Industrial Revolution Gallery

A Factoryscape in the Potteries, (1938)

A Factoryscape in the Potteries, (1938). Smoke from chimneys in the industrial area known as the Staffordshire Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent. Due to the local availability of clay and coal, North Staffordshire became a centre of ceramic production in the early 17th century. Illustration from A History of Everyday Things in England - Done in four parts of which this is the third. The Rise of Industrialism 1733-1851, by Marjorie and C. D. B. Quennell. [B. T. Batsford Ltd., London, 1938]

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images

Construction of the Kilsby Tunnel on the London & Birmingham Railway, 8 July 1839. Artist: John Cooke Bourne

Construction of the Kilsby Tunnel on the London & Birmingham Railway, 8 July 1837 (1839). Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) was appointed chief engineer of the London & Birmingham Railway (LBR), the first railway into London. Running between Curzon Street Station, Birmingham, and Euston Station, London, the 112 mile long line took 20, 000 men nearly five years to build, at a cost of five and a half million pounds. The excavation of the tunnel at Kilsby, Northamptonshire was one of the greatest engineering challenges on the LBR, due to problems with quicksand. The LBR opened on 17 September 1838. From Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway by J Bourne, 1839

© Oxford Science Archive / Heritage-Images

Thomas Newcomen, English engineer C017/7122

Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729), English engineer, with a diagram of his atmospheric engine of 1712. Newcomen was an ironmonger from Dartmouth, and also a Baptist lay preacher. The Newcomen atmospheric engine was the first to have a walking beam pivoted arm (top) to transfer power between the piston and the rod. It was used to pump water out of coal mines. The piston was driven down by the pressure of a partial vacuum in the cylinder, causing the rod to be drawn upwards. As steam in the cylinder condensed the piston was forced up, and the rod forced down. This was the first true steam engine, widely used over the next 75 years

© GARY BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY