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Richard Edgeworth
Richard Lovell Edgeworth (31 May 1744 – 13 June 1817) was an Anglo-Irish politician, writer and inventor. Biography Edgeworth was born in Pierrepont Street, Bath, England, son of Richard Edgeworth senior, and great-grandson of Sir Salathiel Lovell through his mother, Jane Lovell, granddaughter of Sir Salathiel. The Edgeworth family came to Ireland in the 1580s. Richard was descended from Francis Edgeworth, appointed joint Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in 1606, who inherited a fortune from his brother Edward Edgeworth, Bishop of Down and Connor. A Trinity College, Dublin and Corpus Christi College, Oxford alumnus, he is credited for creating, among other inventions, a machine to measure the size of a plot of land. He also made strides in developing educational methods. He anticipated the caterpillar track with an invention that he played around with for forty years but that he never successfully developed. He described it as a "cart that carries its own road". He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgeworthstown
Edgeworthstown or Mostrim () is a small town in County Longford, Ireland. The town is in the east of the county, near the border with County Westmeath. Nearby towns are Longford 12 km to the west, Mullingar 26 km to the east, Athlone 40 km to the south and Cavan 42 km to the north. Name The area was named Edgeworthstown in the 19th century after the Anglo-Irish Edgeworth family. An estate was built there by Richard Lovell Edgeworth. His family—which includes Honora Sneyd (his second wife), writer and intellectual Maria Edgeworth, botanist Michael Pakenham Edgeworth, economist Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, and priest Henry Essex Edgeworth—lived at the estate. The area's original name was the Irish ''Meathas Troim'' or ''Meathas Truim''. This was anglicized as ''Mastrim'' or ''Mostrim'' and variants. These names continued to be used by the locals. In 1935, at the behest of the local Town Tenants' Association, Longford County Council officially changed the tow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Edgeworth
Edward Edgeworth, D.D. (died 1595) was an Anglican bishop in the last decade of the sixteenth century. An Englishman, probably from Edgware, north London, he was Vicar of East Kirkby before coming over to Ireland, probably in the early 1560s. He was appointed a Prebendary of St Michan in St Patrick's Cathedral in 1586; and later that year of Tipperkevin in Christ Church Cathedral in the same city."Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae: The succession of the prelates Volume 2" Cotton,H. p181 Dublin, Hodges & Smith, 1848-1878 1n 1590 he became Vicar of Carrickfergus and in 1593, Bishop of Down and Connor. He died two years later. He amassed a considerable fortune, which he left to his brother Francis, who was appointed joint Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in Ireland in about 1606 and held the office until about 1620. Francis founded a gifted Irish dynasty whose most notable members were Richard Lovell Edgeworth and his daughter, the novelist Maria Edgeworth. The family gave its name to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grattan's Parliament
The Constitution of 1782 was a group of Acts passed by the Parliament of Ireland and the Parliament of Great Britain in 1782–83 which increased the legislative and judicial independence of the Kingdom of Ireland by reducing the ability of the Kingdom of Great Britain to make laws and hear court cases relating to Ireland. These changes were promoted, under the name legislative independence, by the Irish Patriot Party, a loose alliance with Henry Grattan as its leading orator. The Parliament of Ireland as it existed after 1782 is often called Grattan's Parliament in his honour. The Constitution did not create a responsible executive, as the Dublin Castle administration remained under the control of a Lord Lieutenant sent over by the British government. Under the terms of Poynings' Law of 1495, no law could be passed that was not first approved by the Parliament of England: "An Act that no Parliament be holden in this Land until the Acts be certified into England". The parli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery. The renewed classical enthusiasms of the late 1760s and early 1770s were of major importance to his sales promotion. His expensive goods were in much demand from the upper classes, while he used emulation effects to market cheaper sets to the rest of society. Every new invention that Wedgwood produced – green glaze, creamware, black basalt, and jasperware – was quickly copied. Having once achieved efficiency in production, he obtained efficiencies in sales and distribution. His showrooms in London gave the public the chance to see his complete range of tableware. Wedgwood's company never made porcelain during his lifetime, but specialised in fine earthenwares and stonewares that h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually, he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water. Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in electricity and other areas of science. He was a close friend of, and worked in close association with Benjamin Franklin involving electricity experiments. Priestley is credited with his independent discovery of oxygen by the thermal decomposition of mercuric oxide, having isolated it in 1774. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet. His poems included much natural history, including a statement of evolution and the relatedness of all forms of life. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family, which includes his grandsons Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. Darwin was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers. He turned down an invitation from George III to become Physician to the King. Early life and education Darwin was born in 1731 at Elston Hall, Nottinghamshire, near Newark-on-Trent, England, the youngest of seven children of Robert Darwin of Elston (1682–1754), a lawyer and physician, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702–97). The name Erasmus had been used by a number of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the mechanisation of factories and mills. Boulton applied modern techniques to the minting of coins, striking millions of pieces for Britain and other countries, and supplying the Royal Mint with up-to-date equipment. Born in Birmingham, he was the son of a Birmingham manufacturer of small metal products who died when Boulton was 31. By then Boulton had managed the business for several years, and thereafter expanded it considerably, consolidating operations at the Soho Manufactory, built by him near Birmingham. At Soho, he adopted the latest techniques, branching into silver plate, ormolu and other decorative arts. He became associated with James Watt when Watt's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Society Of Birmingham
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting. The members cheerfully referred to themselves as ''"lunaticks"'', a pun on lunatics. Venues included Erasmus Darwin's home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, Bowbridge House in Derbyshire, and Great Barr Hall. Membership and status The Lunar Society evolved through various degrees of organisation over a period of up to fifty years, but was only ever an informal group. No constitution, minutes, publications or membership lists survive from any period, and evidence of its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semaphore Line
An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals. There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph which uses pivoted indicator arms and conveys information according to the direction the indicators point, and the shutter telegraph which uses panels that can be rotated to block or pass the light from the sky behind to convey information. The most widely used system was invented in 1792 in France by Claude Chappe, and was popular in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. This system is often referred to as ''semaphore'' without qualification. Lines of relay towers with a semaphore rig at the top were built within line of sight of each other, at separations of . Operators at each tower would watch the neighboring tower through a telescope, and when the semaphore arms began to move spelling out a message, they would pass the message on to the next tower. This sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Beaufort
Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer, rear admiral of the Royal Navy, and creator of the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale. Early life Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Huguenots, who fled the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century. His parents moved to Ireland from London. His father, Daniel Augustus Beaufort, was a Protestant clergyman from Navan, County Meath, Ireland, and a member of the learned Royal Irish Academy. His mother Mary was the daughter and co-heiress of William Waller, of Allenstown House. Francis was born in Navan on 27 May 1774. He had an older brother, William Louis Beaufort and three sisters, Frances, Harriet, and Louisa. His father created and published a new map of Ireland in 1792. Francis grew up in Wales and Ireland until age fourteen. He left school and went to sea, but never stopped his education. By later in life, he had become sufficientl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Anne Edgeworth
Frances Anne Edgeworth (née Beaufort) (1769–1865), known as Fanny, was an Irish botanical artist and memoirist. She was the stepmother and confidant of the author Maria Edgeworth. Early life Frances Anne Beaufort was born at ''Flower Hill'' in Navan, County Meath, in 1769. She was one of four children of Daniel Augustus Beaufort and Mary Beaufort (née Waller). Her brother was Admiral Francis Beaufort, and her sisters were the writers Harriet and Louisa. She was educated at Mrs Terson's School at Portarlington, learning writing, drawing, dancing and French. She studied art further under the English artist Bowring, Dublin-based Francis Robert West, and Raymond Deshouilleres of London. In 1788, she accompanied her father on a tour of Ireland, recording archaeological sites and objects. The family lived in London from 1789 to 1790. Later life On 31 May 1798, she married Richard Lovell Edgeworth, becoming his fourth wife and stepmother of Maria Edgeworth and her 11 siblings. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
