Is public affairs the same as public relations?

Formal procedures enable individual members of the public to lobby their Member of Parliament but most lobbying activity centres on corporate, charity and trade association lobbying, where organisations seek to amend government policy through advocacy. Companies and individuals who operate in this sector commonly use the terms "public relations", "public affairs", "political consultancy" or "corporate affairs" to describe their activities (though this was also a reaction to the negative publicity surrounding the word "lobbyists" following the 1994 Cash-for-questions affair). Professional public affairs agencies, representing multiple clients, undertake a significant proportion of lobbying activity in addition to individual organisations conducting lobbying on an in-house basis.

Lobbying in the United Kingdom

Lobbying in the United Kingdom plays a significant role in the formation of legislation and a wide variety of commercial organisations, lobby groups "lobby" for particular policies and decisions by Parliament and other political organs at national, regional and local levels.

The phrase "lobbying" comes from the gathering of Members of Parliament and peers in the hallways (or lobbies) of Houses of Parliament before and after parliamentary debates. The now-defunct UK Public Affairs Council (UKPAC) defined lobbying as:

The professional lobbying industry has been rapidly growing since the mid-1990s and in 2007 was estimated to be worth £1.9 billion, employing 14,000 people. The report also suggested that some MPs are approached over 100 times a week by lobbyists.

Since 1994 there have been various complaints by MPs about unacceptable lobbying and several police investigations. Current levels of lobbying are causing concern as is the so-called "revolving door" by which industry professionals move rapidly between legislative and commercial roles in the same sectors, creating potential conflict of interests. Ministers are making increasing use of Special Advisors (staff members employed by the minister personally, but paid for from the public purse) who are often selected from the related private sector industries and have sometimes been criticised for engaging in campaigning while still on the government payroll or for moving directly between lobbying roles and the advisor role.

In 2009 the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee recommended creation of a statutory register of lobbying companies and activities (similar to the one required in the United States), but the government rejected that recommendation.

In 2014, Parliament passed the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act, requiring statutory registration of professional lobbyists. The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL)maintains the register as an independent statutory office.

In June 2015 the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) launched the UK Lobbying Register to replace a joint voluntary register previously run in conjunction with The Public Relations Consultants Association and the Association of Professional Political Consultants.

During the 1800s petitions were a popular way of raising issues with parliament and in 1839, 13,657 public petitions were presented on more than 90 different subjects with a total of over 4.5 million signatures.
In 1866 a group of "Suffragists" unsuccessfully petitioned and lobbied parliament that women should have the same political rights as men. In 1903 the Suffragettes, whose motto was "Deeds not Words", heckled ministers, displayed banners, and used both violent and non-violent direct action; equal voting rights for women were achieved with the Representation of the People Act 1928.

In 1923, Winston Churchill acted as a highly paid lobbyist for Burmah Oil (now BP plc) to persuade the British government to allow Burmah to have exclusive rights to Persian (Iraqi) oil resources, which were successfully granted.

In 1994, "The Guardian" reported that parliamentary lobbyist Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates had bribed two Conservative Members of Parliament in exchange for their asking parliamentary questions (and performing other tasks) on behalf of Mohamed Al-Fayed in what became known as the Cash-for-questions affair. Following a lengthy legal case brought by Neil Hamilton and Greer and a parliamentary investigation it was found that "Mr Hamilton's conduct fell seriously and persistently below the standards which the House is entitled to expect of its Members." It was also found that Michael Brown MP had "failed to register an introduction payment in relation to US Tobacco" and had "persistently and deliberately failed to declare his interests in dealing with Ministers and officials over the Skoal Bandits issue." Others were also criticised.

Shortly before the 1997 general election Bernie Ecclestone the head of Formula One donated £1 million to the Labour party; after Labour's victory and after a meeting between Tony Blair and Mr Ecclestone, the Department of Health sought exemption for Formula One from the European Union's proposed ban on tobacco advertising. This event was cited as one of the reasons for the 2008 inquiry.

Jonathan Aitken, previously Minister of State for Defence Procurement under John Major in 1992 was jailed in 1999 in relation to the Arms-to-Iraq scandal. Prior to becoming minister he had been a director of an arms company BMARC, and after losing his seat at the 1997 election he was appointed as a representative for the arms company GEC-Marconi.

In "Fuel on the Fire", Greg Muttitt argues that disclosed minutes from 2002–2003 (leading up to the war in Iraq) showed that many oil companies wanted a war in Iraq to seize Iraqi oil reserves. For example, BP plc allegedly said in the minutes that they "are desperate to get in", describing Iraq as "the big oil prospect".

In March 2007 the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges published a report following a complaint about the conduct of David Cameron regarding his "Leader's Group". The complaint related back to August 2007 when David Cameron's chief fundraiser used a researcher pass allotted to a Conservative peer (Lord Harris of Peckham) to gain access to facilities inside the Palace of Westminster. The committee also investigated a series of fundraising events which allowed donors to meet Cameron. The investigation concluded that it was improper to employ parliamentary staff for fund-raising purposes and that it was "ill-advised to link directly, in promoting the Leader's Group, the issues of access to his office and party fund-raising". Lord McNally, a member of the Lords Committee, said that this was "yet another example of how pressure on political parties to raise ever larger sums from private sources pollutes our politics". Using passes in this way does not however break any written rule.

A July 2007 freedom of information request showed that Heathrow Airport Holdings (BAA) executives met the Department for Transport 117 times between 2002 and 2007, including 24 meetings with the Secretary of State.

In October 2007 Lord Hoyle, a member of the House of Lords, was paid an undisclosed sum to introduce an arms lobbyist, a former RAF officer who worked for BAE, to the Defence Minister, Lord Drayson. The lobbyist had also a security pass as a "research assistant" from another MP. Accepting money for introductions is "frowned on", but not illegal.

In 2008, supporters of the anti-aviation lobby group Plane Stupid managed to get onto the roof of the Palace of Westminster and dropped a banner reading 'BAA HQ' as a reference to the close relationship BAA Limited had with government. Stunts such as this had become a relatively common lobbying tactic, having been used by Fathers for Justice previously. Prime Minister Gordon Brown referred to the stunt saying: "The message should go out today very clearly that decisions in this country should be made in the chamber of this House and not on the roof of this House". In January 2009 Labour MP John Grogan claimed there was an "intricate web" linking BAA, British Airways and Whitehall which had a direct influence on government policy resulting in the approval of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Liberal Democrat MP, Susan Kramer MP said that Commons investigation was "a matter of public interest and is imperative."

In January 2009 "The Sunday Times" claimed that when a reporter had posed as a lobbyist that Lord Snape, Lord Moonie, Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott had offered to influence legislation in return for payment (main:Cash for influence). The Metropolitan Police said that no action would be taken, noting that "The application of the criminal law to members of the House of Lords in the circumstances that have arisen here is far from clear," and "there are very clear difficulties in gathering and adducing evidence in these circumstances in the context of parliamentary privilege." The House of Lords voted to suspend Lord Taylor and Lord Truscott for six months in the first such action since the 17th century.

In February 2010 there were several separate developments:

In March 2010 Dispatches and The Sunday Times recorded four Members of Parliament offering lobbying in return for influence with the Cabinet. Stephen Byers, a former member of the cabinet was recorded as saying he would work for up to £5,000 a day and was like a "cab for hire".

In March 2010 the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments revealed that Tony Blair, who had resigned as prime minister and MP on 27 June 2007 had acted as a paid business consultant to an oil firm with interests in Iraq just 14 months after leaving office. In July 2008 he had requested to the committee that his relationship with UI Energy Corporation should be kept secret for reasons of "market sensitivity" and the committee agreed to postpone publication for three months against normal procedures; the committee then had to then "chase" Blair and send a formal letter to his office in November 2009, which he responded in February 2010 requesting continued secrecy. The committee chairman Lord Lang disagreed and the information was published on their website with the note "Publication delayed due to market sensitivities". UI Energy also retains other senior political figures including former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, former US Secretary of Defense United States Mr. Frank Carlucci and a former US commander for the Middle East, General John Abizaid. The news raised concerns that he had profited financially from contacts he made during the Iraq war. Blair also earned money from the ruling family in Kuwait December 2007 for whom he produced a report on the oil state's future over the next 30 years for a reported £1,000,000 fee. A 2009 investigation by The Guardian found that he had put his multimillion-pound income through "an obscure partnership structure called Windrush Ventures, which enabled him to avoid publishing normal company accounts".

In December 2011, "The Independent" newspaper reported that lobbying agency Bell Pottinger claimed to have been responsible for a variety of activities on behalf of clients that were considered not in the public interest including the manipulation of Google searches and Wikipedia pages. One allegation was that Bell Pottinger, acting on behalf of Dyson, used its influence with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office to get the Prime Minister to raise concerns about counterfeit goods with the Chinese Prime Minister.

"Two years ago anyone who had set foot in Conservative HQ could get a highly paid job, there was panic-hiring of Tories", said one lobbyist; however, with the Con-Lib coalition struggling and Labour ahead in opinion polls by about 10%, lobbying firms naturally wanted to boost their links with Labour: "About half the agencies I work with have specific requirements for people with Labour contacts."

