Peter Norman Nissen
Colonel Peter Norman Nissen DSO, inventor of the "Nissen" hut and steel house.
presumably connected with Nissen Steelwork
1871 born in the USA, son of Georg Nissen, a mining engineer.
1896 Attended mining school at Queens University, Kingston.
1896 His first patent was about the "soles of boots and shoes"
1910 Moved to England with his wife (Louisa) and his daughter (Betty) as this was the centre of mining engineering.
1910 Entered an indenture with Head, Wrightson and Co. He spent the next few years demonstrating the superior performance of the Nissen Stamp invented by his father
1914 Returned to England where he was at first turned down by the army.
1915 Became a temporary lieutenant in the 12th Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. Whilst supervising the shifting of some timber, a passing Royal Engineer remarked that he must be an engineer and organised for him to join the 103rd Field Company Royal Engineers.
The need to provide portable hutting for the troops in muddy France was acute. By April of 1916 Peter Nissen had designed his prototype Nissen Hut, made from corrugated iron; by September large numbers were being produced.
Major Nissen was joined by a draftsman corporal by name of Donger. Together they produced the working drawings and instructions as to how to put up the hut and how to pack it into a standard Army truck with a capacity of three tons (the hut weighed 2 tons).
1916 Filed a patent on "Improvements in and relating to Portable Buildings."
1917 they discovered that the troops occupying the Nissen huts ripped out the matchboard linings to fuel the stove. This prompted a redesign and Nissen had the idea of using corrugated iron as a liner but this time with the corrugations going parallel to the ground. The difficulty was joining these sheets together - that was achieved using a patent slide that joined the sheets and enabled the inner corrugated lining to be pushed up and over the inside of the hut.
In all 100,000 huts were constructed, and 10,000 hospital versions were made to house 240,000 beds. The normal time to erect a hut with 6 men was 4 hours and the record was 1 hour 27 mins.
For the design of the Nissen Hut, Peter Nissen was given the DSO and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.
Post-WWI: As a serving soldier, Nissen got nothing for his invention but he was allowed to patent his hut. His patent agent, Chamberlain, managed to get Nissen £10,000 free of tax after the British government sold off its surplus huts.
Nissen tried to commercialise his hut idea after the war
1921 he purchased a house in Westerham in Kent where he lived until his death. He was naturalized that year as a British subject.
1923 His wife, Louisa, died in July.
Worked on use of steel for house construction and the application of engineering methods to cottage building, with a view to reducing costs and increasing the production rate.
1924 Peter Nissen married Lauretta Maitland. They had two children.
1925 A pair of steel-framed cottages designed by Colonel Nissen were opened for public exhibition at Yeovil. The architects were Messrs. Petter and Warren, of Yeovil.
1928 With Nissen Buildings Ltd, he patented "Improvements in and relating to roofs for portable buildings"
Gained several other patents.
1930 He died of pneumonia at the age of 58.