Charles began development of a unique steam engine in which the cylinder block rotated at high speed. Although it was not a commercial success, the patent described for the first time how oil under pressure was fed to the big end bearings through passages drilled in the crankshaft. This is still a feature of all modern car engines. Many pioneers had built steam turbines before this, but none that were practical and efficient devices. When Charles joined Clarke Chapman in Gateshead in 1884 as chief electrical engineer, he set about changing this and succeeded in building a practical machine in just one year.
Turbines show to best advantage in machines of large size.
After five years of development he had a conflict with his partners and broke with them and in the process lost the right to use his patents. Undeterred, he established his own firm and built radial flow machines that were not dependent on the 1884 patents. He developed the design so that it could exhaust to a vacuum. This gave a large jump in thermal efficiency. In 1894, having pushed up output by more than 250 times to 1,600kw, Parsons recovered his original patents, but he was now being challenged commercially for the first time by the Swedish graduate engineer CGP de Laval with his rival design.