Перевод: с английского на все языки

со всех языков на английский

England is the home of railways

  • 1 England is the home of railways

    Универсальный англо-русский словарь > England is the home of railways

  • 2 home

    1. [həʋm] n
    1. 1) дом, жилище, обиталище

    at home - дома, у себя [см. тж. 2, 2), 6, 2) и ♢ ]

    2) местожительство; местопребывание; проживание

    to make one's home in the country [abroad] - поселиться в деревне [за границей]

    to give smb. a home, to make a home for smb. - приютить кого-л., дать кому-л. пристанище

    a friend offered me a home with him - приятель предложил мне поселиться у него

    2. 1) родной дом, отчий дом, родные места

    ancestral home, the home of one's fathers - отчий дом

    to feel a longing for one's home - тосковать по дому /по родным местам/

    2) родина

    at home - на родине [см. тж. 1, 1), 6, 2) и ♢ ]

    at home and abroad - у нас /на родине/ и за границей

    where is your home? - откуда вы родом?

    my home is England [Leeds] - моя родина - Англия [я родом из Лидса]

    3) метрополия ( Англия)

    service at home - воен. служба в метрополии

    this island provides /affords/ a home to myriads of birds - этот остров служит гнездовьем для мириад птиц

    3. семья; домашний круг; семейная жизнь
    4. 1) место распространения, родина (растений и т. п.); ареал

    the Indian jungle is the home of the tiger - тигры обитают в джунглях Индии

    2) место зарождения или возникновения, родина, колыбель

    England is the home of railways - железные дороги впервые появились в Англии

    5. 1) приют, благотворительное заведение; пансионат

    home for the blind [for invalids] - приют для слепых [для инвалидов]

    old people's home, home for the old - дом для престарелых

    children's home - детский дом, детдом

    2) частное заведение для бездомных собак, кошек и т. п.
    6. спорт.
    1) дом ( в играх)
    2) своё поле

    at home - на своём поле [см. тж. 1, 1), 2, 2) и ♢ ]

    4) гол

    ♢ one's last /long/ home - могила

    to be at home - а) чувствовать себя легко, непринуждённо, свободно; the boy was not quite at home there - мальчик чувствовал себя там неловко; make yourself at home - чувствуйте себя как дома, располагайтесь как дома; б) принимать гостей; устраивать приёмный день; [ср. тж. 1, 1), 2, 2) и 6, 2)]

    Mrs. Smith is not at home to anyone except relatives - г-жа Смит никого не принимает, кроме родственников

    I am always at home to you - для вас я всегда дома, я всегда рад /рада/ видеть вас у себя

    to feel at home см. to be at home а)

    to be /to feel/ at home in /with/ smth. - хорошо знать что-л.; свободно владеть чем-л.

    to be /to feel/ at home in /with/ a foreign language - свободно владеть иностранным языком

    he is at home in /on, with/ any topic - он с лёгкостью говорит /он может говорить/ на любую тему

    go home and say your prayers - ≅ не суй нос не в свои дела

    east or west home is best, there is no place like home - посл. ≅ в гостях хорошо, а дома лучше

    2. [həʋm] a
    1. 1) домашний

    home baking [canning] - выпечка [консервирование] в домашних условиях

    home slaughtering /killing/ - домашний забой скота

    home address - домашний адрес, местожительство

    home industry - а) надомная работа; б) кустарный промысел; [см. тж. 4, 1)]

    2) семейный

    home interests - интересы семьи /дома/

    2. 1) родной, свой

    home base - ав. своя авиабаза; аэродром базирования

    home station - ж.-д. станция приписки

    home port - мор. порт приписки

    2) местный

    home team /side/ - спорт. команда хозяев поля

    home club - спорт. клуб - хозяин поля

    home ground - спорт. своё поле

    home stretch - спорт. см. homestretch

    3) направленный к дому; обратный

    home journey - мор. обратный рейс

    home freight - мор. а) обратный фрахт; б) груз, доставляемый в отечественные порты

    3. жилой

    home farm - а) ферма при помещичьем доме; б) ферма, где живёт её владелец

    4. 1) отечественный

    home manufacture [industry] - отечественное производство [-ая промышленность] [см. тж. 1, 1)]

    2) внутренний

    home market [trade] - внутренний рынок [-яя торговля]

    5. относящийся к метрополии ( Англии)

    home (air) defence - воен. (противовоздушная) оборона метрополии

    home service - воен. служба в метрополии

    6. редк. колкий, едкий, бьющий в цель

    ♢ home and dry - а) достигший своей цели; he was home and dry yesterday as the next president - вчера его желание свершилось - он стал президентом /его избрали президентом/; б) (находящийся) в безопасности

    3. [həʋm] adv
    1. 1) дома

    to be home - быть /находиться/ дома

    2) домой

    to go /to come/ home - идти /приходить/ домой [см. тж. 2 и ♢ ]

    to see smb. home - проводить кого-л. домой

    to call smb. home - звать кого-л. домой

    to be the first man home in the race - спорт. кончить гонку первым

    3) на родину

    back home - а) дома; на родине; he is back home again - он вернулся домой; customs here differ from those back home - обычаи здесь иные, чем у нас на родине; б) домой, на родину

    2. в цель, в точку

    to go /to come, to get/ home - попасть в цель [см. тж. 1, 2) и ♢ ]

