James Lowe

James Lowe (1798–1866) was the English inventor of a screw propeller. Life James Lowe was born in Rotherhithe, London, in 1798, to James and Elizabeth Lowe and baptised on 13 May. In 1811 Lowe began working for Edward Shorter, a master mechanic and Freeman of the City of London, who had in 1800 taken out a patent (GB patent 2367) for propelling vessels, which he had named "the perpetual sculling machine". On 2 November 1813, Lowe became an apprentice to Shorter but three years later in 1816 Lowe ran away and joined a whaling ship, the , but in 1825 and after three voyages returned to his master, with whom Lowe went into partnership. In 1834, Lowe left the partnership after losing money in propeller research. Later Lowe went into business as machinist and a smoke-jack maker, and experimented on screw-propellers for ships. On 24 March 1838, he took out a patent (GB patent 7599) for "improvements in propelling vessels" by means of one or more curved blades, set or fixed on a revolving shaft below the water-line of the vessel. His propeller was first practically used in the steamship Wizard in 1837 for testing and prior to Lowe's patent application, and then in Rattler and Phœnix.