Charles Algernon Parsons, English Engineer
Charles Algernon Parsons (June 13, 1854 - February 11, 1931) was an English engineer, best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating from the latter in 1877 with a first-class honors degree in mathematics. He joined the engineering firm of Armstrong as an apprentice, an unusual step for the son of an earl. In 1884 he developed a turbine engine and used it to drive an electrical generator, which he also designed. His steam turbine made cheap and plentiful electricity possible and revolutionized marine transport and naval warfare. The he 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 which were driven by his turbine engines. He is also remembered for inventing the Auxetophone, an early compressed air gramophone. He in 1931, at the age of 76, on board the steamship Duchess of Richmond while on a cruise with his wife, it followed a collapse from an attack of neuritis. He was the youngest son of the astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse.
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