Online Encyclopedia

EDWARD LYON BERTHON (1813-1899)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 812 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EDWARD LYON BERTHON (1813-1899)  ,
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English inventor, was born in
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London, on the 20th of
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February 1813, the son of an army contractor and descendant of an old Huguenot
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family . He studied for the medical profession in Liverpool and a.t
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Dublin, but after his
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marriage in 1834 he gave up his intention of becoming a doctor, and travelled for about six years on the continent . Keenly interested from boyhood in
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mechanical science, the made experiments in the application of the screw propeller for boats . But his model, with a two-bladed propeller, was only ridiculed when it was placed before the
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British admiralty . Berthon therefore did not
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complete the patent and the idea was
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left for Francis Smith to bring out more successfully in 1838 . In 1841 he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, in order to study for the Church . There he produced what is usually known as " Berthon's log," in which the suction produced by the
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water streaming past the end of a
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pipe projected below a
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ship is registered on a mercury column above . In 1845 he was ordained, and after holding a curacy at
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Lymington was given a living at
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Fareham . Here he was able to carry on experiments with his log, which was tested on the Southampton to Jersey steamboats; but the British admiralty gave him no encouragement, and it remained uncompleted . He next designed some
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instruments to indicate the
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trim and
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rolling of boats at sea; but the idea for which he is chiefly remembered was that of the "Berthon Folding Boat " in 1849 . This invention was again adversely reported on by the admiralty . Berthon resigned his living at Fareham, and subsequently accepted the living of
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Romsey .

In 1873, encouraged by

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Samuel Plimsoll, he again applied himself to perfecting his collapsible boat . Success was at last achieved, and in less than a
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year he had received orders from the admiralty for boats to the amount of £15,000 . Some were taken by
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Sir George Nares to the Arctic, others were sent to General Gordon at
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Khartum, and others again were taken to the
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Zambezi by F . C . Selous . Berthon died on the 27th of
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October 1899 .

End of Article: EDWARD LYON BERTHON (1813-1899)
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