Arthur Pollen

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Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen (13 September 1866 – 28 January 1937) was a writer on naval affairs in the early 1900's who recognised the need for a computer based fire-control system. The system took twelve years to develop but included the world's first electrically powered mechanical analogue computer (called at the time the Argo Clock).

Contents 1 Early life 2 Fire control 3 Reference 4 Notes

[edit] Early life

Pollen was born on 13 September 1866, the sixth son and eighth child of eight sons and two daughters born to John Hungerford and Maria Margaret Pollen. His father being a leading convert to Catholicism along with Cardinal Newman, Arthur was educated at the school which the latter founded in Birmingham, The Oratory School (1878–1884). He then went up to read Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford where he gained a second-class degree in 1888. In 1893 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. He then took an interest in parliamentary politics, standing as Radical candidate for the Walthamstow Division of Essex in the General Election of 1895 which he lost; his 4,523 votes to the 6,876 of his opponent, E.W. Byrne, MP, QC. After this setback he continued to speak at Liberal Party events, but declined to stand in the by-election brought about by Byrne's resignation in 1897.

On 7 September 1898 he married Maud Beatrice, the only daughter of the leading Conservative politician Joseph Lawrence, (later Sir Joseph Lawrence, Bart.) who was also chairman of Linotype and Machinery Ltd. With Maud he had one daughter, who died aged four, and two sons. In 1898 Pollen was made the managing-director of Linotype, which he ran successfully for the next decade.

[edit] Fire control

Through a relative, Commander William Goodenough, Pollen saw a naval gunnery practice near Malta in 1900, and the accuracy was so poor that even at ranges of less than a mile the big guns could not reliably hit their targets.^[1] On the board of the Linotype Company at the time was Lord Kelvin, widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist. It was Kelvin who proposed using an analogue computer to solve the equations which arise from the relative motion of the ships engaged in the battle and the time delay in the flight of the shell to calculate the required trajectory and therefore the direction and elevation of the guns. Kelvin's brother James Thompson was responsible for producing a tidal analyser using a ball, disc and cylinder differential analyzer which was the original source of the suggested analogue computer.^[2]

However first accurate data is needed of the targets position and relative motion. Pollen developed a plotting unit (or plotter) to capture this data. He added a gyroscope to allow for the yaw of the ship. Again this required substantial development of the, at the time, primitive gyroscope to provide continuous reliable correction.^[3] Pollen utilised the resources of Linotype for his work, specifically the services of a designer named Harold Isherwood. Trials were carried out in 1905 and 1906, which although completely unsuccessful showed promise. To further the development of fire-control Pollen set up in 1909 the Argo Company, and in 1911 took a holding in the firm of Thomas Cooke & Sons of York, who had been manufacturing components for his equipment.

Early on Pollen was encouraged in his efforts by the rapidly-rising figure of Admiral Jackie Fisher, Admiral Arthur Knyvet Wilson and the Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes (DNO), John Jellicoe. Many officers in the navy were not unnaturally interested in the prospect of being able to have ranges calculated for them so that they could achieve a greater rate of hits against the enemy. In early 1906, while presenting his planned "Aim Correction" system to naval officers, he met for the second time a promising gunnery lieutenant, Frederic Dreyer. The nature of Pollen's work involved close cooperation with the Navy, and upon Dreyer's appointment as Assistant to the DNO with responsibility for fire-control he was invited to view Pollen's Linotype works at Broadheath. Pollen had had a long relationship with Dreyer's predecessor, Lieutenant Harding.

Pollen continued his work, with tests carried out on Royal Navy warships intermittently. Equipment was repeatedly purchased, despite the misgivings of successive DNOs Reginald Bacon and Archibald Moore.

The Dreyer Fire Control Table did not initially include a gyroscope, and the plotting of rangefinder readings was performed manually in most Dreyer tables ^[4]. The Dreyer system differed from the Argo system by plotting ranges and bearings versus time rather than using a single rangefinder to take both ranges and bearings.^[5] However Dreyer played a key role within the Admiralty as to which system to use, and always chose his own.

Dreyer was found by a subsequent Royal Commission to have plagiarised Pollen's work and £30,000 compensation was paid to Pollen in 1926. Pollen's supporters have argued that the poor performance at the Battle of Jutland ^[6] and Gallipoli ^[7] of Naval gunnery were due to the shortcomings of the Dreyer system, but others cite the tactics of the commander of the British battlecruisers, Vice-Admiral David Beatty.^[8]

[edit] Reference

• Pollen, Antony (1980). The Great Gunnery Scandal – The Mystery of Jutland. Collins, 23. ISBN 0 00 216298 9. 
• Dreyer/Usborne (1913). Pollen Aim Correction System. Part I. Technical History and Technical Comparison with Commander F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control System. Admiralty. p. 1024 in Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, UK. 
• (1918) Handbook for Captain F. C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables. Admiralty. CB 1456 in Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, UK. 
• Brooks, John (1918). Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland - The Question of Fire Control publisher=Routledge. ISBN 0 714 65702 6. 

[edit] Notes

1. ^  The Great Gunnery Scandal – The Mystery of Jutland; Pollen, Antony;Collins;= 1980; ISBN 0 00 216298 9 page= 23

2. ^  Ibid Page 35.

3. ^  Ibid Page 36.

4. ^  Ibid Page 55.

5. ^  Ibid Page 180.

6. ^  Ibid Page 173.

7. ^  Handbook of Captain F. C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables

8. ^  Pollen Aim Correction System. Part I. Technical History and Technical Comparison with Commander F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control System

9. ^  Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland - The Question of Fire Control, pp. 231-249