Swinton

Full Name: Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton

Achievements: Television pioneer

Born: 18 October 1863, at Edinburgh, Scotland

Died: 19 February 1930, in London, England.  Aged 66

Field & Discipline: Engineering; Electronics

Language: English

Father: Archibald Campbell Swinton

Mother: Georgiana Sitwell

Siblings: Three elder siblings: George, one other brother, and Alice

Spouse: None

Children: None

Education: Cargilfield School, Trinity, Edinburgh, 1874-78; Fettes College, Edinburgh, 1878-82

Major Work: “Autobiographical and Other Writings” (1930)

Life & Times:

In 1882 Swinton began a five-year apprenticeship with the English inventor and industrialist [apprenticed to] WG Armstrong*, an armaments manufacturer and shipbuilder, at the Elswick works and yard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Although at first employed as a technical draughtsman, drawing hydraulic machinery, in 1883 Swinton wrote three articles on electricity and then a book entitled 'The Principles and Practice of Electric Lighting', which on the advice of [encouraged by] Crookes*

was published the following year.

Over the next three years Swinton fitted out four large battleships with electric lights, his major innovation being the introduction of lead insulation for the ship's electric wires and cables, in place of the standard Admiralty practice of constructing a rubber and teak casing sealed with putty.  He also worked on one of the first ships, a Chilian battleship named the 'Blanco-Encalada', to be fitted with Sir Charles Parson's high-speed steam turbines.

In 1887, Swinton moved to London, where he established himself as an electrical contractor. During the 1890s Swinton also became involved with the Marine Steam Turbine Company, 1895-97 collaborating with Parsons on the construction of the first steam turbine ship, the 'Turbinia', a torpedo-boat destroyer.

In the early 1890s, Swinton began to carry out experimental investigations in his own laboratory, particularly on the discharge of electricity through a Crookes tube. He began publishing papers on the results of his experiments with cathode rays from 1896, the year of [influenced by] Roentgen's* discovery of X-rays.

A few days after reading the announcement of Roentgen's discovery he was able to take an X-ray photograph of the bones in his hand, published in the scientific journal 'Nature' on 23 January 1896. Soon afterwards, Swinton was contacted by several doctors and surgeons who wanted to X-ray their patients, and from 1897 he established what was essentially the first radiography unit in the country, and became an early pioneer in the development of medical applications for radiography.

During the late 1890s he also became close friends with many important scientists of the day, including William Thomson  (Lord [a pal of] Kelvin*), [a pal of] Marconi*, and the electrical inventor [a pal of] Hughes* - whose papers he posthumously edited, establishing that Hughes had made successful experiments in wireless telegraphy over short distances in 1879, before Hertz's discovery of radio waves.

In 1904 Swinton entirely gave up his electrical contracting business, and dedicated his time to his consulting work - through which he superintended the installation of electric lighting in many public buildings the United Kingdom - and his experimental investigations. In particular, he became interested in the early investigations of television broadcasting using cathode-rays by [influence by] Braun* in Germany and Boris Rosing in Russia.

After some experimentation, he outlined in an article in 'Nature' (1908) what was essentially the first completely electronic [key developer of] TV* system. Although, in Swinton's words, this was "an idea only" (as the lack of amplifiers – until [work related to] De Forest's* thermionic valve became available - for the weak electronic signals made the project theoretical only), he proposed a system that instead used two cathode-ray

tubes, in which the electron beams would be synchronously deflected by the varying fields of two electromagnets, one as a camera and the other as a receiver.

In 1911 Swinton published a more detailed version of his proposal (which remained entirely theoretical), in which a cathode-ray camera was constructed from a mosaic screen of photoelectric elements (light sensitive material), onto which the image of the scene to be transmitted was focused, and at the back of which was then discharged a cathode-ray beam scanning in parallel lines across the photocell screen, the electrically charged signals on the screen neutralized by an electron gun to create a varying current.   Swinton's brilliant ideas were, however, too advanced for early application, until [influenced] Zworykin* put them into practice in the 1930s.

Extra Connections: His family knew [family friend of] TH Huxley*

Assessment: Although he did not build any apparatus to actually broadcast from this system, his ideas proved important in the development of electronic television over the next three decades.

Oneliner:  AA Swinton, TV pioneer

Bibliography:

• Dictionary of National Biography.

Swinton, Alan Archibald Campbell, Autobiographical and Other  Writings, London, 1930