This is a photograph of one of the world’s first structures to generate electricity from wind power. It was designed and built by James Blyth (1839-1906), a pioneering professor of Natural Philosophy at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College.
Blyth was born in Marykirk in Kincardineshire in 1839 where he attended the parish school and later Montrose Academy. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and graduated with a BA in 1861, completing his MA in 1871. He spent his early career working as a tutor and teacher. In 1880 he was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at Anderson’s College (later the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College), where he taught until his death in 1906.
Blyth’s research concentrated on electrical problems, such as the telephone and microphone, and on the generation and storage of electricity from wind power. He began to experiment with windmill construction in 1885, building a windmill in the garden of his house in Marykirk. The windmill was a 33 feet high cloth-sailed, horizontal structure. The electricity generated was stored in batteries or ‘accumulators’ and was used to power the lights of the cottage. This early design had its faults. Blyth found that the cloth sails were not very successful. When the wind was too strong he had to stop it to prevent the sails being torn to pieces. To remedy this, he built a new windmill in 1891. This image is of this new windmill. In this new design, the cloth sails were replaced with semi cylindrical boxes attached to four strong arms. This design proved much more satisfactory, reaching a terminal speed instead of racing in strong winds.
Blyth was granted a patent to protect his invention in 1891 and awarded the Brisbane Gold Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1892 for his research.
Not everyone was impressed with Blyth’s work, however. He had offered the surplus electricity from the windmill for lighting the main street in Marykirk but the locals rejected his offer, fearing electricity ‘the work of The Devil’!
Archives reference: OM/17/8 Stereoscopic photograph of 'Box Horizontal Windmill', Marykirk, Kincardineshire, around 1888.
