'The Dickinson Lecture - Animal, Vegetable & Mineral | a survey of materials used for balloon, airship & aircraft coverings' by Dr Nina Baker
2024-02-14 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/London) | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. To reserve a spot for either option, please visit the lecture’s Eventbrite page
A survey of some materials used for balloon, airship and aircraft coverings
The gas envelopes and outer coverings for early hot air and gas balloons, airships and aircraft were made from a wide variety of natural fabrics with or without a similarly wide variety of coatings. Later on, the march of progress produced artificial fibres and coatings. This paper will examine the origins and properties of the different animal and plant sources of the materials that made such flight possible.
The lecture will also delve into what is known of the women who did most of the actual work. From the earliest days of balloons and airships, women's expertise was central to their construction, starting with the Weinling family who, in the 19th century, were the first women employed by the UK government in technical work. The Weinlings introduced the use of cows' guts for the internal gas envelopes for military balloons and airships. These are stories almost unknown even to aviation enthusiasts more familiar with the famous male designers or even the famous female aviators, but without these women's work none of the lighter-than-air aviation and much of the later heavier-than-air aviation would have happened.

About the Lecturer
Dr Nina Baker has had a varied career, having become a merchant navy deck officer on leaving school and later receiving an engineering design degree in her 30s, from the University of Warwick. She then gained a PhD in concrete durability from the University of Liverpool. She has lived with her family in Glasgow since 1989, working variously as a materials lecturer in further education and as a university research administrator and, until 2017, as an elected city councillor.
Now retired, her interest in promoting STEM careers for girls has led her to become an independent researcher, mainly specialising in the history of women in engineering. She is Deacon of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow for 2022-2023. She has been a Deputy Lieutenant in the Glasgow Lieutenancy since 2017 and was appointed an OBE in the 2023 New Year's Honours' list, for services to the history of women in engineering.
Sign Up For This Event Here

'Drifting into Digital Dependence - Control Systems in Merchant Shipping' by Vaughan Pomeroy
2024-02-15 19:30 - 21:00 | BRISTOL BAWA, 589 Southmead Rd, Filton, Bristol, BS34 7RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ONLINE – Please click this Zoom Link 10 mins before event to join us.
Digital systems can be found in all sorts of unlikely, and arguably sometimes unnecessary, places that we increasingly depend on in modern life. Unlike most changes in technology where take-up follows a similar pathway from early adoption to market dominance, the digital revolution is more subtle. The distance between the operator or user and the 'machine' she controls becomes invaded by digital systems which have the seductive power to lull a sense of security whilst being an incomprehensible black box.
Using the modern merchant ship as the basis, the talk will consider the pathway towards adoption of new technology, the development of automation and the resulting impact on usability. When did we become dependent on digital systems without a manual work around? How should this sort of development be recorded for historical purposes to inform future generations? The speed of change is extraordinary, and the drivers for adoption are not always clear.
About the Speaker
Vaughan Pomeroy joined the British Aircraft Corporation at Weybridge from school in 1970 as an undergraduate apprentice. His daughter points out that it is now a museum! After graduating, Vaughan returned to Weybridge working on aircraft systems, particularly avionics. He joined the consulting engineers Mott, Hay and Anderson in 1974 working on a variety of infrastructure projects, before joining Lloyd's Register of Shipping in 1980.
Vaughan retired in 2010 as Technical Director, since when he has worked with Southampton University and with universities in Singapore.

'Progress in Design and Manufacture: The Steam Locomotive 1825-1830' by Dr Michael Bailey
2024-02-19 18:30 - 20:15 | SHEFFIELD Kelham Island Museum, Alma Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S3 8RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ON LINE – to book an online place, please visit: Book A Ticket. Zoom link will be sent out to those who have booked on weekend of 17/18th February
Robert Stephenson & Co. of Newcastle on Tyne was set up to manufacture equipment for the emerging railway industry, particularly locomotives, in 1823. The company developed the locomotive, already successfully operated at Killingworth and Hetton Collieries, for ever-more demanding duties on the earliest steam operated public railways.
Giant strides were made in improving design, materials and manufacturing techniques before the ‘Stephenson’ form of locomotive was developed, suitable for main line operation on the Liverpool & Manchester and other early main line railways in Britain, Europe and the United States.

About the Speaker
Dr. Michael Bailey is the President of the Stephenson Locomotive Society and a Past-President of the Newcomen Society. He has undertaken considerable work on the archaeology of early steam locomotives and has written extensively about early locomotive design and manufacturing progress during the 19th century.

'How Chaddesley Corbett Changed the World' by David Hardwick
2024-03-06 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ONLINE – please click this Zoom link 10 mins before the event to join in.
The Role of the Potter family in the Industrial Revolution
The beginning of the Industrial Revolution is often traced back to 1712 when Thomas Newcomen built a mechanical pump that was not powered by wind, water, or human/animal power in Dudley. There are, however, many myths and mistakes in this traditional narrative, particularly regarding the role played by a small boy called Humphrey Potter in creating the first truly self-acting machine. The Potter family were from Chaddesley Corbett.
This talk looks at the facts around the earliest Newcomen Engines and what role the family played in changing the world.
About the Speaker
David Hardwick is a Chartered Building Surveyor specialising in historic properties and particularly in industrial archaeology. He is an experienced lecturer at colleges and universities in all aspects of construction and heritage, as well as giving talks to a wide range of local and national history organisations. It is his passion for industrial archaeology and, in particular, mining history and the development of the early Newcomen Engines that results in his latest research. He is the current chairman of the Western Region of the Newcomen Society.
This paper is partly based on one delivered at the Early Steam Engines in Central European Mining Conference in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia on 7-8th October 2022.
David will also be delivering a paper based on the early engine houses in Scotland at the Third International Early Engine House Conference to be hosted at the Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life at Coatbridge near Glasgow on 22nd to the 24th of March 2024. More details here.

'John Cooke Bourne and the first London to Birmingham Railway' by Felix Schmid
2024-03-06 19:00 - 21:00 | BIRMINGHAM Think Tank, Birmingham Science Museum,, Curzon Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B4 7XG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.Joining us ON LINE – click on this zoom link before the event to join in.
This is a joint meeting with Thinktank: Birmingham Science Museum
Felix Schmid, Professor emeritus of Railway Systems Engineering at the University of Birmingham, will talk about the construction and early years of the London and Birmingham Railway. He will trace the history of this huge undertaking through the eyes of John Cooke Bourne, using his watercolours and lithographs. Cooke Bourne lived from 1 September 1814 to February 1896 and also illustrated Brunel's construction of the Great Western Railway. Cooke Bourne's pictures illustrate the huge scale of this enterprise.
Felix will discuss some of the technologies used in the construction of this first railway to reach London, notably the equipment needed for the vast movements of earth required to build the railway.
About the Speaker
Felix Schmid is Professor emeritus of Railway Systems Engineering at the University of Birmingham. Felix is neither a historian nor an archaeologist but a railway systems engineer who enjoys discussing the history of railways and its pioneers. He is a member of Newcomen Council, and has recently been elected as the next President of the Newcomen Society.

'Brunel's Swivel Bridge & Severn Tunnel’s Other Pumping Station' by Geoff Wallis & David Hardwick
2024-03-14 19:30 - 21:00 | BRISTOL BAWA, 589 Southmead Rd, Filton, Bristol, BS34 7RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ONLINE – Please click this Zoom link 10 mins before event to join us.
This is a joint meeting with the Bristol Industrial Archaeology Society
Two short talks:
UPDATE on Brunel's Swivel Bridge (AKA BOB- Brunel's Other Bridge)
Speaker – Geoff Wallis
In 2022, The Newcomen Society's published volume 92 of " The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology" which was an edition focusing on this bridge regarding its history, technical significance and the work that was being undertaken to preserve it. BIAS Newsletters have have also contained updates and information on progress on this important project. This talk will pull together recent developments and the latest regarding works undertaken and the options for preservation.
The Severn Tunnel's Other Pumping Station
Speaker – David Hardwick
The Severn Rail Tunnel and the pumping engines at Sudbrook have been the subject of various articles, talks and publications. As well as a general overview, this talk considers the lesser known pumping station on the opposite bank of the river. Very little has been written about this. The speaker recently obtained a number of historic images and this talk is intended as a discussion starter regarding what else might be available.
About the Speakers
David Hardwick is a Chartered Building Surveyor with over 35 years' experience, mostly relating to historic properties. His Master's degree, in Historical Archaeology of the Modern World from Bristol University, reflects his passion for industrial heritage. He is a founder member of the South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group and a member of several other mining and industrial heritage organisations, including the Newcomen Society for which he is currently both a trustee and the Western Region Chairman. David runs his own design and surveying consultancy, specialising in building recording and analysis, with an emphasis on historic buildings. He also provides trainings and lectures both locally and nationally at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels on heritage topics as well as building defects and construction technology, both modern and historic. He is currently actively researching early engine house construction and the Celestine mining industry.
Geoff Wallis is one of the founders and past managing directors of Dorothea Restoration Engineers Ltd, the UK's foremost conservators of architectural & structural metalwork, traditional mills and historic machinery. He is a Past President of the Newcomen Society and the Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society, Course Leader of the Architectural & Structural Metalwork Conservation course at West Dean College, and Council member of the National Heritage Ironwork Group, The Avon Industrial Buildings Trust and the Museum of Bath at Work. Geoff has contributed to a number of books on practical conservation, and lectures widely on the subject.

'The Ken Barraclough Memorial Lecture - The Beauty of Steel Project' by Viktor Mácha
2024-03-26 18:30 - 19:15 | SHEFFIELD Crowne Plaza Royal Victoria, Victoria Station Road, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S4 7YE
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ON LINE – please email meetings.syorks@newcomen.com for zoom link.
This is a joint meeting with the Sheffield Metallurgical and Engineering Association
We are very fortunate this year to have Viktor Mácha of Viktor Mácha Industrial Photography, to deliver the Barraclough lecture which he has intriguingly entitled: The Beauty of Steel Project.
The Members Dinner will take place after the lecture. Details will be available in the New Year.
About the Speaker
Viktor Mácha (1984) comes from Prague where he attended Theology and Religious Studies at Charles University. Since 2006, he has been travelling around the world at his own expense, documenting the heavy industrial sites such as iron works, steel works, rolling mills, forges, foundries and coke plants. Currently his archive comprises of several hundred mills stretching from the American Midwest to the Asian part of Russian Urals.
The only aim of these photographs is to objectively document the technological processes connected with steel making and shaping.
It is possible that our generation will be one of the last to experience the fascinating world of dark, rumbling factories.

'Coal Conquers Cholera: The Development & Technology of Sewage Treatment' by Nigel Jopson
2024-04-03 19:00 - 21:00 | BIRMINGHAM Think Tank, Birmingham Science Museum,, Curzon Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B4 7XG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ON LINE – click on this zoom link before the event to join in.
This is a joint meeting with Thinktank: Birmingham Science Museum
Nigel Jopson's presentation will start with a brief introduction and then will consider the recognition of water-born pathogens as the harbingers of disease and the need to build efficient sewerage systems for the removal of effluent from Victorian cities. The legal and administrative frameworks developed in step with the rise of local government in the 19th century will also be evaluated.
Next, we discuss the motive power for the pumping operations, the rise of the rotative beam engine and the later developments illustrated with examples of surviving engines. We will consider the historical development of sewage treatment systems, including the nature and characterisation of effluents both domestic and industrial – both physical and biological treatments will be featured.
Finally, the conclusions that may be drawn will be illustrated.
About the Speaker
Nigel Jopson was a Consultant industrial chemist who retired from the Pulp and Paper industry in 2013. Early in his career, he was involved in studies on problems with industrial wastewater treatments.
He is also a devout worshipper at the Shrine of Steam!

