A special 24-page ( magazine inspired by the BBC2 season genius of Invention

RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 00 MICHAEL MOSLEY 3 Lawnmower

Invented 1827 A nation founded Inventor Edwin Beard Budding What could be more quintessentially British than a perfectly mown lawn in summer? Until inventor Edwin Beard Budding came up with the lawnmower in 1827, this was the preserve only of the very rich, on invention who could afford an army of people to cut their lawns with scythes. Budding already had a Sir James Dyson once work in the way Google’s founders have done. reputation for inventiveness: he devised a repeating told me that he believed Richard Trevithick — the inventor of my choice pistol that predated Samuel Colt’s, a cotton carding part of the reason the in this supplement (see page 7) — is a great machine of a design that is still used today, and British are so good at example of a man who doesn’t get the the first screw-adjusted spanner. DID YOU KNOW? inventing things is recognition he deserves because he failed His first mower was 19in wide, had a box that because we are an island race. I’m not so to commercialise his invention. Berners-lee’s parents were collected the clippings as they were thrown sure I can point to any one particular British ttitudes are changing, and I have both involved forward by the blades and allowed the user characteristic that has encouraged such a in the absolutely no doubt that our economic development to adjust the height of the cut. It was, at great inventing tradition, but our geography future lies in tapping into British of one of the first, still a fairly exclusive item: Oxford certainly has helped. It created its own earliest inventiveness. Programmes such computers, the colleges and the Royal Zoological Society pressures, separated us intellectually as well A ferranti mark 1, as Dragons’ Den and figures like Steve Jobs were among his first customers. But its as physically from the rest of Europe. It made unveiled in 1951. and James Dyson have certainly inspired popularity spread as more British homes our relatively affluent, well-educated nation my children. They want to make things, but came to have gardens. And because turn to science at a time when the rest of the they also want to sell things. They want to world did not. It gave us a head start. it made lawns more affordable, be entrepreneurs. The result is that we have an enormous it gave an important boost We need invention now to help pull us out amount of history that we can draw on for to sports that were of our current morass, and I’m very hopeful inspiration. We led the Industrial Revolution, played on grass, such our next generation of inventors is going 2 Worldwide web as cricket, rugby and I can look back with huge respect at all to do it. To achieve this, we must reconnect those steps in our engineering and inventive and football.  with a culture of innovation that served these past that make my life today so easy. Invented 1989 Inventor Tim Berners-Lee islands so well in the past: where scientists That past — which BBC2 is celebrating this and inventors are appreciated, and where Not to be confused with the internet, which is a system of year with a season of programmes called people see things that inspire them and linked computer networks, the worldwide web was invented Genius of Invention — can also fuel the next 1 Thermos want to make them even better. by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. It was while generation of scientists and inventors. Our universities are world class, with a great working at Cern, the European particle physics lab, that he history of technology behind them. We turn flask wrote a proposal showing how “hypertext” – a way of sharing out a phenomenal number of Nobel Prize information via links – could be married with the internet to winners, and our heritage has made us a very create a system for fellow scientists to share data. Invented 1892 Inventor open place, ready to embrace talent from He created the first server in late 1990 and, on 6 August, Sir James Dewar around the world. 1991, the web went live, with the first page explaining how But there is a downside. Perhaps because This humble invention was the to search and how to set up a site. One critical innovation we are used to getting there first, we constantly brainchild of Sir James Dewar, an was that web users could link their page to another without fail to commercialise British invention. Tim eminent professor of chemistry at the need for the other user’s approval. And Berners-Lee Berners-Lee, the father of the worldwide web, Cambridge and leading light of the gave his invention to the world for free.  is rightly applauded for giving his invention to Royal Institution. Dewar didn’t the world — yet on another level it would have invent it to keep tea hot on picnics, been nice if he could have benefited from his but to help his experiments on cooling gases, like air and oxygen, 4 Float glass to such low temperatures that they would liquefy. Invented 1959 Inventor Alastair Pilkington The flask was actually two flasks, one inside the other, touching only When we think of inventions, it’s machines and gadgets that where they joined at the top, and usually come to mind. But what about all the processes needed Have your say with a vacuum in between. Its to create and manufacture the materials the modern world is Which of the following purpose was to keep its contents made of? Take glass: almost all the glass we use today is made 50 inventions, compiled either warmer or cooler than the using the “float” process, devised by Alastair Pilkington in 1959. for RT by a group of BBC Michael Mosley presents ambient temperature outside. a new series, The Genius Molten glass is poured from a furnace onto a shallow bath of science experts, is your of Invention, which starts Sadly for Dewar he never molten tin: the glass floats on the tin, and under its own weight favourite? And are there on BBC2 next week patented his invention. When the it spreads out to form a level surface. As it gradually cools on any from the randomly German Thermos Company did, the tin, the glass is drawn off in a continuous ribbon. This displayed list that they’ve he sued them – and lost.  process made it far easier and cheaper to make high-quality missed out? Vote now at glass, without the need for grinding and polishing.  radiotimes.com/inventions

2 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 3 7 Modern fire 5 Chocolate bar extinguisher Invented 1818 Inventor Coming soon… highlights Invented 1847 Inventor JS Fry & Sons George William Manby of the BBC2 season The first chocolate bar was created by JS Fry & The first recorded fire extinguisher throughout 2013 Sons of Bristol in 1847. It was sold to the public was invented and patented by a as chocolate “delicieux à manger” – delicious to Why the Industrial Revolution London chemist called Ambrose Happened Here Monday 9.30pm eat – because, until this point, chocolate had Godfrey in 1723. Godfrey’s invention Investigating why Britain became the been exclusively consumed as a drink. was perhaps motivated by his line world’s most powerful industrial nation. Fry’s company, originally an apothecary, had of business – he was a successful been selling drinking chocolate since the 1750s, manufacturer of the highly flammable The Flying Scotsman at 90 but the breakthrough came about when the chemical phosphorus. His gadget rather Marking the anniversary of the great DID YOU KNOW? London— steam train. company decided to combine cocoa powder surprisingly used gunpowder to scatter fry’s merged with sugar and cocoa butter to make a product The Railway: Keeping Britain with cadbury the fire-extinguishing liquid, but there’s in 1919, their that could be moulded into a solid bar. It was at least one contemporaneous newspaper on Track Behind the scenes of assets the nation’s rail network. combined in a the cocoa butter – the oil extracted from cocoa report of its success in putting out a blaze. new holding beans – that was the key: it’s melting point The first modern extinguisher, the firm, the British Murder on the Victorian Railway Cocoa and matches the temperature of the human body, “Extincteur”, was invented by naval captain Investigating the first murder Chocolate so it stays solid at room temperature but Company. George William Manby in 1818. It’s said he on a passenger train. melts in the mouth. was inspired by the sight of Newton: the Last Magician When other chocolate-makers copied the firemen struggling to fight DID YOU KNOW? The life and work of the physicist, bar, Fry’s upped the ante by introducing the the flames on the top floors George William mathematician, astronomer. first cream-filled bar in 1866. More of a house fire in Edinburgh. Manby is most famous for his Speed King The life and career of innovations followed and by the First World His solution was a portable manby mortar, War, Fry’s was one of the largest employers copper cask containing three which fired record-breaking Donald Campbell. a line to in Bristol.  to four gallons of potassium struggling Turner: Man of Iron ships off shore, Examining the artist’s fascination carbonate, which was enabling people dispersed by compressed to be rescued. with science and technology. air via a stopcock.  Science Britannica Brian Cox celebrates British science and re-creates his heroes’ experiments. The Genius of Josiah Wedgwood 8 Light bulb AN Wilson tells the story of the man who revolutionised British ceramics. Invented 1880 Inventor Joseph Swan Challenger: Final Flight Fact-based drama about the Cheap and reliable electric lighting was a holy 1986 space shuttle disaster. grail for 19th-century inventors. But didn’t 6 Electric telegraph Thomas Edison get there first? No! He was Horizon: Reinventing Invention beaten to it by Britain’s very own Joseph Liz Bonnin reveals the ideas Invented 1837 Inventors Charles Wheatstone Swan, working out of his private lab at his and technologies set to and william cooke house in Gateshead. Swan got his patent – transform our lives. and started manufacturing and selling his Stephen Fry’s Planet The electric telegraph was a world-shrinking technology bulbs – in 1880. He developed a tiny filament Invention Fry explores like no other. The first working system was demonstrated in that used specially treated cotton, and set the triumph of consumer 1837 by the British physicist Charles Wheatstone and it inside an oxygen-free vacuum so that it capitalism and mass his young engineer partner, William Cooke. The first wouldn’t catch fire when it glowed white-hot. production. fully operational telegraph ran from 1839 between Swan’s first bulbs lasted little more than The Hairy Bikers: Paddington and West Drayton railway stations in 12 hours but, unlike gas lamps, there was no Rebuilding London, but at first it was slow to catch on. That is flame or dirty smoke and they soon caught Industrial until New Year’s Day, 1845. John Tawell, who had just on. The impresario Richard d’Oyly Carte Britain murdered a lady of his acquaintance, jumped on a train seized the opportunity to make his new Si and Dave at Slough and made his getaway. But when the police men on wire Savoy Theatre in London stand out – and visit heritage Engineers at work on arrived, the station clerk was able to telegraph Paddington, when it opened the following year it was the groups a telegraph poll in Hull, 1955 where Tawell was arrested when his train pulled in. first public building in the world to be lit restoring old It was a sensation, and from here on the technology electrically throughout. D’Oyly Carte even mechanical exploded. Morse Code made it efficient; telegraph cables took to the stage himself – holding a glowing wonders. were soon everywhere – in 1858 the first transatlantic cable bulb aloft, he ceremoniously broke it in front was laid – and by the end of the century there were more of the audience to prove it was safe.  than 150,000 miles of cable connecting the globe. 

4 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions *Some programme titles may change 5 11 Carbon fibre

Invented 1963 Inventors Royal Aircraft Establishment engineers

This marvellous material is one of many inventions developed by the military that are incredibly useful for us all. In 1963, engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment’s research station at Farnborough worked out how to reinforce plastics with carbon filaments to produce a material that was strong, lightweight and could be mass-produced. Early on, there were setbacks – carbon fibre was used for the turbine 9 Pneumatic blades for the Rolls-Royce RB-211 jet engine, but the lightweight blades just weren’t strong enough. They failed the bird-strike test – they shattered when a frozen chicken was fired into them at high tyre speed – and the engine had to be scrapped at huge cost. But the inventors at Farnborough found other Invented 1887 uses for the material and today the material MICHael mosley Inventor has thousands of applications in boats, cars, motorbikes, In 1845, railway engineer Robert William sports equipment, and Thomson patented the world’s first pneumatic 13 Steam engine even in the fuselages tyres at the age of just 23. He demonstrated his of jumbo jets.  “aerial wheels” – a belt of air-filled rubber fitted inside Invented 1801 Inventor Richard Trevithick a leather casing – on horse-drawn carriages in London’s Regent’s Park. Unfortunately there was no real market for DID YOU KNOW? The high-pressure steam engine them – the automobile and bicycle hadn’t been invented yet. is the most extraordinary invention the rae team Forty years later, Belfast vet John Boyd Dunlop, unaware of improved upon of all time. It made the Industrial Thomson’s earlier invention, came up with pneumatic tyres to experiments Revolution possible; it made the with carbon stop his son getting headaches riding his bumpy tricycle. This fibre modern world possible. time around, the invention coincided with the new bicycle previously For most of history, empires ran conducted by craze. Dunlop persuaded the captain of the Belfast Cruisers american and on one thing: slave power. During Cycling Club to try his tyres: when he chalked up a string of japanese Richard Trevithick’s time we had wind power and researchers. racing victories, the success of the invention was assured.  water power to a very limited extent, but it wasn’t portable: you had to build your generator next to a stream if you wanted to tap into it. What Trevithick did with high-pressure steam was to take power, in this case in the form of coal, and turn it into 10 Catseye 12 Disc workable energy. Everybody believes that James Watt was Invented 1933 Inventor Percy Shaw responsible for the modern engine, but he wasn’t. brakes What he did was improve on another invention Percy Shaw was a Yorkshire road contractor who devised the Catseye called the atmospheric engine (devised by Thomas Newcomen in 1712). It was the size of a house, reflector in 1933. He liked to claim that inspiration struck when he Invented 1902 Inventor could never have been portable and operated was driving home from the pub on a foggy night and saw the Frederick William on a completely different principle to the modern reflection of his headlights in the eyes of a cat, sitting by the road. Lanchester The lens that reflects light back at its source had in fact been created steam engine. It could pump water, but basically by another British inventor, Richard Hollins Murray, a few years Frederick William Lanchester it was dead-end technology. earlier. Shaw’s masterstroke was to wrap this lens in a flexible rubber was one of Britain’s first Trevithick’s invention, however, would become casing and set it into the centre of the road. (In the Second World motorcar designers and the father of the steam train and the father of portable steam power. On Christmas Eve 1801 he War, the Ministry of Transport realised that Catseyes were the manufacturers. Disc brakes tested a steam car, known as the Puffing Devil, which perfect way to keep roads safely lit at night during employ brake pads that squeeze successfully climbed Camborne Hill in Cornwall. blackouts.) Shaw’s Catseye was voted the greatest each side of the rotor turning a In doing so, Trevithick became the first person design of the 20th century.  wheel, and they were fitted to the cars to power a piston using high-pressure steam. It had made by his Lanchester Engine been attempted for 2,000 years, but every time Company in Birmingham. They were people had tried, it had blown up and usually killed quicker to cool down and to dry out than whoever was nearby. Trevithick managed it: he the drum brakes used in most cars at the time. had the materials and the know-how, and his Sadly, Lanchester lacked the money and invention reduced the steam engine from the size business acumen to develop them properly. of a house to the size of a modern car. He liberated He made his brakes using copper, which wore power, and in doing so transformed the world.  down too quickly, and they didn’t catch on. Michael Mosley’s four-part series, The Genius It was only in the 1950s, after Lanchester had of Invention, begins next week on BBC2 died, that car makers decided to use stronger and more durable materials, like cast iron. Today, almost all cars use his invention. 

