The Chadburn
Such is the market saturation or pre-eminence of a company’s product that its brand often becomes a portmanteau word to describe the device irrespective of its actual manufacturer. The description of a vacuum cleaner as a Hoover is a case in point and another example is a ship’s Engine Order Telegraph (EOT), often referred to as a Chadburn.
The EOT was the brainwave of an engineer, medical doctor and serial inventor, Charles Page, in the 1850s. It was a device that facilitated communication between the bridge of a ship and the engine room, comprising of a dial of various “ahead” and “astern” commands with a lever atop a pedestal made of a metal or alloy, usually brass. There would be one in the bridge and another in the engine room.
A black arrow at the centre of the dial shows what the other sration’s telegraph handle is set at. When the pilot calls an order, the black arrow on the EOT in the engine room moves to that position and a bell rings to signify that an order has been given. The crew in the engine room respond to the command by moving their handle to match the arrow which, in turn, causes the arrow on the bridge to match the handle’s position, thereby acknowledging the command.
Chadburn Brothers of Liverpool were producers of optics, marine instruments, and scientific gauges, even describing themselves as “opticians etc to HRH Prince Albert”. In 1870 William Chadburn submitted an application for a patent on a communication device to be used as a means of transferring navigational signals from the bridge to the engine room.
By 1875, Chadburn & Son were producing their brass EOTs. With a range of commands such as Full Ahead, Half Ahead, Slow Ahead, Dead Slow Ahead ,Stop, Dead slow astern, Slow Astern, Half Astern and Full Astern on a dial, it was operated by moving the lever in the required direction, which rang the telegraph bell in both the bridge and the engine room.
As luck would have it William lived two doors away from Thomas Ismay, founder of the prestigious White Star Line. Their friendship developed into a business relationship and soon Chadburn was producing instruments for the line including the EOTs and steam whistles on the ill-fated RMS Titanic. Chadburn advertised themselves as manufacturers of telegraphs used in vessels of various navies and mercantile marines with over 3,000 using a Chadburn & Son telegraph by 1884.
Nowadays, on most modern vessels with direct combustion engines or electric propulsors, the main control handle on the bridge acts as a direct throttle with no intervening engine room personnel.
As for Page, in a groundbreaking experiment he demonstrated the presence of electricity in an arrangement of a spiral conductor, advocating its use for medical treatment, an early form of electrotherapy. By heightening the electrical tension or voltage, he produced what he called the Dynamic Multiplier.
Page’s experiments led to the invention of the induction coil, an important step in the development of the telephone, and he invented many other electromagnetic devices. He went on to contribute to the adoption of suspended wires using a ground return, designed a signal receiver magnet and tested a magneto as a source of substitute for the battery and even invented an electromagnetic locomotive.
The plaudits for the EOT, though, went to the Chadburns.
