Dr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S.

Abstract

DR. HENRY WILDE, whose death was announced in NATURE of April 3, was a man of remarkable individuality and a pioneer in electrical engineering. He was born in Manchester in 1833. During his apprenticeship he experimented with voltaic cells, electrical machines, electrical kites, and the electro-deposition of metals. He soon realised the great commercial possibilities of the applications, of electricity, and he decided, when, he was twenty-three years of age, to commence in business as a telegraph engineer and lightning-conductor expert. Several years o were devoted to the invention of a magneto-electrie alphabetic telegraph. Experiments with electro-magnets led to the design of an improved electrid generator described in his patents of 1863 and 1865. Wilde's “dynamo-electric machines”—as they were named by Charles Brooke, F.R.S.—quickly replaced batteries for electro-deposition ooo.lid arc lighting, but in use they had the serious disadvantage of becoming very hot. In the endravour to cure this fault Wilde designed a very different type of dynamo. This was a multipolar machine, with sixteen pairs of electro-magnets, which was made self-exciting by a “minor” current from four of the armature bobbins. Both this and the earlier machine were used by Elkington for the electrolytic refining of copper.