Newcomen.com

'Learning Through Archaeology: The ROCKET Project' by Michael Bailey
2022-10-12 18:30 - 20:30 (Europe/London) | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL

THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED : 'Newcomen Engine illustrations' by David Perrett
2022-11-09 18:30 - 20:30 | LONDON Dana Centre, Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queen's Gate, Kensington, London, SW7 5HD
This event is postponed due to rail strikes.
Please visit the website at a later date for details on rescheduled event.

POSTPONED - 'The Vierendeel bridge story' by Bernard Espion
2022-12-14 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
DUE TO INDUSTRIAL ACTION THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED
CHECK BACK LATER FOR RESCHEDULED DATE
The bridge’s origins and fate in the introduction of electrical arc welding in Belgium
This presentation will trace the history of the application of the girder without diagonals to steel bridges from 1895 onwards, when the Belgian engineer Arthur Vierendeel (1852-1940) filed a patent for it. Vierendeel then began a long battle, both in Belgium and abroad, to promote and impose the use of ‘his’ girder, which was not really accepted in Belgium – and still very cautiously – until the 1920s.
The presentation will also trace the circumstances that led to the massive use of this type of beam by the Administration des Ponts et Chaussées for the construction of some fifty bridges to cross Belgium’s Albert Canal in the years 1933-1938. This was the first time that electric arc welding was used on a massive scale, without any real hindsight, to make connections in steel bridges. It led to the collapse without warning of the Hasselt bridge on 13 March 1938, a date that can be considered as the beginning of another story, that of the brittle failure. The presentation will also discuss the aftermath of this resounding accident in its scientific and technical dimensions.
About the Lecturer
Bernard Espion is Professor emeritus from the University of Brussels (ULB) where he has taught structural analysis and design for 40 years, directing the laboratory of civil engineering 2000-2021. He has written numerous construction history papers dealing with heritage structures, bridges, reinforced and prestressed concrete structures, engineers and contractors, especially in Belgium.

Presidential Address: 'Trying to secure the past' - innovation studies & the evolution of technology by Jonathan Aylen
2023-01-11 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event is also the Society’s Presidential Address & is both an in-person and on-line event. To reserve a spot for either option, please visit the lecture’s Eventbrite page.
Technical development often follows an evolutionary path. There may be a variety of solutions to a technical problem. A preferred approach often emerges. In turn, this may become a “dominant design”. Sometimes technology gets locked-in to a preferred solution which may not be the best outcome, but satisfactory for the time being. Evolution need not produce optimal outcomes.
This lecture gives examples of the evolution of technical knowledge, showing practical engineering solutions adopted by a range of twentieth century technologies. Evolution of technology is “Lamarckian” rather than “Darwinian” as solutions are directly incorporated into successive generations of a technology.
The central problem of an evolutionary approach is the elimination of human agents from the story – those who create the technology and those who guide its adoption. But evolution does have much to teach us, for example about selection of new technologies for a low carbon future.
About the Lecturer
Dr Jonathan Aylen is immediate past President of the Newcomen Society who has researched a range of twentieth century technologies including missile guidance systems, nuclear weapons, rolling mill design and computer use in steel production and on the railways. Currently Dr Aylen is a visiting senior research fellow at the University of Manchester. For more info please visit his Newcomen profile Dr. Jonathan Aylen

