William Henry Preece
Sir William Henry Preece C.B., F.R.S. (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, London. He went on to contribute many inventions and improvements, including a railway signalling system that increased safety.
1853 Joined the engineering staff of Electric Telegraph Co.
1853 Helped Michael Faraday with some telegraphic experiments,
1856 Appointed superintendent of the Electric Telegraph Company's south-western district at Southampton. He also supervised the telegraphs of the London and South Western Railway
From 1858 to 1862, he supervised the cables of the Channel Island Telegraph Co.
1870 Joined the Post Office as engineer for the Southern District of the telegraphic system when the Government bought out the private telegraph companies.
1880 President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers
1883 President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
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.
1887 He had a long-standing rivalry with Oliver Heaviside - Heaviside had found theoretically that the clarity of telegraph and telephone signals could be greatly improved by loading transmission lines with extra inductance. Reasoning from inadequate experiments, Preece had already declared inductance to be prejudicial to clear signalling; Preece took steps to block its publication; Heaviside thereafter took every opportunity to denounce 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.
1899 Preece was knighted
1899 After retirement from the Post Office, he was active with his sons, Llewellyn and Arthur, in the engineering firm of Preece and Cardew. Preece also continued as a government consultant until 1904.
1913 Died at home in Wales
See Also
- Obituary in The Engineer, 1913/11/14.