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Colin Alexander McVean
Colin Alexander McVean, FRGS (6 March 1838 – 18 January 1912) was a Scottish civil engineer who made a considerable contribution to Japan's engineering development in 1870s. He left two brief autobiographies, diaries, photos, letters and a collection of Japanese antiques. Early life and career He was first son of Reverend Donald McVean, minister of the Free Church of Iona and Mull. After a five-year apprenticeship at Edinburgh, he joined the Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, and was engaged in a survey of the Hebrides under the direction of Captain Henry Charles Otter during 1861-64. He worked together with William Maxwell, RN, Henry Scharbau and W.E. Cheesman. In 1865-66, he worked for railway construction at Bulgaria. In June, just before departure to Japan, he married Mary Wood Cowan, youngest daughter of Alexander Cowan, a paper-maker in Penicuik. Marriage witness were Archibald Constable and Campbell Douglas. Appointment in Japan McVean was informed by his friend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ginza
Ginza ( ; ja, 銀座 ) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity. It is considered to be one of the most expensive, elegant, and luxurious city districts in the world. Ginza was a part of the old Kyobashi ward of Tokyo City, which, together with Nihonbashi and Kanda, formed the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo (Tokyo). History Ginza was built upon a former swamp that was filled in during the 16th century. The name Ginza comes after the establishment of a silver-coin mint established there in 1612, during the Edo period. After a devastating fire in 1872 burned down most of the area, the Meiji government designated the Ginza area as a "model of modernization." The governme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Alfred Chastel De Boinville
Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville (1849 – April 25, 1897) was an Anglo-French architect, who worked in Japan and Britain. His father was a well known clergyman who completed 30 years of missionary service in France, and left several publications on his life such as Thomas Constable's Memoir. Early life His ancestor prospered during the ancien régime in Lorraine, and owned estate named Boinville. His great-grandfather, Jean Baptiste Chastel de Boinville, became much associated with Lafayette in political matters, and served as aide-de-camp under him. When the French Revolution broke out, and the King and Queen were brought from Versailles to Paris, they were escorted by Lafayette, who rode on one side of the carriage, and by De Boinville on the other. Like many other noble unfortunates, Jean Baptiste's estates were confiscated by the Revolutionary Government. He escaped to Britain where he met a wealthy supporter of French emigres, John Collins, a sugar planter in St. Vin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its contemporary form. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883, was its president 1890–1895, and in 1892 was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature ( absolute zero) was known prior to his work, Kelvin is known for determining its correct value as approximately −273.15 degrees Celsius or −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. The Joule–Thomson effect is also named in his honour. He worked closely with mathematics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Rankine
William John Macquorn Rankine (; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mechanical engineer who also contributed to civil engineering, physics and mathematics. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on the first of the three thermodynamic laws. He developed the Rankine scale, an equivalent to the Kelvin scale of temperature, but in degrees Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Rankine developed a complete theory of the steam engine and indeed of all heat engines. His manuals of engineering science and practice were used for many decades after their publication in the 1850s and 1860s. He published several hundred papers and notes on science and engineering topics, from 1840 onwards, and his interests were extremely varied, including, in his youth, botany, music theory and number theory, and, in his mature years, most major branches of science, mathematics and engineering. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewis Gordon (civil Engineer)
Prof Lewis Dunbar Brodie Gordon FRSE (1815–1876) was a Scottish civil engineer. Life He was the fourth son of Anne Clunes (d.1881) and her husband, Joseph Gordon WS, an Edinburgh lawyer. They lived at 27 London Street in Edinburgh's New Town. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh then went to the University of Edinburgh. A student and assistant to Marc Brunel, during the construction of the Thames Tunnel, he made a career change to mining. Registering as a student at the Freiburg School of Mines, Germany, he then studied further at the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1838 he visited the mines at Clausthal, and met Wilhelm Albert. Impressed by what he saw, he wrote to his friend Robert Stirling Newall, urging him to "Invent a machine for making (wire ropes)". On receipt of Gordon's letter, Newall designed a wire rope machine. On Gordon's return to the UK in 1839, he formed a partnership with Newall and Charles Liddell, registering ''R.S. Newall and Company'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Matheson (industrialist)
Hugh Mackay Matheson (23 April 1821 – 8 February 1898) was a 19th-century Scottish industrialist, trader, Church of Scotland lay minister and supporter of Presbyterian church missions to China. He was the senior partner of Matheson and Company and founding company president of the Rio Tinto mining group. Early life Born in Edinburgh, the second son of Duncan Matheson an advocate at the Scottish bar and Deputy Sheriff of the city. Educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Matheson then served a seven-year commercial apprenticeship at the Glasgow firm of James Ewing & Co. During his Glasgow residence Matheson was an active lay member of the Church of Scotland and the St. Enoch's Sabbath School Society. Matheson played an important role in developing early trading relations with Meiji era Japan. In 1843 Matheson declined an offer from his uncle James Matheson to join Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong due to the company's extensive links with the China opium trade. He nonethele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Batson Joyner
Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, Henry of Burgundy, Count of Portugal (father of Portugal's first king) ** Prince Henry the Navigator, Infante of Portugal ** Infante Henrique, Duke of Coimbra (born 1949), the sixth in line to Portuguese throne * King of Germany **Henry the Fowler (876–936), first king of Germany * King of Scots (in name, at least) ** Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545/6–1567), consort of Mary, queen of Scots ** Henry Benedict Stuart, the 'Cardinal Duke of York', brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was hailed by Jacobites as Henry IX * Four kings of Castile: **Henry I of Castile **Henry II of Castile **Henry III of Castile **Henry IV of Castile * Five kings of France, spelt ''Henri'' in Modern French since the Renaissance to italianize the name and to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fig2engineering-school
The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant.''The Fig: its History, Culture, and Curing'', Gustavus A. Eisen, Washington, Govt. print. off., 1901 ''Ficus carica'' is the type species of the genus ''Ficus'', containing over 800 tropical and subtropical plant species. A fig plant is a small deciduous tree or large shrub growing up to tall, with smooth white bark. Its large leaves have three to five deep lobes. Its fruit (referred to as syconium, a type of multiple fruit) is tear-shaped, long, with a green skin that may ripen toward purple or brown, and sweet soft reddish flesh containing numerous crunchy seeds. The milky sap of the green parts is an irritant to human skin. In the Northern Hemisphere, fresh figs are in season from lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial College Of Engineering
The Imperial College of Engineering (工部大学校, ''Kōbudaigakkō'') was a Japanese institution of higher education that was founded during the Meiji Era. The college was established under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works for the training of young Japanese engineers. Supporting Japan’s rapid industrialization at the end of the 19th century, the college commenced teaching in October 1873 soon after the initial cohort of teaching staff arrived from United Kingdom. The college was an immediate precursor to the establishment of the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Engineering in 1877. Foundation 250px, Henry Dyer In the process of founding the Public Works, Edmund Morel, a chief engineer for Railway Department of the Meiji Japanese government emphasized importance of engineering institution, which would create young Japanese engineers and technicians leading rapid modernization without help of foreign officers. On September 24, 1871, the Public Works was f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