'BBC – 100 years of public broadcasting. Disruptive technology in action 1922-2022' by Dr. Mark Pegg
2024-04-10 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. To reserve a spot for either option, please visit the lecture’s Eventbrite page
In 2022, the BBC celebrated 100 years of broadcasting, having radically transformed Britain. The BBC entered our homes and made radical changes to our society and culture. With its mission to inform and educate as well as entertain, the BBC soon had a leading role in all the key events of British life – war, peace, politics and even the relationship with the monarchy – all changed forever.
What were the technologies that enabled this to happen: the scientific and technological inventions and innovations that defined the rise and rise of radio and television? This is a timeline of disruptive technologies that created the most powerful force in communications the world had ever seen. As technology continued to progress, so broadcasting went on re-inventing itself until today it is a convergence of different strands as a digital, integrated multi-media platform. It is a story of successful technological diffusion, a series of rapid and transformational impacts on our lives. The focus is on science and technology, but no account would be complete without the human factor. Broadcasting gave birth to a new breed of personalities: famous speakers, entertainers and news presenters, but it also created a cadre of engineers and technicians who made it happen.
About the Lecturer
Mark Pegg read history at Oxford University where his published doctoral thesis was British Broadcasting and Society 1918-1939. He worked in the UK coal mining industry in deep mines and headquarters where he was the Chairman's personal assistant and also researched the modern coal mining history. After working as a management consultant, he became a Director of a Business School and CEO of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Mark has extensive experience in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Far East and Africa with clients including central governments, Rolls-Royce plc and the UK Senior Civil Service. He is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Sign Up For This Event Here

'The Closed Cycle Gas Turbine' by Dr Fred Starr
2024-04-18 19:30 - 21:00 | BRISTOL BAWA, 589 Southmead Rd, Filton, Bristol, BS34 7RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ONLINE – Please click this Zoom Link 10 mins before event to join us (to be added).
This talk is about the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine but Dr Fred Starr will also discuss the CCGT or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine, which supplies up to 65% of Britain's electrical power when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. In actual fact, in the section of British R&D, in which he worked, the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine project was deliberately set up to compete with early forms of the CCGT. The Closed Cycle Gas Turbine uses pressurised air, helium or argon, in a sort of continuous closed loop. It uses a complex and efficient thermodynamic cycle, giving a potential advantage over aero-derived and industrial gas turbines.
The closed cycle was invented in Switzerland in the 1930s, at Escher Whyss AG. But another Swiss company, Brown Boveri AG, had twenty years experience in the development of the gas turbine for industrial use. Its efforts culminated in the world's first industrial gas turbine at Neuchatel in 1939. There was obviously a flow of information between the two companies, even though they were in competition.
The principal advantage of the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine is that it can use coal or heavy oil, an impossibility with normal gas turbines. In the post war era, a number of units were built in countries that had good coal supplies but were short of oil, and where district heating was common. There was sporadic interest in Britain using peat as a fuel and waste heat from a gas works and some blue skies thinking with the closed cycle in nuclear powered aircraft. The big shortcoming of the closed cycle was that improvements in efficiency demanded a "heater" with tubing that had more high temperature strength and better resistance to corrosion from coal and heavy oil ash. In consequence, interest died, apart from a German led programme using a pebble bed high temperature nuclear reactor.
The British Gas effort, around 1990, was built around the realisation that a new range of "mechanically alloyed" high temperature steels had been developed, and that natural gas, when burnt, does not produce a corrosive ash. Dr Fred Starr "sold" the idea of a high temperature closed cycle to his Assistant Director, GH Gibson and was told to get on and build a "demonstrator". This was to test out this new high temperature heater, and incorporate all the salient features of a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine. There will be a brief run through of pictures of the installation.
Real advances in the nuclear field will come from concepts like the Molten Salt and Molten Lead Reactors. If these were to come about, the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine fits in very well with these sources of high temperature heat.
About the Speaker
Dr Fred Starr graduated as Metallurgist from Battersea College (now the University of Surrey) in 1966. After a short period, training to be a shift engineer on a steam reforming plant at Hitchin, he joined British Gas, London Research Station, in Fulham where he remained for 30 years. Initially he did failure investigation on steam reforming plants, some of which included visits to the sites at Breakwater, Plymouth, and Seabank, Bristol. In this respect, a big regret was not knowing that the Newcomen Society used to meet at the Science Museum, just up the road from where he worked in Fulham.
Much of Fred’s time at London Research was spent on materials for high temperature gasifiers. When this work terminated, he came up with novel ideas for generating electricity using natural gas. This included the concept of incorporating a Stirling Engine within a gas boiler, and the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine project. His deep interest in aircraft and aircraft engines and background in steam reforming were key to the success of the Closed Cycle Gas Turbine “demonstrator”. Privatisation killed real R&D, and he left British Gas in 1996. Fred’s most important job after leaving British Gas was with the EU’s Joint Research Centre in the Netherlands, where he did the basic design for a HYPOGEN plant making hydrogen from coal. Despite this, he is extremely cynical about the hydrogen economy.
Formally “retiring” in 2007, Fred became an active member of the Newcomen Society. With the help of Bryan Lawton, John Anning and Ed Marshall he got the Society to put on a conference on The Piston Engine Revolution (the development of the IC engine). Later on, he came up with the Swords into Ploughshares conference (how WWI transformed British Engineering).

