introducing subject

1) (admiration; good opinion: He is held in great respect by everyone; He has no respect for politicians.) respeto

2) (consideration; thoughtfulness; willingness to obey etc: He shows no respect for his parents.) respeto

3) (a particular detail, feature etc: These two poems are similar in some respects.) aspecto

1) (to show or feel admiration for: I respect you for what you did.) respetar

2) (to show consideration for, a willingness to obey etc: One should respect other people's feelings/property.) respetar

•

- respectable

respect¹ n

1. respeto

2. sentido / respecto

respect² vb respetar

tr[rɪ'spekt]

noun

1 (admiration, consideration) respeto

2 (aspect) respecto

■ in some respects the old one is better en algunos sentidos el antiguo está mejor

transitive verb

1 respetar

\

to have no respect for no respetar

to pay one's respects to somebody presentar sus respetos a alguien

to pay one's last respects to somebody rendir el último homenaje a alguien, dar el último adiós a alguien

with all due respect con el debido respeto

with respect to con respecto a

respect [ri'spɛkt] vt

: respetar, estimar

respect n

1) reference: relación f, respeto m

with respect to: en lo que respecta a

2) esteem: respeto m, estima f

3) detail, particular: detalle m, sentido m, respeto m

in some respects: en algunos sentidos

4) respects npl

: respetos mpl

to pay one's respects: presentar uno susrespetos

• acatamiento s.m.

• acato s.m.

• consideración s.f.

• decoro s.m.

• estima s.f.

• honra s.f.

• respecto s.m.

• respeto s.m.

• acatar v.

• atenerse a v.

• estimar v.

• respetar v.

1)

a) u ( esteem) respeto m

b) u ( consideration) consideración f, respeto m

c) respects pl respetos mpl

2)

a) c (way, aspect) sentido m, respecto m

b) (in phrases)

a) ( hold in esteem) \<\<person/ability\>\> respetar

b) ( have consideration for) \<\<feelings/wishes\>\> respetar, tener* en cuenta

c) ( obey) \<\<rule/authority\>\> respetar, acatar

1. N

1) (=consideration) respeto m, consideración f

2) (=admiration, esteem) respeto m

3) respects respetos mpl frm, recuerdos mpl, saludos mpl

4) (=point, detail) aspecto m, sentido m

5) (=reference, regard) respecto m

2. VT

1) (=esteem) respetar

2) (=have consideration for) [+ wishes, privacy, opinions] respetar

3) (=observe) [+ law, treaty] acatar

4)

* * *

1)

a) u ( esteem) respeto m

b) u ( consideration) consideración f, respeto m

c) respects pl respetos mpl

2)

a) c (way, aspect) sentido m, respecto m

b) (in phrases)

a) ( hold in esteem) \<\<person/ability\>\> respetar

b) ( have consideration for) \<\<feelings/wishes\>\> respetar, tener* en cuenta

c) ( obey) \<\<rule/authority\>\> respetar, acatar

1 to explore.

El aventurero prospecta el terreno The adventure man explores the terrain.

2 to explore (medicine) (internamente).

3 to prospect (mining).

* * *

► verbo transitivo

1 (gen) to explore

2 MEDICINA to probe

3 MILITAR to reconnoitre

4 TÉCNICA to scan

5 (de mina) to drill, prospect

\

explorar el terreno figurado to see how the land lies

* * *

* * *

VT (Geog) to explore; (Mil) to reconnoitre; (Med) to probe; [con radar] to scan

VI to explore; (Mil) to reconnoitre, scout

* * *

verbo transitivo

1)

a) < región> to explore; < yacimientos> to prospect for

b) < posibilidades> to explore, investigate; < situación> to investigate, examine

c) (Mil) to reconnoiter*, scout

2) (Med) < órgano> to examine, explore

* * *

= explore, scout, wind + Posesivo + way.

Ex. Next I will illustrate a simple search profile which does not explore all possible synonyms, but does serve to illustrate weighted term logic.

Ex. The article is entitled ' Scouting new horizons: an annotated bibliography introducing subject access in visual image databases'.

Ex. Polaris has long been an important star to sailors of old winding their way over the oceans by night.

----

* explorar métodos = explore + roads.

* explorar nuevos horizontes = move on to + pastures new.

* explorar territorio = explore + territory.

* explorar una dirección = chart + direction.

* sin explorar = unexplored.

* * *

verbo transitivo

1)

a) < región> to explore; < yacimientos> to prospect for

b) < posibilidades> to explore, investigate; < situación> to investigate, examine

c) (Mil) to reconnoiter*, scout

2) (Med) < órgano> to examine, explore

* * *

* * *

explorar [A1 ]

1 ‹tierras/región› to explore

2 ‹yacimientos› to prospect for

3 ‹posibilidades› to explore, investigate; ‹situación› to investigate, examine

4 ( Mil) to reconnoiter*, scout

5 «radar/sonar» to scan

6 ( Inf):

explorar la red to surf the Net

B ( Med) ‹herida› to probe, examine; ‹órgano› to examine, explore

* * *

a) ‹ región› to explore;

b) ‹ posibilidades› to explore, investigate;

c) (Mil) to reconnoiter^{( conjugate reconnoiter)}, scout;

* * *

explorar vt

1. [averiguar, reconocer] to explore;

zonas aún por explorar as yet unexplored areas;

exploraremos todas las posibilidades we will explore every option

2. Mil to scout

3. Med [internamente] to explore;

4. Informát to browse;

explorar Internet to browse the Internet

* * *

v/t explore

* * *

explorar vt

: to explore

♦ exploratorio, -ria adj

* * *

explorar vb to explore

SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Civil engineering

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After an apprenticeship with the Severn Navigation, of which his father was Chief Engineer, Williams was engaged as Assistant Engineer on the Great Northern Railway, Resident Engineer at Shoreham Harbour and Engineer to the contractors for the Admiralty Pier at Dover. In 1856 he was appointed Engineer to the River Weaver Trust, and among the improvements he made was the introduction of the Anderton barge lift linking the Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal. After rejecting the proposal of a flight of locks he considered that barges might be lifted and lowered by hydraulic means. Various designs were submitted and the final choice fell on one by Edwin Clark that had two troughs counterbalancing each other through pistons. Movement of the troughs was initiated by introducing excess water into the upper trough to lift the lower. The work was carried out by Clark.

In 1872 Williams became Engineer to the Bridgewater Navigation, enlarging the locks at Runcorn and introducing steam propulsion on the canal. He later examined the possibility of upgrading the Mersey \& Irwell Navigation to a Ship Canal. In 1882 his proposals to the Provisional Committee of the proposed Manchester Ship Canal were accepted. His scheme was to use the Mersey Channel as far as Eastham and then construct a lock canal from there to Manchester. He was appointed Chief Engineer of the undertaking.

The canal's construction was a major engineering work during which Williams overcame many difficulties. He used the principle of the troughs on the Anderton lift as a guide for the construction of the Barton swing aqueduct, which replaced Brindley's original masonry aqueduct on the Bridgewater Canal. The first sod was cut at Eastham on 11 November 1887 and the lower portion of the canal was used for traffic in September 1891. The canal was opened to sea-borne traffic on 1 January 1894 and was formally opened by Queen Victoria on 21 May 1894. In acknowledgement of his work, a knighthood was conferred on him. He continued as Consulting Engineer until ill health forced his retirement.

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SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology, Photography, film and optics