    3. до отказа, до конца; туго, крепко

    ♢ to bring smth. home to smb. - а) втолковывать кому-л. что-л.; доводить что-л. до чьего-л. сознания; б) уличить кого-л. в чём-л.

    to bring a crime [a fraud] home to smb. - уличить кого-л. в преступлении [в обмане]

    to bring a charge home to smb. - доказать обвинение против кого-л.

    to drive smth. home (to smb.) - а) = to bring smth. home to smb. а); б) доводить до конца, успешно завершать что-л.

    to get home - а) иметь успех; удаваться; б) выиграть; победить ( в спортивных соревнованиях); в) наносить меткий /точный/ удар; задевать за живое, больно задевать; [ср. тж. 1, 2) и 2]

    to come /to get, to strike/ home to smb. - а) растрогать кого-л. до глубины души, найти отклик в чьей-л. душе; б) доходить до чьего-л. сознания, быть понятным кому-л.; [ср. тж. 1, 2) и 2]

    it will come home to him some day what he had lost - когда-нибудь он поймёт, что потерял

    to bring oneself /to come, to get/ home - а) занять прежнее положение; the anchor comes home - мор. якорь ползёт; б) оправиться ( после денежных затруднений)

    to pay home - воздать по заслугам, отплатить

    to ram /to press/ smth. home = to bring smth. home to smb. а)

    to come /to strike, to touch/ home = to get home в)

    to sink home = to come /to get, to strike/ home to smb. б)

    nothing to write home about - нечем хвастаться; ничего особенного

    4. [həʋm] v
    1. 1) возвращаться домой, лететь домой (особ. о голубе)

    an aircraft is homing to its carrier - самолёт возвращается на свой авианосец

    2) посылать, направлять ( домой)

    radar installations home aircraft to emergency airfields - радарные установки наводят самолёты на запасные аэродромы

    3) наводиться (о ракете, торпеде и т. п.)

    a missile homes towards an objective on a beam - ракета наводится на цель по лучу

    2. 1) находиться, жить (где-л.)

    to home with smb. - жить у кого-л. /совместно с кем-л./

    several publishers have homed in this city - в этом городе обосновались несколько издательств

    2) устраивать (кого-л.) у себя, приютить (кого-л.)

    НБАРС > home

  • 3 home

    1. n дом, жилище, обиталище

    at home — дома, у себя

    2. n местожительство; местопребывание; проживание
    3. n родной дом, отчий дом, родные места
    4. n родина

    to yearn for home — тосковать по родине, томиться на чужбине

    I knew him back home — я знал его, когда жил на родине

    5. n метрополия

    shipment home — груз, направляемый в метрополию

    6. n семья; домашний круг; семейная жизнь
    7. n место распространения, родина; ареал

    home plate — основная база, место игрока с битой

    8. n место зарождения или возникновения, родина, колыбель
    9. n приют, благотворительное заведение; пансионат
    10. n спорт. своё поле
    11. n спорт. финиш
    12. n спорт. гол

    I am always at home to you — для вас я всегда дома, я всегда рад видеть вас у себя

    13. a домашний
    14. a семейный

    matrimonial home — семейный дом, семья

    15. a родной, свой

    home base — своя авиабаза; аэродром базирования

    to ram an argument home — убедить ; доказать свою правоту

    16. a местный

    home club — клуб — хозяин поля

    home loop — местный цикл; вложенный цикл

    17. a направленный к дому; обратный
    18. a жилой

    motor home — жилой автофургон, дом на колёсах

    19. a отечественный
    20. a внутренний
    21. a относящийся к метрополии
    22. a редк. колкий, едкий, бьющий в цель

    hit home — попасть в цель; попадать в самую точку

    strike home — попасть в цель; попадать в самую точку

    23. adv дома
    24. adv домой

    hearth and home — дом, домашний очаг

    25. adv на родину

    our team pressed home its attack — наша команда pass стеснять, затруднять

    26. adv в цель, в точку

    home thrust — удачный удар; удар, попавший в цель, в сердце

    27. adv до отказа, до конца; туго, крепко

    it will come home to him some day what he had lost — когда-нибудь он поймёт, что потерял

    solar home — «солнечный дом»

    28. v возвращаться домой, лететь домой
    29. v посылать, направлять
    30. v наводиться
    31. v находиться, жить
    32. v устраивать у себя, приютить
    Синонимический ряд:
    1. domestic (adj.) domestic; familial; family; homely; household; internal; intestine; municipal; national; native
    2. asylum (noun) almshouse; asylum; hospice; hospital; institution; orphanage; refuge; retreat; sanatorium; sanitarium
    3. country (noun) country; fatherland; homeland; land; mother country; motherland; soil
    4. element (noun) element; environment
    5. habitat (noun) habitat; haunt; locality; range; site; stamping ground
    6. habitation (noun) abode; commorancy; domicile; dwelling; habitation; house; lodgings; place; quarters; residence; residency
    7. homestead (noun) birthplace; family; fireside; haven; hearth; homestead; hometown; household; rightful place

    English-Russian base dictionary > home

  • 4 England, George

    [br]
    b. 1811 or 1812 Newcastle upon Tyne, England
    d. 4 March 1878 Cannes, France
    [br]
    English locomotive builder who built the first locomotives for the narrow-gauge Festiniog Railway.
    [br]
    England trained with John Penn \& Sons, marine engine and boilermakers, and set up his own business at Hatcham Iron Works, South London, in about 1840. This was initially a general engineering business and made traversing screw jacks, which England had patented, but by 1850 it was building locomotives. One of these, Little England, a 2–2– 2T light locomotive owing much to the ideas of W.Bridges Adams, was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and England then prospered, supplying many railways at home and abroad with small locomotives. In 1863 he built two exceptionally small 0–4–0 tank locomotives for the Festiniog Railway, which enabled the latter's Manager and Engineer C.E. Spooner to introduce steam traction on this line with its gauge of just under 2 ft (60 cm). England's works had a reputation for good workmanship, suggesting he inspired loyalty among his employees, yet he also displayed increasingly tyrannical behaviour towards them: the culmination was a disastrous strike in 1865 that resulted in the loss of a substantial order from the South Eastern Railway. From 1866 George England became associated with development of locomotives to the patent of Robert Fairlie, but in 1869 he retired due to ill health and leased his works to a partnership of his son (also called George England), Robert Fairlie and J.S.Fraser under the title of the Fairlie Engine \& Steam Carriage Company. However, George England junior died within a few months, locomotive production ceased in 1870 and the works was sold off two years later.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1839, British patent no. 8,058 (traversing screw jack).
    Further Reading
    Aspects of England's life and work are described in: C.H.Dickson, 1961, "Locomotive builders of the past", Stephenson Locomotive Society Journal, p. 138.
    A.R.Bennett, 1907, "Locomotive building in London", Railway Magazine, p. 382.
    R.Weaver, 1983, "English Ponies", Festiniog Railway Magazine (spring): 18.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > England, George

  • 5 Stevens, John

    [br]
    b. 1749 New York, New York, USA
    d. 6 March 1838 Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
    [br]
    American pioneer of steamboats and railways.
    [br]
    Stevens, a wealthy landowner with an estate at Hoboken on the Hudson River, had his attention drawn to the steamboat of John Fitch in 1786, and thenceforth devoted much of his time and fortune to developing steamboats and mechanical transport. He also had political influence and it was at his instance that Congress in 1790 passed an Act establishing the first patent laws in the USA. The following year Stevens was one of the first recipients of a US patent. This referred to multi-tubular boilers, of both watertube and firetube types, and antedated by many years the work of both Henry Booth and Marc Seguin on the latter.
    A steamboat built in 1798 by John Stevens, Nicholas J.Roosevelt and Stevens's brother-in-law, Robert R.Livingston, in association was unsuccessful, nor was Stevens satisfied with a boat built in 1802 in which a simple rotary steam-en-gine was mounted on the same shaft as a screw propeller. However, although others had experimented earlier with screw propellers, when John Stevens had the Little Juliana built in 1804 he produced the first practical screw steamboat. Steam at 50 psi (3.5 kg/cm2) pressure was supplied by a watertube boiler to a single-cylinder engine which drove two contra-rotating shafts, upon each of which was mounted a screw propeller. This little boat, less than 25 ft (7.6 m) long, was taken backwards and forwards across the Hudson River by two of Stevens's sons, one of whom, R.L. Stevens, was to help his father with many subsequent experiments. The boat, however, was ahead of its time, and steamships were to be driven by paddle wheels until the late 1830s.
    In 1807 John Stevens declined an invitation to join with Robert Fulton and Robert R.Living-ston in their development work, which culminated in successful operation of the PS Clermont that summer; in 1808, however, he launched his own paddle steamer, the Phoenix. But Fulton and Livingston had obtained an effective monopoly of steamer operation on the Hudson and, unable to reach agreement with them, Stevens sent Phoenix to Philadelphia to operate on the Delaware River. The intervening voyage over 150 miles (240 km) of open sea made Phoenix the first ocean-going steamer.
    From about 1810 John Stevens turned his attention to the possibilities of railways. He was at first considered a visionary, but in 1815, at his instance, the New Jersey Assembly created a company to build a railway between the Delaware and Raritan Rivers. It was the first railway charter granted in the USA, although the line it authorized remained unbuilt. To demonstrate the feasibility of the steam locomotive, Stevens built an experimental locomotive in 1825, at the age of 76. With flangeless wheels, guide rollers and rack-and-pinion drive, it ran on a circular track at his Hoboken home; it was the first steam locomotive to be built in America.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1812, Documents Tending to Prove the Superior Advantages of Rail-ways and Steam-carriages over Canal Navigation.
    He took out patents relating to steam-engines in the USA in 1791, 1803, and 1810, and in England, through his son John Cox Stevens, in 1805.
    Further Reading
    H.P.Spratt, 1958, The Birth of the Steamboat, Charles Griffin (provides technical details of Stevens's boats).
    J.T.Flexner, 1978, Steamboats Come True, Boston: Little, Brown (describes his work in relation to that of other steamboat pioneers).
    J.R.Stover, 1961, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1927) 7: 114 (discusses tubular boilers).
    J.R.Day and B.G.Wilson, 1957, Unusual Railways, F.Muller (discusses Stevens's locomotive).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Stevens, John

