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81 Santos-Dumont, Alberto
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 20 July 1873 Cabangu, Rocha Dias, Brazild. 23 July 1932 d. Santos, Sâo Paulo, Brazil[br]Brazilian pioneer in airship and aeroplane flights.[br]Alberto Santos-Dumont, the son of a wealthy Brazilian coffee planter, was sent to Paris to study engineering but developed a passion for flying. After several balloon flights he turned his attention to powered airships. His first small airship, powered by a motorcycle engine, flew in 1898. A series of airships followed and his flights over Paris—and his narrow escapes—generated much public interest. A large cash prize had been offered for the first person to fly from Saint-Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and back inside thirty minutes. Santos-Dumont made two attempts in his airship No. 5, but engine failures caused him to crash, once in a tree and once on a hotel roof. Undismayed, he prepared airship No. 6 and on 19 October 1901 he set out and rounded the Tower, only to suffer yet another engine failure. This time he managed to restart the engine and claim the prize. This flight created a sensation in Paris and beyond. Santos-Dumont continued to create news with a series of airship exploits, and by 1906 he had built a total of fourteen airships. In 1904 Santos-Dumont visited the United States and met Octave Chanute, who described to him the achievements of the Wright brothers. On his return to Paris he set about designing an aeroplane which was unlike any other aeroplane of the period. It had box-kite-like wings and tail, and flew tail-first (a canard) powered by an Antoinette engine at the rear. It was built for him by Gabriel Voisin and was known as the "14 bis" because it was air-tested suspended beneath airship No. 14. It made its first free take-off on 13 September 1906, and then a series of short hops, including one of 220 m (720 ft) which won Santos-Dumont an Aero-Club prize and recognition for the first aeroplane flight in Europe; indeed, it was the first officially witnessed aeroplane flight in the world. Santos-Dumont's most successful aeroplane was his No. 20 of 1909, known as the Demoiselle: a tiny machine popular with sporting pilots. About this time, however, Santos-Dumont became ill and had to abandon his aeronautical activities. Although he had not made any great technical breakthroughs, Santos-Dumont had played a major role in arousing public interest in flying.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsAéro Club de France Grand Prix de l'Aéronautique 1901. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1904.Bibliography1904, Dans l'air, Paris; 1904, pub. as My Airships (repub. 1973, New York: Dover).Further ReadingPeter Wykeham, 1962, Santos-Dumont, A Study in Obsession, London.F.H.da Costa, c. 1971, Alberto Santos-Dumont, O Pai da Aviaçāo; pub. in English asAlberto Santos Dumont, Father of Aviation, Rio de Janeiro.JDS -
82 Shillibeer, George
SUBJECT AREA: Land transport[br]fl. early nineteenth century[br]English coachbuilder who introduced the omnibus to London.[br]Little is known of Shillibeer's early life except that he was for some years resident in France. He served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy before joining the firm of Hatchetts in Long Acre, London, to learn coachbuilding. He set up as a coachbuilder in Paris soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and prospered. Early in the 1820s Jacques Laffite ordered two improved buses from Shillibeer. Their success prompted Shillibeer to sell up his business and return to London to start a similar service. His first two buses in London ran for the first time on 4 July 1829, from the Yorkshire Stingo at Paddington to the Bank, a distance of 9 miles (14 km) which had taken three hours by the existing short-stagecoaches. Shillibeer's vehicle was drawn by three horses abreast, carried twenty-two passengers at a charge of one shilling for the full journey or sixpence for a part-journey. These fares were a third of that charged for an inside seat on a short-stagecoach. The conductors were the sons of friends of Shillibeer from his naval days. He was soon earning £1,000 per week, each bus making twelve double journeys a day. Dishonesty was rife among the conductors, so Shillibeer fitted a register under the entrance step to count the passengers; two of the conductors who had been discharged set out to wreck the register and its inventor. Expanded routes were soon being travelled by a larger fleet but the newly formed Metropolitan Police force complained that the buses were too wide, so the next buses had only two horses and carried sixteen passengers inside with two on top. Shillibeer's partner, William Morton, failed as competition grew. Shillibeer sold out in 1834 when he had sixty buses, six hundred horses and stabling for them. He started a long-distance service to Greenwich, but a competing railway opened in 1835 and income declined; the Official Stamp and Tax Offices seized the omnibuses and the business was bankrupted. Shillibeer then set up as an undertaker, and prospered with a new design of hearse which became known as a "Shillibeer".[br]Further ReadingA.Bird, 1969, Road Vehicles, London: Longmans Industrial Archaeology Series.IMcN -
83 Shrapnel, General Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour[br]b. 3 June 1761 Bradford-on-Avon, Englandd. 13 March 1842 Southampton, England[br]English professional soldier and inventor of shrapnel ammunition.[br]The youngest of nine children, Shrapnel was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in July 1779. His early military service was in Newfoundland and it was on his return to England in 1784 that he began to interest himself in artillery ammunition. His particular concern was to develop a round that would be more effective against infantry than the existing solid cannon-ball and canister round. The result was a hollow, spherical shell filled with lead musket balls and fitted with a bursting charge and fuse. His development of the shell was interrupted by active service in the Low Countries in 1793–4, during which he was wounded, and duty in the West Indies. Nevertheless, in 1803 the British Army adopted his shell, which during the next twelve years played a significant part on the battlefield.In 1804 Shrapnel was appointed Assistant Inspector of Artillery and made further contributions to the science of gunnery, drawing up a series of range tables to improve accuracy of fire, inventing the brass tangent slide for better sighting of guns, and improving the production of howitzers and mortars by way of the invention of parabolic chambers. His services were recognized in 1814 by a Treasury grant of £1,200 per annum for life. He was promoted Major-General in 1819 and appointed a Colonel-Commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1827, and in the 1830s there was talk of him being made a baronet, but nothing came of it. Shrapnel remains a current military term, although modern bursting shells rely on the fragmentation of the casing of the projectile for their effect rather than his original concept of having shot inside them.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsColonel-Commandant of the Royal Artillery 1827.Further ReadingDictionary of National Biography, 1897, Vol. 52, London: Smith, Elder.CMBiographical history of technology > Shrapnel, General Henry
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84 Small, James
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. c. 1742 Scotlandd. 1793 Scotland[br]Scottish engineer who was first to apply scientific experiment and calculation to the design of ploughs.[br]James Small served his apprenticeship as a wright and blacksmith at Hutton in Berwickshire, and then travelled for a time in England. It is possible that he learned his trade from the ploughwright Pashley, who ran the "Manufactory" in Rotherham. On his return to Scotland he settled at Blackadder Mount, Berwickshire, and there began to make his ploughs. He used a spring balance to determine the draft of the plough and fashioned the mouldboard from a soft wood so that the wear would show quickly on its surface. Repeated trials indicated the best shape to be adopted, and he had his mouldboards cast at the Carron Ironworks. At trials held at Dalkeith, Small's plough, pulled by two horses, outperformed the old Scotch plough hauled by as many as eight oxen, and his ploughs were soon to be found in all areas of the country. He established workshops in Leith Walk, where he made ploughs and other implements. It was in Edinburgh in 1784 that he published Treatise on Ploughs, in which he set out his methods and calculations. He made no attempt to patent his ideas, feeling that they should be available to all, and the book provided sufficient information for it to be used by his rivals. As a result he died a poor man at the age of 52. His family were supported with a £1,500 subscription raised on their behalf by Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture.[br]Bibliography1784, A Treatise on Ploughs and Wheel Carriages.Further ReadingJ.B.Passmore, 1930, The English Plough, Reading: University of Reading (provides a history of plough development from the eighth century, and deals in detail with Small's work).AP -
85 Stanhope, Charles, 3rd Earl
[br]b. 3 August 1753 London, Englandd. 15 December 1816 Chevening, Kent, England[br]English politician, scientist and inventor.[br]Stanhope's schooling at Eton was interrupted in 1764 when the family moved to Geneva; there, he soon showed a talent for scientific pursuits. In 1771 he contributed a paper on the pendulum to the Swedish Academy, which awarded him a prize for it. After his return to London in 1774, he threw himself into politics, earning himself not only a reputation for promoting the liberty of the individual, but also unpopularity for championing the French Revolution.Stanhope is best known for his inventions in printing. In 1800 he introduced the first successful iron press, known by his name. Its iron frame enabled a whole forme to be printed at one pull, thus speeding up production. The press retained the traditional screw but incorporated a system of levers which increased the pressure on the platen up to the moment of contact with the type, so that fine, sharp impressions were obtained and the work of the pressman was made easier. Stanhope's process for moulding and reproducing formes, known as stereotyping, became important when curved formes were required for cylinder presses. His invention of logotypes for casting type, however, proved a failure. Throughout his political activities, Stanhope devoted time and money to scientific and mechanical matters. Of these, the development of steamships is noteworthy. He took out patents in 1790 and 1807, and in 1796 he constructed the Kent for the Admiralty, but it was unsuccessful. In 1810, however, he claimed that a vessel 110 ft (33.5 m) long and 7 ft (2.1 m) in draught "outsailed the swiftest vessels in the Navy".[br]Further ReadingG.Stanhope, 1914, The Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, London.H.Hart, 1966, Charles Earl Stanhope and the Oxford University Press, London: Printing Historical Society (a reprint of a paper, originally published in 1896, describing Stanhope's printing inventions; with copious quotations from Stanhope's own writings, together with an essay on the Stanhope press by James Moran).LRDBiographical history of technology > Stanhope, Charles, 3rd Earl
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86 Steers, Thomas
[br]b. c. 1672 Kent, Englandd. buried November 1750 Liverpool, England[br]English dock and canal engineer.[br]An Army officer serving at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and later in the Low Countries, Steers thus gained experience in water control and development, canals and drainage. After his return to England he was associated with George Sorocold in the construction of Howland Great Dock, Rotherhithe, London, opened in 1699 and the first wet dock built in England. He was again associated with Sorocold in planning the first of Liverpool's wet docks and subsequently was responsible for its construction. On its completion, he became Dockmaster in 1717.In 1712 he surveyed the River Douglas for navigation, and received authorization to make it navigable from the Ribble estuary to Wigan in 1720. Although work was started by Steers, the undertaking was hit by the collapse of the South Sea Bubble and Steers was no longer associated with it when it was restarted in 1738. In 1721 he proposed making the Mersey and Irwell navigable.In 1736 he surveyed and engineered the first summit-level canal in the British Isles, between Portadown and Newry in Ulster, thus providing through-water communication between Lough Neagh and the Irish Sea. The canal was completed in 1741. He also carried out a survey of the river Boyne. Also in 1736, he surveyed the Worsley Brook in South Lancashire to provide navigation from Worsley to the Mersey. This was done on behalf of Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater; an Act was obtained in 1737, but no work was started on the scheme at that time. It was left to Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke, to initiate the Bridgewater Canal to provide water transport for coal from the Worsley pits direct to Manchester. In 1739 Steers was elected Mayor of Liverpool. The following year, jointly with John Eyes of Liverpool, he surveyed a possible navigation along the Calder from its junction with the Aire \& Calder at Wakefield to the Hebble and so through to Halifax, but, owing to opposition at the time, the construction of the Calder \& Hebble Navigation had to wait until after Steers's death. In the opinion of Professor A.W. Skempton, Steers was the most distinguished civil engineer before Smeaton's time.