Dugald Clerk
Sir Dugald Clerk (1854 – 1932) was a Scottish engineer who designed the first two-stroke engine in 1878 and patented it in England in 1881.
Clerk's name is also rendered as Clark in some sources e.g. the University of Glasgow where his papers are archived.
He was a member of the Royal Society and winner of the RSA Albert Medal in 1922 under Clerk and the international intellectual property firm he formed with George Marks is Marks & Clerk. The Encyclopedia Britannica lists him under Clerk. Sir Dugald had no children but his nieces, nephews and their descendants have always used Clerk.
The Clerk cycle engine uses a similar valve arrangement to the four stroke cycle diesel engine, with both exhaust and inlet valves in the cylinder head and operated by a camshaft. At the end of the power stroke, both exhaust and inlet valves open, and the cylinder is filled with fresh air supplied by a supercharger, which replaces or scavenges the exhaust gas. As no fuel or lubricant has been added to this inlet air, some loss through the exhaust manifold is not serious. The inlet gas is then compressed in a compression stroke, and the fuel injected approaching top dead centre and ignited as in a four stroke diesel engine.
1886 Joined Tangyes where he worked on improving James Robson's gas engine, in which an ignition is obtained for every revolution. Unlike the Otto and other engines, the cylinder is closed at both ends, and all the operations are fulfilled in one cylinder. [1]
The Clerk cycle was used in large engines powering railway locomotives and ships, and was adopted by General Motors in the United States to form the Detroit Diesel Company.
The Clerk cycle was not adapted to gasoline fuel, nor to smaller engines. The gasoline two stroke cycle, and the concept of cylinder ports replacing head valves, were both later invented by Joseph Day. Day's inventions were subsequently adapted for two-stroke diesels, and modern two-stroke diesels of all sizes either incorporate elements of both designs, with cylinder port inlets and cylinder head exhaust valves, or use cylinder ports for both inlet and exhaust.
Principal Career Events
1871 Studied at Anderson's University and the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds
Saw a Lenoir gas engine at work in a joiner's shop in Glasgow which influenced him to take great interest in the internal combustion engine for the rest of his life.
1876 Returned to Glasgow; for a short time as assistant to E. J. Mills, the Youngs professor of technical chemistry at Anderson's University
1877 Joined Thomson, Sterne and Co, Glasgow
1883 Married Margaret Hanney (d.1930), elder daughter of Alexander Hanney, of Helensburgh.
1886 Moved to Messrs Tangyes, of Birmingham[2]
1888 Started practice as consulting engineer in Birmingham. Joined his friend George Croydon Marks in partnership as consulting engineers and patent agents; this partnership lasted for the rest of his life.
From 1892 to 1899 he was engineering director of Messrs Kynoch, of Birmingham, for whom he designed machinery for the manufacture of ammunition
From 1902 he was a director of the National Gas Engine Co, of Ashton under Lyne.
He was frequently a judge at the reliability trials which were fashionable in the early days of the motor car.
1908 Fellow of the Royal Society
WWI Director of engineering research at the Admiralty (1916–17). Also chairman of the water power resources committee of the conjoint board of scientific societies (1917) and a member of the water power resources committee appointed by the Board of Trade in 1918.
1929 Chairman of National Gas Engine Co
1932/33 Obituary [3]
Sir Dugald Clerk was born at Glasgow in 1854 and served his apprenticeship with the firm of H. O. Robinson and Co. He then spent some four years in the study of physics and chemistry, and in 1877, on taking up a position with Thomson, Sterne and Co of Glasgow, commenced the experiments on gas engines, with which his name was subsequently identified.
He commenced in business as a consultant in 1888 and afterwards became a Technical Director of G. Kynoch and Co and of the National Gas Engine Co.
During the War he was Director of Engineering Research at the Admiralty, a Member of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and Chairman of the Internal Combustion Engine Committee at the Air Ministry.
For his war services he was awarded a Knighthood of the British Empire. He was elected an F.R.S. in 1908 and honorary degrees were conferred on him by the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow and St. Andrews.
He was the author of a standard work on gas, petrol and oil engines and of many scientific papers, and was a contributor to the "Encyclopdia Britannica." He died on 12th November, 1932, at the age of 78.
