Sir Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875), physician, inventor of the limelight and the Bude light, he made a steam engine which travelled between London and Bath at an avarage 15mph.
Gurney met the Cornish steam engine pioneering engineer Richard Trevithick at an early age and produced a steam powered carriage which travelled between London and Bath at an avarage speed of 15 mph. he built several of these steam carriages but opposition from the coaching companies caused the enterprise to be taxed to failure.
In 1822 he was appointed lecturer in Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at the Surrey Institute where invented a hydrogen/oxygen blowpipe which, when played on a piece of lime, gave off a brilliant light. Use of Gurney's limelight in the theatre gave rise to the popular phrase "in the limelight" but it was the use of his limelight to produce the warning beam of lighthouses which assured the inventor of his place in history.
Although it produced a brilliant light, Gurney's limelight was not without problems; the lime had to be replaced as it was consumed and the risk of explosion caused by close proximity of the necessary hydrogen and oxygen was very high.
Gurney introduced a stream of oxgyen into the dull yellow flame of a standard oil lamp of the time which burned the carbon in the flame producing an intense light. It is said that using one of his Bude lightsin combination with a number of prisms and lenses, Gurney was able to light the whole of his castle at Bude in Cornwall.
| CLICK HERE for the Cornish Time-Line on Cornwall Couty Council's web-site collated by the Cornish Studies Library, Redruth. |
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Recommend a Book for this Page
The Life and Times of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney: Gentleman Scientist and Inventor 1793-1875
by Dale H Porter, Bethlehem by Lehigh University (1998) ISBN 0934223505
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