A FORMER Bolton educationalist has penned a treatise on one of the earliest engine management systems.
Prof John Hannavy, who was head of art and design at Bolton Institute of Higher Education until his retirement, is behind a new book - The Governor: Controlling the Power of Steam Machines.
The writer, who was later a research professor in photography and photographic history, has traced the engineering history of the centrifugal governor, from Christiaan Huygen's early essays to 250 years of the 'spinning balls'.
And Mr Hannavy says he was indebted to the assistance provided by volunteers at Bolton Steam Museum for their assistance completing the task.
A spokesman for his publishers Pen & Sword said: "Without the centrifugal governor, precise control over the increasingly-complex machinery which has been developed over the past two centuries would not have been possible. It was the first device to give the engineman the control they needed."
Prof Hannavy has previously written extensively on railways, steam-powered machines and photographic history and is a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
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