Sir William Congreve
Obituary from The Annual Register, 1828
DEATHS - MAY
[p.235]
At Toulouse, aged 56, sir William Congreve, second Baronet of Walton
in Staffordshlre, Knight of St. Anne of Russia,
M.P. for Plymouth, senior Equerry
to the King, Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory and Superintendent
of the Military repository at Woolwich, and F.R.S. The deceased was born May 20th, 1772, and was the eldest son of lient.-gen. sir William Congreve, the first baronet, by his first wife Rebecca Elmston. The general died in 1814 in possession of the same offices at Woolwich which his son has ever since filled. The latter entered into the same branch of military service as his father had pursued. He had in 1816 attained the rank of lieut.-colonel in the Artillery, and was then equerry to the prince regent. Retaining the latter honourable appointment, he had retired in 1820 from his military rank.
It was in 1808 that he first invented that formidable engine of warfare, the Congreve Rocket, which he succeeded in establishing as a permanent instrument of the military and naval tactics of the country, and which foreign nations have found it necessary to adopt. Having been tried and approved, it was used by Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads, in the expedition against Walcheren, in attacks on several places in Spain, at Waterloo, and with most serviceable effect in the attack on Algiers. For the effect of the Congreve rockets at the battle of Leipsic in 1813, the order of St. Anne of the 2nd class was conferred on sir William by the emperor of Russia, and when the emperor visited England in 1814, he was particularly interested by an exhibition of their powers at Woolwich. Sir William had a private factory at West Ham in Essex. The rockets have also been employed in a modified form, in the whale fishery.
But the Congreve rocket, though the most important, was only one of very many scientific inventions by which sir William benefited himself and the world. On several of these he published treatises. In 1812 there appeared an “Elementary Treatise on the Mounting of Naval Ordnance; shewing the true principles of construction for the carriages of every species of Ordnance,” 4to.
In 1811 sir William Congreve was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1812 he was returned to parliament for Gatton, and, in 1820 and 1826, for Plymouth. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy April 30th, 1814.
In 1815 appeared “A description of the construction, properties, and varieties of the Hydro-Pneumatic Lock,” for which he obtained a patent in that year, and which is now so generally adopted on canals. In the same year sir William obtained a patent for a new mode of manufacturing gunpowder. This invention consisted, first, of a machine for producing as perfect a mixture as possible of the ingredients; and secondly, of an improved mode of passing the mill-cake under time press, and a new granulating machine. In 1819 a patent was granted to him for an improved mode of inlaying or combining different metals; and another for certain improvements in the manufacture of bank-note paper for the [p.236] prevention of forgery.
In 1823 sir William published, by order of government, a very interesting report on the Gas-light establishments of the metropolis. After recounting these his important benefits to society, it is melancholy to have to class him with those individuals of previous respectability, the influence of whose example decoyed so many weaker minds to ruin, during that mania for speculation, which, two years ago, desolated with such cruelty the commercial community. On the ebbing of the tide, sir William, found it necessary to take refuge on the continent.
Excerpt from: The Annual Register 1928, edited by Edmund Burke, pages 235-236.
Note: paragraph breaks, not present in the original, have been added for readability on the web page.
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See also:
- Today in Science History event description for birth of William Congreve on 20 May 1772.
- Description of Congreve's 1819 patent for a coloured watermark paper on 4 Dec 1819.
