It may seem strange to start a local history story concerning the Parish of Wyke Regis, Weymouth, in Dorset, with an account of the exploits of Robert Whitehead - a Lancastrian who was born almost one hundred and seventy years ago. However, Robert Whitehead, inventor of the deadly torpedo, was no ordinary man and it was his outstanding engineering ability that led to the building, in 1891, of The Whitehead Torpedo Factory at Ferrybridge, Wyke Regis, South Dorset. Since then the Factory has provided much needed employment to generations of locals and it is therefore fitting that we should begin this story with a brief explanation of how Whitehead's inventive talent brought all this about.
Robert Whitehead, Senior, (the grandfather of the inventor of the torpedo) was born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1752 and he was brought up during a period which saw the emergence of coal and steam as motive forces in the local textile industry. In 1771 he moved to Bury and opened a cotton bleaching works, where he utilised the application of steam power to cotton looms. His business prospered and eventually he was able to purchase a country mansion at Elton, called Haslam Hey. His wife, Alice, bore him two sons, James in 1788 and John in 1790. James Whitehead grew up to be a practical industrialist and in 1814 he married Ellen Swift.

On the 3rd January 1823 Ellen gave birth to Robert Whitehead, who was to win world wide acclaim as the inventor of the torpedo. A great deal of information on his life is provided in a book called "The Devil's Device, the Story of the Torpedo", by Edwin Gray, (see References) and in "A History of the Torpedo" by G.J.Kirby of the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment at Portland and published in the Journals of the Royal Naval Scientific Service. (see References)
Robert Whitehead's childhood years were spent in reasonable comfort and from 1829 to 1837 he attended Bolton Grammar School. From his early days he showed an interest in the new steam engines and locomotives which were then coming into use in many factories around Bolton and at the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to Richard Ormerod and Son, Engineers, of Manchester. This gave him a valuable grounding in practical engineering and he began to study mechanical drawing and pattern design, soon gaining a reputation as an exquisite draughtsman. In 1846 he married Francis Maria Johnson, and in that same year he moved to Marseilles as a marine designer working with an English merchant adventurer called Phillip Taylor. Eventually he went to Milan, in Northern Italy, and set up as an independent engineering consultant, concentrating on textile and silk weaving machinery, and advising on the drainage of the Lombardy Marshes. The Italians were struggling to throw off the yoke of the Austrian Empire and with civil disorder and fighting in the City, Robert moved his family down to Trieste. There he concentrated his energy on the design of marine steam engines. His reputation grew and in 1856 he was invited to become Chief Engineer to Stabilimeno Technico Fiumano, a few miles along the coast at Fiume, who were designers and builders of warships to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The events that were to change his life started in 1864 when he was asked to contribute towards perfecting an apparatus for coastal defence known as the "coastsaver", invented by Giovanni Luppis, a retired Captain of the Austrian Navy. The device was a long floating object filled with explosives and driven by a clockwork mechanism and it was intended to be manoeuvred from the coast by means of trailing ropes. Although the idea proved a failure, it did introduce Whitehead to the problems associated with trying to remotely detonate underwater explosive charges and inspired him to investigate other solutions.
With the assistance of his twelve year old son, John, he devoted the next two years towards perfecting a practical, mobile underwater weapon. In 1866 Robert Whitehead introduced to the world his first mobile torpedo, which was driven by compressed air and was designed to be fired from an underwater tube. After many failures, because of its inability to run at a constant depth, Whitehead finally had the inspiration for a novel depth keeping device - which was to be his greatest contribution to torpedo design and the basis for his future success. In order to achieve a constant depth the "Whitehead-Luppis" torpedo used an hydrostatic plate to drive the depth rudder. The plate was regulated to a pre-established depth by a spring, connected to a pendulum that helped to absorb the more violent adjustments to the weapon's depth.

The weapon achieved some six and a half knots out to 200 yards and the hydrostatic-pendulum device was known as "the secret" and was jealously guarded for some decades by the inventor. A French visitor to Fiume in the 1880's noted that "in a separate room, swathed in mystery like an alchemist's laboratory, is a single worker, who only opens the door at the command of Mr. Whitehead..."

