Zénobe Gramme
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Zénobe Théophile Gramme (April 4, 1826 - January 20, 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer.
The son of a tax clerk, Zénobe Theopile Gramme was born on April 4, 1826 in the small town Jehay-Bodegnee, Belgium. He never finished school and he went to work at an early age as a joiner in Hannut. He followed his family when they moved to Liege and he remained there until 1855. It was while traveling in France that he settled in Paris as a banister maker. He married Hortense Nysten, a dressmaker from Liege, and the two made their home in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Gramme went to work for a model maker in a firm that specialized in the manufacture of arc lamp generators. This marked the beginning of his interest in electricity as he became interested in building an improved apparatus for producing alternating current. He began his experiments in the 1860's, and in 1867, he took out his first patent for a device dedicated to improve magneto-electrical machines.
In spite of the fact that he was semi-literate and had no advanced knowledge of mathematics, in 1869, he invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating much higher voltages than the dynamos known to that point. Later he discovered that the device was reversible and could function as an electrical motor.
In order to have his device manufactured, he founded in partnership with the French engineer Hippolyte Fontaine and in 1871 they opened a factory: the Societe des Machines Magneto-Electriques Gramme, where they produced among other things the Gramme ring, Grammae armature, and the Gramme dynamo. In 1873, at the Vienna Exposition, one of his motors served as a generator for another located three-quarters of a mile away. "For the first time there was available a small powerful source of power that could run for days with little or no attention.
In 1852 Gramme was a winner of the 50,000-franc Prix Volta established by Louis-Napoleon. Gramme died at Bois-Colombes, France and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
There is at Liège a High School named at his memory : L'Institut Gramme.
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