The industrialisation of the great cities put a terrible strain on the antiquated water and sewage systems ... Many new pumping stations had to be built. ibid.
Then steam power was introduced to the oceans to make sea travel between the continents faster. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam e5: Steam on the Water
The triple expansion engine turns a screw propeller, and it’s this that powers the ship through the water. And very nice it is too. But the first steam-powered ships were propelled by paddle wheels like this. ibid.
It was one of my heroes Isambard Kingdom Brunel who made the breakthrough. The SS Great Britain was built by Brunel. It was one of the outstanding engineering achievements of the Victorian age. ibid.
Brunel went on to build a bigger ship – the Great Eastern. ibid.
By the end of the nineteenth century the steam engine was being put to a wide range of uses. ibid.
‘I name this ship Britannia’ ... Three steam turbines that generate all the electricity for the ship. ibid.
The steam turbine was invented by Charles Parsons. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam e6: Steam and the Modern Age
But electricity didn’t make steam redundant. The thing that made possible the mass supply of electricity was steam. ibid.
The Lake District isn’t really an area most people associate with our industrial past and heavy industry. Once upon a time round Workington and Barrow in Furnace there were great industrial centres and they mined iron ore in the hundreds of tons, and it were some of the best iron ore in all of England. You know. Alas, it’s all gone. Fred Dibnah’s Made in Britain e3: The Source of Iron
All the ore mined at the Florence mine came here to the Workington steel works where is were converted by Bessemer converters into steel to manufacture railway lines. ibid.
We’re now in Falkirk which of course was the place where the industrial revolution in Scotland all started. And here there is a great iron foundry called the Carron Iron Works that were opened in 1760. After thirty years it employed a thousand men and became the biggest iron smelting plant in the whole of Europe. Fred Dinah’s Made in Britain e4: Castings
It’s amazing how many different makers there were of these things [steam engines]. Fred Dibnah’s Made in Britain e9: Engines at Work
Chains made in the Black Country were renowned for their quality all over the world. At the end of the nineteenth century 90% of all the chain workshops in England and Wales were here in the black country. ibid.
Ironbridge: This is the world’s first cast-iron bridge. Iron was so important round here that this place was regarded as the beginning or the cradle of the industrial revolution. It wasn’t just bridges they made here. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e1: The Industrial Landscape, BBC 2006
‘Up until the 1850s they only really cast-iron, you know. And they really needed something a bit tougher. And along came Henry Bessemer in 1855 and he invented this thing – a giant eggcup.’ ibid. Fred
‘This has got to be the biggest winding engine left in the world. And it were made about 1905 and it kept on running until the 1970s. And I’m now going to do a demonsteration [sic] of how fast you can put it in reverse from full steam forwards to backwards. And here we go. Did you like that? I did.’ ibid.
Between 1710 and 1712 Thomas Newcomen invented a brand new type of steam-engine – the atmospheric engine which was designed solely for one purpose – to pump water from deep mine shafts. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e3: The Machines That Changed the World
Trevithick’s use of strong steam meant that you could build an engine that weighed about ten tons that would do the same work as an engine that weighed six hundred and fifty tons. ibid.
Steam was only introduced really to help out the waterwheel. ibid.
James Watt ... separated the condensing department from the cylinder. ibid.
Robert Stephenson and his company of course didn’t just build locomotives, they built the lines and the bridges and all the engineering works. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e4: Men of Steel
By 1847 Armstrong had given up practising law; he opened his Elswick works on the banks of the River Tyne where he manufactured hydraulics and all sorts of other engineering equipment. ibid.
By 1867 the Armstrong company had begun to build iron warships, and in the first fifteen years they built twenty. ibid.
The greatest armament supplier of the time. ibid.
By the 1890s the manufacture of arms and battleships had become one of our major industries. ibid.
The magnificent town hall like this one here in Bolton is a grand example of Victorian civic pride … It really was the great age of Victorian splendour. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e5: The Victorian Gentleman
The Victorians went to great lengths to make things very beautiful as well as functional. ibid.
Pugin called St Giles his gem. ibid.
For Fred the greatest of the Victorian engineers was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e9: Changing the Landscape
The canals were like the arteries of the Industrial Revolution. They helped to provide cheaper goods and raw materials. ibid.
By the middle of the nineteenth century we were constructing some magnificent spinning mills with beautiful chimney stacks. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e10: Great British Builders
This love of fine craftsmanship led us to a greater appreciation of the skills of craftsman of the past, and of the work of craftsmen and women today who carry on the traditions. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e11: Masters of Their Trade
‘Fred will have opened the eyes of lots of people to the joy of craftsmanship, and the small-scale perfection people put into things.’ ibid. John Yates, English Heritage
Fred Dibnah’s real heroes were the ordinary workers and labourers of the people like him who got their hands dirty. From the labourers and stone masons who built great medieval castles and cathedrals to twentieth century coal miners, mill workers and steel workers. He will always be remembered for the respect he had for all those people who made their living from making things. Wherever Fred went it was always the workers he related to. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e12: A Good Day’s Work
Richard Trevithick ... He was a natural talent. A natural engineer. A problem solver. But even so no-one at the time imagined this was the man who would build the first high-pressure steam-engine, the first car, and the world’s first railway locomotive. Mark Williams, On the Rails s1e1: Cornish Steam Giant, Discovery 2004
It’s called the Puffing Devil ... The steam goes up the chimney. Chuff, chuff, chuff. ibid.
The destruction of his first locomotive didn’t seem to worry Trevithick. ibid.
His most ambitious project yet – a machine to run on rails. Britain’s first railway locomotive was about to be born. This locomotive was built over the winter of 1802. And its steam trials were kept highly secret. ibid.
Trevithick’s engine was a technological breakthrough. It was now clear the future of the high-pressure steam-engine was not on the common road but on the railroad. ibid.
The brittle cast-iron tram-tracks at the time smashed under the weight of the Loco. ibid.
In 1829 Rocket won the Liverpool & Manchester Railways competition to find the best steam locomotive. ibid.
The Founding Father of the Railways – but that title rightfully belongs to the Cornish genius Richard Trevithick. ibid.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century steam-engines were on the move. But they were unreliable, dangerous and smashed the rails they ran on. Steam was out of control. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e2: Rocketmen
George Stephenson is remembered as the Father of the Railways. After all, his son Robert designed Rocket, the most famous steam locomotive ever built. ibid.
It was in 1801 that the genius Cornish steam engineer Richard Trevithick made the quantum leap from this – a massive engine used to haul oar out of mines – to this – the world’s first self-propelled engine. His road locomotive. And just two years later Trevithick was experimenting with steam-engines on rails. ibid.
Coal mines were using steam engines to bring men and coal to the surface. The pits were the place to become a steam engineer. ibid.
Wrought iron made for much stronger lighter rails. ibid.