Sydney George Brown
Sydney George Brown (1873-1948)
1948 Obituary [1]
"ANOTHER link with the early days of communication by telegraphy and radio was broken on Saturday, August 7th, when Mr. Sydney George Brown, F .R .S., M.I.E .E:, died, at the age of seventy-five, at his home, " Brownlancts," Sidmouth , after a long illness. An electrical engineer by profession, he was, perhaps, best known as an inventor and as the founder and one-time chairman of the Telegraph Condenser Company, Ltd., and of S. G. Brown, Ltd., Acton. By his originality, his flair for translating ideas into practice and his prolific output, he was substantially responsible for many of the advances of his day in communication by cable, line and radio.
Sydney George Brown, the eldest son of Sydney Brown, of Bournemouth, was born at Chicago on July 6, 1873. He was educated in England, first at Harrogate College and then at University College, London. At the outset of his career he was attracted to the problem of increasing the speed of signalling along submarine cables for economic working. He quickly achieved the first step towards a solution by developing a practical form of cable relay, and in 1899 he patented his drum cable relay. '"The effectiveness of this device was enhanced by a complementary development, the magnetic shunt, which helped to clarify the attenuated signals at the end of a long cable. Improved forms of relays were devised, the effect of stray earth currents on the terminal instruments was minimised and Brown's system for relaying signals over long submarine cable proved itself to be a practical proposition in the intensely competitive field of long-distance communication."