'Mechanisation in UK Coal Mining - the Nationalised Years' by Drs Mark Pegg & John Kanefsky
2023-02-08 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
Photo Credit: Crown Copyright (Expired – Pre 01-06-1957)
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.
The rise and fall of the coal industry was one of the key drivers of Britain’s industrial, technological and economic history over three centuries and more.
Increasing mechanisation under the nationalised industry after WW2, and the managed retreat from large scale coal mining, presents a fascinating study in the history of engineering and technology.
Drs Pegg and Kanefsky had ringside seats in the cataclysmic changes in the industry from the late 1970s, both as researchers and managers. This presentation focuses on how the previously sluggish mechanisation of mining under private ownership accelerated under state ownership, and analyses the key economic and technical drivers of increasing capital intensity. As well as the better known underground mines, it also looks briefly at how the mechanisation of the opencast sector developed.
Large scale coal mining is of course now a thing of the past in the UK, and seems likely to remain so as geology, politics and economics combine against any revival, but is still a huge industry worldwide.
About The Lecturers
Dr Mark Pegg MA(Oxon) D.Phil Cgr CCMI FCIPD
Mark teaches, consults and researches on strategy, leadership and team development. After Oxford University he worked in the UK coal mining industry in deep mines and headquarters where he was the Chairman’s personal assistant researching 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 with extensive experience in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Far East and Africa. Recent clients included 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.
Dr John Kanefsky PhD MBA
John studied and taught at the University of Exeter in the 1970s, and was awarded his PhD “The Diffusion of Power Technology in British Industry 1760-1870” in 1979.
He then joined the National Coal Board, first as one of the authors of their history of coal mining and co-curator of the COAL art exhibition then, until privatisation, in management at national HQ (focusing on capital investment and corporate affairs) and at Opencast HQ where he led on planning and licensing. He was subsequently at the Coal Authority and thereafter had a varied career in the NHS and educational research before retirement.
He is now an Honorary Fellow of the University of Exeter. His current research focuses on 18th century steam power and on Devon in the 18th and 19th centuries.

'Edmund Beckett Denison, the father of Big Ben' by Chris McKay
2023-03-08 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.
When the Old Houses of Parliament burned down in 1844, the plan was for a magnificent new replacement complete with clock tower.
From the very beginning the clock procurement was fraught with difficulties. A change happened when George Biddle Airy, the Astronomer Royal, was appointed referee for the Great Clock. He specified that the first blow on the hour bell should be accurate to a second. London clockmakers said the specification was impossible but Edward John Dent wanted to tender for the clock. Airy co-opted the help of Edmund Beckett Denison, a successful lawyer who had been educated in mechanics by a village carpenter.
Denison wrote a book in 1850 ‘A Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks Watches and Bells’. It was the first easy-reading on clocks. Denison was a crusty character – if it was not for his determination and faith in himself, then the Great Clock might still be under construction!
About The Lecturer
After graduating from Sussex University, Chris McKay spent 23 years in the electronics industry. Following redundancy, he fell into teaching technology in schools, ending up as the head of department in a top prep school. Following this, he spent some years restoring turret clocks.
McKay has always been interested in turret clocks and his book ‘The Turret Clock Keeper’s Handbook’ explains how to look after the church clock. ‘The Repair, Restoration, Conservation and Preservation of Turret Clocks’ followed to fill a big gap in horological education.
When 13 years old, McKay found Edmund Beckett Denison’s book on Clocks Watches and Bells and was fascinated by the description of Big Ben. After many years and much research, in 2010 Oxford University Press published Chris’s book ‘Big Ben: The Great Clock and Bells at the Palace of Westminster’.

'On Metrology' by Terry Quinn (CANCELLED - please read)
2023-04-12 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
Unfortunately, due to the uncertain nature of events in France and particularly in Paris, our lecturer is unable to travel to give his lecture. This event has therefore been cancelled & will be rescheduled at a later date.
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.
Terry Quinn graduated in physics just one year before 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. In this lecture, Quinn will explain how practical measurement standards can be obtained from such definitions.
The above image shows “Toise du Perou” (the official unit of length in France just before the metric system). This is one of two Toises that were used to decide between two theories for the shape of the Earth – one by Newton in which the earth was flattened at the Poles and one supported in France by Cassini, who maintained that it is pointed like an upright rugby football. One Toise was taken to Lapland (the Toise du Nord) and one (this one) to Perou where the length on the ground of one degree of latitude was measured. The expeditions lasted some years in the 1740s and, of course, the results supported Newton’s theory. (Photo TJQ at the Paris Observatory 2017).
About The Lecturer
Terry Quinn graduated in Physics from Southampton University in 1959, moving to Oxford for his D. Phil in what was then the Metallurgy Department. The thesis supervisor was Professor William Hume-Rothery FRS.
In 1962, Quinn joined the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington where he worked on high-temperature measurement and standards. In 1967/68, Quinn spent a year at the then National Bureau of Standards in Washington, moving to the BIPM, 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 and retired from the BIPM in 2003. Quinn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002.