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At the age of 19 Marey went to Paris to study medicine, becoming particularly interested in the problems of the circulation of the blood. In an early communication to the Académie des Sciences he described a much improved device for recording the pulse, the sphygmograph, in which the beats were recorded on a smoked plate. Most of his subsequent work was concerned with methods of recording movement: to study the movement of the horse, he used pneumatic sensors on each hoof to record traces on a smoked drum; this device became known as the Marey recording tambour. His attempts to study the wing movements of a bird in flight in the same way met with limited success since the recording system interfered with free movement. Reading in 1878 of Muybridge's work in America using sequence photography to study animal movement, Marey considered the use of photography himself. In 1882 he developed an idea first used by the astronomer Janssen: a camera in which a series of exposures could be made on a circular photographic plate. Marey's "photographic gun" was rifle shaped and could expose twelve pictures in approximately one second on a circular plate. With this device he was able to study wing movements of birds in free flight. The camera was limited in that it could record only a small number of images, and in the summer of 1882 he developed a new camera, when the French government gave him a grant to set up a physiological research station on land provided by the Parisian authorities near the Porte d'Auteuil. The new design used a fixed plate, on which a series of images were recorded through a rotating shutter. Looking rather like the results provided by a modern stroboscope flash device, the images were partially superimposed if the subject was slow moving, or separated if it was fast. His human subjects were dressed all in white and moved against a black background. An alternative was to dress the subject in black, with highly reflective strips and points along limbs and at joints, to produce a graphic record of the relationships of the parts of the body during action. A one-second-sweep timing clock was included in the scene to enable the precise interval between exposures to be assessed. The fixed-plate cameras were used with considerable success, but the number of individual records on each plate was still limited. With the appearance of Eastman's Kodak roll-film camera in France in September 1888, Marey designed a new camera to use the long rolls of paper film. He described the new apparatus to the Académie des Sciences on 8 October 1888, and three weeks later showed a band of images taken with it at the rate of 20 per second. This camera and its subsequent improvements were the first true cinematographic cameras. The arrival of Eastman's celluloid film late in 1889 made Marey's camera even more practical, and for over a decade the Physiological Research Station made hundreds of sequence studies of animals and humans in motion, at rates of up to 100 pictures per second. Marey pioneered the scientific study of movement using film cameras, introducing techniques of time-lapse, frame-by-frame and slow-motion analysis, macro-and micro-cinematography, superimposed timing clocks, studies of airflow using smoke streams, and other methods still in use in the 1990s. Appointed Professor of Natural History at the Collège de France in 1870, he headed the Institut Marey founded in 1898 to continue these studies. After Marey's death in 1904, the research continued under the direction of his associate Lucien Bull, who developed many new techniques, notably ultra-high-speed cinematography.

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See also: Demenÿ, Georges

BC / MG

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Allen was the Resident Engineer for construction of the Delaware \& Hudson Canal and in 1828 was instructed by J.B. Jervis to visit England to purchase locomotives for the canal's rail extension. He drove the locomotive Stourbridge Lion, built by J.U. Rastrick, on its first trial on 9 August 1829, but weak track prevented its regular use.

Allen was present at the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in October 1829. So was E.L.Miller, one of the promoters of the South Carolina Canal \& Rail Road Company, to which Allen was appointed Chief Engineer that autumn. Allen was influential in introducing locomotives to this railway, and the West Point Foundry built a locomotive for it to his design; it was the first locomotive built in the USA for sale. This locomotive, which bore some resemblance to Novelty, built for Rainhill by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, was named Best Friend of Charleston. On Christmas Day 1830 it hauled the first scheduled steam train to run in America, carrying 141 passengers.

In 1832 the West Point Foundry built four double-ended, articulated 2–2–0+0–2–2 locomotives to Horatio Allen's design for the South Carolina railroad. From each end of a central firebox extended two boiler barrels side by side with common smokeboxes and chimneys; wheels were mounted on swivelling sub-frames, one at each end, beneath these boilers. Allen's principal object was to produce a powerful locomotive with a light axle loading.

Allen subsequently became a partner in Stillman, Allen \& Co. of New York, builders of marine engines, and in 1843 was President of the Erie Railroad.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Public utilities, Weapons and armour

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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.

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SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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After leaving school in 1902, he went to the Ecole Polytechnique, Zurich, leaving in 1906 with an engineering diploma. He then spent a year with Professor A.Stodola, working on steam engines, turbines and internal combustion engines. He also conducted research in the strength of materials. After this, he spent two years as Research and Design Engineer at the Nuremberg works of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg. He came to England in 1909 to join the British Westinghouse Co. Ltd in Manchester, and by 1912 was Chief Engineer of the Engine Department of that firm. The firm later became the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. Ltd (MV), and Baumann rose from Chief Mechanical Engineer through to, by 1929, Special Director and Member of the Executive Management Board; he remained a director until his retirement in 1949.

For much of his career, Baumann was in the forefront of power station steam-cycle development, pioneering increased turbine entry pressures and temperatures, in 1916 introducing multi-stage regenerative feed-water heating and the Baumann turbine multi-exhaust. His 105 MW set for Battersea "A" station (1933) was for many years the largest single-axis unit in Europe. From 1938 on, he and his team were responsible for the first axial-flow aircraft propulsion gas turbines to fly in England, and jet engines in the 1990s owe much to the "Beryl" and "Sapphire" engines produced by MV. In particular, the design of the compressor for the Sapphire engine later became the basis for Rolls-Royce units, after an exchange of information between that company and Armstrong-Siddeley, who had previously taken over the aircraft engine work of MV.Further, the Beryl engine formed the basis of "Gatric", the first marine gas turbine propulsion engine.

Baumann was elected to full membership for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1929 and a year later was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal by that body, followed by their James Clayton Prize in 1948: in the same year he became the thirty-fifth Thomas Hawksley lecturer. Many of his ideas and introductions have stood the test of time, being based on his deep and wide understanding of fundamentals.

SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors, Metallurgy

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Boulsover, originally a small-scale manufacturer of cutlery, is believed to have specialized in making knife-handle components. About 1742 he found that a thin sheet of silver could be fused to copper sheet by rolling or beating to flatten it. Thus he developed the plating of silver, later called Sheffield plate.

The method when perfected consisted of copper sheet overlaid by thin sheet silver being annealed by red heat. Protected by iron sheeting, the copper and silver were rolled together, becoming fused to a single plate capable of undergoing further manufacturing processes. Later developments included methods of edging the fused sheets and the placing of silver sheet on both lower and upper surfaces of copper, to produce high-quality silver plate, in much demand by the latter part of the century. Boulsover himself is said to have produced only small articles such as buttons and snuff boxes from this material, which by 1758 was being exploited more commercially by Joseph Hancock in Sheffield making candlesticks, hot-water pots and coffee pots. Matthew Boulton introduced its manufacture in very high-quality products during the 1760s to Birmingham, where the technique was widely adopted later. By the 1770s Boulsover was engaged in rolling his plated copper for industry elsewhere, also trading in iron and purchasing blister steel which he converted by the Huntsman process to crucible steel. Blister steel was converted on his behalf to shear steel by forging. He is thought to have also been responsible for improving this product further, introducing "double-shear steel", by repeating the forging and faggoting of shear steel bars. Thomas Boulsover had become a Sheffield entrepreneur, well known for his numerous skills with metals.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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William Buckle was the son of Thomas Buckle (1759–1849), a millwright who later assisted the 9th Earl of Dundonald (1749–1831) in his various inventions, principally machines for the manufacture of rope. Soon after the birth of William, the family moved from Alnwick to Hull, Yorkshire, where he received his education. The family again moved c.1808 to London, and William was apprenticed to Messrs Woolf \& Edwards, millwrights and engineers of Lambeth. During his apprenticeship he attended evening classes at a mechanical drawing school in Finsbury, which was then the only place of its kind in London.

After completing his apprenticeship, he was sent by Messrs Humphrys to Memel in Prussia to establish steamboats on the rivers and lakes there under the patronage of the Prince of Hardenburg. After about four years he returned to Britain and was employed by Boulton, Watt \& Co. to install the engines in the first steam mail packet for the service between Dublin and Holyhead. He was responsible for the engines of the steamship Lightning when it was used on the visit of George IV to Ireland.

About 1824 Buckle was engaged by Boulton, Watt \& Co. as Manager of the Soho Foundry, where he is credited with introducing the first large screw-cutting lathe. At Soho about 700 or 800 men were employed on a wide variety of engineering manufacture, including coining machinery for mints in many parts of the world, with some in 1826 for the Mint at the Soho Manufactory. In 1851, following the recommendations of a Royal Commission, the Royal Mint in London was reorganized and Buckle was asked to take the post of Assistant Coiner, the senior executive officer under the Deputy Master. This he accepted, retaining the post until the end of his life.

