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C. A. Parsons and Company

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C. A. Parsons and Company
TypePublic
IndustryEngineering
Founded1889 (1889)
FounderCharles Algernon Parsons
Defunct1997 (1997)
FateAcquired
SuccessorSiemens Energy
Headquarters
Newcastle upon Tyne
,
England
Key people
ProductsPower generation equipment
Number of employees
7000 (1960s)

C. A. Parsons and Company was a British engineering firm. It was once one of the largest employers on Tyneside as well as the UK's sole indigenous designer and manufacturer of large marine steam turbines.[1]

The company merged with A. Reyrolle & Company to form Reyrolle Parsons in 1968; it subsequently merged with Clarke Chapman to form Northern Engineering Industries in 1977, and became part of Rolls-Royce in 1989. Presently, the company is part of Siemens Energy.

History

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Dungeness uses Parsons steam turbines

The company was founded in 1889 by the engineer and inventor Charles Algernon Parsons.[2] Upon establishment, its primary purpose was to develop and produce steam turbines, which he had innovated five years prior,[3] as well as turbo generators that could withstand the high speeds of the turbine.[4][5][6] When used in combination with an electrical generator, Parsons's steam turbine made cheap and plentiful electricity possible; additionally, it revolutionised marine transport and naval warfare alike.[7] Amongst other early uses of its apparatus was the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company, which opened Forth Banks Power Station in 1890, the first power station in the world to generate electricity using turbo generators.[8][9]

Throughout the 1890s, the company implemented a series of rapid incremental improvements.[10] In 1896, Parsons produced their first geared steam turbogenerator. Four years later, the company supplied its first megawatt turbine for a generating plant at Elberfeld in the German Empire.[11][12]

In 1896, the American industrialist and engineer George Westinghouse secured a licence from Parsons along with a 120 kW turbogenerator set for reference, which became the first such unit to produce electricity commercially in North America.[13] However, Westinghouse and Parsons ended their business relationship only a few years later after the former breached the terms of their licence by supplying turbogenerator sets to UK-based customers. In 1908, the London Underground opted to replace its unsatisfactory Westinghouse-produced tubogenerators with eight 10 MW sets from Parsons at Lots Road Power Station; the facility would be exclusively powered using Parsons-built units until its closure in 2002.[14]

At the beginning of the 20th century, the company was producing up to 50 turbines per year at its factory in Heaton in Newcastle upon Tyne.[15] During the 1900s, Parsons introduced several innovations, including new blade mounting techniques and nozzle governing.[16] Furthermore, by this point, Parsons had adopted standardised designs for elements of both its land and maritime turbines. By 1904, the increasingly-capable steam turbine had rendered the reciprocating steam engine effectively obsolete for electricity generation in Britain.[17] In 1912, Parsons produced a geared cross-compound 4.5 MW turbogenerator for Pilkingtons; this was the company's first unit with 'end-tightened' blades, a feature that would be widely used into the 1970s.[18]

Charles Algernon Parsons' son, Algernon George "Tommy" Parsons, joined the company as a director. However, when he was called up for military service in the First World War, Algernon was replaced by his sister, Rachel Mary Parsons, who was one of the first women to study engineering at University of Cambridge.[19] During the First World War, the Parsons’ Works on Shields Road employed a large number of women on the factory floor.[20] Following her brother's death during the conflict, Rachel Parsons did not resume her role as a director of the Heaton Works.[19]

Between 1894 and 1923, Parsons patented and manufactured novel searchlight mirrors.[21] Sir Claude Gibb joined the company as a fitter in the 1920s, he became the company's chairman and managing director by the 1940s.[22]

During the Second World War, the company's work supported Britain's war effort by equipping the troops.[23] Between 1945 and 1960, the company grew in size three-fold and large parts of the company's works at Heaton, Walkergate and Longbenton Works were rebuilt and expanded.[23] In 1951, the original 1889 workshop was demolished and replaced with a six-storey office block.[23] The company's heyday was in the 1960s, when the factory employed more than 7,000 people at its 100 acres (40 ha) site.[15]

In April 1959, the Nuclear Research Centre was established at Heaton to support the development of nuclear power stations in Britain. It soon expanded its operations to masers, magnetoplasmadynamics, superconductivity and solid-state physics, and following the Cuban Missile Crisis it was transformed in December 1962 into a contract research organization called the International Research and Development Company Ltd. Lord Fleck was appointed as chairman and Monty Finniston (the initiator of IRDC) as the managing director. Based at a six-acre site within two miles of Newcastle's city centre, it served the needs of industry and government agencies at home and abroad.[24]

