- Stratingh, Sibrandus
- SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 9 April 1785 Adorp, The Netherlandsd. 15 February 1841 Groningen, The Netherlands[br]Dutch chemist and physician, maker of early electric motors.[br]Stratingh spent five years working for a relative who was a chemist in Groningen, and studied pharmacy under Professor Driessen. Encouraged to become a medical student, he qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1809. Later becoming a professor of chemistry at Groningen, he was honoured by a personal visit from the King to his laboratory in 1837. In 1835, assisted by Christopher Becker, an instrument maker, he built a table-top model of an electrically propelled vehicle. The motor, with wound armature and field coils, was geared to a wheel of a small carriage which also carried a single voltaic cell. A full-scale road vehicle was never built, but in 1840 he succeeded in making an electrically powered boat.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCross of the Netherlands Lion 1831.Bibliography1841, De nagedachtenis van S.Stratingh Ez.gevierd in het Genootschap: ter bevordering der natuurkundige wetenschappen te Groningen, Groningen (a memorial volume that includes a list of his works).Further ReadingB.Bowers, 1982, A History of Electric Light and Power, London, p. 45 (provides a brief account of Stratingh's electric vehicle).GW
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.
