Biograph of Latimer Clark

CLARK, Latimer, C.E. Born at Great Marlow in 1822.

He commenced Railway surveying in 1847; he was also appointed assistant- engineer for the construction of the Britannia Tubular Bridge across the Menai Strait. During his stay at Menai Bridge, Mr. Latimer Clark used to fire a time-gun by electricity every evening at 8 o'clock. The attention of the chairman of the Electric Telegraph Company was, through this, called to the young engineer, who, in 1850, was appointed assistant-engineer to the company, becoming afterwards their engineer-in-chief and consulting engineer. Many improvements in the telegraph system were introduced by him; and a very able report on the subject of under ground telegraph wires was made by him in 1853, which was embodied later on in the Government report in 1861. He was the first to witness the retardation of electric signals in submarine lines, and to demonstrate that currents of low tension travel as fast as those of high tension. In 1856 Mr. Clark invented and patented the double cup insulator for overland telegraph wires, now universally employed. To him we owe the important invention in 1854 of the pneumatic transmission of messages, now so largely used. The invention of a method of protecting submarine cables by Clark's compound followed in 1858. In 1860 he acted as a member of the committee appointed jointly by the Government and the Atlantic Cable Telegraph Company to inquire into the whole subject of submarine telegraph cables. Mr. Clark was also for many years engineer to the Indian Government cable lines in the Persian Gulf. As head of the firm of Clark, Forde, and Co., he superintended the submergence of some 50,000 miles of submarine cables in all parts of the globe. His experiments upon the effect of temperature on the insulation of gutta-percha cables, in connection with Sir Charles Bright, in 1863, proved highly valuable. He also originated in 1861 the system of electrical measurement in ohms and volts, which has now come into general use, and has conferred such vast benefits on electrical science. We may mention the publication by him in 1871, in conjunction with Mr. Robert Sabine, of his electrical tables and formula for operations in submarine cables, besides other papers of great value. Mr. Latimer Clark has taken out about 150 patents in different countries, many of his inventions being of great value. For a number of years a partner in the engineering firms of Clark and Standfield, and Latimer Clark, Muirhead and Co., he has brought out many important inventions in different branches of engineering.