Curiosities

Bikes: The Wheel Story - During the spring and summer of 1819, the hobby-horse was all the rage in fashionable London society. Photo of an English hobby horse and a lithograph of one in action, both ca. 1819. (Added: 07/30/01 Hits: 371 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It

Tidbits - The first steamboat in Britain was Henry Bell's Comet on the Clyde in 1811.
George Trevithick created the first steam locomotive in 1801. In 1813 George Stephenson created a better one.
In 1812, the parish of St. Margaret's in Westminster was lit by gas - by the Gas, Light, & Coke Company. By 1815 there were 26 miles of gas mains in London. The factories in the Midlands were already lit by gas.
The November 29, 1814 edition of The Times was the first newspaper issue printed on a steam press.
Both Thomas Telford and John Loudon Macadam experimented with road improvements. Macadam's methods were first used on the Bristol roads when he was appointed surveyor-general in 1815. The technique involved raising and draining the road level and laying down layers of hard stones broken into very small pieces. (Added: 07/30/01 Hits: 3 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It

Steam Power

Kew Bridge Steam Museum, London - The Boulton and Watt engine pump was built in 1820 and moved to Kew from Chelsea Waterworks in 1840. (Added: 07/30/01 Hits: 193 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It

The Iron Bridge - How was it Built? - An article about the project to build a half-scale model of the Iron Bridge to test theories about the methods used to build the first iron bridge ever. (Added: 09/24/05 Hits: 120 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It