A project by • The great experimental Neil Cummings, physicist Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic for Arnolfini’s induction when he wraps 50th anniversary two insulated coils of wire around an iron ring and finds that, upon passing a current through one coil, a momentary current is induced in the other. He uses this principle to construct electromagnetic rotary devices which suggest the possibility of electric motors, generators and transformers. Through his research 1831 we come to understand Bristol Riots, electromagnetic force, which Queen exists everywhere and in all Square things, as one of the four fundamental components of our universe. Self Portrait: Arnolfini 1832 Discovery of electromagnetic current, Michael Faraday Riots ensue as the Provoked by local magistrate H•ouse of Lords rejects the Sir Charles Wetherell’s Representation of the People opposition to the Bill, riots Act. Commonly known as break out and continue over the Reform Bill it intends to three days. The Mansion give greater representation House in Queen Square is in the House of Commons looted, the Bishop’s Palace to the many cities that set on fire, and the prison have expanded during the destroyed. Industrial Revolution. Dragoon guards violently Bristol has been suppress the riot by represented since 1295, but charging through Queen Left: Soldiers subduing the by 1830 only 6,000 of the Square with drawn swords. riots in Queen Square, Bristol. 104,000 population were Hundreds are killed or Above: Michael Faraday eligible to vote for their MP. severely wounded. 1 On 7th January, members o•f the French Académie des 1837 Sciences are introduced to an 1835 Government invention that will change the Narrow Quay nature of visual representation School of forever. The astonishingly warehouse extended Design to store tea and precise pictures are the work of Louis-Jacques- dry goods Mandé Daguerre, a Romantic painter and printmaker. Each daguerrotype is a remarkably detailed, unique image on a 1832 highly polished, silver-plated Acraman’s builds sheet of copper sensitised with iodine vapours, exposed warehouse at in a large box camera, Narrow Quay The Industrial Revolution the manufacturing developed in mercury fumes, e•stablished Britain as a world population of the country.” and stabilised (or fixed) with 1836 leader in manufacturing and The following year the saltwater. Daguerre is Bristol Zoo enabled British products to Committee concludes that required to publish detailed generate vast internal and successful international instructions of the process, international markets. By the competitors are funding but retains patents on the 1830s these markets are public design education, equipment. threatened as European, while Britain is not, Indian and American goods recommending that compete alongside British Parliament invest £1,500 to products with increasing establish a central school of success, a success often design in London, with attributed to their design further annual funding to superiority. establish a network of Feeling their livelihoods at provincial schools in the risk, British manufacturers major industrial centres of lobby Parliament, and in 1835 the country. The Government 1839 a Select Committee is set in School of Design is First patented motion to “Enquire into the established at Somerset photographic best means of extending a House in London in 1837, and process, Louis knowledge of the Arts and Art & Design becomes the Daguerre the principles of Design first form of publicly-funded among the people, especially education in Britain.2 Merchants and The company of Acraman The Bristol, Clifton and i•ronmongers Acraman’s B•ush Castle & Co. is formed W•est of England Zoological acquires the leases of three specifically to take advantage Society opens Bristol houses at the south end of the recent removal of the Zoological Gardens, only the of Prince Street, Bristol. East India Company’s tea fifth zoo in the world, and the Bordered on two sides by monopoly. Designed by first outside a capital city. the dock walls of Bristol’s Richard Shackleton Pope Isambard Kingdom Brunel Floating Harbour, where in local pennant stone, the and Joseph Fry are among the River Frome once warehouse is extended to the 220 original shareholders flowed into the River accommodate expected responsible for raising the Avon along St Augustine’s future trade. Its monumental capital to build the zoo on a Reach, the site is at the heart construction, later described modest 12-acre site in Clifton. of the city’s international by Andrew Foyle as “the Amongst the 40 species on trading quarter. Acraman’s forefather of the Bristol display the zoo boasts a Left: Etching used in the pulls the houses down, Byzantine style”, will attract zebra, a leopard, monkeys, a Acraman’s letterhead, c. 1835. building a new property the attention of architectural pair of sloth bears, fallow deer, Above: Louis Daguerre. Right: described as “warehouses, critic and historian Nikolaus a camel, an elephant and an Boulevard du Temple, 1838, Louis Daguerre, the earliest lofts, cellars and compting Pevsner, in his Buildings of Indian tiger which soon known photograph featuring 1 houses”. England series. becomes the star attraction. living people 2 3 1846 Free trade 1843 formalised SS Great 1844 Britain Bank Charter Act establishes gold standard against which British bank notes are 1846 issued 1841 Warehouse Bristol renamed to London Bush House railway The first major British Also designed by Brunel, Throughout the 1820s, The various Corn Laws of In 1841 a collection r•ailway, the Great Western t•he SS Great Britain is d•ifferent bank notes secured 1•815 to 1846 were essentially o•f prominent Bristol Railway (GWR), runs for the launched in Bristol for the against different units of import tariffs designed to businessmen, the Society first time between Bristol Great Western Steamship account were issued by protect cereal crop prices in of Merchant Venturers, Temple Meads and London Company’s transatlantic local and regional banks the United Kingdom against established the Merchant Paddington. Facing stiff service. The Great Britain, throughout the United competition from cheaper Venturers Water Works. competition from Liverpool, together with the GWR, Kingdom. This practice foreign imports. Aristocratic Backed by Isambard city merchants have been provides an integrated was restricted in 1826 when landowners who benefit from Kingdom Brunel, the group keen to protect Bristol’s status transport system between the Bank of England was high prices claim that middle- sought to supply water to as the dominant port of trade London and New York. allowed to set up regional class manufacturers want to Clifton and the wealthier with America. The first iron-built ocean branches, and brought to drive prices down so they can parts of Bristol. In 1845 Following an Act of liner equipped with screw a close in 1833 when Bank lower workers’ wages and a rival group of prominent Parliament in 1835 and the propellors, the Great Britain of England notes were increase profits. On the third local citizens is formed, appointment of Isambard is by far the largest vessel made legal tender. The reading of the Bill of Repeal concerned that these plans Kingdom Brunel as engineer, afloat. With her massive Bank Charter Act finally (Importation Act 1846) would not provide water the railway is constructed in 1,000-horsepower engine, establishes Bank of England Members of Parliament vote for the poorer, more six years, terminating at she easily breaks all notes, fully backed by gold, by a majority of 98 to abolish densely-populated areas of Bristol’s beautiful Tudoresque previous speed records on as the national legal standard. the Corn Laws. This landmark the city. The group includes station, the world’s largest her maiden voyage across British finance is now a decision marks a significant William Budd, a pioneer single-span building. the Atlantic. coherent system. step towards the ideology of in sanitation; chocolatier managed free trade between and philanthropist Francis nations, and signals the start Fry; and George Thomas, 1846 of the exponential growth of a Quaker merchant active The Bristol a middle class. in repealing the Corn Laws. Waterworks The government weighs Company The Acraman’s trading up the rival schemes and e•mpire was bankrupt by narrowly comes down 1842, and the business on the side of the new was slowly broken up. group, so on 16th July After several changes of the Bristol Waterworks occupier, the Narrow Quay Company is formally warehouse is bought by established by an Act of bonded warehouse keepers Parliament. Above Brunel’s beautiful, George and James Bush, 1847 wooden, single-span train shed. who rename the building • The Bristol factory of J.S. Fry’s first c. 1843, engraving by John Cooke Bush House. Fry & Sons on Union Street commercial Bourne. Right: View of Harbour produces “Chocolat Delicieux chocolate Docks with Bush House in the a Manger”, the first solid middle distance, c. 1835. Far right: bar Fry’s ‘Five Boys’ chocolate bar chocolate bar for mass advertisement consumption. 4 5 • Samuel Finley Breese “A great people invited Morse, with co-inventor all civilised nations to Alfred Vail, patented a simple dot-dash code and devices a festival, to bring into for encoding, transmitting, comparison the works receiving and decoding of human skill. The human readable text in 1840. organisation of this giant Morse’s code and single-wire enterprise; the inclusion telegraph system (running of every type of process along railway lines to minimise property-rights of manufacture; the negotiations) now reaches a successful appeal to all 20,000-mile network in the classes of the population; United States, and is adopted the stimulation of as standard across Europe – trade, will commend except Britain, which stays loyal to the home-grown this Exhibition to our needle telegraph system of ancestors, as it now William Cooke and Charles does to ourselves.” Wheatstone.