He was President of the Institution of Automobile Engineers during the Session 1908-9 and elected an Honorary Member in 1928.
1932 Obituary [4]
Sir DUGALD CLERK, K.B.E., was one of the pioneers in the development of the internal-combustion engine and achieved world-wide fame through his discoveries and inventions in connexion with it.
He built his first gas-engine at his father's works in 1876. In this engine an explosion compressed air into a reservoir and caused a partial vacuum in the explosion chamber and the vessel connected with it. At this period he had been engaged in academic work.
He was born in Glasgow in 1854 and first trained in his father's works, which he entered in 1868, and later as a pupil with Messrs. H. O. Robinson and Company of Glasgow. He then studied chemistry and physics at the Andersonian College, Glasgow, and Yorkshire College, Leeds, and was later appointed assistant lecturer under Professor T. E. Thorpe at the latter college. Subsequently he returned to Glasgow and was appointed assistant to Dr. J. E. Mills.
While engaged on the experimental work of his first engine, however, he joined Messrs. Thomson, Sterne and Company, and during the ensuing twelve years was able to devote the whole of his time to research on the internal-combustion engine.
In 1886 he joined Messrs. Tangyes at Birmingham, where he continued this work, but two years later he commenced to practise as a consulting engineer in partnership with Sir G. Croydon Marks, M.I.Mech.E. (now Lord Marks). During the ensuing years Sir Dugald Clerk held a number of important appointments, which included those of scientific director of Messrs. Kynoch of Birmingham and of consulting engineer to the Patent Shaft and Axletree Company of Wednesbury.
In 1902 he became a director of the National Gas Engine Company of Ashton-under-Lyne and took an active part in the design of the engines which this firm produced.
From 1916 to 1918 he was director of engineering research to the Admiralty, and he served also on a number of other advisory committees during the War. For this service Sir Dugald was created a K.B.E. in 1917.
Amongst his many activities he displayed a great interest in the development of the motor vehicle, and he was a member of the technical committee of the Royal Automobile Club.
In 1915 he delivered the Thomas Hawksley Lecture before the Institution on "The World's Supplies of Fuel and Motive Power."
He first became a Member of the Institution in 1908 and served on the Council from 1911 to 1917, and he was a Vice-President from 1917 to 1919. He was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and was elected President for the present year, but ill-health prevented him from taking office. In 1908 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and later became a Member of Council of that body.
He died on 12th November 1932. Under the terms of his Will a Bequest of £1,000 was left to the Institution.
1933 Obituary [5]
Sir DUGALD CLERK, K.B.E., F.R.S., whose contributions to the scientific study and practical development of the internal combustion engine placed him in the rank of great engineering pioneers, died at Ewhurst, Surrey, on the 13th November, 1932, in his seventy-ninth year.
He was the son of Mr. Donald Clerk, and was born at Glasgow on the 31st March, 1854. After serving as an engineering apprentice from 1868 to 1871, in the works of his father and of Messrs. H. O. Robinson and Co., Glasgow, he devoted the next five years entirely to the study of chemistry and physics, which he pursued at the Anderson College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds, where he was an assistant to Professor J. E. Thorpe. He then returned to GIasgow, and was for a time senior assistant to Dr. E. J. Mills, Young Professor of Technical Chemistry at the Royal Technical College.
At that time (1876) the development of the internal-combustion engine, through the work of Lenoir, Beau de Rochas, and Otto and Langen, had reached the stage of the production of Otto's silent engine, and Clerk's attention was drawn to this form of prime mover by a 3-HP. Otto-Langen engine at work in a joiner's shop in Glasgow. As a result he designed an improved engine of the air pressure vacuum type, with which he experimented ; and in 1877 he joined the firm of Thomson, Sterne and Co., of Glasgow, where he continued until 1885 to invent, design, construct, and test gas engines.
In 1878 he built a true compression engine developing 3 B.HP. at about 200 revolutions per minute, which was exhibited at the Royal Agricultural Society's show in July, 1879.
In 1881 he produced an engine in which the two-stroke cycle (Clerk cycle) was adopted, and engines of that type were produced in considerable numbers until 1890, when the lapse of the Otto patent caused extensive adoption of the Otto cycle, and the Clerk cycle suffered a temporary eclipse until the increase in the power of internal-combustion engines rendered it necessary to adopt a type involving less bulk for a given power.
From 1886 to 1888 he was engaged on this work with Messrs. Tangyes, Birmingham. In the latter year he joined his personal friend Mr. G. Croydon Marks (now Lord Marks), Assoc. M. Inst. C.E., in his practice as a consulting engineer and international patent agent, and this partnership continued until Sir Dugald's death.
From 1892 to 1899 he was Engineering Director of Kynoch’s, Ltd., Birmingham, and designed new works and machinery for the production of ammunition ; and from 1902 he was a director of the National Gas Engine Company. Throughout his life he continued his researches on the internal-combustion engine and its thermodynamical problems, as well as on the application of gas as fuel and for heating and lighting.
He made many contributions to the literature of those subjects and wrote a standard text-book on the internal-combustion engine. His earliest Paper to The Institution, "The Theory of the Gas Engine," was presented in April, 1882. It was discussed by many eminent engineers and scientists, and was awarded a Watt Medal and a Telford Premium.
It was followed by Papers "On the Explosion of Homogeneous Gaseous Mixtures" (1886), "Recent Developments in Gas Engines" (1896), and "On the Limits of Thermal Efficiency in Internal- Combustion Motors" (1907). For this last Paper he was again awarded a Telford medal.
In 1928 he contributed a fifth Paper on "Standards of Thermal Efficiency for Internal-Combustion Motors." He delivered two James Forrest Lectures before The Institution, one in 1904 on "Internal-Combustion Motors" and one in 1920 on "Coal Conservation in the United Kingdom."
He was a member of the Institution Committee on Standards of Efficiency of Internal-Combustion Engines, and was Joint Secretary of the British Association Committee on Gaseous Explosions.
During the war he was Director of Engineering Research at the Admiralty, a member of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at the Air Ministry, Chairman of the Internal-Combustion Engine Sub-Committee of that body, and a member of the Ministry of Munitions Inventions Committee. He was also a member of the Water-Power Resources Committee appointed by the Board of Trade in 1918, Chairman of the Water-Power Committee of the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies appointed in 1917, and a member of the University Grants Committee.
For his services to the nation during the war he was created K.B.E. in 1917. In 1908 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, from which he received in 1924 the Royal Medal.
The Honorary Degree of D.Sc. was conferred upon him by the Universities of Manchester and Leeds, that of LL.D., by Glasgow and St. Andrews, and that of D.Eng., by Liverpool University. He was President of the Junior Institution of Engineers in 1905, of the Engineering Section of the British Association in 1908, of the Institution of Gas Engineers in 1920, and of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1908-9 ; and Vice-President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1917-19. In 1915-17 he was Chairman of the Council, and in 1923 he became a Vice-President, of the Royal Society of Arts, which awarded him in 1922 the Albert Medal for his work in connection with the development of the internal-combustion engine.
In 1906 he delivered before the society a course of Cantor lectures on that subject, and in 1917 the first Trueman Wood lecture on Discovery and Invention. He was Chairman of the Delegacy of the City and Guilds (Engineering) College from 1918 to 1920, and a member of the Court of the Goldsmiths Company, of which he was Prime Warden in 1926-7. His election in 1913 to the Athenaeum Club took place under the rule which empowers the Committee to elect annually a number of distinguished men; and he was a member also of the Reform and other clubs.
Sir Dugald Clerk was elected into The Institution as an Associate Member on the 8th January, 1889, and was transferred to the class of Members on the 12th December, 1899. In 1913 he became a Member of Council, and in 1928 a Vice-President, and he was elected President for the year 1932-33 at the Annual General Meeting in May, 1932. In the following September, however, he intimated to the Council that the state of his health would not permit of his taking office, and, as already stated, he died on the 12th November.
He bequeathed to The Institution a legacy of £3,000 and a share (about one-tenth) of his residuary estate.
He married, in 1883, Margaret, daughter of Mr. Alexander Hannay, of Helensburgh; she died in 1930.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Leeds Mercury, 27 May 1887
- ↑ Application for membership of I Mech E
- ↑ 1932/33 Institution of Automobile Engineers: Obituaries
- ↑ 1932 Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Obituaries
- ↑ 1933 Institution of Civil Engineers: Obituaries
- [1] Wikipedia
- Biography of Sir Dugald Clerk, ODNB