In January 2009 the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee published a report, "Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall," which contained the following conclusions and evidence:

The report recommended "A statutory register of lobbying activity to bring greater transparency to the dealings between Whitehall decision makers and outside interests." It also concluded that the self-regulation of the professional lobbying industry was "fragmented" and appeared to "involve very little regulation of any substance". In October 2009 the government responded to the PASC report rejecting a mandatory register of lobby groups. Instead:

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency criticised the decisions saying "self-regulation is no regulation"; they compared the situation to that of MPs Expenses scandal.

In August 2009 Transparency International UK received a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to assess the level of corruption in the United Kingdom for the first time. One motivation for research, which is expected to take 12 months is the "anecdotal evidence and reports in the media suggest that: a) there is a widespread belief that certain institutions and processes within the United Kingdom are vulnerable to corruption, for example, funding of political parties".

Up to the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, the United Kingdom lobbying sector was mainly self-regulated by the UK Public Affairs Council. This was formed by the Association of Professional Political Consultants, the Public Relations Consultants Association and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and held its first meeting in July 2010, chaired by Elizabeth France. However, the PRCA resigned from the UKPAC less than 18 months later, in December 2011, citing concerns about the accuracy and completeness of the UKPAC's register of individual lobbyists.

The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act (the “Act”) was first introduced in the House of Commons in 2013 and it came into force into force in full on 1 April 2015. However, the Act only requires the registration of consultant lobbying, as proscribes in Section 1 of the Act (For definition of Consultant lobbying, see Section 2 of the Act.) In addition to statutory registration, individual lobbyists or lobbying organizations can register at the UK Lobbying Register, which aims to promote transparency and professional standards in this industry.


When was the first Spanish Grand Prix?

The first Spanish Grand Prix in 1913 was not actually run to the Grand Prix formula of the day, but to touring car rules, taking place on a 300-kilometre road circuit at Guadarrama, near Madrid, on the road to Valladolid.

Spanish Grand Prix

The Spanish Grand Prix () is a Formula One race currently held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona. The race is one of the oldest in the world still contested, celebrating its centenary in 2013. The race had modest beginnings as a production car race. Interrupted by the First World War, the race waited a decade for its second running before becoming a staple of the European calendar. It was promoted to the European Championship in 1935 before the Spanish Civil War brought an end to racing. The race was successfully revived in 1967 and has been a regular part of the Formula One World Championship since 1968 at a variety of venues.

Motor racing events had taken place in Spain prior to that—the most notable among them being the Catalan Cup of 1908 and 1909, on roads around Sitges, near Barcelona. Both of these events were won by Jules Goux, helping to establish a strong racing tradition in Spain, which has continued to this day. This enthusiasm for racing led to the plan to build a permanent track at Sitges—a oval that became known as Sitges-Terramar, and was the site of the 1923 Spanish Grand Prix.

After this first race, the track fell into financial difficulties, and the organisers had to look for another venue. In 1926, the Spanish Grand Prix moved to the 11-mile Circuito Lasarte on the northern coast near Bilbao, home of the main race in Spain during the 1920s—the San Sebastián Grand Prix. The 1927 Spanish Grand Prix was part of the AIACR World Manufacturers' Championship, but the race was still not established and in 1928 and 1929 was run to sports car regulations. The 1930 Spanish Grand Prix for sports cars, scheduled for 27 July, was cancelled due to the bad economic situation following the Wall Street crash in October 1929. The 1931 and 1932 Spanish Grands Prix were also announced, only to be cancelled due to political and economic difficulties. Finally, in 1933 the Spanish Grand Prix was revived at Lasarte with government backing. Following the 1935 race, Spain descended into civil war and racing stopped. In 1946, racing returned to Spain in the form of the Penya Rhin Grand Prix at the Pedralbes street circuit in Barcelona.

Spain did not return to the international calendar until 1951, joining the list of races of the Formula One championship at Pedralbes. Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio won his first world championship at the 1951 event in an Alfa Romeo while he took advantage of the improved works Ferrari's tire problems. The race was scheduled for the 1952 and 1953 seasons but did not take place due to a lack of money, and in 1954, Briton Mike Hawthorn stopped Mercedes's dominance by winning in a Ferrari. In 1955, the Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes was scheduled to take place, but a terrible accident at the 24 Hours of Le Mans that killed more than 80 people resulted in regulations governing spectator safety, and the scheduled Spanish Grand Prix (like many others) was cancelled that year and for the subsequent 2 years (also owing to more problems with money to hold the race), and the pedestrian-lined street track at Pedralbes was then never used again for motor racing.

In the 1960s, Spain made a bid to return to the world of international motor racing—the Royal Automobile Club of Spain commissioned a new permanent racing circuit north of Madrid at Jarama, and the Spanish government refurbished the Montjuïc street circuit in Barcelona with safety upgrades. A non-championship Grand Prix took place at Jarama in 1967, which was won by Jim Clark racing in a Lotus F1 car.

In 1968, Jarama hosted the Spanish Grand Prix, near the beginning of the F1 season. It was agreed, following this event, that the race would alternate between the tight, slow and twisty Jarama and the fast, wide and sweeping Montjuïc, and the Montjuïc circuit hosted its first Formula One race in 1969, with Briton Jackie Stewart winning. Jarama would get the race in even-numbered years, and Montjuïc in odd-numbered years. 1970 was a race that saw Belgian Jacky Ickx and Briton Jackie Oliver get involved in a fiery accident; with Ickx and Oliver escaping with burns. The race was won by Stewart, he won again the next year after holding off 3 more powerful 12-cylinder engined cars. Austrian Niki Lauda won his first of 25 races in 1974. The 1975 event was marked by tragedy. There had been concerns about track safety during practice races, as the Armco barriers surrounding the city streets of the Montjuïc circuit had not been fastened down properly. There were a number of protests, and the drivers refused to race. The organizers panicked, and they threatened to lock the cars inside the stadium where they stayed while not being raced. The drivers and teams relented; but double-winner Emerson Fittipaldi retired in protest after a single lap. On the 26th lap of the race, Rolf Stommelen's car crashed when the rear wing broke off, killing four spectators. The race was stopped on the 29th lap and won by Jochen Mass, though only half the points were awarded.

After the tragic events at the dangerously fast and tight space of Montjuïc, the Spanish Grand Prix was confined to Jarama. The 1976 race saw Briton James Hunt take advantage of Lauda's broken ribs in a tractor accident; he was then disqualified after his McLaren was found to be 1.8 inches too wide. McLaren appealed the decision, and it was successful; Hunt's points were restored. 1977 and 1978 saw Mario Andretti dominate in his ground-effect Lotus 78. The 1980 race was of note, because on the Friday morning of race weekend, FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre announced the Spanish "Grand Prix" would not be counted as a championship race. As a result, none of the factory teams (Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo) showed up for the event and only the independent constructors belonging to FOCA competed. The race was won by Alan Jones in a Williams. 1981 was a race that Gilles Villeneuve in his ill-handling Ferrari held off 4 better-handling cars to take victory on the twisty and confined circuit; this is considered one of the greatest drives in all motorsports. But the Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama was then also dropped from the racing calendar after being cancelled in 1982 because the organizers seemed more interested in the golf course near the circuit, and because of the narrow track, unpleasantly hot late June conditions, and small crowd at that year's race; it would return in 1986.

An attempt to revive the Spanish Grand Prix on a street circuit in the southwestern resort town of Furengirola for 1984 did not work out; but in 1985, the Mayor of Jerez commissioned a new racing circuit in his town to promote tourism and sherries. The track, the Circuito Permanente de Jerez, located near Seville in southern Spain was finished in time for the championship, which saw a furious battle between Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell, with the two cars finishing side by side. Senna won by 0.014 seconds—one of F1's closest finishes. 1987 saw Mansell win in his Williams; and 1989 saw Senna drive a hard race to keep himself in the championship points; he won the event from Austrian Gerhard Berger in a Ferrari and the Brazilian's hated McLaren teammate, Frenchman Alain Prost. The 1990 event was the last Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez (although Jerez did stage the European Grand Prix in 1994 and 1997). During the practice, Martin Donnelly's Lotus was destroyed in a high-speed crash, and the Briton was ejected from the car. He was severely injured, but survived; he never raced in Formula One again. Jerez's remote location did not help build large crowds for the race, combined with Donnelly's appalling crash into Armco barriers close to the track did nothing to help Jerez's reputation; although the circuit was popular with the F1 fraternity. Ferrari finished first and second in the race, with Prost finishing ahead of Mansell.

Work on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was underway in Barcelona thanks to the support of the Spanish government, and in 1991, the event moved to this new track, where it has remained since. The 1992 event was advertised as the Grand Prix of the Olympic Games. Since that race the race has been held in early season, usually in late April or early May.

The Williams team dominated the first outings there, taking all victories until 1994. Michael Schumacher has won a total of six times, including his 1996 victory in heavy rain, which was his first for Ferrari. Mika Häkkinen took three victories and was on road for fourth in 2001 before his car failed on the last lap.

