Robert William Thomson

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Robert William Thomson

Robert William Thomson (* 1822 in Stonehaven , Kincardineshire , Scotland ; † March 8, 1873 in Moray Place , Edinburgh ) was a Scottish designer , entrepreneur and inventor , to whom, among other things, the pneumatic tire , the fountain pen and the band saw go back.

Origin and youth

Stonehaven

Thomson was born the eleventh of twelve children in 1822 and was baptized on July 26th. The father ran the wool spinning mill Carron Wooll Mill . Robert was supposed to be pursuing a theological career, but also resisted because of his difficulties with Latin . At 14 he left school and completed a commercial apprenticeship in an uncle's business in Charleston, South Carolina . In 1838 he returned to Scotland, where he worked in workshops in Aberdeen and Dundee . Initially he trained himself and with the help of an appropriately experienced acquaintance in chemistry, physics ( electricity ) and astronomy.

First inventions

Victoria Harbor in Dunbar , for whose facility parts of Dunbar Castle were blown up.

His father had also set up a workshop for him in which he constructed a band saw and an improved laundry ironer that worked in both directions of rotation.

Here he also built the prototype of the turntable steam engine , which he was to perfect many years later.

This was followed by engineering studies in Edinburgh and Glasgow . At times he worked in the engineering office of his cousin Mr. Lyon in Edinburgh, which was also commissioned with partial explosions at Dunbar Castle around 1841 . This work served in preparation for the construction of the new port Victoria Harbor , which took place in 1842-1844. Thomson developed a safe system for the electrical ignition of explosives . In 1841 he went to London, where he worked, among other things, for the South Eastern Railway (SER). For a SER railway line he carried out rock blasting near Dover using his method . The engineerSir William Cubitt (1785–1861) was one of his superiors. He then worked briefly for Robert Stephenson (1803-1859). In 1844 he went into business for himself with a consultancy for railway systems. His proposal for a routing of the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was approved by parliament.

"Aerial Wheel"

U.S. Patent No. 5104 of 1847 for Thomson's Carriage wheel . This was preceded by patents in Great Britain (No. 10990 of December 1845) and in France (1846).

Thomson also worked on a wheel system that was supposed to offer more comfort and grip than the conventional carriage wheels with their iron tires. On December 10, 1845, he was granted British Patent No. 10990 for six months. It concerned a vulcanized pneumatic tire , which he called "Aerial Wheel". It was only a year earlier had US citizen Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) an American patent on the procedure for rubber - vulcanization received.

Thomson's system consisted of a leather hose with another hose stuck in it. The inner tube consisted of canvas fabric vulcanized airtight with rubber and was filled with air. The stable outer leather tire was riveted onto the rim . The system worked but was expensive. In addition, the riveted construction made changing tires extremely complex.

In March 1847, the Thomson wheel was presented to the public in Regent's Park in London and subsequently attached to several carriages. The results, especially with regard to driving comfort and noise reduction, were positive. A set of aerial wheels stopped at a Brougham carriageafter all, 1200 miles (approx. 2000 km). However, it was too early for practical application. The production was far too expensive to be successfully taken up commercially, for example in coach construction; the bike was still in its infancy. Thomson also complained about the lack of better materials, especially thinner rubber pads, which would have made his pneumatic tires more practical. Nevertheless, he had his tire patented in France in 1846 and in the USA in 1847. But his idea was quickly forgotten. Long after the patent period had expired, Thomson's invention became important again: as John Boyd DunlopFiled a very similar patent in 1888, it was issued in ignorance of Thomson's previous work. When the Office noticed the mistake, Dunlop had to revise and re-submit its invention.

Thomson's British patent also included a possible application of a subway with steam trains on his rubber wheels. These were supposed to run on wooden tracks, the steering of the composition would have been taken over by lateral, horizontally mounted rollers, which were attached to a mast on the vehicle and would run along the tunnel walls.

Stay in Java

Advertisement by Alexander Chaplin & Co., Glasgow, 1866. The wheeled steam crane in the center is based on a design by Thomson.

In 1849 Thomson patented a working fountain pen , which he presented at the first world exhibition in London in 1851 together with a wheelchair he had designed with solid rubber tires.

The following year he took a position as an agent for an engineering company in Java ( Indonesia ), then a Dutch colony. There he was responsible for the machines and devices of a customer who processed sugar. For this he designed devices and improved machines. He constructed a self-propelled steam excavator to fulfill an order of the colonial administration. This approved the operation of such a device only on condition that it had to be removed in the evening. Thomson had the excavator built by the locomotive and machine manufacturer Alexander Chaplin & Company in Glasgow. He decided not to apply for a patent. This is what Chaplin’s did afterwards so successful that a whole family of mobile steam excavators was created and two factories were busy producing them.

