John Forrest Kelly

John Forrest Kelly ( * March 28, 1859 in Carrick-on -Suir, Ireland, † October 15, 1922 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts ) was an American inventor.

His parents, Jeremiah and Kate Forrest Kelly were teachers. He had eleven brothers and sisters. In 1873 he emigrated to the U.S. and attended the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1878 and his Ph. D. in 1881.

He first worked as an assistant at Edison laboratories in Menlo Park. In 1879, he became an engineer at the Western Electric Company in New York. In 1882 he became laboratory assistant to Edward Weston and then chief electrician of the United States Electric Lighting Company ( USEL; founded by Weston, Hiram S. Maxim and Farmer ).

He was a partner of William Stanley ( physicist ) and Cummings C. Chesney in the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company was founded in Pittsfield in 1890. They developed the AC transmission system SKC, in which the frequency has been changed, and which was installed in 1890 in many Textilfabiken and other industries. Kelly filed for over 90 patents, and was co-inventor of the Cooke -Kelly process for drying food.