellulose filament was made by extruding a solution of nitro-cellulose in acetic acid through a die under pressure into a coagulating fluid, and was used until the ultimate obsolescence of the carbon-filament lamp. Regenerated cellulose became the first synthetic fibre, the further development and exploitation of which he left to others, the patent rights for the process being sold to Courtaulds.Swan also devised a modification of Planté's secondary battery in which the active material was compressed into a cellular lead plate. This has remained the central principle of all improvements in secondary cells, greatly increasing the storage capacity for a given weight.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1904. FRS 1894. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1898. First President, Faraday Society 1904. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1904. Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur 1881.Bibliography2 January 1880, British patent no. 18 (incandescent electric lamp).24 May 1881, British patent no. 2,272 (improved plates for the Planté cell).1898, "The rise and progress of the electrochemical industries", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 27:8–33 (Swan's Presidential Address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers).Further ReadingM.E.Swan and K.R.Swan, 1968, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan F.R.S., Newcastle upon Tyne (a detailed account).R.C.Chirnside, 1979, "Sir Joseph Swan and the invention of the electric lamp", IEEElectronics and Power 25:96–100 (a short, authoritative biography).GWBiographical history of technology > Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson
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119 Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander
[br]b. 13 April 1892 Brechin, Angus, Scotlandd. 6 December 1973 Inverness, Scotland[br]Scottish engineer and scientific adviser known for his work on radar.[br]Following education at Brechin High School, Watson-Watt entered University College, Dundee (then a part of the University of St Andrews), obtaining a BSc in engineering in 1912. From 1912 until 1921 he was Assistant to the Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews, but during the First World War he also held various posts in the Meteorological Office. During. this time, in 1916 he proposed the use of cathode ray oscillographs for radio-direction-finding displays. He joined the newly formed Radio Research Station at Slough when it was opened in 1924, and 3 years later, when it amalgamated with the Radio Section of the National Physical Laboratory, he became Superintendent at Slough. At this time he proposed the name "ionosphere" for the ionized layer in the upper atmosphere. With E.V. Appleton and J.F.Herd he developed the "squegger" hard-valve transformer-coupled timebase and with the latter devised a direction-finding radio-goniometer.In 1933 he was asked to investigate possible aircraft counter-measures. He soon showed that it was impossible to make the wished-for radio "death-ray", but had the idea of using the detection of reflected radio-waves as a means of monitoring the approach of enemy aircraft. With six assistants he developed this idea and constructed an experimental system of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) in which arrays of aerials were used to detect the reflected signals and deduce the bearing and height. To realize a practical system, in September 1936 he was appointed Director of the Bawdsey Research Station near Felixstowe and carried out operational studies of radar. The result was that within two years the East Coast of the British Isles was equipped with a network of radar transmitters and receivers working in the 7–14 metre band—the so-called "chain-home" system—which did so much to assist the efficient deployment of RAF Fighter Command against German bombing raids on Britain in the early years of the Second World War.In 1938 he moved to the Air Ministry as Director of Communications Development, becoming Scientific Adviser to the Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940, then Deputy Chairman of the War Cabinet Radio Board in 1943. After the war he set up Sir Robert Watson-Watt \& Partners, an industrial consultant firm. He then spent some years in relative retirement in Canada, but returned to Scotland before his death.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1942. CBE 1941. FRS 1941. US Medal of Merit 1946. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1948. Franklin Institute Elliot Cresson Medal 1957. LLD St Andrews 1943. At various times: President, Royal Meteorological Society, Institute of Navigation and Institute of Professional Civil Servants; Vice-President, American Institute of Radio Engineers.Bibliography1923, with E.V.Appleton \& J.F.Herd, British patent no. 235,254 (for the "squegger"). 1926, with J.F.Herd, "An instantaneous direction reading radio goniometer", Journal ofthe Institution of Electrical Engineers 64:611.1933, The Cathode Ray Oscillograph in Radio Research.1935, Through the Weather Hours (autobiography).1936, "Polarisation errors in direction finders", Wireless Engineer 13:3. 1958, Three Steps to Victory.1959, The Pulse of Radar.1961, Man's Means to his End.Further ReadingS.S.Swords, 1986, Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar, Stevenage: Peter Peregrinus.KFBiographical history of technology > Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander
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120 Whitworth, Sir Joseph
[br]b. 21 December 1803 Stockport, Cheshire, Englandd. 22 January 1887 Monte Carlo, Monaco[br]English mechanical engineer and pioneer of precision measurement.[br]Joseph Whitworth received his early education in a school kept by his father, but from the age of 12 he attended a school near Leeds. At 14 he joined his uncle's mill near Ambergate, Derbyshire, to learn the business of cotton spinning. In the four years he spent there he realized that he was more interested in the machinery than in managing a cotton mill. In 1821 he obtained employment as a mechanic with Crighton \& Co., Manchester. In 1825 he moved to London and worked for Henry Maudslay and later for the Holtzapffels and Joseph Clement. After these years spent gaining experience, he returned to Manchester in 1833 and set up in a small workshop under a sign "Joseph Whitworth, Tool Maker, from London".The business expanded steadily and the firm made machine tools of all types and other engineering products including steam engines. From 1834 Whitworth obtained many patents in the fields of machine tools, textile and knitting machinery and road-sweeping machines. By 1851 the company was generally regarded as the leading manufacturer of machine tools in the country. Whitworth was a pioneer of precise measurement and demonstrated the fundamental mode of producing a true plane by making surface plates in sets of three. He advocated the use of the decimal system and made use of limit gauges, and he established a standard screw thread which was adopted as the national standard. In 1853 Whitworth visited America as a member of a Royal Commission and reported on American industry. At the time of the Crimean War in 1854 he was asked to provide machinery for manufacturing rifles and this led him to design an improved rifle of his own. Although tests in 1857 showed this to be much superior to all others, it was not adopted by the War Office. Whitworth's experiments with small arms led on to the construction of big guns and projectiles. To improve the quality of the steel used for these guns, he subjected the molten metal to pressure during its solidification, this fluid-compressed steel being then known as "Whitworth steel".In 1868 Whitworth established thirty annual scholarships for engineering students. After his death his executors permanently endowed the Whitworth Scholarships and distributed his estate of nearly half a million pounds to various educational and charitable institutions. Whitworth was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1841 and a Member in 1848 and served on its Council for many years. He was elected a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1847, the year of its foundation.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaronet 1869. FRS 1857. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1856, 1857 and 1866. Hon. LLD Trinity College, Dublin, 1863. Hon. DCL Oxford University 1868. Member of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1864. Légion d'honneur 1868. Society of Arts Albert Medal 1868.Bibliography1858, Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects, London; 1873, Miscellaneous Papers on Practical Subjects: Guns and Steel, London (both are collections of his papers to technical societies).1854, with G.Wallis, The Industry of the United States in Machinery, Manufactures, andUseful and Ornamental Arts, London.Further ReadingF.C.Lea, 1946, A Pioneer of Mechanical Engineering: Sir Joseph Whitworth, London (a short biographical account).A.E.Musson, 1963, "Joseph Whitworth: toolmaker and manufacturer", Engineering Heritage, Vol. 1, London, 124–9 (a short biography).D.J.Jeremy (ed.), 1984–6, Dictionary of Business Biography, Vol. 5, London, 797–802 (a short biography).W.Steeds, 1969, A History of Machine Tools 1700–1910, Oxford (describes Whitworth's machine tools).RTS
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