Inventions
Ferranti started inventing at a young age. From early childhood he was fascinated by machines, motors, engines and anything electrical.
At boarding school, age 10 on June 7th 1874, he wrote to his father
"I would like you to send me a model drawing of one of the engines we saw on Great North Western"
on June 24th he wrote
" let me ask you a great favour, that is to give me a little model of a steam fire engine working by steam. It would be the greatest favour; there is nothing I would like better that that"
In 1875 he wrote to his sister
"I have drawn four more engines since I came back....Will you please send me the paper after the one you sent me because it has so many nice pictures of engines in it"
and to his mother
"I want Wanda to send me that book of the engines that she bought me in Brompton"
and again
"I would be very glad to if papa could get me a small picture of a steam engine something like the one we saw at the Alexandra Palace"
His interest in engines was not merely the interest of a child, he was already beginning to think of how they were made and how they could be improved upon.
The next year 1876 he wrote to his sister
"Please ask Vincent if he can get me a book on 'Compound' steam illustrated so that I can see about the condenser because I want to see about it for a particular reason I have thought of. I also thought of it in 1874, 1875 the last Christmas Holidays....."
and to Wanda he wrote
" I have seen some very cheap engines to put together so i am going to get one and get a safety valve and an indicator of water and get them put on and then I can put them together at school"
In 1877 age 13, he heard that his father was considering having the house and photographic studio in Bold Street lit by electricity. Ferranti wrote to him with enthusiasm
"What a capital idea that is of lighting the house by electricity. About what sized engine would it take to do it? I hope very much that you will have it; not only for the engine, but for the beautifully pure white light it gives; and it seems to me that it must be a good deal cheaper, as the engine would not cost much to work, especially if it was made to go by coke and charcoal mixed, or it might have a self-feeding boiler and lamp, which, with a very little calculation, is very easy to be made and worked with safety with comparatively no looking after, except to oil the different parts"
and later in the same letter but on a different topic
" I have thought of another kind of stationary slide valve cylinder, which would take up much less room and yet have just as much power, for a ship"
He could not have been at a better school (St Augustine's in Ramsgate) for they had the intelligence not to press upon him the subjects for which he showed no inclination. He was fortunate to have the most excellent head master Abbot Egan.
Abbot Egan very early made a discovery that he had a genius to deal with.
Long after wards he wrote
" During the last two years of Sebastian de Ferranti's course, he spent all his indoor recreation in making electrical experiments and building up and testing batteries of his own construction. That he was an original genius soon became perceptible. It was no use trying to make him, during his spare time, follow the usual horary. He forced us to let him have full scope for his ingenuity, and we willing assigned him a room where all by himself he could work at the practical problems exercising his budding genius. Personally I was blamed for this departure form the school regulations, but all the same I felt I was right in making an exception in his case, and the result proved the wisdom of the step, for during those two years the small inventions and discoveries he made are too numerous to mention, and I can confidently add that this freedom from the ordinary routine, and the valuable use he made of his time, laid the foundations of his brilliant success as one of the mist eminent electricians of the century"
Abbot Egan gave a description of him among his schoolmates
"The little boys would crowd round him if, as sometimes happened, he brought one of his wonderful little eletrical contrivances into the playroom and showed them the sparks it emitted or the bells it set ringing when the wires were attached to them. His extraordinary clear and simple explanation of these marvels quite captivated them, and they would listen sometimes with mouths open for over half and hour to his stories of what electricity could do and would do in the future if ihs own theories ever materialised. The arrival of Basti" as they affectionately called him, in the playground after supper was always hailed with delight"
In his letters home he describes many other electrical devices, either constructed or in process of construction. But the idea which most fascinated him during the later years at school was the magnetic machine he was constructing.
The origin of the famous Ferranti alternator patented in 1882 is to be found in an invention on which Ferranti was busy when he was fourteen.
