Henry Sutton (4 September 1855,

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

, Victoria – 28 July 1912) was an Australian designer, engineer, and inventor credited with contributions to early developments in electricity, aviation, wireless communication, photography and telephony. Branch is Sutton's great-granddaughter

Early life

Family

Henry Sutton, the second of the eleven children of Richard Henry Sutton (1831 – 1876), and Mary Sutton (1835 – 1894), née Johnson, was born in a tent on the

goldfields on 4 September 1855. He had three brothers, with whom he was associated in the ''Sutton Brothers'' musical business originally centred on Ballarat,Sutton's Proprietary, Limited, ''The Ballarat Star'', (Saturday, 29 December 1900), p.1Sutton Bros. and Their Staff, ''The Ballarat Star'', (Tuesday, 1 January 1901), p.6.
/ref> and two sisters. He married Elizabeth Ellen Wyatt (1860–1901) in 1881,Deaths: Sutton, ''The Australasian'', (Saturday, 2 November 1901), p.60.
/ref> and Annie May Tatti (1884-), on 17 September 1902,Marriages: Sutton—Tatti, ''The Leader'', (Saturday, 11 October 1902), p.44.
/ref> who bore four and two sons, respectively.

Education

Up to the age of ten, Sutton was schooled by his mother, then attended a state school, and then Gracefield college between 1869 and 1872. Sutton was self taught in the field of science, having read all the available books in library of the Ballarat Mechanics' lnstitute by the age of 14. Sutton trained as a draftsman at the Ballarat School of Design where he won a silver medal and 30 other prizes for drawing. Sutton studied at the Ballarat School of Mines.

Ballarat

Sutton lectured at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1883 to 1886. In 1883, as a consequence of his work on batteries, Sutton was admitted as an associate of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians. M. Louis Adolphe Cochery minister of Post and Telegraph Office in France invited Sutton to membership of the Société Internationale des Electriciens. Sutton was also offered membership of Electrical societies from America, Belgium and Russia. In 1890 prior to leaving for England, a farewell dinner was held by the citizens of Ballarat, where Sutton was presented with an Illuminated address.

London: 1890–1893

Sutton registered Sutton's Process Syndicate in November 1891 at an address in London to exploit his ''Suttontype'' printing process. The process was not considered particularly innovative and it was reported to be unreliable. He abandoned the business to return to Australia. In 1892, he was introduced to

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (;"Tesla"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 10 July 1856 – 7 ...

Lord Rayleigh John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ( ; 12 November 1842 – 30 June 1919), was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904 "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery ...

and

William Preece Sir William Henry Preece (15 February 1834 – 6 November 1913) was a Welsh electrical engineer and inventor. Preece relied on experiments and physical reasoning in his life's work. Upon his retirement from the Post Office in 1899, Preece was ...

. On the return voyage to Australia in 1893, Sutton used his printing process to contribute pictures to a shipboard newspaper called the ''Red Sea Scorcher''.

Melbourne

Sutton travelled with

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian Americans, Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He als ...

from Melbourne to Ballarat on 15 August 1910 where they discussed their respective discoveries. Sutton died suddenly, at his residence ("Waltham", 9 Erskine Street, Malvern), on 28 July 1912, at the age of 56 and was buried in the Brighton Cemetery.

Inventions

Printing

Sutton's ''Suttontype'' process for converting photographs into a printing surface was patented in 1887.Victoria Government Gazette 104
Friday, October 28th 1887
Victoria Government Gazette 108
Friday, November 11th 1887

Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute, Branch (2018). p.283.

Wireless telegraphy

Sutton discovered, and patented, a

galena Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver. Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It crysta ...

"detector" that had superior performance over other devices used to that time.An improved detector of electric oscillations for wireless telegraphy and like purposes
Australian Patent No. 2621/11, 29 September 1911, Branch (2018). p.297. Sutton had also built the world's first portable radio and held a number of other patents relating to wireless transmission and reception.Improved means of producing electric oscillations for wireless telegraphy and other purposes
Branch (2018). p.299. Improvements relating to the production and transmission of hertzian waves, Branch (2018). p.297. Improved means for preventing 'arcing' of the gap in the production of high potential electrical oscillations, Branch (2018). p.297. Improved means for detecting acoustic electric, or like waves, Branch (2018). p.297.

Other endeavours

Aviation

Sutton built a clockwork-driven ornithopter operating on a fixed arm and presented two papers on flight to the

Aeronautical Society of Great Britain The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest aeronautical society in the world. Members, Fellows ...

, in 1878, entitled "On the Flight of Birds and Aërial Navigation"The first page of the article (p.30) does not display Sutton's name but it is to be found at the foot of the previous page and "Second Paper on the Flight of Birds".

Batteries

In 1881, Sutton had developed a new rechargeable battery which was patented the following year. He also wrote of a four-volt cell compound battery invention which was described as impossible by the ''English Mechanic and World of Science'' in 1890.

Lighting

Sutton demonstrated a light globe sixteen days after Edison's demonstration on 31 December 1879. Subsequently Sutton's vacuum pump design which overcame deficiencies in the

Sprengel pump The Sprengel pump is a vacuum pump that uses drops of mercury falling through a small-bore capillary tube to trap air from the system to be evacuated. It was invented by Hanover-born chemist Hermann Sprengel in 1865 while he was working in Lo ...

, was used for the production of light globes by the Edison Swan company.

Telephony

After reading of

Bell A bell /ˈbɛl/ () is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be m ...

's 1876 announcement of the invention of the telephone, Sutton had designed about twenty different telephones within a year. Australian historian Ann Moyal states that Sutton "believed in the free flow of information as a gift to science ... patented little, although sixteen of his twenty original telephone designs were patented by others overseas". The first Australian telephone connection was made in

and Ballarat East, linking fire stations in the two towns. The exact location of one of the telephone sets can be seen in the Ballarat East Fire Station. The device once allowed communication between the two fire brigades in Ballarat so that they could more accurately locate fires from their watch towers. Sutton had also wired up Sutton's Music Stores, his family business warehouses and offices, with a telephone network two years before an official Australian telephone system. Sutton devised a method for using gas and water pipes as part of a telephone circuit.Victoria Government Gazette 122
Friday, November 12th 1886

ttp://ballaratmi.com.au Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute

Microscopy

In 1885 after cholera outbreak on a ship in Queensland, Sutton obtained a slide and managed to photograph the cholera germ at 1000 times magnification. A letter to this effect, from Sutton, was published in '' The Argus'' on 28 December 1885.

Photography

In the 1880s Sutton also devised a colour photography process but, although examples of this work exist, he did not commercialize it.

Television

In 1885, Sutton designed, but did not construct, a

mechanical television Mechanical television or mechanical scan television is an obsolete television system that relies on a mechanism (engineering), mechanical scanning device, such as a rotating disk with holes in it or a rotating mirror drum, to scan the scene and ...

apparatus to see the

Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is an annual Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia, at the Flemington Racecourse. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and older, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club that forms part of the ...

in Ballarat. Sutton had published his Telephane designs in 1890. According to historian Ann Moyal, the concept was never successfully demonstrated: "Sutton's 'TV system', which he called 'telephany', used all the latest technology, such as the recently-invented

Kerr effect The Kerr effect, also called the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) effect, is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric field. The Kerr effect is distinct from the Pockels effect in that the induced index chan ...

, the Nipkow disc (which Baird was to use in the 'twenties) and the selenium photocell. But its weak link in the 1870s was that the signal had to be transferred by telegraph lines, as radio had yet to arrive, and these were too slow to transmit the dashing horses of the Melbourne Cup successfully."

Facsimile

Sutton used his telephane system to demonstrate facsimile transmission with the help of Nicola Tesla in England. An account of his invention was later published in Washington in 1896, noting that the first patents for long-distance transmission of images dated back to 1867.

