Samuel Bentham

Samuel Bentham

Samuel Bentham (born January 11, 1757 in England , † May 31, 1831 in London ) was a British engineer, naval architect and naval officer in Russia (1779 / 80-1791) and England (since 1795). Bentham was the brother of the philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham and father of the botanist George Bentham .

Life

youth

Bentham was the youngest of seven children of attorney Jeremiah B. and lost their mother at the age of two; he and his eldest brother, Jeremy Bentham, were the only children to reach adulthood. At fourteen he began an apprenticeship at the Royal Shipyards at Woolwich , where he stayed for seven years.

Engineer in Russia, Crimea and Siberia

In 1780 he entered the Russian service as a shipbuilder , where he quickly developed into a multifaceted inventor outside his field of expertise. Bentham equipped the Russian Black Sea fleet , some of which consisted of very small boats, with recoilless cannons ( grenade launchers ), which helped it to defeat the superior enemy fleet in the sea battle of June 7, 1788 in the war with Turkey for the Crimea ; the English and French war and merchant navies later used his invention with varying degrees of success.

In Siberia Bentham commanded a battalion of 1,000 men and, under Prince Potemkin, was chiefly responsible for its far-reaching industrial activities; oversight of a large number of workers required extensive oversight and control. During his brother Jeremy’s visit to the Crimea (1786/87) Bentham showed him the wooden Panopticon (“everywhere visible”) that he had built, a structure designed as a workhouse , with workers being controlled from a central point due to its star-shaped layout made possible and not only became a model for replicas in Russia (1807) and abroad, but also strongly influenced the socio-philosophical ideas of Jeremy Bentham.

Chinese influences

In 1782 Bentham traveled by land through Siberia to the Chinese border near Nerchinsk , where he got to know the fur trade with Russian Alaska and Chinese shipbuilding, especially the junks and their watertight bulkheads. He also got to know the technology of floating docks and building bridges from iron parts. The Vauxhall Bridge in London , the first solid iron ( wrought iron ) bridge over the Thames , goes back to him.

Shipbuilders in England

Returned to England in 1791, he and his brother Jeremy further developed the Panopticon and the machines to be used in it. In 1795 Bentham constructed a type of ship on behalf of the Admiralty that took up the Chinese innovations (six ships of the Arrow boat class that were used in the war against France). In 1796 appointed as overseer of the royal shipyards, reorganized the local shipbuilding with more rational procedures and against the resistance of the traditional trades ; Various technical improvements and inventions simplified the previous processes and had a resource-saving effect ( floating docks , dredgers , mechanical saws , wood gluing , use of standard components , shift work ).

Samuel Bentham in the center of the picture at the back, directly below the circular picture, as one of the "Men of Science Living in 1807-8", tinted pen drawing by John Gilbert et al. a., around 1860

Bentham was also committed to a more rational training of shipbuilding professions beyond the guild barriers ; Because of his commitment to rationalization and mass production , he is considered a trailblazer for the next generation of engineers, such as B. for Marc Isambard Brunel (see also Frederick Winslow Taylor ).

Diplomat in Russia, stay in southern France

From 1805 to 1807 Bentham returned to Russia on behalf of the government. Since the position of the general inspector of the shipyards had been canceled during his absence , he moved in a multi-purpose vehicle (a type of mobile home with sleeping accommodation) specially designed by him to southern France , where he built an estate according to the principles he had advocated and with the use of numerous, managed hitherto unknown mechanical aids; From 1820-21 the young John Stuart Mill was a guest in the family. In France , too , Bentham encountered resistance, this time from the neighbors, who feared losses due to an irrigation system he had initiated , so that the family returned to England in 1826.

Bentham had been with Maria Sophia, geb. Fordyce, married, the daughter of a Scottish doctor and friend of his brother, with whom he had five children and who also looked after his three illegitimate daughters. She published his biography after Bentham's death.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to DNB 5 (2004), the date of death is April 30, according to Encycl.Brit. Ultimate Reference (2010) and his widow's biography, it is May 31st.
2. ↑ Marco Polo already described the junks as merchant ships with four masts and watertight bulkheads; Chapter 159 "The Book of India".
3. ↑ He described his achievements in: Services rendered in the Civil Department of the Navy , 1813
4. ↑ biography

literature

• Catherine Pease-Watkin: Samuel Bentham. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (DNB) Vol. 5 (2004), pp. 235-238.
• Ian Ralph Christie: The Bentham's in Russia, 1780–1791. Berg, Oxford 1993.
• Roger Andrew Morriss: Samuel Bentham and the management of the royal dockyards, 1796-1807 . In: BIHR. 54: 226-240 (1981).
• Ian Ralph Christie: Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dneipr Flottilla 1787-1788. In: Slavonic and East European Review. CUP, London / New York 1972. pp. 173-197.
• KA Papmehl: The Regimental School in Siberia established by Samuel Bentham . o. O. 195x.
• Maria Sophia Bentham: The Life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, KSG, formerly Inspector-General of Naval Works, irately a Commissioner of His Majesty's Navy, with the Distinct Duty of Civil Architect and Engineer of the Navy. By his widow . Longman, London 1862 [EA 1846, NA 1856]. - As microfiche: Reading: Library Preservation Systems, approx. 1991. - Contains the list of his writings.

Web links

• The life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, KSG
• Maria Sophia Bentham: The life of brigadier-general Sir Samuel Bentham ... by his Widow.