The Clifford Paterson Lecture, 1977 Induction motors: old and new

Abstract

On the delivery of a recently founded named lecture, it is the duty and the pleasure of the lecturer to say something of the man whom it commemorates. Clifford Paterson was born in 1879 and died in 1948. He was thus over thirty years my senior, but I do remember clearly his Faraday Lecture for the Institution of Electrical Engineers on ‘The free electron’. He was well known as an excellent lecturer, particularly when the lecture was accompanied by demonstrations. He was a pioneer of industrial research, and his major work was done from 1919 onwards, when he created, virtually from scratch, the Research Laboratories of the General Electric Company at Wembley. His personal scientific interests were in gas discharges, photometry and illumination. Around these, the Labora­tories were established; but, in the war years, they turned to radar and other projects in radio and electronics, which could be handled because of the staff and facilities which Paterson had built up. He was elected F.R.S. in 1942. My own special interests lie in rotating electrical machinery, and are a long way from Paterson’s fields of activity. Nevertheless I have one claim to kinship with him, and I share certain opinions which he expressed in his own account of the G. E. C. Laboratories. Like Paterson, I also was trained as an electrical engineer, rather than as a scientific research worker, and I agree with his opinion that early industrial experience often proves beneficial to those who in later years engage in engineering research. Further, Paterson attached great importance to character, as well as to intellect, in leading to effective research work. I was once invited to tell a committee what teaching methods I used. I replied that I taught by influence and example, which are not expressible as a method, and left it at that. Those who have followed him have told me that Paterson was, above all, an influence and an example and, in this way, I try to follow the same kind of path as Paterson... So now to my theme.