Category: Inventions

For Yorkshireman Richard Clyburn (1796/7-1852) to become a consulting engineer in his early 30s, he must have shown impressive manual, technical and design skills early in life. He had moved down to Gloucestershire and went on to become a partner at Uley Iron Works, manufacturing tools with replaceable parts. The business was then purchased by Henry Reynolds-Moreton, the Earl of Ducie (1802-53) in order to produce new, efficient tools and machinery for his modernised farm.

Another talented engineer there was Edwin Beard Budding (1796-1846), the inventor of the lawnmower. The Earl, Budding and Clyburn worked together to successfully produce a newfangled chaff-cutter, among other implements. Clyburn alone, however, is credited with inventing the adjustable spanner, in 1842 and registering the patent in 1843. This saved time and space, since it replaced the need to select from a whole array of differently-sized fixed spanners. Today it also overcomes the problem of there being two measurement codes ~ imperial and metric.

The rack-and-worm ‘Clyburn spanner’ was available right up to the early 1960s and came in various lengths from 6″ to 24″. The featured photographs show the two styles ~ curved and ‘straight’. The vintage spanner below the drawing is not confirmed as a Clyburn but it is the right shape.

(Top images (top to bottom): 1871 drawing of Clyburn’s curved spanner in Spon’s via Internet Archive Book Images / Public domain & pszz at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

After the Great Fire of London in 1666 there was a gradual move towards organised firefighting (initially by insurance companies, who instructed their firemen to drench clients’ buildings only!). It took another 150 years for the concept to emerge of keeping purpose-made fire extinguishers to hand, other than buckets. Captain George William Manby (1765-1854) from Norfolk witnessed a house fire in Edinburgh and resolved to create an appliance that would stop a small blaze in its tracks.

He devised a portable copper cylinder holding 3 gallons of potassium carbonate solution pressurised to 145psi. Modern fire extinguishers are similar in appearance but use foam, powder, CO₂ or water, to suit particular potential dangers, e.g. electrical. In 2010, Britannia Fire Ltd., also in Norfolk, invented the first maintenance-free fire extinguisher, the P50.

Captain Manby’s fire-fighting device had already saved hundreds of lives before he died and yet he also had another life-saving innovation to his name ~ ‘Manby’s Mortar’, first used in 1808. It is said that Manby watched the tragic drowning of everyone on board a ship wrecked on the Norfolk coast in 1807. In frustration he then invented an ‘apparatus’ ~ a stone block which catapulted a secured rope over a ship’s hull to provide the means of escape.

(Image of Capt. Manby [cropped]: Wellcome Collection at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0)

Yorkshire-born Dr. John Venn (1834-1923) had two obsessions ~ logic and Cambridge University. His deep interest and skill in mathematics, probability and logic led to his development of what later became known as Venn diagrams. Venn spent most of his life at Cambridge, initially as a student, then a lecturer, professor and compiler of the University’s history.

Whereas ‘Eulerian circles’ show only the known commonalities between categories/sets/classes, Venn diagrams display all possible commonalities, even the non-existent or unlikely ones. Sometimes this results in an empty area in the centre, where all the circles overlap, or there may be less crucial, outer segments that have no takers. Whatever the case, a Venn diagram is an excellent visual aid to sorting out the nuts and bolts of a situation and can be used alongside or even instead of algebra to pinpoint a desired state, taking everything into account.

Venn owned a huge collection of publications on the subject of logic and himself wrote ‘The Logic of Chance’ (1866) and ‘Symbolic Logic’ (1881), the latter containing the first illustrations of his diagrams. He also wrote a history of his College at Cambridge and, with his son John A. Venn (1883-1958), published several volumes detailing all of Cambridge’s alumni.

(Top right image of John Venn [cropped]: Bradford Timeline at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)

The flash rate of Belisha beacons (0.75 seconds on, 0.75 seconds off) might have been chosen by a psychologist, as it is both reassuring for pedestrians and a calm alert for drivers simultaneously. For their invention we have to thank Lord Isaac Leslie Hore-Belisha (1893-1957) from Devon. When he was appointed Minister for Transport in 1934, crossing the road had become rather hazardous, particulary since 1930, when all speed limits were abolished for non-compliance!