'Refugees from Nazism in the British Clothing Industry' by Anna Nyburg PhD
2023-05-10 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This is a repeat of a highly popular presentation put on at Manchester’s Anthony Burgess Foundation in February
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.
The Lecture will describe the influence of European Immigration, under the rise of Nazism, on the Clothing Industry.
Based on her book The Clothes on our Backs: How Refugees from Nazism revitalised the British Fashion Industry, in which she considers the trade in pre-war Germany and in particular, the more modern approach there compared to Britain. The expulsion of Jews and pathways into Britain follows, and then the wartime production changes. Individual case studies then show the refugees’ wide range of experiences in this country, but also their contribution to all aspects of the industry from manufacture to display.
About the Presenter
Anna Nyburg’s PhD in 2009 was in Exile Studies and focused on the refugees from Nazism who transformed art publishing. The doctorate formed the basis of her book Emigres: The Transformation of Art Publishing in Britain. Since then she has published further books on design and related areas, as well as co-making a film called Refuge Britain: Stories émigré Designers to be shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The Clothes on our Backs is her third book.
Now a trustee of Insiders/Outsiders, she works on events for their festival. As a committee member of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, she is organising a conference on the Refugees in Trade and Industry in 2023.
Dr. Nyburg is an Honorary Lecturer in the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication at Imperial College London where she taught languages for some 3 decades.

'Failure of marine medium speed diesel engines' by Peter Filcek
2023-10-11 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
This event replaces the originally planned lecture The Craftsman Engineer and the Industrial Revolution which was cancelled due to health problems and is both an in-person and on-line event. To reserve a spot for either option, please visit the lecture’s Eventbrite page.
The Technical Investigation Department (TID) was founded in 1947 with the purpose of giving “Lloyd’s Register of Shipping a capability to explore marine failures … with a view to improving the Rules”. The basic tenet was “when you can measure what you are speaking about and can express it in numbers, you know something about it” (Lord Kelvin).
TID investigated a wide range of failures in the marine industry and some statistics on relative failure occurrences are given. Medium speed diesel engines are the most common power source and failures are therefore perhaps of the widest interest, especially to the Chief Engineers responsible for operating the machinery, the Engineer Superintendents and the Underwriters.
Eight failure cases are presented with a wide range of origins: mechanical overload, fatigue, crack initiation by rubbing, bearing failures, human error and operational problems. The use of metallurgical examination, fatigue theory and fracture mechanics is described.
About the Lecturer
Peter Filcek worked for the Technical Investigation Department (TID) of the ship Classification Society, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping.
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'Rochester Bridge in the 19th century: from medieval stone to modern steel' by Sue Threader
2023-11-08 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
As the 18th century came to a close and the Industrial Revolution was well-established, the only river crossing at Rochester was still a narrow stone medieval bridge which had been built in 1393 through charitable donations. In 1792, the Wardens of the Bridge appointed their first salaried engineer and began a process of modernisation and innovation under the guidance of some of the most important and impressive civil engineers of the day, including Rennie, Telford and Sir William Cubitt. By the turn of the 20th century the medieval bridge had been replaced by the substantial and highly-decorated Old Bridge that is still in use as the only road crossing on the A2 from Rochester to Strood today.
This lecture will explore the evolution of Rochester Bridge, a story which reflected much of the wider change going on in the 19th century bridge engineering profession. It will also explain the political and social background to the changes and how the ancient charity which owns and maintains the bridge was also forced to evolve as the demands for efficient road and river traffic grew.
About the Lecturer
Sue Threader is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers with senior-level experience in the public, private and charity sectors. She is the first woman chief executive of the medieval trust that owns Rochester Bridge, which is managed with Net Zero Carbon emissions. Sue writes on historic bridge engineering and has appeared on Channel 5 with Rob Bell sharing her expertise. She is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, member of the ICE Archives Panel and is the lead editor of a new website celebrating the work of John Rennie.
Sue holds an Honorary Doctorate and an ICE award for outstanding career contribution to civil engineering. She has been a finalist for Charity Chief Executive of the Year three times.
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'RAF Planes that won the Battle of Britain were built on German Machinery' by Dr. Jonathan Aylen
2023-12-13 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
Why the Jewish Refugee Engineer, Ludwig Loewy was crucial to Britain
RAF planes for the Battle of Britain used new technology for aircraft construction and more powerful engines. Stressed skin monoplanes, like the Spitfire, replaced biplanes made of wood, fabric and wire. But the light alloys used to build the new designs were manufactured on German machinery. Dr Aylen tells the compelling story of Ludwig Loewy, a refugee Jewish engineer who fled from the Nazis and brought the crucial light-metals technology needed for rearmament from Germany to Britain in 1936.