'You’ll Believe a Man can Fly' by Dr Phil Judkins
2024-04-22 18:30 - 20:15 | SHEFFIELD Kelham Island Museum, Alma Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S3 8RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ON LINE – please email meetings.syorks@newcomen.com for zoom link.
Sherburn-in-Elmet airfield, 1942-4, and the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment are trialling unpowered rotary wings on jeeps and trucks, transatlantic glider tows, and similar remarkably inventive ways of taking warriors to battle.
Dr Phil Judkins describes their experiments from the sane and sensible through the weird and wonderful to the downright dangerous, to Allied troops rather than the enemy!
About the Speaker
Dr Phil Judkins’ love of industrial archaeology stems from his childhood playground being an abandoned Victorian waterworks, with no Health and Safety to concern him! Cambridge’s Classical Archaeology course led to several years in ‘dirt archaeology’, followed by a management career which ranged from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment to the City of London. Phil then gave structure to his abiding interest of historic defence electronics through a Cranfield PhD in the history of radar, and successive Fellowships at the UK’s Defence Academy and at Buckingham University’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies.
He currently chairs the Defence Electronics History Society and the Purbeck Radar Museum Trust, in addition to serving on the Committee of the South Yorkshire Newcomen Society, and lectures on defence topics throughout the UK, Phil’s particular perspective is to present the role of electronics in conflict as seen by all the contending parties, rather than from a single national perspective, so that he welcomes collaboration with colleagues internationally.

'Reflected Glory - From Coal Fires to Parabolic Reflectors' by Julia Elton
2024-05-16 19:30 - 21:00 | BRISTOL BAWA, 589 Southmead Rd, Filton, Bristol, BS34 7RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ONLINE – Please click this Zoom link 10 mins before event to join us.
The development of an effective lighting system by the British Lighthouse Service in the 18th and early 19th centuries
Lighthouses were built to contain lights to guide mariners past dangerous rocks and currents. This being so, it is all the more surprising that almost none of the dozens of books on lighthouses pay any attention to the lights.
Although there have been some studies on the Fresnel refracting lens, including one by the present speaker, the earlier system of catoptric lights has been almost entirely overlooked. The catoptric system combined parabolic reflectors, which project a powerful parallel beam, with the smokeless Argand lamp. This technology represented the first application of science to lighthouse illumination and was introduced in the mid-1750s.
This lecture will look at the steps taken to develop an effective system, which was easy to maintain and continued in use long after the introduction of the Fresnel lens. The subject forms the subject of Julia’s PhD thesis and she will reveal new facts and insights about this previously unstudied period.
About the Speaker
Julia Elton read Music and Icelandic at Leeds University before training as an antiquarian book dealer at B. Weinreb Architectural Books Ltd. She went on to run her own business, Elton Engineering Books, the only firm to specialize exclusively in the history of engineering.
Julia has written and lectured widely on historic engineers and engineering and is now reading for a PhD at UCL on the history of lighthouses. She is a long-standing member of the Institution of Structural Engineers History Study Group and a past president of the Newcomen Society.