Since 2003 the race has been well attended thanks to success of Fernando Alonso. Alonso finished second in 2003 and 2005 before taking victory from pole in 2006. Alonso also finished third in 2007, with two further second places in 2010 and 2012, where he finished behind the Williams of Spanish speaking Pastor Maldonado, who won from pole; this was the first win and pole in a Grand Prix for a Venezuelan driver and Williams's first win since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix and the team's first Spanish Grand Prix win and pole since 1997.
Two Spanish drivers have won the Spanish Grand Prix; Carlos de Salamanca in 1913 and Alonso in 2006 and 2013, with Spanish speaking Juan Manuel Fangio winning in 1951 as well as Maldonado in 2012.

From, the Spanish Grand Prix was due to alternate every year between Catalunya and the Valencia Street Circuit. However, this did not happen—Valencia dropped out for financial reasons and Catalunya remained the sole host of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Three of the 17 races at this track between 1991 and 2017 have not been won from pole."Drivers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season"
"A pink background indicates an event that was not part of the Formula One World Championship."

"Teams in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."
"A pink background indicates an event that was not part of the Formula One World Championship."
"A yellow background indicates an event that was part of the pre-war European Championship."

* Sports car race

It was the 21st Spanish Grand Prix since the race was first held in 1913. It was the fourth, and last, Grand Prix to be held on the Montjuïc street circuit. The race was shortened to 29 of its scheduled 75 laps, a race distance of 109 kilometres. The race was won by German driver Jochen Mass driving a McLaren M23. It would be the only Formula One win of his career. Mass had just a second lead over the Lotus 72E of Belgian driver Jacky Ickx when the race was declared. Argentine racer Carlos Reutemann was declared third in his Brabham BT44B, a lap behind the race leaders after a penalty was given to Jean-Pierre Jarier. This was the final win by a German driver until Michael Schumacher won the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix.

1975 Spanish Grand Prix

The 1975 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Montjuïc circuit on 27 April 1975. It was race 4 of 14 in both the 1975 World Championship of Drivers and the 1975 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. It is one of the most controversial and tragic race weekends in the sport's history after the death of five spectators who were hit by the crashing Hill GH1 of Rolf Stommelen. It was also the race in which Lella Lombardi became the first and so far only woman to score points towards the World Championship and future world champion Alan Jones made his first start.

Right from the start, the drivers who were members of the Grand Prix Drivers Association were furious that the barriers were not bolted together properly. Thus, they went on strike. Most of the sport's major players refused to take part in practice. Jacky Ickx was not a member of the GPDA, and one of the few marquee drivers who did practice.

Track staff worked overnight to fix the barriers, and to make sure everything would be fixed in time for qualifying on Saturday, some of the teams sent out mechanics to help. The drivers, though, still were not convinced, but the race organizers threatened legal action if no race was run. This, and rumors that the Guardia Civil would seize the cars which were in the paddock, which was at Montjuïc Stadium, forced the drivers to call off the strike.

The defending World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi, however, was still furious. He did the minimum three laps, but at a very slow pace, then pulled into the pits. The next morning, Fittipaldi announced he would not race, and went back home. Also during race day morning, Ken Tyrrell went out onto the circuit with his spanner to make sure the barriers were how they should be.

The two Ferraris of Niki Lauda (on pole) and Clay Regazzoni qualified on the front row, but their glory would not last long. At the start, Vittorio Brambilla's March tangled with Mario Andretti's Parnelli. Andretti's car hit the back of Lauda's, sending him into Regazzoni. Lauda was out immediately, while Regazzoni took his car to the garage, where repairs were made, and Regazzoni was sent back out. Patrick Depailler also retired on the first lap because of suspension damage, and Wilson Fittipaldi and Arturo Merzario withdrew in protest.

After the first-corner madness ceased, James Hunt was shown as the leader. Shockingly, Andretti had managed to keep going, and was running in second. John Watson was in third, Rolf Stommelen was fourth, Brambilla fifth, and Carlos Pace sixth.

On lap four, the engine in Jody Scheckter's Tyrrell blew, and the oil dumping onto the circuit caused Alan Jones and Mark Donohue to crash. Three laps later, Hunt also slipped in the oil and crashed. The top three had become Andretti, Watson, and Stommelen. Watson's car suffered from vibrations and dropped out. Andretti's rear suspension lasted only seven more laps before it failed, causing him to crash out of the lead. Jean-Pierre Jarier and Brambilla stopped to change tyres, whilst Tom Pryce and Tony Brise tangled. Stommelen was now in the top spot, followed by Pace, Ronnie Peterson, Jochen Mass, and Ickx. On lap 24, Peterson was out after he tangled with François Migault while trying to lap the Frenchman.

Two laps later, tragedy struck. The rear wing on Stommelen's Embassy Hill broke, sending him into the barrier, ironically at the point that his own mechanics had worked on. He bounced off it and back into the road, hitting the barrier across the way, and flying over it. While trying to avoid Stommelen as he crossed the track, Pace crashed. Five spectators were killed by Stommelen's flying car with the driver suffering a broken leg, a broken wrist and two cracked ribs.

The race continued for another four laps, during which Mass passed Ickx for the lead. On lap 29, the race was halted with Mass the winner, Ickx second, and Jean-Pierre Jarier crossed the line in third position. Carlos Reutemann finished fourth ahead of Brambilla, while Lella Lombardi finished in sixth. With the race being stopped before three-fourths of the scheduled race distance was reached, only half points were awarded for the first time in the history of the championship. After the race, stewards found that Jarier had overtaken in a portion of the track covered by a yellow flag caution. Jarier was given a sixty-second penalty that relegated him to fourth position.

Laps led:


Where was Sir Harry Ricardo born?

Harry Ricardo was born at 13 Bedford Square, London, in 1885, the eldest of three children, and only son of Halsey Ricardo, the architect, and his wife Catherine Jane, daughter of Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, a civil engineer. Ricardo was descended from a brother of the famous political economist David Ricardo, a Sephardi Jew of Portuguese origin. He was one of the first people in England to see an automobile when his grandfather purchased one in 1898. He was from a relatively wealthy family and educated at Rugby School. In October 1903 he joined Trinity College, Cambridge as a civil engineering student. Ricardo had been using tools and building engines since the age of ten.

Harry Ricardo

Sir Harry Ralph Ricardo (26 January 1885 – 18 May 1974) was one of the foremost engine designers and researchers in the early years of the development of the internal combustion engine.

Among his many other works, he improved the engines that were used in the first tanks, oversaw the research into the physics of internal combustion that led to the use of octane ratings, was instrumental in development of the sleeve valve engine design, and invented the Diesel "Comet" Swirl chamber that made high-speed diesel engines economically feasible.

In 1911 Ricardo married Beatrice Bertha Hale, an art student at the Slade School of Art, in London. Her father, Charles Bowdich Hale, was the Ricardos' family doctor. They had three daughters, and lived most of their married life at Lancing and Edburton in West Sussex.

In 1904, at the end of his first year at Cambridge, Ricardo decided to enter the University Automobile Club's event, which was a competition to design a machine that could travel the furthest on of petrol. His engine had a single cylinder, and was the heaviest entered, but his motorcycle design won the competition, having covered a distance of. He was then persuaded to join the Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics, Bertram Hopkinson, working on research into engine performance. He graduated with a degree in 1906 and spent another year researching at Cambridge.

Ricardo is said by Percy Kidner, then Co-managing director of Vauxhall, to have had a hand in the design of the Vauxhall engine designed by Laurence Pomeroy for the RAC trial of 1908.

Before graduation, Ricardo had designed a two-stroke motorcycle engine to study the effect of mixture strength upon the combustion process. When he graduated, the small firm of Messrs Lloyd and Plaister expressed interest in making the engine. Ricardo produced designs for two sizes, and the smaller one sold about 50 engines until 1914, when the war halted production.

In 1909 Ricardo designed a two-stroke 3.3-litre engine, for his cousin Ralph Ricardo, who had established a small car manufacturing company, "Two Stroke Engine Company", at Shoreham-by-Sea. The engine was to be used in the "Dolphin" car. The cars were well made, but it became apparent that they cost more to make than the selling price. The company fared better making two-stroke engines for fishing boats. In 1911 the firm collapsed and Ralph departed for India. Ricardo continued to design engines for small electric lighting sets; these were produced by two companies until 1914.

In 1915 Ricardo set up a new company, "Engine Patents Ltd.", which developed the engine that would eventually be used in the first successful tank design, the British Mark V. The Daimler sleeve-valve engine used in the Mark I created copious amounts of smoke, which easily gave away its position. Ricardo was asked to look at the problem of reducing smoky exhaust gases and decided that a new engine was needed. Existing companies were able to undertake construction of such an engine but not the design, so Ricardo designed it himself. As well as having reduced smoke emissions, the new engine was much more powerful than the existing ones. The new six-cylinder engine produced, compared with, and later modifications produced and By April 1917 one hundred engines were being produced a week. A total of over 8,000 of his tank engines were put into military service, making it the first British-designed engine to be produced in large numbers. The Mark IX tank, as well as the British version of the Mark VIII, also used a Ricardo engine. In addition to being fitted to tanks, several hundred of the engines were used in France for providing power and light to base workshops, hospitals, camps, etc.

