Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was an Anglo-Irish mechanical engineer and inventor who created the modern steam turbine in 1884. His invention changed how ships moved through water, and he also started C. A. Parsons and Company, where he designed and built Turbinia (1894), the first steamship powered by a steam turbine.

He worked on designing dynamos, turbines, and power systems, and his ideas greatly influenced naval and electrical engineering. He also helped improve optical tools like searchlights and telescopes. Parsons was honored with the Franklin Medal in 1920, the Faraday Medal in 1923, and the Copley Medal in 1928 for his work. He also received the Engineering Heritage Awards after his death in 1995.

His inventions were used in many devices during the early 1900s, including naval and optical equipment. He joined the Royal Society in 1898 and led the British Association from 1916 to 1919. In 1911, he was given a knighthood for his contributions, and in 1927, he became a member of the Order of Merit. He also received the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1929.

Parsons died in 1931 while on the ship Duchess of Richmond due to neuritis. He was buried at St Bartholomew’s Church in Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland.

Career and commercial activity

Charles Parsons was born into a noble family from England and Ireland on June 13, 1854, in London. He was the youngest son of William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, an astronomer. The family’s main home was Birr Castle in County Offaly, Ireland. The town of Birr was named Parsonstown from 1620 to 1901, in honor of the family.

Parsons and his three brothers were educated at home in Ireland by private tutors, including John Purser and Sir Robert Ball. These tutors were experts in science and helped the Earl with his work in astronomy. Later, Parsons studied mathematics at Trinity College Dublin and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge in 1877 with the highest honors. He then joined the engineering firm W. G. Armstrong in Newcastle as an apprentice, a rare choice for someone from an aristocratic family. Later, he worked on rocket-powered torpedoes at Kitsons in Leeds.

In 1884, Parsons joined Clarke, Chapman and Co., a ship-engine manufacturer near Newcastle. He became the head of their electrical-equipment development. Using detailed steam data, he created a turbine engine that spun at 18,000 RPM. He used this engine to power an electrical generator he designed. His steam turbine made electricity more affordable and widely available, changing marine transport and naval warfare.

At the same time, another steam turbine, created by Gustaf de Laval in the 1880s, had limitations due to the materials available. In his 1911 Rede Lecture, Parsons explained how his understanding of scaling issues led to his breakthrough in creating a compound steam turbine in 1884.

In 1889, Parsons founded C. A. Parsons and Company in Newcastle to build turbo generators. That same year, he started the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (DisCo). In 1890, DisCo opened Forth Banks Power Station, the first power station in the world to use turbo generators to produce electricity. In 1894, he regained some patent rights from Clarke Chapman. Though his first turbine was only 1.6% efficient and produced 7.5 kilowatts, improvements led to his first megawatt turbine in 1899 for a plant in Elberfeld, Germany.

Parsons also focused on marine applications. He founded the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Newcastle. In June 1897, his turbine-powered yacht, Turbinia, appeared unexpectedly at the Navy Review for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Before the Prince of Wales, foreign leaders, and Admiralty officials, Turbinia reached speeds of 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph), faster than other Royal Navy ships. The yacht’s speed was partly due to its narrow hull.

Within two years, destroyers HMS Viper and Cobra were built with Parsons’s turbines. Soon after, the first turbine-powered passenger ship, TS King Edward, was launched in 1901. In 1905, the first turbine transatlantic liners, RMS Victorian and Virginian, were introduced. In 1906, the first turbine-powered battleship, HMS Dreadnought, was launched, all using Parsons’s turbine engines. As of 2012, Turbinia is displayed at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

Parsons was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1898 and received the Rumford Medal in 1902 and the Copley Medal in 1928. He delivered the Bakerian Lecture in 1918 and served as president of the British Association from 1916 to 1919. He was an invited speaker at the ICM in 1924. Knighted in 1911, he became a member of the Order of Merit in 1927. In 1929, the Iron and Steel Institute awarded him the Bessemer Gold Medal.

The Parsons turbine company continues today as part of Siemens, a German company, in the Heaton area of Newcastle. In 1925, Charles Parsons acquired the Grubb Telescope Company and renamed it Grubb Parsons. This company operated in Newcastle until 1985.

Parsons also designed the Auxetophone, an early compressed-air gramophone.

Personal life and death

In 1883, Sir Charles Algernon Parsons married Katharine Bethell, the daughter of William F. Bethell. They had two children: Rachel Mary Parsons, an engineer and activist born in 1885, and Algernon George "Tommy" Parsons, born in 1886. Tommy died in battle during World War I in 1918 at the age of 31.

The family lived in a home at 1 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, London, from 1918 to 1931.

Sir Charles died on 11 February 1931 while traveling on the steamship Duchess of Richmond during a cruise with his wife. The cause of his death was reported as neuritis. A memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 3 March 1931. He was buried in the parish church of St Bartholomew’s in Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland.

Katharine, his wife, died in 1933 at their home in Ray Demesne, Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland. Rachel Parsons died in 1956. A stable worker named Denis James Pratt was found guilty of her manslaughter.

In 1919, Katharine and her daughter Rachel helped start the Women’s Engineering Society with Eleanor Shelley-Rolls, Margaret, Lady Moir, Laura Annie Willson, Margaret Rowbotham, and Janetta Mary Ornsby. The organization continues to exist today. Sir Charles supported the group at first but stopped participating after his wife left the organization.

Commemoration

The family home of the Parsons at Birr Castle in Ireland contains a museum that shows how the Parsons family contributed to science and engineering. A section of the museum is dedicated to the engineering work of Charles Parsons.

Charles Parsons is shown on the back of an Irish silver 15-Euro Proof coin made in 2017.

The Irish Academy of Engineering gives out the Parsons Medal, named after Charles Parsons, each year to an engineer who has made important contributions to engineering. Past winners include Prof. Tony Fagan (2016), Dr. Edmond Harty (2017), Prof. Sir John McCanny (2018), and Michael McLaughlin (2019).

Selected works

• Book: "The Steam Turbine and Other Inventions of Sir Charles Parsons"
• The Steam Turbine (Rede Lecture, 1911)