Arthur Paul Pedrick

Arthur Paul Pedrick (3 September 1918 – 15 August 1976) was a prolific British inventor and former patent examiner who filed for 162 United Kingdom patents between 1962 and his death in 1976 (other sources giving 15 August 1976 or in 1977 ). His inventions were notable for their humour and almost complete lack of practical applicability.

Early life

Pedrick's father was engineer Lieutenant Arthur Gordon Pedrick, a Royal Navy submariner who died in 1918 from diseases caused by the poor conditions in the British K-class submarines in which he served. His mother, born Gladys Westaway, married his father in 1916. Pedrick was born on 3 September 1918, after his father's death.

He stated in one of his patents:

I have suffered all my life even from a by product of the 1914–18 war even if I was born after it. It is a personal fact that my father was a Lieutenant (E) serving in the disastrous K class submarines, by which the Royal Navy tried to create a Submarine which could steam on the surface at 20 knots to keep up with the Fleet, and he died of a lung infection created by the appalling conditions in such submarines, even before I was born. If a women [sic] is in bad metal [sic] state when she is in pregnant, it is obvious that she can pass on her state of mind to the foetus. This has made me a nervous individual all my life, and there are many times in my life I wish I had never been born. There are endless arguments about the subject of abortion on the "rights of the foetus", and these could all be settled if, in some way, the future could be predicted for the foetus and it could decide whether it "wanted to be born".

Pedrick attended Soberton Towers Preparatory School near Droxfield, Hampshire from 1925 to 1932 for his primary education. He obtained a scholarship to attend Sutton Valence School near Maidstone, Kent.

His undergraduate studies were at City and Guilds College, part of Imperial College London. He obtained a BSc (Eng) 2nd Class Honours, and followed vacation apprenticeships at Short Brothers in Rochester, Kent and Fairey Aviation in Hayes, Hillingdon. He then took a one-year postgraduate course from 1938 to 1939 at the aeronautics department of Imperial College to qualify for a Diploma Imperial College (D.I.C.).

Naval Career

After a short stint in the Territorial Army, Pedrick was granted a commission in the Royal Naval Reserve, initially as a Temporary Probationary Sub-lieutenant (E). He later became Temporary Engineer Lieutenant.

In January 1941, Pedrick joined HMS Dido, which was dispatched to the Mediterrean. In May 1941, HMS Dido was involved in the evacuation of Australian and New Zealand troops from Crete.

Pedrick's patent for laser-induced fusion includes these autobiographical notes:

Pedrick described a novel detector sensitive to electromagnetic energy. The patent application's three claims sought protection both on the detector itself and on two specific devices in which such a detector could be used.

In the first, the detector forms part of a "chromatically selective cat flap control unit" intended to automatically allow the passage of a cat of one fur colouration, for example ginger, through an access hole in a kitchen door, but to exclude a cat with black fur. Pedrick explains that he came up with this idea because a black cat named Blackie from next door kept trying to steal Ginger's food. In the second, the detector forms part of an "automatic reprisal satellite, including a 1000 Megaton 'CND' Bomb". If the detector detects a nuclear rocket attack, it automatically directs the 'CND' bomb to fall on that part of the Earth's surface from which the attack originated.

Transfer of fresh water An application titled "Arrangements for the transfer of fresh water from one location on the earth's surface to another at a different latitude, for the purpose of irrigation, with pumping energy derived from the effect of the earth's rotation about the polar axis".

Pedrick describes in extreme detail, with pages of mathematical equations, how snow and ice could be passed along pipelines from the Antarctic to irrigate the dry Australian outback, creating a "granary of the East" that could feed the burgeoning population of the world. Since the flow of water from one region to the other through such pipelines would not be practicable according to Pedrick, his suggestion is to instead compress snow into hard balls that could be fired along these pipelines as projectiles.

Extinguishing fires in high rise block buildings An "apparatus for extinguishing fires in high rise block buildings of uniform transverse cross-section or plan".

Pedrick suggests that fire curtains could be secured at the roof level of a high-rise building. When released, they would substantially envelop the entire building. The curtains could be provided with openings that, upon release, were positioned directly across from safe assembly rooms. A concern, however, was that such large curtains could have prevented escape from the building as well as increased the risk of suffocation. This application was Pedrick's last.

Response "Funny" patents like those written by Pedrick, as well as their popularisation in the media, upset many patent examiners, who often feel they tend to trivialise the subject.

Patents A selection from over 160 patents filed between 1962 and 1975: