Georgian Era
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Georgian Era’
Richard Trevithick’s boss hailed the engineer as a genius. Today he’d have been fired. (Oh, and the train was delayed.)
Richard Trevithick neglected the job he was hired for, and diverted Research and Development funds into a hare-brained private project to get a steam engine to haul itself and some waggons along a railway not designed for that purpose. In 1803, his boss hailed him as a genius. Today, he’d have been fired.
Edmond Halley will forever be associated with the comet named after him, but his greatest achievement was getting Sir Isaac Newton to publish ‘Principia Mathematica’.
Halley’s comet is named after Edmond Halley (1656-1742), Britain’s second Astronomer Royal and a friend and colleague of Sir Isaac Newton.
John Goodricke’s observations of Algol won him the Copley Medal while still in his teens, despite his disability.
John Goodricke lost his hearing when just a child, but a combination of a loving family, a private education system more advanced than some people today would have us a believe, and sheer determination meant that he achieved more in his short life than seems possible.
Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850) turned steam locomotives into a reliable commercial success.
Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850) turned steam locomotives from a brilliant concept into a reliable commercial success. He is the man we have to thank for bringing mobility, jobs, and better lives to countless millions of people worldwide.
Josiah Wedgwood, a village potter whose disability meant he could not use a potter’s wheel, brought about a quiet revolution in English society.
The rich have always had nice things; what changed in the eighteenth century was that, because of private enterprise and the industrial revolution, the poor started to share them too. Josiah Wedgwood was one of the pioneers who changed the lives of the poor for the better.