In 1860 Thomson visited suppliers in Europe who were to manufacture components for a hydraulic dock. The shell consisted of standardized steel plates that were interchangeable in their category. One dock each was built on behalf of the French government in Saigon (then French Indochina ) and one for a company in Callao ( Peru ). He also experimented with rubber, which resulted in an improved solid rubber wheel for steam cars.

Occupation with steam power

3 Moray Place in Edinburgh (right), Thomson's home 1862–1873.

The years after his return and until his death were the most successful in Thomson's career. First, despite his declining health, he set up his own engineering office and workshop. The latter was in Leith , now a part of Edinburgh. Between 1863 and 1866, he was granted three patents relating to various aspects of steam power. They concerned his steam engine with elliptical valves (Patent No. 512 of February 24, 1863), an improved steam boiler (Patent No. 401 of February 13, 1865) and improved control displays (Patent No. 1006 of April 9, 1866). These inventions flowed into his own steam car.

Elastic wheel and steam car

Robert William Thomsons Road Steamer (ca.1867).
Thomson's steam tricycle weighed 5 tons (5080 kg). Driven by two horizontal 6 hp motors in the rear, it had a standing boiler in the middle and Thomson's 1867 patented solid rubber tires (approx. 1870).

Thomson was frustrated by the material limitations of his aerial wheel . He tried to realize his basic idea of ​​the quiet, grippy tire by using wheels with solid rubber tires. After he had already shown a suitably equipped wheelchair at the Great Exhibition in 1851 , he began to seriously implement it on Java, but did not receive a patent for this until October 24, 1867 with the number 2986.

In Leith he manufactured at least one steam car based on his own patent. The first of these road steamers was a tractor and intended for the transport of sugar on Java. Thomson went back to his old idea with elastic tires and designed a wheel system in which a soft solid rubber tire is only held on the rim by friction force . The heavy weight of the car presses the rim downwards, which increases the contact area of ​​the tire on the ground and the load is better distributed. While the outer surface adapts to the ground and sinks less, the inner one forms a kind of "endless chain" on which the vehicle moves. Thomson also received a patent for this, issued on October 24, 1867 with the number 2986.

In the following years he continuously improved the bike and received six subsequent patents. The last one reached him a few days before his death.

Death and appreciation

Robert William Thomson's grave in Dean Cemetery , Edinburgh.

After a long illness, Robert William Thomson died on March 8, 1873 in his home in Edinburgh - "by no means unexpectedly", as The Engineer noted in his obituary of March 14, 1873. Shortly before, he had been the organ of the Royal Society of Edinburghsend an article "On the Formation of Coal, and on the changes produced in the composition of the strata by the solvent action of water slowly penetrating through the Earth's crust during long periods of geological time." that geological slowly and for long periods of time passes through the Earth's crust on the changes that are generated in the composition of the layers by the dissolving action of water. "the article was published in 1875. His final resting place was Robert William Thomson in the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.

After his death, Clara Thomson filed a patent on "Elastic straps, seats and other supports and cushions" - his last work.

Thomson's patents and developments

  • Electric ignition system for explosives
  • Pneumatic tire Aerial wheel ; Patent No. 90110 dated December 10, 1845
  • Wheelchair ; Patent dated August 13, 1846
  • Writing implement ( fountain pen ; “self-filling pen”); Patent No. 12691 of July 4, 1849 for a "fountain pen".
  • Improvement in the maintenance and use of motive power; Patent No. 512 dated February 24, 1863.
  • Improvements in the design of steam boilers ; Patent No. 401, dated February 13, 1865.
  • Improvements to displays for steam engines; Patent No. 1006, dated April 9, 1866.
  • Solid rubber tires ("elastic wheel"); Patent No. 2986, dated October 24, 1867.
Subsequent patents:
  • No. 573 of February 26, 1870
  • No. 601 of March 1, 1870
  • No. 2630 of October 4, 1870
  • No. 434 of February 18, 1871
  • No. 2409 of September 13, 1871
  • No. 775 of March 4, 1873.

Thomsons was also the author:

  • the laundry ironer working in both directions of rotation
  • the band saw
  • the steam engine with elliptical turntables
  • of machines for making sugar
  • of the mobile steam crane (not patented)
  • of the hydraulically operated dry dock made of prefabricated elements.

Thomson's ominous bicycle tire made from animal intestines

Occasionally it is mentioned that Thomson is said to have made a “bicycle” or “wagon tire” from animal intestines filled with air. Thomson was neither engaged in bicycles nor was he a carter. The rumored year 1845 coincides with the patent application for the aerial wheel .

