One of the most extraordinary pieces of machinery in the entire industrial age in my opinion – this is a Scrubber. The idea in our computer-dominated nano-technology world that the way to remove ammonia from gas is to scrub it with brushes underwater seems fantastic. But that’s what the machine does: gas is bubbled through water and scrubbed by slowly revolving brushes, and this is how town gas was cleaned throughout the whole of its life as a fuel supply. ibid.
200 years later Murdoch’s coal gas was readily available. It could be fed into an engine and ignited again and again and again. ibid.
Fifty years after William Murdoch first dreamed of steam on the roads another visionary, Walter Hancock, made it happen. ibid.
It was the clarity and precision of these beautifully carved letters that inspired Baskerville to change printing ... Baskerville set about designing new fonts based on stone-carving, and some of them are still in use today. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e4: Print & Paper
This work is close and detailed. Accuracy is paramount. Printers were called the aristocrats of labour. They were all highly literate. And served a long apprenticeship. And they were also correspondingly very well paid. ibid.
How to serve beer more quickly ... Bramah set himself the task of coming up with a solution to serve beer through a pipe to the bar: a beer engine ... The Bramah Press. Patented in 1795 it’s the same principle as the two syringes. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e5: Under Pressure
But Armstrong was going to use hydraulic power for something butcher than kitchen gadgets. Something that would give the ship-building industry quite a boost. And make him even more money. ibid.
The accumulator provides power at the turn of a valve. There’s no reason why it couldn’t provide power for lots of machinery. In fact, if you had a big enough accumulator and long enough pipes, you could provide power for a whole town or a city. And that’s what this company did – the London Hydraulic Power Company. ibid.
Cheap mass-produced bricks were used in their millions for workers’ houses in Stockport. And for roofs they could now get the best material available – slate from Wales. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e6: Building a Revolution
Michael Faraday, the father of electricity ... He conducted most of his experiments into magnetism and electricity here at the Royal Institution. And his practical demonstrations to a distinguished audience of fellow scientists and enthusiastic VIPs were the talk of the town. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e7: Bright Sparks
Armstrong, the Geordie genius, had with a combination of his power station and Swan’s lights pioneered the domestic use of electricity. ibid.
Another revolutionary discovery – the electric motor. Yet another breakthrough for the father of electricity. ibid.
This is mining country: tin and copper are found in this area, and have been worked here for over four thousand years. The Cornish coast is full of holes, hacked out of the granite by miners desperate to find metal ore. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e8: Heavy Metal
By the 1860s there were 340 mines across Cornwall; 50,000 people were working above and below the surface. ibid.
By the 1860s the Cornish mining boom was over. ibid.
Silk production is a slow laborious process. It originated in China 4,000 years ago. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s2e9: Cutting It Fine
But the simple punch-card went on to revolutionise much more than weaving. ibid.
Machine tools are the unsung heroes of the industrial revolution. Without them the spectacular feats of nineteenth century engineering would not have been possible. Mark Williams, More Industrial Revelations s2e10: Machine Tools
Britain built the first steam locomotive to deliver coal from its mines. They would have stayed purely as industrial machines if it hadn’t been for Robert Stephenson. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: The European Story s3e4: The Impossible Railway
This is the cutting made for Stephenson’s railway. At three and a half kilometres long and twelve metres deep it took forty barrel runs to take away the earth. At times 20,000 navvies were employed to build the line to Birmingham. ibid.
During the nineteenth century electricity went from being an obscure scientific curiosity to becoming the driving force of the modern world. Ironically, it was on the railways electricity found its first practical use. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations s3e6: The European Story: Generation Electric, Discovery 2005
The first threshing engine was invented in 1786 by a Scotsman Andrew Michael. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: Europe s4e1: Bread, Beer and Salt
Now in the 1880s they ditched the grindstones and water-mills and they replaced them with rollers and a turbine. ibid.
Without mass produced beer, bread and salt, workers would have starved and the industrial revolution would have ground to a halt. ibid.
During the industrial revolution there was an unprecedented demand for new buildings ... If the building industry was going to keep up with demand, brick-making would have to increase output dramatically. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations s4e2: Europe s4e2: Building Europe, Discovery 2006
By the 1760s they could use a Spinning Jenny: a glorified spinning wheel with several spindles: but even it couldn’t keep up with demand. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: Europe 4e4: Cotton, Linen and Rope
Arkwright built a series of mills across the north of England. This is Cromford: the first. His appetite for cotton was insatiable. ibid.
There is something about a bridge which is a bit special: these are among the biggest man-made structures in existence ... Tower Bridge: this is the most fairytale bridge in the world ... It’s really an iron bridge clad in stone, and that’s the secret. Rory McGrath, Industrial Revelations s5e3: Bridges
The biggest and most expensive Meccano set ever made: the iron bridge in Coalbrookdale ... The world’s very first iron bridge ... Darby’s bridge cost £6,000. ibid.
The revolutionary Menai Straits Bridge ... a radically new way to build bridges: this is the first time anyone had tried to suspend a big road from towers using metal cable: a suspension bridge. ibid.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge. Brunel wanted to build the biggest suspension bridge in the world spanning the greatest distance. An elegant bridge that seemed almost to float across the sky ... Brunel never ceases to amaze ... What Brunel called his Little Darling. ibid.
To a bridge whose stories begins with a disaster ... What was created was the greatest civil engineering project of the nineteenth century. A marvel of girder and rivet – the Forth Rail Bridge ... The biggest rail bridge in the world ... The art critic William Morris described this bridge as ‘the supremest specimen of all ugliness’. ibid.
An engineering leviathan ... the Humber Bridge. This bridge is over two kilometres long and is made up of 27,500 tons of steel and 480,000 tons of concrete ... Opened in 1981 ... Until recently the biggest in the world. ibid.
One of the great engineering marvels of the nineteenth century. One railway in particular enthralled the general public: the GWR or Great Western Railway. Soon to be known as God’s Wonderful Railway. And it was considered the crowning achievement of its young engineering chief: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Rory McGrath, Industrial Revelations s5e6: Transport Systems
The Underground: no-one had done it before ... In 1863 the world’s very first subterranean railway opening linking Farringdon to Paddington. ibid.
Soon an extraordinary canal network, the most extensive in the world, fanned out creating a new industrial Britain. ibid.
The golden age of canals was short-lived. By the mid-nineteenth century a new invention had revolutionised transport: the steam engine. ibid.
London Underground is 150 years old this year. The City would be unthinkable without it. The Tube: An Underground History, BBC 2013
Farringdon is prone to flooding. The track is built along the bed of a river. ibid.
The first underground lines were built just under the surface using a technique called Cut & Cover. ibid.
The Greathead Shield was the tunnelling machine pioneered by Brunel that made it possible to dig through the clay deep under London. ibid.
One other innovation drove this extraordinary expansion: Electricity. ibid.
I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities. Even the great engineer Mr James Watt said that I deserve hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. Richard Trevithick