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Charles Algernon Parsons
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Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, O.M. (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was a British engineer, best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence on the naval and electrical engineering fields. He also developed optical equipment, for searchlights and telescopes.
Born in London, Parsons was the youngest son of the famous astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and St.
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Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, O.M. (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was a British engineer, best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence on the naval and electrical engineering fields. He also developed optical equipment, for searchlights and telescopes.
Born in London, Parsons was the youngest son of the famous astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating from the latter in 1877 with a first-class honours degree in mathematics. He then joined the Newcastle-based engineering firm of W.G. Armstrong as an apprentice, an unusual step for the son of an earl; then moved to Kitsons in Yorkshire where he worked on rocket powered torpedoes; and then in 1884 moved to Clarke, Chapman and Co., ship engine manufacturers near Newcastle, where he was head of their electrical equipment development. He developed a turbine engine there in 1884 and immediately utilized the new engine to drive an electrical generator, which he also designed.
The best steam turbine at the time, invented by Gustaf de Laval was an impulse design that subjected the mechanism to huge centrifugal forces and so had limited output due to the weakness of the materials available. Parsons explained that his appreciation of the scaling issue led to his 1884 breakthrough on compound steam turbine in his 1911 Rede Lecture:
"It seemed to me that moderate surface velocities and speeds of rotation were essential if the turbine motor was to receive general acceptance as a prime mover. I therefore decided to split up the fall in pressure of the steam into small fractional expansions over a large number of turbines in series, so that the velocity of the steam nowhere should be great...I was also anxious to avoid the well-known cutting action on metal of steam at high velocity."
in 1899. It produced single phase electricity at 4kV.]]
In 1889, he founded C. A. Parsons and Company in Newcastle to produce turbo-generators to his design. In 1894 he regained certain patent rights from Clarke Chapman. Although his first turbine was only 1.6% efficient and generated a mere 7.5 kilowatts, rapid incremental improvements in a few years led to his first megawatt turbine built in 1899 for a generating plant at Elberfeld, Germany.
Parsons was also interested in marine applications and founded the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Newcastle. Famously in June 1897 his turbine powered yacht, Turbinia, was exhibited moving at speed at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Fleet Review off Portsmouth, to demonstrate the great potential of the new technology. The Turbinia moved at 34 knots. The fastest Royal Navy ships using other technologies reached 27 knots. Part of the speed improvement was attributable to the slender hull of the Turbinia. Within two years, destroyers HMS Viper and HMS Cobra were launched equipped with Parsons turbines, followed by the first turbine powered passenger liner, the TS King Edward in 1901 and the first turbine powered battleship, the HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Today, Turbinia is housed in a purpose-built gallery at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle.
Parsons received the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society in 1902, was knighted in 1911 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1927.
The Parsons turbine company survives in the Heaton area of Newcastle and is now part of Siemens, a German conglomerate. Sometimes referred to as Siemens Parsons, the company recently completed a major redevelopment programme, reducing the size of its site by around three quarters and installing the latest manufacturing technology. In 1925 Charles Parsons acquired the Grubb Telescope Company and renamed it Grubb Parsons. That company survived in the Newcastle area until 1985.
Parsons' ancestral home at Birr Castle in Ireland houses a museum detailing the contribution the Parsons family have made to the fields of science and engineering, with part of the museum given over to marine engineering work of Charles Parsons.
See also
Published Works Online
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