Archibald Low

Lore & Background

Low was born in Purley, London, the second son of John and Gertrude Low. His father was an engineer, and Low's interest in mechanics was sparked by visits to his father's workplace. As a boy, he conducted experiments at home, building homemade steam turbines and chemical experiments that caused complaints from neighbors. He attended St Paul's School, where he did not fit in, describing himself as "too much of an individual." At age 16 he entered the Central Technical College, where under mentor Professor Ashcroft he developed his abilities across scientific disciplines. During this time he designed a drawing device called "The Low flexible and adjustable curve," a dotted line pen, and a self-filling draughtsman's pen, all marketed by Thornton's. He also devised a selector mechanism for pre-selected gears, though it took 32 years for such gears to become commercially available.

During World War I, Low joined the Royal Flying Corps and was tasked with using his civilian research on Televista to remotely control drone weapons proposed by the Royal Aircraft Factory. The project was called "Aerial Target" (AT), a deliberate misnomer to deceive the Germans. Low headed the Experimental Works at Feltham, with about 30 men including jewellers, carpenters, and aircraftsmen. The AT planes were built by manufacturers such as Airco, Sopwith Aviation Company, and the Royal Aircraft Factory. The first trial on 21 March 1917 at Upavon Central Flying School demonstrated control of the craft before engine failure caused a crash landing. A subsequent trial on 6 July 1917 was cut short when an AT was lost at takeoff. Later, an electrically driven gyrocompass was added to the plane. In 1918, Low's works developed the airborne controlled Royal Navy Distance Control Boats, and in 1917 he and his team invented the first electrically steered rocket.

Reader's Guide

Low's significance lies in his foundational work on radio-controlled aircraft and guided weapons, which directly anticipated later developments in drone technology and missile guidance. His Aerial Target project was the first powered drone aircraft, and his team's innovations—such as compressed-air launch, electrically driven gyrocompass, and wire-guided rockets—established technical principles that would be revisited decades later. However, Low's lack of discipline meant he rarely saw a project through, being easily distracted by new ideas. Many scientific contemporaries disliked him, partly because he used the title "professor" without holding an academic chair, and his love of publicity added to this. If not for his inability to conclude projects, he might have been remembered as one of the great men of science. His work on television, though crude and underdeveloped, demonstrated the idea of "seeing by wireless" and employed an electro-mechanical scanning mechanism with a matrix detector and mosaic screen, which has been described as a digital television system 80 years before modern digital TV. Low's 1917 patent for "Improved Apparatus for the Electrical Transmission of Optical Images" stated he did not confine himself to wires, as transmission could be accomplished by electric radiation. His 1938 patent described a photo-sensitive plate subdivided into cells by incising the coating, essentially the process used to create megapixel image sensors.

Did You Know?

• Low's Aerial Target project was deliberately misnamed to fool the Germans into thinking it was for testing anti-aircraft capabilities.
• He invented a whistling egg-boiler called 'The Chanticleer' that sold well and earned him money.
• Low's forced induction engine, a precursor to petrol direct injection, was exhibited at the Olympia Motor Cycle Show in November 1912.
• He gave the first demonstrations of what he called TeleVista in May 1914, later described as 'Seeing by Wireless.'