Charles Algernon Parsons

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (1854 to 1931) was an Anglo-Irish engineer and inventor who turned his 1884 compound steam turbine into a manufacturing business. Born in London as the youngest son of the astronomer William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, he trained at the Elswick works of W. G. Armstrong and with Kitson in Leeds before heading the electrical department at Clarke, Chapman and Company near Newcastle. In 1889 he left to found C. A. Parsons and Company at Heaton in Newcastle to build turbo generators to his own design, and he later founded the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company, whose turbine yacht Turbinia startled the 1897 Spithead naval review and opened the way to turbine-driven warships and liners. In 1925 he bought the Grubb Telescope Company, renamed Grubb Parsons. He was knighted in 1911 and received the Order of Merit in 1927.