Turbine waterwheels. Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery. The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the
SS Avila Star Ellis and Third Engineer Raymond Girdler. Ferguson's WRNS uniform jacket, bearing her medal ribbons, is now an exhibit in the Imperial War Museum. SS Avila Star SS "Avila Star, originally SS "Avila, was a British turbine steamship of the Blue Star Line. She was both an ocean liner and a refrigerated cargo ship, providing a passenger service between London and South America and carrying refrigerated beef from South America to London. She was built in 1927, renamed "Avila Star" in 1929 and lengthened in 1935. She was sunk by a German submarine in 1942 with the loss of 84 lives.