Sir John Isaac ThornycroftDied 28 Jun 1928 at age 85 (born 1 Feb 1843).English naval architect and engineer who founded the Thornycroft shipbuilding company, in 1864 with a shipyard on the River Thames. He was only 19 when he built his first steam launch. By 1877, he built the first modern torpedo boat for the Royal Navy. In 1877, he patented an air-lubricated hull that could skim, rather than cut through, the water. He also designed water-tube boilers for torpedo boats as well as one of the earliest ship stabilizers. During WW I, he built warships including 29 destroyers and flotilla leaders, 3 submarines and coastal torpedo speedboats, which could skim over minefields. He pioneered the use of oil fuel for the Royal Navy. Steam powered lorries were a manufacturing off-shoot of his shipyard (1896) which led to a major new business building petrol-engined lorries (from 1902).«[Image: Detail from a Vanity Fair caricature, 1905.] |