'The Steel Bakers of Rotherham' by David Eaton & John Anning
2024-05-20 18:30 - 20:15 | SHEFFIELD Kelham Island Museum, Alma Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S3 8RG
Joining us IN PERSON – just turn up, there’s no need to register.
Joining us ON LINE – please email meetings.syorks@newcomen.com for zoom link.
John Anning, a great-grandson of John Baker (1843-1904), will outline the history of the Baker family and will describe “Tiny Tim”, the large Glasgow-made hybrid steam/drop hammer, purchased from the Darlington Forge in 1906. Saved from demolition in 1965, it now forms the entry arch to Beamish Industrial Museum.
David Eaton will give an overview of the company’s history: its railway products, technical achievements and its steelmaking and processing facilities including the innovative axle – forging plant. He will also briefly describe the armaments work undertaken during WW1 and WW2.
About the Speakers
David Eaton is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Freeman of the City of London. He is a Council Member of the Newcomen Society, a Trustee of the Ken Hawley Collection Trust and the South Yorkshire Trades Historical Trust Limited and is the current chairman of the South Yorkshire Centre of the Newcomen Society. David retired in 2006 from Sheffield Hallam University as Director of the School of Engineering, a post he held for 12 years.
John Anning is a great grandson of John Baker of Rotherham. After a successful business career in engineering, he now enjoys his lifelong interest in engineering history, particularly railways, machine tools and internal combustion engines.

'The history of Vierendeel railway bridges in Belgium and the Congo' by Professor Bernard Espion
2024-10-02 18:00 - 19:30 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.
This is a joint meeting with the Institution of Structural Engineers History Study Group
The “Vierendeel” type bridge takes its name from the Belgian professor Arthur Vierendeel, who patented the principle in 1895 and intensively promoted it as a replacement for the truss bridge. From the outset, Vierendeel envisaged this type of bridge being used for railway bridges. That said, the very first railway bridge of this type was not built in Belgium until 1922. Then, on the initiative of one of Vierendeel’s former students, it was used for some forty spans on the BCK railway line in the Congo in the 1920s. Finally, in the 1930s, the national railway company adopted the Vierendeel type for the construction of a number of long-span bridges in Belgium. The Mechelen bridge mentioned above is part of this series.
At the same time, the Vierendeel bridge type was also adopted en masse for the construction of around forty road bridges over the future Albert Canal, currently under construction. But unlike the rail bridges, which were always riveted, the road bridges were built using the new and little-experienced technique of arc welding. This led to the famous accident in March 1938, when the Hasselt welded bridge collapsed into the Albert Canal.
Professor Bernard Espion has studied the history of these welded Vierendeel road bridges and their importance in the history of brittle fracture in various publications. However, he has never reported on the history of the Vierendeel rail bridges which, to his knowledge, were only used in Congo and Belgium. There are a large number of them in the Congo that are almost 100 years old, and a few more in Belgium.
The history of these Vierendeel rail bridges will be the subject of Professor Bernard Espion‘s presentation, along with a few lessons drawn from the very recent expert examination of this bridge in Mechelen concerning the properties of the steel used at the time in Belgium.
About the Speaker
Professor Bernard Espion graduated in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnical School of the University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB) in 1979. He earned his doctoral degree in 1986 with a dissertation on the Numerical modelling and analysis of the nonlinear and time-dependent behaviour of concrete structures.
Between 2000 and 2021, Professor Espion was the Director of the Laboratory for testing Materials and Structures, a laboratory with origins in 1924. He taught courses on Structural Analysis and Design of Steel and Concrete Structures. Since 2021, he has been Professor Emeritus from the University of Brussels (ULB) where he has spent his whole scientific and academic career in the Department of Civil Engineering.
Professor Espion’s themes of research from 1980 to 2006 were mainly in structural concrete and concrete technology. He acquired an extensive experience of testing of materials and structures and in situ stress analysis of bridges.
Since 2002, his research interests have mostly been in Construction History and Conservation of heritage engineering structures, specializing in the history of Construction in Belgium (19th-20th Centuries), with emphasis on concrete and steel structures, construction materials, biographies of engineers, bridges, thin concrete shells and lightweight cable roof structures.