[br]Further ReadingHenry Peet, 1932, Thomas Steers. The Engineer of Liverpool's First Dock; reprinted with App. from Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 82:163– 242.JHB -
87 Stephenson, George
[br]b. 9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, Englandd. 12 August 1848 Tapton House, Chesterfield, England[br]English engineer, "the father of railways".[br]George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on its formation in 1847. Order of Leopold (Belgium) 1835. Stephenson refused both a knighthood and Fellowship of the Royal Society.Bibliography1815, jointly with Ralph Dodd, British patent no. 3,887 (locomotive drive by connecting rods directly to the wheels).1817, jointly with William Losh, British patent no. 4,067 (steam springs for locomotives, and improvements to track).Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, Longman (the best modern biography; includes a bibliography).S.Smiles, 1874, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, rev. edn, London (although sycophantic, this is probably the best nineteenthcentury biography).PJGR -
88 Stephenson, Robert
[br]b. 16 October 1803 Willington Quay, Northumberland, Englandd. 12 October 1859 London, England[br]English engineer who built the locomotive Rocket and constructed many important early trunk railways.[br]Robert Stephenson's father was George Stephenson, who ensured that his son was educated to obtain the theoretical knowledge he lacked himself. In 1821 Robert Stephenson assisted his father in his survey of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway and in 1822 he assisted William James in the first survey of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway. He then went to Edinburgh University for six months, and the following year Robert Stephenson \& Co. was named after him as Managing Partner when it was formed by himself, his father and others. The firm was to build stationary engines, locomotives and railway rolling stock; in its early years it also built paper-making machinery and did general engineering.In 1824, however, Robert Stephenson accepted, perhaps in reaction to an excess of parental control, an invitation by a group of London speculators called the Colombian Mining Association to lead an expedition to South America to use steam power to reopen gold and silver mines. He subsequently visited North America before returning to England in 1827 to rejoin his father as an equal and again take charge of Robert Stephenson \& Co. There he set about altering the design of steam locomotives to improve both their riding and their steam-generating capacity. Lancashire Witch, completed in July 1828, was the first locomotive mounted on steel springs and had twin furnace tubes through the boiler to produce a large heating surface. Later that year Robert Stephenson \& Co. supplied the Stockton \& Darlington Railway with a wagon, mounted for the first time on springs and with outside bearings. It was to be the prototype of the standard British railway wagon. Between April and September 1829 Robert Stephenson built, not without difficulty, a multi-tubular boiler, as suggested by Henry Booth to George Stephenson, and incorporated it into the locomotive Rocket which the three men entered in the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway's Rainhill Trials in October. Rocket, was outstandingly successful and demonstrated that the long-distance steam railway was practicable.Robert Stephenson continued to develop the locomotive. Northumbrian, built in 1830, had for the first time, a smokebox at the front of the boiler and also the firebox built integrally with the rear of the boiler. Then in Planet, built later the same year, he adopted a layout for the working parts used earlier by steam road-coach pioneer Goldsworthy Gurney, placing the cylinders, for the first time, in a nearly horizontal position beneath the smokebox, with the connecting rods driving a cranked axle. He had evolved the definitive form for the steam locomotive.Also in 1830, Robert Stephenson surveyed the London \& Birmingham Railway, which was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1833. Stephenson became Engineer for construction of the 112-mile (180 km) railway, probably at that date the greatest task ever undertaken in of civil engineering. In this he was greatly assisted by G.P.Bidder, who as a child prodigy had been known as "The Calculating Boy", and the two men were to be associated in many subsequent projects. On the London \& Birmingham Railway there were long and deep cuttings to be excavated and difficult tunnels to be bored, notoriously at Kilsby. The line was opened in 1838.In 1837 Stephenson provided facilities for W.F. Cooke to make an experimental electrictelegraph installation at London Euston. The directors of the London \& Birmingham Railway company, however, did not accept his recommendation that they should adopt the electric telegraph and it was left to I.K. Brunel to instigate the first permanent installation, alongside the Great Western Railway. After Cooke formed the Electric Telegraph Company, Stephenson became a shareholder and was Chairman during 1857–8.Earlier, in the 1830s, Robert Stephenson assisted his father in advising on railways in Belgium and came to be increasingly in demand as a consultant. In 1840, however, he was almost ruined financially as a result of the collapse of the Stanhope \& Tyne Rail Road; in return for acting as Engineer-in-Chief he had unwisely accepted shares, with unlimited liability, instead of a fee.During the late 1840s Stephenson's greatest achievements were