Lifts

For the benefit of his mother, who had been paralyzed by a stroke, a new hydraulic lift had been installed in the newly built Suttons Music Emporium. As Ballarat's low water pressure and lack of an efficient drainage system were incompatible, Sutton designed and built a new hydraulic mechanism to drive the lift. This design was subsequently used by the Austral Otis company and exported for use in America.

Automotive

::"Henry Sutton can be classed as an automobile inventor and designer rather than a manufacturer whose achievements were considerable and internationally recognized. As an inventor he produced a number of automobiles of his own design in an evolutionary process (somewhere between six and eight)." In 1897, a tricycle fitted with a Sutton designed and built engine was driven from Melbourne to Ballarat. Despite atrocious road conditions the trip was completed in eleven and a half hours, and the vehicle arrived in Ballarat to a crowd of thousands. From 1898 Sutton held patents for improvements in combustion engine carburettors; Branch (2018). p.286.Branch (2018). p.286. Improvements in and relating to Internal Combustion Engines. Branch (2018). p.286.Improvements in and relating to Internal Combustion Engines
Victoria Government Gazette 31, Friday, April 28th 1899. Branch (2018). p.286. Branch (2018). p.286.Improvements in and relating to Internal combustion engines: Patent No. 9327
Patents and Inventions, ''The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph'', (Tuesday, 13 June 1899), p.3. and, by 1899, he had built and driven the Sutton Autocar, one of the first motor cars in Australia.

Automobile Club of Victoria

Sutton was a founding member of the Automobile Club of Victoria; and, at its inaugural meeting, on 10 December 1903, Sutton's proposed "objects of the club" were unanimously accepted by all present: ::"that the objects of the club should be the promotion of a social organisation and club, composed mainly of persons owning self-propelled vehicles or motor cycles; to afford a means of recording the experiences of members and others using motor cars and motor cycles; to promote investigation in their development; to co-operate in securing rational legislation and the formation of proper rules and regulations governing the use of motor cars and motor cycles in cities, towns and country districts; to maintain the lawful rights and privileges and protect the interests of owners and users of all forms of self-propelled vehicles whenever and wherever such interests, rights and privileges are menaced; to promote and encourage the improvement, construction and maintenance of roads and highways and the development generally in this State of motoring, and to maintain a club to be devoted to the interests and advancement of automobilism."

Legacy

Henry Sutton Circuit

On 20 January 2004, several streets in the new Canberra suburb of Dunlop were named after "inventors, inventions, and artists"; and one of these new streets was called "Henry Sutton Circuit".

The Henry Sutton Oration

In 2014, the ''Telecommunications Association'' (formerly known as the '' Telecommunications Society of Australia'', which had its origins in the ''Telegraph Electrical Society'', founded in Melbourne in 1874), inaugurated its annual Henry Sutton Oration.

Poetry

Les Murray referred to Sutton and television in his 1990 poem "The Tube".

''The Science Show''

Science journalist Robyn Williams has featured Sutton in episodes of his long-running radio program.Henry Sutton – inventor of television

ABC Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...

– The Science Show, 22 December 2012

Notes

References

Footnotes

Family footnotes

Patents

External links

Sutton, ''allcarindex.com''.

Cansdale, Dominic, "Henry Sutton pioneered modern batteries and television so why have we forgotten 'Australia's Edison'?", ''ABC Ballarat'', 4 December 2018.

The legacy of Henry Sutton
by Mike Smyth, Electronics Online
Patent records held in Canberra – Fact sheet 265, ''National Archives of Australia''.
*
Henry Sutton
Familysearch {{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Henry 1855 births 1912 deaths 19th-century Australian inventors Australian physicists Australian automotive pioneers Australian aviation pioneers Academic staff of the Federation University Australia Federation University Australia alumni Independent scientists Ornithopters People associated with electricity People from Ballarat Pioneers of photography Radio pioneers Television pioneers Burials at Brighton General Cemetery 19th-century Australian engineers People from the Colony of Victoria