Edward Alfred Cowper (10 December 1819 London – 9 May 1893 Rastricke, Weybridge, Surrey) was a British mechanical engineer.
He was the son of Professor Edward Shickle Cowper (1790–1852), head of the department of engineering at King's College London and Ann Applegath. In 1833, he was apprenticed to John Braithwaite, a railway engineer in London. In 1837, he invented the detonating railway fog signal, first tried on the Croydon line and widely used thereafter as an emergency safety measure. In 1841, he joined Fox and Henderson, structural and railway engineers, in Smethwick where, he devised a method of casting railway chairs, and also designed the wrought-iron roof of the New Street Station in Birmingham.
He worked on the 1851 Exhibition Building, The Crystal Palace. He invented a wire-spoke wheel with rubber tyre, which is the same as the modern bicycle wheel.[1] In 1857, he invented the regenerative hot blast stove known as the Cowper stove, which greatly improved the economy of the hot blast process in the making of steel.[2]
In 1880, he was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
He married Juliana; they had one son.
Cowper was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1889.
| Professional and academic associations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Robinson |
President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1880-1881 |
Succeeded by Percy G. B. Westmacott |