At Soho, Buckle helped to establish a literary and scientific institution to provide evening classes for the apprentices and took part in the teaching. He was an original member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which was founded in Birmingham in January 1847, and a member of their Council from then until 1855. He contributed a number of papers in the early years, including a memoir of William Murdock whom he had known at Soho; he resigned from the Institution in 1856 after his move to London. He was an honorary member of the London Association of Foreman Engineers.

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Textiles

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Cosnier was probably an Angevin as he had property in Tours although he lived in Paris; his father was valet de chambre to King Henri IV. Although he qualified as an engineer, he was primarily a man of ideas. On 23 December 1603 he obtained a grant to establish silkworm breeding, or sericulture, in Poitou by introducing 100,000 mulberry plants, together with 200 oz (5.7 kg) of mulberry seed. He had 2,000 instruction leaflets on silkworm breeding printed, but his project collapsed when the Poitevins refused to co-operate. Cosnier then distributed the plants and seeds to other parts of France. The same year he approached Henri IV with the proposal to build a canal from the Loire to the Seine, partly via the Loing, from Briare to Montargis. On the king's acceptance of his proposal, Cosnier on 11 March 1604 undertook to complete the canal, which necessitated crossing the ridge between the two rivers, over a three-year period for 505,000 livres. The Canal de Briare, as it became known, with thirty-six locks including the flight of seven at Rogny, was almost complete in 1610; however, the death of Henri IV led to its abandonment. Cosnier offered to complete it at his own expense, but his offer was refused. Instead, his accounts were examined and it was found that he had already exceeded his authorized credits by 35,000 livres. In settlement, after some quibbling, he was awarded the two seigneuries of Trousse near Briare. Cosnier then suggested encircling the Paris suburbs with a canal which would not only be navigable but would also provide a water supply for fountains and drains. His proposal was accepted in 1618, but the works were never started. In the 1620s the marquis d'Effiet proposed the completion of the Canal de Briare and Cosnier was invited to resume work. Before anything more could be done Cosnier died, some time between July 1629 and March 1630, and the work was again abandoned. The canal was ultimately completed by Boutheroue in 1642, but the seven locks at Rogny remain a dramatic monument to Cosnier's ability.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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After education at a private school, Dickinson was apprenticed to a London stationer. In 1806 he started in business as a stationer, in partnership with George Longman; they transferred to 65 Old Bailey, where the firm remained until their premises were destroyed during the Second World War. In order to secure the supply of paper and be less dependent on the papermakers, Dickinson turned to making paper on his own account. In 1809 he acquired Apsley Mill, near Hemel Hempstead on the river Gade in Hertfordshire. There, he produced a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges which, unlike the paper then in use, did not smoulder, thus reducing the risk of undesired explosions. The new paper proved very useful during the Napoleonic War.

Dickinson developed a continuous papermaking machine about the same time as the Fourdrinier brothers, but his worked on a different principle. Instead of a continuous flat wire screen, Dickinson used a wire-covered cylinder which dipped into the dilute pulp as it revolved. A felt-covered roller removed the layer of wet pulp, which was then subjected to drying, as in the Fourdrinier machine. The latter was first in use at Frogmore, just upstream from Apsley Mill on the river Gade. Dickinson patented his machine in 1809 and claimed that it was superior for some kinds of paper. In feet, both types of machine have survived, in much enlarged and modified form: the Fourdrinier for general papermaking, the Dickinson cylinder for the making of board. In 1810 Dickinson acquired the nearby Nash Mill, and over the years he extended the scope of his papermaking business, introducing many technical improvements. Among his inventions was a machine to paste together continuous webs of paper to form cardboard. Another, patented in 1829, was a process for incorporating threads of cotton, flax or silk into the body of the paper to make forgery more difficult. He became increasingly prosperous, overcoming labour disputes with unemployed hand-papermakers. and lawsuits against a canal company which threatened the water supply to his mills. Dickinson was the first to use percolation gauges to predict river flow, and his work on water supply brought him election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1845.

