museum+of+london

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

[br]

[br]

[br]

Apart from his considerable architectural practice, Sydney Smirke was responsible, in particular, for two structures in which he utilized the increasingly popular combination of iron and glass, their popularity stemming not least from the fire hazard in urban centres. In 1834 he adapted James Wyatt's Pantheon, the famous concert and masquerade hall in Oxford Street that had been opened in 1772, refitting the building as a shopping centre.

Smirke is best known for his creation of the circular reading room in London's British Museum, which had been designed by his brother Sir Robert Smirke (1823–47). The reading room was designed within a central courtyard, conceived as a circular domed structure by the Chief Librarian and Keeper of the Department of Printed Books, Antonio Panizzi, and executed by Smirke; he covered the courtyard with a cast-iron domed structure (1854–7).

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Architecture and building, Horology, Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a Florentine lawyer. His first sixteen years were spent with the lawyer's family in the rural surroundings of Vinci, which aroused in him a lifelong love of nature and an insatiable curiosity in it. He received little formal education but extended his knowledge through private reading. That gave him only a smattering of Latin, a deficiency that was to be a hindrance throughout his active life. At sixteen he was apprenticed in the studio of Andrea del Verrochio in Florence, where he received a training not only in art but in a wide variety of crafts and technical arts.

In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan, where he sought and obtained employment with Ludovico Sforza, later Duke of Milan, partly to sculpt a massive equestrian statue of Ludovico but the work never progressed beyond the full-scale model stage. He did, however, complete the painting which became known as the Virgin of the Rocks and in 1497 his greatest artistic achievement, The Last Supper, commissioned jointly by Ludovico and the friars of Santa Maria della Grazie and painted on the wall of the monastery's refectory. Leonardo was responsible for the court pageants and also devised a system of irrigation to supply water to the plains of Lombardy. In 1499 the French army entered Milan and deposed Leonardo's employer. Leonardo departed and, after a brief visit to Mantua, returned to Florence, where for a time he was employed as architect and engineer to Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna. Around 1504 he completed another celebrated work, the Mona Lisa.

In 1506 Leonardo began his second sojourn in Milan, this time in the service of King Louis XII of France, who appointed him "painter and engineer". In 1513 Leonardo left for Rome in the company of his pupil Francesco Melzi, but his time there was unproductive and he found himself out of touch with the younger artists active there, Michelangelo above all. In 1516 he accepted with relief an invitation from King François I of France to reside at the small château of St Cloux in the royal domain of Amboise. With the pension granted by François, Leonardo lived out his remaining years in tranquility at St Cloux.

Leonardo's career can hardly be regarded as a success or worthy of such a towering genius. For centuries he was known only for the handful of artistic works that he managed to complete and have survived more or less intact. His main activity remained hidden until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, during which the contents of his notebooks were gradually revealed. It became evident that Leonardo was one of the greatest scientific investigators and inventors in the history of civilization. Throughout his working life he extended a searching curiosity over an extraordinarily wide range of subjects. The notes show careful investigation of questions of mechanical and civil engineering, such as power transmission by means of pulleys and also a form of chain belting. The notebooks record many devices, such as machines for grinding and polishing lenses, a lathe operated by treadle-crank, a rolling mill with conical rollers and a spinning machine with pinion and yard divider. Leonardo made an exhaustive study of the flight of birds, with a view to designing a flying machine, which obsessed him for many years.

Leonardo recorded his observations and conclusions, together with many ingenious inventions, on thousands of pages of manuscript notes, sketches and drawings. There are occasional indications that he had in mind the publication of portions of the notes in a coherent form, but he never diverted his energy into putting them in order; instead, he went on making notes. As a result, Leonardo's impact on the development of science and technology was virtually nil. Even if his notebooks had been copied and circulated, there were daunting impediments to their understanding. Leonardo was left-handed and wrote in mirror-writing: that is, in reverse from right to left. He also used his own abbreviations and no punctuation.

