Science and invention in Birmingham
Encyclopedia
Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 is one of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

's principal industrial centres and has a history of industrial and scientific innovation. It was once known as 'city of a thousand trades' and in 1791, Arthur Young (the writer and commentator on British economic life) described Birmingham as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Right up until the mid-19th century Birmingham was regarded as the prime industrial urban town in Britain and perhaps the world, the town's rivals were more specific in their trade bases. Mills
Mills
Mills is the plural form of mill, but may also refer to:*Mills , a common family name of English or Gaelic origin*Mills , a fictional British secret agent created by Manning O'Brine*Another name for the board game Nine Men's Morris...

 and foundries across the world were helped along by the advances in steam power and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 which were taking place in the city. The town offered a vast array of industries and was the world’s leading manufacturer of metal ware, although this was by no means the only trade flourishing in the town.

The Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

 was powered by Birmingham's ingenuity and has been described by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 newspaper as a city which created the Industrial Revolution.

In the year 2000, of the 4,000 inventions copyrighted in the UK, 2,800 came from within a 35-mile radius of Birmingham. Peter Colegate of the Patent Office
Patent office
A patent office is a governmental or intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of patents. In other words, "patent offices are government bodies that may grant a patent or reject the patent application based on whether or not the application fulfils the requirements for...

 stated that "Every year, Birmingham amazes us by coming up with thousands of inventions. It is impossible to explain but people in the area seem to have a remarkable ability to come up with, and have the dedication to produce, ideas."

While the time line of industry and innovation listed below is extensive, it is by no means a comprehensive list of Birmingham's industrial and scientific achievements, more a guide to highlight the great diversity in the city's industrial might which can still be seen today.

18th century

1722: Richard Baddeley, Ironmonger patents a method for "casting wheel streaks and box irons".

1727: Birmingham is becoming a hot-bed of creative activity and local businessman and bookseller Thomas Warren
Thomas Warren
Thomas Warren was an English bookseller, printer, publisher and businessman.Warren was an influential figure in Birmingham at a time when it was a hotbed of creative activity, opening a bookshop in High Street, Birmingham around 1727...

 opens a bookshop in the Birmingham's High Street. Warren is an influential figure in Birmingham at this time.

1732: The Birmingham Journal
Birmingham Journal (eighteenth century)
The Birmingham Journal was the first newspaper known to have been published in Birmingham, England. Little is known of it as few records remain, but a single copy survives in Birmingham Central Library: Number 28, dated Monday May 21, 1733...

 is founded and published from Thomas Warren's book store. This is possibly Birmingham's first weekly Newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 and has a very notable contributor 'Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

' of near-by Lichfield
Lichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...

.

1733: Thomas Warren edits and publishes Samuel Johnson's first original writing - a translation of Jerónimo Lobo
Jerónimo Lobo
Jerónimo Lobo was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.He was born in Lisbon the third of at least five sons and six daughters to Francisco Lobo da Gama, the Governor of Cape Verde, and Dona Maria Brandão de Vasconcelos. He entered the Order of Jesus at the age of 14...

’s Voyage to Abyssinia. Johnson, works for the Journal while he lodges with Warren. Johnson later moves on to greater things and James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....

 writes of Johnson's life: "After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....

 was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship." The Dictionary brings Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

 150 years later, Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

1738: Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill.-Life and work:Lewis Paul was of Huguenot descent. His father was physician to Lord Shaftesbury...

 and John Wyatt
John Wyatt (inventor)
John Wyatt , an English inventor, was born near Lichfield and was related to Sarah Ford, Doctor Johnson's mother. A carpenter by trade he began work in Birmingham on the development of a spinning machine...

, of Birmingham, patent the Roller Spinning machine
Spinning wheel
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...

 and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travel at different speeds. This principle later becomes the basis of Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright
Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...

's water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...

.

1741: John Wyatt
John Wyatt (inventor)
John Wyatt , an English inventor, was born near Lichfield and was related to Sarah Ford, Doctor Johnson's mother. A carpenter by trade he began work in Birmingham on the development of a spinning machine...

, mechanic and inventor, designs and constructs a cart-weighing machine, later referred to as a Compound Lever
Compound lever
The compound lever is a simple machine operating on the premise that the resistance from one lever in a system of levers will act as power for the next, and thus the applied force will be amplified from one lever to the next . Almost all scales use some sort of compound lever to work...

 Weighing machine, the design works by way of levers which hold in place a platform, no matter where the weight is placed the load is transferred to a central lever. Weights attached to that lever then help in obtaining a reading of accurate weight. The simplicity, efficiency and accuracy of the weighing machine proves extremely popular across England, subsequently weighing errors are reduced to approximately one pound per ton, this remains a high standard of measurement into the mid-19th century.

1741: The Upper Priory Cotton Mill
Upper Priory Cotton Mill
The Upper Priory Cotton Mill, opened in Birmingham, England in the summer of 1741, was the world's first cotton mill. Established by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt in a former warehouse in the Upper Priory, near Paul's house in Old Square, it used the roller spinning machinery that they had developed...

 opens as the world's first mechanised cotton-spinning factory
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....

. It is financed by local businessman Thomas Warren
Thomas Warren
Thomas Warren was an English bookseller, printer, publisher and businessman.Warren was an influential figure in Birmingham at a time when it was a hotbed of creative activity, opening a bookshop in High Street, Birmingham around 1727...

, and opened by John Wyatt and Lewis Paul.

1742: John Baskerville
John Baskerville
John Baskerville was an English businessman, in areas including japanning and papier-mâché, but he is best remembered as a printer and typographer.-Life:...

 takes out a patent for making metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

 mouldings
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...

, rolling, grinding and japanning
Japanning
Japanning describes the European imitation of Asian lacquerwork, originally used on furniture. The word originated in the 17th century.- Japanned :Japanned is most often a heavy black lacquer, almost like enamel paint...

 metal plates by use of weights, rollers and pickling, which Baskerville uses over the more traditional method of employing screws. This is the first patent for making metal mouldings by passing them through rolls of a certain profile.

1743: A factory opens in Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...

, fifty spindles turned on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines proving more successful than their first Mill this operates until 1764.

1746, The Colmore family release land on what is later to be known as the Jewellery Quarter
Jewellery Quarter
The Jewellery Quarter is an area of Birmingham City Centre, England, situated in the south of the Hockley area. It is covered by the Ladywood district. There is a population of around 3,000 people in a area....

 to help satisfy the demands of an increasing population.

1746: A Sulphuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...

 factory is set up at Steelhouse Lane to use the lead chamber process
Lead chamber process
The lead chamber process was an industrial method used to produce sulfuric acid in large quantities. It has been largely supplanted by the contact process....

 invented by its co-founder John Roebuck
John Roebuck
This article is about the English inventor. For the 19th century British politician, see John Arthur Roebuck.John Roebuck FRS was an English inventor who played an important role in the Industrial Revolution and who is known for developing the industrial-scale manufacture of sulfuric acid.-Life...

, Roebuck and local businessman Samuel Garbett later relocate to Prestonpans
Prestonpans
Prestonpans is a small town to the east of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the unitary council area of East Lothian. It has a population of 7,153 . It is the site of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans, and has a history dating back to the 11th century...

 in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, taking with them several skilled men from the Birmingham factory, it is here in 1762 where Roebuck takes out a patent for making malleable iron
Malleable iron
Malleable iron is cast as White iron, the structure being a metastable carbide in a pearlitic matrix. Through an annealing heat treatment the brittle as cast structure is transformed. Carbon agglomerates into small roughly speherical aggregates of graphite leaving a matrix of ferrite or pearlite...

.

1748: Lewis Paul invents the hand driven carding
Carding
Carding is a mechanical process that breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres so that they are more or less parallel with each other. The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool...

 machine. A coat of wire slips are placed around a card which is then wrapped around a cylinder. Lewis's invention is later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry.- Early life :Samuel Crompton was born at 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire to George and Betty Crompton . Samuel had two younger sisters...

, although this comes about under great suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn's factory in Leominster
Leominster
Leominster is a market town in Herefordshire, England, located approximately north of the city of Hereford and south of Ludlow, at...

 which specifically uses Paul and Wyatt's spindles. Bourn produces a similar patent in the same year.

1757: Rev John Dyer of Northampton recognises the importance of the Paul and Wyatt cotton spinning machine in poem:

"A circular machine, of new design
In conic shape: it draws and spins a thread
Without the tedious toil of needless hands.
A wheel invisible, beneath the floor,
To ev'ry member of th' harmonius frame,
Gives necessary motion. One intent
O'erlooks the work; the carded wool, he says,
So smoothly lapped around those cylinders,
Which gently turning, yield it to yon cirue
Of upright spindles, which with rapid whirl
Spin out in long extenet an even twine."


1757: Baskerville serif
Baskerville
Baskerville is a transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, positioned between the old style typefaces of William Caslon, and the modern styles of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot.The...

 typeface is designed by John Baskerville
John Baskerville
John Baskerville was an English businessman, in areas including japanning and papier-mâché, but he is best remembered as a printer and typographer.-Life:...

 (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, positioned between the old style typefaces of William Caslon
Caslon
Caslon refers to a number of serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I , and various revivals thereof.Caslon shares the irregularity characteristic of Dutch Baroque types. It is characterized by short ascenders and descenders, bracketed serifs, moderately-high contrast, robust texture, and...

, and the modern styles of Giambattista Bodoni
Bodoni
-Cold Type versions:As it had been a standard type for many years, Bodoni was widely available in cold type. Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Harris, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper, Hell AG, Monotype, all sold the face under the name ‘’Bodoni, while Graphic...

 and Firmin Didot
Didot
Didot is the name of a family of French printers, punch-cutters and publishers. Through its achievements and advancements in printing, publishing and typography, the family has lent its name to typographic measurements developed by François-Ambroise Didot and the Didot typeface developed by Firmin...

.

1758: Paul and Wyatt improve their Roller Spinning machine and take out a second patent. Richard Arkwright later uses this as the model for his water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...

.

1758: Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

 first travels to Birmingham "to improve and increase Acquaintance among Persons of Influence", and leter returns in 1760 to conduct experiments with Boulton on electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

. Franklin remains a common link among many of the early Lunar Society members.

1759: A patent is granted to Thomas Blockley (locksmith), for rolling iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 into different forms and making (metal) wheel tyres.

1762: Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...

 opens the Soho Foundry
Soho Foundry
Soho Foundry was a factory created in 1795 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt at Smethwick, West Midlands, England , for the manufacture of steam engines.-History:...

 engineering works, Handsworth; his partnership with Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 engineer James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

 makes the steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

 into the power plant for the Industrial Revolution. The term "horsepower
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

" is coined by Watt.

1765: The Lunar Society begins life as a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment
Midlands Enlightenment
The Midlands Enlightenment, also known as the West Midlands Enlightenment or the Birmingham Enlightenment, was a cultural manifestation of the Age of Enlightenment that developed in Birmingham and the wider English Midlands during the second half of the eighteenth century.At the core of the...

, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who meet regularly until 1813 in Birmingham. A paper read at the Science Museum in London in 1963 claims that "of all the provincial philosophical societies it was the most important, perhaps because it was not merely provincial. All the world came to Soho to meet Boulton, Watt or Small, who were acquainted with the leading men of Science throughout Europe and America." The Midlands Enlightenment dominates the
experience of the Enlightenment within England and its leading thinkers have international influence. In particular it forms a pivotal link between the earlier Scientific Revolution
Scientific revolution
The Scientific Revolution is an era associated primarily with the 16th and 17th centuries during which new ideas and knowledge in physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry transformed medieval and ancient views of nature and laid the foundations for modern science...

 and the later Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, facilitating the exchange of ideas between experimental science, polite culture and practical technology that enables the technological preconditions for rapid economic growth to be attained.

1767 A number of prominent Birmingham businessmen, including Matthew Boulton and others from the Lunar Society, hold a public meeting in the White Swan, High Street, to consider the possibility of building a canal from Birmingham to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a narrow navigable canal in the English Midlands, passing through the counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire....

 near Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

, taking in the coalfields of the Black Country
Black Country
The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton. During the industrial revolution in the 19th century this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation...

. They commission the canal engineer
Canal engineer
A canal engineer is a civil engineer responsible for planning related to the construction of a canal.The names of canal engineers include:* James Brindley* James Dadford* John Dadford* Thomas Dadford* Thomas Dadford, Jr....

 James Brindley
James Brindley
James Brindley was an English engineer. He was born in Tunstead, Derbyshire, and lived much of his life in Leek, Staffordshire, becoming one of the most notable engineers of the 18th century.-Early life:...

 to propose a route. Brindley comes back with a largely level route via Smethwick
Smethwick
Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....

, Oldbury
Oldbury, West Midlands
Oldbury is a town in the West Midlands in England. It is a part of the Black Country and the administrative centre of the borough of Sandwell.-Local government:...

, Tipton
Tipton
Tipton is a town in the Sandwell borough of the West Midlands, England, with a population of around 47,000. Tipton is located about halfway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is a part of the Black Country....

, Bilston
Bilston
Bilston is a town in the English county of West Midlands, situated in the southeastern corner of the City of Wolverhampton. Three wards of Wolverhampton City Council cover the town: Bilston East and Bilston North, which almost entirely comprise parts of the historic Borough of Bilston, and...

 and Wolverhampton to Aldersley. This kick starts what is to become the Birmingham Canal Navigations
Birmingham Canal Navigations
Birmingham Canal Navigations is a network of navigable canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country...

.

1770: James Watt applies the first screw propeller to an early steam engine at his Birmingham works, thus beginning the use of an hydrodynamic screw for propulsion.

1775: Ketley's Building Society
Ketley's Building Society
Ketley's Building Society, founded in Birmingham, England in 1775, was the world's first building society.The society was formed by Richard Ketley, the landlord at the "Golden Cross" inn at 60 Snow Hill...

 is founded and becomes the world's first building society
Building society
A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially mortgage lending. These institutions are found in the United Kingdom and several other countries.The term "building society"...

. Midland Bank
Midland Bank
Midland Bank Plc was one of the Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birmingham, England in August 1836...

 (now owned by HSBC
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. it is the world's second-largest banking and financial services group and second-largest public company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine...

) and Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank Plc was a British retail bank which operated in England and Wales from 1765 until its merger into Lloyds TSB in 1995; it remains a registered company but is currently dormant. It expanded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and took over a number of smaller banking companies...

 are also founded in Birmingham.

1777: Boulton and Watt build 'Old Bess
Old Bess (beam engine)
Old Bess is an early beam engine built by the partnership of Boulton and Watt. The engine was constructed in 1777 and worked until 1848.The engine is most obviously known simply for being an early example of an engine built by Boulton and Watt...

', as described by the London science museum
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....

s 'an engine that stands at a crossroads in history'.

1779: James Keir
James Keir
James Keir FRS was a Scottish chemist, geologist, industrialist, and inventor, and an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham.- Life and work :...

 takes out a patent for a compound metal which is capable of being forged
Forging
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it is performed: '"cold," "warm," or "hot" forging. Forged parts can range in weight from less than a kilogram to 580 metric tons...

 when hot or cold more fit for the making of bolts, nails, and sheathing for ships prior to anything before. This metal uses the same compounds and similar quantities of metals as the patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 of Muntz metal
Muntz metal
Muntz metal is a form of alpha-beta brass with about 60% copper, 40% zinc and a trace of iron. It is named after George Fredrick Muntz, a metal-roller of Birmingham, England who commercialised the alloy following his patent of 1832....

 which appear at the same time.

1779: Matthew Wasbrough designs and builds the Pickard Engine (first crank engine) for James Pickard
James Pickard
James Pickard was an English inventor. He modified the Newcomen engine in a manner that it could deliver a rotary motion. His solution, which he patented in 1780, involved the combined use of a crank and a flywheel....

 of Snow Hill
Snowhill
Snowhill is a mixed-use development by Ballymore between Snow Hill Queensway and Birmingham Snow Hill station in Birmingham City Centre, England. The £500 million phased scheme has been partly completed on the site of a former surface car park adjacent to the railway station. As part of the...

, this is defined as 'the first atmospheric engine in the world to directly achieve rotary motion by the use of a crank
Crank (mechanism)
A crank is an arm attached at right angles to a rotating shaft by which reciprocating motion is imparted to or received from the shaft. It is used to change circular into reciprocating motion, or reciprocating into circular motion. The arm may be a bent portion of the shaft, or a separate arm...

 and flywheel
Flywheel
A flywheel is a rotating mechanical device that is used to store rotational energy. Flywheels have a significant moment of inertia, and thus resist changes in rotational speed. The amount of energy stored in a flywheel is proportional to the square of its rotational speed...

.' http://www.btinternet.com/~historical.engines/pickard.htm

1779: James Watt patents a copying press or 'letter copying machine' to deal with the mass of paper work at his business; he also invents an ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...

 to work with it. This is the first widely used copy machine for offices and is a commercial success, being used for over a century. This letter copying press is considered to be the original photocopier
Photocopier
A photocopier is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat...

.

1781 James Watt markets his rotary-motion
Rotation around a fixed axis
Rotation around a fixed axis is a special case of rotational motion. The fixed axis hypothesis exclude the possibility of a moving axis, and cannot describe such phenomena as wobbling or precession. According to Euler's rotation theorem, simultaneous rotation around more than one axis at the same...

 steam engine. The earlier steam engine's vertical movement was ideal for operating water pump
Water Pump
Water Pump is one of the neighbourhoods of Gulberg Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It is near main Water Pump that supplies fresh water to the city of Karachi....

s but the new engine
Engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines burn a fuel to create heat which is then used to create motion...

 can be adapted to drive all sorts of machinery. Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright
Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...

 pioneers its use in his cotton mills and within 15 years there are 500+ Boulton & Watt steam engines in British factories and mines. Boulton also arranges, in 1775, an Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 extending the term of Watt's 1769 patent to 1799.

1784: James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

, refers to a two-speed transmission in patent No.1432, which relates to steam carriages: The concept of changing speed (or a variable velocity) in gearing which could arguably be the seed of thought for all subsequent gearing systems.

"Motion [from a steam engine] is communicated to the axle-tree of one or more wheels of the carriage by means of the "circulating rotative to machinery" formerly patented by the inventor. Two or more loose wheels of different diameters are placed to be locked on the axle and impart extra power for bad roads or steep ascents."

1785: William Withering
William Withering
William Withering was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and the discoverer of digitalis.-Introduction:...

 publishes An Account of the Foxglove
Digitalis purpurea
Digitalis purpurea , is a flowering plant in the family Plantaginaceae , native to most of Europe.-Description:...

 and some of its Medical Uses
, pioneering its use as a cardiac
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

 drug, Digitalis
Digitalis
Digitalis is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and biennials that are commonly called foxgloves. This genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, but recent reviews of phylogenetic research have placed it in the much enlarged family...

.

1785: James Watt and William Murdoch
William Murdoch
William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

 invent the oscillating cylinder
Oscillating cylinder
Also known as a "Wobbler" in USA and possibly other countries.An oscillating cylinder steam engine is a simple arrangement which does not require valves to direct steam into and out of the cylinder...

 and double action engine
Double-acting cylinder
A double-acting cylinder in a reciprocating engine is a cylinder in which the working fluid acts alternately on both sides of the piston. This is in contrast to a single-acting cylinder, in which the working fluid acts in one direction only....

. Around this time James Watt creates a governor and throttle
Throttle
A throttle is the mechanism by which the flow of a fluid is managed by constriction or obstruction. An engine's power can be increased or decreased by the restriction of inlet gases , but usually decreased. The term throttle has come to refer, informally and incorrectly, to any mechanism by which...

 valve
Valve
A valve is a device that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically pipe fittings, but are usually discussed as a separate category...

 for automatically regulating the supply of steam
Steam
Steam is the technical term for water vapor, the gaseous phase of water, which is formed when water boils. In common language it is often used to refer to the visible mist of water droplets formed as this water vapor condenses in the presence of cooler air...

 to an engine
Engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines burn a fuel to create heat which is then used to create motion...

 although no patents for this are taken out by Watt.

1788: Boulton and Watt build the rotative steam engine
Reciprocating engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...

 also known as a piston engine, an improved steam engine whose smooth reciprocating action enable it to drive a variety of rotary machinery.

1790: W. Richardson publishes "The Chemical Principles of the Metallic Arts: designed chiefly for the use of Manufacturers" which is used to help with diseases associated with the metal working industry.

1794: Ralph Heaton patents a steam powered machine for mass producing button
Button
In modern clothing and fashion design, a button is a small fastener, most commonly made of plastic, but also frequently of seashell, which secures two pieces of fabric together. In archaeology, a button can be a significant artifact. In the applied arts and in craft, a button can be an example of...

 shanks. This is one of the earliest forms of mechanical mass production and steam powered machine tool operation.

Around this time William Futrell (a well known Birmingham pugilist) becomes publisher of possibly the first British boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 paper.

1797: Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...

 erects at Soho a complete coining
Coining (mint)
In minting, coining is the process of manufacturing coins using a kind of stamping which is now generically known in metalworking as "coining".A coin die is one of the two metallic pieces that are used to strike one side of a coin...

 plant with which he strikes coins for the Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

 and East India
East India
East India is a region of India consisting of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. The states of Orissa and West Bengal share some cultural and linguistic characteristics with Bangladesh and with the state of Assam. Together with Bangladesh, West Bengal formed the...

 companies and for Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, and produces a new copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....

age for Britain. Also in 1797, he takes out a British patent in connection with raising water on the principle of the hydraulic ram
Hydraulic ram
A hydraulic ram, or hydram, is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It functions as a hydraulic transformer that takes in water at one "hydraulic head" and flow-rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic-head and lower flow-rate...

 although one of a similar nature appears in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 at around the same time.

1799: The first Bellcrank engine is patented by William Murdoch
William Murdoch
William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

 while working for Boulton and Watt. It is the first compact, self contained engine.

Among the products Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...

 seeks to make in his new facility are sterling
Sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925....

 silver plate for those able to afford it, and Sheffield plate
Sheffield plate
Sheffield plate is a layered combination of silver and copper that was used for many years to produce a wide range of household articles. These included buttons, caddy spoons, serving utensils, candlesticks and other lighting devices, tea and coffee services, serving dishes and trays, tankards and...

, silver-plated copper, for those less well off. Boulton and his father make small silver items throughout the 18th century, and there are no record of large items in either silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 or Sheffield plate being made in Birmingham before Boulton does so. To make items such as candlestick
Candlestick
A candlestick, chamberstick, or candelabrum is a holder for one or more candles, used for illumination, rituals, or decorative purposes. The name 'candlestick' derives from the fact that it is usually tall and stick-shaped.Candlesticks are also called candle holders...

s more cheaply than the London competition, the firm makes many items out of thin, die-stamped sections, which are shaped and joined together.
One impediment to Boulton's work is the lack of an assay office
Assay office
Assay offices are institutions set up to assay precious metals, in order to protect consumers. Upon successful completion of an assay, Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals, in order to protect consumers. Upon successful completion of an assay, Assay...

 in Birmingham. The silver toys long made by the family firm are generally too light to require assaying, but silver plate has to be sent over 70 miles (110 km) to the nearest assay office, at Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

, to be assayed and hallmark
Hallmark
A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of precious metals — platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium...

ed, with the attendant risks of damage and loss. Alternatively they can be sent to London, but this exposes them to the risk of being copied by competitors. Boulton writes in 1771, "I am very desirous of becoming a great silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...

, yet I am determined not to take up that branch in the large way I intended, unless powers can be obtained to have a marking hall [assay office] at Birmingham."

Boulton petitions Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...

 for the establishment of an assay office in Birmingham. Though the petition is bitterly opposed by London goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...

s, he is successful in getting Parliament to pass an act establishing assay offices in Birmingham and Sheffield, whose silversmiths face similar difficulties in transporting their wares. The act is passed in March 1773, to allow Birmingham and Sheffield the right to assay silver.

1773: The Birmingham Assay Office
Birmingham Assay Office
The Birmingham Assay Office is one of the four remaining assay offices in the United Kingdom.The development of a silver industry in 18th century Birmingham was hampered by the legal requirement that items of solid silver be assayed, and the nearest Assay Offices were in Chester and London...

 opens on 31 August and the town becomes a leading manufacturer of all types of silver ware spanning three centuries. The Assay office can still be visited today by appointment and is situated near to the city's well renowned Jewellery Quarter
Jewellery Quarter
The Jewellery Quarter is an area of Birmingham City Centre, England, situated in the south of the Hockley area. It is covered by the Ladywood district. There is a population of around 3,000 people in a area....

.

1793: A gentleman of the name of Hand" in Birmingham, obtains a patent for preparing flexible leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

 having a glaze
Glaze
Glaze or glazing is a thin shiny coating, or the act of applying the coating; it may refer to:In materials or engineering:* Architectural glass, a building material typically used as transparent glazing material in the building envelope...

 and polish
Polishing
Polishing is the process of creating a smooth and shiny surface by rubbing it or using a chemical action, leaving a surface with a significant specular reflection In some materials polishing is also able to reduce diffuse reflection to...

 that renders it impervious to water and need only be wiped with a sponge to restore it to its original luster. This is later recognised as patent leather
Patent leather
Patent leather is a type of japanned leather that has been given a high gloss, shiny finish. The process was brought to the United States and improved by Newark-based inventor Seth Boyden in 1818, with commercial manufacture beginning September 20, 1819. Boyden's process, which he never patented,...

 and is further improved by other inventors.

At some time around the late 18th or early 19th century a stand-alone cooking range or stove
Stove
A stove is an enclosed heated space. The term is commonly taken to mean an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated or to heat the stove itself, and items placed on it...

 is invented by John Heard (joiner), capable of roasting, boiling, baking and of course heating a room. The products of combustion are carried off by means of a flue leading to the chimney, the inventor mentions it is particularly suitable for use on board ships. This is possibly the first of its kind, as earlier stoves such as the Franklin stove
Franklin stove
The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace named after its inventor, Benjamin Franklin. It was invented in 1741.L.W. Labaree, W. Bell, W.B. Willcox, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , vol. 2, page 419...

 do not appear to have flues attached and require a hearth and chimney to function, also it is not until the turn of the 19th century that other stoves begin appearing to cook in as well as heat a room.

19th century

1802: the exterior of the Soho Foundry
Soho Foundry
Soho Foundry was a factory created in 1795 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt at Smethwick, West Midlands, England , for the manufacture of steam engines.-History:...

 is lit with gas lighting
Gas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...

 by William Murdoch
William Murdoch
William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

. Murdoch, its developer, worked for Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...

 and James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

 at Soho. This becomes the basis for Birmingham's immense Gas Industry which incorporates many products and trades that rely on Gas to work.

1811: Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

 takes out a patent for propelling vessels by steam, via a paddle wheel
Paddle wheel
A paddle wheel is a waterwheel in which a number of scoops are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several usages.* Very low lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about height above the water source....

 fixed in the middle of the stern and steered by two fins to alleviate leggers from the arduous duty of pushing boats through canal tunnels.

1814: Thomas Dobbs (actor) invents a reaping machine which consists of a circular saw or sickle, the grain is drawn or fed up to the saw by means of a pair of rollers, this predates William Bell's straw cutting machine.

1821: Emanuel Heaton, gun finisher, takes out a patent for a water tight pan for gun locks.

1823: Francis Deakin improves a method of stringing the Piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 by employing the screw and nut as opposed to the previously used wooden peg, thus allowing a greater tension and strength of wire.

1824: American inventor William Church patents a printing machine in his Birmingham works which positions the paper sheets more accurately. He is a prolific inventor, taking out numerous patents for methods of button making, nail making, metal working, smelting iron, spinning and other branches of engineering.

1824: John Cadbury
John Cadbury
John Cadbury was proprietor of a small chocolate business in Birmingham, England, that later became part of Cadbury plc, one of the world's largest chocolate producers.-Biography:...

 begins selling tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

, coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, and drinking chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

, which he produces himself, at Bull Street. He later moves into the production of a variety of cocoa
Cocoa
Cocoa bean is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted...

 and drinking chocolates, made in a factory in Bridge Street and sold mainly to the wealthy because of the high cost of production. John Cadbury becomes a partner with his brother Benjamin and the company they form is called 'Cadbury Brothers of Birmingham'.

The brothers open an office in London and in 1854 they receive the Royal Warrant
Royal Warrant
Royal warrants of appointment have been issued for centuries to those who supply goods or services to a royal court or certain royal personages. The warrant enables the supplier to advertise the fact that they supply to the royal family, so lending prestige to the supplier...

 as manufacturers of chocolate and cocoa to Queen Victoria. In the 1850s the industry receives a much needed boost, with the reduction in the high import taxes on cocoa, allowing chocolate to be more affordable to everybody. Cadbury's later becomes one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world and is still in production across the world today with a major production plant in Bournville
Bournville
Bournville is a model village on the south side of Birmingham, England, best known for its connections with the Cadbury family and chocolate – including a dark chocolate bar branded "Bournville". It is also a ward within the council constituency of Selly Oak and home to the Bournville Centre...

.

1828: Josiah Mason
Josiah Mason
Sir Josiah Mason was an English pen-manufacturer.Mason was born in Mill Street, Kidderminster, the son of a carpet-weaver. He began life as a street hawker of cakes, fruits and vegetables. After trying his hand in his native town at shoemaking, baking, carpentering, blacksmithing, house-painting...

 improves a cheap, efficient slip-in nib
Nib (pen)
A nib is the part of a quill, dip pen or fountain pen which comes into contact with the writing surface in order to deposit ink. Different types of nibs vary in their purpose, shape and size, as well as the material they are made from.-Quill:...

 which can be added to a fountain pen
Fountain pen
A fountain pen is a nib pen that, unlike its predecessor the dip pen, contains an internal reservoir of water-based liquid ink. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits it on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action...

.

1830: With the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott
Joseph Gillott
Joseph Gillott was an English pen-maker and patron of the arts.- Pen manufacturing :For some time he was a working cutler in his home town Sheffield, but in 1821 he moved to Birmingham, where he found employment in the steel toy trade, the technical name for the manufacture of steel buckles,...

, William Mitchell
William Mitchell
-People:* W. O. Mitchell , Canadian writer* William A. Mitchell , corporate chemist responsible for Tang and Pop Rocks* William B. Mitchell , former Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court...

and James Stephen Perry devise a way to mass manufacture robust, cheap steel pen nibs. This boosts the Birmingham pen trade
Birmingham pen trade
The Birmingham pen trade evolved in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter and its surrounding area in the 19th century; for many years, the city was the centre of the world's pen trade.-19th century:...

 and by the 1850s, Birmingham exists as a world centre for steel pen and steel nib manufacture; more than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world are made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen and -women are employed in the industry. Many new manufacturing techniques are perfected, enabling the city's factories to mass produce their pens cheaply and efficiently. These are sold worldwide to many who previously cannot afford to write, thus encouraging the development of education and literacy.

1830s: Thomas Ridgway
Thomas Ridgway
Thomas Ridgway was an English trader who specialised in the import and sale of tea during the early 19th century.His first shop was in the Bull Ring area of Birmingham; this went bankrupt, and he moved to London. The new business, The Tea Establishment of King William Street, London, imported tea,...

 begins trading in the Bull Ring
Bull ring
Bull ring may refer to:*The arena in which bullfighting takes place, see bullring,*The Bull Ring, a henge in England;*Bull Ring, Birmingham - a city-centre area of Birmingham, England;...

, selling tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

. Ridgway later goes bankrupt. Setting up business in London, he pays back all of his creditors and continues his tea trade, becoming one of the first English tea companies to hygienically prepack tea so as to avoid adulteration. In 1876, Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

 commands House of Ridgways to create a blend for her own personal use.

1832: Muntz metal
Muntz metal
Muntz metal is a form of alpha-beta brass with about 60% copper, 40% zinc and a trace of iron. It is named after George Fredrick Muntz, a metal-roller of Birmingham, England who commercialised the alloy following his patent of 1832....

 is patented, an alpha-beta brass with about 40% zinc and 60% copper. Its original use is as a replacement for the copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 lining placed on the bottom of boats as it maintains the anti-fouling abilities of the pure form.

It costs around two-thirds that of pure copper and has identical properties for this application, it becomes the material of choice and Muntz makes his fortune. A notable use of Muntz Metal is in the hull of the Cutty Sark
Cutty Sark
The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. Built in 1869, she served as a merchant vessel , and then as a training ship until being put on public display in 1954...

.

1832: William Chance, owner of a Birmingham iron merchants, invests in his brothers failing glass works in nearby Smethwick
Smethwick
Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....

. After saving the company, this partnership later becomes the Chance Brothers. The company relies on local workers, and at one stage is known as "... the greatest glass manufacturer in Britain" taking advantage of the Birmingham Canal Navigations and the Industrial Revolution in the region. Great advances in glass manufacture take place such as perfection of the earliest optical lenses to block the harmful ultra violet rays of the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 and improvements in lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 illumination. The company is responsible for glazing the original Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

 to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Houses of Parliament, (built 1840–1860). At that time it is the only firm that is able to make the opal glass for the four faces of the Westminster Clock Tower which houses the famous bell, Big Ben. The ornamental windows for the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 in America are also made at Chances.

1832: A form of German Silver
Nickel silver
Nickel silver, also known as German silver, Argentann, new silver, nickel brass, albata,, or alpacca, is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. Nickel silver is named for its silvery appearance, but it contains no elemental silver...

 is invented by Charles Askins
Charles Askins
Charles Askins, Jr. , also known as Col. Charles "Boots" Askins, was an American lawman, US Army officer, and writer. He served in law enforcement in the American Southwest prior to the Second World War...

, this is used to make spoons and cutlery
Cutlery
Cutlery refers to any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in the Western world. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. This is probably the...

 specifically in the Birmingham area.

1837: Bird's Custard is first formulated and cooked by Alfred Bird
Alfred Bird
Alfred Bird was a British food manufacturer and chemist. He was born in Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, England in 1811 was the inventor of a series of food products mostly now taken for granted...

, because his wife is allergic
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...

 to eggs
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. Bird's custard powder later becomes famous around the world.

1838: Charles Green patents an original and unique method of producing solid, seamless brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

 and copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 tubes, around this time much development takes place in Birmingham and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 with regards to copper tubing and printing plates.

1839: Sir Edward Thomason improves the gun lock by making the cock detachable by the thumb and finger as well as making improvements to prevent misfires.

George Elkington
George Elkington
George Richards Elkington was a manufacturer from Birmingham, England. He patented the first commercial electroplating process.Elkington was born in Birmingham, the son of a spectacle manufacturer...

 and Henry Elkington found the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 electroplating
Electroplating
Electroplating is a plating process in which metal ions in a solution are moved by an electric field to coat an electrode. The process uses electrical current to reduce cations of a desired material from a solution and coat a conductive object with a thin layer of the material, such as a metal...

 industry in the early 19th century. In 1840, they aid John Wright
John Wright (inventor)
John Wright was a surgeon from Birmingham, England who invented a process of electroplating involving potassium cyanide. The process was patented in 1840 by Wright's associate George Richards Elkington....

, who discovers that potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is an inorganic compound with the formula KCN. This colorless crystalline compound, similar in appearance to sugar, is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include jewelry for chemical gilding and...

 is a suitable electrolyte
Electrolyte
In chemistry, an electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive. The most typical electrolyte is an ionic solution, but molten electrolytes and solid electrolytes are also possible....

 for gold and silver electroplating.

Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens was a German born engineer who for most of his life worked in Britain and later became a British subject.-Biography:...

 has several meetings with George Elkington, and makes speeches on 'Science and Industry,' to the Birmingham and Midland Institute
Birmingham and Midland Institute
The Birmingham and Midland Institute , now on Margaret Street in the city centre of Birmingham, England was a pioneer of adult scientific and technical education and today offers Arts and Science lectures, exhibitions and concerts. It is a registered charity...

, he later sets up a works in Birmingham and carries out experiments on metals and telegraphy
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

.

1845: During the late 1830s, canal steam boats begin operating with limited success but in 1845, Birmingham engineer John Inshaw
John Inshaw
John Inshaw was a mechanic and inventor who lived in Aston, now a district of Birmingham, England. Inshaw designed and built machinery for the railway and shipping industries and constructed a steam carriage. He was consulted by George Stephenson on the design of wheels for steam locomotives...

 builds the first twin-screw canal steamers. Inshaw finds great success through his engineering and in 1859 the owners of the Ashby Canal, ban his steamer "Pioneer" claiming it erodes the canal banks. It is later allowed to run no faster than 4 mph, thus begins speed limits on British waterways
British Waterways
British Waterways is a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom, serving as the navigation authority in England, Scotland and Wales for the vast majority of the canals as well as a number of rivers and docks...

. Inshaw's "Pioneer" is successful and later inspires other steam boats such as those built for the Grand Junction Canal
Grand Junction Canal
The Grand Junction Canal is a canal in England from Braunston in Northamptonshire to the River Thames at Brentford, with a number of branches. The mainline was built between 1793 and 1805, to improve the route from the Midlands to London, by-passing the upper reaches of the River Thames near Oxford...

. Inshaw is also consulted by George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...

 on the design of wheels for steam locomotives.

1847: William Stroudley
William Stroudley
William Stroudley was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers of the nineteenth century, working principally for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway...

 joins Birmingham engineer John Inshaw
John Inshaw
John Inshaw was a mechanic and inventor who lived in Aston, now a district of Birmingham, England. Inshaw designed and built machinery for the railway and shipping industries and constructed a steam carriage. He was consulted by George Stephenson on the design of wheels for steam locomotives...

 as one of his most successful pupils. Stroudley later becomes one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers of the nineteenth century, working principally for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its apex, practically the whole coastline of Sussex as its base, and a large part of Surrey...

 (LB&SCR). He designs some of the most famous and longest-lived steam locomotives of his era.

Birmingham glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

works are among the early mass-producers of uranium glass
Uranium glass
Uranium glass is glass which has had uranium, usually in oxide diuranate form, added to a glass mix before melting. The proportion usually varies from trace levels to about 2% by weight uranium, although some 19th-century pieces were made with up to 25% uranium.Uranium glass was once made into...

. Manufacturers include Bacchus, Green & Green (later George Bacchus & Sons
George Bacchus & Sons
George Bacchus & Sons, originally called Bacchus & Green was a 19th century manufacturer of fine glassware located in Birmingham.In the 1830s Bacchus produced pressed glass by using a plunger to force molten glass into a cast-iron mold...

), Union Glassworks, in the 1840s, and Lloyd & Summerfield in the 1850s who are the first to use uranium in glass commercially.

1849: William Tranter
William Tranter
William Tranter was a British gunmaker and gun designer famous for inventing the Tranter Revolver.-His youth and early career:Born in Oldbury in Worcestershire, William Tranter was the eldest son of a blacksmith...

 takes out the first of many patents for his improvements in manufacture of the firearm
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...

.

The use of weather charts in a modern sense begin in the middle portion of the 19th century. Weather map pioneers include William Charles Redfield, William Reid, Elias Loomis, and Birmingham's Sir Francis Galton, who creates the first weather maps
History of surface weather analysis
The history of surface weather analysis concerns the timetable of developments related to surface weather analysis. Initially a tool of study for the behavior of storms, surface weather analyses became a work in progress to explain current weather and as an aid for short term weather forecasting...

 in order to devise a theory on storm systems.

Galton formulates (and later coins the term for) eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

 as well as questionnaire
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...

s and many important tools in statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

. Galton avidly supported the theories of his cousin Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

, and also furtherS the most important advances in fingerprinting.

1851: John Nettlefold, screw manufacturer, attends the Paris exhibition. He later buys exclusive rights to use Thomas Sloan
Thomas Sloan
Thomas Henry Sloan was an Irish and British politician and founder of the Independent Orange Order. He represented the Belfast South constituency as an Independent Unionist at the Westminster parliament from 1902 to 1910....

’s machine for making screws which is in the show. With adaptation of the machine for their Birmingham premises and inspiration of Birmingham mass production methods, Nettlefold & Chamberlain become Britain’s leading screw-making firm.

1854: Birmingham chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 Thomas Allcock
Thomas Allcock
Thomas Allcock was the inventor of a plaster for pain relief and the founder of the Allcock Manufacturing Company.-Early life:Allcock was born and educated in Birmingham, England. A age 15 he studied and practiced chemistry. Alcock emigrated to the United States in 1845, settled in New York and...

 invents the porous plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...

 for the relief of pain in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 after fighting as a General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 for the New York Heavy Artillery during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 after emmigrating in 1845 aged 20.

1857: Joseph Sturge buys the Elberton Sugar Estate and converts it into a lime production plant. The Montserrat
Montserrat
Montserrat is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately long and wide, giving of coastline...

 Co. Ltd. is formed in Edgbaston by J.& E. Sturge. Lime juice is produced in the city and then exported for use in the manufacture of citric acid
Citric acid
Citric acid is a weak organic acid. It is a natural preservative/conservative and is also used to add an acidic, or sour, taste to foods and soft drinks...

. The failure of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

's lemon crop at this time results in an opening in the market which Sturge takes great advantage of utilizing their extensive chemical works
Works
Works may refer to:* An author's or artist's body of work of art* Engineering structures, projects, and so on, including:** Earthworks , created through moving soil or unformed rock...

 based in Edgbaston. He also tries to prove that
free labour can be made profitable (the Sturge family are instrumental in the anti-slavery movement). A company is set up by the Sturge and Albright families who fund the development of Montserrat estates in 1867.

1858: After several failed attempts of launching the SS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the...

 steam ship, Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

 turns to Richard Tangye
Richard Tangye
Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.-Biography:...

's more powerful hydraulic rams which are successfully employed in the launch.

Richard Tangye's company then acquires the patent of the differential pulley-block in 1859, and in 1862 he invents the Tangye Patent Hydraulic Jack. This results in the 1862 purchase and demolition of Soho-located Smethwick Hall, on the site of which is built the Cornwall Works. In
1867 the patent for a new type of Direct-acting Steam Pump is acquired, in 1869 Tangye Ltd is commissioned to design the hydraulic systems for the UK's first funicular
Funicular
A funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...

 cliff railway in Scarborough, North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

 and in 1870 the company commences the manufacture of steam engines. Richard Tangye and his brother George found the Birmingham Art Gallery in 1885, which today has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history. They also found the Birmingham School of Art
Birmingham School of Art
The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, its Grade I listed building on...

.

1859: The first ever game of lawn tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 is played in Edgbaston
Edgbaston
Edgbaston is an area in the city of Birmingham in England. It is also a formal district, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Edgbaston ward and the wards of Bartley Green, Harborne and Quinton....

, international tennis is still played at Edgbaston's Priory Club.

The first celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid is the name of a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, plus dyes and other agents. Generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1862 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is...

 as a bulk material for forming objects is invented in 1856 by Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic.-Biography:...

. Many years later, and with the recognition of celluloid as a format for making photographic film, an American court declares Parkes as the true inventor of celluloid.

1862: the thermoplastic
Thermoplastic
Thermoplastic, also known as a thermosoftening plastic, is a polymer that turns to a liquid when heated and freezes to a very glassy state when cooled sufficiently...

 Parkesine
Parkesine
Parkesine is the trademark for the first man-made plastic. It was patented by Alexander Parkes in 1856. In 1866 Parkes formed the Parkesine Company to mass produce the material. The company, however, failed due to poor product quality as Parkes tried to reduce costs...

 is showcased at the Great International Exhibition
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Invented by Alexander Parkes, this celluloid is credited by the London Science Museum to be "generally accepted as the first plastic". (This presumably refers to synthetic plastic formed into objects: it is predated by the 1848 collodion
Collodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types; flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible cellulose film...

, a nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to nitric acid or another powerful nitrating agent. When used as a propellant or low-order explosive, it is also known as guncotton...

-based solution that dries to a celluloid-like film but is useless for industrial purposes, (as well as several natural plastics).

1862: James Moore Clements of Livery Street who has already invented an improved machine for making buttonhole
Buttonhole
Buttonholes are holes in fabric which allow buttons to pass through, securing one piece of the fabric to another. The raw edges of a buttonhole are usually finished with stitching. This may be done either by hand or by a sewing machine. Some forms of button, such as a Mandarin button, use a loop...

s is granted a patent for a new arrangement of 'stitching the hole'.

1863: William Sumner (founder of Typhoo) publishes "A Popular Treatise on Tea". In 1870, Sumner starts a pharmacy/grocery business on the High Street, Birmingham. This grows and forces Sumner to move to new premises on Castle Street and then on to Bordesley Street at the canalside. Typhoo tea later becomes one of the largest teabag makers in Britain. The brand is now based in Wirral
Wirral
Wirral may refer to:* Wirral Peninsula, a peninsula in the northwest of England, between the rivers Dee and Mersey* Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, occupying the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula...

.

1865: The steel wire, some 16,000 miles long, for sheathing the first successful Transatlantic telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...

 is made by Webster and Horsfall, Birmingham. http://www.websterandhorsfall.co.uk/history.htm http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Article/WireRope/wirerope.htm

1865: Joseph Hinks
Joseph Hinks
Joseph Hinks was a British inventor, working in Birmingham. He patented improvements to oil lamps, marketing the resultant Duplex lamp.Brother of James Hinks he took over his company, James Hinks & Son, of 91-96 Great Hampton Street and 66 Hockley Street, Birmingham in 1839, patenting a duplex...

 sets up James Hinks & Son, of 91-96 Great Hampton Street and 66 Hockley Street. He patents improvements to oil lamps, marketing the resultant Duplex Lamp which is later used across the world and becomes a popular choice for railway workers.

1868: C.H. Gould patents a British stapler
Stapler
A stapler is a mechanical device that joins sheets of paper or similar material by driving a thin metal staple through the sheets and folding the ends. Staplers are widely used in government, business, offices, and schools....

 although it remains unclear as to how unique this is from U.S. patents of the same age.

1868: John Barnes Linnett
John Barnes Linnett
John Barnes Linnett was a lithograph printer based in Birmingham, England. Although the French Pierre-Hubert Desvignes is generally credited with being the inventor of the flip book, Linnett was the first to patent the invention, in 1868, under the name of kineograph. Linnett died of pneumonia. His...

 patents the world's first Flip book
Flip book
A flip book or flick book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be...

.

1873: William Westley Richards
William Westley Richards
William Westley Richards was a British firearms manufacturer.Richards was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England to Theophilus Richards and Mary Bingham....

 gunmakers takes out its first of many patents relating to the firearm, for which gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...

s and royal warrant
Royal Warrant
Royal warrants of appointment have been issued for centuries to those who supply goods or services to a royal court or certain royal personages. The warrant enables the supplier to advertise the fact that they supply to the royal family, so lending prestige to the supplier...

s, were awarded.

1875: Joseph Lucas
Joseph Lucas
Joseph Lucas was a lamp manufacturer and the founder of Lucas Industries.-Career:Born in Carver Street, Hockley, Birmingham, in Birmingham's famous Jewellery Quarter and educated at a local Church Sunday School, Joseph Lucas was apprenticed to H. & G.R...

 begins making lamps
Lantern
A lantern is a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as 'torches', or as general light sources outdoors . Low light level varieties are used for decoration. The term "lantern" is also used more generically to...

 for ships lamps for ships concentrating on the new types of lamp burning paraffin
Paraffin
In chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...

 and petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

 for which there is considerable demand. The business becomes Lucas Industries.

1876: William Bown patents a design for the wheels of roller skates
Roller skating
Roller skating is the traveling on smooth surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreation as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates generally come in two basic varieties: quad roller skates and inline skates or blades, though some have experimented with a...

 which embody his effort to keep the two bearing
Bearing (mechanical)
A bearing is a device to allow constrained relative motion between two or more parts, typically rotation or linear movement. Bearings may be classified broadly according to the motions they allow and according to their principle of operation as well as by the directions of applied loads they can...

 surfaces of an axle
Axle
An axle is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to its surroundings, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle...

, fixed and moving, apart. Bown works closely with Joseph Henry Hughes who draws up the patent for a ball or roller bearing race for bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

 and carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...

 wheels which includes all the elements of an adjustable system in 1877.

1878: Joseph Hudson
Joseph Hudson (inventor)
Joseph Hudson was an inventor in Birmingham, England during the late 19th century andthe founder of J Hudson & Co in 1870, later to become the world largest whistle manufacturer ....

 makes the first whistle
Whistle
A whistle or call is a simple aerophone, an instrument which produces sound from a stream of forced air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means...

 ever to be used by a football referee. It is used for the first time at a game held at Nottingham Forest, this replaces the referees use of the handkerchief to attract footballers attention. Later, in 1883 Hudson invents and manufactures the first police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 whistle
Whistle
A whistle or call is a simple aerophone, an instrument which produces sound from a stream of forced air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means...

 for the Metropolitan police force, prior to this police use hand rattles, whistles are usually used as musical instruments or toys. His whistle is still used by the force and many others today. In 1884 Hudson invents the world's most successful whistle to date, the 'Acme Thunderer' (the first ever pea whistle). The whistle is used as an alarm or attention instrument by all manor of industries, sports and revelers. It continues to sell in great quantities throughout the world.

1880: Gamgee Tissue
Gamgee Tissue
Gamgee Tissue is a surgical dressing invented by Dr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee in Birmingham, England, in 1880.Gamgee Tissue has a thick layer of absorbent cotton wool between two layers of absorbent gauze. It represents the first use of cotton wool in a medical context, and was a major advancement in...

 is invented by Joseph Sampson Gamgee, a surgical dressing which has a thick layer of absorbent cotton wool between two layers of absorbent gauze. It represents the first use of cotton wool in a medical context, and is a major advancement in the prevention of infection of surgical wounds. It is still the basis for many modern surgical dressings. Gamgee also invents the Aseptic technique
Aseptic technique
Aseptic technique refers to a procedure that is performed under sterile conditions. This includes medical and laboratory techniques, such as with microbiological cultures. It includes techniques like flame sterilization...

 which refers to a procedure that is performed under sterile conditions. This includes medical and laboratory techniques, such as with microbiological cultures. It includes techniques like flame sterilization. The largest example of aseptic techniques is in hospital operating theatres. J.R.R. Tolken later bases Lord Of The Rings character 'Sam Gamgee' on this character as they live near to Mr Gamgee.

Richard Bissell Prosser
Richard Bissell Prosser
Richard Bissell Prosser was a patent examiner and a biographical writer. He was the eldest son of Richard Prosser, the Birmingham, England, engineer and inventor. R. B...

 writes 58 lives for the Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...

, and supplies much material for the New English Dictionary. Prosser also writes Birmingham Inventors and Inventions, 1881 and is a pioneer of the study of technical history, his published biographies and manuscript records are an incomparable source for present-day researchers. He is heavily involved with the introduction of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, and his 700-volume library, combined with that of Bennet Woodcroft
Bennet Woodcroft
Bennet Woodcroft FRS was an English textile manufacturer, industrial archaeologist, pioneer of marine propulsion, a leading figure in patent reform and the first clerk to the commissioners of patents.-Career:...

 forms the basis of the Patent Office Library.

1879: Harry Lucas designs a hub lamp
Bicycle lighting
Bicycle lighting improves the visibility of the bicycle rider to others in dark conditions, i.e. to increase the rider's conspicuity and to enhance the ability of the rider to see, illuminating the way forward. Both reflectors and active lights are used to make the rider more visible, and many ...

 for use in a high bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

 and names the oil lamp "King of the Road".

1881: Birmingham businessman John Skirrow Wright
John Skirrow Wright
John Skirrow Wright was one of the prominent pioneers and social improvers of the 19th century in Birmingham, England. He was involved in many aspects of Birmingham's mid-Victorian life that were for the benefit of its citizens including the General Hospital, the Chamber of Commerce, The School of...

 invents the Postal Order and its use subsequently spreads across the world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....

. Skirrow becomes one of the prominent pioneers and social improvers of the 19th century.

John Richard Dedicoat
John Richard Dedicoat
John Richard Dedicoat was the inventor of the bicycle bell. Apprenticed to James Watt, he went on to become a bicycle manufacturer and made and sold the "Pegasus" bicycle....

 invents a bicycle bell
Bicycle bell
A bicycle bell is a bell mounted on a bicycle for warning pedestrians and other cyclists. They are a required piece of equipment is some jurisdictions. They usually mounted on the handlebars and thumb activated...

, his patents for bicycle bells appear as early as 1877. Apprenticed to James Watt, Dedicoat goes on to become a bicycle manufacturer and makes and sells the "Pegasus" bicycle.

1883: surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...

 and gynaecologist, Lawson Tait (pioneer of several surgical procedures), carries out the world's first successful operation on a ruptured ectopic pregnancy
Ectopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication...

.

1884: John Berry Haycraft
John Berry Haycraft
John Berry Haycraft was a professor in physiology and carried out important medical research.Haycraft was born in London, England in 1875 and received his medical education in Edinburgh. He worked for a time in Ludwig's laboratory in Leipzig....

 has been actively engaged in research and published papers on the coagulation
Coagulation
Coagulation is a complex process by which blood forms clots. It is an important part of hemostasis, the cessation of blood loss from a damaged vessel, wherein a damaged blood vessel wall is covered by a platelet and fibrin-containing clot to stop bleeding and begin repair of the damaged vessel...

 of blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....

 and in 1884, he discovers that the leech
Leech
Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways...

 secrets a powerful anticoagulant
Anticoagulant
An anticoagulant is a substance that prevents coagulation of blood. A group of pharmaceuticals called anticoagulants can be used in vivo as a medication for thrombotic disorders. Some anticoagulants are used in medical equipment, such as test tubes, blood transfusion bags, and renal dialysis...

, which he names hirudin
Hirudin
Hirudin is a naturally occurring peptide in the salivary glands of medicinal leeches that has a blood anticoagulant property...

.

1885: Birmingham School of Art
Birmingham School of Art
The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, its Grade I listed building on...

 becomes the first Municipal School of Art. It later becomes the leading centre for the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

.

1885: The world's first professional football league is founded at a meeting in Aston
Aston
Aston is an area of the City of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Lying to the north-east of the Birmingham city centre, Aston constitutes an electoral ward within the council constituency of Ladywood.-History:...

 under the auspices of William McGregor, a director of Aston Villa.

1889: Charles Pinkney of Tangyes
Richard Tangye
Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.-Biography:...

 perfects a gas engine
Gas engine
A gas engine means an engine running on a gas, such as coal gas, producer gas biogas, landfill gas, or natural gas. In the UK, the term is unambiguous...

, this comes about through is experimentation with a Hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....

 Gas
Gas
Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...

 Producer and a Bituminous Coal gas
Coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...

 Generator
Electrical generator
In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow...

. The engine proves to be more economical that an earlier ‘Four-stroke cycle Otto
Four-stroke cycle
A four-stroke engine, also known as four-cycle, is an internal combustion engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes—intake, compression, power, and exhaust—during two separate revolutions of the engine's crankshaft, and one single thermodynamic cycle.There are two...

’ engine.

1891: The Dunlop Rubber Company co-founded by John Boyd Dunlop
John Boyd Dunlop
John Boyd Dunlop was a Scottish inventor. He was one of the founders of the rubber company that bore his name, Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company....

 established its Birmingham factory Fort Dunlop
Fort Dunlop
Fort Dunlop , is the common name of the original tyre factory and main office of Dunlop Rubber in the Erdington district of Birmingham, England. It was established in 1917, and by 1954 the entire factory area employed 10,000 workers...

, later to become the focus of Dunlop as one of the largest multinational manufacturers of automotive and aeronautical tyres.

1894: Richard Norris, a doctor of medicine and professor of physiology at Queen's College, Birmingham, brings out a new patent of dry plate
Dry plate
Dry plate, also known as gelatin process, is an improved type of photographic plate. It was invented by Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871, and by 1879 it was so well introduced that the first dry plate factory had been established...

 used in photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 and is generally credited with the first development of collodion
Collodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types; flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible cellulose film...

 dry plate in the 1860s.

1895: Frederick William Lanchester and his brother build the first petrol driven four-wheeled car
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 in Britain. Lanchester also experiments with the wick carburetor
Carburetor
A carburetor , carburettor, or carburetter is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine. It is sometimes shortened to carb in North America and the United Kingdom....

, fuel injection
Fuel injection
Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....

, turbochargers and invents the accelerator pedal and first uses the Pendulum Governor for controlling the speed of a car engine. In 1893 he designs and builds his first engine (a vertical single cylinder) which is fitted to the first British motorboat
Motorboat
A motorboat is a boat which is powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit.An inboard/outboard contains a hybrid of a...

.
1895: Herbert Austin
Herbert Austin
Herbert 'Pa' Austin, 1st Baron Austin KBE was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company.-Background and early life:...

, an employee at Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company, becomes interested in engines and automobiles. During the winter of 1895–96 he makes his own version of a design by Léon Bollée
Léon Bollée
Léon Bollée was a French automobile manufacturer and inventor.-Life:Bollée's family were well known bellfounders and his father, Amédée Bollée , was the major pioneer in the automobile industry who produced several steam cars...

 that he has seen in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Later he finds that another British group have bought the rights, therefore Austin has to come up with a design of his own.

Two years later, the second Wolseley
Wolseley Motor Company
The Wolseley Motor Company was a British automobile manufacturer founded in 1901. After 1935 it was incorporated into larger companies but the Wolseley name remained as an upmarket marque until 1975.-History:...

 car is revealed. It is a three-wheeled design featuring independent rear suspension, mid-engine and back to back seating for two adults. Four years later the Wolseley Gasoline Carriage is built featuring a steering wheel instead of a tiller. Austin manages the new Wolseley company for a short time before resigning to form his own concern, the Austin Motor Company
Austin Motor Company
The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...

, in 1905. Wolseley later becomes a successful car and engine maker selling upmarket cars, and even opens a lavish showroom, Wolseley House, in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...

 London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 (next to the Ritz Hotel, now housing a restaurant called The Wolseley). The company is later merged in other motor car companies.

1896: The first radiograph
Radiography
Radiography is the use of X-rays to view a non-uniformly composed material such as the human body. By using the physical properties of the ray an image can be developed which displays areas of different density and composition....

 used to assist in surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

 is taken in Birmingham by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 pioneer of medical X-Ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

s, Major John Hall-Edwards
John Hall-Edwards
John Francis Hall-Edwards was a pioneer in the medical use of X-rays in the United Kingdom. He took the first radiograph to direct a surgical operation, on 14 February 1896. Hall-Edwards' interest in X-rays cost him his left arm, which had to be amputated in 1908 as a consequence of X-ray...

 thus kick-starting a whole new field of medical science.

1896: A new building is built in Corporation Street
Corporation Street, Birmingham
Corporation Street is a main shopping street in Birmingham city centre, England.It runs from the law courts at its northern end to the centre of New Street at its southern.- Planning :...

 to house James Henry Cook's vegetarian restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

, one of the first in England. In 1898, 'The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel
The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel
The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel was a vegetarian hotel that opened in 1898 in the County Buildings , Corporation Street, Birmingham, England, as an expansion of a vegetarian restaurant on the same site. The manager was James Henry Cook. According to his daughter, Kathleen Keleny, it was named after Sir...

', named after the famous vegetarian Sir Isaac Pitman, opens on the same site, and the proprietors subsequently open a long-running health food store
Health food store
A health food store is a type of grocery store that primarily sells health food, organic foods, local produce, and often nutritional supplements...

.

1896: The first 'public' trial in Birmingham of a "horseless carriage" or motor car taks place at Cannon Hill Park
Cannon Hill Park
Cannon Hill Park is a park located in south Birmingham, England. It is the most popular park in the city, covering consisting of formal, conservation, woodland and sports areas...

.

1897: John Benjamin Stone
John Benjamin Stone
Sir John Benjamin Stone , known as Benjamin, was a British Conservative politician, and noted photographer.Stone was born in Aston, Birmingham the son of a local glass manufacturer...

 founds the National Photographic Record Association, of which he becomes president. The National Portrait Gallery holds 62 of his portraits and many photographs of people and places in and around Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

. His career culminates in 1911 with his appointment as official photographer to the coronation
Coronation
A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

 of King George V. Stone travels widely in pursuit of his hobby, taking 26,000 photographs, and writing books as he travels. He publishes works and invaluable records of the folk customs and traditions of the British Isles, which later influence photographers of note, such as Tony Ray-Jones
Tony Ray-Jones
Tony Ray-Jones was an English photographer.Born Holroyd Anthony Ray-Jones, he was the youngest son of Raymond Ray-Jones , a painter and etcher who died when his son was only eight months old, and Effie Irene Pearce, who would work as a physiotherapist...

.

1897: The Reynolds Tube Company
Reynolds Cycle Technology
Reynolds Cycle Technology is a manufacturer of tubing for bicycle frames and other bicycle components based in Birmingham, England established in 1898.-History:...

 patents the process for making butted bicycle tubes, which are thicker at the ends than in the middle, this allows frame builders to create frames that are both strong and lightweight. Reynolds continues to develop lightweight bicycle frames into the 20th century picking up many awards for wins in races such as the Tour De France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...

, the company still makes lightweight frames in the city today.

20th century

Bicycles have been manufactured in the Midlands (mainly Birmingham and Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

) since the mid 19th century. By 1900 Birmingham has the largest number of bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

 makers and component manufacturers in Britain. Several advances in the development of the bicycle take place, one of the longer established and high quality manufacturers being the 'Quadrant Cycle Company' of Sheepcote Street which later manufactures motorbikes (as do many cycle makers).

Other notable firms are Reynolds
Reynolds Cycle Technology
Reynolds Cycle Technology is a manufacturer of tubing for bicycle frames and other bicycle components based in Birmingham, England established in 1898.-History:...

 (still manufacturing in the city), New Hudson
New Hudson (company)
New Hudson was a British engineering and motorcycle manufacturing company from Birmingham.They built motorcycles and pedal cycles from 1903 until the early 1930s, when the company changed to the manufacture of Girling brakes. The Girling interests were sold to Lucas in 1943 and the company went...

, Rudge-Whitworth (also of Coventry), B.S.A.
Birmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....

, C.W.S., Dawes, Grundle, James Cycle Co
James Cycle Co
The James Cycle Co Ltd., Greet, Birmingham, England, was one of many famous British cycle and motorcycle makers centred around the English Midlands, particularly Birmingham...

, Ariel
Ariel Motorcycles
Ariel Motorcycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Bournbrook, Birmingham. It was one of the leading innovators in British motorcycling, and was part of the Ariel marque. The company was sold to BSA in 1944 and the name was discontinued in 1970...

, Armstrong Cycles, Phillips Cycles
Phillips Cycles
Phillips Cycles Ltd. was a British bicycle manufacturer based in Smethwick near Birmingham, England. Its history began early in the 20th century and ended in the 1980s by which time it had become part of Raleigh Industries, itself a part of the Tube Investments group. For a number of years, the...

, Excelsior
Excelsior Motor Company
Excelsior, based in Coventry, was a British bicycle, motorcycle and car maker. They were Britain’s first motorcycle manufacturer, starting production of their own ‘motor-bicycle’ in 1896...

 (originally of Coventry), Sun Cycle & Fittings Co
Sun (motorcycle)
The Sun Cycle & Fittings Co. Ltd. was an English manufacturer of motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles. The company was based in Aston, Birmingham.The company was founded as James Parkes & Son, a brass foundry producing lamp fittings and various other products...

, Pashley Cycles
Pashley Cycles
Pashley Cycles is an English bicycle manufacturer in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, established in 1926. The company has been making bicycles for more than 80 years.-History:...

 (now manufactured in Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...

) and Hercules Cycle and Motor Company
Hercules Cycle and Motor Company
For the German Bicycle and Motorcycle manufacturer see: Hercules Fahrrad GmbH & CoThe Hercules Cycle and Motor Company Limited was a British bicycle manufacturer founded on 9 September 1910 in Aston in England....

.

Through the twentieth century, many of Birmingham's bicycle manufacturers evolve into automobile and motorcycle brands creating one of the busiest and productive engineering hubs in the world. Motor engineering brands such as Wolseley, Lanchester, Metro Cammell
Metro Cammell
The Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company was a Birmingham, England based manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons, based in Saltley and subsequently Washwood Heath....

, Austin
Austin Motor Company
The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...

, Morris
Morris Motor Company
The Morris Motor Company was a British car manufacturing company. After the incorporation of the company into larger corporations, the Morris name remained in use as a marque until 1984 when British Leyland's Austin Rover Group decided to concentrate on the more popular Austin marque...

, Vickers-Armstrongs, New Hudson
New Hudson (company)
New Hudson was a British engineering and motorcycle manufacturing company from Birmingham.They built motorcycles and pedal cycles from 1903 until the early 1930s, when the company changed to the manufacture of Girling brakes. The Girling interests were sold to Lucas in 1943 and the company went...

, Revere, Beardmore
Beardmore Precision Motorcycles
Beardmore Precision Motorcycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer. The original Precision company was set up by Frank E.Baker in Birmingham. Frank Baker quickly established a reputation for performance motorcycle engines and supplied Haden, and Sun Motorcycles...

, Sun
Sun (motorcycle)
The Sun Cycle & Fittings Co. Ltd. was an English manufacturer of motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles. The company was based in Aston, Birmingham.The company was founded as James Parkes & Son, a brass foundry producing lamp fittings and various other products...

, Ariel
Ariel Motorcycles
Ariel Motorcycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Bournbrook, Birmingham. It was one of the leading innovators in British motorcycling, and was part of the Ariel marque. The company was sold to BSA in 1944 and the name was discontinued in 1970...

, Norton, Rex-Acme
Rex-Acme
Rex was a motorcycle company which began in Birmingham, England in 1900. Rex soon merged with a Coventry bicycle maker named Allard and then later in 1922 the company merged with Coventry's 'Acme' motorcycle company forming 'Rex Acme'...

, Alldays & Onions
Alldays & Onions
Alldays & Onions was an English automobile maker, it manufactured cars from 1898 to 1918. The cars were sold under the Alldays name. The company also built an early British built tractor, the Alldays General Purpose Tractor.-History:...

, Velocette
Velocette
Velocette is the name given to motorcycles that were made by Veloce Ltd, in Hall Green, Birmingham, England. One of several motorcycle manufacturers in Birmingham, Velocette was a small, family-owned firm, selling far fewer hand-built motorcycles than the giant BSA, Norton or Triumph concerns...

, Midland Red
Midland Red
Midland Red was a bus company which operated in the English Midlands from 1905 to 1981. It was the trading name used by the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company , which was renamed Midland Red Omnibus Company in 1974...

 and BSA
Birmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....

 either originate or have substantial factories in Birmingham, manufacturing motorbikes, buses, tractors, cars, tanks and airoplanes.

Other diverse engineering companies develop to feed the supply chain of the motoring industry such as Webster and Horsfall (pioneering wire for aircraft and cars), Dunlop Rubber (supplying rubber and tyres), Lucas Industries (pioneering electric and lighting), Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.The company started out life at Holford Mill in Birmingham and later moved to near by Oldbury and always listed itself as being in 'Oldbury, Birmingham'....

 (producing tubular sections for aircraft) and Pockley Electric (manufacturing car lights).

1900: Bournville Village Trust
Bournville Village Trust
Bournville Village Trust is an organisation that was created to maintain and improve the suburb of Bournville, located in Birmingham. However, during the 20th century it expanded its geographical coverage to include developments in Shenley Green, Lightmoor in Telford, Bloomsbury in Nechells and...

 is founded by George Cadbury
George Cadbury
George Cadbury was the third son of John Cadbury, a Quaker who founded Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company.-Background:...

, this is to set many improvements and high standards of living and leisure pastimes for factory workers across Britain. Cadbury's still makes chocolate in the city today and Bourneville remains a sought after area to live.

1900: John Wright invents a much-improved gas fire which uses fretted columns of fire clay, rather than tufted asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

, to radiate the heat. The Wright design of gas fire heating endures throughout the century, however, electric fires improve at a similar pace.

1902: The first caliper-type automobile disc brake
Disc brake
The disc brake or disk brake is a device for slowing or stopping the rotation of a wheel while it is in motion.A brake disc is usually made of cast iron, but may in some cases be made of composites such as reinforced carbon–carbon or ceramic matrix composites. This is connected to the wheel and/or...

 is patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham, UK factory in and used successfully on Lanchester
Lanchester Motor Company
The Lanchester Motor Company Limited was a car manufacturer based until 1930 at Armourer Mills, Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England. It operated from 1895 to 1955....

 cars. However, the limited choice of metals in this period, means that he has to use copper as the braking medium acting on the disc. The poor state of the roads at this time, no more than dusty, rough tracks, means that the copper wears quickly making the disc brake system non-viable. It is not until 1929, in the same city that manufacturers 'Girling' and 'New Hudson
New Hudson (company)
New Hudson was a British engineering and motorcycle manufacturing company from Birmingham.They built motorcycles and pedal cycles from 1903 until the early 1930s, when the company changed to the manufacture of Girling brakes. The Girling interests were sold to Lucas in 1943 and the company went...

' further develop disc brakes, which are very successful on racing cars from the early 1950s to the 1970s. Girling brakes have the quirk of using natural rubber (later nitrile
Nitrile
A nitrile is any organic compound that has a -C≡N functional group. The prefix cyano- is used interchangeably with the term nitrile in industrial literature. Nitriles are found in many useful compounds, one example being super glue .Inorganic compounds containing the -C≡N group are not called...

) seals. Girling still manufacture disc brakes in Birmingham today.

1902: George Andrew Darby patents the first electrical Heat detector
Heat detector
A heat detector is a fire alarm device designed to respond when the convected thermal energy of a fire increases the temperature of a heat sensitive element....

 and Smoke detector
Smoke detector
A smoke detector is a device that detects smoke, typically as an indicator of fire. Commercial, industrial, and mass residential devices issue a signal to a fire alarm system, while household detectors, known as smoke alarms, generally issue a local audible and/or visual alarm from the detector...

.

1903: Birmingham born Patent Lawyer 'Bertram Hopkinson
Bertram Hopkinson
Bertram Hopkinson, CMG, FRS, was a patent lawyer and Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics at Cambridge University. In this position he researched flames, explosions and metallurgy and became a pioneer designer of the internal combustion engine.Hopkinson was born in Birmingham, in 1874, the...

' is elected to the Cambridge chair in mechanism and applied mechanics
Professor of Engineering, Cambridge University
The Professorship of Engineering is a professorship at the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1875 as a chair in 'Mechanism and Applied Mechanics', it was renamed to 'Mechanical Sciences' in 1934, and to 'Engineering' in 1966....

 where he carries out early research on tank armour plating.
Hopkinson builds a team of researchers, one of whom is Harry Ricardo
Harry Ricardo
Sir Harry Ricardo was one of the foremost engine designers and researchers in the early years of the development of the internal combustion engine....

, the engineer who makes his name for his pioneering work on internal combustion engines. Hopkinson encourages Ricardo to work on engines.

1903: Brummie Francis William Aston
Francis William Aston
Francis William Aston was a British chemist and physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule...

 wins a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

 to the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

 and in his studies of electronic discharge tubes he discovered the phenomenon
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...

 now known as the Aston Dark Space. He later moves to the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....

 in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 where he uses a method of electromagnetic focusing to invent the mass spectrograph, which rapidly allows him to identify no fewer than 212 of the 287 naturally occurring isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...

s. His work on isotopes also leads to his formulation of the Whole Number Rule
Whole number rule
The whole number rule states that the masses of the elements are whole number multiples of the mass of the hydrogen atom. The rule can be formulated from Prout's hypothesis put forth in 1815. In 1920, Francis W...

 which is later used extensively in the development of nuclear energy
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

. In 1922 he wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

 for the invention of the mass spectrometer.

1905: A manually-powered domestic vacuum cleaner
Vacuum cleaner
A vacuum cleaner, commonly referred to as a "vacuum," is a device that uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum to suck up dust and dirt, usually from floors, and optionally from other surfaces as well. The dirt is collected by either a dustbag or a cyclone for later disposal...

 is invented by manufacturer Walter Griffiths of 72, Conybere Street, Highgate. It is originally patented as 'Griffiths' Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets'. Although an electric cleaner is patented in 1901 by H. Cecil Booth, Griffiths' design is more similar to modern portable cleaners than Booth's cart-mounted device.

1905: Herbert Austin
Herbert Austin
Herbert 'Pa' Austin, 1st Baron Austin KBE was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company.-Background and early life:...

 begins making cars at Longbridge
Longbridge plant
The Longbridge plant is an industrial complex situated in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is currently owned by SAIC Group and is a manufacturing and research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary....

, many improvements in mass car manufacture and production later arise from these car works. Seventeen years later the Austin 7
Austin 7
The Austin 7 was a car produced from 1922 through to 1939 in the United Kingdom by the Austin Motor Company. Nicknamed the "Baby Austin", it was one of the most popular cars ever produced for the British market, and sold well abroad...

 goes into production, it becomes one of the most popular cars ever produced for the British market, its effect on the British market is similar to that of the Model T Ford in the USA. Austin's designs and production help set up other car brands around the world which later become famous in their own right such as BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...

, Nissan and Lotus
Lotus
- Botany :*Lotus , various botanical taxa*Lotus *Lotus Flower, Nelumbo nucifera- Motor cars :*Lotus Cars, a British motor vehicle manufacturer**Team Lotus, a British Formula One racing team that competed between 1954 and 1994...

.

1905: Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.The company started out life at Holford Mill in Birmingham and later moved to near by Oldbury and always listed itself as being in 'Oldbury, Birmingham'....

 Produces the first tubular box spanners.

1906: The earliest work on the parkerizing
Parkerizing
Parkerizing is a method of protecting a steel surface from corrosion and increasing its resistance to wear through the application of an electrochemical phosphate conversion coating...

 processes is developed by British inventors William Alexander Ross, in 1869, and by Thomas Watts Coslett, in 1906. Coslett, of Birmingham, subsequently files a patent based on this same process in America in 1907. It essentially provides an iron phosphating process, using phosphoric acid
Phosphoric acid
Phosphoric acid, also known as orthophosphoric acid or phosphoric acid, is a mineral acid having the chemical formula H3PO4. Orthophosphoric acid molecules can combine with themselves to form a variety of compounds which are also referred to as phosphoric acids, but in a more general way...

. Parkerizing (also called phosphating and phosphatizing) is a method of protecting a steel surface from corrosion and increasing its resistance to wear. Parkerizing is commonly used on firearms.

1907: Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.The company started out life at Holford Mill in Birmingham and later moved to near by Oldbury and always listed itself as being in 'Oldbury, Birmingham'....

 produce the first tubular sections for aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 and the first tubular furniture.

1908: Pockley Automobile Electric Lighting Syndicate, markets the worlds first electric car lights
Headlamp
A headlamp is a lamp, usually attached to the front of a vehicle such as a car or a motorcycle, with the purpose of illuminating the road ahead during periods of low visibility, such as darkness or precipitation. Headlamp performance has steadily improved throughout the automobile age, spurred by...

 to be sold as a set, which consist of headlights, sidelights and tail lights and are powered by an 8 volt battery.

Birmingham's ingenuity and expertise in metal working aids the early production of lightweight tubing used in the construction of successful airplanes. Engineering firms pioneer advances in aircraft engines also such as Austin
Austin Motor Company
The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...

 and the Wolseley Motor Company
Wolseley Motor Company
The Wolseley Motor Company was a British automobile manufacturer founded in 1901. After 1935 it was incorporated into larger companies but the Wolseley name remained as an upmarket marque until 1975.-History:...

 who later build hundreds of early aircraft for the British Air force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 such as the S.E.5 biplane fighter
Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5
The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 was a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. Although the first examples reached the Western Front before the Sopwith Camel and it had a much better overall performance, problems with its Hispano-Suiza engine, particularly the geared-output H-S...

. Wolseley help to set Vickers
Vickers
Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

 on their path to motor and engine development for aircraft at Adderly Park, with a new engine ready for production by 1909. The Wolseley Viper
Wolseley Viper
|-See also:-Bibliography:* Lumsden, Alec. British Piston Engines and their Aircraft. Marlborough, Wiltshire: Airlife Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1-85310-294-6....

 engine is applied to many aircraft around this time and is developed out of the Hispano-Suiza 8
Hispano-Suiza 8
The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914 and used by a number of Allied aircraft during the First World War...

. Several other small engineering firms design and build early aircraft engines such as Maxfield & Co who test an early mono plane in 1909 at Castle Bromwich, the Butterfield Brothers also make an experimental aircraft engine in 1911. Birmingham engineering works later diversify with all manner of industries relating to the development and manufacture of aircraft components including assembly of whole planes during war years such as Spitfires, Hawker Hurricane
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force...

s, Fairey Battle
Fairey Battle
The Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company in the late 1930s for the Royal Air Force. The Battle was powered by the same Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that gave contemporary British fighters high performance; however, the Battle was weighed...

 light bombers, Mercury and Pegasus aero engines, Short Stirling four-engined heavy bombers and Avro Lancaster
Avro Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF, and squadrons from other...

s (towards the end of World War II).

1910: Oliver Lucas's company design and make an electric car Vehicle horn
Vehicle horn
A vehicle horn is a sound-making device used to warn others of the approach of the vehicle or of its presence. Automobiles, trucks, ships, and trains are all required by law to have horns...

 which becomes industry standard, an electric motorcycle horn is manufactured the following year.

1913: Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.The company started out life at Holford Mill in Birmingham and later moved to near by Oldbury and always listed itself as being in 'Oldbury, Birmingham'....

 is granted a patent for seamless tapered steel golf shaft
Golf club
A golf club is used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a clubhead. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety of shots; Hybrids that combine design elements of woods and...

s.

1914: Oliver Lucas and Charles Breeden carry out pioneering work on the design of the Dynamo
Dynamo
- Engineering :* Dynamo, a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator* Dynamo theory, a theory relating to magnetic fields of celestial bodies* Solar dynamo, the physical process that generates the Sun's magnetic field- Software :...

 and electric equipment for motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

s and by 1914 they are already manufacturing these items.

1914 Birmingham, by now, is supplying the world with 28 million mass produced pen nibs per week.

1915: William Mills develops the first "safe grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...

" meaning it is safe for the soldier throwing it rather than his opponent. It is named the Mills bomb
Mills bomb
Mills bomb is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades in the world.-Overview:...

, and is adopted by the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 as its standard hand grenade in 1915. 75,000,000 grenades are supplied during The Great War.

1918: Much work is carried out by Oliver Lucas's company on the design and improvement of the military search light, he also designs a signalling lamp after experiences at the Somme
Somme
Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....

 and the design is later used by the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

.

1920: Charles Henry Foyle
Charles Henry Foyle
Charles Henry Foyle was the inventor of the folding carton and founder of Boxfoldia in Birmingham, England, in 1920; a company that was finally sold in 2003....

 invents the folding carton
Folding carton
The folding carton created the packaging industry as it is known today, beginning in the late 19th century. Basically, a folding carton is made of paperboard, and is cut, folded, laminated and printed for transport to manufacturers. The cartons are shipped flat to a manufacturer, which has its own...

 and is founder of Boxfoldia. However, an American process is developed by accident prior to this.

1921: A British patent for windscreen wiper
Windscreen wiper
A windscreen wiper or windshield wiper is a device used to remove rain and debris from a windscreen or windshield. Almost all motor vehicles, including trains, aircraft and watercraft, are equipped with such wipers, which are usually a legal requirement.A wiper generally consists of an arm,...

s is registered by Mills Munitions. Several other patents take place for windscreen wipers around the world.

1922: Birmingham rubber manufacturer, Dunlop
Dunlop Rubber
Dunlop Rubber was a company based in the United Kingdom which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was acquired by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop trade-names has been fragmented.-Early history:...

, invents a tyre with steel rods and a canvas casing which lasts three times longer than any other tyre, this is a mile stone in tyre manufacture. The following year their tyres help Henry Segrave
Henry Segrave
-External links:* * * * *...

 win a Grand Prix
Grand Prix motor racing
Grand Prix motor racing has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as far back as 1894. It quickly evolved from a simple road race from one town to the next, to endurance tests for car and driver...

 title in a Sunbeam racing car, and are then used on a Bently to help win the 24 Hours of Le Mans
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...

 race.

By 1927 Dunlop tyres have already helped Malcom Campbell reach a British land speed record and in this year, they help Henry Segrave achieve the world land speed record
Land speed record
The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...

 in a Sunbeam 1000 hp
Sunbeam 1000 hp
The Sunbeam 1000 HP Mystery, or "The Slug", is a land speed record-breaking car built by the Sunbeam car company of Wolverhampton that was powered by two aircraft engines. It was the first car to travel at over 200 mph. The car's last run was a demonstration circuit at Brooklands, running at...

 at Daytona Beach Road Course
Daytona Beach Road Course
Daytona Beach Road Course was a race track that was instrumental in the formation of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR. It originally became famous as the location where fifteen world land speed records were set...

, USA. In 1931 Dunlop tyres help Malcolm Campbell
Malcolm Campbell
Sir Malcolm Campbell was an English racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird...

 achieve a new land speed record
Land speed record
The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...

 in a Blue Bird at Daytona Beach Road Course
Daytona Beach Road Course
Daytona Beach Road Course was a race track that was instrumental in the formation of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR. It originally became famous as the location where fifteen world land speed records were set...

, USA. In 1935 Dunlop helps Malcolm Campbell
Malcolm Campbell
Sir Malcolm Campbell was an English racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird...

 achieve yet another new land speed record
Land speed record
The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...

 in the USA. Foam rubber
Foam rubber
Foam rubber refers to rubber that has been manufactured with a foaming agent to create an air-filled matrix structure. Commercial foam rubbers are generally either polyurethane foam or natural foam rubber latex. Latex foam rubber, used in mattresses, is well-known for its endurance.-See also:*...

 is also invented at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories, Fort Dunlop
Fort Dunlop
Fort Dunlop , is the common name of the original tyre factory and main office of Dunlop Rubber in the Erdington district of Birmingham, England. It was established in 1917, and by 1954 the entire factory area employed 10,000 workers...

 in 1929. Dunlop continues to pioneer advances in tyre manufacture and becomes industry standard for many prestigious car makers and it's tyres have been, and continue, to be used on cars achieving victory in motor rallies and racing championships such as Formula 1 and touring.

1923: Arthur L. Large, invents the immersed heating resistor
Resistor
A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...

, a major advancement in the electric kettle (A safety valve
Safety valve
A safety valve is a valve mechanism for the automatic release of a substance from a boiler, pressure vessel, or other system when the pressure or temperature exceeds preset limits....

 is introduced by kettle maker Walter H. Bullpitt, also from Birmingham, in 1931. These two advances in electrical water heating are to have profound effects on water heating and the become the basis of the modern day electric kettle.

1929: Brylcreem
Brylcreem
Brylcreem is a brand of hair styling products for men. The first Brylcreem product was a pomade created in 1928 by County Chemicals at the Chemico Works in Bradford Street, Birmingham, England. The pomade is an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilised with beeswax.Beecham was the longtime...

 (made famous by the Teddy Boy
Teddy Boy
The British Teddy Boy subculture is typified by young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, styles which Savile Row tailors had attempted to re-introduce in Britain after World War II...

) is invented in the city and later gives rise to other hair styling products.

First production run of Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company
Midland Red
Midland Red was a bus company which operated in the English Midlands from 1905 to 1981. It was the trading name used by the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company , which was renamed Midland Red Omnibus Company in 1974...

 buses takes place during the 1920s - one of the first British buses to have pneumatic tyres. BMMO later develop petrol and diesel engines during the 1930s, with experimental rear-engined buses being built. By the 1940s experiments with, and production of under-floor engined single-deck buses take place. Experiments and developments of independent front suspension, air suspension, rubber suspension, glass fibre construction and disc brakes take place during the 1950s. 1959 sees the introduction of a turbocharged coach capable of almost 100 mph, for non-stop motorway services. High speed (Motorway) buses are developed with passenger toilets. During the 1960s Midland Red becomes the first British bus company to make wide-scale use of computers in compiling bus schedules and staff rosters.

1932: The Birmingham Sound Reproducers
Birmingham Sound Reproducers
Birmingham Sound Reproducers was a British manufacturer of record player turntables.Daniel McLean McDonald founded Birmingham Sound Reproducers as a private company in 1932 in the West Midlands of England, UK...

 company is set up in the West Midlands. In the early 1950s, Samuel Margolin begins buying auto-changing turntable
Turntable
A turntable is generally a rotating platform, and may refer to:-Music:* Turntable, a motor-driven platform that normally rotates a gramophone record at a constant rotational velocity as part of a phonograph....

s from BSR, using them as the basis of his Dansette
Dansette
Dansette was a British manufacturer of portable mono record players with a built-in speaker. Some models also had a BSR autochanger allowing several records to be loaded at once, and played in succession. It was first manufactured in 1952 and at least one million were sold in the 1950s and...

 record player. Over the next twenty years, “Dansette” becomes a household word in Britain. By 1957, BSR, has grown to employ 2,600 workers. In addition to manufacturing their own brand of player—the Monarch Automatic Record Changer that could select and play 7", 10" and 12" records at 33 1/3, 45 or 78 rpm, changing between the various settings automatically—BSR McDonald supplied turntables and autochangers to most of the world’s record player manufacturers, eventually gaining 87% of the market. By 1977, BSR’s various factories produced over 250,000 units a week.

1932: Leonard Parsons is the first to use synthetic
Chemical synthesis
In chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions...

 vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

 as treatment for scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

 in children. http://fn.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/86/1/F65

1933: Credenda Conduit Co. Ltd of Birmingham patent a Credastat automatic oven thermostat
Thermostat
A thermostat is the component of a control system which regulates the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint temperature. The thermostat does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off, or regulating the flow of a heat transfer...

 which is fitted to Creda electric cookers. This is an early advancement in electric cookers and a feature which eventually becomes standard on all electric cookers. An example of this cooker is on display at the London Science Museum.

1944: Anthony Ernest Pratt
Anthony Ernest Pratt
Anthony Ernest Pratt was the inventor of the board game ‘Cluedo’.- Early years :Anthony Pratt was born in Birmingham, United Kingdom and educated at St. Philip's School Edgbaston...

 takes out his first patent for a board game named 'Murder', this is to later become the world renowned murder mystery game 'Cluedo
Cluedo
Cluedo is a popular murder/mystery-themed deduction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S...

'.1934: The Reynolds Tube Company
Reynolds Cycle Technology
Reynolds Cycle Technology is a manufacturer of tubing for bicycle frames and other bicycle components based in Birmingham, England established in 1898.-History:...

 introduces the double-butted tube-set 531
Reynolds 531
Reynolds 531 is a brand name, registered to Reynolds Cycle Technology of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, for a manganese-molybdenum, medium carbon steel bicycle tubing....

 for high strength but lightweight bicycle frames. Reynolds 531 remains for many years at the forefront of alloy steel tubing technology and is used to form the front subframes on the Jaguar E-Type
Jaguar E-type
The Jaguar E-Type or XK-E is a British automobile, manufactured by Jaguar between 1961 and 1975. Its combination of good looks, high performance, and competitive pricing established the marque as an icon of 1960s motoring...

 during the 1960s. Before the introduction of more exotic materials such as aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

, titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

 or composites
Composite material
Composite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...

, Reynolds is considered the dominant maker of high end materials for bicycle frames. According to the company, 27 winners of the Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...

 have won riding on Reynolds tubing.
1935: Birmingham has a long history of Toy
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...

 and trinket manufacture and in 1935 the biggest toy makers in England, Chad Valley
Chad Valley
Chad Valley is a long-established brand of toys in the United Kingdom owned by Home Retail Group. The company has its roots in a printing business established by Anthony Bunn Johnson in Birmingham in the early 19th century...

, are appointed Toy Makers to the Queen of the United Kingdom. During their existence Chad Valley carry out several improvements and practices in manufacturing of Toys during their production between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, constantly striving to develop new board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

s, jigsaws
Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...

 and toys.

1937: Professor Norman Haworth is awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his pioneering work on carbohydrates and synthetic vitamin C.

1939: Dr Mary Evans and Dr Wilfred Gaisford begin trials of the world's first antibiotic
Antibiotic
An antibacterial is a compound or substance that kills or slows down the growth of bacteria.The term is often used synonymously with the term antibiotic; today, however, with increased knowledge of the causative agents of various infectious diseases, antibiotic has come to denote a broader range of...

 M&B (sulfapyridine
Sulfapyridine
Sulfapyridine, original UK spelling Sulphapyridine, is a sulfonamide antibacterial. At one time it was commonly referred to as M&B....

) as treatment for lobar pneumonia
Lobar pneumonia
Lobar pneumonia is a form of pneumonia that affects a large and continuous area of the lobe of a lung.It is one of the two anatomic classifications of pneumonia .- Symptoms :...

.

Birmingham becomes the major British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 manufacturer of the phenolic plastic Bakelite.

The magnetron, the core component in the development of radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

, and the first microwave
Microwave
Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...

 power oscillators are developed at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 (the microwave oven
Microwave oven
A microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that heats food by dielectric heating, using microwave radiation to heat polarized molecules within the food...

 owes its existence to these developments).

1940: After initial teething problems with management, Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory
Castle Bromwich Assembly
Castle Bromwich Assembly is a factory owned by Jaguar Cars. It is located on the Chester Road in Castle Vale, Birmingham, England.The facility currently handles body stamping operations, body assembly, paint and trim, and final assembly for the Jaguar XF, Jaguar XJ and Jaguar XK...

, started production of the Spitfire fighter plane. By the time production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires (921 Mk IIs,[92] 4,489 Mk Vs, 5,665 Mk IXs,[93] and 1,054 Mk XVIs[92]) had been built. CBAF went on to become the largest and most successful plant of its type during the 1939-45 conflict. As the largest Spitfire factory in the UK, by producing a maximum of 320 aircraft per month, it built over half of the approximately 20,000 aircraft of this type.

1940: The Frisch-Peierls memorandum
Frisch-Peierls memorandum
The Frisch–Peierls memorandum was written by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls while they were both working at the University of Birmingham, England. The memorandum contained new calculations about the size of the critical mass needed for an atomic bomb, and helped accelerate British and U.S...

 is finalised by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls
Rudolf Peierls
Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, CBE was a German-born British physicist. Rudolf Peierls had a major role in Britain's nuclear program, but he also had a role in many modern sciences...

 while both working at Birmingham University - this is the first document to set out a process by which an atomic explosion could be generated.

1944: Anthony Ernest Pratt takes out his first patent for a board game named 'Murder', this is to later become the world renowned murder mystery game 'Cluedo
Cluedo
Cluedo is a popular murder/mystery-themed deduction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S...

'.

1946: Chance Brothers
Chance Brothers
Chance Brothers and Company was a glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands , in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassmaking technology....

 produce the first all-glass syringe
Syringe
A syringe is a simple pump consisting of a plunger that fits tightly in a tube. The plunger can be pulled and pushed along inside a cylindrical tube , allowing the syringe to take in and expel a liquid or gas through an orifice at the open end of the tube...

 with interchangeable barrel and plunger, thereby allowing mass-sterilisation of components without the need for matching them.

1947: Dunlop tyres help John Cobb
John Cobb (motorist)
John Rhodes Cobb was a British racing motorist. He made money as a director of fur brokers Anning, Chadwick and Kiver and could afford to specialise in large capacity motor-racing...

 raise the world land speed record to 630,km/h in the Railton Special which is now displayed in Birmingham's Think Tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...

 museum.

Between 1947 and 1951 Professor Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar OM CBE FRS was a British biologist, whose work on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance was fundamental to the practice of tissue and organ transplants...

 pioneer research on skin graft rejection at Birmingham University, this leads to the discovery of a substance which aids nerves to reunite and the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance, Medawar is awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 for his work during this time.

1950: In February, the first operation in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for 'hole-in-the-heart' (congenital atrial septal defect
Atrial septal defect
Atrial septal defect is a form of congenital heart defect that enables blood flow between the left and right atria via the interatrial septum. The interatrial septum is the tissue that divides the right and left atria...

) is performed at Birmingham Children's Hospital
Birmingham Children's Hospital
The Birmingham Children's Hospital is a children's hospital located in Birmingham, England.It provides general and emergency health care services to children in Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond. It specialises in liver transplantation, cardiac, and neonatal surgery...

.

Conway Berners-Lee
Conway Berners-Lee
Conway Berners-Lee is a British mathematician and computer scientist who worked in the team that developed the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial stored program electronic computer...

, a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 and computer scientist
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....

 from Birmingham works in the team that develops the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercial stored program electronic computer. Berners-Lees-Lee is demobilized from the British Army in 1947 with the rank of Major. By the late 1960s Berners-Lee leads the Medical Development Team of ICT and then ICL and is involved in some of the earliest developments in the applications of computers in medicine, and his text compression ideas are taken up by an early electronic patient record system. Berners-Lee later marries Mary Lee Woods
Mary Lee Woods
Mary Lee Woods, now Mrs C M Berners-Lee is a British mathematician and computer programmer who worked in a team that developed programs for the Manchester University Mark 1, Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers. She is married to Conway Berners-Lee, also in the team...

 (also from Birmingham). Woods studies at Birmingham University and works in the team that develop programs for the Manchester Mark 1
Manchester Mark 1
The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester from the Small-Scale Experimental Machine or "Baby" . It was also called the Manchester Automatic Digital Machine, or MADM...

, Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers. In 1955 the Lees' become parents to Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...

 who is credited for his invention of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

, making the first proposal for it in March 1989.

1952: Professor Charlotte Anderson
Charlotte Anderson
Charlotte Morrisson Anderson AM was an Australian professor of pediatrics and children's health....

 (Leonard Parsons Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health) is one of the team who prove that the gluten
Gluten
Gluten is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye...

s in wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

 cause coeliac disease
Coeliac disease
Coeliac disease , is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from middle infancy onward...

, from this gluten-free diets are introduced.

1954: The Stewart platform
Stewart platform
A Stewart platform is a type of parallel robot that incorporates six prismatic actuators, commonly hydraulic jacks. These actuators are mounted in pairs to the mechanism's base, crossing over to three mounting points on a top plate. Devices placed on the top plate can be moved in the six degrees...

 (a parallel robot) first comes into use. Stewart platforms have applications in machine tool technology, crane technology, underwater research, air-to-sea rescue, satellite dish
Satellite dish
A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive microwaves from communications satellites, which transmit data transmissions or broadcasts, such as satellite television.-Principle of operation:...

 positioning, telescopes and orthopedic surgery but are better known for Flight Simulation.

1950-1959: Essential research and development on heart pacemakers and plastic
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

 heart valve
Heart valve
A heart valve normally allows blood flow in only one direction through the heart. The four valves commonly represented in a mammalian heart determine the pathway of blood flow through the heart...

s is carried out by Leon Abrams at Birmingham University.

1962: Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins CBE FRS was a New Zealand-born English physicist and molecular biologist, and Nobel Laureate whose research contributed to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction, and to the development of radar...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 born and Birmingham raised, receives the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 for his work on DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 structure, he is one of three who become known as the Code Breakers. Wilkins is educated at King Edward's School
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to...

 (and St John's College, Cambridge), he receives a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 for the study of phosphor
Phosphor
A phosphor, most generally, is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence. Somewhat confusingly, this includes both phosphorescent materials, which show a slow decay in brightness , and fluorescent materials, where the emission decay takes place over tens of nanoseconds...

s at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

, where he works on radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

 display screens and uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...

 separation before moving to the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

.

1959: The Mini
Mini
The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...

 car begins production at Birmingham's Longbridge plant
Longbridge plant
The Longbridge plant is an industrial complex situated in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is currently owned by SAIC Group and is a manufacturing and research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary....

. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout (which allowed 80% of the area of the car's floorpan
Floorpan
The floorpan is a large sheet metal stamping that often incorporates several smaller welded stampings to form the floor of a large vehicle and the position of its external and structural panels....

 to be used for passengers and luggage) influenced a generation of car-makers. In 1999 the Mini was voted the second most influential car of the 20th century
Car of the Century
The Car of the Century was an international award given to the world's most influential car of the 20th century. The election process was overseen by the Global Automotive Elections Foundation...

, behind the Ford Model T
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...

.

.1962: Bill Fransen of American company 'Chamberlins', brings two of their musical instruments to England to search for someone who could manufacture 70 matching tape heads for future Chamberlin keyboards. Fransen approaches a UK company that is skilled enough to develop the idea further and a deal is struck with Bradmatic Ltd. The first Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...

 sample keyboards are manufactured in Aston and are to enjoy great longevity in the music industry. Alongside the Hammond Organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...

, the Mellotron later becomes a seminal musical instrument for music genres such as rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 and psychedelia, it is also crucial to shaping the sound of the progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 and hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 groups of the 1970s as well as inspiring further development of the sample keyboard most notably the 'Fairlight
Fairlight
Fairlight is a digital audio company based in Sydney, Australia. In 1979 they created the Fairlight CMI, the first digital audio sampler, quickly used by artists such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, and Jean Michel Jarre. They are now a manufacturer of media solutions tools such as digital audio...

' which, in turn, inspired sample modules such as the Akai Sampler range; synonymous with hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

 and dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

.
Some of the more notable songs which make use of the signature Mellotron sound include Nights In White Satin
Nights in White Satin
"Nights in White Satin" is a 1967 single by The Moody Blues, written by Justin Hayward and first featured on the album Days of Future Passed.It is in the key of E minor Aeolian.-Single releases:...

 by The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....

, Tomorrow Never Knows
Tomorrow Never Knows
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver but the first to be recorded. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon...

 and Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home."Strawberry Fields...

 by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, 2000 Light Years from Home
2000 Light Years from Home
"2000 Light Years From Home" is a song from The Rolling Stones' 1967 psychedelic rock album Their Satanic Majesties Request. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it also appeared as the B-side to the U.S. single "She's a Rainbow". Jagger reportedly wrote the lyrics in Brixton prison following...

 and We Love You by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

, Hole In My Shoe
Hole In My Shoe
"Hole in My Shoe" is a song by Traffic which as a single release reached number 2 in the UK charts and number 22 in the German charts in 1967. Composed by guitarist Dave Mason, it was disliked by the other three members of the group, who felt that it did not represent the band's musical or lyrical...

 by Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...

, Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

, Days
Days (The Kinks song)
Kirsty MacColl covered "Days" on her 1989 album Kite. It was released as a single and reached #12 on the UK singles chart, the same position achieved by The Kinks in 1969. It was re-released in 1995, charting much lower, only reaching #42 in the UK...

 by The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

, Space Oddity by David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, Stairway to Heaven
Stairway to Heaven
"Stairway to Heaven" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band's untitled fourth studio album . The song, running eight minutes and two seconds, is composed of several sections, which...

, The Rain Song
The Rain Song
"The Rain Song" is a ballad song from English rock band Led Zeppelin's fifth album Houses of the Holy, released in 1973.-Recording:"The Rain Song" is a love ballad of over 7 minutes in length. Guitarist Jimmy Page originally constructed the melody of this song at his home in Plumpton, England,...

 and Kashmir
Kashmir (song)
"Kashmir" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin from their sixth album Physical Graffiti, released in 1975. It was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant over a period of three years, with the lyrics dating back to 1973.-Overview:The song centres around a signature chord progression...

 by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

.

1965: The Birmingham Press and Mail installs the GEC PABX 4 ACD which is the earliest example of a call centre
Call centre
A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,...

 in the UK. Already the hallmarks of the call centre can be seen in the rows of agents with individual phone terminals, taking and making calls.

1969-1970: Heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 music begins to take shape in Britain and America. Of the earliest influential bands that are later to be described as Heavy Metal, several of the most notable artists arise from the mid to late 1960s Brum Beat
Brum Beat
Brum Beat was a magazine about the music of Birmingham, England and the neighbouring towns. It was started as Midlands Beat by promoter and band-manager Jim Simpson, who sold it to its latter editor, Steve Morris, who in turn relaunched it in newspaper format as The Beat, before converting it into...

 music scene, such as: Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

 and John Bonham
John Bonham
John Henry Bonham was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin. Bonham was esteemed for his speed, power, fast right foot, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove...

 of Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...

, Tony Iommi
Tony Iommi
Anthony Frank "Tony" Iommi is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as the founding member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and its sole continual member through multiple personnel changes.Iommi is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential guitarists in...

, Geezer Butler
Geezer Butler
Geezer Butler is an English musician and songwriter. Butler is best known as the bassist and lyricist of heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He was also involved in Heaven & Hell from 2006 to 2010.-Career:Butler formed his first band, Rare Breed, with old friend John "Ozzy" Osbourne in the autumn of...

 and Bill Ward of Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...

 and Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...

 and Glenn Tipton
Glenn Tipton
Glenn Tipton is one of the Grammy Award-winning guitarists for the heavy metal band Judas Priest...

 of Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...

.

During the later half of the 20th century the first trials of the combined oral contraceptive pill outside the USA take place at Birmingham University and extensive research into advanced allergy
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...

 vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...

s and the synthesis of artificial blood take place.

1975: Birmingham inventor Michael Gerzon co-invents the Soundfield microphone
Soundfield microphone
The Soundfield microphone is an audio microphone composed of four closely spaced subcardioid or cardioid microphone capsules arranged in a tetrahedron. It was invented by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven, and is a part of, but not exclusive to, Ambisonics, a surround sound technology...

. Gerzon studies at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, and is inspired by Alan Blumlein
Alan Blumlein
Alan Dower Blumlein was a British electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereo, television and radar...

's landmark 1933 development of stereophonic recording and reproduction. The SoundField range of microphones are now considered the ultimate microphones for recording both stereophonic and multichannel
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...

 surround formats. [Gerzon later plays a large role in the invention of Ambisonics
Ambisonics
Ambisonics is a series of recording and replay techniques using multichannel mixing technology that can be used live or in the studio. By encoding and decoding sound information on a number of channels, a 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional sound field can be presented...

 which is a series of recording and replay techniques using multichannel mixing technology that can be used live or in the studio 5.

Balti cuisine
Balti (food)
A Balti is a British-style type of curry cooked and served up in a thin, pressed steel wok-like pan. It is served in many restaurants in the United Kingdom...

 becomes nationally renowned, after initial growth in the city during the late 1980s. Today Balti restaurants are extremely popular throughout Britain and abroad.

Sir John Robert Vane
John Robert Vane
Sir John Robert Vane FRS was an English pharmacologist and Nobel Laureate, born in Tardebigg, Worcestershire. His father was the son of Russian immigrants and his mother came from a Worcestershire farming family. He was educated at King Edward's School in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and studied...

, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

 in 1982 for his work on aspirin
Aspirin
Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...

, is educated at King Edward's School
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to...

 and studies Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

.

1991: Derek McMinn
Derek McMinn
Derek McMinn is a British orthopaedic surgeon and inventor who practises in Birmingham, United Kingdom at the BMI Edgbaston Hospital. Mr. McMinn developed the first successful modern metal-on-metal hip resurfacing and the instrumentation and surgical technique to implant it...

 begins the first successful modern metal-on-metal hip resurfacing operations and the instrumentation and surgical technique to implant it.

21st century

Most of Birmingham's present day research and innovation is being undertaken in the fields of medical science, such as cancer research and eye disease research.

Since the establishment of its Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory, the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

 has become one of the significant UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 research centres for nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...

.

Aston University
Aston University
Aston University is a "plate glass" campus university situated at Gosta Green, in the city centre of Birmingham, England.Established in 1895 as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School, Aston was granted its Royal Charter as Aston University on 22 April 1966...

 is also carrying out ground breaking research in the field of micro-technologies, including a micro-robotic drill for use in surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

, which is able to drill a hole so small into the shell of an egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

, that the membrane
Biological membrane
A biological membrane or biomembrane is an enclosing or separatingmembrane that acts as a selective barrier, within or around a cell. It consists of a lipid bilayer with embedded proteins that may constitute close to 50% of membrane content...

 remains intact. This is being developed for use in operations on the inner ear
Inner ear
The inner ear is the innermost part of the vertebrate ear. In mammals, it consists of the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity in the temporal bone of the skull with a system of passages comprising two main functional parts:...

. A project to use fibre optics instead of electric sensor
Sensor
A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury-in-glass thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated...

s in aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 fuel tank
Fuel tank
A fuel tank is safe container for flammable fluids. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propelled or released into an engine...

s is also being undertaken, cutting substantially the risk of sparks setting off an explosion
Explosion
An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...

.

See also

  • Industrial Revolution
    Industrial Revolution
    The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

  • Scientific Revolution
    Scientific revolution
    The Scientific Revolution is an era associated primarily with the 16th and 17th centuries during which new ideas and knowledge in physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry transformed medieval and ancient views of nature and laid the foundations for modern science...

  • Chemical Revolution
    Chemical Revolution
    The chemical revolution, also called the first chemical revolution, denotes the reformulation of chemistry based on the Law of Conservation of Matter and the oxygen theory of combustion. It was centered on the work of French chemist Antoine Lavoisier...

  • Jewellery Quarter
    Jewellery Quarter
    The Jewellery Quarter is an area of Birmingham City Centre, England, situated in the south of the Hockley area. It is covered by the Ladywood district. There is a population of around 3,000 people in a area....

  • Gun Quarter
    Gun Quarter
    The Gun Quarter is the name given to an area of the city of Birmingham, in England, traditionally associated with the manufacture of firearms and sporting guns such as shotguns and Double barreled shotguns. The area is to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street...

  • Birmingham pen trade
    Birmingham pen trade
    The Birmingham pen trade evolved in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter and its surrounding area in the 19th century; for many years, the city was the centre of the world's pen trade.-19th century:...

  • Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
    Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
    The industrial revolution changed the nature of work and society. Opinion varies as to the exact date, but it is estimated that the First Industrial Revolution took place between 1750 and 1850, and the second phase or Second Industrial Revolution between 1860 and 1900. The three key drivers in...

  • History of Birmingham
    History of Birmingham
    The history of Birmingham in England spans 1400 years of growth, during which time it has evolved from a small 7th century Anglo Saxon hamlet on the edge of the Forest of Arden at the fringe of early Mercia to become a major city through a combination of immigration, innovation and civic pride that...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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