the design and construction of four great bridges, as part of railways for which he was responsible. The High Level Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle and the Royal Border Bridge over the Tweed at Berwick were the links needed to complete the East Coast Route from London to Scotland. For the Chester \& Holyhead Railway to cross the Menai Strait, a bridge with spans as long-as 460 ft (140 m) was needed: Stephenson designed them as wrought-iron tubes of rectangular cross-section, through which the trains would pass, and eventually joined the spans together into a tube 1,511 ft (460 m) long from shore to shore. Extensive testing was done beforehand by shipbuilder William Fairbairn to prove the method, and as a preliminary it was first used for a 400 ft (122 m) span bridge at Conway.In 1847 Robert Stephenson was elected MP for Whitby, a position he held until his death, and he was one of the exhibition commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the early 1850s he was Engineer-in-Chief for the Norwegian Trunk Railway, the first railway in Norway, and he also built the Alexandria \& Cairo Railway, the first railway in Africa. This included two tubular bridges with the railway running on top of the tubes. The railway was extended to Suez in 1858 and for several years provided a link in the route from Britain to India, until superseded by the Suez Canal, which Stephenson had opposed in Parliament. The greatest of all his tubular bridges was the Victoria Bridge across the River St Lawrence at Montreal: after inspecting the site in 1852 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief for the bridge, which was 1 1/2 miles (2 km) long and was designed in his London offices. Sadly he, like Brunel, died young from self-imposed overwork, before the bridge was completed in 1859.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1849. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1849. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1856. Order of St Olaf (Norway). Order of Leopold (Belgium). Like his father, Robert Stephenson refused a knighthood.Further ReadingL.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (a good modern biography).J.C.Jeaffreson, 1864, The Life of Robert Stephenson, London: Longman (the standard nine-teenth-century biography).M.R.Bailey, 1979, "Robert Stephenson \& Co. 1823–1829", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 50 (provides details of the early products of that company).J.Kieve, 1973, The Electric Telegraph, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.PJGR -
89 Taylor, Albert Hoyt
[br]b. 1 January 1874 Chicago, Illinois, USAd. 11 December 1961 Claremont, California, USA[br]American radio engineer whose work on radio-detection helped lay the foundations for radar.[br]Taylor gained his degree in engineering from Northwest University, Evanston, Illinois, then spent a time at the University of Gottingen. On his return to the USA he taught successively at Michigan State University, at Lansing, and at the universities of Wisconsin at Madison and North Dakota at Grand Forks. From 1923 until 1945 he supervised the Radio Division at the US Naval Research Laboratories. There he carried out studies of short-wave radio propagation and confirmed Heaviside's 1925 theory of the reflection characteristics of the ionosphere. In the 1920s and 1930s he investigated radio echoes, and in 1933, with L.C.Young and L.A.Hyland, he filed a patent for a system of radio-detection that contributed to the subsequent development of radar.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Morris N.Liebmann Memorial Award 1927. President, Institute of Radio Engineers 1929. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honour 1942.Bibliography1926, with E.O.Hulbert, "The propagation of radio waves over the earth", Physical Review 27:189.1936, "The measurement of RF power", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 24: 1,342.Further ReadingS.S.Swords, 1986, Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar, London: Peter Peregrinus.See also: Watson-Watt, Sir Robert AlexanderKF -
90 Taylor, David Watson
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 4 March 1864 Louisa County, Virginia, USAd. 29 July 1940 Washington, DC, USA[br]American hydrodynamicist and Rear Admiral in the United States Navy Construction Corps.[br]Taylor's first years were spent on a farm in Virginia, but at the age of 13 he went to RandolphMacon College, graduating in 1881, and from there to the US Naval Academy, Annapolis. He graduated at the head of his class, had some sea time, and then went to the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England, where in 1888 he again came top of the class with the highest-ever marks of any student, British or overseas.On his return to the United States he held various posts as a constructor, ending this period at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. In 1894 he was transferred to Washington, where he joined the Bureau of Construction and started to interest the Navy in ship model testing. Under his direction, the first ship model tank in the United States was built at Washington and for fourteen years operated under his control. The work of this establishment gave him the necessary information to write the highly acclaimed text The Speed and Power of Ships, which with revisions is still in use. By the outbreak of the First World War he was one of the world's most respected naval architects, and had been retained as a consultant by the British Government in the celebrated case of the collision between the White Star Liner Olympic and HMS Hawke.In December 1914 Taylor became a Rear-Admiral and was appointed Chief Constructor of the US Navy. His term of office was extremely stressful, with over 1,000 ships constructed for the war effort and with the work of the fledgling Bureau for Aeronautics also under his control. The problems were not over in 1918 as the Washington Treaty required drastic pruning of the Navy and a careful reshaping of the defence force.Admiral Taylor retired from active service at the beginning of 1923 but retained several consultancies in aeronautics, shipping and naval architecture. For many years he served as consultant to the ship-design company now known as Gibbs and Cox. Many honours came his way, but the most singular must be the perpetuation of his name in the David Taylor Medal, the highest award of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in the United States. Similarly, the Navy named its ship test tank facility, which was opened in Maryland in 1937, the David W. Taylor Model Basin.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers 1925–7. United States Distinguished Service Medal. American Society of Civil Engineers John Fritz Medal. Institution of Naval Architects Gold Medal 1894 (the first American citizen to receive it). Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers David W.Taylor Medal 1936 (the first occasion of this award).BibliographyResistance of Ships and Screw Propulsion. 1911, The Speed and Power of Ships, New York: Wiley.Taylor gave many papers to the Maritime Institutions of both the United States and the United Kingdom.FMW -
