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| Robert Whitehead |
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| Source: Various (please see
Site Credits) |
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| Robert Whitehead
was born in Little Bolton in 1823 and came from a family of
engineers. Maintaining the tradition he served a long apprenticeship
with a well respected engineering company, Omerods of Manchester,
and left in 1840 to seek his fortune abroad. In Victorian times
British Engineers were at a premium. In 1891 Robert Whitehead
opened his torpedo factory at Ferrybridge by Portland Harbour,
the first torpedo factory in Britain. |
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| Robert Whitehead |
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| He managed to make
a good living, working initially in a shipyard in Toulon and
setting up as a consultant engineer in Milan. He was, however,
forever trying to avoid the numerous European wars and, as a
result of boundary changes, lost many of his important patents.
He moved on to Trieste on the Adriatic coast, again working
for a shipyard where he was credited with producing the first
screw propeller and cylindrical marine boiler to be built in
Austria. |
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| Whitehead factory at Fiume |
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In 1864 he decided
to accept the job as manager of a major engineering company
based in Fiume near Trieste. The company undertook work for
the Austrian Navy. Whitehead who had an excellent reputation
by now was approached by an Austrian Navy Captain, Giovanni
de Luppis and asked to enter into a partnership to build an
unmanned, self-propelled surface boat packed with explosives
which could be directed at blockading warships. Referred to
as the 'Der Kustenbrander' (Coastal Fire Ship), it had been
turned down by the Austrian Navy on the basis it needed further
development. Whitehead tried for several months to assist Luppis
with his invention but between them they failed to perfect a
viable weapon. |
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The
Sound of Music
Robert
Whitehead's son James became Ambassador to the Austrian
Empire and one of James' daughters, Francis, was asked
to christen an Austrian submarine. She met, fell in
love with and married the submarine commander, Captain
Von Trapp, and they had nine children. When Francis
died the Captain was left with the children and he engaged
a novice nun , Maria Augusta Kutschera, to look after
them and eventually married her. The true story of their
escape from the Nazis and their singing career is told
in the musical "The Sound of Music" with Julie Andrews.
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| The partnership ended,
but the project left Whitehead with the gem of an idea. He reasoned
that a weapon, like the one they had tried to develop, would
be at its most effective if it detonated below the waterline,
better still if it could travel beneath the surface throughout
the attack. Remembering his 'lost' patents, Robert with only
his son John to assist him, spent months in secret trying to
perfect his own idea. His invention when it appeared, and later
perfected, has since been described as the work of a genius.
Many of the basic component parts used in his early prototypes
were still in use over seventy years later in the Second World
War and the overall form of the Torpedo has been retained to
the present day. Indeed it was a Whitehead Mark VIII torpedo
that sank the Argentine cruiser, Belgrano during the Falklands
conflict in 1982. |
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