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41 Ferranti, Sebastian Ziani de
[br]b. 9 April 1864 Liverpool, Englandd. 13 January 1930 Zurich, Switzerland[br]English manufacturing engineer and inventor, a pioneer and early advocate of high-voltage alternating-current electric-power systems.[br]Ferranti, who had taken an interest in electrical and mechanical devices from an early age, was educated at St Augustine's College in Ramsgate and for a short time attended evening classes at University College, London. Rather than pursue an academic career, Ferranti, who had intense practical interests, found employment in 1881 with the Siemens Company (see Werner von Siemens) in their experimental department. There he had the opportunity to superintend the installation of electric-lighting plants in various parts of the country. Becoming acquainted with Alfred Thomson, an engineer, Ferranti entered into a short-lived partnership with him to manufacture the Ferranti alternator. This generator, with a unique zig-zag armature, had an efficiency exceeding that of all its rivals. Finding that Sir William Thomson had invented a similar machine, Ferranti formed a company with him to combine the inventions and produce the Ferranti- Thomson machine. For this the Hammond Electric Light and Power Company obtained the sole selling rights.In 1885 the Grosvenor Gallery Electricity Supply Corporation was having serious problems with its Gaulard and Gibbs series distribution system. Ferranti, when consulted, reviewed the design and recommended transformers connected across constant-potential mains. In the following year, at the age of 22, he was appointed Engineer to the company and introduced the pattern of electricity supply that was eventually adopted universally. Ambitious plans by Ferranti for London envisaged the location of a generating station of unprecedented size at Deptford, about eight miles (13 km) from the city, a departure from the previous practice of placing stations within the area to be supplied. For this venture the London Electricity Supply Corporation was formed. Ferranti's bold decision to bring the supply from Deptford at the hitherto unheard-of pressure of 10,000 volts required him to design suitable cables, transformers and generators. Ferranti planned generators with 10,000 hp (7,460 kW)engines, but these were abandoned at an advanced stage of construction. Financial difficulties were caused in part when a Board of Trade enquiry in 1889 reduced the area that the company was able to supply. In spite of this adverse situation the enterprise continued on a reduced scale. Leaving the London Electricity Supply Corporation in 1892, Ferranti again started his own business, manufacturing electrical plant. He conceived the use of wax-impregnated paper-insulated cables for high voltages, which formed a landmark in the history of cable development. This method of flexible-cable manufacture was used almost exclusively until synthetic materials became available. In 1892 Ferranti obtained a patent which set out the advantages to be gained by adopting sector-shaped conductors in multi-core cables. This was to be fundamental to the future design and development of such cables.A total of 176 patents were taken out by S.Z. de Ferranti. His varied and numerous inventions included a successful mercury-motor energy meter and improvements to textile-yarn produc-tion. A transmission-line phenomenon where the open-circuit voltage at the receiving end of a long line is greater than the sending voltage was named the Ferranti Effect after him.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1927. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1910 and 1911. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1924.Bibliography18 July 1882, British patent no. 3,419 (Ferranti's first alternator).13 December 1892, British patent no. 22,923 (shaped conductors of multi-core cables). 1929, "Electricity in the service of man", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 67: 125–30.Further ReadingG.Z.de Ferranti and R. Ince, 1934, The Life and Letters of Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, London.A.Ridding, 1964, S.Z.de Ferranti. Pioneer of Electric Power, London: Science Museum and HMSO (a concise biography).R.H.Parsons, 1939, Early Days of the Power Station Industry, Cambridge, pp. 21–41.GWBiographical history of technology > Ferranti, Sebastian Ziani de
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42 Fox, Samuel
SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors[br]b. 1815 Bradfield, near Sheffield, Englandd. February 1887 Sheffield, England[br]English inventor of the curved steel umbrella frame.[br]Samuel Fox was the son of a weaver's shuttle maker in the hamlet of Bradwell (probably Bradfield, near Sheffield) in the remote hills. He went to Sheffield and served an apprenticeship in the steel trade. Afterwards, he worked with great energy and industry until he acquired sufficient capital to start in business on his own account at Stocksbridge, near Sheffield. It was there that he invented what became known as "Fox's Paragon Frame" for umbrellas. Whalebone or solid steel had previously been used for umbrella ribs, but whalebone was unreliable and steel was heavy. Fox realized that if he grooved the ribs he could make them both lighter and more elastic. In his first patent, taken out in 1852, he described making the ribs and stretchers of parasols and umbrellas from a narrow strip of steel plate partially bent into a trough-like form. He took out five more patents. The first, in 1853, was for strengthening the joints. His next two, in 1856 and 1857, were more concerned with preparing the steel for making the ribs. Another patent in 1857 was basically for improving the formation of the bit at the end of the rib where it was fixed to the stretcher and where the end of the rib has to be formed into a boss: this was so it could have a pin fixed through it to act as a pivot when the umbrella has to be opened or folded and yet support the rib and stretcher. The final patent, in 1865, reverted once more to improving the manufacture of the ribs. He made a fortune before other manufacturers knew what he was doing. Fox established a works at Lille when he found that the French import duties and other fiscal arrangements hindered exporting umbrellas and successful trading there, and was thereby able to develop a large and lucrative business.[br]Bibliography1852. British patent no. 14,055 (curved steel ribs and stretchers for umbrellas). 1853. British patent no. 739 (strengthened umbrella joints).1856. British patent no. 2,741 (ribs and stretchers for umbrellas). 1857. British patent no. 1,450 (steel wire for umbrellas).1857, British patent no. 1,857 (forming the bit attached to the ribs). 1865, British patent no. 2,348 (improvements in making the ribs).Further ReadingObituary, 1887, Engineer 63.Obituary, 1887, Iron 29.RLH -
43 Gossage, William
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 1799 Burgh-in-the-Marsh, Lincolnshire, Englandd. 9 April 1877 Bowdon, Cheshire, England[br]English industrial chemist, inventor of the absorption tower.[br]At the age of 12 he was working for his father, who was a chemist and druggist. When he was old enough, he started in the same trade on his own account at Leamington, but soon turned to the making of salt and alkali at a works in Stoke Prior, Worcestershire. In 1850 he moved to Widnes, Lancashire, and established a plant for the manufacture of alkali and soap. Gossage's soap became famous, and some 200,000 tons of it were sold during the period 1862 to 1887. Gossage made important improvements to the Leblanc process. Hitherto, the large quantities of hydrogen chloride discharged into the atmosphere had been a considerable nuisance and a cause of much litigation from aggrieved parties. Gossage introduced the absorption tower, in which the ascending hydrogen chloride was absorbed by a descending stream of water. An outcome of this improvement was the Alkali Act of 1863, which required manufacturers to absorb up to 95 per cent of the offending gas. Gossage later took out many other industrial chemical patents, and for a time he was engaged in copper smelting with works in both Widnes and Neath, South Wales.[br]Further ReadingJ.Fenwick Allen, 1907, Some Founders of the Chemical Industry, London. D.W.F.Hardie, 1950, A History of the Chemical Industry in Widnes, London.LRD -
44 Harrison, James
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1816 Glasgow, Scotlandd. 3 September 1893 Geelong, Victoria, Australia[br]Scottish pioneer of the transport of frozen meat.[br]James Harrison emigrated to Australia in 1834, and in 1840 settled in Geelong as a journalist. At one time he was editor of the Melbourne Age. In 1850 he began to devote his attention to the development of an ice-making scheme, erecting the first factory at Rodey Point, Barwin, in that year. In 1851 the Brewery Glasgow \& Co. in Bendigo, Victoria, installed the first Harrison refrigerator. He took out patents for his invention in 1856 and 1857, and visited London at about the same time. On his return to Australia he began experiments into the long-term freezing of meat. In 1873 he publicly exhibited the process in Melbourne and organized a banquet for the consumption of meat which had been in store for six months. In July of the same year the SS Norfolk sailed with a cargo of 20 tons of frozen mutton and beef, but this began to rot en route to London. The refrigeration plant was later put to use in a paraffin factory in London, but the failure ruined Harrison and took all his newspaper profits.[br]Further ReadingJ.T.Critchell, 1912, A History of the Frozen Meat Trade, London (gives a brief account of Harrison's abortive but essential part in the transport of frozen meat).AP -
45 Holden, Sir Isaac
