BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Newcomen.com - ECPv6.17.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.newcomen.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Newcomen.com REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20260329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20261025T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20270328T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20271031T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261014T180000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261014T193000 DTSTAMP:20260820T103940Z CREATED:20260820T103257Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260820T103940Z UID:16933-1792000800-1792006200@www.newcomen.com SUMMARY:'An Extraordinary 250 Years of Waterpower at the Strutts’ Belper Mills' by Ian Jackson DESCRIPTION:Image Credit: Reproduced with permission of Jim Bell \nThis 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. \nFamed for its innovative ‘fire-proof’ iron-framed cotton mill\, the Belper Mill complex in Derbyshire also incorporated innovative developments in waterpower. \nWilliam Strutt’s improvements of the waterwheel\, waterpower control and management of the River Derwent\, enabled the mass manufacturing of textile thread at the complex\, which today sits at the heart of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. Recent\, award-winning research has uncovered examples of responsible stewardship of the rivers by Georgian proprietors of the mills along Britain’s waterways\, including the management of floods and distribution of salmon.\n \nThe use of water to generate hydroelectric power\, c.1900\, encouraged the new owners of the Belper Mills\, the Lancashire based English Sewing Cotton Company\, to invest in their Derbyshire Derwent Valley businesses. Whilst most industrial sites on the Derwent stopped producing hydroelectric power in the mid-20th century\, choosing instead to connect to the coal-fired national grid\, the Belper site continued to invest in new hydro turbines. \nThe 18th century weir\, mill leats and wheel pits are still in use today (harnessing the power of the river\, almost continuously\, for 250 years)\, supplying the national grid with renewable energy.\n \nOther sites across Britain offer similar opportunities\, not only to generate renewable energy\, but with reinstatement of floodgates and sluices\, to improve our stewardship of our waterways. \nAbout the Speaker\nIan Jackson is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer who has worked in multinational manufacturing businesses for 35 years\, latterly as an independent ESOS Lead Assessor\, and now as a waterpower researcher.\n \nIn 2012\, he set up Amber and Derwent Valley Community Energy to try to reinstate Hydroelectric Power (HEP) at a former industrial site\, at the heart of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. In 2014\, it was a feasible project but changes in government support and EA requirements halted the project in 2018.\n \nLiving in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site and trying to identify HEP opportunities\, led to his research into the historic use of waterpower\, the primary energy source for the early industrial revolution. Seeing the untapped HEP resource in the valley\, and his role on the strategy board of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site\, led to an approach to the University of Nottingham. \nIan started a full time PhD in 2020\, titled ‘Climate Change mitigation: Learning from the past to unlock the hydropower potential of the Derbyshire Derwent catchment’\, graduating in July 2025. The award-winning thesis (Association for Industrial Archaeology dissertation award) is available for download on the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site URL:https://www.newcomen.com/activity/an-extraordinary-250-years-of-waterpower-at-the-strutts-belper-mills-by-ian-jackson/ LOCATION:LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery\, 75 Cowcross St\, Clerkenwell\, London\, EC1M 6EL CATEGORIES:Shed Talks (Newcomen Online),UK - London Branch ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newcomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/26-10-14_WaterPowerAtTheStruttsBelperMills_1920x1280.jpg ORGANIZER;CN="Newcomen - London Branch":MAILTO:office@newcomen.com END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261118T180000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261118T193000 DTSTAMP:20260820T110605Z CREATED:20260820T110605Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260820T110605Z UID:16942-1795024800-1795030200@www.newcomen.com SUMMARY:'Better than Steam? Davy\, Faraday\, the Brunels & the Gaz Engine\, 1823-1833' by Professor Frank James DESCRIPTION:Image Credit: Crown copyright\, photograph by Frank James \nThis 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. \nIn early March 1823\, laboratory assistant Michael Faraday\, at the Royal Institution\, unintentionally subjected chlorine to a very high pressure and\, much to his surprise\, found that it turned into a liquid – the first time that a gas had been liquefied. \nAside from the scientific achievement\, very quickly this phenomenon came to be seen as having the potential to be a new source of power. Steam-power was not necessarily seen as inevitably replacing wind or water-power. This is illustrated by the large amount of effort devoted by savants\, including Faraday and Davy\, during the 1820s to exploit gas liquefaction practically in what was termed the ‘gaz engine’. Furthermore\, the engineers Marc Brunel and his son Isambard Brunel also devoted considerable effort to render gaz