Hore-Belisha’s Road Traffic Act (1934) introduced the all-important driving test and established the 30mph speed limit for built-up areas. These new safety measures were part of the updates in the second edition of ‘The Highway Code’ (1935) and they have saved untold thousands of lives and injuries.

Belisha beacons today have posts up to 16½ft. tall that are manufactured from steel or aluminium and applied with anti-corrosion paint in black and white bands similar to the zebra crossings by which they stand, one on each side. The globes are made of polyethylene and the whole item is designed to be weather- and vandal-proof. Additional spotlights may be fitted to illuminate the pavement and there may even be an LED halo around the globe to make it even more conspicuous in brightly-lit municipalities.

(Top images L to R [cropped]: W. Bellamy at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 & Rossographer at geograph.ie / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Dr. Edmund Halley (1656-1742), of comet fame, lived in the era of seafaring buccaneers who sometimes sank to a watery grave with their treasure. If this happened near the coast, adventurers might dive for salvage but this was dangerous. Halley’s development in 1691 of a diving bell with an air replenishment system allowed divers to explore for up to 90 minutes at depths of 20-60ft..

The ‘bell’ was a lead-covered wooden cone, open at the bottom, with a bench around the inside. Due to water being held at bay by the trapped  air, two men in ordinary clothes could sit inside and operate the weighted barrels of air and leather tubes for a third man, the diver. Along with his diving gear was a helmet, also designed by Halley, which was supplied with air by the tubes. The barrels were relayed up to a boat where they were refilled. Messages could be sent with the barrels on a lead block inscribed with an iron stylus.

In 1788/9, Yorkshireman John Smeaton (1724-92) added a force pump at the top to mechanise the air supply. Smeaton was ‘the father of civil engineering’ and had many bridge-building projects, so the issue cropped up as a matter of efficiency.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)

Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was once the UK’s largest manufacturing company and from the 1930s to the 1960s its Plastics Division was a hub of innovation, some by design, some by accident (e.g. polythene). Other departments were also involved in producing new plastics that are still in use today, such as Perspex (ICI brand name).

In 1931 Dr John W.C. Crawford (1901-87) of the Explosives Division devised a synthesis (later known as the Stevenston Process) that led to the first commercial production of clear, tough PMMA sheets, named ‘Perspex’ in 1934. He had developed research from ICI’s Dyestuffs Division ~ an unlikely combination at first glance.

In 1933 Eric Fawcett (1927-2000) and Reginald Gibson (1902-83) at ICI’s Cheshire plant, found a white waxy  substance resulting from one of their explosive experiments in which they heated ethylene and benzaldehyde to 170°C in high pressure. This was the first polyethylene (a.k.a. polythene) synthesis but their work was halted by safety concerns.

However, in 1935, ICI colleagues including Sir Michael Perrin (1905-88) and W.R. Dermot Manning (1903-84) resumed the project with better equipment. Another fluke, whereby oxygen leaked into their ethylene mixture, created a white powder which was more amenable to mass production. Its insulation properties enabled the first airborne radar in WW2.

(Images: pipes by publicdomainpictures.net and 1956 Rolls Royce with perspex sunroof by Brian Snelson at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

Dr. Brian Mercer (1927-98) was born in Blackburn towards the end of the British textile industry’s golden age. Fortunately, he was inspired to convert the resources of the cotton mill he inherited to the manufacture of his 1956 ‘geotextile’ invention called Netlon. This utilised up-and-coming plastics technology to make strong netting that provided an easy, cost-effective solution for both commercial and domestic activities. For example, building contractors use it for soil retention alongside motorways while gardeners protect their plants and ponds with it.

Mercer continued to experiment and in 1978 invented Tensar geogrids, the rigid version of Netlon. Having the high tensile strength of steel, this has a vast range of applications in solidifying the ground for railways, roads, pavements, housing estates, stadia, runways, warehouses and office blocks, to name a few. The aggregate is pressed into the spaces of the grid and locks together, making it even stronger.

