we have made a success of the venture

1) ((the prosperity gained by) the achievement of an aim or purpose: He has achieved great success as an actor / in his career.) éxito

2) (a person or thing that succeeds or prospers: She's a great success as a teacher.) éxito, persona que tiene éxito

success n éxito

tr[sək'ses]

noun

1 (good result, achievement) éxito

■ they met with success tuvieron éxito

■ that's the key to success eso es la clave del éxito

2 (successful person, thing) éxito

■ the novel was a great success la novela fue un gran éxito

\

to make a success of something sacar adelante algo con éxito

success [sək'sɛs] n

: éxito m

(§ pl.: successes) = bonanza s.f.

• logro s.m.

• lucimiento s.m.

• medra s.f.

• prosperidad s.f.

• triunfo s.m.

• éxito s.m.

count & mass noun éxito m

1. N

1) (at task) éxito m (at, in en)

2) (=sensation, hit) éxito m

* * *

count & mass noun éxito m

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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At the beginning of the seventeenth century, several wealthy men in England joined forces as "adventurers" to put their money into land ventures. One such group was responsible for the draining of the Fens. The first need was to find engineers who were versed in the processes of land drainage, particularly when that land was at, or below, sea level. It was natural, therefore, to turn to the Netherlands to find these skilled men. Joachim Liens was one of the first of the Dutch engineers to go to England, and he started work on the Great Level; however, no real progress was made until 1621, when Cornelius Vermuyden was brought to England to assist in the work.

Vermuyden had grown up in a district where he could see for himself the techniques of embanking and reclaiming land from the sea. He acquired a reputation of expertise in this field, and by 1621 his fame had spread to England. In that year the Thames had flooded and breached its banks near Havering and Dagenham in Essex. Vermuyden was commissioned to repair the breach and drain neighbouring marshland, with what he claimed as complete success. The Commissioners of Sewers for Essex disputed this claim and whthheld his fee, but King Charles I granted him a portion of the reclaimed land as compensation.

In 1626 Vermuyden carried out his first scheme for drainage works as a consultant. This was the drainage of Hatfield Chase in South Yorkshire. Charles I was, in fact, Vermuyden's employer in the drainage of the Chase, and the work was undertaken as a means of raising additional rents for the Royal Exchequer. Vermuyden was himself an "adventurer" in the undertaking, putting capital into the venture and receiving the title to a considerable proportion of the drained lands. One of the important elements of his drainage designs was the principal of "washes", which were flat areas between the protective dykes and the rivers to carry flood waters, to prevent them spreading on to nearby land. Vermuyden faced bitter opposition from those whose livelihoods depended on the marshlands and who resorted to sabotage of the embankments and violence against his imported Dutch workmen to defend their rights. The work could not be completed until arbiters had ruled out on the respective rights of the parties involved. Disagreements and criticism of his engineering practices continued and he gave up his interest in Hatfield Chase. The Hatfield Chase undertaking was not a great success, although the land is now rich farmland around the river Don in Doncaster. However, the involved financial and land-ownership arrangements were the key to the granting of a knighthood to Cornelius Vermuyden in January 1628, and in 1630 he purchased 4,000 acres of low-lying land on Sedgemoor in Somerset.

In 1629 Vermuyden embarked on his most important work, that of draining the Great Level in the fenlands of East Anglia. Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, was given charge of the work, with Vermuyden as Engineer; in this venture they were speculators and partners and were recompensed by a grant of land. The area which contains the Cambridgeshire tributaries of the Great Ouse were subject to severe and usually annual flooding. The works to contain the rivers in their flood period were important. Whilst the rivers were contained with the enclosed flood plain, the land beyond became highly sought-after because of the quality of the soil. The fourteen "adventurers" who eventually came into partnership with the Earl of Bedford and Vermuyden were the financiers of the scheme and also received land in accordance with their input into the scheme. In 1637 the work was claimed to be complete, but this was disputed, with Vermuyden defending himself against criticism in a pamphlet entitled Discourse Touching the Great Fennes (1638; 1642, London). In fact, much remained to be done, and after an interruption due to the Civil War the scheme was finished in 1652. Whilst the process of the Great Level works had closely involved the King, Oliver Cromwell was equally concerned over the success of the scheme. By 1655 Cornelius Vermuyden had ceased to have anything to do with the Great Level. At that stage he was asked to account for large sums granted to him to expedite the work but was unable to do so; most of his assets were seized to cover the deficiency, and from then on he subsided into obscurity and poverty.

