# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Berthon, Edward Lyon

​BERTHON, EDWARD LYON (1813–1899), inventor, born in Finsbury Square, London, on 20 Feb. 1813, was the tenth child of Peter Berthon, who married in 1797 a daughter of Henry Park [q. v.] of Liverpool. His father was great-grandson of St. Pol le Berthon, the only son of the Huguenot Marquis de Chatellerault, who escaped the persecutions that followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. He found a refuge in Lisbon, whence his son proceeded to London. Peter Berthon was an army contractor, who was reduced from wealth to comparative poverty by the wreck of a number of his ships and the end of the war on the downfall of Napoleon. In 1828 young Berthon was sent to Liverpool to study surgery under the care of James Dawson (who had just taken over Henry Park's practice), and with Dawson he continued for more than four years. At the end of this time, having engaged himself to a niece of Mrs. Dawson, he went to Dublin to finish his course at the College of Surgeons there : but a violent attack of pneumonia, and, on his recovery, his marriage on 4 June 1834, seem to have put an end to his medical studies. He spent the greater part of the next six years travelling in France, Switzerland, and Italy. During this time he also employed himself with philosophical experiments. From childhood he had shown a remarkable aptitude for mechanical science; as a boy he had constructed an electrical machine, and had been in the habit of giving demonstrations to his companions. While at Geneva on his wedding tour — he noted the date, 28 June 1834 — he conceived the idea of applying the screw to nautical propulsion. To him it seems to have been absolutely new, and, as far as practical adaptation went, it really was so. In the autumn of 1835 he carried out a series of experiments with twin screws on a model three feet long, and arrived at the two-bladed propeller as now used. The model was then sent to the admiralty, but was returned some few weeks afterwards with the opinion that ' the screw was a pretty toy, which never would and never could propel a ship.' This so far discouraged Berthon that he never completed the patent and allowed the matter to rest. In 1838 he read in the newspaper of the invention of the screw propeller by Francis Smith [q. v.], and naturally assumed that Smith had got the idea from his abandoned sketch in the patent office. When he returned to England in 1840 he went 'to have it out with the supposed pirate.' It appeared, however, that Smith's design was as original as Berthon's, though his experiments had led him ​to almost identical results, and the two men became warm friends.
By 1841 Berthon had made up his mind to take orders. He had some time before had his name entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but he now migrated to Magdalene as a fellow-commoner. He spent more time, he says, in painting than in the study of mathematics, and, being married, refused to read for honours. But he continued his mechanical experiments, and especially with a small gauge for measuring the speed of ships, which he speaks of as a 'nautachometer,' but which has been more commonly called 'Berthon's log.' Here, again, by his experiments, he rediscovered the hydraulic principle enunciated long before by Bernoulli, of the sucking action of a stream of water crossing the end, or a small orifice near the end, of a pipe. Such a pipe projecting below the bottom of a ship, and acted on by its motion through the water, was made to indicate the speed by the surface level of a column of mercury placed in the cabin. In 1845 Berthon graduated B.A. (M.A. 1849), and was ordained to the curacy of Lymington. In 1847 he was presented to the living of Holy Trinity, Fareham, where he remained for eight years, making the acquaintance of many naval officers, and continuing his experiments with the log on board the steamers running between Southampton and Jersey. The results he obtained were exceedingly interesting, and the instrument was shown to be capable of great accuracy; but it was judged too delicate for sea service, and the admiralty, instead of encouraging its inventor to seek a remedy for its alleged defects, condemned it altogether. Under happier auspices it may possibly even yet be perfected and fitted to the ships of the navy.
Meanwhile Berthon devised an instrument for showing exactly the trim of a ship at any moment—that is, whether and how much and in which direction the keel was out of the horizontal; and another for indicating the number of degrees through which the ship rolled. But the most celebrated, the most practically useful of all his inventions was the collapsible boat, the idea of which first occurred to him after the terrible wreck of the steamer Orion off Portpatrick on 29 June 1849. After overcoming many difficulties, he succeeded in procuring an order from the admiralty for it to be tried and reported on. The report, when it came, was adverse, and Berthon, in disgust, resigned his living at Fareham in order to get away from ships and boats. He was shortly afterwards presented to Romsey, where Lord Palmerston was his parishioner; and for many years he devoted himself and all his powers to the restoration of the church. He himself has very fully described the work, the difficulties that had to be surmounted, and the good success that was attained.
In 1873, at the instigation of Samuel Plimsoll [q. v. Suppl.], he recurred to the design of the collapsible boats, and this time with complete success. The invention was taken up by Sir William Robert Mends [q. v. Suppl.], and before the end of the year Berthon had orders from the admiralty to the amount of upwards of 15,000l. The business of making these boats rapidly extended; several were taken by Sir George Nares to the Arctic in 1875; eight of the first made were sent to General Gordon at Khartoum; two were taken by Mr. Selous to the Zambesi. After a few years the business was converted into a company, with Lord Dunsany as chairman, and it has since continued to prosper. In 1881-2 Berthon made a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope and back in the Union Company's steamer Spartan, partly for the trip and partly also to give a thorough trial to the trim and roll indicators. In 1885 he went out to New York, mainly, he says, to try and promote the sale of the boats; but he found the duty prohibitive. In his later years he occupied and amused himself with writing his reminiscences, which were published in 1899 under the title of 'A Retrospect of Eight Decades.' He survived its publication a very few months, and died at the vicarage, Romsey, on 27 Oct. 1899, of a cold caught on a visit to Jersey. His wife had predeceased him many years, leaving issue.
The 'Engineer,' which describes Berthon personally as 'courteous and refined, full of fun, ready and eloquent as a public speaker,' speaks of him also as possessing 'a mechanical skill which enabled him [in the restoration of the church] to accomplish reconstructive feats which were held to be impossible. … As an astronomer he held no mean place, and numerous telescopes have been mounted by him, which are to be found in observatories in all parts of the world.'
[Retrospect of Eight Decades (with two portraits from photographs), 1899; Engineer, 3 Nov. 1899.]
J. K. L.