In 1917 his old mentor, Bertram Hopkinson, who was now Technical Director at the Air Ministry, invited Ricardo to join the new engine research facility at the Department of Military Aeronautics, later to become the RAE. In 1918 Hopkinson was killed while flying a Bristol Fighter, and Ricardo took over his position. From that point on the department produced a string of experimental engines and research reports that constantly drove the British, and world, engine industry.

One of Ricardo's first major research projects was on the problems of irregular combustion, known as "knocking" or "pinging". To study the problem he built a unique variable-compression test engine. This led to the development of an octane rating system for fuels, and considerable investment into octane improving additives and refining systems. The dramatic reduction in fuel use as a result of higher-octane fuel was directly responsible for allowing Alcock and Brown to fly the Atlantic in their Vickers Vimy bombers adapted with his modifications.

In 1919 Ricardo was studying the phenomena affecting the combustion within the petrol engine and the diesel engine. He realised that turbulence within the combustion chamber increased flame speed, and that he could achieve this by offsetting the cylinder head. He also realised that making the chamber as compact as possible would reduce the distance that the flame had to travel and would reduce the likelihood of detonation. He later developed the induction swirl chamber, which was an attempt to achieve orderly air motion in a diesel engine, the swirl being initiated by inclined ports and accentuated by forcing the air into a small cylindrical volume. Finally he developed the compression swirl chamber for diesel engines. This design embodied intense swirl with a reasonable rate of pressure rise and good fuel consumption.

The compression swirl chamber design was called a "Comet" design (patented in 1931) and was subsequently licensed to a large number of companies for use in trucks, buses, tractors and cranes, as well as private cars and taxis. A Comet combustion chamber was used in the first Associated Equipment Company (AEC) diesel buses operated in 1931 by London General Omnibus Co, later part of the London Passenger Transport Board/London Transport. A later development of it featured in the world's first volume production diesel passenger car, the 1934 Citroën Rosalie. This meant that Britain led the world in the field of high-speed diesels for road transport at that time. This advantage was lost to the United Kingdom as a result of the heavy tax imposed on diesel fuel in the budget of 1938.

Ricardo designed the 1921 T.T. Vauxhall engine which was described by Cecil Clutton in "Motor Sport" as a "tour de force" in the 1922 RAC T. T. O Payne in the Ricardo Vauxhall came 3rd, Jean Chassagne on a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam winning outright. The engine was later developed by Mays and Villiers, who fitted a supercharger, and was still a winner fifteen years later.

In 1922 and 1923 Ricardo published a two-volume work "The Internal Combustion Engine".

In 1927 Ricardo formed Ricardo Consulting Engineers (now known as Ricardo plc) in Shoreham-by-Sea, which has become one of the foremost automotive consulting firms worldwide and is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Although Ricardo did not invent the sleeve valve, in 1927, he produced a seminal research paper that outlined the advantages of the sleeve valve, and suggested that poppet valve engines would not be able to offer power outputs much beyond 1500 hp (1,100 kW). A number of sleeve valve aircraft engines were developed following this paper, notably by Napier, Bristol and Rolls-Royce. Bristol produced the Perseus, Hercules, Taurus and the Centaurus, Napier produced the Napier Sabre, and Rolls-Royce produced the Eagle and Crecy, all using sleeve valves.

In 1929 Ricardo was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Ricardo's work on the sleeve valve affected the development of British aircraft engines in the thirties and during the war. He even enhanced the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in the Mosquito by giving it an oxygen enrichment system to improve its performance.

Ricardo's work exerted influence all around the world. While his work guaranteed England a supply of fuels of ever-increasing power during the 1930s, it also helped Germany to develop synthetic high-octane aviation fuel, for example for the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 which inflicted heavy losses among the RAF's Supermarine Spitfires in 1942. Likewise, Ricardo's research on the detonation-inhibiting qualities of water injection was exploited by German engineers (MW 50) to provide their aero-engines with a particularly powerful special emergency power rating.

During 1941–1945 Ricardo was a member of the War Cabinet engineering advisory committee.

Ricardo also assisted in the design of the combustion chambers and fuel control system of Sir Frank Whittle's jet engine.

In 1944 Ricardo was elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In 1945 he and his wife moved from Shoreham-by-Sea to Graffham, also in West Sussex. In 1948 Ricardo was knighted in recognition for his work in the field of internal combustion engineering.

In 1964 Ricardo retired from active work in Ricardo Consulting Engineers but kept in touch with various engineers within the company.

In 1974, at the age of 89, Ricardo suffered a pelvic injury in a fall. He died six weeks later, on 18 May.
On 16 June 2005 a blue plaque was placed outside the house where Ricardo was born in Bedford Square, London. On 1 July 2010, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers bestowed an Engineering Heritage Award on Sir Harry Ricardo in recognition of his life and work as one of the foremost engineers of the twentieth century. The first internal combustion engine which Harry Ricardo designed and built as a schoolboy currently displays this Engineering Heritage plaque in the Ricardo plc company exhibition area.

In 1915, Ricardo formed Engine Patents Ltd, the company which is today known as Ricardo plc. In this year he was contacted by the Royal Naval Air Service to help with the design of a device to manoeuvre battle tanks into position aboard railway wagons. Around 8000 engines were produced to power the tanks, making this engine the UK's first mass-produced internal combustion engine. Many more of these engines found applications powering generators in workshops, hospitals and camps. The success of this venture yielded £30,000 in royalties and led to Ricardo being able to buy the land and set up the company on its present site in 1919.

Harry Ricardo

Sir Harry Ralph Ricardo (26 January 1885 – 18 May 1974) was one of the foremost engine designers and researchers in the early years of the development of the internal combustion engine.

Among his many other works, he improved the engines that were used in the first tanks, oversaw the research into the physics of internal combustion that led to the use of octane ratings, was instrumental in development of the sleeve valve engine design, and invented the Diesel "Comet" Swirl chamber that made high-speed diesel engines economically feasible.

In 1911 Ricardo married Beatrice Bertha Hale, an art student at the Slade School of Art, in London. Her father, Charles Bowdich Hale, was the Ricardos' family doctor. They had three daughters, and lived most of their married life at Lancing and Edburton in West Sussex.

Ricardo is said by Percy Kidner, then Co-managing director of Vauxhall, to have had a hand in the design of the Vauxhall engine designed by Laurence Pomeroy for the RAC trial of 1908.

Before graduation, Ricardo had designed a two-stroke motorcycle engine to study the effect of mixture strength upon the combustion process. When he graduated, the small firm of Messrs Lloyd and Plaister expressed interest in making the engine. Ricardo produced designs for two sizes, and the smaller one sold about 50 engines until 1914, when the war halted production.

Ricardo designed the 1921 T.T. Vauxhall engine which was described by Cecil Clutton in "Motor Sport" as a "tour de force" in the 1922 RAC T. T. O Payne in the Ricardo Vauxhall came 3rd, Jean Chassagne on a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam winning outright. The engine was later developed by Mays and Villiers, who fitted a supercharger, and was still a winner fifteen years later.

In 1922 and 1923 Ricardo published a two-volume work "The Internal Combustion Engine".

In 1927 Ricardo formed Ricardo Consulting Engineers (now known as Ricardo plc) in Shoreham-by-Sea, which has become one of the foremost automotive consulting firms worldwide and is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In 1929 Ricardo was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Ricardo's work on the sleeve valve affected the development of British aircraft engines in the thirties and during the war. He even enhanced the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in the Mosquito by giving it an oxygen enrichment system to improve its performance.

During 1941–1945 Ricardo was a member of the War Cabinet engineering advisory committee.

Ricardo also assisted in the design of the combustion chambers and fuel control system of Sir Frank Whittle's jet engine.

In 1944 Ricardo was elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In 1945 he and his wife moved from Shoreham-by-Sea to Graffham, also in West Sussex. In 1948 Ricardo was knighted in recognition for his work in the field of internal combustion engineering.

In 1964 Ricardo retired from active work in Ricardo Consulting Engineers but kept in touch with various engineers within the company.

Harry (later Sir Harry) Ricardo was born in London in 1885 and was educated at Rugby and Cambridge where he studied at Trinity College. The first internal combustion engined cars were made by Daimler and Benz in the year of his birth and in his childhood days he was clearly highly influenced by these new forms of transport. He was renowned for his research into the problem of knock in engines; the results of his work on fuel and reducing fuel consumption assisted Alcock and Brown to cross the Atlantic for the first time by aircraft. Over the years, he was responsible for significant developments in the design of piston engines for a number of applications and derivatives of his original designs are still in production.

Ricardo plc

Ricardo plc is a British publicly listed company named after its founder, Sir Harry Ricardo, originally incorporated and registered as Engine Patents Ltd. in 1915. Since 1919 the headquarters have been at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Ricardo develops engines, transmissions, vehicle systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and hybrid & electric systems. The industries served are in transportation, defence and clean energy.

Ricardo activities cover a range of market sectors including passenger car, commercial vehicle, rail, defence, motorsport, motorcycle, off-highway, marine, clean energy and power generation and government. Its client list includes transportation original equipment manufacturers, supply chain organisations, energy companies, financial institutions and government agencies.