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SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

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The name Joseph Gillott became synonymous with pen making at a time when the basic equipment for writing was undergoing a change. The quill pen had served writers for centuries, but attempts had been made since the seventeenth century to improve on it. The first major technical development was the steel nib, which began to be made c.1829. The steel nib was still little known in Birmingham in 1839, but ten years later it was in common use. Its stiffness was at first a drawback, but Gillott was among the first to improve its flexibility by introducing three slots, which later became standard practice. Mechanical methods of manufacture made the pen cheaper and improved its quality. In 1840 Gillott issued a "precept" informing the public that he was pen maker to the Queen and that he had been manufacturing pens for twenty years at his Victoria Works in Birmingham. He announced the successful reception by the public of his new patent pen. There were also special "warranted school" pens designed for the various grades of writing taught in schools. Finally, he warned against inferior imitations and recommended the public to buy only those pens stamped with his name.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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Lewis Gordon attended the High School in Edinburgh and Edinburgh University. He was unusual amongst British engineers of his generation in also spending some time at foreign educational establishments, including the School of Mines at Freiberg in Saxony and the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He served under Marc Brunel in the final stages of the construction of the Thames Tunnel, from 1837 to 1840. After this, he set up a civil engineering partnership with Lawrence Hill in Glasgow in 1840 and was then appointed as the first holder of the Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow University, 1841–55. He seems to have been frustrated by the lack of facilities at Glasgow, and handed over to his deputy, W.J.M. Rankine in 1855, in order to concentrate on his growing private practice which he had been building up during his professorship at the university. His practice was involved in designing iron bridges and introducing wire rope into Britain; he also became involved with submarine cables and telegraphy. With Charles Liddell, he was the engineer for several railways in England and Wales, including the Crumlin Viaduct on the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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The only son of Sir William Herschel, the famous astronomer, John graduated from Cambridge in 1813 and went on to become a distinguished astronomer, mathematician and chemist. He left England in November 1833 to set up an observatory near Cape Town, South Africa, where he embarked on a study of the heavens in the southern hemisphere. He returned to England in the spring of 1838, and between 1850 and 1855 Herschel served as Master of the Royal Mint. He made several notable contributions to photography, perhaps the most important being his discovery in 1819 that hyposulphites (thiosulphates) would dissolve silver salts. He brought this property to the attention of W.H.F. Talbot, who in 1839 was using a common salt solution as a fixing agent for his early photographs. After trials, Talbot adopted "hypo", which was a far more effective fixative. It was soon adopted by other photographers and eventually became the standard photographic fixative, as it still is in the 1990s. After hearing of the first photographic process in January 1839, Herschel devised his own process within a week. In September 1839 he made the first photograph on glass. He is credited with introducing the words "positive", "negative" and "snapshot" to photography, and in 1842 he invented the cyanotype or "blueprint" process. This process was later to be widely adopted by engineers and architects for the reproduction of plans and technical drawings, a practice abandoned only in the late twentieth century.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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William Humfrey, goldsmith of the parish of St Vedast, was appointed Assay Master of the Royal Mint in 1561. At the Tower of London he assumed responsibility for the weight of silver and for production standards at a time of intense activity in recoining the debased coinage of the realm. Separation of copper from the debased silver involved liquation techniques which enabled purification of the recovered silver and copper. German co-operation in introducing these methods to England developed their interest in English copper mining, resulting in the formation of the Mines Royal Company. Shareholders in this government-led monopoly included Humfrey, whose assay of Keswick copper ore, mined with German expertise, was bitterly disputed. As a result of this dispute, Humfrey promoted the formation of a smaller monopoly, the Company of Mineral Battery Works, with plans to mine lead and especially the zinc carbonate ore, calamine, using it to introduce brassmaking and wire manufacture into England. Humfrey acquired technical assistance from further skilled German immigrants, relying particularly on Christopher Schutz of Annaberg in Saxony, who claimed experience in such matters. However, the brassmaking project set up at Tintern was abandoned by 1569 after failure to make a brass suitable for manufacturing purposes. The works changed its production to iron wire. Humfrey had meanwhile been under suspicion of embezzlement at the Tower in connection with his work there. He died intestate while involved in litigation regarding infringement of rights and privileges claimed from his introduction of new techniques in later lead-mining activities under the auspices of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Synthetic materials

