to work in ou at the docks

1) приготовиться к чему-л. (к каким-л. действиям, борьбе и т. д.); [этим. мор. приготовиться к бою]

2) съесть всю еду, поставленную на стол

dock

A n

1 Naut, Ind dock m, bassin m ; ( for repairing ship) cale f ; to come into dock entrer dans le dock or le bassin ; to be in dock ( for repairs) être en réparation ;

2 US ( wharf) appontement m ;

3 GB Jur banc m des accusés or des prévenus ; the prisoner in the dock l'accusé ; to put sb/sth in the dock fig faire le procès de qn/qch ;

4 US ( also loading dock) zone f de chargement ;

5 Bot patience f.

B docks npl Naut, Ind docks mpl ; to work in ou at the docks travailler dans les docks.

C modif ( also docks) Naut, Ind [area] des docks ; [strike] des dockers.

D vtr

1 Naut mettre [qch] à quai [ship] ;

2 GB ( reduce) faire une retenue sur [wages] ; enlever [points, marks] ; they had their pay docked for going on strike on leur a fait une retenue sur leur salaire parce qu'ils avaient fait la grève ; to dock £50 from sb's wages faire une retenue de 50 livres sur le salaire de qn ;

3 Aerosp amarrer, arrimer ;

4 Vet écourter, couper [tail].

E vi

1 Naut [ship] ( come into dock) arriver or entrer au port ; ( moor) accoster, se mettre à quai ; the ship docked at Southampton ( at end of voyage) le navire est arrivé à Southampton ; ( as stage on voyage) le navire a fait escale à Southampton ; they were refused permission to dock in Britain on leur a interdit d'entrer dans un port de Grande-Bretagne ;

2 Aerosp s'arrimer.

SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Ports and shipping

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Little is known of Berry's early life, but it is certain that he knew the district around St Helens intimately, which was of assistance to him in his later canal works. He became Clerk and Assistant to Thomas Steers and proved his natural engineering ability in helping Steers in both the construction of the Newry navigation in Ireland and his supervision of the construction of Salthouse Dock in Liverpool. On Steers's death in 1750 Berry was appointed, at the age of 30, Dock Engineer for Liverpool Docks, and completed the Salthouse Dock three years later. In 1755 he was allowed by the Liverpool Authority—presumably because his full-time service was not required at the docks at that time—to survey and construct the Sankey Brook Navigation (otherwise known as the St Helens Canal), which was completed in 1757. Berry was instructed to make the brook navigable, but with the secret consent and connivance of one of the proprietors he built a lateral canal, the work commencing on 5 September 1755. This was the first dead-water canal in the country, as distinct from an improved river navigation, and preceded Brindley's Bridgewater Canal by some five or six years. On the canal he also constructed at Blackbrook the first pair of staircase locks to be built in England.

Berry later advised on improvements to the Weaver Navigation, and his design for the new locks was accepted. He also carried out in 1769 a survey for a Leeds and Liverpool Canal, but this was not proceeded with and it was left to others to construct this canal. He advised turnpike trustees on bridge construction, but his main work was in Liverpool dock construction and between 1767 and 1771 he built the George's Dock. His final dock work was King's Dock, which was opened on 3 October 1788; he resigned at the age of 68 when the dock was completed. He lived for another 24 years, during which he was described in the local directories as "gentleman" instead of "engineer" or "surveyor" as he had been previously.

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1 loading.

zona de carga y descarga loading bay

2 cargo (cargamento) (de avión, barco).

3 load (peso).

representa una enorme carga para sus hijos she is a great burden on her children

llevar la carga de algo to be responsible for something

carga máxima autorizada maximum authorized load

4 charge (ataque, explosivo).

¡a la carga! charge!

volver a la carga (figurative) to insist; (insistir) to go back on the offensive (atacar de nuevo)

carga explosiva explosive charge

carga de profundidad depth charge

5 refill.

6 tax (impuesto).

cargas fiscales taxes

carga tributaria levy

7 charge.

8 burden, onus, imposition, millstone.

9 charging.

