Gisbert Kapp

Gisbert Johann Eduard Kapp (2 September 1852, in Mauer, Vienna – 10 August 1922, in Birmingham) was an Austrian-English electrical engineer.

His parents were an Austrian counselor Gisbert Kapp and Luisa Kapp-Young. After finishing his studies in Austria, Kapp moved to England where he was naturalized in 1881. He was awarded a Telford Medal in 1885/6.^[1] In 1904 he was offered the position as the first Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, a post he held until 1919.^[2] In 1909 he was elected the president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.^[3][4]

Kapp developed the basis for the calculation and construction of alternating current, dynamos and the transformer. The Electronic, Electrical & Systems Engineering Department at the University of Birmingham is situated in a building named after him.