  • 6 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

    [br]
    b. 9 April 1806 Portsea, Hampshire, England
    d. 15 September 1859 18 Duke Street, St James's, London, England
    [br]
    English civil and mechanical engineer.
    [br]
    The son of Marc Isambard Brunel and Sophia Kingdom, he was educated at a private boarding-school in Hove. At the age of 14 he went to the College of Caen and then to the Lycée Henri-Quatre in Paris, after which he was apprenticed to Louis Breguet. In 1822 he returned from France and started working in his father's office, while spending much of his time at the works of Maudslay, Sons \& Field.
    From 1825 to 1828 he worked under his father on the construction of the latter's Thames Tunnel, occupying the position of Engineer-in-Charge, exhibiting great courage and presence of mind in the emergencies which occurred not infrequently. These culminated in January 1828 in the flooding of the tunnel and work was suspended for seven years. For the next five years the young engineer made abortive attempts to find a suitable outlet for his talents, but to little avail. Eventually, in 1831, his design for a suspension bridge over the River Avon at Clifton Gorge was accepted and he was appointed Engineer. (The bridge was eventually finished five years after Brunel's death, as a memorial to him, the delay being due to inadequate financing.) He next planned and supervised improvements to the Bristol docks. In March 1833 he was appointed Engineer of the Bristol Railway, later called the Great Western Railway. He immediately started to survey the route between London and Bristol that was completed by late August that year. On 5 July 1836 he married Mary Horsley and settled into 18 Duke Street, Westminster, London, where he also had his office. Work on the Bristol Railway started in 1836. The foundation stone of the Clifton Suspension Bridge was laid the same year. Whereas George Stephenson had based his standard railway gauge as 4 ft 8½ in (1.44 m), that or a similar gauge being usual for colliery wagonways in the Newcastle area, Brunel adopted the broader gauge of 7 ft (2.13 m). The first stretch of the line, from Paddington to Maidenhead, was opened to traffic on 4 June 1838, and the whole line from London to Bristol was opened in June 1841. The continuation of the line through to Exeter was completed and opened on 1 May 1844. The normal time for the 194-mile (312 km) run from Paddington to Exeter was 5 hours, at an average speed of 38.8 mph (62.4 km/h) including stops. The Great Western line included the Box Tunnel, the longest tunnel to that date at nearly two miles (3.2 km).
    Brunel was the engineer of most of the railways in the West Country, in South Wales and much of Southern Ireland. As railway networks developed, the frequent break of gauge became more of a problem and on 9 July 1845 a Royal Commission was appointed to look into it. In spite of comparative tests, run between Paddington-Didcot and Darlington-York, which showed in favour of Brunel's arrangement, the enquiry ruled in favour of the narrow gauge, 274 miles (441 km) of the former having been built against 1,901 miles (3,059 km) of the latter to that date. The Gauge Act of 1846 forbade the building of any further railways in Britain to any gauge other than 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1.44 m).
    The existence of long and severe gradients on the South Devon Railway led to Brunel's adoption of the atmospheric railway developed by Samuel Clegg and later by the Samuda brothers. In this a pipe of 9 in. (23 cm) or more in diameter was laid between the rails, along the top of which ran a continuous hinged flap of leather backed with iron. At intervals of about 3 miles (4.8 km) were pumping stations to exhaust the pipe. Much trouble was experienced with the flap valve and its lubrication—freezing of the leather in winter, the lubricant being sucked into the pipe or eaten by rats at other times—and the experiment was abandoned at considerable cost.
    Brunel is to be remembered for his two great West Country tubular bridges, the Chepstow and the Tamar Bridge at Saltash, with the latter opened in May 1859, having two main spans of 465 ft (142 m) and a central pier extending 80 ft (24 m) below high water mark and allowing 100 ft (30 m) of headroom above the same. His timber viaducts throughout Devon and Cornwall became a feature of the landscape. The line was extended ultimately to Penzance.
    As early as 1835 Brunel had the idea of extending the line westwards across the Atlantic from Bristol to New York by means of a steamship. In 1836 building commenced and the hull left Bristol in July 1837 for fitting out at Wapping. On 31 March 1838 the ship left again for Bristol but the boiler lagging caught fire and Brunel was injured in the subsequent confusion. On 8 April the ship set sail for New York (under steam), its rival, the 703-ton Sirius, having left four days earlier. The 1,340-ton Great Western arrived only a few hours after the Sirius. The hull was of wood, and was copper-sheathed. In 1838 Brunel planned a larger ship, some 3,000 tons, the Great Britain, which was to have an iron hull.
    The Great Britain was screwdriven and was launched on 19 July 1843,289 ft (88 m) long by 51 ft (15.5 m) at its widest. The ship's first voyage, from Liverpool to New York, began on 26 August 1845. In 1846 it ran aground in Dundrum Bay, County Down, and was later sold for use on the Australian run, on which it sailed no fewer than thirty-two times in twenty-three years, also serving as a troop-ship in the Crimean War. During this war, Brunel designed a 1,000-bed hospital which was shipped out to Renkioi ready for assembly and complete with shower-baths and vapour-baths with printed instructions on how to use them, beds and bedding and water closets with a supply of toilet paper! Brunel's last, largest and most extravagantly conceived ship was the Great Leviathan, eventually named The Great Eastern, which had a double-skinned iron hull, together with both paddles and screw propeller. Brunel designed the ship to carry sufficient coal for the round trip to Australia without refuelling, thus saving the need for and the cost of bunkering, as there were then few bunkering ports throughout the world. The ship's construction was started by John Scott Russell in his yard at Millwall on the Thames, but the building was completed by Brunel due to Russell's bankruptcy in 1856. The hull of the huge vessel was laid down so as to be launched sideways into the river and then to be floated on the tide. Brunel's plan for hydraulic launching gear had been turned down by the directors on the grounds of cost, an economy that proved false in the event. The sideways launch with over 4,000 tons of hydraulic power together with steam winches and floating tugs on the river took over two months, from 3 November 1857 until 13 January 1858. The ship was 680 ft (207 m) long, 83 ft (25 m) beam and 58 ft (18 m) deep; the screw was 24 ft (7.3 m) in diameter and paddles 60 ft (18.3 m) in diameter. Its displacement was 32,000 tons (32,500 tonnes).
    The strain of overwork and the huge responsibilities that lay on Brunel began to tell. He was diagnosed as suffering from Bright's disease, or nephritis, and spent the winter travelling in the Mediterranean and Egypt, returning to England in May 1859. On 5 September he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed, and he died ten days later at his Duke Street home.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1957, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, London: Longmans Green. J.Dugan, 1953, The Great Iron Ship, Hamish Hamilton.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