3^rd person singular (él/ella/ello) present indicative of spanish verb: cargar.

* * *

► nombre femenino

1 (acción) loading

■ la carga de las mulas nos ha llevado media hora the loading of the mules took us half an hour

2 (lo cargado) load; (de avión, barco) cargo, freight

3 (peso) weight

■ las vigas aguantan una carga de varias toneladas the girders can hold a weight of several tons

4 (de pluma, bolígrafo) refill

5 (de arma) charge

6 (ataque) charge

7 ELECTRICIDAD (de condensador) charge; (de circuito) load

8 (tributo) tax, charge

9 figurado (responsabilidad) responsibility, duty

■ los directores de empresas tienen muchas cargas managing directors have a lot of responsibilities

10 figurado (molestia) burden

■ el abuelo no es una carga our grandfather is not a burden

\

ser un burro de carga familiar to be a dogsbody

volver a la carga figurado to go on and on about something

andén de carga loading platform

carga afectiva figurado emotional content

carga de profundidad depth charge

carga eléctrica electric charge

carga explosiva explosive charge

carga fiscal tax charge

zona de carga y descarga loading and unloading bay

* * *

1) load, freight, cargo

2) burden

3) charge

* * *

1) (=cargamento)

a) [de camión, lavadora] load; [de barco] cargo; [de tren] freight

b) (=acto) loading

c) (=peso) load

2) (=responsabilidad) burden

3) (=contenido)

4) [en armas] charge

5) (=recambio) [de pluma] cartridge; [de bolígrafo] refill

6) (=ataque) (Mil, Dep) charge

7) (Elec) [de un cuerpo] charge; [de generador, circuito] load

* * *

1)

a) (Transp) ( de barco) cargo; ( de camión) load; ( de tren) freight

b) ( peso) load

- carga útil

2)

a) (de escopeta, cañón) charge

b) (de bolígrafo, pluma) refill

c) ( de lavadora) load

d) ( de reactor) charge

- carga de profundidad

3) (Elec) ( de cuerpo) charge; ( de circuito) load

4) ( responsabilidad) burden

- carga familiar

5) (Der, Fin) charge

- carga impositiva or fiscal or tributaria

6)

a) (de tropas, policía) charge

b) (Dep) tb

* * *

= burden, load, cargo, freight, loading, albatross.

Ex. In information retrieval applications it was more usual for one organisation to carry most of the burden of development of the system, and then to market it to others.

Ex. By designing the floors to carry a superimposed live load of 6.5 kN/m2, it is easy to move bookshelves, reader places and other library functions to any part of the building.

Ex. Today 13 vehicles and 25 staff tour Kent daily, each mobile library carries a cargo of 2,500 books.

Ex. The figure of the woman carried considerable ideological freight during England's commercial expansion from 1688 to 1730.

Ex. Each unit moves around an oval track on a continuous chaindrive in sequence, passing on both sides of a loading and unloading point = Cada unidad se mueve en secuencia alrededor de una pista oval sobre una cadena de tracción continua, pasando a ambos lados de un punto de carga y descarga.

Ex. The sheer margin of the challenger's victory over the incumbent is a sign that the Democratic base is really fired up, and that Bush could be an albatross.

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* aliviar a Alguien de la carga de = relieve + Nombre + of the burden of.

* aliviar de una carga a = relieve + the burden (on/from).

* animal de carga = pack animal.

* barco de carga = bulk cargo ship.

* caballo de carga = shire horse, Shire.

* carga de la prueba, la = burden of proof, the.

* carga de lavadora = washing load, load of washing.

* carga de profundidad = depth-charge.

* carga de trabajo = workload [work load].

* carga docente = teaching responsibilities.

* carga eléctrica = electrical charge.

* carga emocional = emotional baggage.

* carga excesiva = overload.

* carga familiar = dependent.

* carga o descarga mediante barcaza = lighterage.

* cargas = filler.

* culto a la carga = cargo cult.

* descarga = unloading.

* exceso de carga = overload.

* imponer una carga = place + burden.

* muelle de carga = loading dock, loading bay.

* mulo de carga = workhorse.

* navío de carga = bulk cargo ship.

* realizar una carga en caliente = execute + a warm boot.

* repartir la carga = spread + the load.

* tiempo de carga = loading time.

* trayecto sin viajeros o carga = deadhead.

* zona de carga = loading dock, loading bay.

* * *

1)

a) (Transp) ( de barco) cargo; ( de camión) load; ( de tren) freight

b) ( peso) load

- carga útil

2)

a) (de escopeta, cañón) charge

b) (de bolígrafo, pluma) refill

c) ( de lavadora) load

d) ( de reactor) charge

- carga de profundidad

3) (Elec) ( de cuerpo) charge; ( de circuito) load

4) ( responsabilidad) burden

- carga familiar

5) (Der, Fin) charge

- carga impositiva or fiscal or tributaria

6)

a) (de tropas, policía) charge

b) (Dep) tb

* * *

* * *

1 ( Transp) (de camión) load; (de barco, avión) cargo

llevaba una carga de carbón it was carrying a load/cargo of coal

la carga se movió the cargo/load shifted

servicios de carga a toda España nationwide freight services

[ S ] zona de carga y descarga loading and unloading only

(peso): [ S ] carga máxima: ocho personas, 550 kilos maximum load: eight people, 550 kilos

si te duele la espalda no lleves tanta carga if your back aches don't carry so much

3 ( Arquit, Const) load

payload

1 (de una escopeta, un cañón) charge

una carga explosiva an explosive charge

2 (de una lavadora) load

al mechero se le está acabando la carga the lighter is running out of fuel

3 ( Metal) charge

4 (de un reactor) charge

5 ( Inf) upload

depth charge

C ( Elec) (de un cuerpo) charge; (de un circuito) load

(de una obra, un discurso): una obra con una fuerte carga erótica a work highly charged with eroticism

un discurso con una enorme carga emocional a very emotional speech

un lugar que para él tiene una gran carga afectiva a place which has very strong emotional associations for him

E (responsabilidad) burden

es una carga para la familia he is a burden to his family

lleva una gran carga sobre los hombros he carries a great deal of responsibility on his shoulders

burden of proof

dependent relatives (pl), dependants (pl)

F ( Der, Fin) charge

una finca libre de cargas an unencumbered property, a property not subject to any charges

tax burden

1 (de tropas, la policía) charge

¡a la carga! charge!

llevarle la carga a algn ( RPl fam); to be after sb ( colloq)

volver a la carga «tropas» to return to the attack o fray; (sobre un tema) to return to the attack

2 ( Dep) tb

carga defensiva blitz

* * *

3ª persona singular (él/ella/usted) presente indicativo

2ª persona singular (tú) imperativo

a) (de barco, avión) cargo;

b) ( peso) load;

◊ no lleves tanta carga don't carry such a heavy load

a) (de escopeta, cañón) charge

b) (de bolígrafo, pluma) refill;

◊ es una carga para la familia he is a burden to his family

a) (de tropas, policía) charge;

◊ ¡a la carga! charge!

b) (Dep) tb

◊ carga defensiva blitz

a) ‹barco/avión/camión› to load;

◊ cargaon la camioneta de cajas they loaded the van with boxes;

b) ‹pistola/escopeta› to load;

c) (Elec) to charge

a) ‹ mercancías› to load

b) ‹ combustible› to fuel;

◊ tengo que carga nafta (RPl) I have to fill up with gasoline (AmE) o (BrE) petrol

c) (Inf) to load

◊ me cargaon la culpa they put o laid the blame on me

a) ‹paquetes/bolsas› to carry;

b) (AmL exc RPl) ‹ armas› to carry

c) (Ven fam) ( llevar puesto) to wear;

◊ cargo las llaves I have the keys

◊ tiene que carga con todo el peso de la casa she has to shoulder all the responsibility for the household

◊ me cargan los fanfarrones I can't stand show-offs

a) [pilas/flash] to charge;

b) cargase de algo ‹de bolsas/equipaje› to load oneself down with sth;

a) (fam) ( matar) to kill

b) (Esp fam) ‹ motor› to wreck;

