Aeronautical Research at the University of Southampton

Abstract

F. W. Lanchester obtained his first technical education at the Hartley Institute in Southampton, later to become the University of Southampton, during the years 1886–89. His autobiography describes in vivid terms the primitive nature of the workshop and apparatus available. He would indeed be shocked at the wealth of modern equipment now encountered in engineering departments of a University. At the same time, no one can possibly say that this lack of equipment influenced his pioneer spirit or his extraordinary clarity of thought, not only in the fields of aeronautical and automobile engineering, but also in subjects as diverse as the musical scale, poetry and even relativity.