inventions and processes in chronological order

TIMELINE :

early 18th century

1780

1764

Cheaper way to produce cast iron using coke-fueled furnace”

The power loom

The spinning Jenny

GOAL

START

1712

1770

The first practical steam engine

The steam engine

TIMELINE :

1837

1804

Thelegraph communication

Pen-y-Darren

START

1824

1850

The first inexpensive process for mass-producing steel

Stephenson's Rocket

Cheaper way to produce cast iron using coke-fueled furnace

Abraham Darby used, for the first time, at the beginning of the 18th century, coal to produce metal, thanks to the first coke blast furnace. A Coke-fueled furnace was created to use coke instead of charcoal for fuel. Because at that time charcoal was becoming rare but also more expensive. This machine revolutionized steel production: production was faster but also simpler and the quality was finer. It was an important step because iron was one of the principal raw materials for the Industrial Revolution.

The first practical steam engine

Thomas Newcomen invented the first atmospheric steam engine in 1712. The engine was pumping water using a vacuum created by the condensed steam. It became an important method of draining water from mines and was therefore an important machine for the industrial revolution.

The spinning Jenny

James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1764. It is a multi-spindle spinning frame. This machine is used to produce cotton and has a lot of spindles. To make it work, the worker turns the crank and must operate the bar which controls the carriage. This machine has been one of the keys in the industrialization of textile manufacturing. Bonus : Samuel Crompton invented the mule spinning in 1779. It is the combination of two other machines which are the water frame and the jenny spinning.

The steam engine

James Watt did not invent the steam engine because Thomas Newcomen made it in 1712. Watt designed a separate condenser, a device to reduce the amount of waste produced by the Newcomen steam engine and radically improved the power of steam engines in 1770. This creation was an important step for steam engines in the industry.

The power loom

Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom. This is the first power loom designed in 1787 and also first built. This machine was a key development in the industrialization of weaving at the start of the industrial revolution. The power loom is a mechanised device used to weave cloth and tapestry.

Pen-y-Darren

“Pen-y-Darren” is the first locomotive which pulled a steam railway in the world on 21 february 1804. Designed by Richard Trevithick, to whom we owe the high-pressure steam engine (machine à vapeur haut pression). The journey took 4 hours and the train was carrying ten tons of iron from the Penydarren Steel Plant at the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal.

Stephenson’s Rocket

Stephenson’s Rocket was built in 1929 by George Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson for the competition “Rainhill trials” which they won. This competition was a test to know if the steam engines were the best for the new Liverpool and Manchester railway. It was the most modern locomotive of its time. The design of this locomotive, with its smoke chimney at the front and a separate firebox at the back, became the model for locomotives for the next 150 years.

Telegraph communications

Telegraph communication has existed since the end of the 17th century, but the first electric telegraph was a success by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837. It worked by transmitting signals by way of a wire laid between stations. The test was from Euston to Camden Town in London, so around 1,24miles. The capacity to communicate despite the distance improved during the Industrial Revolution. It is the ancestor of the phone !

the first inexpensive process for mass-producing steel

Henry Bessemer was a british metallurgist and inventor who created a steel-making process in the 1850s which became the technique for making steel in the 19th century until 1950 : “Bessemer process”. This process imposed itself in Europe thanks to its low price : this generated the mass-producing of steel.