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Louis Philip Brennan invented a dirigible torpedo for coast defence.
1880 The British government provided him with facilities on the Medway for the development of the weapon.
1885 The torpedo was adopted by the government, which, in November 1886, purchased the exclusive rights for over £100,000.
1887 Brennan was appointed superintendent of the government factory at Gillingham, Kent, established for the manufacture of the torpedo, and remained there until 1896.
1907-10 After experiments in at Mr Brennan's home, a full-sized section of railway on a circular track was laid at the Brennan Factory, to the scheme developed by Brennan. A self-contained railway locomotive carrying its own petrol-electric motor and gyroscope-operating electric equipment, with a pay load of 10 tons, was demonstrated to engineers and scientists from all parts of the world.
1910 The vehicle was demonstrated at the Japan-British Exhibition. In the course of these investigations, many other applications for gyroscopes became known, and have been used successfully, but the system of transport did not attract the vast capital needed for commercial exploitation.