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The Congreve rocket was a type of rocket artillery designed by British inventor Sir William Congreve in 1808. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The design was based upon the rockets deployed by the Kingdom of Mysore against the East India Company during the Second , Third , and Fourth Anglo-Mysore Wars .
William Congreve was born in Stafford on 4 July 1742. He and his first wife, Rebecca Elmston, had four children together, two sons and two daughters. [1] His eldest son, William Congreve, invented the Congreve Rocket. [2] His second wife, Julia-Elizabeth Eyre, died aged 78 in 1831. [3] Congreve was made a Baronet on 7 December 1812. [4]
The British armed forces used Congreve's new rockets to great advantage during the Napoleonic and 1812 Wars. In 1939, researchers at the California Institute of Technology seeking to develop a high-performance solid rocket motor to assist aircraft take-off, combined black powder with common road asphalt to produce the first true composite motor.
Tip of a Congreve rocket, on display at Paris naval museum. After the rockets were successfully used during Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, various countries were quick to adopt the weapon and establish special rocket brigades. The British created the British Army Rocket Brigade in 1818, followed by the Austrian Army and the ...
The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur. [ citation needed ] The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage.
The early Mysorean rockets and their successor British Congreve rockets [59] reduced veer somewhat by attaching a long stick to the end of a rocket (similar to modern bottle rockets) to make it harder for the rocket to change course. The largest of the Congreve rockets was the 32-pound (14.5 kg) Carcass, which had a 15-foot (4.6 m) stick.
A portrait of Congreve by James Londale made c. 1812. Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet KCH FRS (20 May 1772 – 16 May 1828) was a British Army officer, Tory politician, publisher and inventor. [1] A pioneer in the field of rocket artillery, he was renowned for his development and use of Congreve rockets during the Napoleonic Wars. [2]
British Rockets at Fort McHenry; Congreve, William (1827), A treatise on the general principles, powers, and facility of application of the Congreve Rocket system, as compared with artillery: Illustr. by pl. of the principal exercises and cases of actual service: With a demonstration of the comparative economy of the system. (Longman).