Matthew Boulton - Genius of Britain: A Roomful of Brilliant Minds TV - Science Britannica TV - Joseph Conrad - Ken Burns TV - Michael Wood TV - Lucy Worsley TV - Empires TV - Fred Dibnah TV - Mark Williams TV - Ronald Top TV - Rory McGrath TV - Dan Cruickshank TV - The Golden Age of Steam Railways TV - Richard Trevithick - Michael Mosley TV - Timeshift TV - Michael Bond - Jim Al-Khalili TV - Jeremy Black TV - The British TV - The Genius of Invention TV - Robert Tressell - Chris Tarrant TV - Genius of Britain TV - Ian Hislop’s Trains that Changed the World TV -
I sell here what the whole world desires – power. Matthew Boulton
‘The man who discovered how to power the world ... was James Watt, and his steam engine was to drive the industrial revolution.’ Genius of Britain II: A Roomful of Brilliant Minds, James Dyson, Channel 4 2012
The answer was to cool and condense the steam in a separate chamber outside the main cylinder. ibid.
Watt’s monsters throbbed day and night. ibid.
James Watt’s invention changed the world ... This was the start of the Industrial Revolution. ibid.
George Watt and George Stevenson harnessed steam power. Where Rutherford and Chadwick unravelled the architecture of the atom. Where Edward Jenner worked out the principles of vaccination ... Science Britannica III: Clear Blue Skies, BBC 2013
The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
At Pittsburgh two thousand liberated Union prisoners crowded on to the decks of the steamboat Sultana, gleeful to be on their way at last. Near Memphis a boiler exploded and she burst into flames. More than twelve hundred men died, still hundreds of miles from home. Ken Burns, The Civil War: The Better Angels of our Nature, PBS 1990
The steam engine – invented in England in the early eighteenth century and perfected by James Watt. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 7/8: Industry & Empire, BBC 2012
Steam power is one of history’s great leaps forward. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 3/3, BBC 2011
Britain had pioneered the age of Steam. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire I: Engines of Change, PBS 2001
They had pioneered the age of steam. They made more than half the world’s industrial goods, and three-quarters the world’s trade was carried in British ships. But despite this success Victoria’s cities were pits of poverty and deprivation. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire III: The Moral Crusade
I remember getting into the mill and lifting up a dust sheet to have a look at the engine they’d got under it. I found there was this beautiful British racing green steam engine under there with all the brasses left on. The boilers were still there and there was plenty of grease on everything, all ready and waiting for the next job. It was a bit sad really to see it standing there idle like that. Fred Dibnah
112,096. From his earliest years Fred Dibnah, the Bolton steeplejack, hero-worshipped the men who worked up factory chimneys. He loved the cotton industry, the mills and the steam engines, the noise, the smoke and the pride. Fred Dibnah, A Year With Fred s1e1: Monuments of the Dark Ages, BBC 1987
‘Everybody’s like trying to rip everybody else off.’ ibid. Fred
Fred has spent much of his life with steam engines. The restoration of this roller from a wreck took 14 years of resolute work in which he pressed on through domestic upheavals and public outcry. ibid.
These characters down here you know they’ll like live in the romantic world of long ago. This steam engine business is really a form of escapism. And it’s like little lads who never grew up. I can’t complain. ’Cause I’m one meself. It’s like an excuse to dress yourself up with a red neckerchief on and a flat cap. Really they’re like romantics trying to escape from modern life in a way. You know. But I think if you really could go back to Victorian times it weren’t that romantic. Fred Dibnah, Life with Fred e1: Part of the Dales on Film, BBC 1994
Nice and tranquil I suppose ... [laughs and glances at punts on river] ... I much prefer a steamboat meself. It’s very nice here in Cambridge. I like it very much. It strikes me as it’s a quite a laid-back existence here being an academic or a student. I can’t say that the life would have suited me, you know. I prefer more of a practical approach to life. ibid. Fred
Men like Brunel. Who built the first steam ships. ibid.
This 1912 Aveling and Porter steamroller which has taken him fourteen years to build. The Fred Dibnah Story e1: Beginnings, 1996
Steeplejacking is a bit of a spasmodic job. So you can play with your steam engine instead. It’s a bit like being very rich. You can just have a day off when you like. ibid.
Cockerill’s design was a straight steal which took the rollers from the Arkwright Water Frame and the clasp and carriage from the Spinning Jenny. He was the first man to successfully make a spinning machine that spun short-fibred wool ... He called it The Mule. ibid.
By 1813 William Cockerill’s manufacturing empire employed fifty blacksmiths and fifteen hundred wool workers. ibid.
By 1830 Cockerill was the largest integrated company in the whole of Europe. Maybe even the world. ibid.
I work in the shed sometimes to one o’clock in the morning. The Fred Dibnah Story e2: A Sort of Fame
Apart from his work on the chimneys and spires Fred Dibnah has devoted his life to steam. Over a period of 20 years he rebuilt one steam engine and got well on the way with another … The workshop now had the capacity to restore whole fleets of steam engines. The Fred Dibnah Story s3: Departures
For Alison the pleasure of steam rallies was beginning to wear thin. ibid.
Abandoned by his wife and daughters, Fred Dibnah the Bolton steeplejack passed the long and lonely evenings in his newly completed steam workshop. The Fred Dibnah Story s4: Alone
Looking back on it, Fred Dibnah the Bolton steeplejack reckoned the time after his divorce the worst in his life. Fred Dibnah Story e5: Alone: A Reformed Character
And then Sue arrived, a social worker … ‘He was going to Halifax to talk to the Fred Dibnah Appreciation Society.’ The Fred Dibnah Story, Sue
They married and in 1987 their first son was born. ibid.
If you only do a half hour in the shed, it’s a little bit nearer ... A bit of shouting off Susie, you know. The Fred Dibhah Story s6: Approaching Sixty
Fred expanded the collection of ancient industrial tackle in his workshop. ibid.
This really is the latest masterpiece in weather-cock manufacturing. They get bigger and better every time, you know, and of course the price goes up. We’re got these up to now about £2,000. Putting the chimneys aside I could go on making these till I’m 95. ibid.
Why I’ve created all this lot here in me back garden – It’s part of a vain attempt to hang on to childhood memories I suppose. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e1: Wind, Water and Steam, BBC 1999
Engines in steam – there used to be loads of engines like this where I come from. Every coal mine and every spinning wheel had one. But alas they’ve all gone now. ibid.
Up until the 18th century all we had were these things – watermills and windmills. And then this came along … this beautiful little steam train. ibid.
The very first steam engines weren’t very smooth either. ibid.
The beam engine became the work-horse of the industrial revolution. ibid.
When we’ve finished with the boiler we always have to blow it down: this is to get rid of the sediment which forms in the bottom. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e2: Mills & Factories
Arkwright built himself a factory in Derbyshire powered by water to house these machines. And he is really regarded as the father of the factory system. ibid.
It were really coal and iron that started the industrial revolution. Iron to make the boilers similar to this one, and coal of course to burn in them to make the steam to drive all the machinery. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e3: Iron & Steel
National Railway Museum in York: The world’s greatest collection of locomotives … Stephenson’s Rocket: that’s the original inside the museum. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s5: Railways
It was Robert Stephenson’s father George who is credited as being the father of the railways. ibid.
At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign they were already building some fairly large and substantial steam engines, and it were about this period when they built the first iron ships. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s6: Ship & Engineering
The first steam-powered iron ship was the SS Great Britain. ibid.