Charles Benjamin Dudley (July 14, 1842 - December 21, 1909) was a U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 who was an early proponent of standardisation in industry.

Dudley was born in Oxford, New York

Oxford, New York

Oxford is a town in Chenango County, New York, United States. The town contains a village named Oxford. Oxford is an interior town in the south-central part of the county, southwest of the City of Norwich. At the 2000 census the town population was 3,992...

, and owing to family circumstances, had to wait until 1867 before he could enter Yale College

Yale College

Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...

, supporting himself as a night editor on the New Haven Palladium newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

. He eventually earned a Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from the Sheffield Scientific School

Sheffield Scientific School

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield, the railroad executive. The school was...

.

In 1875 he became a chemist for the Pennsylvania Railroad

Pennsylvania Railroad

The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 and started to investigate the chemical composition and metallurgical

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

 structure of rail tracks

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

, breakage

Fracture

A fracture is the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress.The word fracture is often applied to bones of living creatures , or to crystals or crystalline materials, such as gemstones or metal...

 being a major hazard at that time. He discovered enormous variation in the properties and quality of steel and the 1878 publication of his results caused an uproar in the steel industry who saw it as their sole domain to determine the quality of their products for sale. Dudley championed the development of company and industry standards and demanded rigorous testing of materials to verify conformity. He developed a complete range of standards for the Pennsylvania Railroad, not only for steel, but also for fuel

Fuel

Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air...

s, lubricant

Lubricant

A lubricant is a substance introduced to reduce friction between moving surfaces. It may also have the function of transporting foreign particles and of distributing heat...

s, paint

Paint

Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...

s, and even locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

s.

In 1898, he was one of the founders of the American Society for Testing and Materials

ASTM International

ASTM International, known until 2001 as the American Society for Testing and Materials , is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services...

 (ASTM), becoming president from 1902 to 1908.

He died in Altoona, Pennsylvania

Altoona, Pennsylvania

-History:A major railroad town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop complex. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3, 1867, and February 8, 1868...

.