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38-457: The forerunner to the device was invented around 1840 by Sir Francis Ronalds to help combat fire in London – he also named his innovation the "Fire Finder". Ronalds's fire finder comprised a theodolite atop a watchtower. Bearings and vertical angles from the horizon to surrounding features were recorded either on a surrounding cylinder in the form of a panorama or on a circular table at the base of

76-573: A combined rudder and propeller for ships that was honed in the 20th century. He died at Battle , near Hastings, aged 85, and is buried in the cemetery there. The Ronalds Library was bequeathed to the newly formed Society of Telegraph Engineers (soon to become the Institution of Electrical Engineers and now the Institution of Engineering and Technology ) and its accompanying bibliography was reprinted by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Ronalds had

114-423: A large map to quickly find where the reported bearings intersect. Today, a more precise determination of a fire location can be made by the use of a single Fire Finder in conjunction with a digital elevation model (DEM). Francis Ronalds Sir Francis Ronalds FRS (21 February 1788 – 8 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer . He

152-592: A minister in Kenilworth . He attended the school of his uncle John Corrie FRS , who was long-time President of the Birmingham Philosophical Institution . Marrying Sir Francis Ronalds ' youngest sister Maria in 1833, they had four children: Alexander, Hugh , John Corrie and Jane. In the 1855–1875 period, they resided at Battle in a substantial estate called Quarry Hill. Samuel died in London , and

190-644: A popular exhibition at that time. Ronalds set up the Kew Observatory for the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1842 and he remained Honorary Director of the facility until late 1853. It was through the quality of his achievements there that the Kew Observatory survived its early years and it went on to become one of the most important meteorological and geomagnetic observatories in

228-730: A territorial boundary in early 1846 between Brunel's Great Western Railway (GWR) and its affiliates on the broad gauge, and the standard gauge L&NWR and Midland companies, but it was overturned. Thereafter, Carter fought the spread of the broad gauge in various contests in parliament and the courts. He and Stephenson cited the dangers of rival companies using the same infrastructure on different gauges, requiring GWR to build its own stations in Birmingham and elsewhere. Some of his last parliamentary contests enabled Midland to build its own routes into London to its new St Pancras station and to Scotland on its Settle & Carlisle line . Carter

266-551: A very modest and retiring nature and did little to publicise his work through his life. During his last years, however, his key accomplishments became well known and revered in the scientific community, aided in particular by his friends Josiah Latimer Clark and Edward Sabine and his brother-in-law Samuel Carter . He was knighted at the age of 82. Colleagues at the Society of Telegraph Engineers regarded him as "the father of electric telegraphy", while his continuously recording camera

304-535: The Philosophical Magazine in 1814 on the properties of the dry pile , a form of battery that his mentor Jean-André Deluc helped to develop. The next year he described the first electric clock . Other inventions in this early period included an electrograph to record variations in atmospheric electricity through the day; an influence machine that generated electricity with minimal manual intervention; and new forms of electrical insulation, one of which

342-467: The US in 1935). Many fire finders were manufactured from 1920 through 1935, but the manufacturer, Leupold & Stevens, Inc. , stopped production of replacement parts after 1975. The system is composed of a topographic map of the area oriented and centered on a horizontal plane table with a circular rim graduated in degrees (and fractions). Two sighting apertures are mounted above the map on opposite sides of

380-675: The age of 14 through the Drapers' Company . He ran the large business for some years. The family later resided in Canonbury Place and Highbury Terrace, both in Islington , at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, Queen Square in Bloomsbury, at Croydon , and on Chiswick Lane. Several of Ronalds' eleven brothers and sisters also led noteworthy lives. His youngest brother Alfred Ronalds authored

418-651: The angular separation of distant objects. He also invented a forerunner to the fire finder patented in 1915 to pinpoint the location of a fire, as well as various accessories for the lathe . Some of these devices were manufactured for sale by toolmaker Holtzapffel . There is some evidence to suggest that he assisted Charles Holtzapffel in the early stages of preparing the Holtzapffel family's renowned treatise on turning. On 23 March 1825, he patented two drawing instruments for producing perspective sketches; numerous engravings and lithographs survive that he made using

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456-510: The classic book The Fly-fisher's Entomology (1836) with Ronalds' assistance before migrating to Australia. His brother Hugh was one of the founders of the city of Albion in the American Midwest, and sister Emily Ronalds epitomised the family's interest in social reform. Other sisters married Samuel Carter – a railway solicitor and MP – and sugar-refiner Peter Martineau, the son of Peter Finch Martineau . Nurseryman Hugh Ronalds

494-428: The fire by reference to any distinctive terrain features and by use of the scale shown on the map. However, in actual practice, fire distance and location were normally established using two or more Fire Finder-equipped lookout towers , using the intersection method to fix the precise location of the fire. Dispatchers at a central facility used a compass rose to mark lines of position from each reporting tower onto

532-406: The first description of the effects of induction in retarding electric signal transmission in insulated cables. Ronalds' most remembered work today is the electric telegraph he created at the age of 28. He established that electrical signals could be transmitted over large distances with 8 miles (13 km) of iron wire strung on insulators on his mother's lawn in Hammersmith. He found that

570-404: The founding members, on its merits. Carter was also a solicitor to the bill enabling L&BR to amalgamate with other companies to form the London & North Western Railway (L&NWR) in 1846. By now he had opened a second office in London and he soon acquired a home near Hyde Park . He later purchased a property at Battle . L&NWR and Midland Railway were quite commonly aligned in

608-580: The general election in November 1868. He lost again in 1874. Carter funded the building of the Coventry School of Art , laying the foundation stone in 1862. He also donated £1,000 towards the Free Library. Carter published several pamphlets in the 1870s illustrating to railway shareholders that the new Railway Commissioners had been given powers to reduce rates and tolls from the amounts permitted in

646-427: The instrument. The location of any fire could thus be pinpointed even in the dark. The modern version was created by William "W. B." Osborne, a United States Forest Service employee from Portland, Oregon , and has been in service since 1915. Mr. Osborne also designed the photo-recording transit for making panoramic records of forest conditions, as well as a collapsible water-bag knapsack for firefighting (patented in

684-402: The invention for observational science. He applied his technique in electrographs to observe atmospheric electricity , barographs and thermo-hygrographs to monitor the weather, and magnetographs to record the three components of geomagnetic force . The magnetographs were used by Edward Sabine in his global geomagnetic survey while the barograph and thermo-hygrograph were employed by

722-400: The machines. The first of these instruments produced a perspective view of an object directly from drawings of the plan and elevations. The second one enabled a scene or person to be traced from life onto paper with considerable precision; he and Dr Alexander Blair used it to document the important Neolithic monuments at Carnac , France, with "almost photographic accuracy". He also created

760-616: The new Met Office to assist its first weather forecasts . Ronalds also supervised the manufacture of his instruments for other observatories around the world (the Radcliffe Observatory under Manuel John Johnson and the Colaba Observatory in India are two examples) and some continued in use until late in the 20th century. Further instruments created at Kew included an improved version of Regnault 's aspirated hygrometer that

798-443: The ring and slide around the arc. The device is used by moving the sights until the observer can peek through the nearer sighting hole and view the cross hairs in the further sight aligned with the fire. The fire lookout notes the degrees on the graduated ring beneath the sight. Early Fire Finders were capable of a crude estimate of elevation based upon the level and elevation of the table, calculating distance and rough position of

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836-526: The signal travelled immeasurably fast from one end to the other (but still believed the speed was finite). Foreshadowing both a future electrical age and mass communication, he wrote: electricity, may actually be employed for a more practically useful purpose than the gratification of the philosopher's inquisitive research… it may be compelled to travel   ... many hundred miles beneath our feet   ... and   ... be productive of   ... much public and private benefit   ... why   ... add to

874-763: The telegraph only began two decades later in the UK, led by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone , who both had links to Ronalds' earlier work. The period 1818–20 was Ronalds' " Grand Tour " to Europe and the Near East. Embarking on his trip alone, he met up with numerous people along the way, including his friend Sir Frederick Henniker , archaeologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni , artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri , merchant Walter Stevenson Davidson, Revd George Waddington , Italian numismatist Giulio Cordero di San Quintino and Spanish geologist Carlos de Gimbernat . Ronalds' travel journal and sketches have been published on

912-504: The torments of absence those dilatory tormentors, pens, ink, paper, and posts? Let us have electrical conversazione offices, communicating with each other all over the kingdom   . He complemented his vision with a working telegraph system built in and under his mother's garden at Hammersmith. It was infamously rejected on 5 August 1816 by Sir John Barrow , Secretary at the Admiralty , as being "wholly unnecessary". Commercialisation of

950-439: The ubiquitous portable tripod stand ; his original model had three pairs of hinged legs to support his drawing board in the field. He manufactured these instruments himself and several hundred of them were sold. One of his first customers was mining engineer John Taylor . In 1840, he applied his understanding of perspective in developing more complex apparatus to aid the accurate depiction of cylindrical panoramas , which were

988-481: The web. On his return, he published his atmospheric electricity observations made in Palermo , Sicily, and near the erupting crater of Vesuvius . Ronalds next focused on mechanical and civil engineering and design. Two surveying tools he designed and used to aid the production of survey plans were a modified surveyor's wheel that recorded distances travelled in graphical form and a double-reflecting sector to draw

1026-462: The world. This was despite ongoing efforts by George Airy , Director of the Greenwich Observatory , to undermine the work at Kew. Ronalds' most noteworthy innovation at Kew, in 1845, was the first successful camera to make continuous recordings of an instrument 24 hours per day. The British Prime Minister Lord John Russell gave him a financial award in recognition of the importance of

1064-619: The years following and he was able to represent them jointly. This happened for example with the Worcester & Hereford Railway , where he spoke on behalf of both companies at shareholder meetings and served as solicitor to its parliamentary bills. The 1845–1846 parliamentary session saw the peak of Railway Mania and the beginnings of the Battle of the Gauges , in both of which Carter was much occupied. He and Isambard Kingdom Brunel apparently negotiated

1102-527: Was a Member of Parliament for his native city of Coventry , and solicitor to two major railway companies (the London and North Western Railway and Midland Railway ) for nearly four decades during the development of Britain's rail network. Born into a family of the Unitarian faith, his father Samuel Snr was the Coventry prison keeper for many years and his mother Jane was the daughter of Josiah Corrie Snr,

1140-606: Was a staunch Liberal in his politics and had participated in the Birmingham Political Union in the 1830s. In a by-election in March 1868, he was elected to parliament for Coventry, which triggered his retirement from railway business. His maiden speech in the house was in support of the proposed Irish Church Act to disestablish the (Anglican) Church of Ireland. He had only a very short parliamentary term however as he and his Liberal colleague Henry Jackson were defeated in

1178-413: Was announced by Singer. He was also already creating what would become the renowned Ronalds Library of electrical books and managing his collection with perhaps the first practical card catalogue . His theoretical contributions included an early delineation of the parameters now known as electromotive force and current; an appreciation of the mechanism by which dry piles generated electricity ; and

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1216-530: Was appointed in 1835. B&DR joined with other companies in 1844 to form the Midland Railway , with Carter being one of the solicitors to the amalgamation bill (Corrie having died). Some sources suggest that Carter was instrumental in the decision to establish the Railway Clearing House in 1841, when he and his good friend Robert Stephenson advised the directors of L&BR and B&DR, two of

1254-559: Was buried in the family vault in Kenilworth. Samuel had been articled to his uncle Josiah Corrie, a lawyer in Birmingham , and their partnership was appointed as solicitors to the proposed London & Birmingham Railway (L&BR) in 1830. They also acted as solicitors to various lines that were planned to connect other communities with the new trunkline. One was the Birmingham & Derby Railway (B&DR) to which Corrie & Carter

1292-543: Was employed for many years; an early meteorological kite ; and the storm clock used to monitor rapid changes in meteorological parameters during extreme events. To observe atmospheric electricity, Ronalds created a sophisticated collecting apparatus with a suite of electrometers ; the equipment was later manufactured and sold by London instrument-makers. A dataset of five years' duration was analysed and published by his observatory colleague William Radcliffe Birt . The phenomenon now known as geomagnetically induced current

1330-628: Was his uncle, and his nephews included chemistry professor Edmund Ronalds , artist Hugh Carter , barrister John Corrie Carter and timber merchant and benefactor James Montgomrey . Thomas Field Gibson , a Royal Commissioner for the Great Exhibition of 1851, was one of his cousins. Ronalds was conducting electrical experiments by 1810: those on atmospheric electricity were outlined in George Singer 's text Elements of Electricity and Electro-Chemistry (1814). He published his first papers in

1368-486: Was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 he laid an 8-mile (13 km) length of iron wire between wooden frames in his mother's garden and sent pulses using electrostatic generators . Born to Francis Ronalds and Jane (née Field), wholesale cheesemongers, at their business premises at 109 Upper Thames Street , London, he attended Unitarian minister Eliezer Cogan 's school before being apprenticed to his father at

1406-608: Was noted to be "of extreme importance to meteorologists and physicists, and… employed in all first-rate observatories". His portrait was painted by Hugh Carter . Commemorative plaques have been installed on two of his former homes in Highbury and Hammersmith , and a road was named after him in Highbury. Ronalds Point in Antarctica is named after him. Samuel Carter (Coventry MP) Samuel Carter (15 May 1805 – 31 January 1878)

1444-626: Was observed on telegraph lines in 1848 during the first sunspot peak after the network began to take shape. Ronalds endeavoured to employ his atmospheric electricity equipment and magnetographs in a detailed study to understand the cause of the anomalies but had insufficient resources to complete his work. Ronalds' final foreign sojourn in 1853–1862 was to northern Italy, Switzerland and France, where he assisted other observatories in building and installing his meteorological instruments and continued collecting books for his library. Some of his ideas documented in this period concerned electric lighting and

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