Ellington, Edward Bayzard

SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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b. 2 August 1845 London, England

d. 10 November 1914 London, England

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English hydraulic engineer who developed a direct-acting hydraulic lift.

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Ellington was educated at Denmark Hill Grammar School, London, after which he became articled to John Penn of Greenwich. He stayed there until 1868, working latterly in the drawing office after a period of erecting plant and attending trials on board ship. For some twelve months he superintended the erection of Glengall Wharf, Old Kent Road, and the machinery used therein.

In 1869 he went into partnership with Bryan Johnson of Chester, the company being known as Johnson \& Ellington, manufacturing mining and milling machinery. Under Ellington's influence, the firm specialized in the manufacture of hydraulic machinery. In 1874 the company acquired the right to manufacture the Brotherhood three-cylinder hydraulic engine; the company became the Hydraulic Engineering Company Ltd of Chester. Ellington developed a direct-acting hydraulic lift with a special balance arrangement that was smooth-acting and economical in water. He described the lift in a paper that was read to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in 1882.

Soon after Ellington joined the Chester firm, an Act of Parliament was passed, mainly due to his efforts, for the distribution of water under high pressure for the working of passenger and goods lifts and other hydraulic machinery in large towns. In 1872 he initiated the first hydraulic mains company at Hull, thus proving the practicability of the system of a high-pressure water-mains supply. Ellington remained as engineer to the Hull company until he was appointed a director in 1875. He was general manager and engineer of the General Hydraulic Power Company, which operated in London and had subsidiaries in Liverpool (opened in 1889), Manchester (1894) and Glasgow (1895). He maintained an interest in all these companies, as general manager and engineer, until his death.

In 1895 he read another paper, "On hydraulic power in towns", to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In 1911 he became President of the IMechE; his Presidential Address was on the education of young engineers. In 1913 he delivered the Thomas Hawksley Lecture on "Water as a mechanical agent". He was Chairman of the Building Committee during the extension of the Institution's headquarters. Ellington was also a Member of Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a member of the Société des Ingé-nieurs Civils de France and a Governor of Imperial College of Science and Technology.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1875; Member of Council 1898– 1903; President 1911–12.

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