Bob Silver archive documents

Professor Bob Silver remains a contentious and controversial figure well over a decade after his death. However, the significance of his contribution to desalination cannot be denied. These facsimile documents relate to Silver’s side of the early MSF story.

As is now becoming well-known, MSF was independently and more or less simultaneously invented in the UK and the USA.

Before his death, Silver sent two chapters of an autobiography to Richard Morris for comments; it is not known if any other parts of the book survive or ever existed. It should be remembered that they are unrevised and from a very personal perspective; others involved in the events described did not always give the same account.

The first of these chapters [pdf] largely deals with the invention of MSF in the UK (note: they are not the first two of the book, and the second does not follow directly from the first).

An article [pdf] by Silver (mentioned in the first chapter) describes his expectations of the new technology – before he had even built a commercial plant.

The second chapter [pdf] picks up Silver’s involvement in desalination research rather later, including UK government research and part of the convoluted story of Silver and Weir’s US patent [pdf].

For the US side of the story, please see Gordon Leitner’s account.