Barr & Stroud Limited was a pioneering Glasgowoptical engineering firm. They played a leading role in developing modern optics, including rangefinders, for the Royal Navy and other branches of British Armed Forces during the 20th century. There was a non-military arm of the company which made medical equipment, like photocoagulators and electronic filters, some of which were used by the BBC. The company and its intellectual property passed through Pilkington group to Thales Optronics. The Barr and Stroud name was sold to an importer of optical equipment, who used the trademarked name for a line of binoculars and similar instruments.
Archibald Barr and William Stroud had been associated from as early as 1888 when the two men were professors of, respectively, engineering and physics at the Yorkshire College (now the University of Leeds). In 1891, they were approached by the Admiralty to submit a design for a short-base rangefinder for trial. By this time, Barr had returned to Scotland and taken the Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics post at the University of Glasgow. Although apart, Barr and Stroud kept in close touch and in 1892 they were awarded with a contract for six of their rangefinders.
In 1895, Barr & Stroud's Patents Ltd was renting workshop space near the university, at 250 Byres Road, Glasgow, but demand for the product soon necessitated a move to larger premises in Ashton Lane, Glasgow. By 1904, 100 men were working for the company in a new purpose-built factory in Anniesland, Glasgow designed by Campbell Douglas.[1] Shortly thereafter, in 1909, Stroud resigned his chair at the University of Leeds and moved to Glasgow to work for the company full-time. Barr, in spite of a distinguished teaching career at Glasgow University, followed his example in 1913. Together they formed Barr & Stroud Ltd. that year.[2]
In 1914, they began extensions to the Anniesland works in order to meet the sharp increase in demand for their rangefinders that followed on the outbreak of the First World War. The war years saw the development of other products, including a torpedo depth recorder, a periscope rangefinder, fire-control systems and a dome sight for aircraft. During World War I there was a problem with the supply of binoculars to the armed forces and apart from the British makers, binoculars were bought in from various sources. So it was only natural that the military would be looking to rectify this problem. At the time Zeiss was probably the leading makers and the military thought this may cause a problem in the future.
It was c.1919 when the company started producing their first binoculars which were supplied to the British Navy and from then on the company continued to operate independently until c.1977 when they were taken over by the Pilkington Group. In 1992 operations moved from the original factory in Anniesland to a new plant in Linthouse on the site of the former Alexander Stephen and Sons shipyard. In 2000 the company became a subsidiary of the French company, Thales Group, and in 2001 Barr & Stroud Ltd became Thales Optronics Ltd.
The Barr and Stroud brand name was then bought by Eastleigh-based Optical Distribution Services Ltd, who re-registered as Barr and Stroud Ltd in 2008. The new company has developed a new range of binoculars and telescopes. The new range of Barr & Stroud binoculars are currently made in China (Nov. 2011) and distributed by Optical Vision Ltd and have no connection whatsoever with Barr & Stroud Ltd of Glasgow.
Aircraft Gunsights
In 1926 Barr & Stroud produced the prototype GD1 reflector gunsight for aircraft based on a 1900 patent awarded to Sir Howard Grubb. The sight was extensively redesigned and issued to the Royal Air Force as the GD2B in 1927. By 1934 the sight had developed into the GD5 and again into the GD12. By 1938 the GM2 Mk II was patented in 1937 and was introduced into front line fighters starting in 1938 in time for the Battle of Britain. Demand was so great that Barr and Stroud subcontracted 700 units to Herr Neumann of Goerz in Austria. Despite the Anschluss between Germany and Austria - Neumann delivered the last of the contract just as war broke out in 1939. The sight saw continuous development through the war. The GN2 allowed for the extra drop of relatively slow underwing rockets. More than 84,000 variants of the GM2 were produced during the war. The sights were superseded during the war by Ferranti's GGC gyro gunsight which calculated and displayed the "lead" required for a successful deflection shot. Bar and Stroud manufactured the optical portions of the Ferranti sight.[3]
Parallel work on sights for free and turret mounted guns produced the J1 through GJ3 in various marks.[4]
Engines
In the 1920s Barr & Stroud Ltd started offering sleeve valve motorcycle engines based on a design by Peter Burt and L.J. McCollum.[5] In a half-page advert in Motor Cycle magazine in 1922[6] they encouraged readers to contact them at Anniesland, Glasgow, for more information, or contact the manufacturers currently offering their 350cc single cylinder engine, naming Beardmore-Precision, Royal Scot, Edmund and Diamond motorcycles. In 1923 a new motorcycle manufacturer, Grindlay-Peerless offered a 999cc V-twin Barr & Stroud engined motorcycle,[7] later adding a 500cc and 350cc single. They also offered J.A.P. engines, and it appears the racing success of the J.A.P. engines made them the preferred choice, and so the sleeve valve engines were dropped in 1927.
