Philip Cardew
Major Philip Cardew (1851–1910), army officer and electrical engineer
1851 Born on 24 September at Oakshade, near Leatherhead, Surrey
Educated at Guildford Grammar School
1868 Entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
1871 commissioned lieutenant in the Royal Engineers
Placed in charge of military telegraphs. Joined the Submarine Mining Service, applying electricity to military purposes.
1878 Acting adjutant of the submarine miners at Portsmouth. Assistant instructor in electricity at Chatham.
1879 Married his first cousin, Mary Annunziata Parkyns.
Cardew worked on electric searchlights; designed a galvanometer for measuring large electric currents; conceived the hot-wire galvanometer (awarded a gold medal at the Inventions Exhibition of 1885).
Invented the vibratory transmitter for telegraphy - used to investigate faulty lines - and a means of superimposing a vibrating telegraph signal on an ordinary Morse circuit without interference between the two.
1882 instructor in electricity at Chatham.
1889 appointed the first electrical adviser to the Board of Trade. He held an inquiry into proposals for the electric lighting of London, and drew up regulations on the supply of electricity for power and light. Promoted major
1894 Retired from the Royal Engineers
1898 Retired from the Board of Trade. Entered into partnership with Sir William Preece and Sons as Preece and Cardew, consulting engineers; actively involved in large Admiralty orders
1902 Joined the board of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.
1901-2 Vice-president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
1910 May 17th. Died at Godalming, Surrey.
1910 Obituary [1]
MAJOR PHILIP CARDEW, R.E., died on May 17, 1910, from the after-effects of an operation.
Born in 1851, he was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where at the age of 20 he took honours and was awarded the Pollock Gold Medal.
In 1876 he was placed in charge of the Bermuda military telegraphs, and later held various posts in the Submarine Mining Service.
In 1888 he was appointed electrical adviser to the Board of Trade, which position he resigned in 1899 to take up consulting work in partnership with Sir William Preece, K.C.B., and his sons. Both in this practice and under the Board of Trade he was the pioneer of considerable useful work, including the electrical equipment of the Admiralty Dockyards, and the formulating of regulations for power supply, and for safeguarding underground pipes against electrolysis.
He was a director of the Brighton Railway during the progress of their electrification work on the South London Line, and was also the author of many useful inventions and papers, one of which on "Electric Railways" was read before the Society of Arts in March, 1901.
He was a Member of Council of the Institution from 1886 to 1891 and from 1899 to 1903, and a Vice-President from 1902 to 1903.