- Cardew, Philip
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[br]b. 24 September 1851 Leatherhead, Surrey, Englandd. 17 May 1910 Godalming, Surrey, England[br]English electrical engineer and inventory adviser to the Board of Trade.[br]After education at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, Cardew was placed in charge of Bermudan military telegraphs in 1876. In 1889 he was appointed the first Electrical Adviser to the Board of Trade, where he formulated valuable regulations for the safety and control of public electricity supplies. In 1883 Cardew invented the thermogalvanometer, a hot-wire measuring instrument, that became widely used as a voltmeter but was obsolete by 1907. The device depended for its action on the heating and subsequent elongation of a platinum wire and could be used on alternating currents of high frequency. Retiring from the Board of Trade in 1899, Cardew joined a partnership of consulting engineers with Sir William Preece and his son. Taking a particular interest in railway electrification, he became a director of the London Brighton \& South Coast Railway.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInventions Exhibition Gold Medal 1885.Bibliography1881, Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers 10:111–14 (describes the application of electricity to railways).5 February 1883, British patent no. 623 (Cardew's hot-wire instrument).1898, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 19:425–47 (his account of Board of Trade legislation).Further ReadingJ.T.Stock and D.Vaughan, 1983, The Development of Instruments to Measure Electric Current, London: Science Museum (for instrument origins).Dictionary of National Biographyr , 1912, Vol. I, Suppl. 2, pp. 313–14.GW
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.