  • 7 Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside

    [br]
    b. 26 November 1810 Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
    d. 27 December 1900 Cragside, Northumbria, England
    [br]
    English inventor, engineer and entrepreneur in hydraulic engineering, shipbuilding and the production of artillery.
    [br]
    The only son of a corn merchant, Alderman William Armstrong, he was educated at private schools in Newcastle and at Bishop Auckland Grammar School. He then became an articled clerk in the office of Armorer Donkin, a solicitor and a friend of his father. During a fishing trip he saw a water-wheel driven by an open stream to work a marble-cutting machine. He felt that its efficiency would be improved by introducing the water to the wheel in a pipe. He developed an interest in hydraulics and in electricity, and became a popular lecturer on these subjects. From 1838 he became friendly with Henry Watson of the High Bridge Works, Newcastle, and for six years he visited the Works almost daily, studying turret clocks, telescopes, papermaking machinery, surveying instruments and other equipment being produced. There he had built his first hydraulic machine, which generated 5 hp when run off the Newcastle town water-mains. He then designed and made a working model of a hydraulic crane, but it created little interest. In 1845, after he had served this rather unconventional apprenticeship at High Bridge Works, he was appointed Secretary of the newly formed Whittle Dene Water Company. The same year he proposed to the town council of Newcastle the conversion of one of the quayside cranes to his hydraulic operation which, if successful, should also be applied to a further four cranes. This was done by the Newcastle Cranage Company at High Bridge Works. In 1847 he gave up law and formed W.G.Armstrong \& Co. to manufacture hydraulic machinery in a works at Elswick. Orders for cranes, hoists, dock gates and bridges were obtained from mines; docks and railways.
    Early in the Crimean War, the War Office asked him to design and make submarine mines to blow up ships that were sunk by the Russians to block the entrance to Sevastopol harbour. The mines were never used, but this set him thinking about military affairs and brought him many useful contacts at the War Office. Learning that two eighteen-pounder British guns had silenced a whole Russian battery but were too heavy to move over rough ground, he carried out a thorough investigation and proposed light field guns with rifled barrels to fire elongated lead projectiles rather than cast-iron balls. He delivered his first gun in 1855; it was built of a steel core and wound-iron wire jacket. The barrel was multi-grooved and the gun weighed a quarter of a ton and could fire a 3 lb (1.4 kg) projectile. This was considered too light and was sent back to the factory to be rebored to take a 5 lb (2.3 kg) shot. The gun was a complete success and Armstrong was then asked to design and produce an equally successful eighteen-pounder. In 1859 he was appointed Engineer of Rifled Ordnance and was knighted. However, there was considerable opposition from the notably conservative officers of the Army who resented the intrusion of this civilian engineer in their affairs. In 1862, contracts with the Elswick Ordnance Company were terminated, and the Government rejected breech-loading and went back to muzzle-loading. Armstrong resigned and concentrated on foreign sales, which were successful worldwide.
    The search for a suitable proving ground for a 12-ton gun led to an interest in shipbuilding at Elswick from 1868. This necessitated the replacement of an earlier stone bridge with the hydraulically operated Tyne Swing Bridge, which weighed some 1450 tons and allowed a clear passage for shipping. Hydraulic equipment on warships became more complex and increasing quantities of it were made at the Elswick works, which also flourished with the reintroduction of the breech-loader in 1878. In 1884 an open-hearth acid steelworks was added to the Elswick facilities. In 1897 the firm merged with Sir Joseph Whitworth \& Co. to become Sir W.G.Armstrong Whitworth \& Co. After Armstrong's death a further merger with Vickers Ltd formed Vickers Armstrong Ltd.
    In 1879 Armstrong took a great interest in Joseph Swan's invention of the incandescent electric light-bulb. He was one of those who formed the Swan Electric Light Company, opening a factory at South Benwell to make the bulbs. At Cragside, his mansion at Roth bury, he installed a water turbine and generator, making it one of the first houses in England to be lit by electricity.
    Armstrong was a noted philanthropist, building houses for his workforce, and endowing schools, hospitals and parks. His last act of charity was to purchase Bamburgh Castle, Northumbria, in 1894, intending to turn it into a hospital or a convalescent home, but he did not live long enough to complete the work.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1859. FRS 1846. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers; Institution of Civil Engineers; British Association for the Advancement of Science 1863. Baron Armstrong of Cragside 1887.
    Further Reading
    E.R.Jones, 1886, Heroes of Industry', London: Low.
    D.J.Scott, 1962, A History of Vickers, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside

  • 8 Shaw, Percy

    [br]
    b. 1889 Yorkshire, England d. 1975
    [br]
    English inventor of the "catseye" reflecting roadstud.
    [br]
    Little is known of Shaw's youth, but in the 1930s he was running a comparatively successful business repairing roads. One evening in 1933, he was driving to his home in Halifax, West Yorkshire; it was late, dark and foggy and only the reflection of his headlights from the tram-tracks guided him and kept him on the road. He decided to find or make an alternative to tramlines, which were not universal and by that time were being taken up as trams were being replaced with diesel buses.
    Shaw needed a place to work and bought the old Boothtown Mansion, a cloth-merchant's house built in the mid-eighteenth century. There he devoted himself to the production of a prototype of the reflecting roadstud, inspired by the reflective nature of a cat's eyes. Shaw's design consisted of a prism backed by an aluminium mirror, set in pairs in a rubber casing; when traffic passed over the stud, the prisms would be wiped clean as the casing was depressed. In 1934, Shaw obtained permission from the county surveyor to lay, at his own expense, a short stretch of catseyes on a main highway near his home: fifty were laid at Brightlington cross-roads, an accident blackspot near Bradford. This was inspected by a number of surveyors in 1936. The first order for catseyes had already been placed in 1935, for a pedestrian crossing in Baldon, Yorkshire. There were alternative designs in existence, particularly in France, and in 1937 the Ministry of Transport laid an 8 km (5 mile) stretch in Oxfordshire with sample lengths of different types of studs. After two years, most of them had fractured, become displaced or ceased to reflect; only the product of Shaw's company, Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd, was still in perfect condition. The outbreak of the Second World War brought blackout regulations, which caused a great boost to sales of reflecting roadstuds; orders reached some 40,000 per week. Production was limited, however, due to the shortage of rubber supplies after the Japanese overran South-East Asia; until the end of the war, only about 12,000 catseyes were produced a year.
    Over fifty million catseyes have been installed in Britain, where on average there are about two hundred and fifty catseyes in each kilometre of road, if laid in a single line. The success of Shaw's invention brought him great wealth, although he continued to live in the same house, without curtains—which obstructed his view—or carpets—which harboured odours and germs. He had three Rolls-Royce cars, and four television sets which were permanently switched on while he was at home, each tuned to a different channel.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    OBE 1965.
    Further Reading
    E.de Bono (ed.), 1979, Eureka, London: Thames \& Hudson.
    "Percy's bright idea", En Route (the magazine of the Caravan Club), reprinted in The Police Review, 23 March 1983.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Shaw, Percy

  • 9 Cubitt, William

    [br]
    b. 1785 Dilham, Norfolk, England
    d. 13 October 1861 Clapham Common, Surrey, England
    [br]
    English civil engineer and contractor.
    [br]
    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.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1851. FRS 1830. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1850 and 1851.
    Further Reading
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Cubitt, William

