Dr Thomas Carver and Lord Kelvin

Thomas Carver was secretary and assistant to William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, from 1890 to 1894 and maintained close links with him until Kelvin's death in 1907. In the twentieth century Carver became an independent engineer and inventor whose patents were mainly for improvements to textile machinery. These improvements were some of the first successful attempts to introduce electrical devices into what had been traditionally a purely mechanical industry. His patents include what seems to be the earliest proposal to use electro-acoustical echo-sounding for measuring the depth of the sea.