In the year 1831 Michael Faraday invented the electric dynamo an invention which proved to be the foundation stone of the electrical industry. It was left to the engineers to produce a practicable as distinct from a laboratory model, but progress was slow. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 the only effective
electrical exhibit was a child’s toy, although the
Jury of Experts set up by the Royal Commission was
“far from despairing” of the successful
application of electricity to mechanical motion. It was
in the thirty years after 1851 that engineers on the
continent and in the U.S.A. succeeded in building a
number of crude dynamos and it became apparent that the
production of electricity from mechanical power was a
workable proposition. There seems no doubt that during
this period William Mather, who had visited the
Exhibition as a boy, foresaw the possibility that the
exploitation of this invention could, with advantage, be
undertaken by his firm. At the
Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881, the first major
electrical exhibition, which attracted scientists from
all parts of the world, a number of dynamos were
exhibited. One in particular, the machine built by Thomas
A. Edison, stirred up great interest and was regarded by
many as the most advanced development of Faraday’s
invention. In the following year William Mather made an
arrangement with Edison to manufacture his dynamo in this
country. Salford
Iron Works was an ideal cradle for this new child
because, on account of the wide variety of high grade
engineering products that had been developed and
perfected there during many years, the mechanical
“know how” already existed. Furthermore, steam
engines suitable for driving dynamos were already in
production, and there was wide scope for the application
of electric motors to the many machines, which were
regularly being built there for the textile and other
industries. John Hopkinson, then thirty three years old,
who had interested himself in the technical aspects of
dynamos, was engaged to advise on the manufacture of
Edison’s machine, and the combination of his ability
to design and the ability of Mather & Platt to
manufacture a sound machine soon resulted in the
production of an improved dynamo, the Edison-Hopkinson
machine, so well known and respected in those pioneering
days. To support Hopkinson in his work, his brother
Edward was engaged to serve Mather & Platt as manager
of the new Electrical Department. When
the manufacture of electrical machinery began at Park
Works it was generally believed that the main use of
electricity would be for lighting, and at that time
William Siemens in fact, although prophesying
the sure victory of electricity, thought of it only
as” the light of luxury” and not as a source of
power. (1)
There
seems to be no doubt that Mather & Platt thought
otherwise, for although they built many of the early
dynamos for electric lighting duty, they were very early
makers of electric motors to supply power for the
industries for which they were already building machinery
and for other purposes where the new electric motor could
be applied with advantage. When a factory inspector wrote
in 1901 “In the age of steam this country led the
way, whereas in the age of electricity we seem to follow
America and other countries”, he was under
estimating the important pioneer work in the development
of electrical machinery that had already been performed
by Mather & Platt. Very
few dynamos were built by the firm to Edison’s
original design, which was not efficient. Hopkinson very
early introduced modifications which rendered possible a
marked improvement in the efficiency of converting
mechanical power to electric power. The outstanding
modification was an alteration to the shape and
proportions of the magnetic circuit, the change being
worked out experimentally by means of laboratory models
of different types of magnet systems, and these models
are preserved in the Science Museum at South Kensington.