'Measuring the Metre' by Dr Terry Quinn FRS
2024-10-09 18:00 - 19:30 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.
The great revolution in metrology began with the redefinition of the Metre in terms of the wavelength of light. From antiquity, practical dimensional measurement standards had all been based upon material artifacts and measurement of time on the rotation of the Earth.
All of that changed in 2018 when the base units of the SI were redefined in terms of fixed values of a set of fundamental and atomic constants.
The lecture will explain how practical measurement standards can be obtained from such definitions.
About the Speaker
Dr Terry Quinn graduated from Southampton University in physics in 1959 and then moved to Oxford for his D. Phil in what was then the Metallurgy Department. His thesis supervisor was Professor William Hume-Rothery FRS.
In 1962, Dr Quinn joined the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington where he worked on high-temperature measurement and standards. In 1967/68 he spent a year at the then National Bureau of Standards in Washington.
Dr Quinn moved to the BIPM in Paris in 1977 as Deputy Director becoming Director in 1988. He was Lady Margaret Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory Cambridge in 1984/84.
Dr Quinn retired from the BIPM in 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002.

'Mushroom Clouds: The Hidden Enemy Within Britain's Wooden Walls' by Laurence Scales
2025-01-08 18:00 - 19:30 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.
A wine bottle labelled in Michael Faraday’s hand, preserved in his laboratory at the Royal Institution, and a startling letter in the archive of the Royal Society of Arts, hinted at a centuries long naval battle, rarely heard about.
The Royal Navy struggled just to keep its vessels afloat. The enemy was fungal timber rot. Many lives were lost and various solutions were tried. Some of the experiments in search of a cure were dramatic and even caused their own fatalities.

About the Speaker
Laurence Scales has a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering, and subsequently worked for Lloyds Register of Shipping, offshore engineering contractor Brown & Root and defence electronics manufacturer Thales.
Latterly, Laurence has been an archive volunteer at both the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the Royal Society of Arts. He devises and leads London tours themed around the history of science, technology and medicine. Customers have included Imperial College, King’s College London, Purdue University, Ove Arup & Associates, and the FBI.

'The History of the Queen Mary Reservoir' by Nick Pollard
2025-03-12 18:00 - 19:30 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.
The Queen Mary Reservoir was built as a result of the huge expansion in unfiltered water capacity initiated by the Metropolitan Water Board, after it was formed in 1902 to take over London’s water supply from the previous private companies. Originally known as the Littleton Reservoir after the Middlesex village it virtually obliterated, on its opening in 1925 it gained its current name, and was the world’s largest free-standing reservoir (as opposed to one constructed by damming a river valley).
Beginning with a look at the area before the reservoir, the talk goes on to look at the massive engineering effort involved in the construction of the reservoir, including overcoming some unexpected geological challenges which forced a major redesign. An extensive railway network was put in place around the perimeter of the site to facilitate the work, and huge excavators were assembled on site. Also covered are the construction of the inlet channel from the nearby River Thames and the associated pumping station.
The reservoir was put to some surprising uses during the Second World War, and narrowly escaped being seriously damaged by bombing. The talk concludes with a look at the reservoir today and its use for leisure purposes in addition to its primary role in supplying London with water.
About the Speaker
Nick Pollard is the Chairman of Sunbury and Shepperton Local History Society and the Curator of Spelthorne Museum in Staines. He is recently retired after a 45 year career in engineering.
Nick has lived near the Queen Mary Reservoir for many years and became fascinated by its history.