6 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 7 DID YOU KNOW? the 36in yapp telescope, pictured here, was one of the largest in the world WHEN IT OPENED AT the GREENWICH observatory IN 1934.

14 Soda water 17 Collapsible Invented 1772 Inventor Joseph Priestley baby buggy Joseph Priestley was an 18th-century clergyman and scientist fascinated Invented 1965 Inventor Owen Maclaren by chemistry, electricity, optics and many other subjects. As well as being In 1965, engineer Owen Maclaren was delighted to possibly the first person to isolate be visited by his daughter and his first grandchild, oxygen, he invented carbonated water but watched with frustration as his daughter struggled (later known as soda water) when he with an unwieldy pushchair. Fortunately for her – and suspended a bowl of water above a beer vat at for new parents ever since – Maclaren had been the a brewery near his home in Leeds. The carbon dioxide gas man in the Second World War who helped design the given off by the fermenting vat was known as “fixed air”. Being 16 Reflecting folding undercarriage for the Spitfire. heavier than air, it stayed above the vat rather than dispersing. Now he decided to apply his Priestley found he could dissolve the gas in the water and that knowledge to the pram problem. it made a refreshing drink – of a kind that met the approval of Within two years he had designed, his clean-living, religious-minded friends. telescope manufactured and launched the In 1772, he published a description of how to make carbonated first collapsible buggy, the classic Invented 1668 Inventor isaac newton water, using sulphuric acid and chalk, and just a few years later B-01, made using lightweight the Swiss fizzy drinks pioneer Johann Schweppe set up his The first known successful reflecting aluminium tubing. It folded Schweppes drinks company in London to manufacture up into something no carbonated mineral water using Priestley’s method.  telescope was built in 1668 by a man who is remembered by most people for identifying bigger than a large the effects of gravity. Sir Isaac Newton, then umbrella. Today, a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, took the most modern 15 Hypodermic syringe the idea of a reflecting telescope, which had version is sold in been around for decades, and turned it into more than 50 countries.  Invented 1853 Inventor Alexander Wood reality. It gives as much credence to his engineering skills as to his scientific mind. Alexander Wood was an eminent Edinburgh doctor who He built it to prove his theory that white co-invented the first true hypodermic syringe. The syringe itself light, the visible part of the electromagnetic had been known since ancient times; and the hollow needle had spectrum, is made up of many different been invented a few years before, but Wood’s innovation was to colours. Newton’s design consisted of a combine them into a means of penetrating the skin of his patients spherical-shaped mirror, made of a copper- to deliver drugs intravenously without having to cut the skin first. tin alloy, above which he placed a second flat It is said he found inspiration in the sting of the honeybee. mirror at a 45 degree angle, which reflected He initially used the syringe for morphia and other opiates the light into an eyepiece mounted on the side – and he used a glass syringe so he could see how much medicine of the telescope. This huge leap forward in had been used. He also later came up with the idea of adding a telescope technology made astronomical scale. This was a great breakthrough in anaesthetics, and helped observation much more accurate.  advance the procedure of giving blood transfusions. 

8 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 9 dan snow 22 Passenger 20 Synthetic railway dye Invented 1825 Inventor George Stephenson