Computers
Barr and Stroud constructed the first computer to be built in Scotland, the pioneering SOLIDACminicomputer for the University of Glasgow, assembled between 1958 and 1963 as an attempt to expand into electronics.[8]
Notes
↑ Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Campbell Douglas[pageneeded]
↑ Thomas, Paul A. V. (1993). "Solidac: An Early Minicomputer for Teaching Purposes". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 15 (4): 79–83. doi:10.1109/85.238393. ISSN1058-6180. S2CID8073169.
The sleeve valve is a type of valve mechanism for piston engines, distinct from the usual poppet valve. Sleeve valve engines saw use in a number of pre–World War II luxury cars and in the United States in the Willys-Knight car and light truck. They subsequently fell from use due to advances in poppet-valve technology, including sodium cooling, and the Knight system double sleeve engine's tendency to burn a lot of lubricating oil or to seize due to lack of it. The Scottish Argyll company used its own, much simpler and more efficient, single sleeve system (Burt-McCollum) in its cars, a system which, after extensive development, saw substantial use in British aircraft engines of the 1940s, such as the Napier Sabre, Bristol Hercules, Centaurus, and the promising but never mass-produced Rolls-Royce Crecy, only to be supplanted by the jet engines.
A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position.
Ferranti or Ferranti International PLC was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Pilkington is a glass-manufacturing company which is based in Lathom, Lancashire, England. It includes several legal entities in the UK, and is a subsidiary of Japanese company Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG). It was formerly an independent company listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Silicon Glen is the nickname given to the high tech sector of Scotland, the name inspired by Silicon Valley in California. It is applied to the Central Belt triangle between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh, which includes Fife, Glasgow and Stirling; although electronics facilities outside this area may also be included in the term. The term has been in use since the 1980s. It does not technically represent a glen as it covers a much wider area than just one valley.
J. A. Prestwich Industries, was a British engineering equipment manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich, which was formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd.
Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece or turret, such as a gun, howitzer, or mortar, on land, at sea, or in air, against surface or aerial targets. It may be laying for either direct fire, where the gun is aimed directly at a target within the line-of-sight of the user, or by indirect fire, where the gun is not aimed directly at a target within the line-of-sight of the user. Indirect fire is determined from the information or data that is collected, calculated, and applied to physical coordinates to identify the location of the target by the user. The term includes automated aiming using, for example, radar-derived target data and computer-controlled guns.
William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and owned by William Beardmore, later Lord Invernairn, after whom the Beardmore Glacier was named.
A gyro gunsight (G.G.S.) is a modification of the non-magnifying reflector sight in which target lead and bullet drop are calculated automatically. The first examples were developed in Britain just before the Second World War for use during aerial combat, and more advanced models were common on Allied aircraft by the end of the war.
Thales Optronics is a optronics manufacturer and a division of the French defence corporation Thales Group. It is headquartered in Paris. The company has three main subsidiaries: Thales Optronique SA in France, Thales Optronics Limited in the United Kingdom and Thales Optronics B.V in the Netherlands.
A coincidence rangefinder or coincidence telemeter is a type of rangefinder that uses the principle of triangulation and an optical device to allow an operator to determine the distance to a visible object. There are subtypes split-image telemeter, inverted image, or double-image telemeter with different principles how two images in a single ocular are compared. Coincidence rangefinders were important elements of fire control systems for long-range naval guns and land-based coastal artillery circa 1890–1960. They were also used in rangefinder cameras.
