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James Henry Greathead
James Henry Greathead (6 August 1844 – 21 October 1896) was a mechanical and civil engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railways, Winchester Cathedral, and Liverpool overhead railway, as well as being one of the earliest proponents of the English Channel, Irish Sea and Bristol Channel tunnels. His invention is also the reason that the London Underground is colloquially named the "Tube". Early life Greathead was born in Grahamstown, South Africa; of English descent whose grandfather had emigrated to South Africa in 1820. He was educated at St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown, and the Diocesan College private school in Cape Town. After emigrating to England in 1859, he completed his education from 1859 to 1863 at the Westbourne Collegiate School, Westbourne Grove. He returned briefly to South Africa before finally moving to London in 1864 to serve a three-year pupillage under the civil engineer Peter W. Barlow, from whom he became acquainted with the rect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grahamstown
Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Local Municipality, and the seat of the municipal council. It also hosts Rhodes University, the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, the South African Library for the Blind (SALB), a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and 6 South African Infantry Battalion. Furthermore, located approximately 3 km south-east of the town lies the world renowned Waterloo Farm, the only estuarine fossil site in the world from 360 million years ago with exceptional soft-tissue preservation. The town's name-change from Grahamstown to Makhanda was officially gazetted on 29 June 2018. The town was officially renamed to Makhanda in memory of Xhosa warrior and prophet Makhanda ka Nxele. History Founding Makhanda was founded as Graha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. The river rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea near Tilbury, Essex and Gravesend, Kent, via the Thames Estuary. From the west it flows through Oxford (where it is sometimes called the Isis), Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The Thames also drains the whole of Greater London. In August 2022, the source of the river moved five miles to beyond Somerford Keynes due to the heatwave in July 2022. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its long tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. Its tidal section includes most of its London stretch and has a rise and fall of . From Oxford to the Estuary the Thames drops by 55 metres. Running through some of the drier parts of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the modern area named London has since grown far beyond the City of London boundary. The City is now only a small part of the metropolis of Greater London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, the City of London is not one of the London boroughs, a status reserved for the other 32 districts (including Greater London's only other city, the City of Westminster). It is also a separate ceremonial county, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London, and is the smallest ceremonial county in the United Kingdom. The City of London is widely referred to simply as the City (differentiated from the phrase "the city of London" by c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Aspdin
Joseph Aspdin (25 December 1778 – 20 March 1855) was an English cement manufacturer who obtained the patent for Portland cement on 21 October 1824. Life Aspdin (or Aspden) was the eldest of the six children of Thomas Aspdin, a bricklayer living in the Hunslet district of Leeds, Yorkshire. He was baptised on Christmas Day, 1778. He entered his father's trade, and married Mary Fotherby at Leeds Parish Church (the Parish Church of St Peter at Leeds) on 21 May 1811.Leeds Parish Church, Marriage register, Page No 208, for 21 May 1811 By 1817, he had set up in business on his own in central Leeds. He must have experimented with cement manufacture during the next few years, because on 21 October 1824 he was granted the British Patent BP 5022 entitled ''An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone'', in which he coined the term "Portland cement" by analogy with the Portland stone, an oolitic limestone that is quarried on the channel coast of England, on the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Mair, Baron Mair
Robert James Mair, Baron Mair, (born 20 April 1950) is a geotechnical engineer and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and director of research at the University of Cambridge. He is Head of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC). He was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, from 2001 to 2011 and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, from 1998 to 2001. In 2014 he was elected a vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and on 1 November 2017 became the Institution's president for 2017–18, its 200th anniversary year. He was appointed an independent crossbencher in the House of Lords in 2015 and is currently a member of its Select Committee on Science and Technology. Education The son of William Austyn Mair, Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Cambridge (1952–1983), Mair was educated at St Faith's and The Leys School in Cambridge and went on to study Engineering at Clare Colleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Ely Beach
Alfred Ely Beach (September 1, 1826 – January 1, 1896) was an American inventor, publisher, and patent lawyer, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is most known for his design of New York City's earliest subway predecessor, the Beach Pneumatic Transit. A member of the Union League of New York, he also patented a typewriter for the blind and a system for heating water with solar power. Early years Beach was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and was the son of a prominent publisher, Moses Yale Beach. Alfred Beach worked for his father until he and a friend, Orson Desaix Munn, decided to buy ''Scientific American'', a relatively new publication. He also brought in the venture Salem Howe Wales, President of the New York City Department of Docks and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They ran ''Scientific American'' until their deaths decades later, and it was carried on by their sons and grandsons for decades more. Munn and Beach also established a very succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Isambard Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Born in France, Brunel fled to the United States during the French Revolution. In 1796, he was appointed Chief Engineer of New York City. He moved to London in 1799, where he married Sophia Kingdom. In addition to the construction of the Thames Tunnel, his work as a mechanical engineer included the design of machinery to automate the production of pulley blocks for the Royal Navy. Brunel preferred the given name Isambard, but is generally known to history as Marc to avoid confusion with his more famous son. Early life in France Brunel was the second son of Jean Charles Brunel and Marie-Victoire Lefebvre. Jean Charles was a prosperous farmer in Hacqueville, Normandy, and Marc was born on the family farm. It was customary for the first son to inhe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Baker (engineer)
Sir Benjamin Baker (31 March 1840 – 19 May 1907) was an eminent English civil engineer who worked in mid to late Victorian era. He helped develop the early underground railways in London with Sir John Fowler, but he is best known for his work on the Forth Bridge. He made many other notable contributions to civil engineering, including his work as an expert witness at the public inquiry into the Tay Rail Bridge disaster. Later, he helped design and build the first Aswan dam. Early life and career He was born in Keyford, which is now part of Frome, Somerset in 1840, the son of Benjamin Baker, principal assistant at Tondu Ironworks, and Sarah Hollis. There is a plaque on their house in Butts Hill. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School and, at the age of 16, became an apprentice at Messrs Price and Fox at the Neath Abbey Iron Works. After his apprenticeship he spent two years as an assistant to Mr. W.H. Wilson. Later, he became associated with Sir John Fowler in Lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet
Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, KCMG, LLD, FRSE (15 July 1817 – 20 November 1898) was an English civil engineer specialising in the construction of railways and railway infrastructure. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was engineer for the world's first underground railway, London's Metropolitan Railway, built by the " cut-and-cover" method under city streets. In the 1880s, he was chief engineer for the Forth Bridge, which opened in 1890. Fowler's was a long and eminent career, spanning most of the 19th century's railway expansion, and he was engineer, adviser or consultant to many British and foreign railway companies and governments. He was the youngest president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, between 1865 and 1867, and his major works represent a lasting legacy of Victorian engineering. Early life Fowler was born in Wadsley, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, to land surveyor John Fowler and his wife Elizabeth (née Swann). He was educated privately at Whitley Hall near Eccl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central London Railway
The Central London Railway (CLR), also known as the Twopenny Tube, was a deep-level, underground "tube" railwayA "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a cylindrical tunnel by the use of a tunnelling shield, usually deep below ground level. Contrast "cut and cover" tunnelling. that opened in London in 1900. The CLR's tunnels and stations form the central section of the London Underground's Central line. The railway company was established in 1889, funding for construction was obtained in 1895 through a syndicate of financiers and work took place from 1896 to 1900. When opened, the CLR served 13 stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for between its western terminus at Shepherd's Bush and its eastern terminus at the Bank of England, with a depot and power station to the north of the western terminus.Length of line calculated from distances given at After a rejected proposal to turn the line into a loop, it was extended at the western en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Douglas Fox
Sir Charles Douglas Fox (14 May 1840 – 13 November 1921) was an English civil engineer. Early life Douglas was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire, the oldest son of Sir Charles Fox and had two brothers and a sister. Sir Charles was a civil engineer and had designed, amongst other things, The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Douglas was educated at Cholmondeley School, also known as Highgate School, from 1851 to 1854 and King's College School from 1854 to 1855. He studied at King's College London from 1855 to 1857 and was to have studied further at Trinity College, Cambridge but the financial collapse of his father's contracting company in 1857 ended his education. Douglas was instead articled to his father who had set up an engineering consultancy, Sir Charles Fox and Sons. Douglas was a member of the Church of England and was active in the Church Mission Society as well as being the author of several academic papers. He married Mary Wright, daughter of Francis Wright and Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Line
The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, two southern branches and two northern branches. Despite its name, it does not serve the northernmost stations on the Underground, though it does serve the southernmost station at , the terminus of one of the two southern branches. The line's northern termini, all in the London Borough of Barnet, are at and ; is the terminus of a single-station branch line off the High Barnet branch. The two main northern branches run south to join at where two routes, one via in the West End and the other via in the City, continue to join at in Southwark. At Kennington, the line again divides into two branches, one to each of the southern termini at , in the borough of Merton, and in Wandsworth. For most of its length it is a deep tube line. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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