Sigurd Smith

Trained first as a smith and later as a machine engineer, he was born in 1874 in Jordløse on Funen and built his early experience around practical mechanical work before studying further. He spent time at Askov working with Poul la Cour’s experimental windmill, an important setting for Danish work in electricity and technology.

After qualifying as a mechanical engineer in 1900, he worked at the Copenhagen electricity works and later at De Forenede Papirfabrikker, where he became chief engineer. Alongside his industrial career, he wrote about technology and helped preserve the reputation of earlier Danish inventors.

He is best remembered in English-language libraries for Søren Hjorth, Inventor of the Dynamo-Electric Principle (1912), a study that reflects both his technical knowledge and his historical curiosity. He died in 1936 in Charlottenlund.