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drawing first design No. 37 Pistol

Antoon

Well-Known Member
Ordnance approved
On 17 February 1940 the Royal Air Force requested Mr. A.H. Midgley Harmer from Midgley Harmer Ltd. to design a long delay bomb pistol with anti-removal. The prototype was ready on 23 May 1940 and had the patent no. 9582 - 31.5.40, without a title. This design was not accepted by the RAF for several reasons. One of them was the metal container.

Is there a drawing of this prototype available?


Greetings - Antoon
 
Hallo Antoon,
I tried to look at the patent on Depatisnet, but was not successful. Are you shure about the patent number or can you give me a link to the patent ? The patents in 1940 should have a much higher number than 4-digits. Is the inventor, named in the patent, Albert Henry Midgeley or his son Bertie Midgeley or is the patent taken out on the company Midgeley Harmer Ltd.
Thanking you in advance for your consideration, I remain kindly yours,
Bellifortis.
 
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Re Patent No 9582 of 1940. Working back using somewhat old-fashioned paper Abridgements of Specifications for 1953. Patent No 9582 of May 31st 1940 decodes to GB585026.

Copy and paste:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?ST=singleline&locale=en_EP&submitted=true&DB=&query=gb585026

Hope that helps.
 
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Hi Bonnex,
thank you so much for your most interesting answer. I used an E too much in Midgleys name and because of that I got no results. Now I found 21 fuze patents in A.H.Midgleys name. Mostly bomb fuzes, but also sea-mine fuzes. It's incredible that this guy normally was working with musical instruments, electric appliances , organs and electric switching devices. Worldwide there are 100s of patents in his name. Did he also invent the 4 lbs Magnesium Incendiary Bomb Fuze ? His Patent GB577941 looks like that. Do you know how he got into the fuze buisiness and how many people were working in his company during WW2 ? There is a 2. patent, end digits 27, with some changes to his 585026 patent. Now I have a lots to read for quite some time. What formula did you use to decode the 4-digit patent No. to the real 6-digit No. ? Midgley names a Gelatine-H2O system in his patent. Was this used for security? The No.17 AC-system he must have known. A.H.Midgley looks like being for Great Britain very similar to what Richard Rinker was for Germany.Thank you so much for putting me on that trail.
With kind regards,
Bellifortis.
 
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Bellifortis,
Midgley was a tremendous British engineer but lacks full recognition for his work. As you say his inventions include a car dynamo, car lighting systems, fuzes, a single (or was it 5?) valve radio, electronic organ, switches and timers for domestic appliances. Albert Midgely's son Bertie lived quite near to me and we became good friends. Bertie had worked with his father from about 1926 and had probably not thrown anything away from the day he joined the firm. Bertie had a pair of adjoining semi-detached houses just absolutely full of documents and artefacts (e.g. five 'W' bombs and prototypes). His family home was in Moor Park, a rather expensive area to live in. I can expand on this if required but in answer to your question:
'How did he get into the fuze business?' - Midgley was tied up with CA Vandervell Ltd working as their Chief Engineer during WW1. After the war he was awarded a sizeable sum for his invention of the 'allways' fuze (No 146) so he had a track-record for munitions design. Although by 1939 he had lost touch with the government departments dealing with munitions design by chance he met an acquaintance who was involved with the development of the 'W' Bomb. The result of this meeting was that Midgley worked with MD1 ('Winston Churchill's Toyshop') and effectively redesigned the 'W' Bomb for them. Midgley also designed a delay device for sabotage purposes. The relationship between Macrae at MD1 and Midgley was not a harmonious one and at some stage Midgley started to deal directly with the RAF's Director of Armament Development, particularly on fuze matters.

Midgley the person, and Midgley Harmer Ltd were different legal entities and Midgley goes to some length in his papers to say that his designs, which were drawn in his home-office in Moor Park, belonged to him. This would be a point of discussion after the war when the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors considered his claims. M-H Ltd was still his company and it made many prototypes and did some production. I don't know how may staff there were.

The algorithm for decoding the patent number from the 'Application Number' involves Find printed copy of patent abridgements; mark pages involving Midgley; turn to page; look for N digit application number and date; repeat; be lucky!

