A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DWilliam Edward Ayrton : 1847 - 1908
William Edward Ayrton (1847 - 1908). English engineer and inventor, born in London. He studied mathematics at University College London, and electricity at Glasgow under Kelvin. He joined the Indian telegraph service in 1868, and soon devised a method of detecting faults which was of great benefit in the maintenance of overland telegraphic communication. In 1873 he was appointed to the Chair of Natural Philosophy and Telegraphy at the new Imperial Engineering College in Tokyo, where he established laboratories for the teaching of applied electricity, the first of their kind. Returning to London in 1879 he became Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering successively at the City and Guilds of London Institute, Finsbury Technical College (1881), and the Central Technical College, South Kensington (1884). With his colleague John Perry (1850 - 1920) he invented the first absolute block system for electric railways (1881), the first electric tricycle (1882), and many electrical measuring instruments. They published jointly some 70 scientific and technical papers between 1876 and 1891. His first wife, Matilda Chaplin (1846 - 1883), was a pioneer woman doctor; his second, Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923), continued his work on the electric arc and other inventions.
William Edward Ayrton, F.R.S. was born in London on 14 September 1847. The son of a barrister, he studied mathematics at University College, London and later electricity at Glasgow under W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin). In 1873, after successful service with the Indian Telegraph Company and a year with the Great Western Railway, he was appointed to the first Chair in Natural Philosophy and Telegraphy at the Imperial Engineering College, Tokyo. Here he worked with John Perry, Professor of Engineering, on a variety of subjects including dielectric constants of gases; viscosities of dielectrics and terrestrial magnetism. On his return to London, he took several academic posts: Professor at the City and Guilds of London Institute (1879), Finsbury Technical College (1881) and Central Technical College (1884) becoming an outstanding teacher of electrical subjects often using self-made apparatus in his classes. In 1879, Ayrton was the first to advocate power transmission at high voltage. In conjunction with John Perry (who had rejoined him at Finsbury), he invented many electrical measuring instruments including a spiral-spring ammeter and wattmeter. They also worked on railway electrification and produced a dynamometer. In 1882 they produced the first electric tricycle. In 1898, William Ayrton was a member of the editorial committee for the first issue of Science Abstracts published by The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). From 1904 until 1908, the year of his death, Ayrton and his second wife, Phoebe Marks (who was later to find fame for her work on the electric arc), were sponsored by the Admiralty to work on the electric searchlight. Source: Bibliographies of the Editorial Committee of Volume 1 of Science Abstracts 1898
William Edward Ayrton (1847 - 1908) English physicist and electrical engineer who invented many of the prototypes of modern electrical measuring instruments. He also created the world's first laboratory for teaching applied electricity, in Tokyo, Japan 1873. Ayrton was born in London and studied mathematics there at University College. He joined the Indian Telegraph Service and was sent to Bombay 1868. In 1873 he became professor of physics and telegraphy at the new Imperial Engineering College in Tokyo, at that time the world's largest technical university. Returning to London, from 1879 he held various professorships in applied physics and electrical engineering. In 1881 Ayrton and his colleague John Perry (1850 - 1920) invented the surface-contact system for electric railways, and they brought out the first electric tricycle 1882. There followed a series of portable electrical measuring instruments, including the ammeter (so named by its inventors), an electric power meter, various forms of improved voltmeters, and an instrument used for measuring self and mutual induction. In this, great use was made of an ingeniously devised flat spiral spring which yields a relatively large rotation for a small axial elongation.
"...During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, foreign experts were recruited (to Japan), including specialists on railways, mining engineering, communications, and medicine. In 1873 the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo (later Tokyo University) became the first university in the world to offer a program in electrical engineering. James Clerk Maxwell said of the work done there by the founding professors, William Ayrton and John Perry, that they had "... moved the center of gravity of electrical engineering greatly eastward." One of Ayrton's Japanese students helped to found one of the companies to form Toshiba, and another became one of the founders of NEC."
International Technology Research Institute Annual Report and Program Summary for 1993/94
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE JTEC/WTEC PROGRAM : LESSONS LEARNED Source: http://144.126.176.216/ar93_94/gamintr.htm
Hertha Marks Ayrton (b. Aug. 27, 1854, d. Aug. 26, 1923)*, second wife of William Edward Ayrton (1847 - 1908). Conducted celebrated research in the field of the electric ARC and invented, for the British War Office, an anti-gas fan, more than 100,000 of which were used in the trenches during World War I. At a time when women scientists were rare and rarely granted recognition, she was made a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1899, the only woman on its roster. Although nominated for membership in the Royal Society, she was never elected, on the grounds that the society had no legal power to admit women. In 1906, however, she was awarded a Royal Society medal.
also... Hertha Marks Ayrton (b. Apr. 28, 1854 - d. Aug. 23, 1923)* Attended Girton College at Cambridge University where she studied mathematics and passed the Mathematical Tripos in 1880. At that time Cambridge gave only certificates and not degrees to women. She therefore successfully completed an external examination and received a B.Sc. degree from the University of London. Ayrton invented a draftsman's device that could be used for dividing up a line into equal parts as well as for enlarging and reducing figures. She was also active in devising and solving mathematical problems, many of which were published in the Mathematical Questions and Their Solutions from the "Educational Times". Assisted her husband, William Edward Ayrton, with his experiments in physics and electricity. In 1899 she was elected the first female member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. First woman to ever read her own paper before the Royal Society of London. Source: James Tattersall and Shawnee McMurran. Hertha Ayrton: A Persistent Experimenter, Journal of Women's History, Vol. 7, No., 2 (Summer 1995), 86-112.
* Note clashing dates for Hertha Marks Ayrton.
also see the extensive essay...
Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854-1923) by Marjorie Malley
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