Sidney George Brown

Sidney George Brown (1873-1948), electrical engineer and inventor,

1873 Born in Chicago, USA, on 6 July. He was the eldest son of English parents.

1879 The family returned to England and Brown was privately educated at a school in Parkstone, near Bournemouth, and subsequently educated at Harrogate College, Yorkshire, followed by University College, London.

1892-1897 He was a paying pupil at Crompton's electrical engineering works in Chelmsford. After completion, he was employed for a further six months by Cromptons. His father became ill so he had to return to the family business in Bournemouth.

1899 He continued to work at his electrical interests and patented the first of many inventions for improving telegraph cables. At about the same time he was assisting Sir Henry Hozier, secretary of Lloyds, to develop a radio telegraph system.

1906 He formed the Telegraph Condenser Co to manufacture and market his inventions.

1908 Brown married and his wife, Alice Mary Herbert Russell, took a keen interest in his work. In later years she was largely responsible for the administration and financial control of his companies.

1910/11 He formed a new company, S. G. Brown Ltd, to manufacture telephone equipment. With his wife's assistance, he designed a telephone relay, an improved receiver, and an effective loudspeaker (the Browns being first to use this name for the device). He had a small workshop in Houndsditch for the manufacture of the type 'A' reed headphone which became famous throughout the world.

1914 His businesses had expanded to employ over a thousand people. At the outbreak of war, there was no British manufacturer of gyro compasses, which had been imported from Germany. Brown set out to remedy the deficiency. During this work also devised a new method of damping the oscillation set up in a compass by a change in course called ‘liquid ballistic control’.

1916 Brown served as a member of the Admiralty's inventions board during the First World War. Already a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and a fellow of the Institute of Physics, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

1943 Brown retired and sold his interest in the Telegraph Condenser Co to a syndicate, and S. G. Brown Ltd to the Admiralty. In retirement, he devoted time mainly to cultivating orchids.

1948 He died at his home, Brownlands, Salcombe Regis, Sidmouth, Devon, on 7 August, survived by his wife.

See Also

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Sources of Information

• [1] Oxford DNB
• [2] C.D.V. and T. Website