Robert Davidson

This article is about the inventor Robert Davidson. For the politician, see Robert HM Davidson .

Robert Davidson (* 1804 in Aberdeen ; † 1894 ibid) was a Scottish inventor who built the first known electric locomotive in 1837.

He spent his life in the north-east of Scotland, where he worked as a wealthy chemist and dyer, among other businesses. Davidson studied at Marischal College, where he studied for a year on a scholarship which he received in return for working as a laboratory assistant. He was particularly interested in the new emerging technologies related to electricity. From 1837 he built small electric motors according to his own principles, while William H. Taylor built similar motors in the United States from 1838. Both men worked independently and without knowledge of one another.

Davidson staged an exhibition of electrical machines in Edinburgh , Scotland, and later in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London in 1840 . The machines also included electrically operated lathes and printing machines. His electric rail-bound locomotive was tested on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route in 1842. The first known and working electric locomotive was built in New England, the Davidson was just a working model. On October 4th, 1835, a model was shown in Troy, New York by its inventor, Thomas Davenport .

Davidson was able to show the model of an electric locomotive in 1837. His “Galvani” model from 1842 was a four-wheel machine that got its energy from zinc-acid batteries. It reached a speed of four miles per hour. The vehicle was not used to transport passengers or goods.

In a later report it was calculated that a zinc battery was forty times more expensive than burning coal in an enclosed space. Later experiments in the United States confirmed these numbers. Battery-powered locomotives would therefore not be economical. In this point he was defeated in the competition with the steam engineers. So he smashed the "Galvani" in his shed for fear of potential competitors (other sources report that Galvani was destroyed by strangers). Economical electric traction was developed in the 1860s when the dynamo was invented and perfected. Davidson experienced and perceived all of these developments. His reaction to the opening of the City & South underground in London in 1890: The printing of business cards that read: "Robert Davidson: Father of the Electric Locomotive".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John S. Reid, Robert Davidson - pioneer electrician, https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/npmuseum/Scitour/Davidson.pdf

literature

• The Practical Mechanic. Vol II November 1842, pp. 48-51.
• JH R Body: A Note on Electro-Magnetic Engines. In: Newcomen Society Transactions. Vol. 14. pp. 103-107.
• Robert C. Post: Electro-Magnetism and Motive Power: Robert Davidson's "Galvani" of 1842. In: Railroad History. 1974. pp. 5-23.
• AC Davidson: To Ingenious Aberdonian. In: Scots Magazine. January 1976.
• A. F Anderson in New Scientist. June 11, 1981, pp. 712-713.
• John R. Stevens (Ed.): Pioneers of Electric Railroading: Their Story in Words and Pictures. Chapter 1. Electric Railroader's Association, 1989-1990; Pp. 1-6.