Clifford Copland Paterson, 1879 - 1948

Abstract

Clifford Copland Paterson was born on 17 October 1879 at Stoke Newington, and was the son of Frederick Paterson, a tanner and leather merchant. In 1892, after attending a private school near his home, he entered Mill Hill, then under the headmastership of McClure, later Sir John; he went on the modern side and specialized in the study of engineering and physics. Though he reached the sixth form and gained prizes for French and German, his school career seems, on the whole, to have been undistinguished and to have given little promise of the outstanding ability that was to develop later. After leaving Mill Hill in 1896, Paterson embarked on a comprehensive training, both theoretical and practical, in general and electrical engineering. He first spent a year at Finsbury Technical College and then served a general engineering apprenticeship with Messrs George Wailes and Company of London, and subsequently with Messrs Mirrlees, Watson and Company of Glasgow. In 1901 he entered Faraday House, under Alexander Russell, as a special studentassistant in the Testing Department. Shortly after, he published, jointly with Russell, his first paper, which dealt with sparking in switches. The general adoption, about this time, of higher supply voltages made the rating of switches for use in direct current lighting circuits a matter of pressing importance. Widely different ratings were being given by different makers for switches of substantially the same size and length of break. The primary object of the work was therefore to determine detailed relations between current, voltage and the resulting spark length, so as to enable manufacturers to predict the behaviour of their switches under various conditions.