91 Temple, Lewis
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 1800 Richmond, Virginia, USAd. 1854 New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA[br]African-American inventor of the toggle harpoon for whaling.[br]An African-American blacksmith, he emigrated as a young man to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and set up a shop at Coffin's Wharf that was devoted to whalecraft. In 1845 he was able to establish a blacksmith's shop at Walnut Street Wharf. There, in 1848, Temple introduced his toggle harpoon. This was found to be more effective than the barb attached to a rope used up until then, and was rapidly taken up by the whaling industry. As Temple did not patent his device, many other blacksmiths were able to make it and he gained little financial return from his invention. Injuries sustained in an accident in 1853 undermined his health and he died the following year.[br]Further ReadingP.P.James, 1989, The Real McCoy: AfricanAmerican Invention and Innovation 1629– 1930, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 35–7.LRD -
92 Tennant, Charles
[br]b. 3 May 1768 Ochiltree, Ayrshire, Scotlandd. 1 October 1838 Glasgow, Scotland[br]Scottish inventor of bleaching powder.[br]After education at the local school, Tennant went to Kilbachan to learn the manufacture of silk. He then went on to Wellmeadow, where he acquired a knowledge of the old bleaching process, which enabled him to establish his own bleachfield at Darnly. The process consisted of boiling the fabric in weak alkali and then laying it flat on the ground to expose it to sun and air for several months. This process, expensive in time and space, would have formed an intolerable bottleneck in the rapidly expanding textile industry, but a new method was on the way. The French chemist Berthollet demonstrated in 1786 the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent and James Watt learned of this while on a visit to Paris. On his return to Glasgow, Watt passed details of the new process on to Tennant, who set about devising his own version of it. First he obtained a bleaching liquor by passing chlorine through a stirred mixture of lime and water. He was granted a patent for this process in 1798, but it was promptly infringed by bleachers in Lancashire. Tennant's efforts to enforce the patent were unsuccessful as it was alleged that others had employed a similar process some years previously. Nevertheless, the Lancashire bleachers had the good grace to present Tennant with a service of plate in recognition of the benefits he had brought to the industry.In 1799 Tennant improved on his process by substituting dry slaked lime for the liquid, to form bleaching powder. This was patented the same year and proved to be a vital element in the advance of the textile industry. The following year, Tennant established his chemical plant at St Roll ox, outside Glasgow, to manufacture bleaching powder and alkali substances. The plant prospered and became for a time the largest chemical works in Europe.[br]Further ReadingL.F.Haber, 1958, The Chemical Industry During the Nineteenth Century, London: Oxford University Press.F.S.Taylor, 1957, A History of Industrial Chemistry, London: Heinemann.Walker, 1862, Memoirs of Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in 1807– 1808, London, p. 186.LRD -
93 Tesla, Nikola
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 9 July 1856 Smiljan, Croatiad. 7 January 1943 New York, USA[br]Serbian (naturalized American) engineer and inventor of polyphase electrical power systems.[br]While at the technical institute in Graz, Austria, Tesla's attention was drawn to the desirability of constructing a motor without a commutator. He considered the sparking between the commutator and brushes of the Gramme machine when run as a motor a serious defect. In 1881 he went to Budapest to work on the telegraph system and while there conceived the principle of the rotating magnetic field, upon which all polyphase induction motors are based. In 1882 Tesla moved to Paris and joined the Continental Edison Company. After building a prototype of his motor he emigrated to the United States in 1884, becoming an American citizen in 1889. He left Edison and founded an independent concern, the Tesla Electric Company, to develop his inventions.The importance of Tesla's first patents, granted in 1888 for alternating-current machines, cannot be over-emphasized. They covered a complete polyphase system including an alternator and induction motor. Other patents included the polyphase transformer, synchronous motor and the star connection of three-phase machines. These were to become the basis of the whole of the modern electric power industry. The Westinghouse company purchased the patents and marketed Tesla motors, obtaining in 1893 the contract for the Niagara Falls two-phase alternators driven by 5,000 hp (3,700 kW) water turbines.After a short period with Westinghouse, Tesla resigned to continue his research into high-frequency and high-voltage phenomena using the Tesla coil, an air-cored transformer. He lectured in America and Europe on his high-frequency devices, enjoying a considerable international reputation. The name "tesla" has been given to the SI unit of magnetic-flux density. The induction motor became one of the greatest advances in the industrial application of electricity. A claim for priority of invention of the induction motor was made by protagonists of Galileo Ferraris (1847–1897), whose discovery of rotating magnetic fields produced by alternating currents was made independently of Tesla's. Ferraris demonstrated the phenomenon but neglected its exploitation to produce a practical motor. Tesla himself failed to reap more than a small return on his work and later became more interested in scientific achievement than commercial success, with his patents being infringed on a wide scale.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsAmerican Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal 1917. Tesla received doctorates from fourteen universities.Bibliography1 May 1888, American patent no. 381,968 (initial patent for the three-phase induction motor).1956, Nikola Tesla, 1856–1943, Lectures, Patents, Articles, ed. L.I.Anderson, Belgrade (selected works, in English).1977, My Inventions, repub. Zagreb (autobiography).Further ReadingM.Cheney, 1981, Tesla: Man Out of Time, New Jersey (a full biography). C.Mackechnie Jarvis, 1969, in IEE Electronics and Power 15:436–40 (a brief treatment).T.C.Martin, 1894, The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, New York (covers his early work on polyphase systems).GW -