Invented 1856 One of my favourite British Inventor William Perkin innovations is George Stephenson’s passenger railway. Stephenson’s In 1856, William Perkin was a precocious parents were illiterate, his mother 18-year-old studying at the Royal College of dying of TB when he was a child Chemistry when he discovered how to make and his father later blinded in an the world’s first synthetic dye – mauveine. industrial accident. It was a The search for how to make synthetics was remarkable background for a man who would at the cutting edge of chemistry at the time, forge a communications revolution. and Perkin was assisting his professor’s hunt While working as a miner, Stephenson enrolled for an artificial way to make the anti-malarial drug in night school where he learnt to read and write, quinine. Working in his makeshift lab at home one at age 18. He established an aptitude as a mechanic day during the university holidays, he was using and was allowed to build machines at his colliery. alcohol to clean out some chemical residue At the time, carts on tracks, pulled by horses, were from a flask when he suddenly saw an used to take coal from the many collieries around intense purple colour Newcastle to the Tyne, from where it could be DID YOU KNOW? appear. At the time, dyes exported by ship. Stephenson started to innovate. the turbinia were made from natural He improved the design of cast-iron rails to 18 Steam turbine (1894), the first ship powered by extracts, and were strengthen them, but above all he used steam a steam turbine, engines to replace horse power. Invented 1884 Inventor Charles Parsons was the fastest expensive and faded easily. in the world at Purple came only from the Machines that harnessed the power of steam the time. see it to push, lift or pull had been around for a while; After the invention of the electrical motor power from the steam. He made the glands of particular species of at newcastle’s Stephenson improved them and developed – which transforms rotation into electrical gaps between the blades very small so discovery molluscs and was among the museum. workable solutions to ensure that rather than power – the next step was to find a device that the steam would accelerate through priciest. Perkin worked out how remaining static, these steam engines could to reproduce his new colour, to drive it. Piston engines vibrated too the turbine. He also realised you could actually run on tracks. The result was a rapid then, keeping it secret from violently, so the steam turbine, invented channel the steam through multiple sets succession of world firsts: the first “flanged-wheel by Newcastle-based engineer Charles of blades in sequence, each one capturing his professor, he patented adhesion locomotive”. The first trackway or railway Parsons in 1884, was the answer. the steam from the one before. Three the method and set up using only locomotives — no horses at all. The first The turbine is like a windmill – steam quarters of the world’s power stations a company to produce it. DID YOU KNOW? purpose-built passenger car, which ran on the blasts the turbine blades and turns them still use steam. Whether steam-powered Mauve, as it came to be it was said that world’s first regular passenger-carrying railway, the the Grand Union round. What Parsons came up with was or not, every station uses the theory known, and other synthetic dyes that Canal would Stockton and Darlington. The world’s first intercity a means of extracting every last ounce of behind Parsons’s innovation.  followed it transformed the fashion and change colour railway, between Liverpool and Manchester. depending on the industry. And the chemistry what perkin Stephenson’s system of train coupling became of dyes would have many uses in was working on the European standard and his chosen gauge, in his nearby 1 medicine, too.  west london or distance between the two rails, of 4ft 8 /2in dyeworks. (1.435m) has become the world’s standard gauge, 19 Marine chronometer adopted nearly universally. We are still carried along by the revolution that he began.  Invented 1761 Inventor John Harrison 21 Hip replacement Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways Accurate navigation at sea has always accurate time despite being pitched Invented 1962 Inventor John Charnley starts on Tuesday at 9.00pm on BBC2 been critically important but, until the around by wind and waves and exposed invention of the marine chronometer, it to great variations in temperature and British surgeon Sir John Charnley procedure to reduce the chances of was extremely difficult, if not impossible. humidity. John Harrison, a self-taught pioneered the idea that a human hip infection: clean air enclosures, suits Latitude was straightforward to measure; clockmaker, devoted his life to the task. joint could be replaced. He designed the for the surgical team that covered their the problem was longitude. In 1714, He began building his first attempt in joint and, in 1962, performed the first entire bodies, and a system of sterile some 200 years after sailing ships 1730, but 30 years went by before he successful hip-replacement operation, instrument trays. He also taught had first circumnavigated the cracked it. The H4 timepiece lost just five at Wrightington Hospital in . surgeons from all over the world. world, the British government seconds between England and Jamaica Charnley’s design used a femoral stem Although many improvements have announced a £20,000 prize and contained numerous horological and ball made of steel and a hip socket been made since – to the design of the – worth almost £3m today innovations. After lengthy disputes with made of Teflon – later replaced with joint, the surgical method and the ways – for anyone who could the Board of Longitude, Harrison finally harder-wearing polyethylene. Both of fixing the replacement joint to the solve the problem. got his reward in 1773. His clocks were parts were glued to the bone using bone – Charnley set the standard. The key to it was carried by the likes of James Cook and an acrylic bone cement. Today, 80,000 hip replacements are making a clock that William Bligh, and safe long-distance Charnley also introduced important performed in Britain each year, and could somehow keep travel was now possible.  new improvements to surgical almost a million a year worldwide. 

0010 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 11 23 Telephone

patented 1876 Inventor Alexander Graham Bell

The telephone is a classic example of how inventions are often the culmination of work done by many individuals, sharing and borrowing each other’s ideas. What’s for sure is that Edinburgh-born Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone model in 1876, filing his patent just hours before a rival inventor. The telephone came about thanks to the discovery that a thin metal sheet vibrating in an electromagnetic field produces an electrical waveform that corresponds to the vibration and can be acoustically reproduced. It’s also pretty likely that Bell made the first telephone call: “Mr Watson, come here – I want to see you,” he barked down the phone to his assistant in the next room. They first publicly demonstrated their invention at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and made DID YOU KNOW? their first long-distance call – over ten miles, Bell’s between their respective homes in Canada industrious – a month later. In 1877, Bell set up the Bell mind was also responsible Telephone Company, and 150,000 households for the 26 Television in the US had telephones within a decade.  loudspeaker (1876) and the forerunner of Invented 1925 Inventor John Logie Baird the metal detector (1881) It’s hard to credit just one person with the invention of television, but it’s indisputable that John Logie Baird was 25 Linoleum the first to transmit moving pictures. In October 1925, he transmitted a greyscale image of ventriloquist’s dummy Stooky Invented 1860 Inventor Frederick Walton Bill. He publicly demonstrated his system the following January and, in 1928, broadcast the first transatlantic television signal, The idea for Frederick Walton’s wipe-clean floor covering came between London and New York. to him around 1855, when he noticed that a rubbery, flexible skin But his system ultimately failed. It was mechanical, using a of solidified linseed oil had formed on a can of oil-based paint. rotating disc embedded with lenses, one per line, to scan the He was fascinated by the thought that linseed oil might be made image. A rival system – scanning purely electronically, with no into a waterproof material to rival expensive India rubber. moving parts – was being developed at the same time and was After trying to produce and sell a varnish product, he realised deemed more reliable and, with far more lines per picture, visibly that if he could apply the varnish to a backing himself, he could superior. Baird, it was said at the time, was “doomed to be the sell flooring directly – cue linoleum. man who sows the seed but does not reap the harvest”.  For almost a century, until cheaper vinyl flooring became 24 Toothbrush popular in the 1960s, linoleum was the ideal material for hallways, passages and kitchens: natural, hygienic and, in its Invented c. 1770 Inventor William Addis more expensive “inlaid” versions, even beautiful.  27 Automatic kettle William Addis was a rag trader who got caught up in Invented 1955 Inventor Peter Hobbs a riot in 1770 and was sent to Newgate Prison. While there, and with time on his hands, he felt that the way The automatic kettle – one that switches itself off when the most people were cleaning their teeth, which was to rub water reaches boiling point – was the brainchild of Peter soot and salt over them with a rag, could be improved Hobbs, one of the two founding members of appliance on. Possibly inspired by the design of a broom, he saved company Russell Hobbs. (He had previously invented the a small animal bone left over from a meal and drilled world’s first coffee percolator.) small holes in it. Then he obtained some bristles, tied Hobbs’s 1955 K1 kettle had at its heart a simple piece them in small tufts and poked them through the holes. of technology – the bimetallic strip. This acted like an internal He glued it all together and – hey presto – a toothbrush. switch. It was made from two strips of different metals – After his release, Addis set up a business in 1780 to usually steel and copper – joined together along their length; make what became the world’s first mass-produced the two metals were chosen because of the difference in their toothbrushes. They made him very rich. Cheap brushes rate of expansion when heated. As the water boiled, the used pig bristle; more expensive ones badger hair. His steam was funnelled past the bimetallic strip and, as the two company, Wisdom Toothbrushes, is still going strong metals expanded at different rates, the combined strip would today, though it now uses plastic and nylon.  bend, breaking a circuit and switching off the kettle. 