Loewy Engineering was set up in London in April 1936 and soon won a wide range of orders from the rapidly growing aluminium alloy sector, as well as for heavy machinery for making tubes for naval warships. This new firm played a key role in Britain's rearmament programme and Second World War production. Ludwig Loewy himself was celebrated as an engineer. The research sheds new light into the careers of refugee engineers who fled from persecution and found new roles in Britain's manufacturing sector.

About the Lecturer
Dr Jonathan Aylen has researched aerospace technologies including missile guidance systems and Britain's early atomic bombs. He has also written on innovation in rolling mill technology and on revolutionary computer use at British Rail. This lively presentation draws on his current work on refugee engineers.
Dr Aylen is a visiting researcher at the University of Manchester and a past President of the Newcomen Society.
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'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.

'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.
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'Images of Steam Engines – 1712 to ca.1870 and later' by Professor David Perrett
2024-05-08 18:00 - 20:00 | LONDON Alan Baxter Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL
An in-person only event – just turn up, there’s no need to register
Throughout the 18th century Newcomen engines and especially their engine house appeared frequently in prints and occasionally paintings. However, the earliest illustrations are a mix of artistic impressions and rather odd technical explanations. By the Victorian era such landscape images had started to fade. Technical drawings that aided manufacture, however, became much better. Later the illustrated newspapers quickly commissioned images of disasters.
This talk will draw together many of the surviving images that have been discovered in books and galleries.
About the Lecturer
David Perrett is Emeritus Professor of Bioanalytical Science at Barts Medical School, QMUL, London with over 250 research publications. He is a Past President of the Newcomen Society, President of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology (GLIAS) and Chair of the Association for Industrial Archaeology. His interests include early steam engines and IA both at home and abroad.

'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.

'The Liberation Line' by Christian Wolmar
2024-11-20 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.
In the run up to D Day, June 6 1944, a combination of Allied bombing and sabotage by the French Resistance reduced the railway to a set of disconnected lines. This was to prevent the Germans from using the railways to reinforce their defence of the beaches.
The Liberation Line tells the story of how around 50,000 UK and US troops were sent over the Channel to rebuild and operate the lines, often in perilous situations. At the heart of the book is the story of how 10,000 men were deployed to rebuild a 135 mile long line in Normandy in just 3 days in order to allow General Patton to reach Paris.
About the Speaker
Christian Wolmar is a writer and broadcaster specialising in Transport. He spent many years on national newspapers such as The Observer and The Independent and still writes for a variety of publications including a regular column in Rail magazine.
Christian frequently appears on TV and radio programmes most notably the recent Panorama on HS2. He has written 20 books including Railways and the Raj and British Rail a new history. The Liberation Line is his most recent book, published in the summer.

