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121 Bouchon, Basile
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. c.1725 Lyon, France[br]French pioneer in automatic pattern selection for weaving.[br]In the earliest draw looms, the pattern to be woven was selected by means of loops of string that were loosely tied round the appropriate leashes, which had to be lifted to make that pick of the pattern by raising the appropriate warp threads. In Isfahan, Persia, looms were seen in the 1970s where a boy sat in the top of the loom. Before the weaver could weave the next pick, the boy selected the appropriate loop of string, pulled out those leashes which were tied in it and lifted them up by means of a forked stick. The weaver below him held up these leashes by a pair of wooden sticks and sent the shuttle through that shed while the boy was sorting out the next loop of string with its leashes. When the pick had been completed, the first loop was dropped further down the leashes and, presumably, when the whole sequence of that pattern was finished, all the loops had be pushed up the leashes to the top of the loom again.Models in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, show that in 1725 Bouchon, a worker in Lyon, dispensed with the loops of string and selected the appropriate leashes by employing a band of pierced paper pressed against a row of horizontal wires by the drawboy using a hand-bar so as to push forward those which happened to lie opposite the blank spaces. These connected with loops at the lower extremity of vertical wires linked to the leashes at the top of the loom. The vertical wires could be pulled down by a comb-like rack beside the drawboy at the side of the loom in order to pull up the appropriate leashes to make the next shed. Bouchon seems to have had only one row of needles or wires, which must have limited the width of the patterns. This is an early form of mechanical memory, used in computers much later. The apparatus was improved subsequently by Falcon and Jacquard.[br]Further ReadingA.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (a brief description of Bouchon's apparatus).M.Daumas (ed.), 1968, Histoire générale des techniques Vol. III: L'Expansion dumachinisme, Paris (a description of this apparatus, with a diagram). Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, 1942, Catalogue du musée, section T, industries textiles, teintures et apprêts, Paris (another brief description; a model can be seen in this museum).C.Singer, (ed.), 1957, A History of Technology, Vol. III, Oxford: Clarendon Press (provides an illustration of Bouchon's apparatus).RLH -
122 Burrell, William
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. c.1570 Englandd. 1630 near Huntingdon, England[br]English shipbuilder and Chief Shipwright to the East India Company.[br]Born into comfortable circumstances, Burrell chose ship construction as his career. Ability aided by financial influence helped professional advancement, and by his early thirties he possessed a shipyard at Ratcliffe on the River Thames. Ship design was then unscientific, shrouded in mystique, and it required patience and perseverance to penetrate the conventions of the craft.From the 1600s Burrell had been investing in the East India Company. In 1607 the Company decided to build ships in their own right, and Burrell was appointed as the first Master Shipwright, a post he held for nearly twenty years. The first ship, Trade's Increase, of 1,000-tons burthen, was the largest ship built in England until the eighteenth century, but following a mishap at launch and the ship's subsequent loss on its maiden voyage, the Company reassessed its policy and built smaller ships. Burrell's foresight can be gauged by his involvement in two private commercial undertakings in Ireland; one to create oak forests for shipbuilding, and the other to set up a small ironworks. In 1618 a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into the poor condition of the Navy, and with the help of Burrell it was ruled that the main problems were neglect and corruption. With his name being known and his good record of production, the Royal Navy ordered no fewer than ten warships from Burrell in the four-year period from 1619 to 1623. With experience in the military and commercial sectors, Burrell can be regarded as an all-round and expert shipbuilder of the Stuart period. He used intuition at a time when there were no scientific rules and little reliable empiric guidance on ship design.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFirst Warden of the Shipwrights' Company after its new Charter of 1612.Further ReadingA.P.McGowan, 1978, "William Burrell (c. 1570–1630). A forgotten Stuart shipwright", Ingrid and other Studies (National Maritime Museum Monograph No. 36). W.Abell, 1948, The Shipwright's Trade, Cambridge.FMW -
123 Hero of Alexandria