engines feasible. The Admiralty\, then beginning to use steam-powered vessels\, was also very interested in gaz engines and provided limited support for later stages of the research. \nFollowing repeated failures to develop a practical engine\, at the start of the 1830s work ceased on the project. In modern terms\, what was being attempted of course was to obtain more energy from a gaz engine than was required to liquefy the gas in the first place\, that is a form of perpetual motion. Once the laws of thermodynamics had been formulated during the 1840s\, the pursuit of such a source of power was seen as clearly impossible. Before then it was not clear\, even to leading savants and engineers\, that what they were doing was seeking to build a perpetual motion machine. \nThe story illustrates just how invisible perpetual motion could be. \nAbout the Speaker\nProfessor Frank James\, a former President of the Newcomen Society\, is Professor of the History of Science at University College London. His main research centres on the physical sciences in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and how they relate to other areas of society and culture\, for example art\, literature\, business\, media\, religion\, engineering and the military. \nFrank edited the Correspondence of Michael Faraday\, published in six volumes between 1991 and 2012\, served as an advisory editor for the four volume Collected Letters of Humphry Davy (2020) and was a Co-I on the AHRC funded Humphry Davy Notebooks Project. His Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction was published in 2010 by OUP who the following year also published his sesquicentenary edition of Faraday’s Chemical History of a Candle. \nHis current research concentrates on writing and researching a biographical study of Humphry Davy focussing on his practical work including nitrous oxide\, agricultural chemistry\, mineralogy\, the miners’ safety lamp\, analysis of ancient Roman pigments and his attempts to unroll chemically the papyri excavated from Herculaneum. URL:https://www.newcomen.com/activity/better-than-steam-davy-faraday-the-brunels-the-gaz-engine-1823-1833-by-professor-frank-james/ LOCATION:LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery\, 75 Cowcross St\, Clerkenwell\, London\, EC1M 6EL CATEGORIES:Shed Talks (Newcomen Online),UK - London Branch ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newcomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/26-11-18_BetterThanSteamDavyFaradayBrunelsGazEngine_1920x1280.jpg ORGANIZER;CN="Newcomen - London Branch":MAILTO:office@newcomen.com END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261208T180000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261208T193000 DTSTAMP:20260820T112830Z CREATED:20260820T112830Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260820T112830Z UID:16946-1796752800-1796758200@www.newcomen.com SUMMARY:'Metroland - Engineering\, Economy & Social Change 1863-2026' by Dr Mark Pegg DESCRIPTION:Image Credit: Lecturer’s copyright \nThis 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. \nDr Mark Pegg discusses how one railway line changed London social and economic life by connecting city workers with the Chiltern Hills and beyond. The talk explores the civil\, mechanical and electrical engineering challenges of the steam powered and electric rolling stock\, that enabled trains to carry passengers and goods on steep gradients from London to Buckinghamshire while supplying the rapidly growing London market with coal\, fresh food and dry goods. \nMetroland was made more famous by Sir John Betjeman who wittily observed the change the railway brought to new London suburbs that grew up to provide homes in a rural environment with smoke-free air for London’s rapidly growing population\, particularly the workers who commuted daily into the heart of the City.\nThe phrase ‘Live in Metroland’ was coined by the Metropolitan Railway to promote the line in 1915 used until it became part of the London Transport Board in 1933. \nOpened in 1863\, the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street to Farringdon was the first underground railway in the world\, extending to Aldgate in 1876. At first\, it was strictly an inner-city line\, extension to Aylesbury in 1898 transformed the line into rural Buckinghamshire\, also sharing tracks with the Great Central’s ‘London Extension’ which ran into London Marylebone. Electrification went live to Rickmansworth in 1925 and later to Amersham and Chesham in 1961. Metroland is still changing today with more homes and the construction of HS2 and East-West the revival of the old Oxford to Cambridge ‘Varsity’ line. \nAbout the Speaker\nDr Mark Pegg read history at Oxford University where his published doctoral thesis was British Broadcasting and Society 1918-1939. \nHe 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\, Mark became a Director of a Business School and CEO of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. He 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. \nMark is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. URL:https://www.newcomen.com/activity/metroland-engineering-economy-social-change-1863-2026-by-dr-mark-pegg/ LOCATION:LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery\, 75 Cowcross St\, Clerkenwell\, London\, EC1M 6EL CATEGORIES:Shed Talks (Newcomen Online),UK - London Branch ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.newcomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/26-12-08_MetrolandEngineeringEconomySocial-Change_1920x1280.jpg ORGANIZER;CN="Newcomen - London Branch":MAILTO:office@newcomen.com END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR