GREAT ENGINEER PASSES

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1932, Page 6

GREAT ENGINEER PASSES

SIR ALFRED YARROW. INVENTOR OF WATER-TUBE BOILERS. LONDON, January 24. The death has occurred of Sir Alfred ; Yarrow, Bt., the eminent engineer, whose use of a steam driven automobile in 1861 was responsible for the notorious Act ordering mechanical road vehicles to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag.

Alfred Fernandes Yarrow, the pioneer of torpedo-boat construction, .was born in London in January, 1842. At the age of eight years he began to show his mechanical genius by designing an automatic wool-winder. This was followed by a self-meting candle-extin-guisher and a clock worked by weights. At University College lie had J. Chamberlain as a fellow-pupil. When lie was fifteen Sir Alfred was apprenticed to a firm which made engines for warships. He attended every scientific lecture for which lie could get a ticket, including those of Faraday, spent his Saturday afternoons with a jobbing smith and bought a lathe. With a friend named Hilditch he put up the first overhead telegraph nvire ..in London between their houses,' making the instruments for 2s 6cL

Easy Work) At.the age of twenty-one his apprenticeship ended, and, through his father’s failure, lie was without means. Thus, though he had patented several inventions,, he-(tonic! not put them on the market. An aunt, however, gave him £2OO, and another £2OO came from a friend of his father. Yarrow and Hilditch had invented a steam plough. This was taken up by a firm which employed him as its London agent, and in a few years the royalties came to £6OO. - - •s’t With a main named Headley, lie started engineering works on the Isle of Dogs in J 866. They worked at a loss for soqie time until Yarrow began building small steam launches. The first was such a success that orders began to roll in. Fast Warships. In 1873 he mounted a torpedo tube on one of his. fast boats and brought into being.the torpedo-boat. The first of these was built for the Argentine and Holland, and between 1877 and 1879 orders' .were received from nine foreign Governments. His first notable h*gh-peed boat for the 'British Admiralty attained 21.9 knots, and had no funnel. - Boiler-tube .leakages'proved troublesome, but lie invehted a device to prevent* - .them. In 1892 lie built the first torperdo-boat destroyer, which had to be very fast. The Hornet attained 27.3 knots, and was fitted with the famous Yaritow water-tube boilers, which, although lighter, generated more steam and burnt less coal than the old type. As they had straight tubfe-s, they could be easily cleaned, and they are now adopted by most of the navies of the world. Trouble arose with the Admiralty over the action of the latter in.giving copies of his designs to other firms which were building destroyers for them,' lint eventually bis services were recognised. During the RussoJapanese war liis destroyers were very successful. In 1910 Yarrow urged on the Admiralty the building of faster destroyers, and eventually he was allowed to construct a 35-knot boat. Wartime Inventions. a In 1913 Sir Alfred gave up active participation in the business, but'when the war came lie returned to work, and offered bis services to the Admiralty, producing a large number of destroyers of great speed and efficiency, one ol which sank the Blucher. He. was also responsible for the Tigris fleet of gunboats. He evolved several ingenious ideas during the war. He designed the military veil to render soldiers invisible to snipers, a smoke screen system for vessels, and the Miranda waistcoat, which kept the wearer afloat after bis ship bad been sunk’. He also-sug-gested tile successful plan of rubbing soldiers’ feet and legs with oil to obviate frost-bite in the trenches. A reward of 220,000 was offered by him for sighting and destroying submarines, but only 24000 of this was claimed. also conducted much propaganda in the foreign Press, but for some unknown reason this was discouraged by the Foreign Office.

A Lovable Man. A very kindly and lovable man. Sir Alfred gave much to good objects. In 1891 be built a children's convalescent: home at Bmadstairs. He also gave £25,000 towards . an adequate outpatients’ department at the London Hospital, and insisted that every patient who could do so should pa.v something, however little, with the result that the sum annually received was equal to tin' interest on 280,000 Later lie presented another £IO,OOO to the hospital for a research fund and 224,000 for the provision an ( | training ot nurses in Scotland. An advocate of giving women power and influence and enabling them to enter on careers be paid 210,000 towards the extension of Girton College, Cambridge, and later gave 210,000 mere. In 1923 lie presented 2100,009 to the Royal Society, of which In- was a Fellow, lor scientific research.

Sir Allred, who received a baronetcy in 1916, married bis second wife. Miss Eleanor Barnes, in 1.922. His life, written by her, appeared in 1923.