'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 sinking of the Empress of Ireland' by Hugh Ferguson
2025-02-12 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.
In the early hours of 29th May 1914, the British-built ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland, on route from Quebec to Liverpool, was struck by a Norwegian collier near the mouth of the St Lawrence river, and sank within fourteen minutes. More than 1000 of the nearly 1500 people on board died – including 840 passengers, which was more than on the Titanic two years earlier or on the Lusitania a year later. This was one of the world’s worst peacetime maritime disasters, yet it has been largely forgotten.

Hugh Ferguson will relate the events leading up to the disaster, the event itself, and its aftermath – largely through the words of his father Ronald Ferguson, the young Chief Wireless Operator on the Empress, who sent out the SOS which alerted rescue ships, and who was the last to leave the sinking ship.

The talk will touch on several aspects of engineering, including early wireless and contemporary design of ocean liners. But it is primarily a dramatic story of human courage, tragedy and survival.

About the Speaker
Hugh Ferguson is an engineer, journalist and writer. He was formerly editor of New Civil Engineer magazine, managing director of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ commercial company Thomas Telford Ltd, and ICE’s Deputy Director General.
He is author or co-author of The Civil Engineers (2011), Engineers (2012), The Contractors (2013), Constructionarium (2016) and The Consulting Engineers (2020).

'Leonardo Torres Quevedo: Pioneer of Computing, Automatics & Artificial Intelligence' by Francisco A. Gonzalez Redondo
2025-02-28 14:30 - 16:00 | LONDON BCS, 25 Copthall Ave, London, EC2R 7BP, United Kingdom
This event is both an in-person and on-line event. Please click on this link to book in-person tickets and zoom link option.
Please Note: The venue security requires in-person attendees to have booked their ticket in advance to secure entry.
This is a joint meeting with The Computer Conservation Society.
A comprehensive examination of the almost unknown Spanish pioneer in the fields of computing, automatics and artificial intelligence during the first two decades of the twentieth century: the engineer and mathematician Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936).
About the Speaker
Francisco A. Gonzalez Redondo is Professor of History of Science at the Faculty of Education, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, where he has taught since 1989 and where he was Academic Secretary between 2001 and 2009.
Francisco has written/coordinated more than 20 books and more than 200 articles/book chapters. He has curated more than 50 exhibitions, participated in more than 80 radio programs and given more than 300 conferences and seminars in Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland.

'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.

'Presidential Address: A short version of the long history of automation on the railways' by Professor Felix Schmid
2025-04-09 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 presentation will commence by introducing very early mechanical systems, including some that were used on waggonways 300 years ago. These were quite primitive but reduced the labour requirement, e.g. by automating passing loops on tramways.
The automatic systems that came about in response to the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, which made the railway much safer and also improved its economy, will be discussed, followed by the origins of the train stop and warning systems that came into operation in the early 20th century. The electronic safety and operational management systems instigated by computerisation, where British Rail had a leading role, will be reviewed.
The presentation will finish with some reflections on fully automated railways and the role of machine learning and what is often termed artificial intelligence. Throughout the talk, the speaker will comment on the importance of including human skill and perception in automated systems for the railway.
About the Speaker
Felix Schmid is an Emeritus Professor of Railway Systems Engineering at the University of Birmingham and, currently, serves as the President of the Newcomen Society.
He has had a longstanding interest in railway systems and, more particularly, the automation of activities necessary for the safe and efficient operation of railways. Some automated systems support the work of people, others are carrying out tasks without regular interactions with humans.

