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James Fussell IV
James Fussell IV (1748–1832) was an iron magnate operating the Old Iron Works, Mells in Vallis Vale between Mells and Great Elm in Somerset. He was a promoter of the Dorset and Somerset Canal and the inventor of both the roller chain and the balance lock. Invention of the balance lock The balance lock was a type of boat lift designed by James Fussell IV to transport boats up and down a hillside on a canal. An experimental balance lock was built as part of the Dorset and Somerset Canal Invention of roller chain Sketches by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century show a chain with a roller bearing. In 1800, James Fussell IV patented a roller chain on development of his balance lock and in 1880 Hans Renold patented a bush roller chain. Business history James Fussell III had leased the site in Mells in 1744, to erect "''a good, firme and substantiall Mill or Mills for Grinding Edge Tools and forging Iron plates''".Fussell, James (2001)''The Fussell ironworks at Wadbury, Mell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Iron Works, Mells
Old Iron Works, Mells (Fussells' Lower Works) () is a 0.25 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, in the Wadbury Valley, south of the village of Mells in Somerset, notified in 1987. The site is a ruined iron works, which mainly produced agricultural edge-tools that were exported all over the world, and is now, in addition to its unique and major importance in relation to industrial archaeology, used as a breeding site by horseshoe bats. The block of buildings adjacent to the entrance is listed Grade II* and most of the rest of the site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is included in the Heritage at Risk Register produced by English Heritage. Biological interest The site is used by both Greater and Lesser Horseshoe Bats. The roofspace of one of the former works building was used, before the building burnt down in the 1980s, as a breeding roost in summer by large numbers of Greater Horseshoes and smaller numbers of Lesser Horseshoes. Disused flues and tunnel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for #Journals and notes, his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist ideal, and his List of works by Leonardo da Vinci, collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary, Michelangelo. Born Legitimacy (family law), out of wedlock to a successful Civil law notary, notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, Tuscany, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1748 Births
Events January–March * January 12 – Ahmad Shah Durrani captures Lahore. * January 27 – A fire at the prison and barracks at Kinsale, in Ireland, kills 54 of the prisoners of war housed there. An estimated 500 prisoners are safely conducted to another prison."Fires, Great", in ''The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance'', Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p51 * February 7 – The San Gabriel mission project begins with the founding of the first Roman Catholic missions further northward in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in what is now central Texas. On orders of the Viceroy, Juan Francisco de Güemes, Friar Mariano Marti establish the San Francisco Xavier mission at a location on the San Gabriel River in what is now Milam County. The mission, located northeast of the future site of Austin, Texas, is attacked by 60 Apache Indians on May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banknote
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by commercial banks, which were legally required to redeem the notes for legal tender (usually gold or silver coin) when presented to the chief cashier of the originating bank. These commercial banknotes only traded at face value in the market served by the issuing bank. Commercial banknotes have primarily been replaced by national banknotes issued by central banks or monetary authorities. National banknotes are often – but not always – legal tender, meaning that courts of law are required to recognize them as satisfactory payment of money debts. Historically, banks sought to ensure that they could always pay customers in coins when they presented banknotes for payment. This practice of "backing" notes with something of substance is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gurney Slade, Somerset
Ashwick is a village in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, about three miles north of Shepton Mallet and seven miles east from Wells. It has also been a civil parish since 1826. The parish had a population of 1,352 according to the 2011 census, and apart from Ashwick village also includes Gurney Slade and Oakhill. History The area around Ashwick has evidence of occupation since the Iron Age, being in close proximity to Maesbury Castle. In Roman Britain, Fosse Way was constructed, which passes to the east of the parish. Although Oakhill is the larger village today, Ashwick is the older settlement, dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. It appears in the Domesday book as a settlement called Escewiche, which translates as 'the hamlet or farmstead by the ash trees'. The parish of Ashwick was part of the Hundred of Kilmersdon. The village is the site of Ashwick Court, a country house dating from the late 17th century and Grade II* listed. Anthony Newley's short-lived 1960 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wadbury Camp
