INTERVIEW 7
From kettle controls to a clock which tells the time in a new way
Dr John C Taylor is the inventor whose kettle controls are used one billion times every day. He has also invented a new type of clock with concentric rings of vernier slits that expose lights to indicate the time. Jon Severn met Dr Taylor to discuss the process of invention and the Corpus Clock.
John C Taylor est l’homme qui a inventé des commandes pour bouilloire électrique utilisées un milliard de fois par jour. Il est aussi l’inventeur d’un nouveau type d’horloge comportant des cercles concentriques de fentes du vernier qui exposent des lumières pour indiquer l’heure. John Severn a rencontré M. Taylor pour parler du processus d’invention et de l’horloge Corpus.
Dr. John C. Taylor ist ein Erfinder, dessen Kesselthermostate jeden Tag eine Milliarde Mal verwendet werden. Außerdem entwarf er eine neuartige Uhr mit konzentrischen Ringen aus Gradeinstellungsschlitzen, durch die Licht fällt, um die Uhrzeit anzuzeigen. Jon Seven hat Dr. Taylor nach dem Erfindungsprozess und der Corpus-Uhr befragt.
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t was inevitable that John Taylor would become an inventor, having grown up watching his father inventing things. In the 1930s Eric Taylor created what
today would be referred to as a technical fabric, namely the first windproof and waterproof cotton cloth. However, the fabric was so revolutionary that there was no mass market for it, hence it was used instead to make clothing for expeditions to Mount Everest, Greenland and other extreme environments, as well as flying suits for Amelia Earhart’s endurance record attempts. Eric Taylor was asked to investigate high-voltage heated suits for the Royal Air Force. He realised that a snap-action thermostat was required, so he developed a dished bimetallic thermostat. After the war, Eric Taylor formed a company called Otter Controls and sought new applications for thermostatic controls. The first order he received was for a choke control on Rover cars, despite the fact that only the prototype control existed and Otter Controls had no manufacturing facilities! Other inventions followed, with the young
John Taylor watching the process as he grew up. In 1956 John Taylor won a place at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to read Natural
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Fig. 1. Dr John Taylor (left) with Professor Stephen Hawking at the inauguration of the Corpus Clock.
Sciences, for which he was awarded a BA three years later (he received an honorary doctorate at UMIST in 2001 and was made a visiting Professor of Innovation; he is also now an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). After graduating, John Taylor had planned to obtain a PhD, studying the geology of Antarctica. Disappointingly, an offer of sponsorship was withdrawn, so the PhD was cancelled. “Not having an alternative plan, I drifted back to Otter Controls as a graduate trainee,” explains Dr Taylor. In the 1960s products were commonly
over-engineered and did not necessarily incorporate safety devices. But automotive manufacturers were starting to reduce vehicle weights, which meant that over-engineering fell out of favour. Electric motors for windscreen wipers, for example, needed to have lighter magnets and thinner wire for the windings. Previous designs of electric motor had relied on conventional thermostatic switches comprising a bimetallic disc, electrically insulating pusher and
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