Gelatine-H2O delay? Sounds an interesting idea but I don't know why he chose to mention it over an A-C system. McAlpines AC delay arrangement had been around since 1917. If I find anything I will let you know.

Answers are somewhat 'simplified'.
 
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An image of the man, from The Court Journal, April 5, 1918 (courtesy of the Midgley papers held in the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Savoy Place, London).
 

Attachments

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Bellifortis,
Midgley was a tremendous British engineer but lacks full recognition for his work. As you say his inventions include a car dynamo, car lighting systems, fuzes, a single (or was it 5?) valve radio, electronic organ, switches and timers for domestic appliances. Albert Midgely's son Bertie lived quite near to me and we became good friends. Bertie had worked with his father from about 1926 and had probably not thrown anything away from the day he joined the firm. Bertie had a pair of adjoining semi-detached houses just absolutely full of documents and artefacts (e.g. five 'W' bombs and prototypes). His family home was in Moor Park, a rather expensive area to live in. I can expand on this if required but in answer to your question:
'How did he get into the fuze business?' - Midgley was tied up with CA Vandervell Ltd working as their Chief Engineer during WW1. After the war he was awarded a sizeable sum for his invention of the 'allways' fuze (No 146) so he had a track-record for munitions design. Although by 1939 he had lost touch with the government departments dealing with munitions design by chance he met an acquaintance who was involved with the development of the 'W' Bomb. The result of this meeting was that Midgley worked with MD1 ('Winston Churchill's Toyshop') and effectively redesigned the 'W' Bomb for them. Midgley also designed a delay device for sabotage purposes. The relationship between Macrae at MD1 and Midgley was not a harmonious one and at some stage Midgley started to deal directly with the RAF's Director of Armament Development, particularly on fuze matters.

Midgley the person, and Midgley Harmer Ltd were different legal entities and Midgley goes to some length in his papers to say that his designs, which were drawn in his home-office in Moor Park, belonged to him. This would be a point of discussion after the war when the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors considered his claims. M-H Ltd was still his company and it made many prototypes and did some production. I don't know how may staff there were.

The algorithm for decoding the patent number from the 'Application Number' involves Find printed copy of patent abridgements; mark pages involving Midgley; turn to page; look for N digit application number and date; repeat; be lucky!

Gelatine-H2O delay? Sounds an interesting idea but I don't know why he chose to mention it over an A-C system. McAlpines AC delay arrangement had been around since 1917. If I find anything I will let you know.

Answers are somewhat 'simplified'.
Hallo @Bonnex,
thank you for quenching my thirst for knowledge. I found some patents where Midgley is only mentioned last, the first two being Millis Roland Jeffris and Robert Stuart Macrae, whom you mentioned. One of these seems to be the famous L-delay. It's really incredible that one man could amass such a large amount of different patents in his lifetime. It's those original ideas of men, that I find so interesting. I asked about the size of Midgeley-Harmer Ltd. to get an idea of the help he may have had. Like for instance the Rheinmetall electric fuzes. The electrical engineer Herbert Ruehlemann, who knew nothing about fuzes when he started to work there in 1926. Also in hundreds of patents he is named as inventor, he did have the original idea, but also he had the help of many highly qualified people in such a large company. Thank you also for writing down the "formula" to deduce a patent No. But, I must say, I don't dare to even try it.
Hoping that you had a good weekend, I remain kindly yours,
Bellifortis.
 
Thanks Tom. I have put a pamphlet in the download area which was written by Bertie Midgley to support an exhibition of Midgley senior's work that we put on at Brunel University.

It has been some time since I studied Midgley's work but from recollection (which is prone to high error rates nowadays) the No 37 Mark I Pistol was designed by the Design Department at Woolwich and Midgley designed the modified (Mark II) version and others. I would be happy to be proved wrong on this.

In April 1940 Commander Langley approached Midgley-Harmer for a long delay pistol (just one). I have assumed that a likely need for the pistol, or its parts, was in the development of the SOE AC Delay Fuze.


http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/downloads.php?do=file&id=983
 
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