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21 Grimthorpe (of Grimthorpe), Edmund Beckett, Baron
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 12 May 1816 Newark, Nottinghamshire, Englandd. 29 April 1905 St Albans, Hertfordshire, England[br]English lawyer and amateur horologist who was the first successfully to apply the gravity escapement to public clocks.[br]Born Edmund Beckett Denison, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics, graduating in 1838. He was called to the Bar in 1841 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1854. He built up a large and lucrative practice which gave him the independence to pursue his many interests outside law. His interest in horology may have been stimulated by a friend and fellow lawyer, J.M. Bloxham, who interestingly had invented a gravity escapement with an affinity to the escapement eventually used by Denison. Denison studied horology with his usual thoroughness and by 1850 he had published his Rudimentary Treatise on Clock and Watchmaking. It was natural, therefore, that he should have been invited to be a referee when a disagreement arose over the design of the clock for the new Houses of Parliament. Typically, he interpreted his brief very liberally and designed the clock himself. The most distinctive feature of the clock, in its final form, was the incorporation of a gravity escapement. A gravity escapement was particularly desirable in a public clock as it enabled the pendulum to receive a constant impulse (and thus swing with a constant amplitude), despite the variable forces that might be exerted by the wind on the exposed hands. The excellent performance of the prestigious clock at Westminster made Denison's form of gravity escapement de rigueur for large mechanical public clocks produced in Britain and in many other countries. In 1874 he inherited his father's baronetcy, dropping the Denison name, but later adopted the name Grimthorpe when he was created a Baron in 1886.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPeerage 1886. President, British Horological Institute 1868–1905.BibliographyHis highly idiosyncratic A Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks and Watchmaking first published in 1850, went through eight editions, with slight changes of title, and became the most influential work in English on the subject of public clocks.Further ReadingVaudrey Mercer, 1977, The Life and Letters of Edward John Dent, London, pp. 650–1 (provides biographical information relating to horology; also contains a reliable account of Denison's involvement with the clock at Westminster).A.L.Rawlings, 1948, The Science of Clocks and Watcher, repub. 1974, pp. 98–102 (provides a technical assessment of Denison's escapement).DVBiographical history of technology > Grimthorpe (of Grimthorpe), Edmund Beckett, Baron
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22 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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