27-1016: Charles Parsons may refer to: People [ edit ] Charles Algernon Parsons (1854–1931), English engineer known for his invention of the steam turbine Charles Parsons (philosopher) (1933–2024), professor in the philosophy of mathematics at Harvard University Chick Parsons (Charles Thomas Parsons, Jr., 1900–1988), American businessman, diplomat, and decorated World War II veteran Chuck Parsons (Charles W. Parsons, 1924–1999), American sports car racing driver Charlie Parsons (born 1958), television producer Charlie Parsons (baseball) (1863–1936), Major League Baseball pitcher Charles Parsons (British Army officer) (1855–1923) Charles Wynford Parsons (1901–1950) British zoologist Charles Lathrop Parsons (1867–1954), American chemist Charles "Poss" Parsons (1892–1942), American college football player and coach See also [ edit ] Charlie Parsons (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
54-835: A generalised instrument . His work, The Story of the Heavens , is mentioned in the "Ithaca" chapter of Ulysses . His lectures, articles and books (e.g. Starland and The Story of the Heavens ) were mostly popular and simple in style. He died in Cambridge and was buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with his wife, Lady Francis Elizabeth Ball. Their children were: Frances Amelia, Robert Steele, William Valentine (later Sir), Mary Agnetta, Charles Rowan Hamilton, and Randall Gresley (later Colonel). Reminiscences and Letters of Sir Robert Ball by his son W.V. Ball
81-778: A few years led to his first megawatt turbine, built in 1899 for a generating plant at Elberfeld in the German Empire. Also interested in marine applications, Parsons founded the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Newcastle. Famously, in June 1897, his turbine-powered yacht , Turbinia , turned up unannounced at the Navy Review for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria at Spithead , on 26 June 1897, in front of
108-580: A first-class honours degree. He joined the Newcastle -based engineering firm of W.G. Armstrong as an apprentice, an unusual step for the son of an earl. Later he moved to Kitsons in Leeds, where he worked on rocket-powered torpedoes . In 1884 Parsons moved to Clarke, Chapman and Co. , ship-engine manufacturers operating near Newcastle, where he became head of their electrical-equipment development. He used Regnault 's large collection of steam properties ("data of
135-691: A member of the Order of Merit in 1927. In 1929 the Iron and Steel Institute awarded him the Bessemer Gold Medal . The Parsons turbine company survives in the Heaton area of Newcastle as part of Siemens , a German conglomerate . In 1925 Charles Parsons acquired the Grubb Telescope Company and renamed it Grubb Parsons . That company survived in the Newcastle area until 1985. Parsons also designed
162-609: A more general audience, such as The Story of the Heavens , first published in 1886. Much in the limelight, he stood as President of the Quaternion Society . He was also President of the Mathematical Association in 1900. In 1908, he published A Treatise on Spherical Astronomy , which is a textbook on astronomy starting from spherical trigonometry and the celestial sphere , considering atmospheric refraction and aberration of light , and introducing basic use of
189-509: 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 the engineering work of Charles Parsons. Parsons is depicted on the reverse of an Irish silver 15 Euros silver Proof coin that was struck in 2017. The Irish Academy of Engineering awards The Parsons Medal, named after Charles Parsons, every year to an engineer who has made an exceptional contribution to
216-452: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Charles Algernon Parsons Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was an English mechanical engineer known for his invention of the compound steam turbine , and as the eponym of C. A. Parsons and Company . He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation , with great influence on
243-652: Is housed in a purpose-built gallery at the Discovery Museum , Newcastle. ) Parsons was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1898, received their Rumford Medal in 1902 and their Copley Medal in 1928, and delivered their Bakerian Lecture in 1918. He served as the president of the British Association from 1916 to 1919. He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1924 at Toronto. Knighted in 1911, he became
270-537: The Auxetophone , an early compressed-air gramophone . In 1883, Parsons married Katharine Bethell , the daughter of William F. Bethell. They had two children: the engineer and campaigner Rachel Mary Parsons (b. 1885), and Algernon George "Tommy" Parsons (b. 1886), who was killed in action during World War I in 1918, aged 31. They had a London home at 1 Upper Brook Street , Mayfair , from 1918 to 1931. Sir Charles Algernon Parsons died on 11 February 1931, on board
297-714: The Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy . In 1882, Popular Science Monthly carried his article "A Glimpse through the Corridors of Time". The following year it carried his two-part article on "The Boundaries of Astronomy". He was knighted in 1886. Ball expounded the tides in Time and Tide: a Romance of the Moon (1889). He published in 1891 The Cause of an Ice Age and in 1892 An Atlas of Astronomy . In 1892, he
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#1732902828951324-528: The Prince of Wales , foreign dignitaries, and Lords of the Admiralty . 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 kn (63 km/h; 39 mph); the fastest Royal Navy ships using other technologies reached 27 kn (50 km/h; 31 mph). Part of the speed improvement came from