As well as the Shoreham UK headquarters, there are technical centres in Royal Leamington Spa, Cambridge, Chicago, Detroit, Aachen, Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany), Prague, and regional offices in Shanghai, Yokohama, Seoul, New Delhi, and Moscow.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1929 and in 1948 was knighted in recognition of his services to the internal combustion engine industry. He died in 1974 at the age of 89.

From his earliest days, Harry Ricardo had a fascination for engines. He had designed and built many small engines in his youth including, at the age of 17, an engine to pump water at the family home in Sussex. In 1906 he filed his first engine design patent while still a student at Cambridge. In 1908 ‘The Two-Stroke Engine Company’ started to manufacture and sell a car – the Dolphin – fitted with the same novel engine he had designed and patented earlier as a student at Cambridge. This also found its way into many of the Shoreham-built fishing boats until almost every fisherman had a Dolphin engine in his boat; they were suited to prolonged low speed operation and proved extremely reliable.

In 1915 Harry Ricardo formed Engine Patents Ltd, the company which is today known as Ricardo plc. In this year he was contacted by the Royal Naval Air Service to help with the design of a device to manoeuvre battle tanks into position aboard railway wagons. In fact, he discovered numerous problems with the tank engine itself that he was able to help with. For example, the existing engine, a Daimler 105 bhp sleeve-valve gasoline engine, had a poor lubrication system and many failures occurred as a result. Its purely reciprocating sleeves supplied a large quantity of oil into the exhaust port and the tank's location was revealed by the pall of blue smoke. Harry designed a new 4-stroke crosshead-type engine producing 150 bhp with no visible smoke.

Around 8000 engines were produced to power the tanks, making this engine the UK's first mass-produced internal combustion engine. Many more of these engines found applications powering generators in workshops, hospitals and camps. The success of this venture yielded £30,000 in royalties and led to Harry Ricardo being able to buy the land and set up the company on its present site in 1919.

Here is a selection of Ricardo-inspired developments marking advances in land, sea and air environments. (Ref 4 covers all of these in more detail)

1906: The Dolphin motor car

Started during Harry Ricardo's student days in Cambridge, the Dolphin project for a range of passenger cars was technically interesting, but ended in commercial collapse. Ricardo himself was not involved in owning or running the company, but its failure steered the young engineer away from manufacturing and towards research and development. Ricardo, while still at Cambridge, had patented an innovative split-cycle two-stroke layout, with the first cylinder pumping the compressed fuel-air mixture into the second, where the combustion took place. The combustion chamber was advanced, too, allowing a degree of charge stratification. His cousin, Ralph, who had the idea of starting the Dolphin motor car works in Shoreham, and was the main partner, centred the car's propulsion system on Harry's engine, as options for internal combustion engines in the early 1900s were very limited.

Both two and four-cylinder versions were built, along with a large car to suit the bigger engine. Eight of the large cars were built, mainly for family members, but only a single prototype of the smaller machine. This was used by Harry Ricardo for his personal transport for the next ten years.
The intention had always been to offer the engine to other vehicle builders, but though the car business struggled, a measure of success came from an unexpected quarter. The fishermen at Shoreham harbour were so impressed with a prototype boat fitted with the unit that they all quickly adopted this engine in their boats. Particularly appreciated was the unit's smooth and steady low idle speed, which was perfect for their coastal fishing requirements.

Though the Two-Stroke Car Company closed in 1909, the engine design lived on as a 700 cc, 12 hp unit powering the Lloyd Vox light car, of which 100 were sold in the run-up to the First World War.

1915: The Mark V Tank Engine

The background to Harry Ricardo's development of a new engine for the Mk V tank is well known. Top military officials had long been divided over the merits of these so-called land ships, which were originally designed to allow an advance in the face of machine-gun fire from the enemy lines. It fell in the end to the Admiralty, with the strong support of Winston Churchill, to make the case for tanks, and by 1915 the go-ahead had been given for a limited development programme – albeit with a low priority in the use of scarce resources such as aluminium and high-grade fuel.
The early tanks suffered from many problems, from uncertainty about battlefield tactics and communication, to unreliability, tricky manoeuvring and the tendency to emit thick smoke under acceleration. The element of surprise had been sacrificed, and the tanks needed significant improvement if they were to influence the course of the war. Through his contacts in government circles, Harry Ricardo was entrusted with the design of a wholly new engine for the 28-tonne machines and the creation of a network of factories to build the units in large numbers.

More than 8000 units were built and saw service in everything from tanks and transports to railway engines, boats and stationary applications, making this Britain's first mass-produced internal combustion engine.

1919: Turbulent head

The side-valve engines of the immediate post WW1 era were inefficient, and the intrinsic limitations of their combustion chamber geometries prevented them from achieving high enough Compression ratios to develop reasonable power outputs. Only the more complex and much less reliable overhead valve engines could manage respectable power figures; these were generally confined to sports and expensive luxury cars.

Harry Ricardo's contribution was to understand the combustion process and develop a cylinder head that retained the simplicity and the low cost of the side valve layout, but which rethought the shape of the combustion chamber to provide both the greater compression required for power, and the improved gas mixing that he realised was essential for stable combustion and the avoidance of damaging detonation. This he achieved with an asymmetric profile to the combustion chamber which used a squish effect to induce turbulence in the gases above the rising piston, compressing them into the chamber to one side, where they were ignited by the spark plug.

The quickly patented design was simple and very effective, giving low-cost side-valve engines the performance of the much pricier OHV units of that day. The development was immediately popular with a wide variety of vehicle makers, from Vauxhall and Triumph to Harley-Davidson, Hillman-Humber, Ford, Austin and many others. Soon it was to be found on almost every side-valve engine in production and, charged at around 37 pence per engine, earned Ricardo substantial royalties until improved fuel quality eventually allowed overhead valves to take over in the 1950s.

1931: Indirect injection Diesel – the Comet chamber

Inspired though it was, the Comet diesel cylinder head, which provided Ricardo with much of its royalty income from the 1930s until almost the turn of the century, was not a single, isolated invention. As befitted Harry Ricardo's ever-inventive turn of mind, Comet was a concept that evolved and improved continuously right through to the 1990s, keeping pace with market and legislative demands and adapting itself to new vehicle categories. Invariably, at least one of the many single-cylinder test engines in the Shoreham laboratories would be evaluating a new variant on the Comet principle.

The original Comet Mk1, which first appeared in AEC's engine for London bus fleets in the early 1930s, was followed by improved versions giving more economy, better cold starting – for some while a weak point of Comet engines – and more power. By 1936,
18 UK companies and 14 foreign firms had taken up licences for the technology: among these organisations were well-known brand names such as Citroën, Berliet, MAN, Armstrong Siddeley and de Havilland Aircraft. Fiat was quick to sign up, after its technical director was given a demonstration by AEC and London's bus operator.

Development progressed apace, with the principle spreading into other sectors such as agriculture, where the Standard-Triumph 23 diesel proved a big success in Massey Ferguson tractors. Comet diesels also powered successive generations of Land Rovers and a large number of Peugeots, including the big-selling 403. By the 1960s, Fiat was the biggest licencee. Japan and India were fertile ground, too, and by the time the Comet patents began to expire in the 1970s, nearly all diesel cars on the market were using the system. One fresh application even appeared just after the millennium.

1934: Citroen Rosalie – the world's first production diesel passenger car

André Citroën was a pioneer in many more ways than just the front wheel drive, streamlining and unitary construction he is best known for today. In the late 1920s, he had been quick to appreciate the potential of the diesel engine for passenger cars and, having followed Ricardo's work with AEC on the London buses fitted with the innovative Comet cylinder head, he visited Ricardo at Shoreham in 1933 to discuss possible co-operation on a 1.7-litre unit suitable for a medium-sized model. With Citroën engineers working alongside Ricardo specialists at Shoreham, progress was swift, and soon prototypes were running on the road, reportedly to the "complete satisfaction" of M. Citroën.

The model was homologated under the name Rosalie in late 1934 and a pre-production run of some 50 or 75 units were loaned to taxi drivers for in-service evaluation. When these were sold, the Rosalie became the first-ever production diesel passenger car to be marketed commercially, pre-dating the Mercedes 260D by nearly a year, though historians continue to dispute the actual figures.

The Rosalie's career would have been more glorious but for the death of André Citroën in 1935, the subsequent financial difficulties of his company and the German occupation of France: in the event, several hundred were built, along with a much larger number of engines for vans and other commercial vehicles. As a light and highly efficient family car, the Rosalie earned great praise from the French press and set the template for the models that today account for more than half of all sales across Europe.

1936: Flying Spray

With gasoline-fuelled aero engines having advanced rapidly during WW1 and the 1920s, many engineers – including some in the military – began investigating the diesel principle in the hope that similar or even greater potential might be found. At the behest of the Air Ministry, Ricardo had been working on a variety of engines for both aircraft and airships, and in 1929 he received a request to work with Rolls-Royce to convert a Kestrel V12, at that time the standard engine for fighter aircraft, to diesel operation.

