In 1854 he introduced the pneumatic dispatch into London, and, in 1856,
he patented his well-known double-cup insulator. In 1858, he and Mr.
Bright produced the material known as 'Clark's Compound,' which is so
valuable for protecting submarine cables from rusting in the sea-water.
In 1859, Mr. Clark was appointed engineer to the Atlantic Telegraph
Company which tried to lay an Anglo-American cable in 1865. in
partnership with Sir C. T. Bright, who had taken part in the first
Atlantic cable expedition, Mr. Clark laid a cable for the Indian
Government in the Red Sea, in order to establish a telegraph to India.
In 1886, the partnership ceased; but, in 1869, Mr Clark went out to the
Persian Gulf to lay a second cable there. Here he was nearly lost in the
shipwreck of the Carnatic on the Island of Shadwan in the Red Sea.
Subsequently Mr. Clark became the head of a firm of consulting
electricians, well known under the title of Clark, Forde and Company,
and latterly including the late Mr. C. Hockin and Mr. Herbert Taylor.
The Mediterranean cable to India, the East Indian Archipelago cable
to Australia, the Brazilian Atlantic cables were all laid under the
supervision of this firm. Mr. Clark is now in partnership with Mr.
Stanfield, and is the joint-inventor of Clark and Stanfield's circular
floating dock. He is also head of the well-known firm of electrical
manufacturers, Messrs. Latimer Clark, Muirhead and Co., of Regency
Street, Westminster.
The foregoing sketch is but an imperfect outline of a very successful
life. `But enough has been given to show that we have here an engineer
of various and even brilliant gifts. Mr. Clark has applied himself in
divers directions, and never applied himself in vain. There is always
some practical result to show which will be useful to others. In
technical literature he published a description of the Conway and
Britannia Tubular Bridges as long ago as 1849. There is a valuable
communication of his in the Board of Trade Blue Rook on Submarine
Cables. In 1868, he issued a useful work on ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENTS,
and in 1871 joined with Mr. Robert Sabine in producing the well-known
ELECTRICAL TABLES AND FORMULAE, a work which was for a long time the
electrician's VADE-MECUM. In 1873, he communicated a lengthy paper on
the NEW STANDARD OF ELECTROMOTIVE POWER now known as CLARK'S STANDARD
CELL; and quite recently he published a treatise on the USE OF THE
TRANSIT INSTRUMENT.
Mr. Clark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, as well as a
member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Astronomical
Society, the Physical Society, etc., and was elected fourth President
of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians, now the
Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account