Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Brotherhood, Peter
BROTHERHOOD, PETER (1838–1902), civil engineer, born at Maidenhead on 22 April 1838, was the son of Rowland Brotherhood, a railway contractor, of Chippenham. After four years' study of applied science at King's College, London (1852-6), and practical training in his father's works and in the Great Western railway works at Swindon, he entered, at twenty-one, the drawing-office of Messrs. Maudslay, Sons & Field, then at the height of their fame in marine engineering practice. In 1867 he became a partner in the Compton Street engine works, Goswell Road, London, at first with Mr. H. Kitto, and after Kitto's retirement successively with Mr. Hardingham and Mr. G. B. Oughterson. The firm was mainly engaged in producing machines and engines of Brotherhood's invention. In 1872 he introduced the Brotherhood engine, in which three single-acting cylinders are arranged at angles of 120 around a central chamber. In this chamber is a single crankshaft acted upon by three connecting-rods, the other ends of which are attached to the inner sides of their respective pistons. The engine can be used with steam, water, or compressed air as the working medium. Among the many purposes to which it has been applied is that of driving torpedoes by means of compressed air. In 1876 he designed his air-compressor, with the object of simplifying the type of compressor then in use for torpedoes. He succeeded in obtaining four stages of expansion while using only two cylinders, by means of a combined piston and plunger, to which motion was imparted by a cross-head worked by a pair of reciprocating double-acting steam-cylinders, their valves being again actuated from a crankshaft fitted with a flywheel. Later on he devised a three-stage pump worked from a single rod, and in 1876 a servo-motor for torpedoes. He also had a share in the introduction of the high-speed engine. His first ordinary double-acting engines designed, constructed, and under steam within twenty-seven working days were used in Queen Victoria's yacht Victoria and Albert for electric lighting, being directly coupled to the dynamo.
In 1881 the works were transferred to Belvedere Road, Lambeth, where Brotherhood designed and built a model engineering workshop of moderate size.
Brotherhood was elected an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 5 May 1868, and a full member on 4 Feb. 1879. He was elected a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1874, and of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1877.
He died at his residence, 15 Hyde Park Gardens, W., on 13 Oct. 1902, and was buried at Kensal Green. He married on 19 April 1866 Eliza Pinniger, eldest daughter of James Hunt of Kensington and Brighton; she survived him with three sons and two daughters.
[Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. cli. 405; Engineering, 17 Oct. 1902; Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. 1902, p. 1023.]