94 Tideman, Bruno Joannes
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 7 August 1834 Amsterdam, The Netherlandsd. 11 February 1883 Amsterdam, The Netherlands[br]Dutch naval architect and constructor, early hydrodyna midst.[br]The first thirty years of Tideman's life followed the normal pattern for a naval architect: study at the Breda Military Academy, work in the Royal Dockyards of Vlissingen as a constructor and then experience in the United Kingdom "standing by" an armoured vessel being built for the Dutch at Birkenhead. Tideman took the opportunity to acquaint himself with current developments in British shipyards and to study the work of Macquorn Rankine at Glasgow University.On his return to the Netherlands he was given the task of adapting the Royal Dockyard of Amsterdam for ironclad construction and from 1870 iron ships were built there. From 1868 until 1873 he taught shipbuilding at what was then the Delft Polytechnic, but resigned on his appointment as Chief Naval Constructor of Holland.Through representations to appropriate authority he assisted in founding the great shipyard Koninklijke Maatschappij "De Schelde" and in the setting up of Dutch ferry services across the North Sea. His interest in ship design and in the pioneering work of William Froude led to the founding of the world's second ship model test tank in 1876 in a sheltered part of the Royal Amsterdam Dockyard. The design was based on Froude's Torquay Tank.As Scotland's first tank was not opened until 1883, he attracted work from the Clyde, including the testing of the Russian Imperial Yacht Livadia built by Elder's of Glasgow. This contract was so critical that it was agreed that a quartersize model be tested on Loch Lomond. Throughout his life he was respected as an all-round engineer and consultancy work flowed in, the vast bulk of it from Britain. Continual trying to improve standards, Tideman was working on a development plan for Dutch shipbuilding at the time of his death.[br]Further ReadingJ.M.Dirkzwager, 1970, Bruno Joannes Tideman 1834–1883. Grondlegger van de Moderne Scheepsbouw in Nederland, Leiden.FMW -
95 Todd, Leonard Jennett
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. 1885 London, England[br]English (?) patentee of steam engines incorporating the uniflow principle.[br]In a uniflow system, the steam enters a steam engine cylinder at one end, pushes the pistons along, and exhausts through a ring of ports at the centre of the cylinder that are uncovered by movement of the piston. The piston is returned by steam then entering the other end of the cylinder, moving the piston arrangement back, and again making its exit through the central ports. This gave the thermodynamic advantage of the cylinder ends remaining hot and the centre colder with reheating the ends of the cylinder through compression of the residual steam. The principle was first patented by Jacob Perkins in England in 1827 and was tried in America in 1856.Little is known about Todd. The addresses given in his patent specifications show that he was living first at South Hornsey and then Stoke Newington, both in Middlesex (now in London). No obituary notices have been traced. He took out a patent in 1885 for a "terminal exhaust engine" and followed this with two more in 1886 and 1887. His aim was to "produce a double acting steam engine which shall work more efficiently, which shall produce and maintain within itself an improved gradation of temperature extending from each of its two Hot Inlets to its common central Cold Outlet". His later patents show the problems he faced with finding suitable valve gears and the compression developing during the return stroke of the piston. It was this last problem, particularly when starting a condensing engine, that probably defeated him through excessive compression pressures. There is some evidence that he hoped to apply his engines to railway locomotives.[br]Bibliography1885, British patent no. 7,301 (terminal exhaust engine). 1886, British patent no. 2,132.1887, British patent no. 6,666.Further ReadingR.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (provides the fullest discussion of his patents). H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press.J.Stumpf, 1912, The Una-Flow Steam Engine, Munich: R.Oldenbourg.RLH -
96 Townsend, Matthew
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. Leicester (?), Englandd. after 1867 USA[br]English inventor of the latch needle for making seamless hose, and developer of ribbed knitting on circular machines.[br]Townsend, who described himself in his first patent as a framework knitter and afterwards as a hosier of Leicester, took out a patent in 1847 for the application of a "machine like that of a point net frame to an ordinary stocking-frame". He described needles and hooks of a peculiar shape which were able to take the work off the knitting machine, reverse the loops and return them again so that ribbed knitting could be made on circular machines. These became popular for knitting stockings which, although not fully fashioned, had sufficient strength to fit the leg. In 1854 he took out a patent for making round hose with heels and toes fashioned on other machines. In yet another patent, in 1856, he described a method of raising looped pile on knitted fabrics for making "terry" towelling fabrics. He could use different coloured yarns in the fabric that were controlled by a Jacquard mechanism. It was in the same year, 1856, in a further patent that he described his tumbler or latch needles as well as the making of figured patterns in knitting on both sides of the fabric with a Jacquard mechanism. The latch needles were self-acting, being made