Information AboutRobert Davidson |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ROBERT DAVIDSON | |
| 1804 births | |
| 1894 deaths | |
| scottish inventors | |
| people from aberdeen | |
| alumni of the university of aberdeen | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Robert Davidson ( 1804 - 1894 ) was a Scottish inventor who built the first known Electric Locomotive in 1837. Born and died in Aberdeen , North East Scotland , where he was a prosperous chemist and dyer, amongst other ventures. Educated in the city, at Marischal College , where he studied for one year on a scholarship- he had an education in return for being a lab assistant. He became interested in the new electrical technologies of the day. From 1837 he made small electric motors on his own principles, though William H. Taylor in the USA made similar motors from 1838. Both men worked independently, without knowledge of the other's work. Davidson staged an exhibition of electrical machinery at Edinburgh , Scotland in 1840, and later, at the Egyptian Hall , Piccadilly , London . Amongst the machines shown were electrically operated lathes and printing presses. His electric railway locomotives was tested on the Edinburgh-Glasgow line in 1842. The first known working electric locomotives was made in New England, but this was only a working model. On October 4th 1835 this model was demonstrated at Troy, New York State, by its inventor, Thomas Davenport(1802-51) Davidson made a model electric locomotive in 1837/38 (sources differ).Davidson's 'Galvani' of 1842 was a four wheeled machine, powered by zinc-acid batteries. It was capable only of carrying itself at 4mph (approx 6km/h). It did not haul any passengers or cargo. In a later report it was calculated that burning zinc in a battery was 40 times more expensive than burning coal in a firebox. Later experiments in America (B&O RR, 1851)proved these figures correct. Despite being financially unviable some steam engineers smashed the 'Galvani' when it was in its shed, fearing the potential competition to their new trade. Financially viable electric traction developed from the 1860s when the dynamo was invented and perfected. Davidson lived to see these developments- his reaction to the opening of the City & South London Tube was to commission a new set of business cards, that read 'Robert Davidson. Father of the Electric Locomotive' SOURCES
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