  • 10 Lister, Samuel Cunliffe, 1st Baron Masham

    SUBJECT AREA: Textiles
    [br]
    b. 1 January 1815 Calverly Hall, Bradford, England
    d. 2 February 1906 Swinton Park, near Bradford, England
    [br]
    English inventor of successful wool-combing and waste-silk spinning machines.
    [br]
    Lister was descended from one of the old Yorkshire families, the Cunliffe Listers of Manningham, and was the fourth son of his father Ellis. After attending a school on Clapham Common, Lister would not go to university; his family hoped he would enter the Church, but instead he started work with the Liverpool merchants Sands, Turner \& Co., who frequently sent him to America. In 1837 his father built for him and his brother a worsted mill at Manningham, where Samuel invented a swivel shuttle and a machine for making fringes on shawls. It was here that he first became aware of the unhealthy occupation of combing wool by hand. Four years later, after seeing the machine that G.E. Donisthorpe was trying to work out, he turned his attention to mechanizing wool-combing. Lister took Donisthorpe into partnership after paying him £12,000 for his patent, and developed the Lister-Cartwright "square nip" comber. Until this time, combing machines were little different from Cartwright's original, but Lister was able to improve on this with continuous operation and by 1843 was combing the first fine botany wool that had ever been combed by machinery. In the following year he received an order for fifty machines to comb all qualities of wool. Further combing patents were taken out with Donisthorpe in 1849, 1850, 1851 and 1852, the last two being in Lister's name only. One of the important features of these patents was the provision of a gripping device or "nip" which held the wool fibres at one end while the rest of the tuft was being combed. Lister was soon running nine combing mills. In the 1850s Lister had become involved in disputes with others who held combing patents, such as his associate Isaac Holden and the Frenchman Josué Heilmann. Lister bought up the Heilmann machine patents and afterwards other types until he obtained a complete monopoly of combing machines before the patents expired. His invention stimulated demand for wool by cheapening the product and gave a vital boost to the Australian wool trade. By 1856 he was at the head of a wool-combing business such as had never been seen before, with mills at Manningham, Bradford, Halifax, Keighley and other places in the West Riding, as well as abroad.
    His inventive genius also extended to other fields. In 1848 he patented automatic compressed air brakes for railways, and in 1853 alone he took out twelve patents for various textile machines. He then tried to spin waste silk and made a second commercial career, turning what was called "chassum" and hitherto regarded as refuse into beautiful velvets, silks, plush and other fine materials. Waste silk consisted of cocoon remnants from the reeling process, damaged cocoons and fibres rejected from other processes. There was also wild silk obtained from uncultivated worms. This is what Lister saw in a London warehouse as a mass of knotty, dirty, impure stuff, full of bits of stick and dead mulberry leaves, which he bought for a halfpenny a pound. He spent ten years trying to solve the problems, but after a loss of £250,000 and desertion by his partner his machine caught on in 1865 and brought Lister another fortune. Having failed to comb this waste silk, Lister turned his attention to the idea of "dressing" it and separating the qualities automatically. He patented a machine in 1877 that gave a graduated combing. To weave his new silk, he imported from Spain to Bradford, together with its inventor Jose Reixach, a velvet loom that was still giving trouble. It wove two fabrics face to face, but the problem lay in separating the layers so that the pile remained regular in length. Eventually Lister was inspired by watching a scissors grinder in the street to use small emery wheels to sharpen the cutters that divided the layers of fabric. Lister took out several patents for this loom in his own name in 1868 and 1869, while in 1871 he took out one jointly with Reixach. It is said that he spent £29,000 over an eleven-year period on this loom, but this was more than recouped from the sale of reasonably priced high-quality velvets and plushes once success was achieved. Manningham mills were greatly enlarged to accommodate this new manufacture.
    In later years Lister had an annual profit from his mills of £250,000, much of which was presented to Bradford city in gifts such as Lister Park, the original home of the Listers. He was connected with the Bradford Chamber of Commerce for many years and held the position of President of the Fair Trade League for some time. In 1887 he became High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and in 1891 he was made 1st Baron Masham. He was also Deputy Lieutenant in North and West Riding.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Created 1st Baron Masham 1891.
    Bibliography
    1849, with G.E.Donisthorpe, British patent no. 12,712. 1850, with G.E. Donisthorpe, British patent no. 13,009. 1851, British patent no. 13,532.
    1852, British patent no. 14,135.
    1877, British patent no. 3,600 (combing machine). 1868, British patent no. 470.
    1868, British patent no. 2,386.
    1868, British patent no. 2,429.
    1868, British patent no. 3,669.
    1868, British patent no. 1,549.
    1871, with J.Reixach, British patent no. 1,117. 1905, Lord Masham's Inventions (autobiography).
    Further Reading
    J.Hogg (ed.), c. 1888, Fortunes Made in Business, London (biography).
    W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London; and C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press (both cover the technical details of Lister's invention).
    RLH

