INVENTOR OF BOMBS

Evening Star, Issue 19001, 24 July 1925, Page 2

INVENTOR OF BOMBS

——, i CLAIM FDR A ROYALTY MAN WITH 270 PATENTS. Tan years after his bombs grenades, and depth-charges were helping to win the war, ami after four years of litigation, Mr F. Marten Hale, explosives export, of Bromley, Kent, has earned tho right to state his claim before the Koval Commission of Awards to Inventors. He has now proved the validity of his patents. An invalid for the past year, with fourteen doctors attending liim at various times, Mr Hale had to conduct most of his court cases from a nick. 1%1. He has had to cover 2,000 miles in a motor stretcher. Ho has no fewer than 270 patents, his inventions Including rillo grenades, aerial bombs, depth-charges, torpedo war heads, armor-piercing shell fuses, guncotton presses, dredging apparatus. ‘’When wax broke out,” Mr Hole told an interviewer lately, ‘'mine wore tho only rifle grenades and aerial bombs available. Ten million grenades wore made. The Germans copied them, and used twenty millions, and the French also adopted them. Under tho Poaoo Treaty I am debarred from making any claim against allied or oxensmy countries. “It waa with one of my bombs that Lieutenant Warnoford brought down the first Zeppelin destroyed. An R.A.F. bombing squadron armed with tho Halo bomb missed the ex-Kaiser by only fifteen minutes. When I submitted my inventions to the military authorities tho arrangement wan that the question of reward would bo decided by the Government later. “When’l laid my caao before tho Inventions Commission I was told that I was not entitled to a hearing, as my patents were not valid. It has coat mo £7,000 to establish the validity of my patents. All I ask is a fair and reasonable royally. Of my grenades fliono £5,000,000 worth worn manufactured.” Mr Hale, who is sixty-one, was only twenty-two when he patented bis first invention. He was a pioneer in the construction of steam fire engines, and created a sensation on Derby Day m 1892 by driving one of these, four-in-hand, from the city to