Dunlop and the pneumatic bicycle tire

Decades after Thomson's death, his aerial wheel patent gained importance again when John Boyd Dunlop (1840–1921) applied for a patent for his own pneumatic tire in 1888. Two years later it was canceled because of Thomson's earlier invention. The latter's patents from 1846 in France and 1847 in the USA, on the other hand, gave André and Édouard Michelin the opportunity to patent their own pneumatic tires. So Thomson's invention paved the way, but it came too early to be commercially successful.

Honors

The memory of RW Thomson lives on locally, as this sign at a tire shop in Stonehaven shows.
  • On the occasion of Thomson's 100th birthday, the Royal Scottish Automobile Club donated a bronze plaquette to the city of Stonehaven in 1922, on which the aerial wheel is remembered in particular . It was attached to the house where he was born on the south side of the market square.
  • In Stonehaven every June there is an event with veteran vehicles in his memory.

family

During his stay in Java Thomson married Clara Hertz , the daughter of a diamond dealer. Because of Thomson's poor health, the family returned to Scotland in 1862 and settled in Edinburgh . The marriage resulted in four children, two sons and two daughters.

His older son was Harold Lyon Thomson (1861-1924), an electrical engineer and employee of Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton , Alderman of the City Council of Westminster, Mayor of Westminster 1912-1913 and Captain of the British Army Service Corps 1914-1918. HL Thomson was also Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge Ubique . His younger son was the businessman Courtauld Thomson (1865-1954).

Two years after his death, his widow John Fletcher Moulton married, Baron Moulton (1844-1921). She died in 1888.

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 56: “Proc. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, 1875, viii. 278-82; Ann. Register, 1873, p. 133; Illustrated London News, 1873, lxii. 297. "

See also

literature

  • George Clement Boase:  Thomson, Robert William . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 56:  Teach - Tollet. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1898 (English).
  • Richard J. Evans : Steam Cars (Shire Album No. 153). Shire Publications, 1985, ISBN 0-85263-774-8 .
  • Anthony Bird, Edward Douglas-Scott Montagu of Beaulieu: Steam Cars, 1770-1970. Littlehampton Book Services, 1971, ISBN 0-304-93707-X .
  • Floyd Clymer, Harry W. Gahagan: Floyd Clymer's Steam Car Scrapbook. Literary Licensing, 2012, ISBN 1-258-42699-4 .
  • H. Walter Staner: The early days of motors and motor-driving - steam cars. Lightning Source UK, Milton Keynes UK, undated reprint of instructions for operating steam cars from the publisher of Autocar , circa 1900, ISBN 978-1-4455-2487-0 .
  • Jack Norbeck: Encyclopedia of American Steam Traction Engines. Crestline Publishing Co., Crestline Series , 1984, ISBN 0-912612-09-6 .
  • TR Nicholson: The Birth of the British Motor Car, 1769-1897, Volume 2: Revival and Defeat, 1842-93. Palgrave Macmillan, 1982, ISBN 0-333-23764-1 (not available)

Web links

Commons : Robert William Thomson  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Robert William Thomson's House. BBC online
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Robert William Thomson. Grace's Guide
  3. ↑ a b Robert William Thomson. In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved April 26, 2017 (English).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Robert William Thomson. Historic UK
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j George Clement Boase:  Thomson, Robert William . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 56:  Teach - Tollet. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1898 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Robert William Thomson. Hemmings
  7. ↑ List of English Patents Granted Between November 27, and December 24, 1845. In:  The Mechanics' Magazine (and Journal of Engineering, Agricultural Machinery, Manufactures, and Shipbuilding) , December 27, 1845, p. 448 (online at ANNO ) .Template: ANNO / Maintenance / mem
  8. ↑ Due date December 7th, 2008 - 120 years ago: John Dunlop receives patent for air-filled tires. WDR
  9. ↑ Lazar Backovic: Tire Pioneer John Boyd Dunlop: The man who reinvented the wheel. one day , December 6, 2013; Retrieved April 26, 2017
  10. ↑ a b Inventor of air filled tire - RW Thomson. Edinburgh trams
  11. ↑ Alexander Chaplin and Co. Grace's Guide
  12. ↑ List of Patents Granted for Scotland From July 23 to August 21. In:  The Mechanics' Magazine (and Journal of Engineering, Agricultural Machinery, Manufactures, and Shipbuilding) , August 29, 1846, p. 21 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / mem
  13. ↑ Tire history, part 1: Give rubber! Spiegel Online , March 18, 2003
  14. ↑ John Boyd Dunlop . Grace's Guide
  15. ↑ Obituary. Captain HL Thomson . In: The Times , March 14, 1924
personal data
SURNAME Thomson, Robert William
SHORT DESCRIPTION Scottish inventor
DATE OF BIRTH 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH Stonehaven , Kincardineshire, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1873
Place of death Moray Place , Edinburgh