to move up and down or backwards and forwards by the action of cams set in the cylindrical body of the machine. Normally the needle worked in a vertical or inclined position with the previous loop on the shank below the latch. Weft yarn was placed in the hook of the needle. The needle was drawn down between fixed plates which formed a new loop with the weft. At the same time, the original loop already on the shank of the needle moved along the shank and closed the latch so that it could pass over the newly formed loop in the needle hook and fall over the end of the needle incorporating the new loop on its way to make the next row of stitches. The latch needle obviated the need for loop wheels and pressers and thus simplified the knitting mechanism. Townsend's invention was the forerunner of an entirely new generation of knitting machines, but it was many years before its full potential was realized, the bearded needle of William Lee being preferred because the hinge of the latch could not be made as fine as the bearded needle.Townsend was in the first rank of skilful manufacturers of fancy Leicester hosiery and had a good practical knowledge of the machinery used in his trade. Having patented his needles, he seems not to have succeeded in getting them into very profitable or extensive use, possibly because he fixed the royalty too high. His invention proved to be most useful and profitable in the hands of others, for it gave great impetus to the trade in seamless hose. For various reasons he discontinued his business in Leicester. He emigrated to the USA, where, after some initial setbacks, he began to reap the rewards of his skill.[br]Bibliography1847, British patent no. 11,899 (knitting machine). 1854, British patent no. 1,523 (seamless hose).1856, British patent no. 1,157 ("terry" towelling fabrics).1856, British patent no. 1,858 (latch needles and double-sided patterns on fabrics).Further ReadingF.A.Wells, 1935, The British Hosiery and Knitwear Industry, London (mentions Townsend briefly).W.Felkin, 1967, History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures, reprint, Newton Abbot (orig. pub. 1867) (a better account of Townsend).RLH -
97 Trueta, Joseph
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 28 October 1897 Barcelona, Spaind. 19 January 1977 Barcelona, Spain[br]Spanish surgeon who specialized in the treatment of trauma and invented the "Trueta" technique of wound management.[br]Trueta studied medicine at Barcelona University and graduated in 1921. He held successive surgical appointments until in 1929 he was appointed to the Caja de Provision y Socorro, an organization handling 40,000 cases of injury per year. In 1935, soon after becoming Chief Surgeon in Catalonia, he was confronted by the special problems presented by the casualties of the Spanish Civil War.With a Nationalist victory imminent in 1939, he moved to England where his special skills were recognized, and at the outbreak of the Second World War he was appointed to the Wing-field Hospital and the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford. After an interregnum at the end of the war, in 1949 he was appointed Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Oxford, and held this post until his retirement in 1965, when he was able to return to Spain.His technique of wound management stressed the importance of wound cleansing, excision of non-viable tissue, drainage and immobilization, and was particularly timely in that the advent of penicillin permitted the practical pursuit of new concepts in the treatment not only of the soft tissues, but also of bone infection. He was engaged in many other research projects, in particular those concerned with "crush syndrome" and its renal implications.[br]Bibliography1939, Treatment of Wounds and Fractures with special reference to the closed method, London.1943, The Principles and Practice of War Surgery with special reference to the Biological Method of Treatment of Wounds and Fractures, London.1980, Trueta: Surgeon in War and Peace, trans. M.Strubell and M.Strubell, London (autobiography).MG -
98 Vail, Alfred Lewis
SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications[br]b. 25 September 1807 Morristown, New Jersey, USAd. 18 January 1859 Morristown, New Jersey, USA[br]American telegraph pioneer and associate of Samuel Morse; widely credited with the invention of "Morse" code.[br]After leaving school, Vail was initially employed at his father's ironworks in Morristown, but he then decided to train for the Presbyterian ministry, graduating from New York City University in 1836. Unfortunately, he was then obliged to abandon his chosen career because of ill health. He accidentally met Samuel Morse not long afterwards, and he became interested in the latter's telegraph experiments; in return for a share of the rights, he agreed to construct apparatus and finance the filing of US and foreign patents. Working in Morristown with Morse and Leonard Gale, and with financial backing from his father, Vail constructed around his father's plant a telegraph with 3 miles (4.8 km) of wire. It is also possible that he, rather than Morse, was largely responsible for devising the so-called Morse code, a series of dot and dash codes representing the letters of the alphabet, and in which the simplest codes were chosen for those letters found to be most numerous in a case of printer's type. This system was first demonstrated on 6 January 1838 and there were subsequent public demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia. Eventually Congress authorized an above-ground line between Washington and Baltimore, and on 24 May 1844 the epoch-making message "What hath God wrought?" was transmitted.Vail remained with Morse for a further four years, but he gradually lost interest in telegraphy and resigned, receiving no credit for his important contribution.[br]BibliographyThe Magnetic Telegraph.Further Reading1845, American Electrotelegraph 135.J.J.Fahie, 1884, A History of the Electric Telegraph to the Year 1837, London: E\&F Spon.KF -
99 Varian, Russell Harrison
