John Ericsson was a Swedish-American inventor. He was active in England and the United States. Ericsson collaborated on the design of the railroad steam locomotive Novelty, which competed in the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which were won by inventor George Stephenson’s, Rocket.
John Ericsson, a Swedish-born American naval engineer and inventor who built the first armoured turret warship and developed the screw propeller.
Johan Ericsson”s brother of Nils Ericson a distinguished canal and railway builder in Swede.The extraordinary skills of the two Ericsson brothers were discovered by the architect of Göta Canal. At the age of fourteen, John was already working independently as a surveyor.At the age of seventeen he joined the Swedish army and was sent to northern Sweden to do surveying. In his spare time he constructed a heat engine which used the fumes from the fire instead of steam as a propellant. His skill and interest in mechanics made him resign from the army and move to England in 1826.
He constructed a steam locomotive, the Novelty, for a railway competition at Rainhill, Lancashire, in 1829. The prize was won by George Stephenson’s Rocket. Ericsson also devised a plan for placing warship engines below the waterline to protect them against shell fire. In 1833 he exhibited his caloric engine, on which he worked the rest of his life, and in 1836 he patented a screw propeller, first used in 1837 on the Francis B. Ogden, built in London. Capt. Robert F. Stockton, of the U.S. Navy, ordered a small iron vessel, the Robert F. Stockton, to be fitted by Ericsson with engines and screw; it reached New York City in May 1839.
A few months later, Ericsson immigrated to the United States, and he lived the rest of his life in New York City, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1848. During the American Civil War, Ericsson’s proposal to the Navy Department for a novel warship was accepted, and the Monitor was launched on Jan. 30, 1862. Wholly steam-powered and with a screw propeller, the vessel, with its armoured revolving turret, set a revolutionary pattern for warships that continued into the 20th century. On March 9 the Monitor fought the Confederate ironclad Virginia (formerly Merrimack), leading the federal government to place an order with Ericsson for many more Monitor-type vessels; these ships played an important role in the blockade of the Confederacy. In later years he developed a torpedo and investigated solar-powered motors.