Difference between revisions of "William Henry Preece"
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
Sir William Henry Preece (15 February 1834 - 6 November 1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. | Sir William Henry Preece (15 February 1834 - 6 November 1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. | ||
Preece was born in Caernarfon (Gwynedd), Wales. He was educated at King's College School and King's College London. Preece studied at the Royal Institution in London under [[Michael Faraday]]. | Preece was born in Caernarfon (Gwynedd), Wales. He was educated at King's College School and King's College London. Preece studied at the Royal Institution in London under [[Michael Faraday]]. He went on to contribute many inventions and improvements, including a railway signalling system that increased safety. | ||
1870 Joined the Post Office working on telegraphic system | 1870 Joined the Post Office working on the telegraphic system | ||
1885, Preece and [[Arthur West Heaviside]] (the brother of [[Oliver Heaviside]]) experimented with parallel telegraph lines and an unwired telephone receiver, discovering radio induction (later identified with the effects of crosstalk). | |||
Preece and [[Oliver Lodge]] maintained a correspondence - upon Lodge's proposal of "loading coils" applied to submerged cables, Preece did not realise that "earthing" would extend the distance and efficiency. | |||
Preece | In 1889 Preece assembled a group of men at Coniston Water in the Lake District in Cumberland and succeeded in transmitting and receiving Morse radio signals over a distance of about 1 mile across water. | ||
1892 Became Engineer-in-Chief of the General Post Office in 1892. | |||
1892 Preece also developed a wireless telegraphy and telephony system in 1892. Preece also introduced into Great Britain the first Bell telephones. Preece developed a telephone system and implemented it in England. A similar telephone system was patented in the United States by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. | |||
1897 He encouraged [[Guglielmo Marconi]] by obtaining assistance from the Post Office for his work. With Marconi he made radio experiments from Lavernock Point in south Wales to the island of Flatholm, and became one of Marconi's most ardent supporters. Preece believed that the Earth’s magnetic field was critical in the propagation of radio waves over long distances. | |||
1898 Preece served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers between April 1898 and November 1899. | |||
Preece | 1899 Preece was knighted; retirement from the Post Office | ||
He had a long-standing rivalry with Oliver Heaviside over his traditional ideas about electricity. It was derisively referred to as "the drain-pipe theory" by Heaviside, because Preece presented the analogy of electricity and water for thought experiments. | |||
W. H. Preece C.B., F.R.S., Engineer in chief to the Post Office (1899) | W. H. Preece C.B., F.R.S., Engineer in chief to the Post Office (1899) | ||
Revision as of 15:38, 5 January 2012
Sir William Henry Preece (15 February 1834 - 6 November 1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor.
Preece was born in Caernarfon (Gwynedd), Wales. He was educated at King's College School and King's College London. Preece studied at the Royal Institution in London under Michael Faraday. He went on to contribute many inventions and improvements, including a railway signalling system that increased safety.
1870 Joined the Post Office working on the telegraphic system
1885, Preece and Arthur West Heaviside (the brother of Oliver Heaviside) experimented with parallel telegraph lines and an unwired telephone receiver, discovering radio induction (later identified with the effects of crosstalk).
Preece and Oliver Lodge maintained a correspondence - upon Lodge's proposal of "loading coils" applied to submerged cables, Preece did not realise that "earthing" would extend the distance and efficiency.
In 1889 Preece assembled a group of men at Coniston Water in the Lake District in Cumberland and succeeded in transmitting and receiving Morse radio signals over a distance of about 1 mile across water.
1892 Became Engineer-in-Chief of the General Post Office in 1892.
1892 Preece also developed a wireless telegraphy and telephony system in 1892. Preece also introduced into Great Britain the first Bell telephones. Preece developed a telephone system and implemented it in England. A similar telephone system was patented in the United States by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
1897 He encouraged Guglielmo Marconi by obtaining assistance from the Post Office for his work. With Marconi he made radio experiments from Lavernock Point in south Wales to the island of Flatholm, and became one of Marconi's most ardent supporters. Preece believed that the Earth’s magnetic field was critical in the propagation of radio waves over long distances.
1898 Preece served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers between April 1898 and November 1899.
1899 Preece was knighted; retirement from the Post Office
He had a long-standing rivalry with Oliver Heaviside over his traditional ideas about electricity. It was derisively referred to as "the drain-pipe theory" by Heaviside, because Preece presented the analogy of electricity and water for thought experiments.
W. H. Preece C.B., F.R.S., Engineer in chief to the Post Office (1899)
See Also
- Obituary in The Engineer, 1913/11/14.