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Photography, film and optics, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c.62 AD Alexandria[br]Alexandrian mathematician and mechanician.[br]Nothing is known of Hero, or Heron, apart from what can be gleaned from the books he wrote. Their scope and style suggest that he was a teacher at the museum or the university of Alexandria, writing textbooks for his students. The longest book, and the one with the greatest technological interest, is Pneumatics. Some of its material is derived from the works of the earlier writers Ctesibius of Alexandria and Philo of Byzantium, but many of the devices described were invented by Hero himself. The introduction recognizes that the air is a body and demonstrates the effects of air pressure, as when air must be allowed to escape from a closed vessel before water can enter. There follow clear descriptions of a variety of mechanical contrivances depending on the effects of either air pressure or heated gases. Most of the devices seem trivial, but such toys or gadgets were popular at the time and Hero is concerned to show how they work. Inventions with a more serious purpose are a fire pump and a water organ. One celebrated gadget is a sphere that is set spinning by jets of steam—an early illustration of the reaction principle on which modern jet propulsion depends.M echanics, known only in an Arabic version, is a textbook expounding the theory and practical skills required by the architect. It deals with a variety of questions of mechanics, such as the statics of a horizontal beam resting on vertical posts, the theory of the centre of gravity and equilibrium, largely derived from Archimedes, and the five ways of applying a relatively small force to exert a much larger one: the lever, winch, pulley, wedge and screw. Practical devices described include sledges for transporting heavy loads, cranes and a screw cutter.Hero's Dioptra describes instruments used in surveying, together with an odometer or device to indicate the distance travelled by a wheeled vehicle. Catoptrics, known only in Latin, deals with the principles of mirrors, plane and curved, enunciating that the angle of incidence is equal to that of reflection. Automata describes two forms of puppet theatre, operated by strings and drums driven by a falling lead weight attached to a rope wound round an axle. Hero's mathematical work lies in the tradition of practical mathematics stretching from the Babylonians through Islam to Renaissance Europe. It is seen most clearly in his Metrica, a treatise on mensuration.Of all his works, Pneumatics was the best known and most influential. It was one of the works of Greek science and technology assimilated by the Arabs, notably Banu Musa ibn Shakir, and was transmitted to medieval Western Europe.[br]BibliographyAll Hero's works have been printed with a German translation in Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia, 1899–1914, 5 vols, Leipzig. The book on pneumatics has been published as The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, 1851, trans. and ed. Bennet Wood-croft, London (facs. repr. 1971, introd. Marie Boas Hall, London and New York).Further ReadingA.G.Drachmann, 1948, "Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study in Ancient Pneumatics", Acta Hist. Sci. Nat. Med. 4, Copenhagen: Munksgaard.T.L.Heath, 1921, A History of Greek Mathematics, Oxford (still useful for his mathematical work).LRD -
124 Seppings, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 11 December 1767 near Fakenham, Norfolk, Englandd. 25 April 1840 Taunton, Somerset, England[br]English naval architect who as Surveyor to the Royal Navy made fundamental improvements in wooden ship construction.[br]After the death of his father, Seppings at the age of 14 moved to his uncle's home in Plymouth, where shortly after (1782) he was apprenticed to the Master Shipwright. His indentures were honoured fully by 1789 and he commenced his climb up the professional ladder of the ship construction department of the Royal Dockyards. In 1797 he became Assistant Master Shipwright at Plymouth, and in 1804 he was appointed Master Shipwright at Chatham. In 1813 Sir William Rule, Surveyor to the Navy, retired and the number of surveyors was increased to three, with Seppings being appointed the junior. Later he was to become Surveyor to the Royal Navy, a post he held until his retirement in 1832. Seppings introduced many changes to ship construction in the early part of the nineteenth century. It is likely that the introduction of these innovations required positive and confident management, and their acceptance tells us much about Seppings. The best-known changes were the round bow and stern in men-of-war and the alteration to framing systems.The Seppings form of diagonal bracing ensured that wooden ships, which are notorious for hogging (i.e. drooping at the bow and stern), were stronger and therefore able to be built with greater length. This change was complemented by modifications to the floors, frames and futtocks (analogous to the ribs of a ship). These developments were to be taken further once iron composite construction (wooden sheathing on iron frames) was adopted in the United Kingdom mid-century.