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 7 May 1807 Hurlet, between Paisley and Glasgow, Scotlandd. 13 August 1897[br]British developer of the wool-combing machine.[br]Isaac Holden's father, who had the same name, had been a farmer and lead miner at Alston in Cumbria before moving to work in a coal-mine near Glasgow. After a short period at Kilbarchan grammar school, the younger Isaac was engaged first as a drawboy to two weavers and then, after the family had moved to Johnstone, Scotland, worked in a cotton-spinning mill while attending night school to improve his education. He was able to learn Latin and bookkeeping, but when he was about 15 he was apprenticed to an uncle as a shawl-weaver. This proved to be too much for his strength so he returned to scholastic studies and became Assistant to an able teacher, John Kennedy, who lectured on physics, chemistry and history, which he also taught to his colleague. The elder Isaac died in 1826 and the younger had to provide for his mother and younger brother, but in 1828, at the age of 21, he moved to a teaching post in Leeds. He filled similar positions in Huddersfield and Reading, where in October 1829 he invented and demonstrated the lucifer match but did not seek to exploit it. In 1830 he returned because of ill health to his mother in Scotland, where he began to teach again. However, he was recommended as a bookkeeper to William Townend, member of the firm of Townend Brothers, Cullingworth, near Bingley, Yorkshire. Holden moved there in November 1830 and was soon involved in running the mill, eventually becoming a partner.In 1833 Holden urged Messrs Townend to introduce seven wool-combing machines of Collier's designs, but they were found to be very imperfect and brought only trouble and loss. In 1836 Holden began experimenting on the machines until they showed reasonable success. He decided to concentrate entirely on developing the combing machine and in 1846 moved to Bradford to form an alliance with Samuel Lister. A joint patent in 1847 covered improvements to the Collier combing machine. The "square motion" imitated the action of the hand-comber more closely and was patented in 1856. Five more patents followed in 1857 and others from 1858 to 1862. Holden recommended that the machines should be introduced into France, where they would be more valuable for the merino trade. This venture was begun in 1848 in the joint partnership of Lister \& Holden, with equal shares of profits. Holden established a mill at Saint-Denis, first with Donisthorpe machines and then with his own "square motion" type. Other mills were founded at Rheims and at Croix, near Roubaix. In 1858 Lister decided to retire from the French concerns and sold his share to Holden. Soon after this, Holden decided to remodel all their machinery for washing and carding the gill machines as well as perfecting the square comb. Four years of excessive application followed, during which time £20,000 was spent in experiments in a small mill at Bradford. The result fully justified the expenditure and the Alston Works was built in Bradford.Holden was a Liberal and from 1865 to 1868 he represented Knaresborough in Parliament. Later he became the Member of Parliament for the Northern Division of the Riding, Yorkshire, and then for the town of Keighley after the constituencies had been altered. He was liberal in his support of religious, charitable and political objectives. His house at Oakworth, near Keighley, must have been one of the earliest to have been lit by electricity.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsBaronet 1893.Bibliography1847, with Samuel Lister, British patent no. 11,896 (improved Collier combing machine). 1856. British patent no. 1,058 ("square motion" combing machine).1857. British patent no. 278 1857, British patent no. 279 1857, British patent no. 280 1857, British patent no. 281 1857, British patent no. 3,177 1858, British patent no. 597 1859, British patent no. 52 1860, British patent no. 810 1862, British patent no. 1,890 1862, British patent no. 3,394Further ReadingJ.Hogg (ed.), c.1888, Fortunes Made in Business, London (provides an account of Holden's life).Obituary, 1897, Engineer 84.Obituary, 1897, Engineering 64.E.M.Sigsworth, 1973, "Sir Isaac Holden, Bt: the first comber in Europe", in N.B.Harte and K.G.Ponting (eds), Textile History and Economic History, Essays in Honour ofMiss Julia de Lacy Mann, Manchester.W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (provides a good explanation of the square motion combing machine).RLH -
46 Holt, Benjamin
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1 January 1849 Concord, New Hampshire, USAd. 5 December 1924 Stockton, California, USA[br]American machinery manufacturer responsible for the development of the Caterpillar tractor and for early developments in combine harvesters.[br]In 1864 Charles Henry Holt led three other brothers to California in response to the gold rush. In 1868 he founded C.H.Holt \& Co. in San Francisco with the help of his brothers Williams and Ames. The company dealt in timber as well as wagon and carriage materials, as did the business they had left behind in Concord in the care of their youngest brother, Benjamin. In 1883 Benjamin joined the others in California and together they formed the Stockton Wheel Company with offices in San Francisco and Stockton. The brothers recognized the potential of combine harvesters and purchased a number of patents, enlarged their works and began to experiment. Their first combine was produced in 1886, and worked for forty-six days that year. With the stimulus of Benjamin Holt the company produced the first hillside combine in 1891 and introduced the concept of belt drive. The Holt harvesting machine produced in 1904 was the first to use an auxiliary gas engine. By 1889 Benjamin was sole family executive. In 1890 the company produced its first traction engine. He began experimenting with track-laying machines, building his first in 1904. It was this machine which earned the nickname "Caterpillar", which has remained the company trade name to the present day. In 1906 thecompany produced its first gasoline-engined Caterpillar, and the first production model was introduced two years later. The development of Caterpillar tractors had a significant impact on the transport potential of the Allies during the First World War, and the Holt production of track-laying traction engines was of immense importance to the supply of the armed forces. In 1918 Benjamin Holt was still actively involved in the company, but he died in Stockton in 1920.[br]Further ReadingW.A.Payne (ed.), 1982, Benjamin Holt: The Story of the Caterpillar Tractor, Stockton, Calif: University of the Pacific (provides an illustrated account of the life of Holt and the company he formed).R.Jones, "Benjamin Holt and the Caterpillar tractor", Vintage Tractor Magazine 1st special vol.AP -
47 Jenkins, Charles Francis
[br]b. 1867 USAd. 1934 USA[br]American pioneer of motion pictures and television.[br]During the early years of the motion picture industry, Jenkins made many innovations, including the development in 1894 of his own projector, the "Phantoscope", which was widely used for a number of years. In the same year he also suggested the possibility of electrically transmitting pictures over a distance, an interest that led to a lifetime of experimentation. As a result of his engineering contributions to the practical realization of moving pictures, in 1915 the National Motion Picture Board of Trade asked him to chair a committee charged with establishing technical standards for the industry. This in turn led to his proposing the creation of a professional society for those engineers in the industry, and the following year the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (later to become the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) was formed, with Jenkins as its first President. Soon after this he began experiments with mechanical television, using both the Nipkow hole-spiral disc and a low-definition system of his own, based on rotating bevelled glass discs (his so-called "prismatic rings") and alkali-metal photocells. In the 1920s he gave many demonstrations of mechanical television, including a cable transmission of a crude silhouette of President Harding from Washington, DC, to Philadelphia in 1923 and a radio broadcast from Washington in 1928. The following year he formed the Jenkins Television Company to make television transmitters and receivers, but it soon went into debt and was acquired by the de Forest Company, from whom RCA later purchased the patents.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFirst President, Society of Motion Picture Engineers 1916.Bibliography1923, "Radio photographs, radio movies and radio vision", Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 16:78.1923, "Recent progress in the transmission of motion pictures by radio", Transactions ofthe Society of Motion Picture Engineers 17:81.1925, "Radio movies", Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 21:7. 1930, "Television systems", Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 15:445. 1925. Vision by Radio.Further ReadingJ.H.Udelson, 1982, The Great Television Race: A History of the American Television Industry, 1925–41: University of Alabama Press.R.W.Hubbell, 1946, 4,000 Years of Television, London: G.Harrap \& Sons.1926. "The Jenkins system", Wireless World 18: 642 (contains a specific account of Jenkins's work).KFBiographical history of technology > Jenkins, Charles Francis
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48 Paul, Lewis
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]d. April 1759 Brook Green, London, England[br]English inventor of hand carding machines and partner with Wyatt in early spinning machines.[br]Lewis Paul, apparently of French Huguenot extraction, was quite young when his father died. His father was Physician to Lord Shaftsbury, who acted as Lewis Paul's guardian. In 1728 Paul made a runaway match with a widow and apparently came into her property when she died a year later. He must have subsequently remarried. In 1732 he invented a pinking machine for making the edges of shrouds out of which he derived some profit.Why Paul went to Birmingham is unknown, but he helped finance some of Wyatt's earlier inventions. Judging by the later patents taken out by Paul, it is probable that he was the one interested in spinning, turning to Wyatt for help in the construction of his spinning machine because he had no mechanical skills. The two men may have been involved in this as early as 1733, although it is more likely that they began this work in 1735. Wyatt went to London to construct a model and in 1736 helped to apply for a patent, which was granted in 1738 in the name of Paul. The patent shows that Paul and Wyatt had a number of different ways of spinning