Charles Tilston Bright
Sir Charles Tilston Bright (born June 8, 1832 in Wanstead , Essex , † May 3, 1888 in Abbey Wood , Kent ) was an English electrical engineer.
Charles Tilston Bright attended Merchant Taylor's School and began working as a cable worker in 1847 for the Magnetic Telegraph Company in London, which was founded the previous year . The company's management recognized his talent, appointed him an engineer in 1852 and commissioned him to lay several thousand miles of telegraph cables underground in England in 1853. In the same year he was commissioned to lay his first submarine cable from Portpatrick in Scotland to Donaghadee in Ireland .
With Josiah Latimer Clark , he developed an asphalt mixture for sheathing deep-sea cables. It became known as 'Bright and Clark's compound' and was patented in 1863 (No. 466). With Alexander Graham Bell he developed an acoustic telegraph in 1855.
When Cyrus W. Field founded his Atlantic Telegraph Company in New York in 1856 for the first attempt to lay a transatlantic cable between Trinity Bay in Newfoundland and Ireland , he won John Watkins Brett and Bright as chief electricians. Furthermore was Wildman Whitehouse committed (1816-1890). After two unsuccessful attempts, the transatlantic cable landed on August 5, 1858 on Valentia Island in Kerry, Ireland. Bright was beaten to a Knight Bachelor degree in Dublin a few days later . Although the cable failed again in October, the feasibility of laying a transatlantic cable was proven.
Bright worked as a consulting engineer on the second (1865) and third (1866) transatlantic cable laying and supervising the deep-sea cable laying through the Mediterranean (1861–1873) and the cable laying in the West Indies (1865–1868).
From 1865 to 1868 he was a member of the Greenwich Liberals in Parliament. He refused to run again.
literature
- Charles Bright Jr.: The story of the Atlantic cable . Publisher: D. Appleton and company, New York 1903.
- The life story of Sir Charles Tilston Bright, civil engineer, with which is incorporated the story of the Atlantic cable, and the first telegraph to India and the colonies . By Edward Brailsford Bright (his brother) and Charles Bright (his son). Revised and abridged edition. Publisher: Archibald Constable, London 1908.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bright, Charles Tilston |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English electrical engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 8, 1832 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wanstead , Essex |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 3, 1888 |
| Place of death | Abbey Wood , Kent |