William Edward Ayrton
William Edward Ayrton | |
|---|---|
.jpg) William Edward Ayrton | |
| Born | 14 September 1847 London, England |
| Died | 8 November 1908 (aged 61) London, England |
| Citizenship | British |
| Known for | Ayrton shunt Ayrton–Perry winding |
| Spouses | |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society Royal Medal (1901) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | physics, electrical engineering |
Academic advisors | The Lord Kelvin |
William Edward Ayrton, FRS (14 September 1847 – 8 November 1908) was an English physicist and electrical engineer.
Life
[edit] | This section needs more citations. (December 2022) |
Early life and education
[edit]Ayrton was born in London, the son of Edward Nugent Ayrton, a barrister and Anna Sophia Cubitt.[1] He became interested in mathematics and studied at University College School and University College, graduating in 1867.[1] He then spent a year studying telegraphic techniques under Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) at the University of Glasgow.[2]
India (1868–1872)
[edit]In 1868, Ayrton went to Bengal in the service of the Indian Government Telegraph department, where he invented a method of detecting faults in lines, which was of great benefit in the maintenance of the overland communications network. Returning to England, Ayrton married his cousin Matilda Chaplin, and assisted William Thomson and Fleeming Jenkin in engineering work for the Great Western Telegraph Cable in 1872-73.[3]
Japan (1873–1879)
[edit]In 1873, Ayrton accepted an invitation from the Japanese government as Chair of Natural Philosophy and Telegraphy at the new Imperial College of Engineering, Tokyo. He advised the college's architect on the design of the laboratory and demonstration rooms, and is credited with introducing the electric arc light to Japan in 1878.[4] In between classes Ayrton worked closely with his mechanical engineering colleague, John Perry, in novel electrical researches[3] However, his main role at the College was to train the first generation of Japanese telegraphic engineers, including the staff of the new government-run Telegraph Department.[5]
Sierra Leone (1880)
[edit]Ayrton worked for several months in Freetown, Sierra Leone before returning to London. He worked in an advisory role with respects to engineering in the colony.[4]
London
[edit]On his return to London, Ayrton became professor of applied physics at the Finsbury College of the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute, and, in 1884, he was chosen professor of electrical engineering, or of applied physics,[6] at the Central Technical College, South Kensington. He published, both alone and jointly with others, a large number of papers on physical, and in particular electrical, subjects, and his name was especially associated, together with that of Professor John Perry, with the invention of a long series of electrical measuring instruments,[3] including the spiral-spring ammeter, and the wattmeter. They also worked on railway electrification, produced a dynamometer and the first electric tricycle. Ayrton is also known for his work on the electric searchlight.
Ayrton died in London in 1908 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery.
Family
[edit]In 1872, Ayrton married his cousin, Matilda Chaplin (1846–1883), one of the Edinburgh Seven, the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university; they fought for open medical education for women. The marriage took place while Ayrton was on home leave from India and Matilda was involved in the Edinburgh Seven campaign. Chaplin was awarded a posthumous honorary MBChB by the University of Edinburgh in 2019.[7]
Chaplin and Ayrton's daughter was the feminist and author Edith Ayrton, wife of Israel Zangwill and mother of Oliver Zangwill.[6]
Ayrton married his second wife, Phoebe Sarah Marks, in 1885, and she became known as Hertha Ayrton. Following initial collaboration on the characteristics on the electric arc in Ayrton's South Kensington laboratory to prepare for William's lecture to the Chicago International Exhibition in 1893, by mutual agreement Hertha made research on this topic her own specialism.[8] In 1899, Ayrton supported Hertha on her way to being elected the first woman member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Royal Society awarded her a Hughes Medal in 1906. Their daughter Barbara Ayrton-Gould became a Labour MP; grandson Michael Ayrton was an artist and sculptor. William strongly supported campaigns for women's suffrage and stood by Hertha in promoting the goals of the Women's Social and Political Union.[8]
Hertha and William Ayrton acted as guardians for artist and suffragette Ernestine Mills after the death of Mills' mother Emily "Mynie" Ernest Bell in 1893. (Her father, writer Thomas Evans Bell had died in 1887).[9][10]
Honours and awards
[edit]He was elected president in 1892 of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.[11] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1881 and awarded their Royal Medal in 1901 in recognition of his extensive researches in electrical science.[12]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- 1 2 Gooday, Graeme J. N. (23 September 2004), "Ayrton, William Edward (1847–1908), electrical engineer and physicist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30509, ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 10 June 2026
- ↑ "William Edward Ayrton". Grace’s Guide. 7 November 2017.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - 1 2 3 Perry, John (1911). "William Edward Ayrton". Proceedings of the Royal Society. 85A: i–viii.
- 1 2 Campbell, Allen; Nobel, David S (1993). Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha. p. 88. ISBN 406205938X.
- ↑ Takahashi, Yuzo (May 1990). "William Edward Ayrton at the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo - the First Professor of Electrical Engineering in the World" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Education. 33 (2): 198–205.
- 1 2 Nyenhuis, Jacob E. (2003). "notes". Myth and the creative process: Michael Ayrton and the myth of Daedalus, the maze maker. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 207. ISBN 0-8143-3002-9.
- ↑ Drysdale, Neil (6 July 2019). "UK's first female students posthumously awarded their medical degrees in Edinburgh". Press and Journal. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
- 1 2 Sharp, Evelyn (1926). Hertha Ayrton: a memoir. London: Edward Arnold. p. 206.
- ↑ Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-43401-4.
- ↑ "Humanist Heritage: Ernestine Mills (1871-1959)". Humanist Heritage. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ↑ "Past Presidents of the IEE". Institution of Engineering and Technology (successor organisation to the Institution of Electrical Engineers).
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Royal Medals". The Royal Society.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
References
[edit]- Graeme Gooday's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published in September 2004.
- Cortazzi, Hugh (2002). Britain and Japan, Biographical Portraits, Volume IV. Japan Library. ISBN 1-903350-14-X.
- Morris-Suzuki, Tessa (1994). The Technological Transformation of Japan: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42492-5.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1847 births
- 1908 deaths
- Physicists from London
- Alumni of University College London
- English expatriates in Japan
- Foreign advisors to the government in Meiji-era Japan
- Foreign educators in Japan
- Burials at Brompton Cemetery
- English inventors
- People educated at University College School
- Royal Medal winners
- Alumni of the University of Glasgow
- Presidents of the Physical Society
- English electrical engineers
- 19th-century British physicists
- 19th-century English engineers
- 19th-century English scientists
- 20th-century English physicists
- Ayrton family
- British fellows of the Royal Society
- 20th-century English engineers