GAS ENGINE PIONEER: SIR DUGALD CLERK
Does the above name ring a bell with you? Of course it does! He’s the gent who invented the Clerk Cycle of engine operation. And who was the major maker of that type of engine in America? Joseph Reid. So now it all comes together for you. But for this article, we are going to journey across the pond to Scotland, and see what we can learn about this most interesting individual. It will be a good story.
Clerk was definitely a unique and gifted person. He was intelligent, diligent and thoughtful. Although his career developed into many different areas, he never forgot his love for the gas engine, and was always eager to learn more. His 1904 portrait is shown in Photo 1.
Clerk was one of the very early pioneers in the birth of the gas engine, and lived to see it become a successful everyday machine. Few others were given that pleasure.
Going back
Donald Clerk was born in 1819 in Argyle, Scotland, a rural area very near to the city of Glasgow. Clerk had a mechanical inclination and soon opened a blacksmith shop. Tools were crude then, but he persevered and became a master blacksmith. By 1871, he and his wife were living in Glasgow and his works employed five men and 10 boys! He and his wife had a large family of 10 children, Dugald being the oldest. Donald Clerk passed away in 1880 at the
