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The focus of this series is engineering, broadly construed. It covers technological innovation from a range of periods and cultures, but centres on the technological achievements of the industrial era in the West, particularly in the nineteenth century, as understood by their contemporaries. Infrastructure is one major focus, covering the building of railways and canals, bridges and tunnels, land drainage, the laying of submarine cables, and the construction of docks and lighthouses. Other key topics include developments in industrial and manufacturing fields such as mining technology, the production of iron and steel, the use of steam power and chemical processes such as photography and textile dyes.

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151 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Technology

Page 2 of 8

Papers, Literary, Scientific, Etc.
  • Volume 1
  • Fleeming Jenkin
  • Edited by Sidney Colvin, J. A. Ewing
  • Introduction by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    02 January 2014
  • An electrical engineer, university teacher and wide-ranging writer, Fleeming Jenkin (1833–85) filed thirty-five British patents in the course of his career. Edited by Sidney Colvin (1845–1927) and J. A. Ewing (1855–1935) and first published in 1887, this two-volume work brings together a selection of Jenkin's varied and engaging papers. The collection ranges from notes on his voyages as a marine telegraph engineer, to a critical review of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, essays on literature, and thoughts on technical education. A memoir written by Robert Louis Stevenson, his former student, provides biographical context and attests to Jenkin's many interests and talents across the arts and sciences. Volume 1 begins with Stevenson's memoir, incorporating Jenkin's records of his voyages. This is followed by writings on literature and drama. Three pieces on scientific subjects, including the review of Darwin, conclude the volume.

A Compendium of British Mining
  • With Statistical Notices of the Principal Mines in Cornwall
  • Joseph Yelloly Watson
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 November 2013
  • Joseph Yelloly Watson (1817–88) produced this short work for private circulation in 1843. For many years a mining agent with the London firm of Watson and Cuell, he became a fellow of the Geological Society and wrote on mining and historical subjects. Drawing chiefly on data from Cornwall, the present work gives details of mining processes, the layout of mines, the working conditions of miners (including figures for wages and working hours), and the typical management structure of a mine, with information on shareholders, profits and accounting. The work includes coverage of individual mining districts, including Gwennap, Camborne, Illogan, St Just, St Ives and Marazion in Cornwall, along with discussion of mines in Devon, Cumberland and elsewhere. Concluding with notes on the history of metal mining, followed by a useful glossary of mining terms, this remains a concise and instructive resource on a significant economic sector in the nineteenth century.

A History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire
  • Being a Description of the Rivers Witham and Welland and their Estuary, and an Account of the Reclamation, Drainage, and Enclosure of the Fens Adjacent Thereto
  • William Henry Wheeler
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • A respected hydraulic engineer, William Henry Wheeler (1832–1915) established himself as an authority in the fields of low-lying land reclamation and drainage, embanking, and the improvement of tidal rivers and harbours. First published in 1868, Wheeler's historical work on the Fens of South Lincolnshire is reissued here in its much expanded second edition of 1896. It discusses in detail the reclamation of the fenland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The coverage includes a history of each of the districts, the Acts of Parliament involved, the pumping machinery used, the management of the highways and waterways, the agriculture and geology of the area, and the costs associated with the whole reclamation project. Another of Wheeler's works, The Drainage of Fens and Low Lands (1888), is also reissued in this series. The books remain a rich source of information for local historians and civil engineers.

The Mining Industry
  • Evidence and Report of the Industrial Commission of Enquiry
  • Compiled by The Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines
  • Published online:
    05 November 2015
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • The mining industry was a fundamental part of the economy of South Africa in the late nineteenth century, and control of the region's gold mines was a significant factor in the tension between Dutch and English settlers that led to the Second Boer War in 1899. In 1889 the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines had been formed to promote the industry's development. Economic problems in the region led the Volksraad of the South African Republic to set up a Commission of Enquiry in 1897 to investigate high tariffs, labour and transport costs which were adversely affecting the mining industry. The 1897 report reissued here was not that of the commission itself, but contains much of the evidence and statistical material presented to it, in the hope that the mining industry would adopt its recommendations. As such, this detailed resource remains relevant to economic historians of South Africa and the British Empire.

