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Charles Algernon Parsons

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Charles Algernon Parsons

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons OM KCB FRS (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was a British engineer with Irish ancestry, best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence on the naval and electrical engineering fields. He also developed optical equipment, for searchlights and telescopes.

Born in London, Parsons was the youngest son of the famous astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. He and his elder brother the Hon. Richard Clare Parsons had constructed a steam car that in 1869 was the cause of the first recorded fatal traffic accident involved a powered car. His cousin Mary Ward fell from the car and suffered a broken neck.

He attended Trinity College, Dublin and St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating from the latter in 1877 with a first-class honours degree in mathematics. He then joined the Newcastle-based engineering firm of W.G. Armstrong as an apprentice, an unusual step for the son of an earl; then moved to Kitsons in Yorkshire where he worked on rocket-powered torpedoes; and then in 1884 moved to Clarke, Chapman and Co., ship engine manufacturers near Newcastle, where he was head of their electrical equipment development. He developed a turbine engine there in 1884 and immediately utilized 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 – the world would never be the same again.

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