To facilitate the change, Ricardo also removed the Kestrel's four overhead valves per cylinder and replaced them with a single sleeve valve system, a move entailing a very considerable redesign. The first results were very encouraging, with more power and lower specific fuel consumption than the gasoline version. This attracted the attention of Captain George Eyston, one of a trio of racing drivers who established successively higher land and water speed records in a variety of machinery. Eyston had been holder of the diesel speed record in a specially prepared saloon car, also with a Ricardo engine (an AEC bus engine with the Comet combustion system), and his later 1934 record breaker had been powered by the gasoline version of the Kestrel: logic suggested that the RR/D diesel Kestrel in the same car would be a good combination.

And so it proved, with the Flying Spray taking the world diesel speed record at Bonneville in May 1936, at – a record that stood until 1950.

1936: Rolls-Royce Crecy

Rolls-Royce was already one of the world's premier aero engine builders in the inter-war period; Sir Henry Royce lived close to Harry Ricardo on the Sussex coast, and as early as 1931 they discussed the possibility of an ambitious new type of aero engine – a two-stroke V12 with direct injection of its gasoline fuel. The pioneering of radar at around the same time led to a change in the priorities for fighter aircraft, and these changes suited the power-dense two-stroke concept. Now, rather than having to loiter for extended periods awaiting intruders, fighters could be scrambled at short notice to intercept enemy planes as soon as they were detected. Maximum power and performance thus became more important than fuel consumption and range, paving the way for some of the most elaborate piston engines ever designed.

Even though it never saw actual application in an aircraft, the Rolls-Royce/ Ricardo Crecy can lay claim to be one of the most innovative of all, as well as achieving a remarkable power to weight ratio – based on actual single-cylinder test units, up to 5000 hp was expected from the full V12. The Crecy's secrets included sleeve valves, turbocharging, stratified charge, water injection and, later, experiments with methanol fuel.

Harry Ricardo saw the two-stroke aero engine as a logical bridge between conventional piston engines and the future generation of gas turbine jets; he was able to point to a 40 percent advantage in power and 10 percent in fuel consumption. However, the Air Ministry saw things differently, and the project was dropped in December 1944, much to Ricardo's regret, though some of the know-how would later be exploited in other programmes.

1938: Alfa Romeo V16 racing engine

In the intensely nationalistic pre-war atmosphere prevailing in Italy, Alfa Corse, under the leadership of Enzo Ferrari, was impelled to compete, and its Spanish-born head of R&D, Wifredo Ricart, turned to Harry Ricardo for technical advice. The supercharged Tipo 162 3-litre V16 that emerged from this collaboration was destined never to race, let alone be tested in anger, yet it stands as one of the most advanced competition engines of the era, and was influential in the design of many subsequent racing engines, including Alfa's post-war 158 and 159 and BRM's own ultra-complex V16.

Together, Ricart and Ricardo laid down a wide-angle V16, with 135 degrees between the banks; it was to be a high-revving unit, with square bore and stroke dimensions – an unusual feature at the time. Two-stage supercharging boosted the early testbed engines to 490 hp at 7800 rev/min, with the expectation of reaching 560 hp with an increase in engine speed to 8200 rev/min. These were the highest specific power figures ever achieved – with the exception of Mercedes-Benz's just-released 1.5-litre V8.

Though enough components had been made for six examples of this engine, Italy's entry into the war put an end to all further development. Yet there is one important legacy of this remarkable engine: Ricart planned a roadgoing coupé, the Tipo 163, using this engine centrally mounted in non-supercharged form. This, it could be argued, would be the blueprint for the mid-engined supercars that today dominate the high performance market.

1941: Barostat

Although Harry Ricardo was deeply committed to the philosophy of sophisticated gasoline-fuelled piston engines for Britain’s World War Two fighter aircraft, he was equally aware of the potential of the gas turbine engine, and had already helped Frank Whittle with the combustion chamber and burner design of his prototype jet engine. Ricardo workshops fabricated the 90-odd burner-atomizers used in the engine, which was already undergoing testing. The other problem concerning Whittle was the question of the fuel supply to the jet engine and how the pressure in the system could be stabilised as the aircraft climbed and the ambient atmospheric pressure varied. No solution had yet been found, so Ricardo was asked to assist. He proposed a device, a relief valve subsequently named ‘Barostat’, which automatically reduced the pressure in the fuel lines as the aircraft gained altitude. This relieved the pilot of having to continuously adjust the throttle settings, and avoided the risk of the engine overspeeding.

The experimental Gloster E.28/39, built to test Whittle's engine, made the UK's first jet-powered flight in May 1941, and subsequent development led ultimately to the Gloster Meteor, the twin-jet fighter that entered RAF service in 1944. During the development of Whittle's engine, Harry Ricardo had declared that he would waive any patent royalties on devices connected with the jet engine. Whittle himself was fiercely protective of his design, and both were unhappy when the General Electric Company in the US, which had been allowed to copy the engine, itself patented the unit and the Ricardo Barostat.

1951: Fell locomotive

The brainchild of Lt-Col LFR Fell, who convinced his friend Harry Ricardo to undertake its development, the 4-8-4 Fell locomotive had one of the most complex drivetrains ever seen in the railway industry.

Fell's intention had been to sidestep the energy conversion losses being encountered in the diesel-electric locomotives then coming into service. To this end, he devised an all-mechanical power transmission system which provided the required variable gearing and which was claimed to be lighter than a standard arrangement. No fewer than four 500 hp V12 Paxman-Ricardo diesel engines were specified, along with an additional pair of AEC-Ricardo marine diesels, whose job was to power the Superchargers feeding the four main engines. Two large banks of radiators and fans ensured cooling for all six engines, and twin cabs and duplicated controls enabled the locomotive to operate in either direction.

The four main engines were coupled hydraulically to the central gearbox incorporating three differentials. The system allowed the driver to employ any number of the main engines, depending on the load and the speed required. The cleverness of the arrangement was in the way that the supercharge pressure delivered by the two auxiliary engines fell progressively as the speed of the main engines rose, thus ensuring constant horsepower over the whole rpm range. The locomotive entered trial service on the London to Derby line in 1951 but fell victim to rationalisation within the newly nationalised rail network. Nevertheless, Ricardo's interest in rail transport continued, and the company has advised on many rail and rolling stock programmes in the years that have followed.

1959: Combustion photography

Harry Ricardo's famously vivid 1931 lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, in which he invited his audience to "accompany me inside the cylinder of a diesel engine", passionately described the process of diesel combustion, in great detail. Yet for all its drama, it was largely a work of his brilliant imagination and deduction, for at that time no one had been able to see inside a working cylinder, whether gasoline or diesel.

Early tests with wool tufts, Stroboscopes and tiny windows had given some indications of the phenomena inside, but it was only in 1959, with an article in New Scientist, that Ricardo engineers Hempson and Scott were able to illustrate their argument with a sequence of colour photographs of actual combustion taking place. Taken using a series of mirrors and a Fastax camera running at 16,000 frames per second, this was the first of a series of major steps in advancing the understanding of the combustion process and the formation of pollutants within the cylinder. Crucially, engineers were no longer blind when it came to picturing combustion events, helping combustion chamber design to progress from an art to a science.

“Transparent" engines of different descriptions and increasing complexity later evolved and could be used to evaluate different phenomena such as swirl, tumble and squish, and to study flame propagation in minute detail. Yet the biggest step of all came with the development of digital modelling of the engine and the gas flows within it. Now, immensely sophisticated CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations and visualisations guide today's engine designers, and any engine configuration can be simulated, and its performance predicted, with a high degree of confidence in its accuracy, and without the need to build any hardware whatsoever.

1966: Jensen FF

Tractor magnate Harry Ferguson had long been convinced that four-wheel drive would provide important safety benefits on the road, as well as in the rough. Having failed to persuade British car makers to adopt his system, he and a core group of engineers developed a Formula 1 car to prove the point.

The P99 was driven to a single Formula 1 win, in 1961, by Stirling Moss, and though Ferguson died in the same year, the principles were developed further and applied to an innovative luxury coupé – the 1966 Jensen FF. Powered by a Chrysler V8 engine driving all four wheels through a three-speed automatic transmission, the elegantly styled GT also incorporated the aircraft-derived Dunlop Maxaret anti-skid braking system, leading it to be declared the world's safest car.

Despite its status as the first ever four-wheel drive road car and the first to feature ABS, the FF's high price kept it out of reach of many buyers; it was the similarly stylish but simpler and less expensive rear-drive Interceptor that stole the public imagination, and only 320 examples of the FF were made.

Ferguson's company, by then known as FF Developments, went on to provide valuable 4WD expertise to rally teams during the Group B era, and pioneered the viscous coupling unit, which found widespread application in road vehicles such as the Ford Sierra XR4x4, and Sapphire Cosworth. The company was acquired by Ricardo in 1994 and forms the kernel of the Ricardo group's driveline operations in the UK.

1968: Recycle Diesel

The title of this device does not point to a capacity to re-use diesel fuel, nor to run on other forms of recycled fuels. Instead, it was the outcome of a request by the US Navy in the late 1960s to develop a diesel power unit capable of running for extended periods at ocean depths of up to. The ‘recycle’ in its title refers to the unit's ability to blend a proportion of its exhaust gas with fresh oxygen (carried on board as HTP) and diesel fuel to enable underwater operation for up to 12 hours at a stretch.

The requirement for the Recycle Diesel arose because the growing military and civil interest in oceanographic research had highlighted the poor performance of submarines using pure electric power units with lead-acid batteries.

