Tuesday 29th May 1945

Black American inventor Frederick M Jones (US No. 2,376,968) was granted a patent for a two-cycle petrol engine. His first patent was for a ticket dispensing machine (1939), but in the next twenty years Jones produced numerous inventions related to refrigeration and air conditioning for trucks and railway boxcars with their associated engines, compressors and control devices. He solved the problems for truckers hauling poultry and other perishables troubled by packing ice melting away during a trip. Jones combined a knowledge of shock-proofing and engine building from building racing cars in his youth with a study of refrigeration from library books.