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Boulton And Watt
Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton and the Scottish engineer James Watt, the firm had a major role in the Industrial Revolution and grew to be a major producer of steam engines in the 19th century. The engine partnership The partnership was formed in 1775 to exploit Watt's patent for a steam engine with a separate condenser. This made much more efficient use of its fuel than the older Newcomen engine. Initially the business was based at the Soho Manufactory near Boulton's Soho House on the southern edge of the then-rural parish of Handsworth. However most of the components for their engines were made by others, for example the cylinders by John Wilkinson. In 1795, they began to make steam engines themselves at their Soho Foundry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newcomen Engine
The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is sometimes referred to as the Newcomen fire engine (see below) or Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam being drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum which allowed atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It is significant as the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work. Newcomen engines were used throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mining, mines. Hundreds were constructed during the 18th century. James Watt's Watt steam engine, later engine design was an improved version of the Newcomen engine that roughly doubled fuel efficiency. Many atmospheric engines were converted to the Watt design. As a result, Watt is today better known than Newcomen in relation to the origin of the steam engine. Precursors Prior to Newcomen a number of small steam devices of various sorts had been made, but most were es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Watt, Jr
James Watt, Jr., FRS (5 February 1769 – 2 June 1848) was a British engineer, businessman and activist. Early life He was born on 5 February 1769, the son of James Watt by his first wife Margaret Miller, and half-brother of Gregory Watt. He was educated at Winson Green near Birmingham, by the Rev. Henry Pickering. His father was unable to find a better school, though dissatisfied with his son's progress. At age 15 Watt spent a year at the Bersham Ironworks of John Wilkinson; and then went to Geneva. There he lodged with Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, and knew Marc-Auguste Pictet and Jean-André Deluc. Subsequently, he studied German in Eisenach. In Manchester In 1788 Watt returned to England and a position in the textile trade in Manchester. Initially he worked at Taylor & Maxwell, makers of fustian, where Charles Taylor was a partner. Watt worked there in the counting-house. He was then employed by the Manchester radical Thomas Walker, changing jobs just before the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Perrins
Isaac Perrins was an English bareknuckle prizefighter and 18th-century engineer. A man reputed to possess prodigious strength but a mild manner, he fought and lost one of the most notorious boxing matches of the era, a physically mismatched contest against the English Champion Tom Johnson. Such was the mismatch that Perrins was described as Hercules fighting a boy. During the period when he was prizefighting Perrins worked for Boulton and Watt, manufacturers of steam engines, based at their Soho Foundry, Birmingham, but also travelled around the country and at times acted as an informant on people who were thought to have breached his employer's patents. In the later years of his life he also ran a public house in Manchester and undertook engineering work on his own account. He was appointed to lead the Manchester fire brigade in 1799, and died a little over 12 months later in the performance of his duties. Early life There is little information regarding Issac Perrins' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Brunton
William Brunton Senior (26 May 1777 – 5 October 1851) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. Early life He was the eldest son of Robert Brunton, a watchmaker (14 Aug 1748–1834) of Dalkeith, where he was born. He studied mechanics in his father's watch and clock making shop, and engineering under his grandfather William Brunton (16 July 1706 – 22 March 1787), who was a colliery viewer in the neighborhood. (His grandfather's death certificate states that William Brunton was actually a portioner in Dalkeith, not a colliery viewer.) Career In 1790 Brunton began work in the fitting shops of the cotton mills at New Lanark. In 1796, he moved south to Birmingham, employed Boulton and Watt at the Soho Foundry. He became foreman and superintendent of the engine manufactory there. At age 21, he carried out onsite maintenance for clients. Leaving Soho. Brunton in 1808 joined the Butterley Works of Benjamin Outram and William Jessop. He met John Rennie, Thomas Telford and other emi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Ewart
Peter Ewart (14 May 1767 – 15 September 1842) was a British engineer who was influential in developing the technologies of turbines and theories of thermodynamics. Biography He was son of the Church of Scotland minister of Troqueer near Dumfries, and was one of eleven children. His brother Joseph Ewart became British ambassador to Prussia; John, a doctor, became Chief Inspector of East India Company hospitals in India; and William, father of William Ewart, was business partner of Sir John Gladstone, father of William Ewart Gladstone, whose godfather he was and whom he was named after. Following graduation from the University of Edinburgh, he was apprenticed to millwright John Rennie. His work with water wheels led him to work with Matthew Boulton and James Watt for whom by 1790 he was agent in Manchester. At the same time as acting as agent he was also trading on his own account as a millwright, enabling him to provide the complementary shafts, gears and other necessiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlotte Matthews
Charlotte Matthews (born Charlotte Marlar; 1759 – 9 January 1802) was a British businesswoman who was a member of Lloyd's of London and a banker. She was a close business associate of Boulton and Watt. Life Matthews was born in London as Charlotte Marlar, the daughter of Ann and John Marlar. Her father was a merchant and banker and she was baptised at All-Hallows-the-Great in London on 23 March 1759. She had an elder sibling and in time four more were born. There is no detail of her education but she was known to be literate. A John Marlar is surmised to have owned a book collection which included a book printed by Caxton in 1481. On 1 August 1776 she was at Monken Hadley where she married William Matthews. Her father died in 1791 and her husband followed in 1792. They had no children and she had become very involved with her husband's business before he died. She had obtained enough experience and training to continue to organise his business. The most notable of his custo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
W & T Avery Ltd
W, or w, is the twenty-third letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''double-u'',Pronounced in formal situations, but colloquially often , , or , with a silent ''l''. plural ''double-ues''. Name Double-u, whose name reflects stages in the letter's evolution when it was considered two of the same letter, a double U, is the only modern English letter whose name has more than one syllable.However, "Izzard" was formerly a two-syllable pronunciation of the letter Z. It is also the only English letter whose name is not pronounced with any of the sounds that the letter typically makes in words, with the exception of H (though not for all speakers, particularly in British English). Some speakers shorten the name "double u" into "dub-u" or just "dub"; for example, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington, University of Wyoming, University o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It shares Anglo-Scottish border, a land border with Scotland to the north and England–Wales border, another land border with Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, the largest city and the Capital city, capital. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic. It takes its name from the Angles (tribe), Angles, a Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe who settled du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smethwick
Smethwick () is an industrial town in the Sandwell district, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before being placed into West Midlands county. In 2019, the ward of Smethwick had an estimated population of 15,246, while the wider built-up area subdivision has a population of 53,653. History It was suggested that the name Smethwick meant "smiths' place of work", but a more recent interpretation has suggested the name means "the settlement on the smooth land". Smethwick was recorded in the Domesday Book as ''Smedeuuich'', the ''d'' in this spelling being the Anglo-Saxon letter eth. Until the end of the 18th century it was an outlying hamlet of the south Staffordshire village of Harborne. Harborne became part of the county borough of Birmingham and thus transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire in 1891, leaving Smethwick in the County of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soho Foundry
Soho Foundry is a factory created in 1795 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt and their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. at Smethwick, West Midlands, England (), for the manufacture of steam engines. Now owned by Avery Weigh-Tronix, it is used for the manufacture of weighing machines. The early history of the Soho Foundry is of pivotal importance both to the history of the Industrial Revolution and to the study of the development of management theory. The Soho Foundry stood out from other factories of the day in the sophistication of its planning, its production processes and its management techniques; practising concepts that would not become commonplace until a century later. Comparing its workings to the techniques of mass production and scientific management made famous by Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor in the United States in the early 20th century, the economist Eric Roll wrote "Neither Taylor, Ford nor any other modern experts dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wilkinson (industrialist)
John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson (1728 – 14 July 1808) was an English industrialist who pioneered the manufacture of cast iron and the use of cast-iron goods during the Industrial Revolution. He was the inventor of a precision boring machine that could bore cast iron cylinders, such as cannon barrels and piston cylinders used in the steam engines of James Watt. His boring machine has been called the first machine tool. He also developed a blowing device for blast furnaces that allowed higher temperatures, increasing their efficiency, and helped sponsor the first iron bridge in Coalbrookdale. He is notable for his method of cannon boring, his techniques at casting iron and his work with the government of France to establish a cannon foundry. Biography Early life John Wilkinson was born in Little Clifton, Bridgefoot, Cumberland (now part of Cumbria), the eldest son of Isaac Wilkinson and Mary Johnson. Isaac was then the potfounder at the blast furnace there, one of the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