In 1868, after seeing successful demonstrations of the torpedo's ability, the Austrian Navy decided to place an order for the weapon. However, Robert Whitehead, aware of the commercial potential of the weapon, retained the rights to sell to other countries and from then on he devoted all his energies to its development. A new contract was negotiated with Luppis, which gave Whitehead full control of all future weapon sales. Luppis died in Milan in 1875, embittered by the fact that he had allowed an invention he still regarded as his own to have been taken away from him.
By 1869 the British Royal Navy had heard of Whitehead's exploits at Fiume and he was invited back to England in order to demonstrate his 14" and 16" diameter torpedoes. The Royal Navy were so impressed by the subsequent trials that they bought the rights to use and reproduce the weapon and in 1872 they started their own production line at the Royal Laboratories, Woolwich. Within a few years they were followed by other interested countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Denmark Sweden Norway, Russia, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Greece and Chile.
In 1872 Whitehead and Count Georg Hoyos (who had married Whitehead's daughter Alice in 1869) purchased the Fiume Factory, and renamed it Silurifico Whitehead, with John Whitehead, the eldest son, becoming a director. By 1875 considerable improvements had been made to the Whitehead Torpedo, with the introduction of a better engine and contra-rotating propellers, giving the 14" weapon a performance of 18 knots out to a range of 550 yards. Weapons of various types continued to be built at the Fiume Factory and over the years they were exported to many different countries. At one stage detailed plans were stolen from Whitehead's house and within a year the Berlin engineering company of Schwartzkopff were offering their own phosphor bronze version of the Whitehead torpedo for sale.

The presence in the family of son-in-law Count Hoyos was a considerable bonus, as he was a member of an old Hapsburg aristocratic family with considerable contacts and influence. The international family links were increased in 1892 when Robert Whitehead's grand-daughter, Marguerite Hoyos, married the son of the German Chancellor, Herbert von Bismark.
Meanwhile, the British were making increasing use of torpedoes. The Southern Times newspaper reported in 1878 that trials of the weapon were taking place in the calm confines of the recently constructed Portland Harbour, in Dorset and by 1880 some 33 warships had been fitted with launching equipment. Trial firings continued at Portland over the following years and in 1886 the Southern Times noted "that eight or nine torpedo boats were moored on the torpedo camber near the Portland Breakwater."

The torpedoes were not always well behaved, for in that same year one of the projectiles, charged with compressed air, struck the side of the turret ship Monarch and another was lost in the waters of the Portland Roads. To combat the torpedo and the proliferation of torpedo launches, the torpedo-boat catcher was evolved, but it was not particularly successful. In the 1887 Spring Exercise in Portland Harbour it was recorded that the first boat, Rattlesnake, was matched against eighteen torpedo boats, but failed to catch a single one.
Meanwhile, the Whitehead family was flourishing, with a great deal of wealth being accumulated from sales of the Fiume torpedo and with the children growing up and marrying into some of the most influential families in Europe. Whitehead and his wife visited England every year and in 1880 they purchased a Victorian mansion near Ryde in the Isle of Wight. The eldest son, John, was given recognition of his engineering skills by being made a partner in the Fiume Works. Sadly, Alice Whitehead died in 1883 and from then on his daughter, Alice Hoyos and her husband Count Georg, gave Robert Whitehead a great deal of support and companionship.

In 1885 Robert purchased a large country estate called Paddockhurst, in Worth, Berkshire and lived there for some years, but it proved to be such an expensive millstone that it eventually had to be sold. Despite failing health, he continued to work on improved torpedo designs and in 1889 at Fiume he demonstrated a much more powerful 18" torpedo to the British Royal Navy, represented by Captain Edwin Payne Gallwey who was "an expert in torpedo work second only to Mr Whitehead himself". On Gallwey's recommendation the British Admiralty placed an immediate order and within a year the Royal Gun Factory was also producing 18" weapons.
By now the demand for torpedoes by the British Navy was so great that neither Fiume or the Admiralty factories could supply sufficient quantities. The Admiralty stepped up torpedo production at Woolwich and also arranged for the Leeds engineering firm of Greenwood and Batley Ltd. to build even more. They even purchased fifty expensive Schwartzkopff phosphor bronze weapons, which had the advantage over the steel Whitehead torpedo of being resistant to rust.
However, the dependency of the British Navy on torpedoes manufactured abroad was beginning to worry the Admiralty Board and they quietly advised Robert Whitehead that they would no longer purchase his Fiume torpedoes unless they were manufactured in this country. Whitehead responded to the challenge and after negotiations with the Admiralty, represented by Gallwey, he agreed to open a branch of his Company in Britain. Captain Gallwey promptly resigned his commission and joined Whitehead as his English manager.
Portland Harbour was already a venue for torpedo trials and was frequently visited by the British Channel Fleet and the Training and Reserve Squadrons. It was not surprising, therefore, that Robert Whitehead decided to build his first British torpedo factory on the mainland shore of Portland Harbour, at Ferrybridge, in the Parish of Wyke Regis, near Weymouth.