The Tensar company is still based in Blackburn today. It produces systems for any situation where stabilisation of a weak or uneven ground is required, including coastal locations subject to erosion. Mercer’s ingenuity, reflected in the hundreds of patents registered in his name, was rewarded with an OBE in 1981, among many other honours.

(Image: Robin Stott at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The motivation behind the first plastic was to conserve natural resources, such as rubber and timber, and reduce the exploitation of animal parts, such as ivory and tortoiseshell. So it was that in 1862 Alexander Parkes (1813-90) and his brother Henry (1824-1909) from Birmingham used their knowledge of chemistry to formulate a heat-softened gunge that was the first celluloid plastic. They named it ‘Parkesine‘ (“park-seen”).

It was not totally synthetic ~ that came later with ‘Bakelite’ in the USA ~ but its recipe of nitric and sulphuric acids, nitrocellulose, castor oil and organic solvents went some way to providing a man-made material to satisfy growing consumer demand. It was used to manufacture items such as combs, brushes, buttons, cutlery handles, fishing rod components, pens and billiard balls.

The Science Museum holds many examples of these but over the years they have become extremely fragile. Indeed, even in the Parkesine Company’s short-lived existence in 1866-8 there were complaints of items becoming misshapen or even catching fire. This is thought to have been due to Alexander Parkes’s drive to cut costs. After the company closed, an employee, Daniel Spill (1832-87) took on the assets and relaunched the product as Xylonite. Spill improved the quality, resulting in more durable products.

(Image: pixnio.com / Public domain)

When the British Museum asked their local building contractor, Rawlings Brothers, to attach electrical fittings to the walls with minimal damage to the masonry, they cannot have imagined the revolutionary invention this would produce. The iconic Museum building was the first to benefit from the ingenious yet simple rawlplug, a small, expandable insert which tightly grips an embedded screw and can support incredible weight.

London-born John Joseph Rawlings (1860-1942) filed the patent in 1911. Previously, builders would chisel a hole and pack it with wood, so the time-saving, compact, ready-made rawlplug was an immediate success. The first version was made of brass strips but this was soon changed to fibre, a material ideally suited to the task. The business was re-named Rawlplug Co. Ltd. in 1919. The plastic rawlplug was introduced in the 1960s and its design was developed to include anti-rotation lugs.

Rawlplug Co. Ltd. now manufactures various types of fixings, including the rawlbolt for heavy-duty construction purposes. The massive do-it-yourself market has made a pack of rawlplugs an essential part of every toolkit. It is inestimable how many rawlplugs there are in our homes today. From securing a bookshelf to fitting a kitchen, rawlplugs are an indispensable aid.

(Image: pxhere.com / CC0)

Edwin Beard Budding (1796-1846) from Gloucestershire was a mechanical engineer with a knack for devising improvements, repairs and solutions to various types of machinery issues. Whilst employed at the local Phoenix Iron Works, owned by John Ferrabee (1789-1853), he upgraded the machine for shaving protruding fibre ends from the surface of woven textiles. This set him thinking about another application for such a device, namely the cutting of grass, and in 1830 he patented his design for the first lawnmower.

He went into partnership with Ferrabee, who provided the finance and the production facilities. The first sales were to head gardeners appreciative of an alternative to the exhausting work of scything large areas of grass. Budding’s cast iron lawnmower had three blades on a rotating cylinder, a large rear roller, a clippings collection tray on the front and an extra handle so that one man could push while another pulled.

This innovation was licenced in 1832 to J.R.&A. Ransomes in Suffolk, who had great success in expanding the market and produced the first petrol mower in 1902. By 1926 the Atco Standard motor mower, manufactured by Charles H. Pugh Ltd of Birmingham, was the first to be mass-produced to meet the increase in demand after WW1.

(Image of vintage Ransomes, Webb and Qualcast lawnmowers: Evelyn Simak at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)