A humble genius from Hamilton changed the world with his brilliant inventions
He is remembered in the engineering world as Canada's most productive inventor of the 20th century, but few people in his hometown of Hamilton know his name.
George Klein, who was born 98 years ago this week on Aug. 15, 1904, had his hand in more than 1,500 inventions, mostly through the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. Many of them changed the course of history. His innovations ranged from nuclear reactor design to medical instruments through military technology and space innovation.
Klein, who many think of as Canada's Edison, received the Order of Canada in 1968 and a commemorative Canada Post stamp was issued in his name eight years after his 1992 death.
Yet he is largely overlooked in Hamilton where he lived the first two decades of his life before attending the University of Toronto in the 1920s. He worked at the NRC in Ottawa from 1929 to 1969.
I first took interest in Klein while working on a March Flashbacks column about Second World War Dieppe veteran John Counsell, who was also from Hamilton. Counsell was severely wounded during the August 1942 raid of the French coastal town and became paralyzed. Through sheer determination, the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry veteran pressed on to lead an active civilian life. And he spearheaded technology and treatment innovation that dramatically improved the lives of others with spinal cord injuries.
Counsell (1911-1976) successfully advocated for electric wheelchair research and development. He approached Klein at the NRC to do the engineering work and the inventor managed to build the first practical electric wheelchair by fixing shortcomings of earlier designs. When you see an electric wheelchair today, its lineage can be traced to Counsell's vision and Klein's technological ingenuity through the 1950s.
But more recently, I've come to understand that the wheelchair innovation was just one of a numerous revolutionary engineering feats by the humble son of a watchmaker who co-owned a jewelry store at 35-37 James St. N. in the early decades of the 1900s.
Here are some important innovations of George Johann Klein:
- He designed the ZEEP (Zero Energy Experimental Pile) nuclear reactor in Canada in the 1940s, the predecessor of the famous CANDU reactor.
- He was chief consultant for gear design of the Canadarm used by NASA. He did that work as a consultant in his retirement.
- He designed plastic coated skis used by planes to help them land safely on snow-covered ground.
- He developed a snow classification system that is still used around the world.
- He helped develop an all-terrain vehicle, called the Weasel, which was used by the famous Canada-U.S., Second World War commando unit known as the Devil's Brigade.
- He co-invented a microsurgical staple gun used to suture blood vessels, something that could be used in complex medical operations, including organ transplants.
- He designed the NRC's first wind tunnels for aeronautics testing.
- He invented the STEM (stored tubular extendable member), a retractable antenna used in satellite technology.
Klein biographer Dick Bourgeois-Doyle says the inventor's early life in Hamilton did much to develop his talents and feed his curiosity.
His watchmaker father, George Stepler Klein, moved to the city from the Stratford area in the late 1800s because Hamilton was very prosperous at the time, and he figured it would be a good place to start a business.
Klein met and formed a partnership with a fellow named Thomas Binkley, and Klein and Binkley Jewellers was opened in 1899. Three years later, Klein married Josephine Dinkel.
The business thrived and was soon filling three floors of their own building with activity," says Bourgeois-Doyle, whose book George J. Klein: The Great Inventor" was published in 2004.
The first floor was for retail, the second had watchmakers and engraving rooms and the third housed gold and silversmiths who crafted and repaired jewelry.
But to the young George Johann, the business was a place of wonder.
This is where George Klein, the inventor, spent his time, watching the watchmakers and the goldsmiths. It was kind of a gymnasium for creativity," says Bourgeois-Doyle.
Little George had a natural curiosity about how things worked and how they were made, and he had a wonderful place to exploit it at the Klein and Binkley building. It not only held the mechanical, microengineering world of the watchmakers on the second floor, but also the artistic imaginative atmosphere of the gold and silversmiths above," the author writes in his book.
Yet Klein struggled in school. He graduated from Hamilton Technical high school but his marks were all Cs," says Bourgeois-Doyle. There is a lot to suggest that he was what they would now describe as ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). He was hyper and had a hard time focusing."
But he managed to get accepted into engineering studies at the University of Toronto and his brilliance was soon recognized. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, he was recruited to work at the NRC in Ottawa.
Bourgeois-Doyle, who is retired from the NRC where he worked as secretary general, says the scope and brilliance of Klein's inventions rivalled famed American inventor Thomas Edison. The main difference was that the self-effacing Klein worked in a collaborative government environment that did not tend to shine light on individuals whereas Edison operated like a celebrity in the world of business and was far more interested in self-promotion.
Klein did it the Canadian way, without fanfare and as part of a team.
Although there was one time when he did gain a great deal of personal attention, and it was especially unwelcome.
During the height of First World War, Hamilton police officers paid a visit to George's father because of reports of coded messages emanating from the family home at 12 Caroline St. S.
The authorities couldn't figure out what was being communicated, but feared it was a threat to security.
Turns out George Jr. had been experimenting with radio equipment in his bedroom so he could converse with a friend who lived nearby.
The police were skeptical at first but came to believe the story of the unusual boy" with the powerful tool," says Bourgeois-Doyle. They still confiscated the radio equipment because they believed it was disruptive to security forces."
It's not certain how the unnerving experience affected the young inventor, but I suppose it might go some distance in explaining his desire to operate under the radar later in life.
Dieppe Service
Aug. 19 is the 80th anniversary of the ill-fated 1942 raid of Dieppe that cost the lives of more than 900 Canadian troops, including 197 members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. A memorial service will take place Friday (Aug. 19) at 11 a.m. at the Dieppe Veterans Memorial Park, 1033 Beach Blvd. For the first time in three years, members of the public are invited to attend the annual event in person.