Editing Carl Wilhelm Siemens (section)

==Career==
Siemens had been trained as a mechanical engineer, and his most important work at this early stage was non-electrical; the greatest achievement of his life, the [[Open hearth furnace|regenerative furnace]]. Though in 1847 he published a paper in Liebig's ''Annalen der Chemie'' on the 'Mercaptan of Selenium,' his mind was busy with the new ideas upon the nature of heat which were promulgated by [[Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot|Carnot]], [[Émile Clapeyron|Clapeyron]], [[James Prescott Joule|Joule]], [[Clausius]], [[Julius Robert von Mayer|Mayer]], [[Lord Kelvin|Thomson]], and [[William John Macquorn Rankine|Rankine]]. He discarded the older notions of heat as a substance, and accepted it as a form of energy.  Working on this new line of thought, which gave him an advantage over other inventors of his time, he made his first attempt to economise heat, by constructing, in 1847, at the factory of [[John Hick (MP)|John Hick]], of Bolton, an engine of four horse-power, having a condenser provided with regenerators, and using [[superheater|superheated]] steam.

Two years later he continued his experiments at the works of [[Fox, Henderson & Co|Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co.]], of [[Smethwick]], near [[Birmingham]], who had taken the matter in hand.  The use of superheated steam was attended with many practical difficulties, and the invention was not entirely successful; nevertheless, the Society of Arts, in 1850, acknowledged the value of the principle, by awarding Siemens a gold medal for his regenerative condenser.

In 1850 he established the London sales office of [[Siemens & Halske]], the engineering company producing [[telegraph]]s, which his brother Werner had founded in 1847 at Berlin. He started selling such devices to the wire rope producer [[Robert Stirling Newall|R. S. Newall and Company]] in [[Dundee]], of which his friend (and uncle of his later wife) [[Lewis Gordon (civil engineer)|Lewis Gordon]] was the co-owner. Newall & Co. also outsourced test jobs for cables to Siemens and such enabled the new company to enter the ocean cable-laying business. The branch office became [[Siemens Brothers]] in 1858. In the 1850s, the company was involved in building long distance telegraph networks in Russia. In 1855, a company branch headed by another brother, [[Carl Heinrich von Siemens]], opened in [[St Petersburg]], Russia. By 1863, Sir William had his own cable factory built at [[Charlton, London|Charlton]], London. In 1867, Siemens completed the monumental Indo-European ([[Kolkata|Calcutta]] to London) telegraph line.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/news/indo-european-telegraph-line.html|title=Halfway around the world in 28 minutes – Building the Indo-European Telegraph Line|website=Siemens Historical Institute|language=en|access-date=2019-06-17|archive-date=5 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605152446/https://new.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/news/indo-european-telegraph-line.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1859 William Siemens devoted a great part of his time to electrical invention and research; and the number of telegraph apparatus of all sorts – telegraph cables, land lines, and their accessories – which have emanated from the [[Siemens Brothers|Siemens Telegraph Works]] (at [[Charlton, London|Charlton]], SE London) has been remarkable. In 1872 Sir William Siemens became the first President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers which became the [[Institution of Electrical Engineers]], the forerunner of the [[Institution of Engineering and Technology]] [http://www.theiet.org/]

[[File:SiemensEngine1860.jpg|right|640px|thumb|The 4-cylinder experimental gas engine subject of Siemens patent (image taken from ''Theory of the Gas Engine'' by Dugald Clerk in 1882)]]
In 1860 William Siemens constructed a remarkable gas engine (the same year the very first commercial engine was produced by [[Étienne Lenoir|Lenoir]]). It did not get beyond the experimental stage, though its principle of operation (described in Siemens British patent 2074 of 1860, and by Siemens in ''The Theory of the Gas Engine''<ref>[[Dugald Clerk]]. ''The Theory of the Gas Engine'', D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1882</ref>) appears to be similar to the commercially successful [[George Brayton|Brayton]] engine of 1872. In the discussion section of ''The Theory of the Gas Engine'' Siemens discloses that<blockquote>The engine promised to give very good results, but about the same time he began to give his attention to the production of intense heat in furnaces, and having to make his choice between the two subjects, he selected the furnace and the metallurgic process leading out of it; and that was why the engine had remained where it was for so long a time.</blockquote>

Siemens was also responsible for the hot tube ignition system used on many of the early gas engines.<ref>Dugald Clerk, ''Gas and Oil Engines'', Longman Green & Co, (7th Edition) 1897, p. 224</ref>

In June 1862 he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27siemens%27%29 |title=Library and Archive Catalogue |publisher=Royal Society |access-date=15 October 2010 }}{{dead link|date=November 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and in 1871 delivered their [[Bakerian Lecture]].

As a member of the circumnavigation committee preparing the oceanographic [[Challenger expedition|expedition of HMS ''Challenger'']], Siemens was commissioned in 1871 to develop an electric thermometer to measure the temperature of the ocean at different depths.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aitken |first1=Frédéric |last2=Foulc |first2=Jean-Numa |title=Discovering H.M.S. Challenger's Physical Measurements Relating to Ocean Circulation |series=From Deep Sea to Laboratory |volume=2 |date=2019 |publisher=ISTE |location=London |isbn=978-1-78630-375-2 |doi=10.1002/9781119584896 |s2cid=182882300 |at=Chapter 1}}</ref>

He was elected as a member to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1877.<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?year=1877;smode=advanced;startDoc=21|access-date=2021-05-10|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

The [[Siemens regenerative furnace|regenerative furnace]] is the greatest single invention of Charles William Siemens, using a process known as the [[Siemens-Martin process]]. The electric [[pyrometer]], which is perhaps the most elegant and original of all William Siemens's inventions, is also the link which connects his electrical with his metallurgical researches. Siemens pursued two major themes in his inventive efforts, one based upon the science of heat, the other based upon the science of electricity; and the electric thermometer was, as it were, a delicate cross-coupling which connected both.

[[File:CS Faraday.jpg|thumb|[[CS Faraday (1874)|CS ''Faraday'']]]]
In 1874 he had a special [[cable ship]] built, according to his design, for ''Siemens Brothers'', the [[CS Faraday (1874)|CS ''Faraday'']]. In 1881, a Siemens [[Alternating current|AC]] [[Alternator]] driven by a [[watermill]] was used to power the world's first electric street lighting in the town of [[Godalming]], United Kingdom.