Edward James Reed

Caricature by Reed in Vanity Fair magazine , 1875

Sir Edward James Reed (born September 20, 1830 in Sheerness , † November 30, 1906 in London ) was a British naval engineer and politician.

Life

Edward J. Reed, born in 1830, is one of the great ship designers in the United Kingdom. At first, the young Reed completed his apprenticeship as a shipbuilder at various shipyards. In 1849 he was selected as a student for the school for mathematics and shipbuilding founded by Joseph Woolley the year before and left this in 1852 as one of the best graduates. After serving in the British naval administration and writing aesthetic literature, Reed assumed the post of editor of Mechanic's Magazine . In 1854 he sent the Admiralty a draft for a fast armored frigate, but it was rejected. Reed was one of the founders of the Institution of Naval Architects, which still exists today, on January 1, 1860, and served as its first secretary for several years. In this position, Reed again made proposals to the Admiralty for the construction of armored ships, which in the spring of 1863 initially included the conversion of the wooden frigates Research (1200 ts), Enterprise (1350 ts) and Favorite (3232 ts) under his leadership and in the same year his appointment as chief designer of the British Navy. In the transition years from the wooden sailing warship to the iron and later steel warship with steam propulsion, Reed was also successful in his new position because he won over his former fellow students Nathaniel Barnaby , Frederick Kynaston Barnes and James Chessell Crossland . The first warship constructed under Reed's direction and rebuilt from 1863 to 1866 was the Bellerophon . Reed, Barnaby and Barnes recognized the design - related disadvantage of the low level of stability of the emerging monitor warship type , which is why Reed categorically rejected the construction of sea-going monitors with sails and low freeboard in his 1869 lecture Stability of Monitor under Canvas . Nevertheless, the Admiralty accused Reed after the HMS Captain, constructed contrary to Reed's opinion of Cowper Phipps Coles , sank in bad weather in 1870, while the Reed-constructed HMS Monarch had no problems with the sea conditions in the immediate vicinity, whereupon Reed gave up his post. As a result, Reed moved first to Joseph Whitworth in Manchester and then worked as a freelance designer in London. The North German Federal Navy received in this freelance phase, designed by Reed warship King William , the Imperial Navy ships Kaiser and Germany .

Channel Tubular Railway Preliminary Company profit participation certificate dated May 19, 1892, signed by Edward James Reed

At the suggestion of Reed, “The Channel Tubular Railway Preliminary Company” was founded in London in 1892, a company with a capital of 40,000 pounds sterling, whose capital requirements were to be met in particular through the issue of 250,000 participation certificates (Parts de Fondateurs). The company planned, under the direction of Reed, the construction of a railway tunnel through the English Channel , through which the travelers should get to their destination faster than was possible with a ship crossing. The project failed for political reasons.

As chairman of the Load Line Committee of the Board of Trade, Reed played a key role in the development of the freeboard regulations for merchant ships and was considered to be an outstanding expert in the field of ship stability. He wrote a number of technical publications, of which the book Shipbuilding in Iron and Steel , published in 1869, was regarded as the standard work of its time. In 1880 the British royal family elevated Reed to the nobility as Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) because of his services to the shipbuilding industry . From 1874 until his death, Reed was a Liberal Party politician in the House of Commons . He died in London on November 30, 1906.

Fonts

• Shipbuilding in Iron and Steel , John Murray, 1869
• Stability of Monitor under Canvas , Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, Vol. 9, London 1869
• Our Ironclad Ships, their Qualities, Performance and Cost , 1869
• Japan: its History, Traditions, and Religions , John Murray, London, 1880
• The stability of ships , Ch. Griffin, London 1885
• Vessels Constructed for Service in our Colonies and Protectorates , Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, Vol. 48, London 1906

literature

• Shipbuilding Society: 100 Years Shipbuilding Society - Biographies on the History of Shipbuilding , Springer, Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-540-64150-5 .