Wadbury Camp is a promontory fort in Somerset, England that protected the mining district of the Mendip Hills in pre-Roman times. It seems to have been an outwork of the larger Tedbury Camp. Location Wadbury camp lies on a ridge to the north of the steep valley of the Mells Stream, called the Wadbury Valley. It is south of Newbury camp and west of Tedbury Camp, which is on the other side of the river. Newbury Camp, on an elevated knoll north of Wadbury, would have been used as a look-out post over the surrounding countryside. Tedbury Camp, covering an area of , must have been an important stronghold. Wadbury Camp, on the opposite side of the Mells Stream, to the northwest of Tedbury, seems to have been an outpost of the larger camp. Description The camp is a slight univallate hillfort, an elongated oval enclosure. It has a single rampart, outer ditch and counterscarp bank on all but the western side, where it is protected by the steep bank of the ravine. The bank would have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Renold
Hans Renold (31 July 1852 - 2 May 1943) was a Swiss/British engineer, inventor and industrialist in Britain, who founded the Renold manufacturing textile-chain making business in 1879, and with Alexander Hamilton Church is credited for introducing scientific management also known as Taylorism to England. Biography Renold was born in Aarau, Switzerland into a burgher family of that town. He attended the polytechnic school in Zurich, then worked in a drawing office in St. Denis, Seine, France. Renold came to London, England, and soon after to Manchester, Lancashire, in 1873 at the age of 21 and found work with a firm of machinery exporters. In 1879, with £300 borrowed from his prospective father-in-law, Renold purchased a small textile-chain making business in Salford, Lancashire, from James Slater and started the Hans Renold business. Hans Renold and his first wife Mary Susan Herford (1855-1919), were married in 1880, and had six children: Mary Katharine Renold, Charles Garo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolling-element Bearing
In mechanical engineering, a rolling-element bearing, also known as a rolling bearing, is a bearing which carries a load by placing rolling elements (such as balls or rollers) between two concentric, grooved rings called races. The relative motion of the races causes the rolling elements to roll with very little rolling resistance and with little sliding. One of the earliest and best-known rolling-element bearings are sets of logs laid on the ground with a large stone block on top. As the stone is pulled, the logs roll along the ground with little sliding friction. As each log comes out the back, it is moved to the front where the block then rolls on to it. It is possible to imitate such a bearing by placing several pens or pencils on a table and placing an item on top of them. See " bearings" for more on the historical development of bearings. A rolling element rotary bearing uses a shaft in a much larger hole, and cylinders called "rollers" tightly fill the space between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers. In most cases, a canal has a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as ''slack water levels'', often just called ''levels''. A canal can be called a ''navigation canal'' when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter's discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley. A canal can cut across a drainage divide atop a ridge, generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation. The best-known example of such a canal is the Panama Can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vallis Vale
Vallis Vale () is a 23.9 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Great Elm in Somerset, notified in 1952. Vallis Vale is an ancient woodland site and supports an Ash-Wych Elm stand type with a restricted distribution in Britain. Vallis Vale exposes some of Britain's most classic rock outcrops, exhibiting several of the most easily demonstrated examples of angular unconformity available. A nationally important research and educational locality, of great renown for the part it has played in the historical development of geological Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ... science. Sources English Nature citation sheet for the site(accessed 10 August 2006) External links English Nature website(SSSI information) Sites of Special Scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boat Lift
A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock. It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland, or operate on an inclined plane, like the Ronquières inclined plane in Belgium. History A precursor to the canal boat lift, able to move full-sized canal boats, was the tub boat lift used in mining, able to raise and lower the 2.5 ton tub boats then in use. An experimental system was in use on the Churprinz mining canal in Halsbrücke near Dresden. It lifted boats using a moveable hoist rather than caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868,Charles Hadfield ''World Canals: Inland Navigation Past and Present'', p. 71, and for a period of time after its opening engineer James Green reporting that five had been built between 1796 and 1830. He credited the invention to Dr James Anderson of Edinb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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