'The Trinity House Story' by David Whitehead & Mike Hawthorne
2025-05-14 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. No need to register – just come along or click this zoom link to join on-line.
Have you ever wondered who looks after the major lighthouses around England, Wales and the Channel Islands? How did they come to be there in the first place?
Incorporated by Royal Charter by Henry Vlll in 1514, Trinity House is today a vital part of Britain’s maritime community. In addition to owning and operating lighthouses, lightvessels, beacons and buoys to keep safe all mariners at sea around our shores, Trinity House is called in to mark – and clear if required – wrecks, help develop state of the art electronic navigation tools for vessels of all sizes to overcome the vulnerabilities of GPS, and to act as Nautical Assessors in Admiralty Court cases.
Add to that a sizeable maritime fraternity which regularly advises on current maritime issues and future opportunities, and a charitable side that donates in excess of £5m a year to worthy maritime causes, and you start to get a picture of Trinity House. Then add cadet schemes to train future Merchant Navy mariners and leisure seafarers, almshouses for the use of retired mariners, holidays in converted lighthouses and even public tours and private receptions offered in its stunning historical London HQ on Tower Hill.
About the Speaker
David Whitehead OBE is a former Director of the British Ports Association (1993 to 2016) and Director of Policy, British Ports Federation (1990 – 1993). David led the ports industry through a period of great change. He was heavily involved in the development of the Port Marine Safety Code and was a member of the Port Marine Safety Code Steering Group, which led on navigational safety policy for the entire maritime sector, for many years. David was also Chairman of the European Seaports Organisation for four years where he was responsible for leading on ports policy, including marine and navigational issues, with the EU institutions. In 2010, he was awarded the OBE for his services to the UK ports industry.
Captain Mike Hawthorne OBE RN has been a Younger Brother of Trinity House since 2021. His 36 years in the Royal Navy included working with Diesel and Nuclear Submarines, Naval Intelligence, Naval Procurement and Crisis Management Fleet Command. His roles included Navigation Training Officer, Command of HMS Tireless, Director Naval Intelligence Collection, Naval Operations and Command of Joint Forces Cyber Group.

'Presidential Address: Maritime Regulation, a force for good?' by Vaughan Pomeroy
2025-10-21 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.
Regulation has become a target for many political voices, red tape restricting innovation and business which should be removed or constrained. Of course, regulations are introduced to achieve many different objectives. The lecture will look at the development of the current maritime safety regulatory regimes, international, national and non-statutory, to set out how innovation has been addressed, how specific concerns have driven change and attempt to quantify the benefits. It will conclude by considering current challenges and setting these against the safety gains of the past.
The lecture rests heavily on the experience of the speaker gained during forty years working in heavily regulated industries including thirty years with Lloyd’s Register of Shipping.
About the Speaker
Vaughan Pomeroy began his engineering career with British Aircraft Corporation at Weybridge. He then worked with Mott, Hay and Anderson, on the design and construction of infrastructure projects including tunnels, water supply and irrigation schemes, power generation and distribution and building services.
Vaughan then spent over thirty years until June 2010 with Lloyd’s Register, ultimately as the Marine Technical Director responsible for the technical policy of the marine business of that classification society.
He is an engineering graduate of the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Fellow and Honorary Vice President of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology and a Chartered Engineer.

'Broadcast Britain' by Dr Mark Pegg
2025-11-18 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 Century of Change Personalities, Politics, Society & Culture 1922–2022
Dr Mark Pegg presented to the society in 2024 on the technology that enabled public broadcasting: 100 years of the BBC, crystal sets, valve radios and television through to the semi-conductors and microchips creating today’s multi-media age with computers, mobile phones and smart speakers.
By popular demand, members wanted more information on the people, social and cultural changes plus the impact of broadcasting on the way we live our lives.
This is a further presentation on the technology that uniquely entered our homes and changed us forever.

About the Speaker
Dr 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, 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.
He is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