* * *

carga nf

1. [acción] loading;

zona de carga y descarga loading and unloading area

2. [cargamento] [de avión, barco] cargo;

la carga va en la bodega the cargo goes in the hold

3. [peso] load;

no sé si esta viga aguantará tanta carga I don't know if this beam will be able to take such a heavy load

carga útil [de vehículo] payload

4. [responsabilidad] burden;

representa una enorme carga para sus hijos she is a great burden on her children;

llevar la carga de algo to be responsible for sth;

una persona con cargas familiares a person with family responsibilities

5. [ataque] charge;

¡a la carga! charge!;

volver a la carga [atacar de nuevo] to go back on the offensive;

6. [explosivo] charge

carga de profundidad depth charge

7. [de mechero, pluma] refill

8. [de obra, declaraciones]

una estatua con una carga simbólica a statue that is very symbolic;

una película con gran carga emocional a movie that has a real emotional punch

9. [impuesto] tax

carga financiera financial cost;

carga fiscal [impuesto] tax;

carga impositiva [impuesto] tax;

cargas sociales social security contributions;

carga tributaria levy

10. [eléctrica] [de partícula] charge;

11. [en fútbol] push [with one's body];

hacer una carga reglamentaria a alguien to bodycheck sb

12. Comp

llevar la carga a alguien Br to chat sb up, US to hit on sb

* * *

1 load; de buque cargo

2 MIL, EL charge

volver a la carga return to the attack

4 ( responsabilidad) burden;

llevar la carga take responsibility;

ser una carga para alguien be a burden to s.o.

* * *

carga nf

1) : loading

2) : freight, load, cargo

3) : burden, responsibility

4) : charge

carga eléctrica: electrical charge

5) : attack, charge

* * *

carga n

1. (mercancías avión, barco) cargo [pl. cargoes]

2. (mercancías tren, camión) load

3. (peso) weight / load

4. (de pluma, bolígrafo) refill

5. (explosiva, eléctrica, militar) charge

6. (obligación) responsibility [pl. responsibilities]

7. (molestia) burden

SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Civil engineering, Ports and shipping

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An Army officer serving at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and later in the Low Countries, Steers thus gained experience in water control and development, canals and drainage. After his return to England he was associated with George Sorocold in the construction of Howland Great Dock, Rotherhithe, London, opened in 1699 and the first wet dock built in England. He was again associated with Sorocold in planning the first of Liverpool's wet docks and subsequently was responsible for its construction. On its completion, he became Dockmaster in 1717.

In 1712 he surveyed the River Douglas for navigation, and received authorization to make it navigable from the Ribble estuary to Wigan in 1720. Although work was started by Steers, the undertaking was hit by the collapse of the South Sea Bubble and Steers was no longer associated with it when it was restarted in 1738. In 1721 he proposed making the Mersey and Irwell navigable.

In 1736 he surveyed and engineered the first summit-level canal in the British Isles, between Portadown and Newry in Ulster, thus providing through-water communication between Lough Neagh and the Irish Sea. The canal was completed in 1741. He also carried out a survey of the river Boyne. Also in 1736, he surveyed the Worsley Brook in South Lancashire to provide navigation from Worsley to the Mersey. This was done on behalf of Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater; an Act was obtained in 1737, but no work was started on the scheme at that time. It was left to Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke, to initiate the Bridgewater Canal to provide water transport for coal from the Worsley pits direct to Manchester. In 1739 Steers was elected Mayor of Liverpool. The following year, jointly with John Eyes of Liverpool, he surveyed a possible navigation along the Calder from its junction with the Aire \& Calder at Wakefield to the Hebble and so through to Halifax, but, owing to opposition at the time, the construction of the Calder \& Hebble Navigation had to wait until after Steers's death. In the opinion of Professor A.W. Skempton, Steers was the most distinguished civil engineer before Smeaton's time.

