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1 Cubitt, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]b. 25 February 1788 Buxton, Norfolk, Englandd. 20 December 1855 Dorking, Surrey, England[br]English master builder and founder of the first building firm of modern type.[br]He started his working life as a carpenter at a time when work in different trades such as bricklaying, masonry, carpentry and plumbing was subcontracted. The system had worked well enough until about 1800, but when large-scale development was required, as in the nineteenth century, it showed itself to be inefficient and slow. To avoid long delays in building, Cubitt bought land and established workshops, founding a firm that employed all the craftsmen necessary to the building trade on a permanent-wage basis. To keep his firm financially solvent he had to provide continuous work for his staff, which he achieved by large-scale, speculative building even while maintaining high architectural standards.Cubitt performed a major service to London, with many of his houses, squares and terraces still surviving as sound and elegant as they were over 150 years ago in the large estates he laid out. His most ambitious enterprise was Belgravia, where he built 200 imposing houses for the aristocracy upon an area of previously swampy land that he leased from Lord Grosvenor. His houses expose as inferior much of the later phases of development which surround them. All his life Cubitt used his influence to combat the abuses of architecture, building and living standards to which speculative building is heir. He was especially interested in drainage, smoke control and London's sewage arrangement, and constantly worked to improve these. He supplied first-class amenities in the way of land drainage, sewage disposal, street lighting and roads, and his own houses were soundly built, pleasant to live in and created to last.[br]Further ReadingHermione Hobhouse, 1971, Thomas Cubitt: Master Builder, Macmillan.Henry Russell-Hitchcock, 1976, Early Victorian Architecture, 2 vols, New York: Da Capo.DY -
2 Architecture and building
Biographical history of technology > Architecture and building
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3 Civil engineering
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4 Kirkaldy, David
[br]b. 4 April 1820 Mayfield, Dundee, Scotlandd. 25 January 1897 London, England[br]Scottish engineer and pioneer in materials testing.[br]The son of a merchant of Dundee, Kirkaldy was educated there, then at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh University. For a while he worked in his father's office, but with a preference for engineering, in 1843 he commenced an apprenticeship at the Glasgow works of Robert Napier. After four years in the shops he was transferred to the drawing office and in a very few years rose to become Chief. Here Kirkaldy demonstrated a remarkable talent both for the meticulous recording of observations and data and for technical drawing. His work also had an aesthetic appeal and four of his drawings of Napier steamships were shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1855, earning both Napier and Kirkaldy a medal. His "as fitted" set of drawings of the Cunard Liner Persia, which had been built in 1855, is now in the possession of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London; it is regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind in the world, and has even been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.With the impending order for the Royal Naval Ironclad Black Prince (sister ship to HMS Warrior, now preserved at Portsmouth) and for some high-pressure marine boilers and engines, there was need for a close scientific analysis of the physical properties of iron and steel. Kirkaldy, now designated Chief Draughtsman and Calculator, was placed in charge of this work, which included comparisons of puddled steel and wrought iron, using a simple lever-arm testing machine. The tests lasted some three years and resulted in Kirkaldy's most important publication, Experiments on Wrought Iron and Steel (1862, London), which gained him wide recognition for his careful and thorough work. Napier's did not encourage him to continue testing; but realizing the growing importance of materials testing, Kirkaldy resigned from the shipyard in 1861. For the next two and a half years Kirkaldy worked on the design of a massive testing machine that was manufactured in Leeds and installed in premises in London, at The Grove, Southwark.The works was open for trade in January 1866 and engineers soon began to bring him specimens for testing on the great machine: Joseph Cubitt (son of William Cubitt) brought him samples of the materials for the new Blackfriars Bridge, which was then under construction. Soon The Grove became too cramped and Kirkaldy moved to 99 Southwark Street, reopening in January 1874. In the years that followed, Kirkaldy gained a worldwide reputation for rigorous and meticulous testing and recording of results, coupled with the highest integrity. He numbered the most distinguished engineers of the time among his clients.After Kirkaldy's death, his son William George, whom he had taken into partnership, carried on the business. When the son died in 1914, his widow took charge until her death in 1938, when the grandson David became proprietor. He sold out to Treharne \& Davies, chemical consultants, in 1965, but the works finally closed in 1974. The future of the premises and the testing machine at first seemed threatened, but that has now been secured and the machine is once more in working order. Over almost one hundred years of trading in South London, the company was involved in many famous enquiries, including the analysis of the iron from the ill-fated Tay Bridge (see Bouch, Sir Thomas).[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland Gold Medal 1864.Bibliography1862, Results of an Experimental Inquiry into the Tensile Strength and Other Properties of Wrought Iron and Steel (originally presented as a paper to the 1860–1 session of the Scottish Shipbuilders' Association).Further ReadingD.P.Smith, 1981, "David Kirkaldy (1820–97) and engineering materials testing", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 52:49–65 (a clear and well-documented account).LRD / FMW -
5 Ports and shipping
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Armstrong, Sir William GeorgeEgerton, FrancisLi GaoPeter the GreatShen GuaStanhope, Charles -
6 Railways and locomotives
Biographical history of technology > Railways and locomotives
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7 Albert, Prince Consort
