Robert Whitehead (3 January 1823 – 14 November 1905) was an English engineer who was most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo.

[2] His first professional employment was at a shipyard in Toulon, France, for Philip Taylor & Sons,[2] and then as a consultant engineer in Milan, Italy.

In the early 1860s, Whitehead met engineer Giovanni Luppis, who had recently retired to Trieste from the Austrian Navy.

Luppis' device was a low-profile surface boat, propelled by compressed air, and controlled by ropes from the land.

This resulted in Minenschiff, the first self-propelled (locomotive) torpedo, officially presented to the Austrian Imperial Naval commission on 21 December 1866.

The commission was impressed and the Austrian gunboat Gemse was adapted for launching torpedoes at the Schiavon shipyard in Fiume.

Gemse's commander, Frigate Lieutenant Count Georg Anton von Hoyos, later married Whitehead's daughter Alice.

In 1915, the Whitehead company established one of its largest enterprises, the Hungarian Submarine Building Corporation (German: Ungarische Unterseebootsbau AG, or UBAG) in Rijeka.

In the early 1880s, he gave £1000 to Agnes Weston, who was attempting to buy and repurpose two public houses in Devonport, expressing his hope that the gift "would knock a hole in one of them".

[citation needed] The Torpedo Research Vessel RMAS Whitehead (built by Scotts, launched 1970, sold 1993) was named in his honour.