'The Wright Brothers’ Last Laugh - The World's Return to Unstable Flight' by Dr Fred Starr
2025-12-16 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.
With their background in design and construction as bicycle mechanics, The Wright Brothers set out to build a flying machine. Nevertheless, success took half a decade of experimental engineering & even the Wrights themselves didn’t think much of their world renowned flight on 17th December 1903. On that day, they were lucky but they were only halfway there. Proper flying did not come until 1905.
The Wrights were not enthusiastic amateurs. As genuine engineers, they read the literature before starting work. An early insight, coming from bicycle design, was that aircraft not only had to be controlled, but a degree of instability was useful. The lecture will review what they did and summarise the Wrights’ other engineering achievements.
In the decades that followed, the unstable aircraft was considered an idiotic concept. Today, however, advanced fighters and even some commercial aircraft have adopted the Wrights’ approach. Instability gives better manoeuvrability, lower aircraft weight, and reduced fuel consumption. But there are dangers.
About the Speaker
Dr Fred Starr graduated as a metallurgist from Battersea College (now the University of Surrey) in 1966. He joined British Gas, London Research Station, in Fulham, where he remained for 30 years, moving from failure investigation, to leading the company’s research on high temperature materials.
However, the last ten years of Fred’s working life were geared towards energy conversion, principally with British Gas and the European Commission. This included Stirling engines, gas turbines and steam plant. It was a switch made possible by an amateur with a deep interest in the design of aircraft and aircraft engines, especially their history. In this respect, Fred’s one regret in life, is not knowing that the Newcomen Society used to meet at the Science Museum, just up the road from where he worked.
Formally “retiring” in 2007, Fred became an active member of the Newcomen Society. He got the Society to put on conferences on The Piston Engine Revolution (the development of the IC engine) and Swords into Ploughshares (how WWI transformed British Engineering). Fred has also published a three part paper in the Newcomen Journal on the development of materials for IC engine poppet valves.
He has also set up his own website, fredstarr.com, that has sections on industrial history.

'The Art of Engineering' by Laurence Scales
2026-01-14 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 Royal Society of Arts began life as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce rewarding, among other things, inventions and improvements relating to mechanics, manufactures and chemistry.
This lecture introduces the first century of the Society, then passes by way of some history of engineering drawing and drawing instruments to feature some of the professional draughtsmen used by the Society. Along the way, the lecture exhibits a selection of drawings from the archive.
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 he has been an archive volunteer at both the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the Royal Society of Arts.
Laurence devises and leads London tours themed around the history of science, technology and medicine. His customers have included Imperial College, King’s College London, Purdue University, Ove Arup & Associates, and the FBI.

'The Mercenary River' by Nick Higham
2026-02-11 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.
Today we take water for granted. Turn a tap and the stuff gushes out. But for centuries London struggled to supply its citizens with reliable, clean drinking water.
Nick Higham tells the story of London’s water from the Tudor era to the 20th century. It’s a tale of remarkable technological, scientific and organisational breakthroughs, but also one of greed and complacency, high finance and low politics. London’s 19th century water companies operated a cartel which worked in their interests, not their customers’. The water they supplied was overpriced, deficient in quantity and frequently filthy – described by one scientist as “diluted sewage”. It took the best part of a century of campaigning to bring the water companies to heel.
About the Speaker
Nick Higham is a writer and former journalist who is passionate about history. His first book, The Mercenary River, a history of London’s water supply, was published to excellent reviews in 2022: The Telegraph gave it five stars, The Mail called it “fascinating”, Andrew Marr found it “original and gripping”. The book has made a timely contribution to the current debate about Britain’s water industry and the scandal of untreated sewage discharges, and has been praised by figures as diverse as the campaigner Feargal Sharkey and the chairman of Thames Water.
His second book, Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One, is published by Bloomsbury in October 2025.
Nick spent nearly 30 years as a BBC correspondent, whenever possible smuggling history onto the airwaves in the guise of news.