12 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 13 30 Modern torpedo 28 Glider Invented 1866 Inventor robert whitehead It was Giovanni Luppis, an officer in the army of the Invented 1804 Inventor george cayley Austrian empire, who first came up with the idea of a self-propelled anti-ship weapon, but it was the British One of the greatest inventors in the field of aviation engineer Robert Whitehead who really made Luppis’s was Yorkshireman George Cayley. The first-ever concept work. sustained manned glider flight was made in a craft Whitehead was working for the Austrian navy of his design at Brompton Dale in 1853. (Cayley also when Luppis met him and suggested his idea for a invented the tension-spoked wheel – see page 17.) prototype “coast saver” that used a clockwork motor to Cayley first designed an unmanned glider in 1804, traverse the surface of the water and that was steered by and he was the first to move away from the idea that ropes from the land. Whitehead was captivated by the idea, a man-made flying machine must have wings that though didn’t think much of Luppis’s designs. flapped like a bird’s. Instead, he laid down the concept Over the next two years he came up with his own design of a fixed-wing aircraft, subject to the forces of weight, for a “mineship” – a torpedo launched from a ship in an lift, drag and thrust, for which he became known as the underwater tube, powered by compressed air and with an father of aeronautics. His first pilot is unknown, but it internal mechanism of his own invention that adjusted itself may have been his 12-year-old grandson, also George.  to stay at a constant depth. He presented it to the Austrian navy in 1866, improved the range, speed and accuracy and had a factory making and selling them worldwide. The first ship to be sunk by Whitehead’s invention was the Turkish steamer Intibah in 1878, after being hit by a torpedo launched from a Russian warship.  31 Jet engine

Invented 1937 Inventor Frank Whittle

Frank Whittle was a 24-year-old RAF fighter pilot in 1930 when he patented a new kind of aircraft engine – the turbojet. Whittle’s new design had no propeller and no pistons, using a gas turbine instead. With a rotating turbine and air compressor – and powered by thrust alone DID YOU KNOW? from the back – his new design was so radical that george cayley applied his the military wouldn’t genius to many fund it, nor would any fields. His ideas 29 Military tank included manufacturers. an internal combustion However, in 1937 Invented 1914 Inventor ernest swinton engine that was Whittle found a few powered by gunpowder. private backers. After In November 1914, the British Army was were used for some of its parts, hence terms two more years of using crawler tractors to pull on the such as the “hatch” and “turret”. development, it was Western Front, when Britain’s official war The first proper tank battle took place at reliable enough for the correspondent, Ernest Swinton, saw them in Cambrai, France, in November 1917, when Air Ministry, and on action and realised that they could perhaps be some 400 tanks penetrated almost seven miles 5 May 1941 at RAF adapted into bullet-proof and power-driven behind the front lines, but they weren’t Cranwell in Lincolnshire, offensive weapons that could storm the enemy supported by infantry and soon had to retreat. a 17-minute test flight went lines and take out their guns. These tanks had the capability to climb a ahead. It was a revolution.  The idea was taken up and “landships” were five-foot obstacle, span a five-foot trench, were developed: the “tank” description was meant resistant to small arms fire and could travel to shield their true purpose from enemy spies. at 4mph. Although the tank helped end the Because it was the rather than the stalemate of trench warfare, it came too late to Army that first developed them, naval terms have much impact on the First World War.  1400 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 15 32 Safety bicycle 35 Tension- Invented 1885 Inventor John Kemp Starley spoked wheel The bicycle as we know it today was originally developed as the “safety bicycle”, because other bikes at the time were Invented 1808 Inventor George Cayley extremely dangerous. Riders of the penny-farthing perched above a huge front wheel, steered indirectly using the tiny As well as inventing the glider – see page 14 back wheel, and couldn’t touch the ground with their – George Cayley also reinvented the modern feet; only a few daring young men would go near wheel. He wanted wheeled landing gear for them. The key to the new bicycle was the chain his gliders, but wheels with solid or wooden drive, which meant you could still go fast even spokes were just too heavy. His innovation though both wheels were the same size. was to shift the balance of forces in the wheel Together with front-wheel steering and from compression to tension. No more would back-wheel drive, this made it much more the wooden spokes hold the rim up: now the stable and easier to control. The safety rim itself would bear all the weight, and its bicycle was perfected by Coventry shape would stay true thanks to spokes made engineer John Kemp Starley, who in of tight cord, which pulled from the sides 1885 exhibited the Rover (right): the first when weight was placed on the top. recognisably modern bicycle. Light and It was an extraordinary breakthrough, cheap, it caught on quickly and brought which was first described by Cayley in 1808, cycling to the masses. For most people, although it really took off much later when and women in particular, it was arguably tension-spoked wheels using wire spokes the most liberating invention of all time.  were adopted for bicycle wheels. The elegant design has been used ever since. 

DID YOU KNOW? jethro tull introduced other farming innovations, including the invention of a horsedrawn hoe and a much-improved 33 Wind-up radio plough. Invented 1991 34 Cement Inventor Trevor Baylis Invented 1824 Inventor Joseph Aspdin In 1991, Trevor Baylis saw a television 36 Seed drill programme about Aids in Africa that In 1824, Leeds bricklayer Joseph Aspdin invented and patented said one way to stop its spread was for a method of making what he called Portland Cement – the type Invented 1701 Inventor Jethro Tull people to hear educational information that’s most widely used today. The process involved burning on the radio. So Baylis designed one limestone, mixing it with clay and burning it again; the burning Oxfordshire farmer Jethro Tull’s seed drill, which he perfected in 1701, that needed no batteries, running off produced a much stronger cement than just mixing limestone was a landmark in a new scientific approach to agriculture. Pulled by an internal generator powered by a and clay. Aspdin called it “Portland” as he claimed the set mortar a horse, the drill dug a straight groove into the soil at the right depth mainspring wound by a hand crank. resembled the best limestone quarried from Portland in Dorset. and dropped into it seeds that were regularly spaced. It made planting It really took off when he displayed However, to make it he needed a ready supply of limestone, crops far more efficient: previously, seeds had been scattered by hand, it on Tomorrow’s World in 1994. In and to acquire it he even took to levering up entire paving which meant that lots were wasted when they didn’t fall into the 1996, his Freeplay radio was awarded blocks at night – which twice landed him in court. His son, furrow, and that they were planted too sparsely or too close together. the BBC Design Award, and Baylis William, moved the business to north-east Kent, where there Tull’s invention had three drills side by side and is estimated to have was able to demonstrate it to Nelson were limitless supplies of limestone. William also tweaked the increased productivity eightfold. It was a milestone in what became Mandela. Since then, the radio has formula, using more limestone and a higher burning temperature an agricultural revolution in Britain that, hand in hand with the been distributed all over Africa.  to produce cement that set more slowly, but developed strength Industrial Revolution, helped both population and life expectancy more quickly, meaning it could be used in concrete.  into a steady upward climb for the first time in history.

