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Sir 'William Henry Preece' (February 151834- November 6 1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. Preece relied on experiments and physical reasoning in his life's work. Preece was knighted in 1899.

Contents

Biography

References and external articles

Biography

Preece was born in Caernarfon (Gwynedd), Wales. Preece studied at the Royal Institution in London (Great Britain) under Michael Faraday. He later was the consulting engineer for the Post Office (1870s). He became Engineer-in-Chief of the British General Post Office in 1892. He developed several improvements in railroad signaling system that increased railway safety. Preece and Oliver Lodge maintained a correspondence during this period. Upon Lodge's proposal of "loading coils" applied to submerged cables, Preece did not relize that "Earthing" would extend the distance and efficiency.
Preece also developed a wireless telegraphy and telephony system also in 1892. Preece developed a telephone system and implemented it in England. A similar telephone system was patented in the United States by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. In 1885, Preece and Arthur West Heaviside (Oliver Heaviside's brother) experimented with parallel telegraph lines and an unwired telephone receiver, discovering radio induction (later identified with the effects of crosstalk).
In 1897, with Marconi radio experiments from Lavernock Point in south Wales to the island of Flatholm, became one of Marconi's most ardent supporters. He made various efforts to support Guglielmo Marconi in the wireless field. Preece gained financial assistance from the Post Office to help expand Marconi's work. Preece believed that the Earth’s magnetic field was critical in the propagation of radio waves over long distances.
He had a long-standing rivalry with O. Heaviside over his traditional ideas about electricity. It was derisively referred to as "the drain-pipe theory" by Heaviside, because Preece presented the analogy of electricity and water for thought experiments. Reportedly, he never understood James Clerk Maxwell's advances to "mathematical sciencific theory" .
Preece once stated, conveying setiments which were later made by Edwin Armstrong,
:''True theory does not require the abstruse language of mathematics to make it clear and to render it acceptable ''[...]'' All that is solid and substantial in science and usefully applied in practice, have been made clear by relegating mathematic symbols to their proper store place --- the study.'' - Preece's inaugural speech as president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1893

References and external articles

★ Russell Naughton , "''Adventures in CyberSound: Preece, William Henry''".

★ "'' 100 Welsh Heroes / 100 Arwyr Cymru''", ''73. Sir William Henry Preece, Groundbreakers'' . Culturenet Cymru, 2004.

★ Oil on canvas painting by Beatrice Bright of Sir William Preece
(1834-1913).