The US Navy specification for the device included simple controls and automated operation by one person, along with a 30 hp output – sufficient to give a 20-tonne submarine a speed of 8 knots. The closed-loop nature of the engine's operation required precise matching of the quantities of diesel fuel and oxygen injected into the flow of exhaust gases, themselves accurately controlled for volume, temperature and water content. Compressed air was used to start the Perkins four-cylinder diesel so as to avoid the risk of an explosive mixture of oxygen, and the finished power pack had three times the power to mass of batteries and could power a 10-tonne submersible for 16 hours at 6 knots.

Recycle even appeared on the British television programme Tomorrow's World but it eventually lost momentum within the US military and was overtaken by newer developments.

1970: Noise & vibration

Ricardo opened its first dedicated noise control facilities – an anechoic cell and a handful of staff – in the early 1970s when drive-by noise legislation was soon to be introduced.

Today, Ricardo's NVH work has expanded into areas of subjective noise and sound quality as well as having to meet legislative exterior noise limits.

That trend has continued, and over the years the number of test cells and staff has steadily risen. Sound quality has featured strongly in recent work for Jaguar and McLaren – the latter featured on a television programme – as well as for BMW on the Mini Cooper S.

Noise simulations of different proposed grand prix engine types have also been made, comparing an in-line four and a V6 against high-revving, naturally aspirated V8s. No hardware was built: all was accomplished using WAVE software.

1975: Turbocharged Opel 2100D

This 1970s-era Opel Rekord was a Ricardo prototype based on a standard production vehicle, and served as a technology demonstrator. Under the bonnet was an important new type of engine – a turbo diesel – which Ricardo specialists were confident held significant potential for the future.

The volume of diesel cars in circulation in 1970 was very low, perhaps because the vehicles themselves were generally slow to start, noisy, smoky, and with sluggish performance, they tended to be confined to Europe's taxi ranks, rather than appealing to the mainstream buyer.

Ricardo's aim with the turbo diesel demonstrator was to match the performance of the gasoline car of the same 2.1 litre displacement; this was achieved, with a 40 percent increase in power over the standard model. The twin fuel crises of the 1970s jolted Europe's carmakers into action, and by the end of the decade Volkswagen had a diesel Golf, Mercedes-Benz had developed its five-cylinder turbo diesel, and Peugeot was first to market with its 604 turbo diesel.

1981: HRCC VW Jetta

More of a working research vehicle than a technology demonstrator, the 1981 VW Jetta prototype was part of Ricardo's HRCC programme to improve the fuel economy of gasoline engines through a number of measures, including a much higher compression ratio, the ability to run on very lean air-fuel mixtures, and the tolerance of lower- octane fuels.

The HRCC (High Ratio Compact Chamber) Jetta engine benefited from the lessons learned in nearly five years of fundamental research and testing of lean burn concepts on single- cylinder test engines. In its gasoline form, it claimed a thermal efficiency some 10 percent better than the standard engine, along with an improvement in actual economy of five percent. The HRCC cylinder head had different combustion chamber geometry and relocated spark plug and valves; the inlet system was revised, too, as was the camshaft profile. In combination with reshaped pistons, it produced a compression ratio of 13:1 – extremely high for the time – yet could run on lower octane fuel than its conventional counterpart.

The Jetta was said to have demonstrated good driveability, often a drawback with lean-burn vehicles, and though its hydrocarbon emissions were higher than the donor car's, it claimed lower NOx and CO outputs.

This programme attracted the attention of the US EPA, which commissioned a study of a methanol-fuelled version of the HRCC engine, again concluding that there was potential in the design.

1982: Chevrolet Diesel

After the shock of the double fuel crises of the 1970s, US manufacturers took action to stem the fuel thirst of their large and heavy vehicles. Some rushed to import smaller models, others to de-rate the big gasoline V8s that had long dominated the market. However, some of the moves backfired: many of the hastily created diesels proved tricky to drive, unreliable or even self-destructive, giving diesel a bad name in the US market that took decades to shake off.

Yet, even after that initial fuel hysteria had subsided and the market returned to normality, GM realised that properly delivered diesel power would soon be an essential part of the product offer of any major producer, especially when it came to pick-up trucks and other dual purpose vehicles. Accordingly, GM commissioned Ricardo in the US to assist with a fresh start on diesel, and for the 1982 model year Chevrolet appeared with a new 6.2-litre V8 offering upwards of 130 hp.

Ricardo's adaptation of the existing all-iron gasoline V8 featured the company's famous Comet cylinder heads and indirect injection using mechanical injectors and a rotary pump; with identical engine mounts and bellhousing bolt patterns to the gasoline version, the diesel was a straight swap and easily integrated on the production line.

Evidence of the eﬃciency of the design came with a 20/24 mpg EPA city/highway rating, and the solidity of the unit was clear when it was chosen to power the Hummer H1. The engine remained in production until 2000, when it was replaced by the Duramax series.

1986: Voyager aircraft

The Voyager aircraft set out to fly non-stop right around the world without refuelling. Ricardo was one of the companies assisting designer and pilot Richard Rutan in the five-year project, reconfiguring the twin Teledyne Continental engines for maximum efficiency. Mounted front and rear of the central fuselage carrying the two crew, the engines had different roles: one was to be operated intermittently at full throttle for best specific fuel consumption during climb, while the other would run continuously for cruise. The key to in-flight economy, said Voyager officials, was to keep the engines running as lean as possible.

With a dry weight of just 1250 kg, but carrying over 3100 kg of fuel, the composite construction aircraft was optimised for maximum lift and minimum drag; with a maximum airspeed of less than 200 km/h, it was vulnerable to headwinds and turbulence, often forcing the crew to change altitude in search of calmer conditions. Yet the calculations proved accurate, even if the fuel flow readings in flight were misleading: on 23 December 1986, nine days after taking off, Voyager touched down again at Edwards AFB in California, having flown more than 40,000 km at altitudes up to 20,000 ft (6000 m). In its tanks remained just 56 litres of fuel.

1996: Ferrari 456

Ferrari commissioned FFD-Ricardo in the US to develop an automatic version of the 456GT four-seater coupé, preserving the V12's famous driving experience but offering ease of use. Ricardo configured a four-speed torque converter transmission from scratch, using bought-in internal components and with a novel layout dictated by the six-speed manual Ferrari's rear transaxle gearbox architecture. The propeller shaft from the front-mounted V12 drove the torque converter mounted ahead of the rear axle line, while the gearbox was positioned behind and fed its output forward to the differential.

Labelled GTA when it was launched in 1996, the automatic 456 drew powerful praise from an unexpected quarter – enthusiasts’ magazines. "One of the best auto setups on any fast GT", said Car Magazine, revelling in a transmission that allowed the engine to rev to 7000 rev/min before shifting to the next ratio.

2006: JCB Dieselmax

Ricardo had previously assisted JCB with the design of the new 444 generation of diesel engines for its range of construction machines. Later, JCB and Ricardo decided to make a bid for the world diesel land speed record using the Ricardo-designed JCB engines.

Ricardo simulations pointed to a power requirement of 1500 hp to reach the 350 mph (563 km/h) target, and with a detailed knowledge of the engine's every component, Ricardo's diesel performance specialists worked out that, with a double engine arrangement, that target could be within reach.

It was a tall order to boost each engine from 125 hp to six times that output: laid on their sides and fitted with dry sumps, each four-cylinder, 5 litre engine ran at 6 bar boost, with intercooling and water injection; soon they were giving 600 hp. A number of bespoke components were required, including a solid billet crankshaft, competition fuel injectors and pistons and modified cam profiles.

Wing Commander Andy Green, piloting the JCB Dieselmax LSR car at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, in August 2006, successfully achieved a new diesel speed record of.

2008: Foxhound & military vehicles

Developed by Ricardo under the name Ocelot, the British Army's Foxhound is a radical take on the formula of a light-protected patrol vehicle. Changing military requirements such as peacekeeping duties and patrolling in potentially hostile areas were exposing the limitations of existing designs based on medium-duty 4x4 platforms; in particular, improved protection was needed against roadside bombs and IEDs.

Among the requirements of the military specification were a maximum weight of 7.5 tonnes (to enable airlifting by a Chinook helicopter) and a width of no more than 2.1 m. The architecture developed by Ricardo and its partner Force Protection Europe is a radical one: the hull is V-shaped to deflect bomb blasts, all the powertrain and mechanical components are housed inside, and interchangeable rear ‘pods’ allow it to do duty as a flatbed pick-up, ambulance or reconnaissance vehicle. The 3.2 litre six cylinder engine drives all four wheels, and even if an entire wheel and suspension corner is blown off, the vehicle can continue.

Ease of access for the maintenance or repair of the mechanical elements is a high priority: within the hull the engine, transmission, exhaust and air intake are all mounted on a single frame, allowing the assembly to be removed as a whole and replaced by another in less than an hour.

Ricardo has manufactured a substantial batch of Foxhounds for the British Ministry of Defence and the experience gained in the programme has fed back into subsequent projects for military vehicles.