16 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 17 dick and Dom 37 41 Sewage Invented 1768 Inventor Richard Arkwright’s spinning frame – more than James system Hargreaves’s better-known – was the cornerstone invention of the industrial revolution in that transformed Invented 1865 northern England and lay behind Britain being named the Inventor Joseph Bazalgette “workshop of the world”. The spinning jenny made the spinning of yarn more efficient, but the spinning frame spun thread that There are certain had a tighter weave and was considerably stronger. inventions and Unlike the jenny, the frame was too big to be operated by hand, creations that people so Arkwright had to build what’s often said to be the world’s first are aware of every day. factory in Cromford, Derbyshire, to house the machines. Now There are very few the workers had to come to his premises where, under one roof, creations that we use a water mill and, later, steam engines, powered the machines. our whole lives without It was the cotton threads produced by the spinning frames ever thinking about or that were turned into the cheap “calicoes” that were exported even seeing. But that in huge quantities all over the world.  is exactly what the London sewers are. Their creator, Joseph Bazalgette, may be remembered as more of an engineer than an inventor, but what he developed in London — the largest and most forward- thinking sewage system the world had ever seen — changed life in the city completely. There was a sewage system in place beforehand, but all it did was transfer waste straight into the Thames. It was basically one massive open sewer pipe. By all accounts it created a truly awful smell, 39 Electric motor reaching its peak during the Great Stink of 1858. Even more worryingly, it caused Invented 1821 Inventor Michael Faraday serious health problems, such as cholera, because it contaminated the city’s drinking Michael Faraday was employed by the Royal Institution, where he supply. Something had to be done, and investigated the connections between electricity, magnetism and Bazalgette was the man to do it. motion. In 1821, he demonstrated electromagnetic rotation for the His solution was phenomenal: a new first time. A free-hanging wire was dipped into a pool of mercury waste system that would divert the sewage that had a fixed magnet in it. When an electric current was passed eastwards away from the river and pump 38 Bessemer through the wire, it rotated around the magnet – the electricity it out to sea. By 1865 most of the system produced a magnetic field around the wire, which interacted with was working, the main intercepting sewers the magnet in the mercury. This was the world’s first electric motor. used 318 million bricks and measured over process Ten years later, Faraday made an incredible intellectual leap: if DID YOU KNOW? 80 miles in length. To do all that work electricity and magnetism could create motion, could the reverse Joseph above ground would have been one thing, be true – could motion and magnetism create electricity? Faraday bramah’s other but to create it underground was something Invented 1856 Inventor Henry Bessemer inventions proved it could with the world’s first electric generator, a copper disk include else altogether. We got the opportunity to fountain pens, go down there, and even though we saw Sheffield steelmaker Henry Bessemer didn’t invent that rotated between the poles of a magnet and generated a current paper-making and smelt things we couldn’t describe in steel production. But his method for simplifying it in a wire attached to it by a spring.  machines, hand pumps for beer a family magazine, the intricate maze of and greatly reducing the cost makes the Bessemer and the flushing toilet. sewer pipes more than 100 years old was process rank as one of the most important 40 Hydraulic press just unbelievable. And the most amazing breakthroughs of the industrial era. thing is that it still functions today. Steel is a combination of iron and a small amount Invented 1795 Inventor Joseph Bramah The reason is that when Bazalgette of carbon. But the process of adding carbon to iron designed the tunnels, he estimated how was extremely time-consuming and used up a huge Locksmith Joseph Bramah made famously by French mathematician Blaise Pascal), the much the population of London would amount of fuel. Steelmakers wanted to use “pig iron”, unpickable locks and was also a keen pressure inside a closed system is constant, increase in the next 100 years and worked a cheap and plentiful product that had too much inventor. Of all his developments, the one so a small force applied to move the small out how large the tunnels would need to carbon in it, but they couldn’t work out how to get that has had the most impact was the piston a large distance translates to a large be to meet the needs of the future and the carbon out. Bessemer managed to do that by hydraulic press, which he patented in 1795. force pushing the large piston a small keep the system flowing. Which is why the pumping high-pressure air through the molten pig sewers are still in working order today, and LEARN MORE In a hydraulic press, two piston cyclinders, distance. Bramah used the press to make iron. It was assumed the air would cool the iron, with different cross-sectional areas, are parts for his locks: by pushing the small why in our eyes it should be seen as a huge visit the Royal inventing achievement. but the oxygen in the air actually burnt off Institution’s connected with a tube and filled with fluid piston, he could slowly flatten metal with  carbon in the iron and, in doing so, it raised Michael – oil, for example – so that moving one the large piston. The hydraulic press is Faraday Museum Watch Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom the temperature. This accelerated the process in london to see piston will cause the other one to move, too. today one of the most useful and widespread on CBBC later this month and the result was hotter, purer iron that could Faraday’s According to Pascal’s principle (originated machine tools. magnetic  be converted to steel much more easily.  laboratory as it was in the 1850s. 18 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 19 44 Photography

Invented 1835 DID YOU KNOW? Inventor William Henry Fox Talbot the first programmable Who was the inventor of photography? It’s hard non-electronic to say. The first fixed image was made by a computer was the z3, designed Frenchman, Joseph Niépce, in 1826, using a in 1941 by coating of light-sensitive bitumen on a pewter german engineer and plate, which took about eight hours to expose inventor an image. His collaborator, Louis Daguerre, konrad zuse. continued working with silver iodide, and discovered that if it was exposed to light for just a few minutes, the image could be “developed” later with mercury vapour. In 1835, British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot made another breakthrough. He used silver iodide on paper, and found a way to produce a translucent negative that – unlike Daguerre’s images – could be used to make any 42 Electronic programmable computer number of positives by contact printing. Fox Talbot patented his system and forced any photographer Invented 1943 Inventor tommy flowers who used his system – which was most of them – to pay him a royalty. But his positive/negative system Alan Turing and his Bletchley Park computers became the Colossus was the first truly electronic, digital and has been the basis of all photography since – at least famous for cracking the supposedly unbreakable Enigma programmable computer. Initially, however, bosses at the until the advent of digital cameras.  cipher in 1941. But Turing’s Bombe machines were Post Office didn’t believe it could be done, and Flowers electromechanical, and in 1943 they were surpassed had to build it in his spare time using his own money. by the arrival of the Colossus at Bletchley. Ten Colossi were built, all extraordinarily successful. Built and designed by brilliant Post Office engineer Sadly for Flowers, the technology that could easily have Tommy Flowers, the machine was conceived to crack the formed the basis for a computer industry was reserved German Lorenz cipher, which was even more complex for military intelligence and remained top secret. Every than Enigma. Constructed using 1,500 vacuum tubes, Colossus machine was dismantled after the war.  43 Stainless steel

