Inventors & Innovators
| Inventors & Innovators | Description |
| Richard Trevithick | Cornish inventor born in Camborne ranks with Brunel. He invented the world's first stream-powered vehicle. His inventions revolutionised deep-shaft mining. To many, he was the father of the industrial revolution. |
| Charles Babbage | Inventor of the Difference Engine, a mechanical calculating machine which was a forerunner of the modern computer, went to school in Alphingon, Exeter. |
| Isambard Kingdom Brunel | Has left a lasting legacy in Bristol and around the South West and helped shape large parts of the region's history, economic development & industrial landscape. The bridge that crosses the river Tamar boundary between Devon & Cornwall. |
| Sir Oliver Lodge |
A scientist living in the Woodford Valley, Wiltshire and who co-operated with Marconi in introducing wireless to Britain. |
| Hubert Cecil Booth | Born 1871 in Gloucester, patented his first vacuum cleaner "Puffing Billy" at the age of 30 after being told by an American inventor that it would be impossible to build a machine that would suck up dust! |
| Sir Charles Wheatstone | Born in Gloucester, invented the electric telegraph and was later knighted for his work in laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable. |
| Jeremy Wood | Nationally recognised figure as the owner of Gloucester Old Bank and probably Britain's first millionaire. His miserly ways inspired Charles Dickens to create the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol". |
| Tim Snape | Abbotsbury Mr Snape has filed over 20 patents and received Tomorrows World’s Inventor of the Year award for 1999-2000. |
| Guglielmo Marconi | Marconi broadcast the first ever radio signals from the Haven Hotel at Sandbanks to the Isle of Wight in 1896. |
| Humphrey Davy | A woodcarver's son, born in Penzance in 1778. Educated in Truro, Davy was apprenticed to a Penzance surgeon. In 1797 he took up chemistry and was taken on by Thomas Beddoes, as an assistant at his Medical Pneumatic Institution in Bristol where he experimented with various new gases and discovered the anaesthetic effect of laughing gas (nitrous oxide). |
| Thomas Newcomen | By 1685 had established himself as an ironmonger in his hometown, Dartmouth. Some of his biggest customers were the mine owners in Cornwall, who faced considerable difficulties with flooding, as the mines became progressively deeper. The standard methods to remove the water - manual pumping, or teams of horses hauling buckets on a rope - were slow and expensive, and they sought an alternative. Atmospheric Steam Engine can be seen at Mayors Ave Dartmouth. |
| Thomas Savery | Modbury inventor, clockmaker and engineer who was born in 1650 and who, with Thomas Newcomen, did much to keep tin mines open with his pumps when previously the would have flooded. |
| George Parker Bidder | "The calculating boy" Bidder was one of the most important and yet possibly least recognised of the Victorian engineers. A great friend of Robert Stephenson, Bidder was involved with the great period of railway 'mania' and solving the problem of the expanding Victorian cities and towns. Born 1806 Moretenhampstead died 1878 Stoke Garbriel, Devon and is buried by the tower in Stoke Fleming churchyard. A love of sailing brought him to Dartmouth, he considered the air of Devonshire to be good for his health. |
| William Cookworth | Born in Kingsbridge, apprenticed to an apothecary in London. An able student he was sent back to open a branch in Plymouth, which he later took over. He came into contact with maritime traders from the east who brought back porcelain from China. Following lengthy explorations and experiments he identified the china clays of Cornwall as 'Kaolin' the basic ingredient of porcelain. First at Plymouth and then Bristol he made the first true English hard paste porcelain. |
| Albert Liwentaal | An aviation pioneer, who managed to 'take off' before the Wright brothers. Arrived in Dartmouth in 1894 as a shipwright. After building an aeroplane his initial flights were less than 'fancy'. He took off from Dittisham, became airborne then crashed. Undeterred, he took off again from Bozomzeal, again managed to become airborne and yet again, crashed. This time records show he ended up in Dartmouth hospital. He left Dartmouth in the 1890s and went to London. |
