Dugald Clerk

Sir Dugald Clerk ( born March 31, 1854 in Glasgow, † November 12, 1932 in Ewhurst, Surrey, England) was a Scotsman who developed in 1878 the first two-stroke engine. The engine was on 11 February 1879 D.R.P. No. 8745 patented in 1881 in England.

This happened out of the necessity to circumvent the existing patent for a four -stroke engine, the Nicolaus Otto had received in 1876. He needed for a working game, although only one crankshaft revolution, but was still far removed from today's two-strokes.

Its engine was still a second cylinder for charging what was simplified in 1891 by Joseph Day.

He had started as a mechanic at the age of 14 years and 5 years later, his study of chemistry began on Andersonian College in Glasgow in Thomas Edward Thorpe and the Yorkshire College, Leeds. A Lenoir gas engine sparked his interest in mechanical engineering.

From 1886 he lived in Birmingham, where he conducted research on gas engines and GC Marks founded a successful consulting and patent agency. One of her clients was Frederick W. Lanchester, for which he patented in 1890 the starter.

In World War I he developed a machine for the production of ammunition, for which he was knighted.