The Drainage of Fens and Low Lands
  • By Gravitation and Steam Power
  • William Henry Wheeler
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • A respected hydraulic engineer, William Henry Wheeler (1832–1915) established himself as an authority in the fields of low-lying land reclamation and drainage, embanking, and the improvement of tidal rivers and harbours. Based on articles written for The Engineer in 1887, he published this more substantial work in 1888 to provide a practical point of reference for those working on existing drainage systems or designing and implementing new schemes. Drawing on first-hand knowledge of the low-lying fens of England and the polders of Holland, Wheeler describes the processes of drainage by gravitation and steam power. The book also includes chapters on lifting and draining water using the scoop wheel, the Archimedean screw pump and the centrifugal pump. Providing also a wealth of operational facts relating to pumping stations in England and abroad, this remains a rich source of information for those interested in the history of civil engineering.

Memoir of the Life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel
  • Richard Beamish
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    22 August 2013
  • Abandoning a military career, Richard Beamish (1798–1873) decided to become a civil engineer. His suitability as a biographer of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769–1849) stems from the period he spent working closely with the Brunels on the Thames Tunnel. Published in 1862, this memoir recounts the elder Brunel's eventful life and work, including his youth in France, his flight to America in the aftermath of the French Revolution, his lesser-known ventures in the early nineteenth century, and the tunnelling project which would consume much of the second half of his life. An informed portrait of a figure who has since been outshone by his more famous son, this book includes first-hand accounts of the ill-fated early attempt to build the Thames Tunnel, which was abandoned in 1828 due to flooding and lack of funds, and of Brunel's vindication upon its eventual completion in 1843.

The Severn Tunnel
  • Its Construction and Difficulties, 1872–1887
  • Thomas A. Walker
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    27 June 2013
  • Costing at the time £1.8 million to complete, the Severn Tunnel was a Victorian engineering triumph, and for over a century it remained the longest rail tunnel in Britain. Construction had begun in 1873 but came to a standstill after the workings were inundated by water in 1879. An accomplished civil engineering contractor, Thomas Andrew Walker (1828–89) had worked on railways in Canada, Russia and Africa as well as on London's new underground lines; he was therefore well qualified to complete the Severn Tunnel, which was achieved in 1886. First published in 1888, Walker's first-hand account of the problematic project remains an engaging source for railway and engineering historians, and its detailed account of the ground encountered will also interest geologists. Replete with plans and maps, reissued here is the second edition of 1890, the year following Walker's death, which is likely to have been hastened by overwork.

The Diaries of Edward Pease
  • The Father of English Railways
  • Edward Pease
  • Edited by Alfred Edward Pease
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    13 June 2013
  • Edward Pease (1767–1858), who left behind extensive diaries for the years 1824–57, was dubbed the 'father of English railways' thanks to his backing of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which began operating in 1825. A prominent Quaker and woollen manufacturer in Darlington, Pease famously recruited George Stephenson (1781–1848) as the line's engineer. His great-grandson Sir Alfred Pease (1857–1939) edited these diaries for private circulation only, but was persuaded to publish them in 1907. The work includes an introductory essay on Quakerism and biographical sketches of Pease and his wife Rachel. The diaries themselves reveal, as the editor mentions in his preface, a life devoted to public and private good works. The appendices include a variety of Quaker texts and other material relating to the Pease family and the founding of the railways.

A Short History of the Steam Engine
  • Henry Winram Dickinson
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1939
  • A Short History of the Steam Engine, first published in 1939, remains one of the most readable and clear explanations of the topic for the non-specialist. H. W. Dickinson limits himself to stationary engines and boilers, and only touches on the beginnings of locomotive and marine engines. He puts the stages of development in their context, showing how economic and social factors were involved in the evolution of the steam engine. The illustrations are plentiful and the text, while technical, never becomes impenetrable. The successive improvements to the simple engines of the seventeenth century, as new materials or purposes arose, are developed chapter by chapter to the twentieth century. Each engineer was building on the work of his predecessors, rather than there being any single inventor of genius. Dickinson also wrote biographies of key figures of the Industrial Revolution, which are being reissued in this series.

Matthew Boulton
  • H. W. Dickinson
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1937
  • This 1939 work gives deserved recognition to the achievements of the engineer and businessman Matthew Boulton. Boulton's importance has generally been overshadowed by that of his partner James Watt, but he was a significant figure in his own right, particularly in relation to the Soho Foundry and his production of coins and medals. He belonged to a network of highly significant men of the period, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and Benjamin Franklin, and was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. An engineer by profession, H. W. Dickinson researched widely, and published highly readable works on the history of the steam engine, Watt, and Trevithick, also reissued in this series. He succeeds in producing a work which appeals to the scientist, the historian and the general reader, without feeling obliged to over-simplify the technical details.