At his death Leonardo bequeathed his entire output of notes to his friend and companion Francesco Melzi, who kept them safe until his own death in 1570. Melzi left the collection in turn to his son Orazio, whose lack of interest in the arts and sciences resulted in a sad period of dispersal which endangered their survival, but in 1636 the bulk of them, in thirteen volumes, were assembled and donated to the Ambrosian Library in Milan. These include a large volume of notes and drawings compiled from the various portions of the notebooks and is now known as the Codex Atlanticus. There they stayed, forgotten and ignored, until 1796, when Napoleon's marauding army overran Italy and art and literary works, including the thirteen volumes of Leonardo's notebooks, were pillaged and taken to Paris. After the war in 1815, the French government agreed to return them but only the Codex Atlanticus found its way back to Milan; the rest remained in Paris. The appendix to one notebook, dealing with the flight of birds, was later regarded as of sufficient importance to stand on its own. Four small collections reached Britain at various times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; of these, the volume in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle is notable for its magnificent series of anatomical drawings. Other collections include the Codex Leicester and Codex Arundel in the British Museum in London, and the Madrid Codices in Spain.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Leonardo's true stature as scientist, engineer and inventor began to emerge, particularly with the publication of transcriptions and translations of his notebooks. The volumes in Paris appeared in 1881–97 and the Codex Atlanticus was published in Milan between 1894 and 1904.

[br]

LRD / IMcN

1 chest, trunk (arca).

2 jewel box.

3 coffer, box, ark, trunk.

4 sea chest.

5 hood, car's hood, bonnet.

* * *

► nombre masculino

1 (grande) trunk, chest; (pequeño) box, casket

* * *

SM (=caja) chest; [para joyas] casket, jewellery o (EEUU) jewelry box, jewel case; Méx (Aut) bonnet, hood (EEUU)

* * *

1)

a) ( joyero) jewel case, jewelry* box

b) ( baúl - para ropa) trunk; (- para dinero, joyas) chest

2) (Méx) ( capó) hood (AmE), bonnet (BrE)

* * *

= coffin, coffer, treasure chest, casket.

Ex. Next morning the heap, now damp right through, was set up on one end of the horse (later called the bank), a bench long enough to take two piles of paper end to end, and about as high as the coffin of the press.

Ex. The organizers announced that the high conference attendance in Glasgow will bring 160,000 Euros into the IFLA coffers -- news to warm the cockles of a parsimonious treasurer's heart.

Ex. For grades 3-4, children estimate the value of treasure chests filled with gold coins and explore the size and weight of gold bars.

Ex. For 25 years, this exquisitely enamelled medieval casket had been on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

* * *

1)

a) ( joyero) jewel case, jewelry* box

b) ( baúl - para ropa) trunk; (- para dinero, joyas) chest

2) (Méx) ( capó) hood (AmE), bonnet (BrE)

* * *

* * *

1 (joyero) jewel case, jewelry* box

2 (baúl — para ropa) trunk; (— para dinero, joyas) chest

treasure chest

B ( Méx) (capó) hood ( AmE), bonnet ( BrE)

* * *

a) ( joyero) jewel case, jewelry^{( conjugate jewelry)} box

b) ( arcón) chest

c) (Méx) ( capó) hood (AmE), bonnet (BrE)

* * *

cofre nm

1. [arca] chest, trunk;

cofre del tesoro treasure chest

2. [para joyas] jewel box

3. Méx [capó] Br bonnet, US hood

4. Ecuad [maletero] Br boot, US trunk

* * *

1 de tesoro chest

2 para alhajas jewelry box, Br

jewellery box

* * *

cofre nm

1) baúl: trunk, chest

2) Mex capote: hood (of a car)

* * *

cofre n (arca) chest

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

A.V.Roe served an apprenticeship at a railway works, studied marine engineering at Kings College London, served at sea as an engineer, and then took a job in the motor-car industry. His hobby was flying: after studying bird-flight, he built several flying models and in 1907 one of these won a prize offered by the Daily Mail. With the prize money he built a full-size aeroplane loosely based on the Flyer of the Wright brothers, with whom he had corresponded. In September, Roe took his biplane to the motorracing circuit at Brooklands, in Surrey, but it made only a few hops and his activities were not welcomed. Roe then moved to Essex, where he assembled his new aeroplane under the arch of a railway bridge. This was a triplane design with the engine at the front (a "tractor"), and during 1909 it made several flights (this triplane is preserved by the Science Museum in London).

