Published Resources Details Journal Article

Author
Scaife, W G
Title
Charles Parsons' experiments with Rocket Torpedoes - the Precursors of the Steam Turbine
In
The Newcomen Society for the study of the history of Engineering and Technology Transactions
Imprint
vol. 60, 1988-1989, pp. 17-29
Description

Accession No.1565

Abstract

"At the start of 1883 when the inventor Charles A. Parsons married Katherine Bethell he was in the middle of a programme of research and development conducted in partnership with Sir James Kitson at Leeds. He was researching a number of topics. One of the surviving notebooks for the period, for instance, relates to his experiments on ignition in gas engines, using a rig that allowed him to record gas pressure as a function of time. Another notebook is devoted to his efforts at perfecting a torpedo that was propelled by gases produced by a rocket charge. In the latter task he had been aided by a fellow inventor William Cross during the time when they had worked together as employees of the W. G. Armstrong works at Elswick in Newcastle."