The first working machine of the new design gave on test
more than double the output of the Edison machine of the
same weight (1). Edison’s original design
became obsolete and the improved Edison-Hopkinson machine
became a standard which was manufactured until the late
‘nineties. A radical departure from Edison's
arrangement of the magnet system was introduced in 1884
when the “Manchester” type machine was
introduced, and proved most satisfactory for the smaller
dynamos and motors. The “Manchester” type of
magnet system provided an important stepping stone to the
development of the later multi-polar magnet systems which
have remained in use up to the present time. The first
experimental multi-polar machine was constructed in 1890,
and there were great improvements in design in 1896. The
first dynamos built by Mather & Platt and other early
constructors produced direct current, and all early
electric light and power installations made use of this
form of electric energy. Alternating current, in which
form almost all electric energy is now generated and
distributed, was to come later, particularly after power
stations had begun to grow in size and engine speeds
continued to rise. By stepping into the electrical industry so early, Mather & Platt was able to recruit many large scale customers. The first order recorded for an Edison-Hopkinson machine was in June 1883, (2) and the model was characteristically despatched to an exhibition in November 1884 the first order for a “Manchester type” dynamo came from a sugar works in Moscow. (3) Other interesting orders of the early period came from the “Manchester Guardian" office; the old Theatre Royal in Manchester; the Manchester Corporation Electricity department; the City and South London Railway, the first electrical underground railway to be built; (4) and. the Royal Navy, for two motors for one of the earliest submarines. The Bessbrook
and Newry Tramway in 1884 provides an interesting example
of work of a pioneer nature. This was the first, albeit
small electric traction system in the world to be
operated entirely from water power, and it is interesting
to know that this tramway remained in use until 1948, the
original dynamos and motors remaining in service for the
64 years of this tramway’s life. One of the two
original tramcars supplied to this railway is now
preserved at Park Works. (5)
Another early
example of commercial enterprise, of a more diverting
nature, was the sale of dynamos to travelling showman
visiting country fairs. It was the practice, when this
line of business commenced in the early years of the
present century, to arrange for the purchaser to come to
the works to see the dynamo running on load and to make
payment at the same time. On one of those occasions
considerable amusement was caused when the purchaser, who
was a buxom woman, hoisted up her skirts when the account
was presented to her and produced about £70 in gold
sovereigns from a capacious pocket suspended from her
waist. Technical
development was closely associated with business
enterprise. In the year 1886 an experimental single-phase
alternator was constructed by Mather & Platt and
shortly afterwards single-phase alternators, built to the
designs of the Hopkinson brothers, were supplied to
provide energy for Lighting systems. In 1891 the
Frankfurt Electrical Exhibition demonstrated the use of
3-phase current for transmission and seven years later
the first 3-phase alternators were built by the firm
together with induction motors for power installations on
the alternating current system. An early installation
(1904) of this nature supplied by the firm was
appropriately enough for a cotton mill in Burnley and the
complete success of this early example of all-electric
drive in this industry placed Mather & Platt Ltd in
the forefront when later electrification schemes were
being considered at home and abroad. The
application of electric driving to mills was a slow
process. The Factory Inspectors reported the Burnley
pioneer experiment with interest, (1) and
although Mather & Platt were supplying electric
driving for mills in Spain, as late as 1918 reporters
noted that "electric power is very little used in
Lancashire for driving textile machinery”. (2) The
addition of alternators and induction motors to the
products of the Electrical Department of the Company
established a complete range of prototype machines and
subsequent developments were confined to steady evolution
of existing types. It was between 1906 and 1914 that
standard lines were evolved, particularly after the move
of the Electrical Department to Park Works in 1909,
During the same period there were economic changes in the
balance of production. Just as the firm ceased to produce
water purification machinery for large-scale municipal
contracts, so it also stopped producing on a large scale
for municipal electrical plant. The supply of electrical
machinery for industrial processes has always been the
logical field for the products of this Company’s
Electrical Department and, consequently, when other
manufacturers in this country entered the field to supply
electrical machinery Mather & Platt tended to confine
their energies to meeting the ever increasing demand for
machinery for factories whilst the new comers catered
more for the public supply and the tramway and railway
systems. From the
1890’s onwards the firm had specialised in the
provision of industrial electrical machinery. Certain
types of factories were particularly suited to
electrification because of the layout of the plant. For
example, in heavy chemical works, where the ground area
occupied is large in relation to the power requirements,
a demand for driving power occurs at a large number of
relatively widely separated points, and a common prime
mover with mechanical transmission of power is
impracticable. Before the advent of electric power, such
factories derived power from a multiplicity of small,
inefficient steam engines, but when electric power was
available a central generating station producing
electricity efficiently and feeding a large number of
small motors spread over the factory site simplified
production. Textile and similar factories where it was
possible to arrange mechanical drives from a single prime
mover were originally less responsive to proposals to
electrify. The mining
industry offered a steady outlet for the firm’s
electrical products. An early application of electricity
in mines was to the pumping of water for mine drainage by
motor driven centrifugal pumps. In addition to supplying
these, the firm was a pioneer also in producing machines
for electric coal cutting in collieries.