In 1910 Roe and his brother Humphrey founded A.V.Roe \& Co. in Manchester, they described it the "Aviator's Storehouse". During the next three years Roe designed and built aeroplanes in Manchester, then transported them to Brooklands to fly (the authorities now made him more welcome). One of the most significant of these was his Type D tractor biplane of 1911, which led to the Avro 504 two-seater trainer of 1913. This was one of the most successful trainers of all time, as around 10,000 were built. In November 1914 a flight of Avro 504s carried out the first-ever bombing raid when they attacked German airship sheds as Friedrichshafen. A.V.Roe produced the first aeroplanes with enclosed cabins during 1912: the Type F monoplane and Type G biplane. After the war, his Avian was used for several record-breaking flights. In 1928 he sold his interest in the company bearing his name and joined forces with Saunders Ltd of Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, to found Saunders-Roe Ltd. "Saro" produced a series of flying boats, from the four-seat Cutty Sark of 1929 to the large, and ill-fated, Princess of 1952.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

After serving an apprenticeship in the lace industry, Stringfellow left Nottingham in about 1820 and moved to Chard in Somerset, where he set up his own business. He had wide interests such as photography, politics, and the use of electricity for medical treatment. Stringfellow met William Samuel Henson, who also lived in Chard and was involved in lacemaking, and became interested in his "aerial steam carriage" of 1842–3. When support for this project foundered, Henson and Stringfellow drew up an agreement "Whereas it is intended to construct a model of an Aerial Machine". They built a large model with a wing span of 20 ft (6 m) and powered by a steam engine, which was probably the work of Stringfellow. The model was tested on a hillside near Chard, often at night to avoid publicity, but despite many attempts it never made a successful flight. At this point Henson emigrated to the United States. From 1848 Stringfellow continued to experiment with models of his own design, starting with one with a wing span of 10 ft (3m). He decided to test it in a disused lace factory, rather than in the open air. Stringfellow fitted a horizontal wire which supported the model as it gained speed prior to free flight. Unfortunately, neither this nor later models made a sustained flight, despite Stringfellow's efficient lightweight steam engine. For many years Stringfellow abandoned his aeronautical experiments, then in 1866 when the (Royal) Aeronautical Society was founded, his interest was revived. He built a steam-powered triplane, which was demonstrated "flying" along a wire at the world's first Aeronautical Exhibition, held at Crystal Palace, London, in 1868. Stringfellow also received a cash prize for one of his engines, which was the lightest practical power unit at the Exhibition. Although Stringfellow's models never achieved a really successful flight, his designs showed the way for others to follow. Several of his models are preserved in the Science Museum in London.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

Wallis was apprenticed first at Thames Engineering Works, and then, in 1908, at John Samuel White's shipyard at Cowes. In 1913, the Government, spurred on by the accelerating development of the German Zeppelins (see Zeppelin, Ferdinand von), ordered an airship from Vickers; Wallis was invited to join the design team. Thus began his long association with aeronautical design and with Vickers. This airship, and the R80 that followed it, were successfully completed, but the military lost interest in them.

In 1924 the Government initiated a programme for the construction of two airships to settle once and for all their viability for long-dis-tance air travel. The R101 was designed by a Government-sponsored team, but the R100 was designed by Wallis working for a subsidiary of Vickers. The R100 took off on 29 July 1930 for a successful round trip to Canada, but the R101 crashed on its first flight on 4 October, killing many of its distinguished passengers. The shock of this disaster brought airship development in Britain to an abrupt end and forced Wallis to direct his attention to aircraft.

In aircraft design, Wallis is known for his use of geodesic construction, which combined lightness with strength. It was applied first to the single-engined "Wellesley" and then the twin-en-gined "Wellington" bomber, which first flew in 1936. With successive modifications, it became the workhorse of RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War until the autumn of 1943, when it was replaced by four-engined machines. In other areas, it remained in service until the end of the war and, in all, no fewer than 11,461 were built.

Wallis is best known for his work on bomb design, first the bouncing bomb that was used to breach the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr district of Germany in 1943, an exploit immortalized in the film Dambusters. Encouraged by this success, the authorities then allowed Wallis to realize an idea he had long urged, that of heavy, penetration bombs. In the closing stages of the war, Tallboy, of 12,000 lb (5,400 kg), and the 10-ton Grand Slam were used to devastating effect.

