Prof Lewis Dunbar Brodie Gordon

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(1815–1876) was a Scottish civil engineer.

Life

He was the fourth son of Anne Clunes (d.1881) and her husband, Joseph Gordon WS, an

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

lawyer. They lived at 27 London Street in

Edinburgh's New Town The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850, and retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture. Its best known street is Princes Stree ...

. He was educated at the

High School A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

in Edinburgh then went to the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. A student and assistant to

Marc Brunel Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Born in Franc ...

, during the construction of the

Thames Tunnel The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 feet (11 m) wide by 20 feet (6 m) high and is 1,300 feet (396 m) long, running at a depth of ...

, he made a career change to mining. Registering as a student at the Freiburg School of Mines, Germany, he then studied further at the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in Paris. In 1838 he visited the mines at

Clausthal Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The City is the location of the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort ...

, and met Wilhelm Albert. Impressed by what he saw, he wrote to his friend

Robert Stirling Newall Robert Stirling Newall FRS FRAS (27 May 1812 – 21 April 1889) was a Scottish engineer and astronomer. Life and work Born at Dundee on 27 May 1812, Newall began work in a local mercantile office before leaving for London, where, in the emplo ...

, urging him to "Invent a machine for making (wire ropes)". On receipt of Gordon's letter, Newall designed a wire rope machine. On Gordon's return to the UK in 1839, he formed a partnership with Newall and Charles Liddell, registering ''R.S. Newall and Company'' in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

. On 17 August 1840, Newall took out a patent for "certain improvements in wire rope and the machinery for making such rope," and ''R.S. Newall and Company'' commenced making wire ropes for "Mining, Railway, Ships' Rigging, and other purposes". He was Professor of Civil Engineering at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

from 1840 to 1855. In 1845 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being

James David Forbes James David Forbes (1809–1868) was a Scottish physicist and glaciologist who worked extensively on the conduction of heat and seismology. Forbes was a resident of Edinburgh for most of his life, educated at its University and a professor ...

. Gordon became a mentor to the brothers James Thomson and William Thomson, encouraging their interest in the development of a general

theory of heat The history of thermodynamics is a fundamental strand in the history of physics, the history of chemistry, and the history of science in general. Owing to the relevance of thermodynamics in much of science and technology, its history is finely w ...

. In 1848 he gave the brothers a copy of French physicist Sadi Carnot's 1824 treatise ''On the Motive Power of Fire'', with which he used to write his first

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

article the 1848 "On an Absolute Thermometric Scale Founded on Carnot’s Theory of the Motive Power of Heat", which founded the

absolute temperature Thermodynamic temperature is a quantity defined in thermodynamics as distinct from kinetic theory or statistical mechanics. Historically, thermodynamic temperature was defined by Kelvin in terms of a macroscopic relation between thermodynamic w ...

scale. He was conferred with Honorary Membership of the

Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) is a multi-disciplinary professional body and learned society, founded in Scotland, for professional engineers in all disciplines and for those associated with or taking an interes ...

in 185

He died on 28 April 1876 at

Poynter's Grove Poynter's Grove, sometimes known as Pointers Grove or Poynters Hall, was a house that once existed in Totteridge, north London. The house was originally in the ownership of Sir Richard Gurney, a royalist in the English Civil War and Lord Mayor ...

Totteridge Totteridge is a residential area and former village in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a mixture of suburban development and open land (including some farmland) situated 8 miles (13 km) north north-west of Charing Cross. It ...

in Hertfordshire and is buried in the family plot in

Greyfriars Kirkyard Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 16th century, and a num ...

in central

. The grave lies on the western wall of the western extension.

Family

His sister married

William Siemens Sir Carl Wilhelm Siemens (4 April 1823 – 19 November 1883), anglicised to Charles William Siemens, was a German-British electrical engineer and businessman. Biography Siemens was born in the village of Lenthe, today part of Gehrden, near Ha ...

, Carl Wilhelm Siemens, of

Siemens & Halske Siemens & Halske AG (or Siemens-Halske) was a German electrical engineering company that later became part of Siemens. It was founded on 12 October 1847 as ''Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske'' by Werner von Siemens and Johann Ge ...

. Gordon's wife was from Hanover and linked by marriage to the Siemens family.J D Scott, ''Siemens Brothers 1858-1958'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1958

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Lewis École Polytechnique alumni Scottish engineers Scottish civil engineers 1815 births 1876 deaths Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard