It is with sadness that Batteries International reports that Norman Bagshaw one of the leading lights in the battery industry in the 1980s and 1990s died on February 27, aged 91.
A scholarship boy with relatively humble beginnings he went on to graduate from Cambridge University. His first work in the battery business started in 1958 at Chloride — a year after his marriage to Norma Bradley, who survives him, the two were to have four children together.
Chloride from the 1950s onwards was the place to be in the lead battery industry. It may have been a sprawling giant with operations across the world but it was also at the cutting edge of battery development
Norman worked alongside Montefiore Barak, the charismatic and academically brilliant head of research at Chloride. Norman later became head of materials research and also later assistant director of research of the labs.
In the early days with Chloride there was a good exchange of views at annual meetings of research personnel from Chloride, ESB (Electric Storage Batteries) in the US and what later became Varta in Germany.
For his first five years at Chloride his work included an examination of lead-antimony-arsenic alloys and the grain refining effect of selenium on these alloys and the first use of selenium as a grain refiner.
Between 1963 and 1968 Norman investigated the properties of lead-calcium and lead-tin-calcium alloys and discovered a method of preventing oxidation of calcium from molten lead alloys by the addition of aluminium.
He also researched lead-barium and lead-strontium alloys and compared these with the properties of existing lead-calcium alloys, as well as developing lead-antimony-cadmium and lead-antimony-cadmium-silver alloys.
In addition to the alloy work, Norman and his team carried out X-ray and microscopic analysis of active materials in battery plates. The structures of lead oxides were clarified by X-ray and neutron diffraction analysis and the ways in which alpha and beta lead dioxide could be formed were elucidated.
In 1968, he was awarded the Hoffmann Memorial Prize at the 3rd International Conference on Lead in Italy, for his findings on lead-antimony-cadmium alloys,
He was largely indifferent to the recognition he was attracting. He later said: “I was never particularly concerned with patents (although I recognised their importance) and left patents to the patent office in Chloride. I don’t even know how many patents have my name on.”
That said many of his patents are fundamental to the present industry. For example, “Battery electrode structure” patent number: 4125690, obtained in 1978, concerns “a battery electrode structure made of a lead-calcium-tin alloy”. He obtained this with John McWhinnie.
That same year, as he received his first international prize, he was transferred to Chloride Industrial Batteries Limited, the company manufacturing lead acid batteries for stand-by applications and also for submarines and aircraft. In addition the company made special silver oxide-zinc batteries for torpedoes.
Following a reorganization he was made technical director and given the technical responsibility for all stand-by, submarine, aircraft and torpedo batteries with all the technical managers and also the quality manager reporting to him.
A further reorganization allowed him to concentrate on defence and aircraft batteries by giving him overall control — including sales and marketing — of these products.
Over these years Norman visited countless companies making submarines, torpedoes, aircrafts and tanks as well as various navies including the navies of Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and Egypt.
Chloride had always been a supplier of batteries to the British Navy since diesel-electric submarines were first introduced. He later said: “We extended this to include batteries for air-drop torpedoes. These batteries had magnesium and silver chloride as electrodes and used sea water as the electrolyte. The batteries were prepared with dry plates and when the torpedo was dropped into the sea the electrolyte (sea water) entered the battery.
“Thus the weight of the electrolyte did not have to be carried by the aircraft. One of the disadvantages of the flow-through system is a fall in voltage as the battery discharges. We overcame this by recirculating some of the sea water to increase the temperature and therefore the voltage during discharge. We tested the effectiveness of this innovation in the lab prior to commercialization.”
He was happy to share his expertise and in 1982 he wrote the 203-page book Batteries on Ships, a standard text on the subject, which was published in January 1983 and in 1986 in Russian, a language that he also spoke well. He also edited a series of books on power sources technology” for Research Studies Press.
In 1988 Norman, who had left Chloride the previous year to become an independent consultant, was awarded the Frank Booth Medal by the International Power Sources Symposium Committee for contributions to battery research and development.
During the next decade and a half, he advised a host of companies and government departments in various countries throughout the world on many research projects.
Notable examples include a mission to Syria on behalf of the United Nations to advise on batteries for photovoltaic systems; his work as a member of an advisory committee to the UK’s defence ministry for battery requirements into the next century; advising on the development of maintenance free battery for solar power application for a European Commission project; and providing advice to the House of Lords on zero emission vehicles.
Companies he has advised include Atraverda USA, Magneti Morelli in Italy, several battery companies in South Korea which he also visited and he worked closely with HBL (Hyderabad Batteries Limited) in India on some of their new battery projects, becoming a non-executive director of this company for three years. He also performed a critical survey of all the lead-acid work assessed ILZRO (International Lead Zinc Research Organisation).
Norman was also used as an expert witness in many battery and patent disputes. In one notable case, his name as expert witness was enough to make the opposing company withdraw.
Other work and awards
Norman was chairman of the British and IEC Standards Committees on Aircraft Batteries over many years; an Industrial Fellow at Nottingham University for six years, and member of the Court and Council of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology for 17 years.
He was a member of the International Power Sources Symposium Committee, member of the Council of Defence Manufacturers’ Association (DMA), member of the editorial board of Advanced Metals Technology and member of the Industrial Advisory Committee LABAT, Bulgaria.
In 1999 the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences awarded him the Gaston Planté medal for fundamental contributions to the development of lead-acid battery technology.
In 2003 he received the UMIST medal for sustained and outstanding work for the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
He has published over 60 scientific papers for professional and technical journals.
His funeral is on Friday March 21 at Stockport crematorium in England at 12.00 in the Cypress chapel. Family flowers only, donations to Dementia UK.
