Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet ( Sir William Congreve ; May 20, 1772 , Kent - May 16, 1828 , Toulouse , France ) - English inventor and pioneer of missile weapons , known as the inventor of Congreve missiles . The son of Sir William Congreve , 1st Baronet, Lieutenant General , Overseer of the Royal Laboratories of the Royal Arsenal. Educated at Singlewell School, studied law at Trinity College in Cambridge .
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| Awards and prizes | member of the Royal Society of London |
Congreve Missiles
Congreve was inspired by the prototypes developed by the Irish nationalist Robert Emmett for use during the 1803 uprising [3] (although subsequently Congreve rejected Emmett’s influence and Emmett’s many innovations in the design of rockets, passed off for his own). He first demonstrated powder rockets at the Royal Arsenal in 1805. The first attempt at combat use was made in the same year to attack the French city of Boulogne , but a severe storm did not allow the mission to be completed. On November 8, 1806, a second attempt was made to use rockets in an attack on Boulogne from the sea. The weapon proved to be very good, the city was seriously damaged by fires caused by Kongriv missiles. In 1809, Parliament authorized Congreve to form two missile brigades for the British army. Congreve commanded one of them at the Battle of the Peoples near Leipzig in 1813 .
Congreve missiles were used in a number of other battles of the Napoleonic Wars , as well as in the Anglo-American War of 1812-1815 - the line about the "red glow of missiles" by the American poet Francis Scott entered the US anthem , describing their 25-hour use in 1814 at Fort McHenry . Until the 1850s, Congreve missiles were in the arsenal of the United Kingdom. In 1811, Congreve was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Hanover Artillery Regiment and is often referred to as "Colonel Congreve."
From 1814 until his death, Congreve served as the inspector of the Royal Laboratory in Woolwich (Congreve's father Sir William Congreve , 1st Baronet held the same post).
Publications
In 1807, Congreve published a Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System . In 1814, his work came out. Details of the rocket system . In 1827, the Congreve Rocket System was published in London. Other publications:
- 1812 - An Elementary Treatise on the Mounting of Naval Ordnance ;
- 1815 - Description of the Hydropneumatic Lock ( A Description of the Hydropneumatical Lock );
- 1819 - A New Principle of Steam-Engine ;
- 1819 - Resumption of Cash Payments ;
- 1819 - System of Currencies .
Memory
In 1970, the International Astronomical Union named William Kongreve a crater on the far side of the moon .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Encyclopædia Britannica
- ↑ 1 2 SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ Patrick M. Geoghegan (2003) Robert Emmet: a life , p. 107, McGill-Queens University Press, Canada
- 1911 Encyclopedia, " Sir William Congreve ."
- Frank H. Winter The First Golden Age of Rocketry (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 322p., Illus. ISBN 0-87474-987-5
Literature
- Congreve, William, engineer // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.