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Ports and shipping

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Wilson, the son of a sailor, spent his early years on the Forth. Later his father moved home to the west and Wilson served his apprenticeship as a shipwright on the Clyde at the small shipyards of Bowling, fifteen miles (24 km) west of Glasgow and on the river's north bank. In his late thirties Wilson was to take the leading role in what is arguably the most important development in Scotland's distinguished shipbuilding history: the building of the world's first properly constructed iron ship. This ship, the Vulcan, was the culmination of several years' effort by a group of people well connected within the academic establishment of Scotland. The Forth and Clyde Canal Company had passed instructions for investigations to be made into reducing running expenses and a distinguished committee looked into this matter. They included John Robison (Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), Professor Joseph Black of Glasgow University, James Watt and John Schanck. After a period of consideration it was decided to build a new, fastpassage barge of iron, and tenders were invited from several appropriate contractors. Wilson, with the assistance of two blacksmiths, John and Thomas Smellie, was awarded the work, and the Vulcan was constructed and ultimately launched at Faskine near Glasgow in 1819. The work involved was far beyond the comprehension of engineers of the twentieth century, as Wilson had to arrange puddled-iron plates for the shell and hand-crafted angle irons for the frames. His genius is now apparent as every steel ship worldwide uses a form of construction literally "hammered out on the anvil" between 1818 and 1819. The Vulcan was almost 64 ft (19.5 m) in length and 11 ft (3.4 m) broad. In 1822 Wilson was appointed an inspector of works for the Canal Company, and ultimately he superintended the building of the docks at Grangemouth, where he died in 1873, the same year that the Vulcan was broken up.

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n. m. 'Graft', hard work. Aller au charbon: To go to work. (The expression stems from the days when known pimps and small-time crooks, having to justify an honest source of income, would go to the docks and take a temporary job unloading coal from barges.)

- a big city

- rapidly growing city

разг., неодобр.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Civil engineering

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Born into a prosperous farming family, he early demonstrated his natural mechanical and structural aptitude. As a boy he spent a great deal of time, often as a truant, near his home in the workshop of Andrew Meikle. Meikle was a millwright and the inventor of a threshing machine. After local education and an apprenticeship with Meikle, Rennie went to Edinburgh University until he was 22. He then travelled south and met James Watt, who in 1784 offered him the post of Engineer at the Albion Flour Mills, London, which was then under construction. Rennie designed all the mill machinery, and it was while there that he began to develop an interest in canals, opening his own business in 1791 in Blackfriars. He carried out work on the Kennet and Avon Canal and in 1794 became Engineer for the company. He meanwhile carried out other surveys, including a proposed extension of the River Stort Navigation to the Little Ouse and a Basingstoke-to-Salisbury canal, neither of which were built. From 1791 he was also engaged on the Rochdale Canal and the Lancaster Canal, as well as the great masonry aqueduct carrying the latter canal across the river Lune at Lancaster. He also surveyed the Ipswich and Stowmarket and the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigations. He advised on the Horncastle Canal in 1799 and on the River Ancholme in 1799, both of which are in Lincolnshire. In 1802 he was engaged on the Royal Canal in Ireland, and in the same year he was commissioned by the Government to prepare a plan for flooding the Lea Valley as a defence on the eastern approach to London in case Napoleon invaded England across the Essex marshes. In 1809 he surveyed improvements on the Thames, and in the following year he was involved in a proposed canal from Taunton to Bristol. Some of his schemes, particularly in the Fens and Lincolnshire, were a combination of improvements for both drainage and navigation. Apart from his canal work he engaged extensively in the construction and development of docks and harbours including the East and West India Docks in London, Holyhead, Hull, Ramsgate and the dockyards at Chatham and Sheerness. In 1806 he proposed the great breakwater at Plymouth, where work commenced on 22 June 1811.

He was also highly regarded for his bridge construction. These included Kelso and Musselburgh, as well as his famous Thames bridges: London Bridge (uncompleted at the time of his death), Waterloo Bridge (1810–17) and Southwark Bridge (1815–19). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1798.