    Biographical history of technology > Lister, Samuel Cunliffe, 1st Baron Masham

  • 11 Trevithick, Richard

    [br]
    b. 13 April 1771 Illogan, Cornwall, England
    d. 22 April 1833 Dartford, Kent, England
    [br]
    English engineer, pioneer of non-condensing steam-engines; designed and built the first locomotives.
    [br]
    Trevithick's father was a tin-mine manager, and Trevithick himself, after limited formal education, developed his immense engineering talent among local mining machinery and steam-engines and found employment as a mining engineer. Tall, strong and high-spirited, he was the eternal optimist.
    About 1797 it occurred to him that the separate condenser patent of James Watt could be avoided by employing "strong steam", that is steam at pressures substantially greater than atmospheric, to drive steam-engines: after use, steam could be exhausted to the atmosphere and the condenser eliminated. His first winding engine on this principle came into use in 1799, and subsequently such engines were widely used. To produce high-pressure steam, a stronger boiler was needed than the boilers then in use, in which the pressure vessel was mounted upon masonry above the fire: Trevithick designed the cylindrical boiler, with furnace tube within, from which the Cornish and later the Lancashire boilers evolved.
    Simultaneously he realized that high-pressure steam enabled a compact steam-engine/boiler unit to be built: typically, the Trevithick engine comprised a cylindrical boiler with return firetube, and a cylinder recessed into the boiler. No beam intervened between connecting rod and crank. A master patent was taken out.
    Such an engine was well suited to driving vehicles. Trevithick built his first steam-carriage in 1801, but after a few days' use it overturned on a rough Cornish road and was damaged beyond repair by fire. Nevertheless, it had been the first self-propelled vehicle successfully to carry passengers. His second steam-carriage was driven about the streets of London in 1803, even more successfully; however, it aroused no commercial interest. Meanwhile the Coalbrookdale Company had started to build a locomotive incorporating a Trevithick engine for its tramroads, though little is known of the outcome; however, Samuel Homfray's ironworks at Penydarren, South Wales, was already building engines to Trevithick's design, and in 1804 Trevithick built one there as a locomotive for the Penydarren Tramroad. In this, and in the London steam-carriage, exhaust steam was turned up the chimney to draw the fire. On 21 February the locomotive hauled five wagons with 10 tons of iron and seventy men for 9 miles (14 km): it was the first successful railway locomotive.
    Again, there was no commercial interest, although Trevithick now had nearly fifty stationary engines completed or being built to his design under licence. He experimented with one to power a barge on the Severn and used one to power a dredger on the Thames. He became Engineer to a project to drive a tunnel beneath the Thames at Rotherhithe and was only narrowly defeated, by quicksands. Trevithick then set up, in 1808, a circular tramroad track in London and upon it demonstrated to the admission-fee-paying public the locomotive Catch me who can, built to his design by John Hazledine and J.U. Rastrick.
    In 1809, by which date Trevithick had sold all his interest in the steam-engine patent, he and Robert Dickinson, in partnership, obtained a patent for iron tanks to hold liquid cargo in ships, replacing the wooden casks then used, and started to manufacture them. In 1810, however, he was taken seriously ill with typhus for six months and had to return to Cornwall, and early in 1811 the partners were bankrupt; Trevithick was discharged from bankruptcy only in 1814.
    In the meantime he continued as a steam engineer and produced a single-acting steam engine in which the cut-off could be varied to work the engine expansively by way of a three-way cock actuated by a cam. Then, in 1813, Trevithick was approached by a representative of a company set up to drain the rich but flooded silver-mines at Cerro de Pasco, Peru, at an altitude of 14,000 ft (4,300 m). Low-pressure steam engines, dependent largely upon atmospheric pressure, would not work at such an altitude, but Trevithick's high-pressure engines would. Nine engines and much other mining plant were built by Hazledine and Rastrick and despatched to Peru in 1814, and Trevithick himself followed two years later. However, the war of independence was taking place in Peru, then a Spanish colony, and no sooner had Trevithick, after immense difficulties, put everything in order at the mines then rebels arrived and broke up the machinery, for they saw the mines as a source of supply for the Spanish forces. It was only after innumerable further adventures, during which he encountered and was assisted financially by Robert Stephenson, that Trevithick eventually arrived home in Cornwall in 1827, penniless.
    He petitioned Parliament for a grant in recognition of his improvements to steam-engines and boilers, without success. He was as inventive as ever though: he proposed a hydraulic power transmission system; he was consulted over steam engines for land drainage in Holland; and he suggested a 1,000 ft (305 m) high tower of gilded cast iron to commemorate the Reform Act of 1832. While working on steam propulsion of ships in 1833, he caught pneumonia, from which he died.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    Trevithick took out fourteen patents, solely or in partnership, of which the most important are: 1802, Construction of Steam Engines, British patent no. 2,599. 1808, Stowing Ships' Cargoes, British patent no. 3,172.
    Further Reading
    H.W.Dickinson and A.Titley, 1934, Richard Trevithick. The Engineer and the Man, Cambridge; F.Trevithick, 1872, Life of Richard Trevithick, London (these two are the principal biographies).
    E.A.Forward, 1952, "Links in the history of the locomotive", The Engineer (22 February), 226 (considers the case for the Coalbrookdale locomotive of 1802).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Trevithick, Richard

См. также в других словарях:

  • The United States of America —     The United States of America     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The United States of America     BOUNDARIES AND AREA     On the east the boundary is formed by the St. Croix River and an arbitrary line to the St. John, and on the north by the… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Irish (in Countries Other Than Ireland) —     The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     I. IN THE UNITED STATES     Who were the first Irish to land on the American continent and the time of their arrival are …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Landmark London — is a five star hotel on Marylebone Road on the northern side of central London, England in the borough of London named the City of Westminster. It was originally opened by the Great Central Railway, as the Hotel Great Central.Early historyThe… …   Wikipedia

  • England — For other uses, see England (disambiguation). England …   Wikipedia

  • The Blitz — London Blitz redirects here. For the London based American football team, see London Blitz (American football). For other uses, see Blitz (disambiguation). The Blitz Part of Second World War, Home Front …   Wikipedia

  • The Bronx — Bronx redirects here. For other uses, see Bronx (disambiguation). The Bronx   Borough of New York City   Bronx County Motto: Ne cede malis Do not give way to evil …   Wikipedia

  • England — /ing gleuhnd/ or, often, / leuhnd/, n. the largest division of the United Kingdom, constituting, with Scotland and Wales, the island of Great Britain. 45,870,062; 50,327 sq. mi. (130,347 sq. km) Cap.: London. * * * I Southern part of the island… …   Universalium

  • The War of the Worlds — War of the Worlds redirects here. For the various other adaptations, see Adaptations of The War of the Worlds. For other uses, see The War of the Worlds (disambiguation). The War of the Worlds   …   Wikipedia

  • The Other Railway — In the children s books The Railway Series, by the Rev. W. Awdry, The Other Railway refers to British Railways (later British Rail), the UK nationalised rail organisation that existed from 1948 until 1997. Several of the characters in the books… …   Wikipedia

  • The Titfield Thunderbolt — Infobox Film name = The Titfield Thunderbolt caption = Original movie poster director = Charles Crichton writer = T.E.B. Clarke producer = Michael Truman executive producer = Michael Balcon starring = Stanley Holloway George Relph Naunton Wayne… …   Wikipedia

  • The Holocaust — Holocaust and Shoah redirect here. For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). Selection on …   Wikipedia

Поделиться ссылкой на выделенное

Прямая ссылка:
… Нажмите правой клавишей мыши и выберите «Копировать ссылку»