Charles Algernon Parsons

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (1854 to 1931) was an English mechanical engineer and inventor who designed the modern steam turbine in 1884. The youngest son of the astronomer William Parsons, third Earl of Rosse, he was educated at home in Ireland, read mathematics at Trinity College Dublin and Cambridge, and trained as an apprentice with W. G. Armstrong in Newcastle. At Clarke, Chapman and Company he developed a compound turbine that split the fall in steam pressure across many stages and used it to drive an electrical generator. In 1889 he founded C. A. Parsons and Company and later the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. His turbine-powered yacht Turbinia startled the 1897 fleet review at Spithead with a speed of 34 knots, and his turbines went on to power the destroyers Viper and Cobra, the passenger ship King Edward, the liners Victorian and Virginian and the battleship Dreadnought. He was knighted in 1911 and received the Copley Medal in 1928.