THE WORLD'S FIRST POWER-GENERATING WIND-MILL

BLYTH, JAMES.

Improvements in Wind Engines. [British Patent] Number: 19,401. A.D. [Date of Application, 10th Nov., 1891 - Accepted, 12th Dec., 1891].

London, Darling & Son, 1891.

8vo. Disbound. Stamp to p. 1. 1 .p + 1 plate.

Scarce original printed patent for the world's first energy-generating wind-mill, the "Blyth Turbine", being the first wind turbine used to convert wind energy into power.

Blyth's seminal invention marked the dawn of wind turbine development. Although previously credited with being the first to use a wind powered machine to generate electricity, it is now an accepted fact that the American inventor Charles Brush came second to Blyth and his wind mill.

There were, of course wind mills before the time of Blyth, but these were used to pump water or grind grain, and Blyth's groundbreaking invention, described and patented for the first time here, is the first used to convert wind energy into power. Blyth experimentend, prompted by his friend Lord Kelvin, with three different turbine designs, which ultimately resulted in a 10-meter-high, cloth-sailed wind turbine, which was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire. He used the electricity it produced to charge accumulators, and the stored electricity was used to power the lights in his cottage, which thus became the first house in the world to be powered by wind-generated electricity. The wind turbine in Blyth's garden is said to have operated for 25 years.

"The first person to harness the wind to produce electricity was a Scotsman, James Blyth ('America reaps the wind harvest', 21 August). He first consulted his colleague, Lord Kelvin, about the possibility of using a windmill for the purpose. Kelvin thought it would be possible and urged Blyth to set up a large horizontal windmill at his holiday home in Marykirk near Montrose in 1888.

Blyth lit his own house and offered to light the streets of Marykirk, but his offer was not accepted because the villagers thought electricity was the work of the devil. He did, however, provide emergency power for the local asylum." (Price, Trevor J.: James Blyth - Britain's first modern wind power pioneer, Wind Engineering, Volume 29, Number 3, May 2005 , pp. 191-200(10)).

Order-nr.: 48964