Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti

Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti ( born April 9, 1864 in Liverpool, † January 13, 1930 in Zurich ) was a British electrical engineer.

Life and work

His Italian father César Ferranti was a photographer, his mother a concert pianist. His first invention was a commercial arc light for street lights, which he developed at the age of 13 years. At the age of 16 he built together with Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) an electric generator, which was called and patented Ferranti dynamo. In 1881 he sold a dynamo for the then considerable sum of £ 5 10s.

In 1882 he founded the company Ferranti, Thompson and Ince Limited. This company was the first that bore his name. In 1905 he founded the company Ferranti Limited up to their bankruptcy in 1994 was active in all civil and military application fields of electrical engineering ( electric stoves, refrigerators, radios, radios, radar equipment, computer technology, production and distribution of electrical energy). At the age of 22, he was commissioned chief engineer of the London Electric Supply Corporation and with the planning and construction of the power plant Deptford, which was commissioned in 1890. During commissioning, he discovered named after him Ferranti effect.

Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti received from 1882 to 1927 a total of 176 patents for alternating current generators, high voltage cables, fuses, transformers and turbines. In 1927 he was admitted as a member ( "Fellow" ) to the Royal Society. He died on 13 January 1930 following a prostate disease in Zurich Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland. He was buried in Hampstead ( London).