3rd July 2019
In the early 1930s Fred began to patent designs for sound systems, patenting designs for amplifiers, loudspeakers, gramophones and microphones through his company Lanchester Laboratories Ltd. Fred demonstrated his loudspeaker, which was intended to be used in large concert halls, to a journalist at his home on 23rd January 1929 who was impressed at the range of sound the ‘Euterpe-phone’ (pictured below) produced.
2nd July 2019
The Lanchester Motor Company designed and manufactured armoured cars for the Ministry of Defence. They were sent to Belgium, used to rescue pilots after the battle of Ypres and later used on airfields in Britain.
3rd July 2019
Fred Lanchester enjoyed science and mathematics at school and was accepted by the Hartley Institution in Southampton (now the University of Southampton) at the age of 13, and had to wait a year before taking up his place.
Fred’s passion for flight began during a transatlantic trip when he observed the flight of birds gliding next to the boat on which he was travelling. He was fascinated by the movement and the shape of their wings and began to develop a theory of flight based on the twisting flow of air or ‘vortex’ caused by the friction of the air moving over the slender shape of the wings.
In the Blitz of 1940 that affected so much of Coventry, in one evening a factory was decimated and the first all-British, four-wheeled petrol motor car was destroyed.
Fred’s interests went way beyond cars and aeroplanes into the fundamentals of astrophysics, space, time and gravity!
Fred’s interest in flight continued into the 20th century and he travelled to watch the Wright Brothers fly in France during their tour of Europe.
Fred’s notebooks often contain fascinating lists of components and materials including this one for a battery from 1905.