Invented 1913 Inventor Harry Brearley DID YOU KNOW? the sr.n1 made Harry Brearley, the son of a Sheffield steel its first channel smelter, left school at 12 to go to work in one crossing in two of the city’s steelworks. He was an ambitious hours, three 45 Hovercraft minutes. later chap and started to study metallurgy at home hovercraft cut and in evening classes. He gradually built a the journey Invented 1953 Inventor Christopher Cockerell to under reputation for expertise, and still in his 30s 30 minutes. was chosen to run a new research facility funded Christopher Cockerell was an esteemed radio and by two of Sheffield’s largest steel companies. electronics engineer who bought a small boat business In 1912, he was tasked by a small-arms in 1950. He wanted to work out how to make the boats manufacturer to find a material that could go faster, and was captivated by the idea of lifting prolong the life of their gun barrels. He set them out of the water altogether. Just blasting air out to find erosion-resistant steel, but found downwards underneath a craft didn’t work as too corrosion-resistant steel instead. much air leaked out from the sides. The story goes that in 1913 he threw out Cockerell’s breakthrough was to blast air down a some experimental steel made of 12.8 per cent narrow channel around the outside of the craft that chromium and 0.24 per cent carbon. A few could trap high-pressure air underneath and stop it weeks later, he found it in the yard still shiny escaping, forming what he called a “momentum as new. This apparently serendipitous curtain”. This would produce as much as four times discovery led to the transformation of the the lift for the same amount of power. After a few years already established cutlery industry in of demonstrating a balsa-wood prototype on Whitehall Sheffield. Stainless steel is now used in carpets, he eventually got government and military everything from surgical instruments and backing and, on 1 June 1959, the first hovercraft, the SR.N1, crossed the Channel. turbine blades to architectural cladding.  

20 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 21 48 Electric vacuum 46 atm cleaner Invented 1967 Inventor John Shepherd-Barron Invented 1901 Inventor Hubert Cecil Booth John Shepherd-Barron was lying in the bath one night in 1965. Earlier he had In 1901, a young engineer called Hubert failed to get to a bank and was wondering Cecil Booth was watching a railway DEBORAH MEADEN how to get money outside bank hours. carriage being cleaned at St Pancras He hit on the idea of a cash dispenser Station by a machine that simply blew and, as he worked for banknote dust off the fittings. Booth thought it manufacturer De La Rue, he secured would be better to suck the dust up. To 50 Steri-spray a meeting with Barclays. It signed up, test his theory, he placed a handkerchief and the first ATM was installed outside on a restaurant chair, sucked through it Invented c. 2008 Inventor Ian Helmore its branch in Enfield, north London, in and found an impressive amount of dust The British are very good at working 1967. The first cash was taken out by collected on the other side. out how to overcome obstacles. I do TV star Reg Varney (below). Booth’s first vacuum cleaner, which think it’s within our DNA. As long as As plastic bank cards hadn’t been DID YOU KNOW? came to be known as the “Puffing Billy”, we’ve got people coming up with invented, customers inserted special used a piston engine driven by an among booth’s ideas and trying to get them off the cheques that the machine could recognise. other clients electric motor to suck air through a filter ground, we’ll survive as a nation. It gave out a maximum of £10 – at the were Wilhelm II that was mounted on a horse-drawn cart. of Germany, For any idea to be picked up, there time, enough for a wild weekend. Nicholas II of He set up a company that sold cleaning has to be a market, but as an investor on Dragons’ Users also had to enter a PIN number Russia and the House of services. His operators would haul long Den I’m not just looking for ideas; I’m looking for – Shepherd-Barron claimed that it was Commons. he hoses from his bright red vans through business propositions. I don’t need a 100-page also designed thanks to his wife, who said she could only ferris wheels. the windows of buildings. It was a huge business plan; I just need to know what the problem remember a maximum of four digits, that success; he was even hired to clean is, how many people it affects, and how the invention we all use four-digit PINs today.  Westminster Abbey for Edward VII’s solves the problem. It can be as simple as that. coronation. But when it came to small, My favourite invention underlines just that point. household vacuum cleaners, the Hoover Plumber Ian Helmore sterilised water tanks to Company became the market leader.  prevent legionella breeding in them, and believed 47 Tin can there had to be a wider application of the technology. Because the bacteria can live in the last two inches Invented 1810 Inventor Peter Durand of pipework, he decided that putting a UV lamp into a tap or showerhead would deal with the Frenchman Nicolas Appert – working for ’s army 49 Waterproof problem. And it works, at a very high level. It has – figured out in 1810 how to preserve food by packing it into taken us three years to get it from prototype to sealed containers and then cooking it for hours to sterilise actual physical product, but now it is out there it. But Appert used glass jars; it was British merchant Peter material in NHS hospitals, hopefully saving lives. Durand who, in the same year, adapted Appert’s method to When we’re asked to invest in inventions, there a new container – the tin can. has to be a big enough market and they have to be Invented 1823 Once the first cannery capable of being produced at a price people are Inventor Charles Macintosh was set up in Bermondsey, prepared to pay. We all have a value system. We a couple of years later, the Charles Macintosh, an amateur might not know how much we will pay for something, but we definitely know how much we won’t pay. British Army found itself as chemist, was experimenting with Personally, the invention that’s changed my life is well equipped – better, in fact coal-tar naphtha, a chemical waste the inflatable riding jacket. As I get older I’m much – than the French. There were product, and realised that it was a more aware of the dangers of riding, and now there’s a few problems at the start: powerful solvent that could make a a jacket that’s like an airbag. You attach yourself to many early cans were sealed solution from rubber. He coated a thin the saddle and, if you become unattached at great with lead solder, which could fabric with this solution but, because it force, the jacket inflates so that when you hit the be dangerous. In Sir John was so sticky, he sandwiched it between ground, you’ve got your neck and back protected. picture caption Franklin’s Arctic expedition Od dui tin euismod tio od two layers of the fabric to make a It’s made me more confident and has enhanced the in the 1840s, some of the elit lum dignit lore ming practical waterproof material. value of my leisure riding.  eliquam acc ummy crew suffered from severe His family company started selling Dragons’ Den will return in late summer. If you’re numsan lead poisoning after three the coats as the “”. But they seeking investment for a business idea or invention, what’s my pin? years of eating canned food. had a tendency to melt in hot weather. visit bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/apply or email TV sitcom star Initially, a hammer and Reg Varney makes the Another British inventor, Thomas [email protected] first cash withdrawal chisel were required to open Hancock, later improved the product the cans: the tin opener and was made a partner in the firm. wasn’t patented until 1855. 

22 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 23 Places to visit Explore your passion for invention – from coal mines to code-breakers

23 Millennium Gallery, Sheffield 33 Science Alive, Harlow A fun, interactive The Designed to Shine exhibition forms centre that brings science to life, combined part of a celebration of the centenary of with the Living History section where you Harry Brearley’s discovery of stainless steel. can find out more about our world. 24 Magna Science and Adventure, Rotherham The four elements — earth, South air, fire and water — explored through 34 Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes a range of activities. Historic site of secret British code-breaking activities during the Second World War, and Midlands birthplace of the modern computer. 25 Thinktank, Birmingham Science 35 Eastney Beam Engine House, Museum The city’s industrial heritage is on Southsea View a pair of magnificent James display in the Millennium Point exhibition. Watt beam engines, housed in their original 26 Coventry Transport Museum high Victorian engine house of 1887. How the city became the birthplace 36 The Farnborough Air Sciences Trust 3 The Big Pit england: North of the British cycle and motor industry. Museum, Hampshire Exhibits from the 13 Bradford National Media Museum 27 Midland Air Museum, Bagington, near early years of aviation, including research A feast of film, TV and radio history, Coventry The story of the jet age told at models of Concorde. as well as the UK’s first IMAX cinema. the Sir Frank Whittle Heritage Centre. 37 Beaulieu, National Motor Museum, 14 Manchester Museum of Science and 28 Abbey Pumping Station Museum, Brockenhurst The history of the motor car, Industry The Power Hall houses a vast Leicester The 200-year history of science plus home to the world’s largest collection collection of working steam mill engines as and technology, from the early days of of original James Bond vehicles. well as gas, oil, hot-air and diesel engines. steam and industry. 38 Bovington Tank Museum, Wareham One of the largest and most comprehensive 15 Discovery Museum, Newcastle Find 28 Abbey Pumping Station out more about Tyneside inventions that collections of armoured fighting vehicles. had an impact on the world we live in. West 16 Cragside, Morpeth, Northumbria 39 Crofton Pumping Station, Marlborough Wales The first house to be lit by hydro-electricity 1 Techniquest, Cardiff Hands-on science houses the oldest working beam engine in is crammed full of ingenious Victorian the world, open from March 2013. centre, with over 100 activities from gadgets, most of which are still working. 40 The Steam Museum — Museum of the launching a rocket to driving electric cars. 17 National Railway Museum, York Great Western Railway, Swindon tells the 2 The National Waterfront Museum, Quite simply, the largest railway museum story of the men and women who built and Swansea tells the story of industry and in the world. operated the Great Western Railway. innovation in Wales over the last 300 years. 18 Stephenson Railway Museum, 41 Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum, 3 The Big Pit, National Coal Museum North Shields See locomotives including Lacock, near Chippenham The museum Blaenavon, Tofaen Take an underground George Stephenson’s Billy, a forerunner 29 Ironbridge Gorge Museums, celebrates William Henry Fox Talbot and his tour of the mine, led by a former miner of the world-famous Rocket. Shropshire Ten award-winning museums contribution to the invention of photography. and find out all about the history of 19 and Styal Estate, along the Severn Gorge explain the area’s 42 At Bristol is one of the UK’s biggest coal-mining, once the area’s mainstay. Wilmslow features a that’s importance in the Industrial Revolution. interactive science centres. powered by Europe’s most powerful 30 Black Country Living Museum, Scotland 43 SS Great Britain, Bristol Built by working waterwheel. Dudley Visit one of the country’s largest Isambard Kingdom Brunel, it was the first 4 National Museum Scotland, Edinburgh 20 National Waterways Museum, open-air museums that celebrates the propelled steam ship to cross the Atlantic. The Science and Technology gallery looks Ellesmere Port brings together innovations of the Black Country. 44 Porthcurno Telegraph Museum at scientific advances and innovation in a unique fleet of historic boats telling the 31 Heritage Motor Museum, Gaydon, Porthcurno valley in the far west of Scotland and beyond. story of Britain’s canals and waterways. Warwickshire Home of the world’s biggest Cornwall was the hub of international 5 Science Centre Interactive 21 National Coal Mining Museum, collection of historic British cars. cable communications from 1870—1970. centre where children are encouraged Wakefield The 200-year history of 45 Levant Mine and Beam Engine, to get involved with the magic of science. mining is brought to life. East Cornwall Enter this copper and tin mine 6 Museum of Transport, Glasgow 22 World of Glass, St Helens including 32 Woolsthorpe Manor, near Grantham and see the beam engine that’s been See the world’s oldest bicycle, and find tours of the tunnels under the Cone House, Visit the birthplace of Britain’s greatest restored after 60 years lying idle. out why Glasgow was once known as the the 19th-century glass-making furnace. scientist, Sir Isaac Newton. workshop of the British Empire. London 7 Satrosphere Science Centre, Aberdeen 17 The National Railway Museum 46 Design Museum From 30 January Get hands on with over 50 scientific activities. there is an exhibition featuring key designs 8 Museum of Communication, that have changed the world. Burntisland, Fife Explore the history 47 Michael Faraday Museum — Royal of radio, radar, television and IT. Institution Explore the world-changing 9 Museum of Lead Mining, Wanlockhead, science that’s happened at the Royal Dumfries & Galloway Take a guided tour Institution since 1799. of the 18th-century Lochnell Mine. 48 Science Museum The Codebreaker exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Northern Ireland birth of Alan Turing, is open until June 2013. 49 Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe tells the 10 Titanic Dock and Pump House, Belfast story of the Thames Tunnel, the first in the Set in the heart of the Harland and Wolff world to be built under water. shipyard, where Titanic was built. 50 Royal Observatory, Greenwich is the 11 W5 Science and Discovery Centre, home of Greenwich Mean Time and also Belfast Get to grips with more than to London’s only planetarium. 250 interactive exhibits. 12 Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Check venue websites for full details. For Hollywood, Co Down Explore a collection more ideas on places to observe British that features horse-drawn carriages to cars. inventiveness go to bbc.co.uk/thingstodo

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content, we are aware that there remain areas of debate around some inventions and, in particular, dates attributed. Commissioned by bbc learning, written by Dan Hillman, designed by Stuart Manning and Jacob Howard. cover artwork by Jurgen Ziewe. photographS: Alamy, Corbis, Getty, PA, SSPL, Advertising Archive, National Maritime Museum