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

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

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SUBJECT AREA: 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: Civil engineering, Land transport, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Ports and shipping, Public utilities, Railways and locomotives

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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.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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The son of Caleb and Sally Pratt, Thomas Pratt attended public school in Boston before going on to the Rensselaer School (now the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) in Troy, New York. While at school, his spare time was spent assisting his father, a well-known architect, in his practice. He is said to have drawn a complete set of plans for a substantial house when only 12 years old. At the conclusion of his studies, he was offered a teaching position at Rensselaer but turned it down as he was planning an engineering career; he became a government assistant on the construction of dry docks at Charleston, South Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia.

After this experience of government work, he turned to railroad construction, first with the Boston and Lowell and Boston and Maine railroads, followed by many others. In this work, he became involved in bridge construction, mostly as consulting engineer. His best-known bridge was that over the Merrimack River at Newburyport, Massachusetts, which he built with six long timber spans and a metal drawspan. He also invented a new method of ship propulsion, a form of steam boiler, an equalizer for drawbridge supports and an improved form of combined timber and steel truss; he is best known, however, for the Pratt truss. This did not truly come into its own until the inception of all-metal construction for bridges, by which time it was too late for Pratt to gain much financial reward from it.

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   Portugal did not produce an artist of sufficient ability to gain recognition outside the country until the 19th century. Domingos Antônio Segueira (1768-1837) became well known in Europe for his allegorical religious and historical paintings in a neoclassical style. Portuguese painting during the 19th century emphasized naturalism and did not keep abreast of artistic innovations being made in other European countries. Portugal's best painters lived abroad especially in France. The most successful was Amadeo Souza- Cardoso who, while living in Paris, worked with the modernists Modigliani, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris. Souza-Cardoso introduced modernism into Portuguese painting in the early 20th century. A sustained modernist movement did not develop in Portugal, however. Naturalism remained the dominant school, and Portugal remained isolated from international artistic trends, owing to Portugal's conservative artistic climate, which prevented new forms of art from taking root, and the lack of support from an artistically sophisticated, art-buying elite supported by a system of galleries and foundations.

   Interestingly, it was during the conservative Estado Novo that modernism began to take root in Portugal. As Prime Minister Antônio de Oliveira Salazar's secretary for national propaganda, Antônio Ferro, a writer, journalist, and cultural leader who admired Mussolini, encouraged the government to allow modern artists to create the heroic imagery of the Estado Novo following the Italian model that linked fascism with futurism. The most important Portuguese artist of this period was Almada Negreiros, who did the murals on the walls of the legendary café A Brasileira in the Chiado district of Lisbon, the paintings at the Exposition of the Portuguese World (1940), and murals at the Lisbon docks. Other artists of note during this period included Mário Eloy (1900-51), who was trained in Germany and influenced by George Grosz and Otto Dix; Domingos Alvarez (1906-42); and Antônio Pedro (1909-66).

   During the 1950s, the Estado Novo ceased to encourage artists to collaborate, as Portuguese artists became more critical of the regime. The return to Portugal of Antônio Pedro in 1947 led to the emergence of a school of geometric abstract painting in Oporto and the reawakening of surrealism. The art deco styles of the 1930s gave way to surrealism and abstract expression.

   In the 1960s, links between Portugal's artistic community and the international art world strengthened. Conscription for the wars against the nationalist insurgencies in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea- Bissau (1961-75) resulted in a massive exodus of Portugal's avante-garde artists to Europe to avoid military service. While abroad, artists such as Joaquin Rodrigo (1912-93), Paula Rego (1935-), João Cutileiro (1947-), and others forged links with British, French, Italian, and Spanish artistic communities.

   The Revolution of 25 April 1974 created a crisis for Portugal's artists. The market for works of art collapsed as left-wing governments, claiming that they had more important things to do (eliminate poverty, improve education), withdrew support for the arts. Artists declared their talents to be at the "service of the people," and a brief period of socialist realism prevailed. With the return of political stability and moderate governments during the 1980s, Portugal's commercial art scene revived, and a new period of creativity began. Disenchantment with the socialist realism (utopianism) of the Revolution and a deepening of individualism began to be expressed by Portuguese artists. Investment in the arts became a means of demonstrating one's wealth and social status, and an unprecedented number of art galleries opened, art auctions were held, and a new generation of artists became internationally recognized. In 1984, a museum of modern art was built by the Gulbenkian Foundation adjacent to its offices on the Avenida de Berna in Lisbon. A national museum of modern art was finally built in Oporto in 1988.

