Marmaduke M. M. Slattery: the alternating-current man

1851–1892 · THE SLATTERY SYSTEM

The system: Marmaduke Marcelus Michael Slattery was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1851, took his B.A. at Marlborough College in 1873, came to the United States in January 1880, worked in the engineering department of the United States Electric Lighting Company in New York, and helped organize the Sun Electric Company of Boston before moving to Fort Wayne in 1887 — where, his obituary states, "he developed his alternating current system of electric lighting, which was his most notable achievement." The trade press watched it happen: in February 1888 The Electrical World described the Slattery Induction System, a complete alternating-current system — dynamo, transformer, and auxiliary apparatus — being developed for the Fort Wayne Jenney Electric Light Company, and General Electric's own house history, Men and Volts (1941), records that R. T. McDonald induced Slattery to join the company and "work up a system of incandescence, using the alternating current," which was on the market within a short time and sold as the Slattery system. His patents mark the fight he was in: No. 386,936 of 31 July 1888, on alternating-current apparatus, was publicly attacked in Westinghouse circulars as William Stanley's invention, with a Patent Office interference declared between Stanley and Slattery — the surviving trade-press exchange is the state of that contest as this record prints it — and No. 407,619, "Electric Meter," filed 14 March 1889 and granted 23 July 1889, assigned to the Fort Wayne Electric Light Company. Batteries were his second line: the electric tricycle he had built in 1889 ran on storage batteries, probably of his own design, reportedly for nine hours (The Henry Ford's collection holds its photograph), and the Allen County timeline credits Slattery with developing Fort Wayne's first electric streetcar in 1891 — a battery car whose Belt Line run, in Visit Fort Wayne's telling, fell just short of the full circuit. He died at Fort Wayne in December 1892, still connected with the Fort Wayne Electric Company, which manufactured his apparatus; his obituaries ran in The Electrical Engineer of 21 December 1892 and the Western Electrician of 24 December 1892.

Sources:

1. Obituary, "Marmaduke M. M. Slattery," The Electrical Engineer, Vol. XIV No. 242, 21 December 1892, p. 607, and Western Electrician, Vol. 11 No. 26, 24 December 1892, p. 323, both preserved via ACGSI's Slattery page and lamptech.co.uk — Limerick 1851, Marlborough 1873, the 1880 arrival, Sun Electric, the 1887 move, the AC system as his most notable achievement, the December death at Fort Wayne.
2. The Electrical World, 18 February 1888 — "The Slattery Induction System" for the Fort Wayne Jenney Electric Light Company; the December 1888 circular controversy over Patent No. 386,936 and the Stanley interference.
3. John Winthrop Hammond, Men and Volts: The Story of General Electric (1941) — McDonald inducing Slattery to work up the alternating-current incandescent system.
4. U.S. Patent No. 407,619 (23 July 1889), the patent itself — Slattery of Fort Wayne, assignor to the Fort Wayne Electric Light Company.
5. The Henry Ford, artifact 29.1980.2025.18 — Slattery's 1889 electric tricycle, its storage batteries, his death in 1892.
6. ACGSI, 1890s timeline of Allen County, and Visit Fort Wayne, Allen County Historic Sites — the 1891 battery streetcar development and the Belt Line run.