On November 17 1887 he wrote to his father
"I have thought of a magnetic machine so simple that if it worked it would, I am sure carry all other ones before it. The reason of its being good in my opinion, is that it does away with a great deal of friction by not having cranks, connecting-rods, pistons and piston rods, all of which often want repairing and take up space, and are of great weight. If I go to London in the Christmas holidays I shall get the casting made for this machine which will cost me very little. I have made a drawing of it, and will send it to you with an explanation as soon as possible"
At boarding school, age 10 on June 7th 1874, he wrote to his father
"I would like you to send me a model drawing of one of the engines we saw on Great North Western"
on June 24th he wrote
" let me ask you a great favour, that is to give me a little model of a steam fire engine working by steam. It would be the greatest favour; there is nothing I would like better that that"
In 1875 he wrote to his sister
"I have drawn four more engines since I came back....Will you please send me the paper after the one you sent me because it has so many nice pictures of engines in it"
and to his mother
"I want Wanda to send me that book of the engines that she bought me in Brompton"
and again
"I would be very glad to if papa could get me a small picture of a steam engine something like the one we saw at the Alexandra Palace"
His interest in engines was not merely the interest of a child, he was already beginning to think of how they were made and how they could be improved upon.
The next year 1876 he wrote to his sister
"Please ask Vincent if he can get me a book on 'Compound' steam illustrated so that I can see about the condenser because I want to see about it for a particular reason I have thought of. I also thought of it in 1874, 1875 the last Christmas Holidays....."
and to Wanda he wrote
" I have seen some very cheap engines to put together so i am going to get one and get a safety valve and an indicator of water and get them put on and then I can put them together at school"
In 1877 age 13, he heard that his father was considering having the house and photographic studio in Bold Street lit by electricity. Ferranti wrote to him with enthusiasm
"What a capital idea that is of lighting the house by electricity. About what sized engine would it take to do it? I hope very much that you will have it; not only for the engine, but for the beautifully pure white light it gives; and it seems to me that it must be a good deal cheaper, as the engine would not cost much to work, especially if it was made to go by coke and charcoal mixed, or it might have a self-feeding boiler and lamp, which, with a very little calculation, is very easy to be made and worked with safety with comparatively no looking after, except to oil the different parts"
and later in the same letter but on a different topic
" I have thought of another kind of stationary slide valve cylinder, which would take up much less room and yet have just as much power, for a ship"
He could not have been at a better school (St Augustine's in Ramsgate) for they had the intelligence not to press upon him the subjects for which he showed no inclination. He was fortunate to have the most excellent head master Abbot Egan.
Abbot Egan very early made a discovery that he had a genius to deal with.
Long after wards he wrote
" During the last two years of Sebastian de Ferranti's course, he spent all his indoor recreation in making electrical experiments and building up and testing batteries of his own construction. That he was an original genius soon became perceptible. It was no use trying to make him, during his spare time, follow the usual horary. He forced us to let him have full scope for his ingenuity, and we willing assigned him a room where all by himself he could work at the practical problems exercising his budding genius. Personally I was blamed for this departure form the school regulations, but all the same I felt I was right in making an exception in his case, and the result proved the wisdom of the step, for during those two years the small inventions and discoveries he made are too numerous to mention, and I can confidently add that this freedom from the ordinary routine, and the valuable use he made of his time, laid the foundations of his brilliant success as one of the mist eminent electricians of the century"
Abbot Egan gave a description of him among his schoolmates
"The little boys would crowd round him if, as sometimes happened, he brought one of his wonderful little eletrical contrivances into the playroom and showed them the sparks it emitted or the bells it set ringing when the wires were attached to them. His extraordinary clear and simple explanation of these marvels quite captivated them, and they would listen sometimes with mouths open for over half and hour to his stories of what electricity could do and would do in the future if ihs own theories ever materialised. The arrival of Basti" as they affectionately called him, in the playground after supper was always hailed with delight"
In his letters home he describes many other electrical devices, either constructed or in process of construction. But the idea which most fascinated him during the later years at school was the magnetic machine he was constructing.
The origin of the famous Ferranti alternator patented in 1882 is to be found in an invention on which Ferranti was busy when he was fourteen.
On November 17 1887 he wrote to his father
"I have thought of a magnetic machine so simple that if it worked it would, I am sure carry all other ones before it. The reason of its being good in my opinion, is that it does away with a great deal of friction by not having cranks, connecting-rods, pistons and piston rods, all of which often want repairing and take up space, and are of great weight. If I go to London in the Christmas holidays I shall get the casting made for this machine which will cost me very little. I have made a drawing of it, and will send it to you with an explanation as soon as possible"