[br]b. 24 April 1898 Washington, DC, USAd. 28 July 1959 Juneau, Alaska, USA[br]American physicist who, with his brother Sigurd Varian and others, developed the klystron.[br]After attending schools in Palo Alto and Halcyon, Russell Varian went to Stanford University, gaining his BA in 1925 and his MA in 1927 despite illness and being dyslexic. His family being in need of financial help, he first worked for six months for Bush Electric in San Francisco and then for an oil company in Texas, returning to San Francisco in 1930 to join Farnsworth's Television Laboratory. After a move to Philadelphia, in 1933 the laboratory closed and Russell tried to take up a PhD course at Stanford but was rejected, so he trained as a teacher. However, although he did some teaching at Stanford it was not to be his career, for in 1935 he joined his brothers Sigurd and Eric in the setting up of a home laboratory.There, with William Hansen, a former colleague of Russell's at Stanford, they worked on the development of microwave oscillators, based on some of the latter's ideas. By 1937 they had made sufficient progress on an electron velocity-bunching tube, which they called the klystron, to obtain an agreement with the university to provide laboratory facilities in return for a share of any proceeds. By August that year they were able to produce continuous power at a wavelength of 13 cm. Clearly needing greater resources to develop and manufacture the tube, and with a possible war looming, a deal was struck with the Sperry Gyroscope Company to finance the work, which was transferred to the East Coast.In 1946, after the death of his first wife, Russell returned to Palo Alto, and in 1948 the brothers and Hansen founded Varian Associates to make microwave tubes for transmitters and linear accelerators and nuclear magnetic-resonance detectors. Subsequent research also resulted in the development of a satellite-borne magnetometer for measuring the earth's magnetic field.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary DSc Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute 1943. Franklin Institute Medal.Bibliography1939, with S.F.Varian, "High frequency oscillator and amplifier", Journal of Applied Physics 10:321 (describes the klystron).Further ReadingJ.R.Pierce, 1962, "History of the microwave tube art", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 979 (provides background to development of the klystron).D.Varian, 1983, The Inventor and the Pilot (biographies of the brothers).See also: Varian, Sigurd FergusKFBiographical history of technology > Varian, Russell Harrison
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100 Vignoles, Charles Blacker
[br]b. 31 May 1793 Woodbrook, Co. Wexford, Irelandd. 17 November 1875 Hythe, Hampshire, England[br]English surveyor and civil engineer, pioneer of railways.[br]Vignoles, who was of Huguenot descent, was orphaned in infancy and brought up in the family of his grandfather, Dr Charles Hutton FRS, Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After service in the Army he travelled to America, arriving in South Carolina in 1817. He was appointed Assistant to the state's Civil Engineer and surveyed much of South Carolina and subsequently Florida. After his return to England in 1823 he established himself as a civil engineer in London, and obtained work from the brothers George and John Rennie.In 1825 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) lost their application for an Act of Parliament, discharged their engineer George Stephenson and appointed the Rennie brothers in his place. They in turn employed Vignoles to resurvey the railway, taking a route that would minimize objections. With Vignoles's route, the company obtained its Act in 1826 and appointed Vignoles to supervise the start of construction. After Stephenson was reappointed Chief Engineer, however, he and Vignoles proved incompatible, with the result that Vignoles left the L \& MR early in 1827.Nevertheless, Vignoles did not sever all connection with the L \& MR. He supported John Braithwaite and John Ericsson in the construction of the locomotive Novelty and was present when it competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He attended the opening of the L \& MR in 1830 and was appointed Engineer to two railways which connected with it, the St Helens \& Runcorn Gap and the Wigan Branch (later extended to Preston as the North Union); he supervised the construction of these.After the death of the Engineer to the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway, Vignoles supervised construction: the railway, the first in Ireland, was opened in 1834. He was subsequently employed in surveying and constructing many railways in the British Isles and on the European continent; these included the Eastern Counties, the Midland Counties, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyme \& Manchester (which proved for him a financial disaster from which he took many years to recover), and the Waterford \& Limerick. He probably discussed rail of flat-bottom section with R.L. Stevens during the winter of 1830–1 and brought it into use in the UK for the first time in 1836 on the London \& Croydon Railway: subsequently rail of this section became known as "Vignoles rail". He considered that a broader gauge than 4 ft 8½ in. (1.44 m) was desirable for railways, although most of those he built were to this gauge so that they might connect with others. He supported the atmospheric system of propulsion during the 1840s and was instrumental in its early installation on the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway's Dalkey extension. Between 1847 and 1853 he designed and built the noted multi-span suspension bridge at Kiev, Russia, over the River Dnieper, which is more than half a mile (800 m) wide at that point.Between 1857 and 1863 he surveyed and then supervised the construction of the 155- mile (250 km) Tudela \& Bilbao Railway, which crosses the Cantabrian Pyrenees at an altitude of 2,163 ft (659 m) above sea level. Vignoles outlived his most famous contemporaries to become the grand old man of his profession.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFellow of the Royal Astronomical Society 1829. FRS 1855. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1869–70.Bibliography1830, jointly with John Ericsson, British patent no. 5,995 (a device to increase the capability of steam locomotives on grades, in which rollers gripped a third rail).1823, Observations upon the Floridas, New York: Bliss \& White.1870, Address on His Election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.Further ReadingK.H.Vignoles, 1982, Charles Blacker Vignoles: Romantic Engineer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (good modern biography by his great-grandson).See also: Samuda, Joseph d'AguilarPJGRBiographical history of technology > Vignoles, Charles Blacker
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