After the Second World War, Wallis returned to aeronautical design and was given his own department at Vickers to promote his ideas, principally on variable-geometry or swing-wing aircraft. Over the next thirteen years he battled towards the prototype stage of this revolutionary concept. That never came, however; changing conditions and requirements and increasing costs led to the abandonment of the project. Bit-terly disappointed, Wallis continued his researches into high-speed aircraft until his retirement from Vickers (by then the British Aircraft Corporation), in 1971.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Cayley was born into a well-to-do Yorkshire family living at Brompton Hall. He was encouraged to study mathematics, navigation and mechanics, particularly by his mother. In 1792 he succeeded to the baronetcy and took over the daunting task of revitalizing the run-down family estate.

The first aeronautical device made by Cayley was a copy of the toy helicopter invented by the Frenchmen Launoy and Bienvenu in 1784. Cayley's version, made in 1796, convinced him that a machine could "rise in the air by mechanical means", as he later wrote. He studied the aerodynamics of flight and broke away from the unsuccessful ornithopters of his predecessors. In 1799 he scratched two sketches on a silver disc: one side of the disc showed the aerodynamic force on a wing resolved into lift and drag, and on the other side he illustrated his idea for a fixed-wing aeroplane; this disc is preserved in the Science Museum in London. In 1804 he tested a small wing on the end of a whirling arm to measure its lifting power. This led to the world's first model glider, which consisted of a simple kite (the wing) mounted on a pole with an adjustable cruciform tail. A full-size glider followed in 1809 and this flew successfully unmanned. By 1809 Cayley had also investigated the lifting properties of cambered wings and produced a low-drag aerofoil section. His aim was to produce a powered aeroplane, but no suitable engines were available. Steam-engines were too heavy, but he experimented with a gunpowder motor and invented the hot-air engine in 1807. He published details of some of his aeronautical researches in 1809–10 and in 1816 he wrote a paper on airships. Then for a period of some twenty-five years he was so busy with other activities that he largely neglected his aeronautical researches. It was not until 1843, at the age of 70, that he really had time to pursue his quest for flight. The Mechanics' Magazine of 8 April 1843 published drawings of "Sir George Cayley's Aerial Carriage", which consisted of a helicopter design with four circular lifting rotors—which could be adjusted to become wings—and two pusher propellers. In 1849 he built a full-size triplane glider which lifted a boy off the ground for a brief hop. Then in 1852 he proposed a monoplane glider which could be launched from a balloon. Late in 1853 Cayley built his "new flyer", another monoplane glider, which carried his coachman as a reluctant passenger across a dale at Brompton, Cayley became involved in public affairs and was MP for Scarborough in 1832. He also took a leading part in local scientific activities and was co-founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831 and of the Regent Street Polytechnic Institution in 1838.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

[br]

[br]

[br]

Maughan was a decorative painter in the Clerkenwell district of London. He invented the first instantaneous domestic water-heater, which did not utilize solid fuel. He christened his device a geyser, taking the name from the Icelandic word geysir, which is the name of a specific hot spring there and means "gusher". He patented the geyser on 23 December 1868. In his design the cold water entered from the top of the apparatus, then flowed downwards by means of constricting wires to be heated by hot gases rising from the burner below. Hot water then flowed into the bath or sink. No flue was fitted to conduct tainted air and gases from the bathroom. An impressive example of Maughan's geyser is on display in the Science Museum in London. The fittings are of brass and the casing is painted in marbled green, it stands on three curved legs and displays the Royal Arms.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Little is known about the early life of Robert Kay except that he may have moved to France with his father, John Kay of Bury in 1747 but must have returned to England and their home town of Bury soon after. He may have been involved with his father in the production of a machine for making the wire covering for hand cards to prepare cotton for spinning. However, John Aikin, writing in 1795, implies that this was a recent invention. Kay's machine could pierce the holes in the leather backing, cut off a length of wire, bend it and insert it through the holes, row after row, in one operation by a person turning a shaft. The machine preserved in the Science Museum, in London's South Kensington, is more likely to be one of Robert's machine than his father's, for Robert carried on business as a cardmaker in Bury from 1791 until his death in 1801. The flying shuttle, invented by his father, does not seem to have been much used by weavers of cotton until Robert invented the drop box in 1760. Instead of a single box at the end of the sley, Robert usually put two, but sometimes three or four, one above another; the boxes could be raised or lowered. Shuttles with either different colours or different types of weft could be put in the boxes and the weaver could select any one by manipulating levers with the left hand while working the picking stick with the right to drive the appropriate shuttle across the loom. Since the selection could be made without the weaver having to pick up a shuttle and place it in the lath, this invention helped to speed up weaving, especially of multi-coloured checks, which formed a large part of the Lancashire output.

