'You’ll Believe a Man can Fly' by Dr Phil Judkins
2024-04-22 18:30 - 20:15 (Europe/London) | SHEFFIELD Kelham Island Museum, Alma Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S3 8RG
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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
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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
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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.