in mind, but contains no drawings of the machines. In one part there is a description of sets of rollers to draw the cotton out more finely that could have been similar to those later used by Richard Arkwright. However, it would seem that Paul and Wyatt followed the other main method described, which might be called spindle drafting, where the fibres are drawn out between the nip of a pair of rollers and the tip of the spindle; this method is unsatisfactory for continuous spinning and results in an uneven yarn.The spinning venture was supported by Thomas Warren, a well-known Birmingham printer, Edward Cave of Gentleman's Magazine, Dr Robert James of fever-powder celebrity, Mrs Desmoulins, and others. Dr Samuel Johnson also took much interest. In 1741 a mill powered by two asses was equipped at the Upper Priory, Birmingham, with, machinery for spinning cotton being constructed by Wyatt. Licences for using the invention were sold to other people including Edward Cave, who established a mill at Northampton, so the enterprise seemed to have great promise. A spinning machine must be supplied with fibres suitably prepared, so carding machines had to be developed. Work was in hand on one in 1740 and in 1748 Paul took out another patent for two types of carding device, possibly prompted by the patent taken out by Daniel Bourn. Both of Paul's devices were worked by hand and the carded fibres were laid onto a strip of paper. The paper and fibres were then rolled up and placed in the spinning machine. In 1757 John Dyer wrote a poem entitled The Fleece, which describes a circular spinning machine of the type depicted in a patent taken out by Paul in 1758. Drawings in this patent show that this method of spinning was different from Arkwright's. Paul endeavoured to have the machine introduced into the Foundling Hospital, but his death in early 1759 stopped all further development. He was buried at Paddington on 30 April that year.[br]Bibliography1738, British patent no. 562 (spinning machine). 1748, British patent no. 636 (carding machine).1758, British patent no. 724 (circular spinning machine).Further ReadingG.J.French, 1859, The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton, London, App. This should be read in conjunction with R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester, which shows that the roller drafting system on Paul's later spinning machine worked on the wrong principles.A.P.Wadsworth and J.de L.Mann, 1931, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780, Manchester (provides good coverage of the partnership of Paul and Wyatt and the early mills).E.Baines, 1835, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, London (this publication must be mentioned, but is now out of date).A.Seymour-Jones, 1921, "The invention of roller drawing in cotton spinning", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 1 (a more modern account).RLH -
49 Radcliffe, William
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 1761 Mellor, Cheshire, Englandd. 1842 Mellor, Cheshire, England[br]English inventor of the sizing machine.[br]Radcliffe was brought up in the textile industry and learned carding and spinning as a child. When he was old enough, he became a weaver. It was a time when there were not enough weavers to work up all the yarn being spun on the recently invented spinning machines, so some yarn was exported. Radcliffe regarded this as a sin; meetings were held to prohibit the export, and Radcliffe promised to use his best endeavours to discover means to work up the yarn in England. He owned a mill at Mellor and by 1801 was employing over 1,000 hand-loom weavers. He wanted to improve their efficiency so they could compete against power looms, which were beginning to be introduced at that time.His first step was to divide up as much as possible the different weaving processes, not unlike the plan adopted by Arkwright in spinning. In order to strengthen the warp yarns made of cotton and to reduce their tendency to fray during weaving, it was customary to apply an adhesive substance such as starch paste. This was brushed on as the warp was unwound from the back beam during weaving, so only short lengths could be treated before being dried. Instead of dressing the warp in the loom as was hitherto done, Radcliffe had it dressed in a separate machine, relieving the weaver of the trouble and saving the time wasted by the method previously used. Radcliffe employed a young man names Thomas Johnson, who proved to be a clever mechanic. Radcliffe patented his inventions in Johnson's name to avoid other people, especially foreigners, finding out his ideas. He took out his first patent, for a dressing machine, in March 1803 and a second the following year. The combined result of the two patents was the introduction of a beaming machine and a dressing machine which, in addition to applying the paste to the yarns and then drying them, wound them onto a beam ready for the loom. These machines enabled the weaver to work a loom with fewer stoppages; however, Radcliffe did not anticipate that his method of sizing would soon be applied to power looms as well and lead to the commercial success of powered weaving. Other