Francis Ronalds facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir Francis Ronalds FRS
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Portrait of Sir Francis Ronalds painted in 1867
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| Born | 21 February 1788 City of London, England
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| Died | 8 August 1873 (aged 85) Battle, East Sussex, England
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, electrical engineering, applied mechanics, meteorology, photography, archaeology |
Sir Francis Ronalds (born February 21, 1788 – died August 8, 1873) was an English scientist and inventor. Many consider him the first electrical engineer. He was given the title "Sir" (knighted) because he created the first working electric telegraph that could send messages over a long distance. In 1816, he set up an eight-mile long iron wire in his mother's garden. He sent electrical pulses using special machines called electrostatic generators.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Francis Ronalds was born in London. His parents, Francis Ronalds and Jane Field, were wholesale cheesemongers. He went to school and then started working for his father's business at age 14. He managed the large business for many years. His family lived in several places around London, including Islington and Hammersmith.
Francis had eleven brothers and sisters. Some of them also did interesting things. His youngest brother, Alfred Ronalds, wrote a famous book about fly-fishing. His brother Hugh helped start the city of Albion, Illinois in the United States. His sister Emily Ronalds was interested in social reform, which means working to make society better.
Early Electrical Inventions
Ronalds started doing electrical experiments around 1810. He studied atmospheric electricity, which is about electricity in the air. In 1814, he published his first papers about a type of battery called the dry pile. The next year, he invented the first electric clock.
He also created an electrograph. This machine could record changes in electricity in the air throughout the day. He also made an influence machine that could create electricity with little effort. Ronalds also found new ways to insulate electrical wires. He collected many books about electricity, which became the famous Ronalds Library. He even managed his collection using one of the first card catalogues.
Ronalds also helped explain important electrical ideas. He described what we now call electromotive force and current. He also explained how dry piles made electricity. He was the first to describe how induction could slow down electrical signals in insulated cables.
The Electric Telegraph
Ronalds is most famous for the electric telegraph he built when he was 28. He showed that electrical signals could travel long distances. He did this by stringing eight miles of iron wire on insulators in his mother's garden in Hammersmith. He found that the signal traveled incredibly fast from one end to the other.
He imagined a future where electricity would connect people. He wrote that electricity could be used for more than just science. He believed it could travel "many hundred miles beneath our feet." He thought it could bring "much public and private benefit." He asked, "why... add to 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 famously said, "give me materiel enough, and I will electrify the world."
Ronalds built a working telegraph system in and under his mother's garden. However, his idea was rejected on August 5, 1816, by Sir John Barrow, who worked for the British Admiralty. Barrow said it was "wholly unnecessary." The telegraph only became widely used in the UK about 20 years later. This was thanks to William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, who knew about Ronalds' earlier work.
Travels in Europe
From 1818 to 1820, Ronalds went on a "Grand Tour" through Europe and the Near East. He traveled alone but met many interesting people. These included an archaeologist named Giovanni Battista Belzoni and an artist named Giovanni Battista Lusieri. Ronalds kept a travel journal and made many sketches. When he returned, he wrote about his observations of electricity in the air. He made these observations in Palermo, Sicily, and near the erupting volcano Vesuvius.
Mechanical Inventions
After his travels, Ronalds focused on designing machines and tools. He created two surveying tools to help make maps. One was a changed surveyor's wheel that recorded distances in a drawing. The other was a double-reflecting sector for drawing the angles between distant objects. He also invented an early version of a fire finder. This machine, patented in 1915, could pinpoint the location of a fire. He also made various tools for the lathe, a machine used for shaping materials.
Drawing Machines and Tripod
On March 23, 1825, Ronalds patented two drawing instruments. These machines helped create perspective sketches. Many drawings and prints that he made using these machines still exist. The first machine could create a perspective view of an object directly from its flat drawings.
The second machine allowed someone to trace a scene or person from real life onto paper very accurately. Ronalds and Dr. Alexander Blair used it to draw important ancient monuments in Carnac, France. They said their drawings were "almost photographic accuracy." Ronalds also invented the common portable tripod stand. This stand has three hinged legs and is used to hold a drawing board in the field. He made and sold hundreds of these instruments himself.
In 1840, he used his knowledge of perspective to create more complex tools. These helped accurately draw cylindrical panoramas, which were popular exhibits at the time.
Kew Observatory Work
In 1842, Ronalds helped set up the Kew Observatory for the British Science Association. He was the Honorary Director of the observatory until 1853. Because of his excellent work, Kew Observatory became one of the most important places in the world for studying weather and Earth's magnetism. This happened even though George Biddell Airy, the Director of the Greenwich Observatory, tried to stop the work at Kew.
First Continuous Camera
Ronalds' most important invention at Kew, in 1845, was the first successful camera that could make continuous recordings. This camera could record scientific instruments 24 hours a day. The British Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, gave him money as a reward. This was because his invention was so important for science.
He used his camera technique in several ways. He made electrographs to watch electricity in the air. He made barographs and thermo-hygrographs to monitor the weather. He also made magnetographs to record the three parts of Earth's magnetic force. These magnetographs were used by Edward Sabine for his worldwide study of Earth's magnetism. The barograph and thermo-hygrograph were used by the new Met Office to help with its first weather forecasts. Ronalds also oversaw the making of his instruments for other observatories around the world. Some of these instruments were still used until the late 1900s.
Weather Instruments and Observations
At Kew, Ronalds also created other instruments. These included an improved hygrometer to measure humidity, which was used for many years. He also made an early meteorological kite and a storm clock. The storm clock was used to watch fast changes in weather during extreme events.
To study electricity in the air, Ronalds built a complex system. It had many electrometers. This equipment was later made and sold by instrument makers in London. Ronalds also tried to use his equipment to study geomagnetically induced current. This is an electrical current that can appear on telegraph lines during solar storms. However, he did not have enough resources to finish this work.
Later Life and Legacy
From 1853 to 1862, Ronalds traveled to northern Italy, Switzerland, and France. He helped other observatories build and install his weather instruments. He also continued collecting books for his library. During this time, he also had ideas for electric lighting and a special combined rudder and propeller for ships.
He died in Battle, East Sussex, near Hastings, at the age of 85. He is buried in the cemetery there. Ronalds left his library to the Society of Telegraph Engineers. This group later became the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Ronalds was a very modest person and did not promote his work much during his life. However, in his later years, his important achievements became well known in the science world. His friends Josiah Latimer Clark and Edward Sabine helped share his work. He was knighted at age 82. His colleagues at the Society of Telegraph Engineers called him "the father of electric telegraphy." His continuous recording camera was noted as "of extreme importance to meteorologists and physicists." It was used in "all first-rate observatories." A road in Highbury and Ronalds Point in Antarctica are named after him.