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Leaving school at the age of 16, Hyatt spent ten years in the printing trade, demonstrating meanwhile a talent for invention. The offer of a prize of $10,000 for finding a substitute for ivory billiard balls stimulated Hyatt to experiment with various materials. After many failures, he arrived at a composition of paper flock, shellac and collodion, which was widely adopted. Noting the "skin" left after evaporating collodion, he continued his experiments, using nitrocellulose as a base for plastic materials, yet he remained largely ignorant of both chemistry and the dangers of this explosive substance. Independently of Parkes in England, he found that a mixture of nitrocellulose, camphor and a little alcohol could, by heating, be made soft enough to mould but became hard at room temperature. Hyatt's first patent for the material, celluloid, was dated 12 July 1870 (US pat. 105338) and was followed by many others for making domestic and decorative articles of celluloid, replacing more expensive natural materials. Manufacture began at Albany in the winter of 1872–3. In 1881 Hyatt and his brother Isiah Smith floated the Hyatt Pure Water Company. By introducing purifying coagulants into flowing water, they avoided the expense and delay of allowing the water to settle in large tanks before filtration. Many towns and paper and woollen mills adopted the new process, and in 1891 it was introduced into Europe. During 1891–2, Hyatt devised a widely used type of roller bearing. Later inventions included a sugar-cane mill, a multistitch sewing machine and a mill for the cold rolling and straightening of steel shafts. It was characteristic of Hyatt's varied inventions that they achieved improved results at less expense.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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Lubetkin studied in Moscow, where in the years immediately after 1917 he met Vesnin and Rodchenko and absorbed the contemporary Constructivist ideas. He then moved on to Paris and worked with Auguste Perret, coming in on the ground floor of the modern movement. He went to England in 1930 and two years later formed the Tecton group, leading six young architects who had newly graduated from the Architectural Association in London. Lubetkin's early commissions in England were for animals rather than humans. He designed the gorilla house (1932) at the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, after which came his award-winning Penguin Pool there, a sculptural blend of curved planes in reinforced concrete. He also worked at Whipsnade and at Dudley Zoo. The name of Tecton had quickly became synonymous with modern methods of design and structure, particularly the use of reinforced concrete; such work was not common in the 1930s in Britain. In 1938–9 the firm was responsible for another pace-setting design, the Finsbury Health Centre in London. Tecton was disbanded during the Second World War, and although it was reformed in the late 1940s it did not recover its initiative in leading the field of modern work. Lubetkin lived on to be an old man but his post-war career did not fulfil his earlier promise and brilliance. He was appointed Architect-Planner of the Peterlee New Town in 1948, but he resigned after a few years and no other notable commissions materialized. In 1982 the Royal Institute of British Architects belatedly remembered him with the award of their Gold Medal.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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The protestant Momma family were well known in Aachen, the seventeenth-century centre of German brass production. Subjected to religious pressures, some members of the family moved to nearby Stolberg, while others migrated to Sweden, starting brass manufacture there. Jacob travelled to England, establishing brassworks with two German partners at Esher in Surrey in 1649; theirs was the only such works in England to survive for more than a few years during the seventeenth century.

Jacob, naturalized English by 1660, is often referred to in England as Mummer or another variant of his name. He became respected, serving as a juror, and was appointed a constable in 1661. During the 1660s Momma was engaged in mining copper at Ecton Hill, Staffordshire, where he was credited with introducing gunpowder to English mining technology. He smelted his ore at works nearby in an effort to secure copper supplies, but the whole project was brief and unprofitable.

The alternative imported copper required for his brass came mainly from Sweden, its high cost proving a barrier to viable English brass production. In 1662 Momma petitioned Parliament for some form of assistance. A year later he pleaded further for higher tariffs against brass-wire imports as protection from the price manipulation of Swedish exporters. He sought support from the Society of Mineral and Battery Works, the Elizabethan monopoly (see Dockwra, William) claiming jurisdiction over the country's working of brass, but neither petition succeeded. Despite these problems with the high cost of copper supplies in England, Momma continued his business and is recorded as still paying hearth tax on his twenty brass furnaces up to 1664. Although these were abandoned before his death and he claimed to have lost £6,000 on his brassworks, his wire mills survived him for a few years under the management of his son.

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