A second field
of enterprise in which the firm played an important part
was the Electro-chemical industry. William Mather was
himself directly interested in the Castner-Kellner Alkali
Company, which he helped to found in 1895 and of which he
was first chairman. This Company manufactured caustic
soda and chlorine electrolytically on the basis of
Castner’s inventions in the U.S.A. and Kellner's in
Vienna. For a time after
1905 Mather & Platt held manufacturing rights for the
Zoelly impulse type steam turbine, but after a year or
two the exploitation of turbo-generators was left to
other firms. After the introduction of geared turbines in
1910, Mather & Platt supplied many direct current
generators and alternators for them, and progress in this
department of the firm has been maintained. The
manufacture of the largest turbo alternators for direct
coupling to steam turbines has not been undertaken. The days before
1914 were the pioneer age of electrical development in
this country: after 1918 the “routine” phase of
development began, and electrical power was accepted as
an essential agent in industrial production. Although in
1918, after the end of the War, there were still many
complaints of Britain's late and slow start in the
large-scale manufacture of all types of electrical
equipment, except cables, (1) the way ahead
both technically and economically had been marked out in
the decade before 1914. At the Census of Production of
1907, electrical engineering accounted for 14% of the
whole national engineering output by value a product
already worth one fifth of the whole product of the
woollen and worsted mills. In 1913 total exports of
electrical machinery and goods, nearly half of them
cables, were almost as valuable as those of the whole of
the established textile machinery industry. A firm like
Mather & Platt was fortunate in being identified with
both old and new. During
the period after 1918, although the firm was producing
standard ranges of products, it did not emulate some of
its competitors by concentrating the whole of its effort
on the production of standardised machines designed to
meet the average needs of users. The mass
produced standardised electric motor can be an excellent
article, low in cost and suitable for meeting in a
usually efficient manner the ordinary requirements of
many industries. It cannot, however, be applied
satisfactorily to the individual drive of a wide variety
of machines employed by heavy industry. It is the practice of Mather
& Platt Ltd. to make a detailed study of the
requirements of the machinery that; for example, a motor
is required to drive, together with an investigation into
the environment of a plant as it may affect the operation
of the motor. A motor is then designed with electrical
and mechanical characteristics judged to be best suited
to the particular operating conditions, i.e. it is
“tailor made” to suit the job it has to do,
Concentration on such jobs has ensured continuity of
custom with close ties binding the firm and its client,
It has also resulted in the Company catering almost
exclusively for the heavier industries where working
conditions for machinery are onerous and where
reliability and continuity of operation are more
important to a customer than initial cost. Examples of
the industries regularly served with the products of the
Electrical Department are the heavy chemical industry,
the iron and steel industry, the mining industry, the
paper industry, the textile industry and the oil
industry. By largely restricting itself to these fields,
the firm has tended, in the development of its products
since 1918, to steer an individual course rather than to
follow prevailing fashion in the electrical engineering
industry. By so doing it has continued to act as a
pioneer in many fields.
For example, for
some time the company has concentrated on the production
of an induction motor specially designed for direct-on
starting. Machines of this character were devised by
Mather & Platt Ltd. soon after the first world war
for use with high-speed centrifugal pumps and successful
operation in this sphere resulted in the extension of the
direct-on-starting principle with the consequent
elimination of elaborate switchgear to many industrial
drives. By virtue of its simplicity and economy the
system is becoming exceedingly popular and machines now
available are suitable for practically all duties. One of these is closely related to the needs of the Mining and other industries in which explosive atmospheres might be encountered and where the increase in the use of electricity created a demand for large flameproof motors. During recent years considerable attention has been paid to the development of a complete range of flameproof motors to meet the needs of the colliery engineer and industrialists in situations where inflammable gases or explosive mixtures of dust and air are present. New technical improvements in manufacture are introduced to take advantage of the properties of new material placed on the market, an example being the growing use of glass fibre insulation's for motors and generators; and the application of a variable voltage grid controlled mercury-arc rectifier and direct-current motor to secure a wide range of speed on a motor when the supply of electricity is by alternating current. These improvements show the continuing trend of innovation in the electrical engineering industry, and the Electrical Department of Mather & Platt Ltd., continues to keep pace with the growth of the use of electric power itself. |
A History of Mather & Platt
Ltd.