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Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2642, 14 January 1908, Page 7

The origin of the Whitehead torpedo was largely due to the enterprise of Captain Lupuis, .an Austrian naval officer, %vho carried out a series of experiments with a view to discovering a small fireship or torpedo that could be propelled along the surface of the water toward a floating target. The motive power of the new missile was clockwork. Captain Lupuis, failing to achieve success, sought the advice of Mr. Whitehead, then in charge of large mechanical works in Austria, and, although the officer s ideas were crude and unworkable, the mechanical mind of the Englishman grasped the fact that in the construction of locomotive torpedoes there existed an immense field for energy and inventive enterprise. He applied himself to the perfection of such an implement, and, after some two years' experimenting, succeeded in constructing the first torpedo of the type which was for ever to be associated with his name.