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ROBERT WHITEHEAD 1828 - 1905R obert Whitehead was born near Bolton, Lancaster, UK in 1823 and came from a family of engineers. Maintaining the tradition, he served a long apprenticeship with a well-respected engineering company, Omerods of Manchester, and left in 1840 to seek his fortune abroad. In Victorian times British Engineers were at a premium. He managed to make a good living, working initially in a shipyard in Toulon and setting up as a consultant engineer in Milan. He was, however, forever trying to avoid the numerous European wars and, as a result of boundary changes, lost many of his important patents. He moved on to Trieste on the Adriatic coast, again working for a shipyard where he was credited with producing the first screw propeller and cylindrical marine boiler to be built in Austria. In 1864 he decided to except the job as manager of a major engineering company based in Fuime near Trieste. The company undertook work for the Austrian Navy. Whitehead who had an excellent reputation by now was approached by an Austrian Navy Captain, Giovanni de Luppis and ask to enter into a partnership to build an unmanned, self-propelled surface boat packed with explosives which could be directed at blockading warships. It was referred to as the ‘Der Kustenbrander’ (Coastal Fire Ship), it had been turned down by the Austrian Navy on basis it needed further development. Whitehead tried for several months to assist Luppis with his invention but between them they failed to perfect a viable weapon.The partnership ended, but the project left Whitehead with the gem of an idea. He reasoned that a weapon, like they had tried to develop, would be at its most effective if it detonated below the waterline. Better still, if it could travel beneath the surface throughout the attack. Remembering his ‘lost’ patents, Robert with only his son John to assist him, spent months in secret trying to perfect his own idea. His invention when it appeared, and later perfected, has since been described as the work of a genius. Further articles on this subject will show that many of the basic component parts used in his early prototypes where, in fact, still in use during the Second World War and that the overall form of the torpedo has been retained to the present day.
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