|
Charles Richardson (civil Engineer)
Sir Charles Richardson (1814–1896) was the resident engineer of the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway. He was also the instigator and first engineer of the Severn Tunnel. Early life Richardson was born at Capenhurst Hall in Cheshire. He was educated in England and France. His father, Richard, died when he was six. Despite an early sporting talent for cricket, it was now clear that he would need to make his own living and so, encouraged by his mother, he followed his other talent for engineering. He attended Edinburgh University from 1833, reading Mathematics. Early career He was taken as a pupil by Marc Brunel, working with him on the Thames Tunnel. From then he worked with the Brunels on a number of railway projects, particularly involving tunnelling. These included Box Tunnel and Sapperton Tunnel. Richardson was noted for his interest in cricket. This led to some conflict with Brunel over disruptions to his work, although equally it was encouraged by other cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county town is the cathedral city of Chester, while its largest town by population is Warrington. Other towns in the county include Alsager, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Frodsham, Knutsford, Macclesfield, Middlewich, Nantwich, Neston, Northwich, Poynton, Runcorn, Sandbach, Widnes, Wilmslow, and Winsford. Cheshire is split into the administrative districts of Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire East, Halton, and Warrington. The county covers and has a population of around 1.1 million as of 2021. It is mostly rural, with a number of towns and villages supporting the agricultural and chemical industries; it is primarily known for producing chemicals, Cheshire cheese, salt, and silk. It has also had an impact on popular culture, producing not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontoon Bridge
A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. Most pontoon bridges are temporary and used in wartime and civil emergencies. There are permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use that can carry highway traffic. Permanent floating bridges are useful for sheltered water crossings if it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated or can be raised or removed to allow waterborne traffic to pass. Pontoon bridges have been in use since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, the Iran–Iraq War's Operation Dawn 8, and most recently, in the 2022 Russian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1814 Births
Events January * January 1 – War of the Sixth Coalition – The Royal Prussian Army led by Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher crosses the Rhine. * January 3 ** War of the Sixth Coalition – Siege of Cattaro: French garrison surrenders to the British after ten days of bombardment. ** War of the Sixth Coalition – Siege of Metz: Allied armies lay siege to the French city and fortress of Metz. * January 5 – Mexican War of Independence – Battle of Puruarán: Spanish Royalists defeat Mexican Rebels. * January 11 – War of the Sixth Coalition – Battle of Hoogstraten: Prussian forces under Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow defeat the French. * January 14 ** Treaty of Kiel: Frederick VI of Denmark cedes the Kingdom of Norway into personal union with Sweden, in exchange for west Pomerania. This marks the end of the real union of Denmark-Norway. ** War of the Sixth Coalition – Siege of Antwerp: Allied forces besi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways. The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cricket Bat
A cricket bat is a specialised piece of equipment used by batters in the sport of cricket to hit the ball, typically consisting of a cane handle attached to a flat-fronted willow-wood blade. It may also be used by a batter who is making ground to avoid a run out, by holding the bat and touching the ground with it. The length of the bat may be no more than 38 inches (96.5 cm) and the width no more than 4.25 inches (10.8 cm). Its use is first mentioned in 1624. Since 1979, a law change has provided that cricket bats can only be made from wood. Construction The ''blade'' of a cricket bat is a wooden block that is generally flat on the striking face and with a ridge on the reverse (back) which concentrates wood in the middle where the ball is generally hit. The bat is traditionally made from willow wood, specifically from a variety of white willow called cricket bat willow ('' Salix alba'' var. ''caerulea''), treated with raw (unboiled) linseed oil, which has a prot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David & Charles
David & Charles Ltd is an English publishing company. It is the owner of the David & Charles imprint, which specialises in craft and lifestyle publishing. David and Charles Ltd acts as distributor for all David and Charles Ltd books and content outside North America, and also distributes Interweave Press publications in the UK and worldwide excluding North America, and as foreign language editions. The company distributes Dover Publications and Reader's Digest books into the UK TradeF&W Media International company overview, http://www.davidandcharles.com/. Accessed 8 January 2014 and is also a UK and Europe distribution platform for the overseas acquired companies Krause Publications and Adams Media. History The current company was founded in 2019, taking the original founding name of the business that was first established in 1960. The company is the UK distributor for Dover Publications. David and Charles was first founded in Newton Abbot, England, on 1 April 1960 by Davi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanwell
Hanwell () is a town in the London Borough of Ealing, in the historic County of Middlesex, England. It is about 1.5 miles west of Ealing Broadway and had a population of 28,768 as of 2011. It is the westernmost location of the London post town. Hanwell is mentioned in the Domesday Book. St Mary's Church was established in the tenth century and has been rebuilt three times since, the present church dating to 1842. Schools were established around this time in Hanwell; notably Central London District School which Charlie Chaplin attended. By the end of the 19th century there were over one thousand houses in Hanwell. The Great Western Railway came in 1838 and Hanwell railway station opened. Later the trams of London United Tramways came on the Uxbridge Road in 1904, running from Chiswick to Southall. From 1894 it was its own urban district of Middlesex until being absorbed into Ealing Urban District in 1926. To its west flows the River Brent, which marks Hanwell's boundary wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wharncliffe Viaduct
The Wharncliffe Viaduct is a brick-built viaduct that carries the Great Western Main Line railway across the Brent Valley, between Hanwell and Southall, Ealing, UK, at an elevation of . The viaduct, built in 1836–7, was constructed for the opening of the Great Western Railway (GWR). It is situated between Southall and Hanwell stations, the latter station being only a very short distance away to the east. The viaduct was the first major structural design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the first building contract to be let on the GWR project, and the first major engineering work to be completed. It was also the first railway viaduct to be built with hollow piers, a feature much appreciated by a colony of bats which has since taken up residence within. Design Constructed of engineering brick, the viaduct has eight semi-elliptical arches, each spanning and rising . It is wide. The supporting piers are hollow and tapered, rising to projecting stone cornices that held up the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowland Brotherhood
Rowland Brotherhood (or sometimes Roland Brotherhood) was a British engineer. He was born in Middlesex in 1812 and died in Bristol in 1883. He married Priscilla Penton in 1835 and they had 14 children, one also called Rowland who played cricket for Gloucestershire, another called Peter. Most were engineers. Career From 1835 he took on a number of contracts for building parts of the Great Western Railway (GWR). By 1838 he was resident in Reading, Berkshire, and continued to do contract work for the GWR. In 1841 he moved to Chippenham, Wiltshire, bought Orwell House on New Road, and took over a blacksmith's business. Soon after, he began production of railway fittings and developed an iron works on land north of Chippenham station. The business expanded in the 1850s and 1860s, with more land purchased to the north and east. Contract work for the GWR continued until 1861 when there was a dispute with that company; from 1861 to 1869 Brotherhood built components for railways an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Gooch
Sir Daniel Gooch, 1st Baronet (24 August 1816 – 15 October 1889) was an English railway locomotive and transatlantic cable engineer. He was the first Locomotive Superintendent, Superintendent of Locomotive Engines on the Great Western Railway from 1837 to 1864 and its chairman from 1865 until his death in 1889. Between 1865 and 1885 Gooch was Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), MP for Cricklade (UK Parliament constituency), Cricklade. Early life Gooch was born in Bedlington, Northumberland, the son of John Gooch, an iron founder, and his wife Anna Longridge. In 1831 his family moved to Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, Tredegar Ironworks, Monmouthshire, South Wales, where his father had accepted a managerial post, and it was there that Daniel would begin training under Thomas Ellis senior, who together with Ironmaster Samuel Homfray and Richard Trevithick pioneered steam railway locomotion. Gooch wrote in his diaries "Large works of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hawkshaw
Sir John Hawkshaw FRS FRSE FRSA MICE (9 April 1811 – 2 June 1891), was an English civil engineer. He served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1862-63. His most noteworthy work is the Severn Tunnel. Early life He was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, the son of Henry Hawkshaw, and was educated at Leeds Grammar School. Before he was 21 he had been engaged for six or seven years in railway engineering and the construction of roads in his native county, and in the year of his majority he obtained an appointment as engineer to the Bolivar Mining Association in Venezuela. The company was developing copper mines at Aroa in the west of the newly independent country. It wanted to construct a railway line to the coast instead of using the River Aroa for transportation. However the climate there was more than Hawkshaw's health could stand, and in 1834 he was obliged to return to England. Career He soon obtained employment under Jesse Hartley at the Liverpool docks, and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Cricket Bat")
.jpg "Click for more on -> John Hawkshaw")