Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British marine engineering company based at the Turbinia Works at Wallsend on the River Tyne in North East England. It was created by Charles Algernon Parsons to develop and build the steam turbine engines he had invented for ship propulsion, and its name stands for the moment steam turbines replaced reciprocating engines at sea. The first vessel driven by a Parsons turbine was Turbinia, launched in 1894, and the company's engines then powered the first turbine destroyers of the Royal Navy, HMS Viper and HMS Cobra, the battleship HMS Dreadnought, the Cunard liners Mauretania and Lusitania and the American battleship USS Arizona. Parsons also developed helical reduction gearing for marine turbines, first tried in the cargo ship Vespasian in 1908. English Wikipedia dates the founding to 1893 while Grace's Guide gives 1897, when it was formed to take over the assets and licences of the earlier Marine Steam Turbine Company. The company was acquired by Richardsons Westgarth and Company in 1956 and later absorbed into C. A. Parsons and Company and then Siemens Energy.