manufacturers quickly adopted Radcliffe's system, and Radcliffe himself soon had to introduce power looms in his own business.Radcliffe improved the hand looms themselves when, with the help of Johnson, he devised a cloth taking-up motion that wound the woven cloth onto a roller automatically as the weaver operated the loom. Radcliffe and Johnson also developed the "dandy loom", which was a more compact form of hand loom and was also later adapted for weaving by power. Radcliffe was among the witnesses before the Parliamentary Committee which in 1808 awarded Edmund Cartwright a grant for his invention of the power loom. Later Radcliffe was unsuccessfully to petition Parliament for a similar reward for his contributions to the introduction of power weaving. His business affairs ultimately failed partly through his own obstinacy and his continued opposition to the export of cotton yarn. He lived to be 81 years old and was buried in Mellor churchyard.[br]Bibliography1811, Exportation of Cotton Yarn and Real Cause of the Distress that has Fallen upon the Cotton Trade for a Series of Years Past, Stockport.1828, Origin of the New System of Manufacture, Commonly Called "Power-Loom Weaving", Stockport (this should be read, even though it is mostly covers Radcliffe's political aims).Further ReadingA.Barlow, 1870, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (provides an outline of Radcliffe's life and work).W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (a general background of his inventions). R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (a general background).D.J.Jeremy, 1981, Transatlantic Industrial Revolution. The Diffusion of Textile Technologies Between Britain and America, 1790–1830s, Oxford (discusses the spread of the sizing machine in America).RLH -
50 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 -
51 Sholes, Christopher Latham
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 14 February 1819 Mooresburg, Pennsylvania, USAd. 17 February 1890 USA[br]American inventor of the first commercially successful typewriter.[br]Sholes was born on his parents' farm, of a family that had originally come from England. After leaving school at 14, he was apprenticed for four years to the local newspaper, the Danville Intelligencer. He moved with his parents to Wisconsin, where he followed his trade as journalist and printer, within a year becoming State Printer and taking charge of the House journal of the State Legislature. When he was 20 he left home and joined his brother in Madison, Wisconsin, on the staff of the Wisconsin Enquirer. After marrying, he took the editorship of the Southport Telegraph, until he became Postmaster of Southport. His experiences as journalist and postmaster drew him into politics and, in spite of the delicate nature of his health and personality, he served with credit as State Senator and in the State Assembly. In 1860 he moved to Milwaukee, where he became Editor of the local paper until President Lincoln offered him the post of Collector of Customs at Milwaukee.That position at last gave Sholes time to develop his undoubted inventive talents. With a machinist friend, Samuel W.Soule, he obtained a patent for a paging machine and another two years later for a machine for numbering the blank pages of a book serially. At the small machine shop where they worked, there was a third inventor, Carlos Glidden. It was Glidden who suggested to Sholes that, in view of his numbering machine, he would be well equipped to develop a letter printing machine. Glidden drew Sholes's attention to an account of a writing machine that had recently been invented in London by John Pratt, and Sholes was so seized with the idea that he devoted the rest of his life to perfecting the machine. With Glidden and Soule, he took out a patent for a typewriter on June 1868 followed by two further patents for improvements. Sholes struggled unsuccessfully for five years to exploit his invention; his two partners gave up their rights in it and finally, on 1 March 1873, Sholes himself sold his rights to the Remington Arms Company for $12,000. With their mechanical skills and equipment, Remingtons were able to perfect the Sholes typewriter and put it on the market. This, the first commercially successful typewriter, led to a revolution not only in office work, but also in work for women, although progress was slow at first. When the New York Young Women's Christian Association bought six Remingtons in 1881 to begin classes for young women, eight turned up for the first les-son; and five years later it was estimated that there were 60,000 female typists in the USA. Sholes said, "I feel that I have done something for the women who have always had to work so hard. This will more easily enable them to earn a living."Sholes continued his work on the typewriter, giving Remingtons the benefit of his results. His last patent was granted in 1878. Never very strong, Sholes became consumptive and spent much of his remaining nine years in the vain pursuit of health.[br]Bibliography23 June 1868, US patent no. 79,265 (the first typewriter patent).Further ReadingM.H.Adler, 1973, The Writing Machine, London: Allen \& Unwin.LRDBiographical history of technology > Sholes, Christopher Latham