351-509: The naval and electrical engineering fields. He also developed optical equipment for searchlights and telescopes . Parsons was born into an Anglo-Irish family on 13 June 1854 in London as the youngest son of the famous astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse . The family seat is Birr Castle , County Offaly , Ireland, and the town of Birr was called Parsonstown, after the family, from 1620 to 1901. With his three brothers, Parsons
378-404: The physicists") to develop a turbine engine turning at 18,000 RPM in 1884 and immediately utilised the new engine to drive an electrical generator, which he also designed. Parsons' steam turbine made cheap and plentiful electricity possible and revolutionised marine transport and naval warfare. Another type of steam turbine at the time, invented by Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) in the 1880s,
405-462: The practice of engineering. Previous winners include Prof. Tony Fagan (2016), Dr. Edmond Harty (2017), Prof. Sir John McCanny (2018) and Michael McLaughlin (2019). Sir Robert Ball Sir Robert Stawell Ball FRS (1 July 1840 – 25 November 1913) was an Irish astronomer who founded the screw theory . He was Royal Astronomer of Ireland at Dunsink Observatory . He was the son of naturalist Robert Ball and Amelia Gresley Hellicar. He
432-466: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Charles Parsons . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Parsons&oldid=1220030199 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
459-410: The same year he set up the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (DisCO). In 1890, DisCo opened Forth Banks Power Station , the first power station in the world to generate electricity using turbo generators. 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
486-494: The science. In 1873, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1874, he was appointed Royal Astronomer of Ireland and Andrews Professor of Astronomy in Trinity College Dublin at Dunsink Observatory . Ball contributed to the science of kinematics by delineating the screw displacement : Ball's treatise The Theory of Screws (1876) is now in the public domain. His work on screw dynamics earned him in 1879
513-525: The slender hull of the Turbinia . Within two years the destroyers HMS Viper and Cobra were launched with Parsons' turbines, soon followed by the first turbine-powered passenger ship , Clyde steamer TS King Edward in 1901; the first turbine transatlantic liners RMS Victorian and Virginian in 1905; and the first turbine-powered battleship, HMS Dreadnought in 1906, all of them driven by Parsons' turbine engines. (As of 2012 Turbinia
540-610: The steamship Duchess of Richmond while on a cruise with his wife. The cause of death was given as neuritis . A memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 3 March 1931. Parsons was buried in the parish church of St Bartholomew's in Kirkwhelpington in Northumberland . His widow, Katharine, died at her home in Ray Demesne, Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland in 1933. Rachel Parsons died in 1956; stableman Denis James Pratt
567-411: 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 in his 1911 Rede Lecture that his appreciation of the scaling issue led to his 1884 breakthrough on the compound steam turbine: It seemed to me that moderate surface velocities and speeds of rotation were essential if the turbine motor
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#1732902828951594-592: Was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge University at the same time becoming director of the Cambridge Observatory . In 1897, he was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society . He was a fellow of King's College, Cambridge . In 1900, Cambridge University Press published A Treatise on the Theory of Screws . It followed works meant for
621-569: Was born in Dublin . and was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he won a scholarship in 1859 and was a senior moderator in both mathematics and experimental and natural science in 1861. Ball worked for Lord Rosse from 1865 to 1867. In 1867, he became Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin. There he lectured on mechanics and published an elementary account of
648-540: Was convicted of her manslaughter. In 1919, Katharine and her daughter Rachel co-founded the Women's Engineering Society with Eleanor Shelley-Rolls , Margaret, Lady Moir , Laura Annie Willson , Margaret Rowbotham and Janetta Mary Ornsby , which is still in existence today. Sir Charles was initially a supportive member of the organisation until his wife's resignation. Parsons' ancestral home at Birr Castle in Ireland houses
675-466: Was educated at home in Ireland by private tutors (including John Purser ), all of whom were well versed in the sciences and also acted as practical assistants to the Earl in his astronomical work. (One of them later became, as Sir Robert Ball , Royal Astronomer of Ireland .) Parsons then read mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin and at St. John's College, Cambridge , graduating from the latter in 1877 with
702-588: Was published in 1915 by Cassell & Company. Minor planet 4809 Robertball is named in his honor. He was the 38th President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute , which holds The Sir Robert Ball Library, the library of The Society for the History of Astronomy . Ball became celebrated for his popular lectures on science. He gave an estimated 2500 lectures between 1875 and 1910 in towns and cities across Britain and Ireland. In 1881, 1887, 1892, 1898 and 1900 he
729-470: 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 1889 he founded C. A. Parsons and Company in Newcastle to produce turbo generators to his design. In
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