   In the 1980s, Portugal's new generation of painters blended post-conceptualism and subjectivism, as well as a tendency toward decon-structionism/reconstructionism, in their work. Artists such as Cabrita Reis (1956-), Pedro Calapez (1953-), José Pedro Croft (1957-), Rui Sanches (1955-), and José de Guimarães (1949-) gained international recognition during this period. Guimarães crosses African art themes with Western art; Sarmento invokes images of film, culture, photography, American erotica, and pulp fiction toward sex, violence, and pleasure; Reis evolved from a painter to a maker of installation artist using chipboard, plaster, cloth, glass, and electrical and plumbing materials.

   From the end of the 20th century and during the early years of the 21st century, Portugal's art scene has been in a state of crisis brought on by a declining art trade and a withdrawal of financial support by conservative governments. Although not as serious as the collapse of the 1970s, the current situation has divided the Portuguese artistic community between those, such as Cerveira Pito and Leonel Moura, who advocate a return to using primitive, strongly textured techniques and others such as João Paulo Feliciano (1963-), who paint constructivist works that poke fun at the relationship between art, money, society, and the creative process. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, the factors that have prevented Portuguese art from achieving and sustaining international recognition (the absence of a strong art market, depending too much on official state support, and the individualistic nature of Portuguese art production) are still to be overcome.

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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He was the son of Jeremiah Bentham, a lawyer. His mother died when he was an infant and his early education was at Westminster. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a master shipwright at Woolwich and later at Chatham Dockyard, where he made some small improvements in the fittings of ships. In 1778 he completed his apprenticeship and sailed on the Bienfaisant on a summer cruise of the Channel Fleet where he suggested and supervised several improvements to the steering gear and gun fittings.

Unable to find suitable employment at home, he sailed for Russia to study naval architecture and shipbuilding, arriving at St Petersburg in 1780, whence he travelled throughout Russia as far as the frontier of China, examining mines and methods of working metals. He settled in Kritchev in 1782 and there established a small shipyard with a motley work-force. In 1784 he was appointed to command a battalion. He set up a yard on the "Panopticon" principle, with all workshops radiating from his own central office. He increased the armament of his ships greatly by strengthening the hulls and fitting guns without recoil, which resulted in a great victory over the Turks at Liman in 1788. For this he was awarded the Cross of St George and promoted to Brigadier- General. Soon after, he was appointed to a command in Siberia, where he was responsible for opening up the resources of the country greatly by developing river navigation.

In 1791 he returned to England, where he was at first involved in the development of the Panopticon for his brother as well as with several other patents. In 1795 he was asked to look into the mechanization of the naval dockyards, and for the next eighteen years he was involved in improving methods of naval construction and machinery. He was responsible for the invention of the steam dredger, the caisson method of enclosing the entrances to docks, and the development of non-recoil cannonades of large calibre.

His intervention in the maladministration of the naval dockyards resulted in an enquiry that brought about the clearing-away of much corruption, making him very unpopular. As a result he was sent to St Petersburg to arrange for the building of a number of ships for the British navy, in which the Russians had no intention of co-operating. On his return to England after two years he was told that his office of Inspector-General of Navy Works had been abolished and he was appointed to the Navy Board; he had several disagreements with John Rennie and in 1812 was told that this office, too, had been abolished. He went to live in France, where he stayed for thirteen years, returning in 1827 to arrange for the publication of some of his papers.