Between 1760 and 1763 Robert Kay may have written a pamphlet describing the invention of the flying shuttle and the attack on his father, pointing out how much his father had suffered and that there had been no redress. In February 1764 he brought to the notice of the Society of Arts an improvement he had made to the flying shuttle by substituting brass for wood, which enabled a larger spool to be carried.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

He was the eldest of twelve children and his father was a journeyman carpenter, in whose footsteps Camm followed as an apprentice woodworker. He developed an early interest in aircraft, becoming a keen model maker in his early teens and taking a major role in founding a local society to this end, and in 1912 he designed and built a glider able to carry people. During the First World War he worked as a draughtsman for the aircraft firm Martinsyde, but became increasingly involved in design matters as the war progressed. In 1923 Camm was recruited by Sopwith to join his Hawker Engineering Company as Senior Draughtsman, but within two years had risen to be Chief Designer. His first important contribution was to develop a method of producing metal aircraft, using welded steel tubes, and in 1926 he designed his first significant aircraft, the Hawker Horsley torpedo-bomber, which briefly held the world long-distance record before it was snatched by Charles Lindbergh in his epic New York-Paris flight in 1927. His Hawker Hart light bomber followed in 1928, after which came his Hawker Fury fighter.

By the mid-1930s Camm's reputation as a designer was such that he was able to wield significant influence on the Air Ministry when Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft specifications were being drawn up. His outstanding contribution came, however, with the unveiling of his Hawker Hurricane in 1935. This single-seater fighter was to prove one of the backbones of the RAF during 1939–45, but during the war he also designed two other excellent fighters: the Tempest and the Typhoon. After the Second World War Camm turned to jet aircraft, producing in 1951 the Hawker Hunter fighter/ground-attack aircraft, which saw lengthy service in the RAF and many other air forces. His most revolutionary contribution was the design of the Harrier jump-jet, beginning with the P.1127 prototype in 1961, followed by the Kestrel three years later. These were private ventures, but eventually the Government saw the enormous merit in the vertical take-off and landing concept, and the Harrier came to fruition in 1967. Sadly Camm, who was on the Board of Sopwith Hawker Siddeley Group, died before the aircraft came into service. He is permanently commemorated in the Camm Memorial Hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon, London.

[br]

to break (of waves). Hoa Hakanana'ia Master Wave-Breaker, name of a moai from Orongo, now in the British Museum in London.

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mining and extraction technology

[br]

[br]

[br]

Greathead came to England in 1859 to complete his education. In 1864 he began a three-year pupillage with the civil engineer Peter W. Barlow, after which he was engaged as an assistant engineer on the extension of the Midland Railway from Bedford to London. In 1869 he was entrusted with the construction of the Tower Subway under the River Thames; this was carried out using a cylindrical wrought-iron shield which was forced forward by six large screws as material was excavated in front of it. This work was completed the same year. In 1870 he set himself up as a consulting engineer, and from 1873 he was Resident Engineer on the Hammersmith and Richmond extensions of the Metropolitan District Railway. He assisted in the preparation of several other railway projects including the Regent's Canal Railway in 1880, the Dagenham Dock and the Metropolitan Outer Circle Railways in 1881, a new line from London to Eastbourne and a number of Irish light railways. He worked on a bill for the City and South London Railway, which was built between 1886 and 1890; here compressed air was used to prevent the inrush of water, a method for tunnelling which was generally adopted from then on. He invented apparatus for the application of water to excavate in front of the shield as well as for injecting cement-grout behind the lining of the tunnel.

He was joint engineer with Sir Douglas Fox for the construction of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, and held the same post with W.R.Galbraith on the Waterloo and City Railway; he was also associated with Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker in the construction of the Central London Railway. He died, aged 52, before the completion of some of these projects.

[br]