[br]b. 26 August 1819 The Rosenau, near Coburg, Germanyd. 14 December 1861 Windsor Castle, England[br]German/British polymath and Prince Consort to Queen Victoria.[br]Albert received a sound education in the arts and sciences, carefully designed to fit him for a role as consort to the future Queen Victoria. After their marriage in 1840, Albert threw himself into the task of establishing his position as, eventually, Prince Consort and uncrowned king of England. By his undoubted intellectual gifts, unrelenting hard work and moral rectitude, Albert moulded the British constitutional monarchy into the form it retains to this day. The purchase in 1845 of the Osborne estate in the Isle of Wight provided not only the growing royal family with a comfortable retreat from London and public life, but Albert with full scope for his abilities as architect and planner. With Thomas Cubitt, the eminent engineer and contractor, Albert erected at Osborne one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century. He went on to design the house and estate at Balmoral in Scotland, another notable creation.Albert applied his abilities as architect and planner in the promotion of such public works as the London sewer system and, in practical form, the design of cottages for workers, such as those in south London, as well as those on the royal estates. Albert's other main contribution to technology was as educationist in a broad sense. In 1847, he was elected Chancellor of Cambridge University. He was appalled at the low standards and narrow curriculum prevailing there and at Oxford. He was no mere figurehead, but took a close and active interest in the University's affairs. With his powerful influence behind them, the reforming fellows were able to force measures to raise standards and widen the curriculum to take account, in particular, of the rapid progress in the natural sciences. Albert was instrumental in ending the lethargy of centuries and laying the foundations of the modern British university system.In 1847 the Prince became Secretary of the Royal Society of Arts. With Henry Cole, the noted administrator who shared Albert's concern for the arts, he promoted a series of exhibitions under the auspices of the Society. From these grew the idea of a great exhibition of the products of the decorative and industrial arts. It was Albert who decided that its scope should be international. As Chairman of the organizing committee, by sheer hard work he drove the project through to a triumphant conclusion. The success of the Exhibition earned it a handsome profit for which Albert had found a use even before it closed. The proceeds went towards the purchase of a site in South Kensington, for which he drew up a grand scheme for a complex of museums and colleges for the education of the people in the sciences and the arts. This largely came to fruition and South Kensington today is a fitting memorial to the Prince Consort's wisdom and concern for the public good.[br]Further ReadingSir Theodore Martin, 1875–80, The Life of His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort, 5 vols, London; German edn 1876; French edn 1883 (the classic life of the Prince).R.R.James, 1983, Albert, Prince Consort: A Biography, London: Hamish Hamilton (the standard modern biography).L.R.Day, 1989, "Resources for the study of the history of technology in the Science Museum Library", IATUL Quarterly 3:122–39 (provides a short account of the rise of South Kensington and its institutions).LRD -
8 Meikle, Andrew
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1719 Scotlandd. 27 November 1811[br]Scottish millwright and inventor of the threshing machine.[br]The son of the millwright James Meikle, who is credited with the introduction of the winnowing machine into Britain, Andrew Meikle followed in his father's footsteps. His inventive inclinations were first turned to developing his father's idea, and together with his own son George he built and patented a double-fan winnowing machine.However, in the history of agricultural development Andrew Meikle is most famous for his invention of the threshing machine, patented in 1784. He had been presented with a model of a threshing mill designed by a Mr Ilderton of Northumberland, but after failing to make a full-scale machine work, he developed the concept further. He eventually built the first working threshing machine for a farmer called Stein at Kilbagio. The patent revolutionized farming practice because it displaced the back-breaking and soul-destroying labour of flailing the grain from the straw. The invention was of great value in Scotland and in northern England when the land was becoming underpopulated as a result of heavy industrialization, but it was bitterly opposed in the south of England until well into the nineteenth century. Although the introduction of the threshing machine led to the "Captain Swing" riots of the 1830s, in opposition to it, it shortly became universal.Meikle's provisional patent in 1785 was a natural progression of earlier attempts by other millwrights to produce such a machine. The published patent is based on power provided by a horse engine, but these threshing machines were often driven by water-wheels or even by windmills. The corn stalks were introduced into the machine where they were fed between cast-iron rollers moving quite fast against each other to beat the grain out of the ears. The power source, whether animal, water or wind, had to cause the rollers to rotate at high speed to knock the grain out of the ears. While Meikle's machine was at first designed as a fixed barn machine powered by a water-wheel or by a horse wheel, later threshing machines became mobile and were part of the rig of an agricultural contractor.In 1788 Meikle was awarded a patent for the invention of shuttered sails for windmills. This patent is part of the general description of the threshing machine, and whilst it was a practical application, it was superseded by the work of Thomas Cubitt.At the turn of the century Meikle became a manufacturer of threshing machines, building appliances that combined the threshing and winnowing principles as well as the reciprocating "straw walkers" found in subsequent threshing machines and in conventional combine harvesters to the present day. However, he made little financial gain from his invention, and a public subscription organized by the President of the Board of Agriculture, Sir John Sinclair, raised £1,500 to support him towards the end of his life.[br]Bibliography1831, Threshing Machines in The Dictionary of Mechanical Sciences, Arts and Manufactures, London: Jamieson, Alexander.7 March 1768, British patent no. 896, "Machine for dressing wheat, malt and other grain and for cleaning them from sand, dust and smut".9 April 1788, British patent no. 1,645, "Machine which may be worked by cattle, wind, water or other power for the purpose of separating corn from the straw".Further ReadingJ.E.Handley, 1953, Scottish Farming in the 18th Century, and 1963, The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland (both place Meikle and his invention within their context).G.Quick and W.Buchele, 1978, The Grain Harvesters, American Society of Agricultural Engineers (gives an account of the early development of harvesting and cereal treatment machinery).KM / AP
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