-
James Watt
The first working steam engine had been patented in 1698 and by the time of Watt's birth, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all over the country. In around 1764, Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to repair. ... His first patent in 1769 covered this device and other improvements on Newcomen's engine. -
Thomas Newcomen
In 1712 Newcomen invented the world's first successful atmospheric steam engine. The engine pumped water using a vacuum created by condensed steam -
John Roebuck
John Roebuck, British physician, chemist, and inventor, perhaps best-known for having subsidized the experiments of the Scottish engineer James Watt that led to the development of the first commercially practical condensing steam engine (1769). -
John Kay
In 1733 Kay invented the wheel shuttle (Flying Shuttle) this meant that one person could operate a shuttle across a very wide loom, which greatly increased the rate of cloth production. The legacy of the Flying Shuttle is inestimable, it completely changed the weaving of textiles. -
Robert Owen
While in Manchester, Owen borrowed £100 from his brother William, so as to enter into a partnership to make spinning mules, a new invention for spinning cotton thread, but exchanged his business share within a few months for six spinning mules that he worked in rented factory space. -
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in 1779, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves' spinning jenny in the same way that mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey (a female donkey is called a jenny). -
Henry Cort
Henry Cort discovered the puddling process for making wrought iron. The puddling process converted pig iron into wrought iron by subjecting it to heat and stirring it in a furnace, without using charcoal. It was the first method that allowed quality wrought iron to be produced on a large scale. -
Nicolas LeBlanc
French surgeon and chemist who in 1790 developed the process for making soda ash (sodium carbonate) from common salt (sodium chloride). This process, which bears his name, became one of the most important industrial-chemical processes of the 19th century. -
Eli Whitney
Whitney is most famous for two innovations which came to have significant impacts on the United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of interchangeable parts. In the South, the cotton gin revolutionized the way cotton was harvested and reinvigorated slavery. -
Robert Fulton
American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton is best known for developing the first successful commercial steamboat, the North River Steamboat (later known as the Clermont) which carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York. Fulton also designed the world's first steam warship. -
George Stephenson
In 1814, Stephenson constructed his first locomotive, 'Blucher', for hauling coal at Killingworth Colliery near Newcastle. In 1815, he invented a safety lamp for use in coal mines, nicknamed the 'Geordie'. In 1821, Stephenson was appointed engineer for the construction of the Stockton and Darlington railway. -
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (1772–1823) was a classical economist best known for his theory on wages and profit, labor theory of value, theory of comparative advantage, and theory of rents. David Ricardo and several other economists also simultaneously and independently discovered the law of diminishing marginal returns.