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52 Strutt, Jedediah
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 26 July 1726 South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, Englandd. 7 May 1797 Derby, England[br]English inventor of a machine for making ribbed knitting.[br]Jedediah Strutt was the second of three sons of William, a small farmer and maltster at South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, where the only industry was a little framework knitting. At the age of 14 Jedediah was apprenticed to Ralph Massey, a wheelwright near Derby, and lodged with the Woollats, whose daughter Elizabeth he later married in 1755. He moved to Leicester and in 1754 started farming at Blackwell, where an uncle had died and left him the stock on his farm. It was here that he made his knitting invention.William Lee's knitting machine remained in virtually the same form as he left it until the middle of the eighteenth century. The knitting industry moved away from London into the Midlands and in 1730 a Nottingham workman, using Indian spun yarn, produced the first pair of cotton hose ever made by mechanical means. This industry developed quickly and by 1750 was providing employment for 1,200 frameworkers using both wool and cotton in the Nottingham and Derby areas. It was against this background that Jedediah Strutt obtained patents for his Derby rib machine in 1758 and 1759.The machine was a highly ingenious mechanism, which when placed in front of an ordinary stocking frame enabled the fashionable ribbed stockings to be made by machine instead of by hand. To develop this invention, he formed a partnership first with his brother-in-law, William Woollat, and two leading Derby hosiers, John Bloodworth and Thomas Stamford. This partnership was dissolved in 1762 and another was formed with Woollat and the Nottingham hosier Samuel Need. Strutt's invention was followed by a succession of innovations which enabled framework knitters to produce almost every kind of mesh on their machines. In 1764 the stocking frame was adapted to the making of eyelet holes, and this later lead to the production of lace. In 1767 velvet was made on these frames, and two years later brocade. In this way Strutt's original invention opened up a new era for knitting. Although all these later improvements were not his, he was able to make a fortune from his invention. In 1762 he was made a freeman of Nottingham, but by then he was living in Derby. His business at Derby was concerned mainly with silk hose and he had a silk mill there.It was partly his need for cotton yarn and partly his wealth which led him into partnership with Richard Arkwright, John Smalley and David Thornley to exploit Arkwright's patent for spinning cotton by rollers. Together with Samuel Need, they financed the Arkwright partnership in 1770 to develop the horse-powered mill in Nottingham and then the water-powered mill at Cromford. Strutt gave advice to Arkwright about improving the machinery and helped to hold the partnership together when Arkwright fell out with his first partners. Strutt was also involved, in London, where he had a house, with the parliamentary proceedings over the passing of the Calico Act in 1774, which opened up the trade in British-manufactured all-cotton cloth.In 1776 Strutt financed the construction of his own mill at Helper, about seven miles (11 km) further down the Derwent valley below Cromford. This was followed by another at Milford, a little lower on the river. Strutt was also a partner with Arkwright and others in the mill at Birkacre, near Chorley in Lancashire. The Strutt mills were developed into large complexes for cotton spinning and many experiments were later carried out in them, both in textile machinery and in fireproof construction for the mills themselves. They were also important training schools for engineers.Elizabeth Strutt died in 1774 and Jedediah never married again. The family seem to have lived frugally in spite of their wealth, probably influenced by their Nonconformist background. He had built a house near the mills at Milford, but it was in his Derby house that Jedediah died in 1797. By the time of his death, his son William had long been involved with the business and became a more important cotton spinner than Jedediah.[br]Bibliography1758. British patent no. 722 (Derby rib machine). 1759. British patent no. 734 (Derby rib machine).Further ReadingFor the involvement of Strutt in Arkwright's spinning ventures, there are two books, the earlier of which is R.S.Fitton and A.P.Wadsworth, 1958, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830, Manchester, which has most of the details about Strutt's life. This has been followed by R.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester.R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (for a general background to the textile industry of the period).W.Felkin, 1967, History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures, reprint, Newton Abbot (orig. pub. 1867) (covers Strutt's knitting inventions).RLH
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