- Ricardo, Sir Harry Ralph
- 1885 - 1974
- Harry Ralph Ricardo was born on 26 January 1885 in London, the son of Halsey Ralph Ricardo, architect, and his wife, Catherine Jane (née Rendel). He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he built his own motorcycle engines, staying on for a year to help Bertram Hopkinson, professor of mechanism and applied mechanics, to research the performance of the petrol engine. In 1907 he joined his grandfather's firm, Rendel & Robertson (later Rendel, Palmer & Tritton), as an inspector of machinery, later becoming head of a department for designing the specialized mechanical equipment needed for large civil engineering projects. At the outbreak of the First World War, classified in a reserved occupation, he designed aero-engines made by Brotherhood and Beardmore and tank engines. In 1916 Ricardo was appointed consulting engineer to the Ministry of Munition’s mechanical warfare department and was asked to encourage manufacturers to make new and more powerful engines. The successful design and production of his 150hp engine on a large scale and the development of two larger 225hp and 300hp engines, incorporating features for improving combustion, led to Ricardo’s appointment in 1918 as consulting engineer in aero-engines to the Air Ministry. In 1917, after the death of his grandfather, Ricardo launched his own company with the help of a three-year contract from the Asiatic Petroleum Co for research on fuels and detonation. In 1919 a laboratory, designed by Ricardo’s father, was built for the firm at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Apart from the fuel research Ricardo & Co undertook the design of any form of internal combustion or related engine and also offered consulting services. Ricardo published extensively and was very active in government research, particularly on the sleeve-valve aero-engine. He was a member of the war cabinet engineering advisory committee, 1941-45, and designed part of the first Whittle jet engine. In 1929 Ricardo was elected Fellow of the Royal Society and received many medals and honorary degrees. He was president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1944–45, and knighted in 1948. Ricardo retired in 1964. In 1974 he suffered a pelvic injury in a fall and died six weeks later on 18 May 1974 at Midhurst, Sussex. He married Beatrice Bertha Hale, art student at the Slade School of Art, London, and the daughter of the Ricardos' family doctor, in 1911 and they had three daughters.
- E5/1 experimental engine (n.d.); Ricardo-Halford-Armstrong RHA (1917); Curtiss Ricardo R-6 (c.1921); Ricardo-Burt S55/4 65hp (1927); Rolls-Royce Merlin (1933); Rolls-Royce Crecy (1941).
Harry Ricardo, Memories and machines: The pattern of my life (1968); Harry Ricardo, The autobiography of Sir Harry Ricardo, pioneer of engine research (1992); William Hawthorne, ‘Ricardo, Sir Harry Ralph (1885-1974)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography (2004); John Reynolds, Engines and enterprise: The life and work of Sir Harry Ricardo (2008); David Morrison, ‘Harry Ricardo: A passion for efficiency’, The piston engine revolution papers from a conference on the history of reciprocating internal combustion engines held at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, 2011 (2012).
Paper re ‘the supercharging of internal-combustion engines’ 1950 [75818: basement pamphlet]; interview 1961 [14966 & 94424: digital audio collection].
Published material, notes and reports, re development and work of Ricardo & Co Engineers (1927) Ltd and its engineering projects (2 boxes) 1912-67 [Documents.21605]; audio recording of Royal Aeronautical Society interview with Sir Sir Harry Ricardo n.d. [17878].
Letter from H R Ricardo re engines amongst Royal Aircraft Factory papers 1933 [AVIA 6/5349].
Papers re progress of the internal combustion engine and its fuel by Harry Ricardo 1935, 1938 [MS50/3/20, MS 50/11/30].