132 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
These dates, as you will notice, are all subsequent to Bramwell’s pro- 
phecy of 1881. Many factors have contributed to prevent that prophecy 
from being fulfilled, but none have been so potent as Parsons’ invention 
and development of the compound steam turbine. That invention 
was no isolated event—no mere throwing out of a happy thought. It 
was the life work of a man who, to an extraordinary degree, combined 
creative imagination with energy and persistence and practical skill. 
The recent death of Parsons has deprived this Association of a famous 
past-president and a generous friend. Section G in particular mourns the 
loss of the most illustrious of modern engineers. It is fitting that we 
should dwell for a moment on the greatness of Charles Parsons. 
The turbine as we know it now is the product of sustained effort 
and unquenchable faith. The genius of Parsons was indeed of the kind 
which includes an infinite capacity for taking pains. He was a dreamer 
of wonderful dreams, but he was tireless in compelling his dreams to come 
true. He never admitted defeat; a difficulty was a thing to be overcome, 
an obstacle was merely an incentive. He loved to attempt tasks which 
most men would pronounce impossible. And he was the severest critic 
of his own success ; he was always striving to better what seemed already 
very good. These qualities made Parsons perhaps the most successful 
innovator the engineering world has ever known. 
It was my privilege to know him from an early stage in his astonishing 
career. Forty years ago I was commissioned to test and report on his first 
condensing steam turbine—sent by people who were disposed to be 
sceptical of the merits of a thing so queer and so untried. The tests 
were entirely convincing. Like Balaam when he was commissioned to 
report upon the Children of Israel, I came back blessing where I had 
been expected to condemn. That was the beginning of a friendship 
which was broken only by Parsons’ death. 
At Parsons’ own request, I carried out further tests from time to time 
on occasions when the steam turbine had reached some notable stage 
in the course of its development. Among these were trials of the Turbinia, 
before she made her dramatic appearance at the Diamond Jubilee Review 
in 1897. Her performance established what was then a record of speed for 
any ship. It prepared the way for a wide adoption of turbine driving in the 
navy and the mercantile marine. Every opportunity I had, then and 
later, of seeing Parsons at close quarters, of observing how he would bend 
his mind to the problem of the moment, increased my admiration of the 
inventor and my regard for the man. To the last, there was an endearing 
quality in his self-effacement, in the modesty with which he wore his world- 
wide fame, which gave him a peculiar charm once the veil of shyness 
was drawn aside. Now that he is gone, his friends feel that they are 
sharers in a personal no less than a national loss. 
But such a man lives on in his achievements. To Parsons it was 
granted as to few men to see the fruit of his ideas and his labours. Long 
before he died the world recognised that he had revolutionised steam 
engineering. He had taught us how to generate power on a scale and 
with a concentration never before approached. Nothing, in a sense, 
could be simpler than his steam windmill with its successive rings of 
vanes, each in turn taking up a small fraction of the whole energy of the 
he ee oe Oe ee a ere 