'Vernacular Practice: Joseph Whitworth’s papers on Flatness & Threads' by John Gardner
2026-03-11 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 lecture examines the relationship between workshop practice and standards for threads and flatness by analysing two influential papers by Joseph Whitworth, which achieved a broad readership after being published in the 6d Mechanics’ Magazine in 1841. These papers are:
1. “Plane Metallic Surfaces and the Proper Mode of Preparing Them” (read at the British Association meeting in Glasgow in 1840, published in Mechanics’ Magazine, no. 910, 16 January 1841, pp. 39-42).
2. “A Uniform System of Screw Threads” (read to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1841, published in Mechanics’ Magazine, no. 951, 30 October 1841, pp. 340-344).
The argument is that these papers remain relevant in modern engineering standards. Whitworth’s proposal for standard screw threads significantly contributed to the construction of the Crystal Palace in 1851, which was completed in just 190 days using approximately 30,000 nuts and bolts. This was achieved despite there being no standardized thread form until 1905. The contemporary engineer James Nasmyth highlighted the chaos and expense caused by the lack of a standardized thread form, where each bolt and nut was unique, leading to confusion and inefficiency:
‘No system was observed as to “pitch”, i.e., the number of threads to the inch, nor was any rule followed as to the form of these threads. Every bolt and nut was thus a specialty in itself […] all bolts and their corresponding nuts had to be marked as belonging to each other; and any mixing of them together led to endless trouble, hopeless confusion, and enormous expense.’ (James Nasmyth, Engineer: An Autobiography (1883), p.131.)
Whitworth’s proposal advocated for a practical, workshop-based method to promote his thread form, rather than relying solely on theoretical principles.
Research for this talk has involved working with the London Science Museum and the Crystal Palace Museum. Original bolts from the Crystal Palace and towers were examined, measured, and remanufactured establishing that Whitworth’s vernacular thread form was used to build the Palace. The plane metallic surfaces standard that Whitworth helped achieve, which relied on hand-scraping, initially annoyed his workers who thought hand work a retrograde step after using machines. Nevertheless, the method he published on stands to this day as process through which to achieve a high degree of flatness. In this talk, John Gardner will discuss Whitworth’s papers on flatness and threads, their origins in workshop practice, and their legacy in engineering standards.
About the Speaker
John Gardner is Dean of the Doctoral School at Anglia Ruskin University.
John’s recent publications include: ‘Thread form at the Crystal Palace’ (Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology, 2024); The 1830s, with David Stewart (CUP, 2024); ‘Waterloo to Peterloo‘ in The Oxford Handbook to Romantic Prose, ed. by Robert Morrison (OUP, 2024); ‘Liberalism’ in The 1820s, Innovation and Diffusion ed. by Matt Sangster and Jon Mee. (Edinburgh University Press, 2023); ‘Shelley’s Steamship’ Keats-Shelley Journal 71 (2022); and ‘A Dangerous Education; the Early Mechanics’ Institutes’ in Institutions as Networks (CUP, 2022).
John is currently working on a monograph entitled ‘Engineering Romanticism’.

'A plain substantial piece of workmanship: the marine compound engine & the tramp ship in 19C Britain' by Dr Oliver Carpenter
2026-04-15 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 ‘tramp’ ship was created and constructed as a distinct type of merchant vessel in the 1870s and 1880s by shipbuilders and shipowners operating predominantly out of ports and rivers in the North East of England.
To explain the construction of tramp shipping in this period, this lecture explores the key technology that really made ‘tramping’ across the oceans a viable, economical and profitable venture.
Dr Oliver Carpenter‘s argument is that the adoption and use of the marine compound engine by shipowners created the ‘tramp’ class of merchant steam ships for the first time in a new and rapidly-growing sector in British shipping.
About the Speaker
Dr Oliver Carpenter is Curator of Infrastructure & Built Environment at the Science Museum in London. He is responsible for the national collections of Building Construction; Civil Engineering; Docks & Diving; Electricity Supply; Firefighting; Gas Industry; Heating, Cooling & Ventilation; Lighting; Locks & Fastenings; Nuclear Energy and Sewerage & Sanitation.
Oliver was Lead Curator of Energy Revolution at The Adani Green Energy Gallery – a major new permanent gallery about the low-carbon energy transition, which opened at the Science Museum in 2024. Before joining the Science Museum in 2015, he was a Collections Research Volunteer at Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and Associate Lecturer in History of Science, Technology and Medicine at University of Kent.
Oliver has a PhD in History of Technology and has published on the history of the British merchant shipping industry in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. He is a member of the Newcomen Society Council.
