Thomas Parker (inventor)

Thomas Parker (1843-1915) was an inventor and businessman, born at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, where he started work in the Coalbrookdale Company foundry at the age of nine and a half and rose to be a chemist in its electroplating department. In 1882 he and Paul Elwell patented an improved lead-acid accumulator, and he left to set up in Wolverhampton the firm that became Elwell-Parker. Grace's Guide records that he was involved in the electric tramway at Portrush in Northern Ireland, the first powered by hydro-electricity, and that he developed his first electric car in 1884. In 1897 his initiative led to the Midland Electric Corporation, which distributed electricity across South Staffordshire. From 1899 he was consulting engineer to the Metropolitan Railway and supervised the design and construction of its first electric engine. In 1904 he invented Coalite, a smokeless fuel, and designed the retorts to make it. He died at Ironbridge on 5 December 1915.