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS. Knighted (by the Prince Regent aboard the warship Royal George) 1819.BibliographyThroughout his life Seppings produced a handful of pamphlets and published letters, as well as two papers that were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1814 and 1820).Further ReadingA description of the thinking in the Royal Navy at the beginning of the nineteenth century can be found in: J.Fincham, 1851, A History of Naval Architecture, London; B.Lavery, 1989, Nelson's Navy. The Ships, Men and Organisation 1793–1815, London: Conway.T.Wright, 1982, "Thomas Young and Robert Seppings: science and ship construction in the early nineteenth century", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 53:55–72.Seppings's work can be seen aboard the frigate Unicorn, launched in Chatham in 1824 and now on view to the public at Dundee. Similarly, his innovations in ship construction can be readily understood from many of the models at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.FMW -
125 Smith, Sir Francis Pettit
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 9 February 1808 Copperhurst Farm, near Hythe, Kent, Englandd. 12 February 1874 South Kensington, London, England[br]English inventor of the screw propeller.[br]Smith was the only son of Charles Smith, Postmaster at Hythe, and his wife Sarah (née Pettit). After education at a private school in Ashford, Kent, he took to farming, first on Romney Marsh, then at Hendon, Middlesex. As a boy, he showed much skill in the construction of model boats, especially in devising their means of propulsion. He maintained this interest into adult life and in 1835 he made a model propelled by a screw driven by a spring. This worked so well that he became convinced that the screw propeller offered a better method of propulsion than the paddle wheels that were then in general use. This notion so fired his enthusiasm that he virtually gave up farming to devote himself to perfecting his invention. The following year he produced a better model, which he successfully demonstrated to friends on his farm at Hendon and afterwards to the public at the Adelaide Gallery in London. On 31 May 1836 Smith was granted a patent for the propulsion of vessels by means of a screw.The idea of screw propulsion was not new, however, for it had been mooted as early as the seventeenth century and since then several proposals had been advanced, but without successful practical application. Indeed, simultaneously but quite independently of Smith, the Swedish engineer John Ericsson had invented the ship's propeller and obtained a patent on 13 July 1836, just weeks after Smith. But Smith was completely unaware of this and pursued his own device in the belief that he was the sole inventor.With some financial and technical backing, Smith was able to construct a 10 ton boat driven by a screw and powered by a steam engine of about 6 hp (4.5 kW). After showing it off to the public, Smith tried it out at sea, from Ramsgate round to Dover and Hythe, returning in stormy weather. The screw performed well in both calm and rough water. The engineering world seemed opposed to the new method of propulsion, but the Admiralty gave cautious encouragement in 1839 by ordering that the 237 ton Archimedes be equipped with a screw. It showed itself superior to the Vulcan, one of the fastest paddle-driven ships in the Navy. The ship was put through its paces in several ports, including Bristol, where Isambard Kingdom Brunel was constructing his Great Britain, the first large iron ocean-going vessel. Brunel was so impressed that he adapted his ship for screw propulsion.Meanwhile, in spite of favourable reports, the Admiralty were dragging their feet and ordered further trials, fitting Smith's four-bladed propeller to the Rattler, then under construction and completed in 1844. The trials were a complete success and propelled their lordships of the Admiralty to a decision to equip twenty ships with screw propulsion, under Smith's supervision.At last the superiority of screw propulsion was generally accepted and virtually universally adopted. Yet Smith gained little financial reward for his invention and in 1850 he retired to Guernsey to resume his farming life. In 1860 financial pressures compelled him to accept the position of Curator of Patent Models at the Patent Museum in South Kensington, London, a post he held until his death. Belated recognition by the Government, then headed by Lord Palmerston, came in 1855 with the grant of an annual pension of £200. Two years later Smith received unofficial recognition when he was presented with a national testimonial, consisting of a service of plate and nearly £3,000 in cash subscribed largely by the shipbuilding and engineering community. Finally, in 1871 Smith was honoured with a knighthood.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1871.Further ReadingObituary, 1874, Illustrated London News (7 February).1856, On the Invention and Progress of the Screw Propeller, London (provides biographical details).Smith and his invention are referred to in papers in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 14 (1934): 9; 19 (1939): 145–8, 155–7, 161–4, 237–9.LRDBiographical history of technology > Smith, Sir Francis Pettit
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