3-074-750 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Sir William Siemens, F.R.S., 1883. '...this eminently useful man of science...was by birth a German...[He] came to England, and was followed here...by his three brothers, who joined him in various undertakings of scientific manufactures. Among these were the method of gilding and silvering by galvanic process...; that of "anastatic printing"; some improvements of the steam-engine, the calico-printing machine, the air-pump, the caloric engine, the water-meter, and in the apparatus for recording scientific observations at Greenwich Observatory;...[and] the "regenerative gas furnace," used for the manufacture of steel. In 1858, Siemens Brothers...established their great works at Charlton, West Woolwich, now chiefly occupied with the manufacture of submarine electric telegraph cables...their great steel works at...Swansea...now produce above a thousand tons weekly of the finest cast steel. He was author of several important discoveries in physics and electricity, and latterly bestowed much study on the processes of electric lighting and the appliances for the transmission of electric force...As a scientific philosopher, he has, by his theory of the conservation of solar energy,...won the attention of men of science all over the world'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.