Louis Brennan, CB, was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, in 1852, and whilst he was at a very early age his parents emigrated to Australia where in due course he attended the College for Artisans in Melbourne. I know little of his youth but I understand that he became interested in watch and clock making and that his first adult achievement was the designing and making of a civic clock of Big Ben status.

What next I know of Brennan's activities is from the notebook of Professor William Kernot of Melbourne University who, incidentally, was Australia's first engineering graduate. This shows calculations on the performance of the torpedo and is dated 1876, so Brennan must have been quite young when he conceived this idea.

With some assistance from Professor Kernot and others, he designed and built a prototype which carried out such successful trials in 1879 that the British Admiralty were informed and they invited Brennan to England and financed the further development of the torpedo.