2009: McLaren M838T

In 2009, McLaren selected Ricardo as a development and manufacturing partner for a new engine for road car applications. Ricardo – through FFD – had previously supported McLaren by supplying the production transmission for the original McLaren F1 road car.

The technical demands were challenging: the engine had to be the most powerful, the cleanest and the most efficient in its class. Just 18 months were available between design start and pilot production. With the deployment of world-class software tools, the basic configuration of the engine was soon established — a 3.8 litre twin-turbo V8 — and the use of design for assembly techniques helped avoid tricky stages in the assembly process.

With a total of over 400 Ricardo staff contributing to the project, both the engine and the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at the Ricardo HQ in Shoreham were complete by the January 2011 deadline, and by the end of the year 1500 engines had been delivered. True to the specification, these engines did combine remarkable power – 600 hp – in relation to their CO2 emissions of just 279 g/km. Power has subsequently been raised first to 625 hp and then to 650, and McLaren has since increased its contract to 5000 engines a year.

2011: Ricardo co-operation with Jaguar Land Rover

For as long as it has existed, Ricardo has maintained consulting agreements with the major automakers, engine builders and government organisations of the day. These agreements continue to prove of great value to company managements requiring consultancy and technical advice.

The special working relationship with Jaguar Land Rover was announced in November 2011 and relates to product development geared towards delivering the best value. This agreement, announced the two companies, would enable selected programmes to be delivered to market as quickly as possible. Two examples of key programmes with active Ricardo support are the four-cylinder gasoline versions of the Jaguar XJ and XF luxury cars for the Chinese market, and the all-wheel drive derivatives of these same models, aimed at buyers in the North American snowbelt states. Ricardo has been able to support Jaguar Land Rover in a period of exceptionally rapid expansion and model development.

Further examples of Ricardo support for Jaguar Land Rover include the manual transmission version of the new Jaguar F-Type sports coupé and convertible, and their four-wheel drive editions. The benefits are mutual: Jaguar Land Rover has been able to bring more products to market in a shorter time and to a world- class standard, and the collaboration has led to shared expertise in key engineering and programme management domains.

2011: TorqStor Flywheel energy storage

The storing of energy in a fast-spinning flywheel has a natural appeal to engineers, promising maximum efficiency because there are no wasteful energy conversions required – the system is entirely mechanical. In 2011, Ricardo announced an important breakthrough in its pioneering Kinergy (the forerunner of TorqStor) high-speed flywheel project, introducing a magnetic coupling and gearing system to allow energy to be transferred to and from the flywheel directly through the containment wall holding the flywheel in its vacuum. This gives much better efficiency than using a mechanical shaft spinning at flywheel speed, which can be up to 60,000 rev/min, and is also able to provide a step-down to much lower speeds to make that energy more accessible.

The Kinergy concept, rated at 960 kJ, was a feature of the Flybus mechanical hybrid project led by Torotrak and including Optare and Allison Transmission. Demonstrating the effectiveness of flywheel systems for energy saving where the duty cycles are regular and repeated, Ricardo also showed the system in the HFX excavator in 2013; the company estimated a fuel saving of 10 percent, with more possible in a wheel-loader application.

Further applications have been explored in a variety of fields, including diesel trains. Ricardo, Artemis Intelligent Power and Bombardier are collaborating on the DDflyTrain research project to use the next-generation TorqStor flywheel system to bring regenerative braking, previously only available on electric trains, to diesel-hydraulic units. In recognition of TorqStor's potential for simple and cost-effective energy saving through hybridisation, the system was selected by the SAE World Congress for its 2014 Tech Award. A Ricardo-led research project in conjunction with the UK Department for Transport highlighted technology upgrade options for the rail network's diesel fleet, and the company is working with Bombardier and Artemis to integrate Ricardo TorqStor flywheel energy storage to allow brake energy recovery in diesel rolling stock.

2015: Rail & marine engineering

Other Ricardo rail industry projects have included an assessment of the viability of using liquefied natural gas instead of diesel fuel for the Canadian National Railway, the design and development of safety-critical electronic control systems, and collaboration with Scomi Rail of Malaysia on the development of monorail driveline technologies. A major step came in the first quarter of 2015 with the acquisition of Lloyd's Register Rail and the formation of a separate Ricardo Rail business unit.

In the marine area, Ricardo expertise has been applied to everything from small outboard motors and stern drives, to large 8 MW 16-cylinder diesels; novel engine concepts promise efficiency levels close to 60 percent, and computer modelling of complete ship propulsion systems is able to calculate the likely benefits of competing energy storage technologies and give return-on-investment predictions. One programme identified, and rectified, the deck vibration issues affecting a 55-ft luxury motor cruiser.

BMW C600 maxi scooter

Ricardo, having successfully collaborated with BMW on the development of the upgraded four-cylinder K1200 sports bike in 2008 and the six-cylinder K1600 luxury tourer in 2011, was chosen as development partner for the new maxi scooter.

Part of Ricardo's brief was to visit the large number of outside suppliers to the project to ensure that manufacturing was up to BMW's high standards. On a more technical level, a 270-degree crank angle was selected for the parallel twin engine in order to give it a more potent exhaust note, reminiscent of a 90-degree V twin. The scooter went through its early project gateways based solely on analysis and simulation results.

Clean energy

Major energy sector programmes that Ricardo has undertaken in recent years include engineering and analysis support for a Samsung Heavy Industries’ 7 MW offshore wind turbine, the development of a reduced-cost and more robust solar collector and engine generator, and drivetrain technology benchmarking for a major wind power equipment manufacturer.

In addition, a major study for the UK National Grid on grid balancing through the charging of electric vehicle fleets gained widespread coverage, and in late 2014 Ricardo acquired PPA Energy to significantly upgrade its capabilities across the sector.

Taxibot

With the boom in air travel at the beginning of this century came a steep rise in aviation emissions – and not just in the air. The increase in aircraft movements has meant an even steeper jump in ground-level emissions as planes manoeuvre and taxi under their own power before waiting for their takeoff slot.

The finding that the average passenger jet aircraft consumes over 477 litres of fuel while taxiing led Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) to investigate a ground handling tractor capable of towing the aircraft to its takeoff position, where the main engines would then be started. This would not only save fuel, emissions and ground- level noise, but would also reduce the amount of ground-level engine running, where debris ingestion is a major risk.

IAI had a concept for a semi-robotic tug – Taxibot – which clamped around the aircraft's nosewheel and was controlled remotely by the pilot, just as if he or she was taxiing the plane in the normal way. Ricardo refined the concept, adding a third axle and an improved control system; a key step was to use the aircraft's brakes for slowing down.

Ricardo built the tug unit and a test trailer which replicated the load of a Boeing 747 aircraft, and later a retired 747/200 was used to further refine the feel of the system, as experienced by the pilot. IAI has since been working with Airbus at Toulouse and, more recently, Taxibot has been under evaluation at Frankfurt Airport and has been certified by Boeing for the 737.


What is the origin of the word "prose"?

The word "prose" first appears in English in the 14th century. It is derived from the Old French "prose", which in turn originates in the Latin expression "prosa oratio" (literally, straightforward or direct speech).

Prose

Prose is a form of language that exhibits a natural flow of speech and grammatical structure rather than a regular rhythmic structure as in traditional poetry, where the common unit of verse is based on metre or rhyme. Though, as T. S. Eliot noted, while "the distinction between verse and prose is clear, the distinction between poetry and prose is obscure". Developments in modern literature, including free verse and prose poetry have tended to blur any differences.

Prose in its simplicity and loosely defined structure is broadly adaptable to spoken dialogue, factual discourse, and to topical and fictional writing. It is systematically produced and published within literature, journalism (including newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting), encyclopedias, film, history, philosophy, law, and in almost all forms and processes requiring human communications.

Isaac Newton in "The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms" wrote "The Greek Antiquities are full of Poetical Fictions, because the Greeks wrote nothing in Prose, before the Conquest of Asia by Cyrus the Persian. Then Pherecydes Scyrius and Cadmus Milesius introduced the writing in Prose." The website https://theprose.com/ later wrote, in response, "Of course Newton did not discover any law of linguistic nature mandating that no matter how freeform, spontaneous, or unstructured a literary statement may be, it will always contain poetic elements, just as non-ionized elements will always contain electrons; the best prose contains the greatest poetic charge outputted by the smallest poetic effort."

Prose lacks the more formal metrical structure of verse that can be found in traditional poetry. Prose comprises full grammatical sentences, which then constitute paragraphs while overlooking aesthetic appeal, whereas poetry often involves a metrical and/or rhyming scheme. Some works of prose contain traces of metrical structure or versification and a conscious blend of the two literature formats known as prose poetry. Verse is considered to be more systematic or formulaic, whereas prose is the most reflective of ordinary (often conversational) speech. On this point, Samuel Taylor Coleridge jokingly requested that novice poets should know the "definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose—words in their best order; poetry—the best words in their best order."

Many types of prose exist, which include "nonfictional prose", "heroic prose", "prose poem", "polyphonic prose", "alliterative prose", "prose fiction", and "village prose" in Russian literature. A prose poem is a composition in prose that has some of the qualities of a poem.

Many forms of creative or literary writing use prose, including novels and short stories. Writer Truman Capote thought that the short story was "the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant".