(1807-1814)

SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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Fourdrinier's father was a paper manufacturer and stationer of London, from a family of French Protestant origin. Henry took up the same trade and, with his brother Sealy (d. 1847), devoted many years to developing the papermaking machine. Their first patent was taken out in 1801, but success was still far off. A machine for making paper had been invented a few years previously by Nicolas Robert at the Didot's mill at Essonnes, south of Paris. Robert quarrelled with the Didots, who then contacted their brother-in-law in England, John Gamble, in an attempt to raise capital for a larger machine. Gamble and the Fourdriniers called in the engineer Bryan Donkin, and between them they patented a much improved machine in 1807. In the new machine, the paper pulp flowed on to a moving continuous woven wire screen and was then squeezed between rollers to remove much of the water. The paper thus formed was transferred to a felt blanket and passed through a second press to remove more water, before being wound while still wet on to a drum. For the first time, a continuous sheet of paper could be made. Other inventors soon made further improvements: in 1817 John Dickinson obtained a patent for sizing baths to improve the surface of the paper; while in 1820 Thomas Crompton patented a steam-heated drum round which the paper was passed to speed up the drying process. The development cost of £60,000 bankrupted the brothers. Although Parliament extended the patent for fourteen years, and the machine was widely adopted, they never reaped much profit from it. Tsar Alexander of Russia became interested in the papermaking machine while on a visit to England in 1814 and promised Henry Fourdrinier £700 per year for ten years for super-intending the erection of two machines in Russia; Henry carried out the work, but he received no payment. At the age of 72 he travelled to St Petersburg to seek recompense from the Tsar's successor Nicholas I, but to no avail. Eventually, on a motion in the House of Commons, the British Government awarded Fourdrinier a payment of £7,000. The paper trade, sensing the inadequacy of this sum, augmented it with a further sum which they subscribed so that an annuity could be purchased for Henry, then the only surviving brother, and his two daughters, to enable them to live in modest comfort. From its invention in ancient China (see Cai Lun), its appearance in the Middle Ages in Europe and through the first three and a half centuries of printing, every sheet of paper had to made by hand. The daily output of a hand-made paper mill was only 60–100 lb (27–45 kg), whereas the new machine increased that tenfold. Even higher speeds were achieved, with corresponding reductions in cost; the old mills could not possibly have kept pace with the new mechanical printing presses. The Fourdrinier machine was thus an essential element in the technological developments that brought about the revolution in the production of reading matter of all kinds during the nineteenth century. The high-speed, giant paper-making machines of the late twentieth century work on the same principle as the Fourdrinier of 1807.

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SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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He was the eldest son of Lieutenant-General Sir William Congreve, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery, Superintendent of Military Machines and Superintendent Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, and the daughter of a naval officer. Congreve passed through the Naval Academy at Woolwich and in 1791 was attached to the Royal Laboratory (formerly known as the Woolwich Arsenal), of which his father was then in command. In the 1790s, an Indian prince, Hyder Ali, had had some success against British troops with solid-fuelled rockets, and young Congreve set himself to develop the idea. By about 1806 he had made some 13,000 rockets, each with a range of about 2 km (1¼ miles). The War Office approved their use, and they were first tested in action at sea during the sieges of Boulogne and Copenhagen in 1806 and 1807 respectively. Congreve was commissioned to raise two companies of rocket artillery; in 1813 he commanded one of his rocket companies at the Battle of Leipzig, where although the rockets did little damage to the enemy, the noise and glare of the explosions had a considerable effect in frightening the French and caused great confusion; for this, the Tsar of Russia awarded Congreve a knighthood. The rockets were similarly effective in other battles, including the British attack on Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, in 1814; it is said that this was the inspiration for the lines "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" in Francis Scott Key's poem The Star Spangled Banner, which became the United States' national anthem.

Congreve's father died in 1814, and he succeeded him in the baronetcy and as Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory and Superintendent of Military Machines, holding this post until his death. For the last ten years of his life he was Member of Parliament for Plymouth, having previously represented Gatton when elected for that constituency in 1812.

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Civil engineering, Ports and shipping, Railways and locomotives

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William Jessop inherited from his father a natural ability in engineering, and because of his father's association with John Smeaton in the construction of Eddystone Lighthouse he was accepted by Smeaton as a pupil in 1759 at the age of 14. Smeaton was so impressed with his ability that Jessop was retained as an assistant after completion of his pupilage in 1767. As such he carried out field-work, making surveys on his own, but in 1772 he was recommended to the Aire and Calder Committee as an independent engineer and his first personally prepared report was made on the Haddlesey Cut, Selby Canal. It was in this report that he gave his first evidence before a Parliamentary Committee. He later became Resident Engineer on the Selby Canal, and soon after he was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Engineers, of which he later became Secretary for twenty years. Meanwhile he accompanied Smeaton to Ireland to advise on the Grand Canal, ultimately becoming Consulting Engineer until 1802, and was responsible for Ringsend Docks, which connected the canal to the Liffey and were opened in 1796. From 1783 to 1787 he advised on improvements to the River Trent, and his ability was so recognized that it made his reputation. From then on he was consulted on the Cromford Canal (1789–93), the Leicester Navigation (1791–4) and the Grantham Canal (1793–7); at the same time he was Chief Engineer of the Grand Junction Canal from 1793 to 1797 and then Consulting Engineer until 1805. He also engineered the Barnsley and Rochdale Canals. In fact, there were few canals during this period on which he was not consulted. It has now been established that Jessop carried the responsibility for the Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct in Wales and also prepared the estimates for the Caledonian Canal in 1804. In 1792 he became a partner in the Butterley ironworks and thus became interested in railways. He proposed the Surrey Iron Railway in 1799 and prepared for the estimates; the line was built and opened in 1805. He was also the Engineer for the 10 mile (16 km) long Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, the Act for which was obtained in 1808 and was the first Act for a public railway in Scotland. Jessop's advice was sought on drainage works between 1785 and 1802 in the lowlands of the Isle of Axholme, Holderness, the Norfolk Marshlands, and the Axe and Brue area of the Somerset Levels. He was also consulted on harbour and dock improvements. These included Hull (1793), Portsmouth (1796), Folkestone (1806) and Sunderland (1807), but his greatest dock works were the West India Docks in London and the Floating Harbour at Bristol. He was Consulting Engineer to the City of London Corporation from 1796to 1799, drawing up plans for docks on the Isle of Dogs in 1796; in February 1800 he was appointed Engineer, and three years later, in September 1803, he was appointed Engineer to the Bristol Floating Harbour. Jessop was regarded as the leading civil engineer in the country from 1785 until 1806. He died following a stroke in 1814.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Ports and shipping, Railways and locomotives

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The son of a miller, he received a rudimentary education in the village school. At an early age he was helping his father in the mill, and in 1800 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. After four years he returned to work with his father, but, preferring to leave the parental home, he not long afterwards joined a firm of agricultural-machinery makers in Swanton in Norfolk. There he acquired a reputation for making accurate patterns for the iron caster and demonstrated a talent for mechanical invention, patenting a self-regulating windmill sail in 1807. He then set up on his own as a millwright, but he found he could better himself by joining the engineering works of Ransomes of Ipswich in 1812. He was soon appointed their Chief Engineer, and after nine years he became a partner in the firm until he moved to London in 1826. Around 1818 he invented the treadmill, with the aim of putting prisoners to useful work in grinding corn and other applications. It was rapidly adopted by the principal prisons, more as a means of punishment than an instrument of useful work.

From 1814 Cubitt had been gaining experience in civil engineering, and upon his removal to London his career in this field began to take off. He was engaged on many canal-building projects, including the Oxford and Liverpool Junction canals. He accomplished some notable dock works, such as the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Middlesborough docks and the coal drops on the river Tees. He improved navigation on the river Severn and compiled valuable reports on a number of other leading rivers.

The railway construction boom of the 1840s provided him with fresh opportunities. He engineered the South Eastern Railway (SER) with its daringly constructed line below the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover; the railway was completed in 1843, using massive charges of explosive to blast a way through the cliffs. Cubitt was Consulting Engineer to the Great Northern Railway and tried, with less than his usual success, to get the atmospheric system to work on the Croydon Railway.

When the SER began a steamer service between Folkestone and Boulogne, Cubitt was engaged to improve the port facilities there and went on to act as Consulting Engineer to the Boulogne and Amiens Railway. Other commissions on the European continent included surveying the line between Paris and Lyons, advising the Hanoverian government on the harbour and docks at Hamburg and directing the water-supply works for Berlin.

Cubitt was actively involved in the erection of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; in recognition of this work Queen Victoria knighted him at Windsor Castle on 23 December 1851.

Cubitt's son Joseph (1811–72) was also a notable civil engineer, with many railway and harbour works to his credit.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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The early life of Fulton is documented sparsely; however, it is clear that he was brought up in poor circumstances along with three sisters and one brother by a widowed mother. The War of Independence was raging around them for some years, but despite this it is believed that he spent some time learning the jeweller's trade in Philadelphia and had by then made a name for himself as a miniaturist. Throughout his life he remained skilled with his hands and well able to record technical detail on paper. He witnessed many of the early trials of American steamboats and saw the work of William Henry and John Fitch, and in 1787 he set off for the first time to Europe. For some years he examined steamships in Paris and without doubt saw the Charlotte Dundas on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Glasgow. In 1803 he built a steamship that ran on the Seine at 4 1/2 mph (7.25 km/h), and when it was lost, another to replace it. All his designs were based on principles that had been tried and proved elsewhere, and in this respect he was more of a developer than an inventor. After some time experimenting with submersibles and torpedoes for the British and French governments, in 1806 he returned to the United States. In 1807 he took delivery of the 100 ton displacement paddle steamer Clermont from the yard of Charles Browne of East River, New York. In August of that year it started the passenger services on the Hudson River and this can be claimed as the commencement of world passenger steam navigation. Again the ship was traditional in shape and the machinery was supplied by Messrs Boulton and Watt. This was followed by other ships, including Car of Neptune, Paragon and the world's first steam warship, Demolgos, launched in New York in October 1814 and designed by Fulton for coastal defence and the breaking of the British blockade. His last and finest boat was named Chancellor Livingston after his friend and patron Robert Livingston (1746–1813); the timber hull was launched in 1816, some months after Fulton's death.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Textiles

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Although his father was a farmer, at the age of 10 Samuel Marsden went to work as a blacksmith, and continued in that trade for ten years. He then decided to go into the Church, was educated at Hull Grammar School and Cambridge, and was ordained in 1793. He then emigrated to Australia, where he took up an appointment as Assistant Chaplain to the Colony. He was stationed at Parramatta, where he was granted 100 acres and bought a further 128 acres himself. In 1800 he became Principal Chaplain, and by 1802 he farmed the third largest farm in the colony. Initially he was able to obtain only two Marino rams and was forced to crossbreed with imported Indian stock. However, with this combination he was able to improve wool quality dramatically, and this stock provided the basis of his breeding stock. In 1807 he returned to Britain, taking 160 lb of wool with him. This was woven into 40 yards (36.5 m) of cloth in a mill near Leeds, and from this Marsden had a suit made which he wore when he visited George III. The latter was so impressed with the cloth that he presented Marsden with five Marino ewes in lamb, with which he returned to Australia. By 1811 he was sending more than 5,000 lb of wool back to the UK each year. In 1814 Marsden concentrated more on Church matters and made the first of seven missionary visits to New Zealand. He made the last of these excursions the year before his death.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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At first he was educated by Andrew Little of Lan-gholm. At the age of 14 he was sent to school at Selkirk, where he stayed for two years until joining the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in August 1796. He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and transferred to the Royal Engineers on 1 April 1798. He served at Minorca, Malta, Naples, Sicily, Calabria and in the siege of Copenhagen and in other campaigns. He was promoted First Captain in 1807, and was on the staff of Sir John Moore at the battle of Coruna. He was wounded at the siege of Flushing in 1809 and was invalided for a year, employing his time in learning German.

In November 1810 he published his Essay on Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire, which ran through four editions. In 1811 he was in command of a company of Royal Military Artificers at Plymouth and there he devised a method of education by which the NCOs and troops could teach themselves without "mathematical masters". His system was a great success and was adopted at Chatham and throughout the corps. In 1812 he was appointed Director of the School of Military Engineering at Chatham. He remained at Chatham until 1841, when he was appointed Inspector-General of Railways. During this period he organized improved systems of sapping, mining, telegraphing, pontooning and exploding gunpowder on land or under water, and prepared pamphlets and courses of instruction in these and other subjects. In May 1836 he started what is probably the most important work for which he is remembered. This, was a book on Limes, Calcareous Cements, Mortar, Stuccos and Concretes. The general adoption of Joseph Aspdin's Portland Cement was largely due to Pasley's recommendation of the material.

He was married twice: first in 1814 at Chatham to Harriet Cooper; and then on 30 March 1819 at Rochester to Martha Matilda Roberts, with whom he had six children— she died in 1881.

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