A stereoscopic rangefinder or stereoscopic telemeter is an optical device that measures distance from the observer to a target, using the observer's capability of binocular vision. It looks similar to a coincidence rangefinder, which uses different principles and has only one eyepiece. German instruments tended to use the stereoscopic principle while British ones used coincidence.
Osborn Engineering Company was a British manufacturer of motorcycles, which sold its machines under the OEC brand name.
A reflector sight or reflex sight is an optical sight that allows the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see an illuminated projection of an aiming point or some other image superimposed on the field of view. These sights work on the simple optical principle that anything at the focus of a lens or curved mirror will appear to be sitting in front of the viewer at infinity. Reflector sights employ some form of "reflector" to allow the viewer to see the infinity image and the field of view at the same time, either by bouncing the image created by lens off a slanted glass plate, or by using a mostly clear curved glass reflector that images the reticle while the viewer looks through the reflector. Since the reticle is at infinity, it stays in alignment with the device to which the sight is attached regardless of the viewer's eye position, removing most of the parallax and other sighting errors found in simple sighting devices.
Grindlay Peerless is a historic motorcycle manufacturer that operated out of Coventry, England, throughout the early 20th-century, specialising in racing machines including the record breaking 498cc Grindlay Peerless.
Alfred Robert Grindlay CBE, JP was an English inventor, industrialist and official during the 19th and 20th centuries. He co-founded Grindlay Peerless, the motorcycle engineering company and was Mayor of Coventry during WWII and the Coventry Blitz.
An exchange of rubber for optical glass was proposed by Britain and Germany during the First World War. Optical glass was vital to the warfare of this era for binoculars and gunsights and rubber was needed for tyres and communications cables. Britain had sourced the majority of its pre-war optical glass from the German company of Carl Zeiss AG and by early 1915 was suffering from a shortage. Germany, with its sea trade blockaded by allied forces, was unable to import natural rubber and found it could not create enough high-quality synthetic rubber to replace it. The British Ministry of Munitions proposed an exchange of British-sourced rubber for German optical instruments through intermediaries in Switzerland. Terms were agreed for tens of thousands of pairs of binoculars to be exchanged but sources differ on whether any actual trade took place. By early 1916, British investment and technological improvements had increased production of optical glass such that any need for an exchange was removed. By the late war German production of optical glass was itself failing to keep up with high demand from the army.
Frederick William "Gunner" Hill is best known for his pre-war calculations that showed that the high speed fighters then being developed would need to be armed with eight machine guns in order for them to be effective weapons. Captain Hill's technical skills were important in arming aircraft in both World Wars. In World War I he trialled methods of mounting machine guns in aircraft, evaluated heavy aircraft guns including the 37mm Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) gun, tested ammunition to be used against Zeppelins including the Brock bullet and designed and developed aircraft gun sights. In the inter-war period he worked at the Air Ministry where he continued to work on aircraft gun sights as well as showing how they could best be armed with the weapons then available. He made key contributions to the development of the GM2 reflector gunsight that helped the allies gain air superiority over Germany.
F. E. Baker Ltd was a British motorcycle engine and cyclecar engine manufacturer based in the Precision Works, Moorsom Street, Birmingham, England. Founded in 1906 by Frank Edward Baker, the company produced motorcycle engines under the Precision trademark until 1919. Precision engines were used by a wide range of motorcycle manufacturers in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the Commonwealth and were also used in cyclecars. Many manufacturers used the 'Precision' trademark as part of their model names, and in 1912 there was a 'Precision' motorcycle sold in Australia, but it is unclear if this was manufactured by F. E. Baker or just permitted use of the trademark by a motorcycle manufacturer.
The Argyll aircraft engine was the first four stroke sleeve valve engine built for aircraft use. Manufactured by the Scottish car maker Argylls in 1914, the engine was a 120 hp straight-six design utilising Burt-McCollum single sleeve valves which eliminated the need for poppet valves. The Argyll aircraft engine was exhibited to the British War Office in 1914 but was not put into production. Development of Burt-McCollum single sleeve valves continued after World War I with the type eventually seeing widespread use in British aero engines starting with the Bristol Perseus in 1932.
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