William Du Bois Duddell
William Du Bois Duddell (1872-1917), electrical engineer
1872 Born on 1 July at 23 Westmoreland Place, Kensington, London, the son Frances Kate Du Bois.
1881 his mother married George Duddell (d. 1887), a landowning gentleman of Queen's Park, Brighton.
Showed early mechanical aptitude
From 1890 to 1893 apprenticed to Davey, Paxman and Co of Colchester.
Studied at the Central Technical College (later the City and Guilds College), South Kensington; obtained a Whitworth exhibition in 1896, and a Whitworth scholarship in 1897.
c.1899 Developed Blondel's idea for observing alternating current waveforms into a fully-engineered oscillograph; the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Co manufactured many different models of these oscillographs up to WWII when the cathode-ray oscilloscope was developed.
Duddell was commissioned by the government to find out how to silence the carbon arc lamps then in widespread use for municipal lighting; as an offshoot of this work, he invented the Singing Arc, one of the first electronic musical instruments; also developed many other measuring instruments.
WWI Intensive work for the government is thought to have contributed to his early death.