Various nuclear power stations using Parsons steam turbines were commissioned in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including Bradwell, Calder Hall, Dungeness, Heysham 2 and Oldbury in England[25] and Chapelcross and Hunterston in Scotland.[26]

Parsons took over the turbine and generator factories in Erith and Witton of the General Electric Company in the 1960s.[27] The company merged with A. Reyrolle & Company to form Reyrolle Parsons in 1968.[28]

Following the appointment of James Woodeson as chairman in 1974,[29] Reyrolle Parsons merged with Clarke Chapman to form Northern Engineering Industries in 1977. Northern Engineering Industries was acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1989.[28]

The company survives today as part of Siemens Energy after Siemens acquired the business from Rolls-Royce in 1997.[30] The Heaton Works site was renamed as the CA Parsons Works in honour of its founder. In the 2000s the operations at the Heaton works were severely cut to focus mainly on the servicing side of the business, concentrating manufacturing operations at the company's factories in Mülheim and Budapest.[15]

Preserved turbines

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Parsons turbines are on display in several museums in the UK, and across the world. These include the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, the Science Museum in London, and the Electric Power and Historical Museum, in Yokohama, Japan.[15]

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ↑ Murphy 2020, p. 20.
  2. ↑ Horseman 2019, p. 9.
  3. ↑ Hammack, Bill (11 May 2023). "The Steam Turbine: The Surprising Relationship of Engineering & Science". YouTube.
  4. ↑ Horseman 2019, p. 1.
  5. ↑ "Chronology of Charles Parsons". Birr Castle Demesne. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008.
  6. ↑ Hammack, Bill (8 November 2021). "Reclaiming Engineering in the Minds of the Public" (PDF).
  7. ↑ "Charles Parsons (1854–1931)". Profiles of Scientists from Irish Universities. Archived from the original on 10 January 2008. Retrieved 6 February 2005.
  8. ↑ Parsons, R.H. (1939). "X". The Early Days of the Power Station Industry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 171.
  9. ↑ Horseman 2019, pp. 8-9.
  10. ↑ Horseman 2019, pp. 9-17.
  11. ↑ Smil, Vaclav (2005). Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact. Oxford University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0-19-516874-7. Transformer coltman 1988.
  12. ↑ Horseman 2019, pp. 18-21.
  13. ↑ Horseman 2019, p. 17.
  14. ↑ Horseman 2019, p. 29.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Young, Peter (6 May 2003). "Generating a big demand". Evening Chronicle. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  16. ↑ Horseman 2019, pp. 28-30.
  17. ↑ Horseman 2019, pp. 22-25.
  18. ↑ Horseman 2019, p. 34.
  19. 1 2 Raphael, E. L. "Rachel Parsons 1885–1956, woman engineer". Archived from the original on 19 June 2019. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  20. ↑ "Parsons' 'Women Labourers' photograph album, taken at Parsons' Works on Shields Road during the First World War". Tyne and Wear Museums and Archives.
  21. ↑ Scaife, W.G.S (1 January 1999). "From Galaxies to Turbines: Science, Technology and the Parsons Family". CRC Press. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  22. ↑ "Fitter Who Became Managing Director". The Advertiser (Adelaide). Vol. 97, no. 29, 938. South Australia. 27 September 1954. p. 11. Retrieved 21 May 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  23. 1 2 3 Warburton, Dan (19 April 2009). "Focus on the famous Parsons factory in Heaton". ChronicleLive. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
  24. ↑ "The International Research and Development Co., Ltd.", Nature, 197 (4867): 529, 9 February 1963, doi:10.1038/197529a0
  25. ↑ "Nuclear Power Plants in the UK – England". Archived from the original on 19 July 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2008.
  26. ↑ "Nuclear Power Plants in the UK – Scotland". Archived from the original on 19 July 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2008.
  27. ↑ "GEC: Electricity Generation and Transmission". Graces Guide. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  28. 1 2 NZR Cranes Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ↑ NEI names McDonald to succeed Woodeson as new chairman. Vol. 206. The Electrical Review. 1979. p. 5.
  30. ↑ Ward, David (29 August 2002). "Violence mars Leeds Festival". The Guardian. London.

Bibliography

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