There is some doubt about his use of his title: there is no record of his having received a knighthood in England, but it was assumed that he was authorized to use the title, granted to him in Russia, after his presentation to the Tsar in 1809.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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On leaving school in 1894, MacGregor was apprenticed to a famous local shipyard, the Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow-on-Tyne. After four years he was entered for the annual examination of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, coming out top and being nominated Queen's Prizeman. Shortly thereafter he moved around shipyards to gain experience, working in Glasgow, Hull, Newcastle and then Dunkirk. His mastery of French enabled him to obtain in 1906 the senior position of Chief Draughtsman at an Antwerp shipyard, where he remained until 1914. On his return to Britain, he took charge of the small yard of Dibbles in Southampton and commenced a period of great personal development and productivity. His fertile mind enabled him to register no fewer than ten patents in the years 1919 to 1923.

In 1924 he started out on his own as a naval architect, specializing in the coal trade of the North Sea. At that time, colliers had wooden hatch covers, which despite every caution could be smashed by heavy seas, and which in time of war added little to hull integrity after a torpedo strike. The International Loadline Committee of 1932 noted that 13 per cent of ship losses were through hatch failures. In 1927, designs for selftrimming colliers were developed, as well as designs for steel hatch covers. In 1928 the first patents were under way and the business was known for some years as MacGregor and King. During this period, steel hatch covers were fitted to 105 ships.

In 1937 MacGregor invited his brother Joseph (c. 1883–1967) to join him. Joseph had wide experience in ship repairs and had worked for many years as General Manager of the Prince of Wales Dry Docks in Swansea, a port noted for its coal exports. By 1939 they were operating from Whitley Bay with the name that was to become world famous: MacGregor and Company (Naval Architects) Ltd. The new company worked in association with the shipyards of Austin's of Sunderland and Burntisland of Fife, which were then developing the "flatiron" colliers for the up-river London coal trade. The MacGregor business gained a great boost when the massive coastal fleet of William Cory \& Son was fitted with steel hatches.

In 1945 the brothers appointed Henri Kummerman (b. 1908, Vienna; d. 1984, Geneva) as their sales agent in Europe. Over the years, Kummerman effected greater control on the MacGregor business and, through his astute business dealings and his well-organized sales drives worldwide, welded together an international company in hatch covers, cargo handling and associated work. Before his death, Robert MacGregor was to see mastery of the design of single-pull steel hatch covers and to witness the acceptance of MacGregor hatch covers worldwide. Most important of all, he had contributed to great increases in the safety and the quality of life at sea.

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See also: Ayre, Sir Amos Lowrey

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Sir John MacNeill became a pupil of Thomas Telford and served under him as Superintendent of the Southern Division of the Holyhead Road from London to Shrewsbury. In this capacity he invented a "Road Indicator" or dynamometer. Like other Telford followers, he viewed the advent of railways with some antipathy, but after the death of Telford in 1834 he quickly became involved in railway construction and in 1837 he was retained by the Irish Railway Commissioners to build railways in the north of Ireland (Vignoles received the commission for the south). Much of his subsequent career was devoted to schemes for Irish railways, both those envisaged by the Commissioners and other private lines with more immediately commercial objectives. He was knighted in 1844 on the completion of the Dublin \& Drogheda Railway along the east coast of Ireland. In 1845 MacNeill lodged plans for over 800 miles (1,300 km) of Irish railways. Not all of these were built, many falling victim to Irish poverty in the years after the Famine, but he maintained a large staff and became financially embarrassed. His other schemes included the Grangemouth Docks in Scotland, the Liverpool \& Bury Railway, and the Belfast Waterworks, the latter completed in 1843 and subsequently extended by Bateman.

MacNeill was an engineer of originality, being the person who introduced iron-lattice bridges into Britain, employing the theoretical and experimental work of Fairbairn and Eaton Hodgkinson (the Boyne Bridge at Drogheda had two such spans of 250ft (76m) each). He also devised the Irish railway gauge of 5 ft 2 in. (1.57 m). Consulted by the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, regarding a School of Engineering in 1842, he was made an Honorary LLD of the University and appointed the first Professor of Civil Engineering, but he relinquished the chair to his assistant, Samuel Downing, in 1846. MacNeill was a large and genial man, but not, we are told, "of methodical and business habit": he relied heavily on his subordinates. Blindness obliged him to retire from practice several years before his death. He was an early member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, joining in 1827, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1838.

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