Humphrey Gainsborough (1718-1776); Cleric, Engineer and Inventor

Sir Douglas Strutt Galton (1822-1899) and the Administration of Victorian Engineering

Ink Reservoir Writing Instruments 1905-2005

ABSTRACT

This review takes up from James P Maginnis in 1905, when pens had just started to carry their own ink, and examines progress over the following century. From inventive but not always functional beginnings, materials, design and performance advanced rapidly until the intervention of WWII. but the post-war new world revealed a competitor to the fountain pen in the form of the viscous-ink ballpoint pen and its refill. This first killed off dip pens and then proceeded to do the same to the fountain pen industry - almost.

Today the strong market in ink-reservoir writing instruments is still dominated by the ball-ended pen, now with several ink options, but the fountain pen will not lie down: it is still highly valued in our electronic communication culture. Ball-ended and nib-ended reservoir pens have seen their obituaries written many times over, but handwriting survives and so do the pens, at all price and quality levels.

1. Introduction: biographical notes on Maginnis; the pen situation in 1905; definitions of 'reservoir', 'fountain', 'stylographic' etc. [S F Hull, GER etc]
2. The heyday of the fountain pen, 1905-1945: classic makes and models. [A Crum Ewing etc]
3. Early ball pen developments, 1905-1945: Biro, Miles-Martin etc. [G Hogg]
4. Post-war competition and casualties, 1945-1965: fountain pen vs ball pen and fortunes of the principal manufacturers. [J Collingridge + M van der Stricht + G Hogg etc]
5. The era of luxury pens, 1965-2005: expansion up-market; high value and exclusivity. [A Hobbs + M West etc]
6. Modern alternatives, 1965-2005: roller-balls, gel pens, markers and other synthetic points. [ G Hogg etc]
7. Technical overview: critique of design and performance. [GER etc]
8. Instruments for handwriting in the e-world: market and projections; the pen as a cultural necessity. [A Hobbs + GER etc]

The Building of the Wilts and Berks Canal, 1792-1810

ABSTRACT

The paper is based mainly on a newly discovered letter book written by the chief clerk of the undertaking and containing 31 letters relating to engineering and commercial surveys made before the canal was promoted, engineer's reports during construction, financial and legal matters relating to alleged corruption and swindles, and letters that throw light on the intense commercial rivalry with neighbouring canals even before they were completed. Existing records in Swindon Public Library, the Wiltshire Record Office and elsewhere support this material.

Advantages of water transport compared to land transport - Proposals of Henry Brigges, Francis Mathews, John Taylor, in the 17th century, for an inland water route between Bristol and London.

Early work - Thames navigation, Thames and Severn Canal, Kennet and Avon Canal, Wilts and Berks Canal.

Promotion - Robert Whitworth's survey of the line and the water supplies at the head level together with his estimated costs. Hale and Hugh's survey of the canal's commercial prospects, type and quantity of goods carried, reduction in price of coal at various towns along the canal, comparison with coastal vessels. Decision whether to have a narrow or broad canal.

Construction - Engineer's reports, 1795-1799, describing brick supplies, locks, cutting, slips etc. Financial Crisis 1800. Expenditure to date. Sub-Committee's inspection of the line. Price and availability of coal in 1800. New share issue.

Legal Problems - Allegations of corruption by the Engineer and his assistants.

Use of profits and tolls on the completed sections. Swindle by Swindon quarrymen.

Construction Again - Survey reports by Committee of Management or Chairman. Commercial Rivalry. Case against locks on Somerset Canal (to replace inclined plane and vertical lift). Refusal to open the locks into Bath and so establish a trade along the Wilts and Berks before the Kennet and Avon was open.

Trevithick's circle: What did it mean? Did it happen?

ABSTRACT

The famous etching portraying Trevithick's demonstration of a steam locomotive pulling a wagonload of passengers in Euston Square in 1808 illustrates a dramatic moment in transport history, namely the transfer from muscle power to mechanical power in order to achieve motion. The site of this demonstration lies underneath the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at University College London, where some evidence of the event was discovered during building works in 1999/2000.

The demonstration represents much more than just an engineering feat. The change it wrought coincided with enormous change in the way society functioned and many of the ways in which we now look at travel are derived from the ways in which that change has been interpreted. One example of this is the way in which 'distance' as a barrier has changed to 'time'. This paper explores these changes and considers how that demonstration acted as the start of this 'transport revolution'.

There is some dispute about whether this event happened at all. Building works at UCL temporarily exposed some remains of the event and the paper will discuss this discovery.

Terence Cuneo: the Man and his Work

ABSTRACT

Terence Cuneo was a serious painter who was able to paint what he saw. He worked as an illustrator before and during WW2. His paintings provide insights into aspects of life over the fifty years, 1946-1996. His paintings record history in many fields - Railways, Military including Royal Engineers, Heavy Industry, Mining, Farming Machines, Car-Industry, Aircraft Industry, Paint Manufacturing.

The presentation will show and comment on samples of his work in the areas listed. For example, the Mining section will include Fire Whim-Cornish Rotative beam engine (Whim is from Whimsey, a nineteenth Century name for a winding engine), Test Mine (1887) near Camborne where every rock-drill manufactured was tested; Robinson's Engine - Samuel Grose's masterpiece showing the cylinder head and piston rod; the Machine Shop in Camborne Works and High Pressure Boiler (1815) made for Richard Trevithick.

Cornish engine beams: design, stress analysis and operating experience

ABSTRACT

There are many recorded failures of the cast iron beams on Cornish engines. Cast iron is not the most reliable of materials for a component subject to repeated bending and shear stresses and occasional impact loads when an engine overstrokes. There are at least three beam failures recorded in the five conventional beam engines at Kew Bridge pumping station. A description will be given of the design, fabrication, failure modes and remedial measures at Kew over the life of the station.

Modern computer based analysis has enabled an estimate to be made of the loads in the beam and piston rod based on the known weights and steam pressures in the engine. To validate this calculation, the engine parts were fitted with strain gauges and measurements made under museum operating conditions. The computer based study of the beam and piston rod, using finite element theory, was undertaken by a mature student at South Bank University. The instrumentation of the engine was carried out by laboratory technicians from the University and the test run was made in March 2004. Although undertaken for a first degree, the results were written up in formal thesis style and a copy is held in the museum archives. The result was the award of a degree with first class honours.

The results will be discussed, together with thoughts on the wisdom of continuing to operate in public engines more than 150 years old.

The material culture of British pharmaceutical laboratories in the golden age of drug discovery

ABSTRACT

The archives of three companies (ICI Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Glaxo, and Burroughs Wellcome Co) were used to capture the material culture of British pharmaceutical laboratories at a time when pharmaceuticals were becoming one of the most successful science-based sectors in Britain, and the British pharmaceutical industry was beginning to rank among the world’s most innovative, circa 1945-1975. Topics covered:

• the physical layout of the laboratories where this information is available.
• new techniques, instruments, and materials introduced during the period.
• the industrial, scientific and medical networks that made the transfer of these techniques and instruments possible
• their impact on pharmaceutical innovation.
• their role in relation to the development of Glaxo’s corticosteroid drugs, ICI’s beta-blockers, and Burroughs Wellcome’s antiviral drug Zovirax, which became best sellers and helped to establish these three companies among the world’s top-ranking pharmaceutical firms.
• the similarities between the laboratories, in an attempt to define what was the ‘British pharmaceutical laboratory’ before the vast multinational corporations that dominate the sector today.