While Cornelius Vermuyden, as a Dutchman, was well versed in the drainage needs of his own country, he developed his skills as a hydraulic engineer in England and drained acres of derelict flooded land.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Heathcote was the son of a small farmer who became blind, obliging the family to move to Long Whatton, near Loughborough, c.1790. He was apprenticed to W.Shepherd, a hosiery-machine maker, and became a frame-smith in the hosiery industry. He moved to Nottingham where he entered the employment of an excellent machine maker named Elliott. He later joined William Caldwell of Hathern, whose daughter he had married. The lace-making apparatus they patented jointly in 1804 had already been anticipated, so Heathcote turned to the problem of making pillow lace, a cottage industry in which women made lace by arranging pins stuck in a pillow in the correct pattern and winding around them thread contained on thin bobbins. He began by analysing the complicated hand-woven lace into simple warp and weft threads and found he could dispense with half the bobbins. The first machine he developed and patented, in 1808, made narrow lace an inch or so wide, but the following year he made much broader lace on an improved version. In his second patent, in 1809, he could make a type of net curtain, Brussels lace, without patterns. His machine made bobbin-net by the use of thin brass discs, between which the thread was wound. As they passed through the warp threads, which were arranged vertically, the warp threads were moved to each side in turn, so as to twist the bobbin threads round the warp threads. The bobbins were in two rows to save space, and jogged on carriages in grooves along a bar running the length of the machine. As the strength of this fabric depended upon bringing the bobbin threads diagonally across, in addition to the forward movement, the machine had to provide for a sideways movement of each bobbin every time the lengthwise course was completed. A high standard of accuracy in manufacture was essential for success. Called the "Old Loughborough", it was acknowledged to be the most complicated machine so far produced. In partnership with a man named Charles Lacy, who supplied the necessary capital, a factory was established at Loughborough that proved highly successful; however, their fifty-five frames were destroyed by Luddites in 1816. Heathcote was awarded damages of £10,000 by the county of Nottingham on the condition it was spent locally, but to avoid further interference he decided to transfer not only his machines but his entire workforce elsewhere and refused the money. In a disused woollen factory at Tiverton in Devonshire, powered by the waters of the river Exe, he built 300 frames of greater width and speed. By continually making inventions and improvements until he retired in 1843, his business flourished and he amassed a large fortune. He patented one machine for silk cocoon-reeling and another for plaiting or braiding. In 1825 he brought out two patents for the mechanical ornamentation or figuring of lace. He acquired a sound knowledge of French prior to opening a steam-powered lace factory in France. The factory proved to be a successful venture that lasted many years. In 1832 he patented a monstrous steam plough that is reputed to have cost him over £12,000 and was claimed to be the best in its day. One of its stated aims was "improved methods of draining land", which he hoped would develop agriculture in Ireland. A cable was used to haul the implement across the land. From 1832 to 1859, Heathcote represented Tiverton in Parliament and, among other benefactions, he built a school for his adopted town.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Isaac Holden's father, who had the same name, had been a farmer and lead miner at Alston in Cumbria before moving to work in a coal-mine near Glasgow. After a short period at Kilbarchan grammar school, the younger Isaac was engaged first as a drawboy to two weavers and then, after the family had moved to Johnstone, Scotland, worked in a cotton-spinning mill while attending night school to improve his education. He was able to learn Latin and bookkeeping, but when he was about 15 he was apprenticed to an uncle as a shawl-weaver. This proved to be too much for his strength so he returned to scholastic studies and became Assistant to an able teacher, John Kennedy, who lectured on physics, chemistry and history, which he also taught to his colleague. The elder Isaac died in 1826 and the younger had to provide for his mother and younger brother, but in 1828, at the age of 21, he moved to a teaching post in Leeds. He filled similar positions in Huddersfield and Reading, where in October 1829 he invented and demonstrated the lucifer match but did not seek to exploit it. In 1830 he returned because of ill health to his mother in Scotland, where he began to teach again. However, he was recommended as a bookkeeper to William Townend, member of the firm of Townend Brothers, Cullingworth, near Bingley, Yorkshire. Holden moved there in November 1830 and was soon involved in running the mill, eventually becoming a partner.

In 1833 Holden urged Messrs Townend to introduce seven wool-combing machines of Collier's designs, but they were found to be very imperfect and brought only trouble and loss. In 1836 Holden began experimenting on the machines until they showed reasonable success. He decided to concentrate entirely on developing the combing machine and in 1846 moved to Bradford to form an alliance with Samuel Lister. A joint patent in 1847 covered improvements to the Collier combing machine. The "square motion" imitated the action of the hand-comber more closely and was patented in 1856. Five more patents followed in 1857 and others from 1858 to 1862. Holden recommended that the machines should be introduced into France, where they would be more valuable for the merino trade. This venture was begun in 1848 in the joint partnership of Lister \& Holden, with equal shares of profits. Holden established a mill at Saint-Denis, first with Donisthorpe machines and then with his own "square motion" type. Other mills were founded at Rheims and at Croix, near Roubaix. In 1858 Lister decided to retire from the French concerns and sold his share to Holden. Soon after this, Holden decided to remodel all their machinery for washing and carding the gill machines as well as perfecting the square comb. Four years of excessive application followed, during which time £20,000 was spent in experiments in a small mill at Bradford. The result fully justified the expenditure and the Alston Works was built in Bradford.

Holden was a Liberal and from 1865 to 1868 he represented Knaresborough in Parliament. Later he became the Member of Parliament for the Northern Division of the Riding, Yorkshire, and then for the town of Keighley after the constituencies had been altered. He was liberal in his support of religious, charitable and political objectives. His house at Oakworth, near Keighley, must have been one of the earliest to have been lit by electricity.

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