Thomas Thorp (scientific instrument manufacturer)
Thomas Thorp (1850–1914) was an English manufacturer of scientific instruments credited with inventing the first practical coin-in-the-slot gas meter, with innovations in the field of photography, including that involving colour, and for producing an early example of what has since been developed into the modern spectrohelioscope.
He began his working life as an apprentice to a firm of architects and ended it as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, having had a keen interest in astronomy since childhood.
Thomas Thorp was born on 26 October 1850, the son of a farmer who worked land around Narrow Lane (now known as Victoria Avenue), Besses o' th' Barn, Whitefield, Lancashire.
He had an interest in the practical application of scientific knowledge, as did his inventive father, and a consequence of this trait was an inclination towards civil and mechanical engineering.
One significant innovation was the design, patented in 1889,[8] for the first practical mechanism that allowed gas to be dispensed by insertion of a penny into a meter, an early point-of-use prepayment system.
[1] His high resolution[18] diffracting grating replicas were significant advances of the ideas developed by Henry Rowland, whilst his multi-slit spectroscope was the first to enable the showing of both celestial and terrestrial objects and has formed the basis for the present day spectrohelioscope.
Prior to his developments, details of which he published but did not patent,[2] interested people had to rely upon the photographic methods that had been proposed by Lord Rayleigh and Izarn.
Thorp's "brilliant idea", announced in 1898 and improved thereafter through experimentation and the development of new materials, was to take "a cast of the ruled surface in a transparent medium [comprising] a thin solution of celluloid in amyl acetate.
[23] Similarly, although he used partial vacuums in his development of his diffraction gratings, he also investigated their use elsewhere as, for example, in his paper of 1903 entitled On the Production of Polished Metallic Surfaces having the Properties of Japanese "Magic" Mirrors.
[24][25] These and numerous other contributions – including experiments in soldering aluminium[26] and the use of optics for gunsights[25] – were reported to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he had been elected a member on 21 January 1896.
[30] He also left a partially developed scheme for the manufacture of a ruling machine that obviated the need for a screw drive, being controlled instead by a mercury clepsydra and micrometre valve,[1] and had been working on the design of a cinema screen.
One obituarist remarked on his "unassuming and genial manner to all with whom he came into contact, and his readiness to explain and to make suggestions on any subject in which his wide knowledge could be of any assistance.