James Watt
  • Craftsman and Engineer
  • H. W. Dickinson
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1936
  • This 1936 book, published to celebrate the bicentenary of Watt's birth, examines his career as a craftsman and engineer, rather than offering a purely narrative biography. Watt began his life as a maker of mathematical instruments, and throughout his working life enjoyed the challenge of such skilled work. Watt's inventions did much to power the Industrial Revolution and its economic and social consequences. However, he owed much of his commercial success to his long partnership with Matthew Boulton, a far more astute businessman, and a considerable portion of the book is devoted to the achievements of this period. An engineer by profession, H. W. Dickinson researched widely, and published highly readable works on the steam engine, Watt, Boulton and Trevithick. He succeeds in producing a work which appeals to the scientist, the historian and the general reader, without feeling obliged to over-simplify the technical details.

Richard Trevithick
  • The Engineer and the Man
  • H. W. Dickinson, Arthur Titley
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1934
  • To mark the centenary of Richard Trevithick (1771–1833) H. W Dickinson and Arthur Titley published a fascinating book on the engineer and his work. They succeed in producing a work which appeals to the scientist, the historian and the general reader, without feeling obliged to over-simplify the technical details. Today best remembered for his early railway locomotive, Trevithick worked on a wide range of projects, including mines, mills, dredging machinery, a tunnel under the Thames, military engineering, and prospecting in South America. The book and other centenary activities helped to restore Trevithick's rather neglected reputation as a pioneering engineer of the Industrial Revolution, although his difficult personality and financial failures caused him to be overshadowed by his contemporaries such as Robert Stephenson and James Watt. The book places his achievements in their historical context, and contains many illustrations of his inventions.

Talks about Wireless
  • With Some Pioneering History and Some Hints and Calculations for Wireless Amateurs
  • Oliver Lodge
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    09 August 2012
    First published in:
    1925
  • In the 1860s, radio waves were predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in his work on electromagnetism. It took a further twenty years for the first experiments to produce a working demonstration. In this guide to radio technology, first published in 1925, eminent physicist Sir Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) provides a concise history of the development of the wireless radio, explains the theory behind it, and includes some practical tips for amateurs. Having lived through and contributed to the discovery, he explains the difficulty of the early experiments, which took place in a time when terms like 'frequency' and 'inductance', now taken for granted, did not exist in the scientific vocabulary. His first-hand account reveals the incredible efforts poured into the development of a revolutionary modern technology, rekindling the sense of wonder that once surrounded this strange new science.

The Life of Sir William Crookes, O.M., F.R.S.
  • Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe
  • Foreword by Oliver Lodge
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    13 June 2013
    First published in:
    1923
  • In 1870, Sir William Crookes (1832–1919) travelled to Gibraltar to observe the solar eclipse. He kept a diary and produced beautiful accounts of the expedition - alongside altogether more specific observations, including the 656 steps down a local cliff face, and every item in his luggage. It is with the same meticulous approach and cheerful prose that he records, in letters, journal articles and reports, the successes and failures of the vast range of projects in which he was involved. Although initially trained as a chemist, Crookes worked across the spectrum of the sciences, from consulting on preventative measures against cattle plague through to investigating spiritualism. Opening with a foreword by the physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, this biography by Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe (1868–1933), first published in 1923, explores a remarkable life of enquiry through a host of first-hand sources.

Samuel F. B. Morse
  • His Letters and Journals
  • Samuel Finley Breese Morse
  • Edited by Edward Lind Morse
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1914
  • The American inventor Samuel Morse (1791–1872) spent decades fighting to be recognised for his key role in devising the electromagnetic telegraph. While he will always be remembered in the history of telecommunications, and for co-developing the code which bears his name, Morse started out as a painter and also involved himself in matters of politics over the course of his career. Published in 1914, this two-volume collection of personal papers was edited by his son, who provides helpful commentary throughout, illuminating the struggles and successes of a remarkable life. Volume 1 includes observations made in Europe while Morse studied painting. During the Napoleonic wars, he writes letters home describing the rising level of crime and social unrest in London, mentioning that he sleeps with a pistol. He is in London when Spencer Perceval is assassinated and later writes of meeting Turner, 'the best landscape painter living'.

Samuel F. B. Morse
  • His Letters and Journals
  • Samuel Finley Breese Morse
  • Edited by Edward Lind Morse
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1914
  • The American inventor Samuel Morse (1791–1872) spent decades fighting to be recognised for his key role in devising the electromagnetic telegraph. While he will always be remembered in the history of telecommunications, and for co-developing the code which bears his name, Morse started out as a painter and also involved himself in matters of politics over the course of his career. Published in 1914, this two-volume collection of personal papers was edited by his son, who provides helpful commentary throughout, illuminating the struggles and successes of a remarkable life. Volume 2 begins with Morse's return voyage to the United States; following a conversation with a fellow passenger regarding electromagnetism, Morse began to develop the concept of the single-wire telegraph. The rest of the volume gives much personal background to the development of the invention and particularly to Morse's efforts to gain the recognition he believed he deserved.

Records of a Family of Engineers
  • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    10 March 2011
    First published in:
    1912
  • Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), novelist and poet, was descended from a famous Scottish engineering family. His grandfather Robert, his father Thomas, two uncles and a cousin were all noted engineers, particularly known for their lighthouses. This family history, focusing particularly on his grandfather, was written while R. L. Stevenson was living in Samoa, and was published posthumously in 1912. It first outlines the history of the name 'Stevenson' from the thirteenth century. Chapter 1 begins in the mid-eighteenth century, and records Robert Stevenson's birth in 1772, and his father's death. The young Robert worked with his stepfather for the Northern Lighthouse Board and was its sole Engineer from 1808 to 1843. Chapter 2 describes his experiences in that role. Chapter 3 reproduces substantial extracts from Robert's own diary of the construction (1807–1811) of his most famous structure, the Bell Rock lighthouse off Arbroath, which revolutionised lighthouse design.

Electromagnetic Theory
  • Volume 3
  • Oliver Heaviside
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1912
  • Oliver Heaviside FRS (1850–1925) was a scientific maverick and a gifted self-taught electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician. He patented the co-axial cable, pioneered the use of complex numbers for circuit analysis, and reworked Maxwell's field equations into the more concise format we use today. In 1891 the Royal Society made him a Fellow for his mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic phenomena. Along with Arthur Kennelly, he also predicted the existence of the ionosphere. Often dismissed by his contemporaries, his work achieved wider recognition when he received the inaugural Faraday Medal in 1922. Published in 1912, this is the last of three volumes summarising Heaviside's enormous contribution to electromagnetic theory. It includes a review of his work on waves from moving sources, and an appendix on vector analysis that compares its merits to quaternions.

The Evolution of the Parsons Steam Turbine
  • An Account of Experimental Research on the Theory, Efficiency, and Mechanical Details of Land and Marine Reaction and Impulse-Reaction Turbines
  • Alexander Richardson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2016
    Print publication:
    11 September 2014
    First published in:
    1911
  • Responsible for the generation of most of the world's electricity, and with applications to sea and land transport, the steam turbine may be regarded as a pivotal invention in the creation of a technologically advanced modern society. Charles Parsons (1854–1931) built the first practical steam turbine in 1884, and he remained at the forefront of its development for nearly fifty years, as he saw his invention become first the prime means by which thermal energy could be turned into electricity, and then the power behind pioneering cruise liners and warships. Alexander Richardson (1864–1928), an engineer and politician, had access to the inventor's papers when writing this account of the turbine's history. Published in 1911, and featuring more than 170 illustrative plates, it provides a valuable insight into the development of a technology that revolutionised power generation, marine transport and naval warfare.

History of the Manchester Ship Canal from its Inception to its Completion
  • With Personal Reminiscences
  • Volume 1
  • Bosdin Leech
  • Published online:
    05 November 2014
    Print publication:
    24 April 2014
    First published in:
    1907
  • By the late nineteenth century, charges imposed on Manchester companies for the use of Liverpool's docks and the connecting railway had created an atmosphere of resentment within the business community. The Manchester Ship Canal was to play a major part in the city's regeneration following the depression of the 1870s, but it took a lengthy battle for the scheme to gain the backing of Parliament and for construction to begin in 1887. In this two-volume work of 1907, Sir Bosdin Leech (1836–1912) traces the canal's conception, planning and construction. Volume 1 discusses the historical and economic factors that led to the creation of the waterway, as well as the bitter political fight to make it a reality. The work includes a large amount of illustrative content, enhancing the light shed on the landscape and notable personalities of Manchester at that time.

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