VI. LATlMER CLARK.
MR. Clark was born at Great Marlow in 1822, and probably acquired his
scientific bent while engaged at a manufacturing chemist's business in
Dublin. On the outbreak of the railway mania in 1845 he took to
surveying, and through his brother, Mr. Edwin Clark, became assistant
engineer to the late Robert Stephenson on the Britannia Bridge. While
thus employed, he made the acquaintance of Mr. Ricardo, founder of the
Electric Telegraph Company, and joined that Company as an engineer in
1850. He rose to be chief engineer in 1854, and held the post till
1861, when he entered into a partnership with Mr. Charles T. Bright.
Prior to this, he had made several original researches; in 1853, he
found that the retardation of current on insulated wires was independent
of the strength of current, and his experiments formed the subject of a
Friday evening lecture by Faraday at the Royal Institution--a sufficient
mark of their importance.
In 1854 he introduced the pneumatic dispatch into London, and, in 1856,
he patented his well-known double-cup insulator. In 1858, he and Mr.
Bright produced the material known as 'Clark's Compound,' which is so
valuable for protecting submarine cables from rusting in the sea-water.
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