John Ericsson
| John Ericsson | |
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| Born |
July 31, 1803 Långbanshyttan, Värmland |
| Died | March 8, 1889 (aged 85) New York |
| Occupation | Engineer, innovator |
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John Ericsson (born Johan) (July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American inventor, active in England and the United States, and regarded as one of the most influential mechanical engineers ever. Ericsson collaborated on the design of the steam locomotive Novelty, which competed in the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, won by George Stephenson's Rocket. In America he designed the US Navy's first screw-propelled steam-frigate USS Princeton, in partnership with Captain , who unjustly blamed him for a fatal accident. A new partnership with Cornelius H. DeLamater of the DeLamater Iron Works in New York resulted in the first armoured ship with a rotating turret, the USS Monitor, which dramatically saved the US naval blockading squadron from destruction by an ironclad Confederate vessel, CSS Virginia, at Hampton Roads in March 1862.
Johan Ericsson was born at Långban in Värmland, Sweden. He was the brother of Nils Ericson, a distinguished canal and railway builder in Sweden. Their father Olaf Ericsson (1778–1818) had worked as the supervisor for a mine in Värmland. He had lost money in speculation and had to move his family to Forsvik in 1810. There he worked as a director of blastings during the excavation of the Swedish Göta Canal.
The extraordinary skills of the two Ericsson brothers were discovered by Baltzar von Platen, the architect of the Göta Canal. They were dubbed 'cadets of mechanics' of the Swedish Royal Navy, and engaged as trainees at the canal enterprise. At the age of fourteen, John was already working independently as a surveyor. His assistant had to carry a footstool for him to reach the instruments during surveying work. At the age of seventeen he joined the Swedish army in Jämtland, serving in the Jämtland Field Ranger Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but was soon promoted to Lieutenant. He was sent to northern Sweden to do surveying, and in his spare time he constructed a heat engine which used the fumes from the fire instead of steam as a propellant. His skill and interest in mechanics made him resign from the army and move to England in 1826. However his heat engine was not a success, as his prototype was designed to burn birchwood and would not work well with coal (the main fuel used in England).
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