''Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts'' is a multi-volume encyclopedia focusing on

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

, and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

. It was edited by

Charles Tomlinson Alfred Charles Tomlinson, CBE (8 January 1927 – 22 August 2015) was an English poet, translator, academic, and illustrator. He was born in Penkhull, and grew up in Basford, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Life After attending Longton High Sc ...

, a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

, and a lecturer at

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London an ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. The original was published between 1852 and 1854 in two volumes (Vol. 1, 832 pages; Vol. 2, 1,052 pages) with 40 steel engravings and 2,477 woodcuts. A supplement was published in 1862 by James S. Virtue, London and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. A new edition was published no earlier than 1866 with the intent of "keeping pace with the varied subjects of the Useful Arts and Manufactures, which are always enlarging their boundaries." Internally the new edition is organized into three volumes of 935, 956, and 740 pages (making it 38% larger than the original edition), but it was sold in various formats, including an eight-volume set. It has 63 full-page steel engravings and 3063 wood engravings (a few of which are a half page), for which the publishing companies of James Sprent Virtue were noted. It was printed by Virtue & Company, of London, and then also of New York. James Nasmyth's patent steam hammer

Authors and illustrators are not credited, but Tomlinson appears to have been strongly involved in writing and editing, stating in the introduction that he "did not attempt to make his descriptions appear easy" and that "most of the processes described in the work the Editor himself witnessed." ''Tomlinson’s'' has no articles specifically on people, places, or historical events. Its emphasis can be gauged by comparing articles on "

Anemometer In meteorology, an anemometer () is a device that measures wind speed and direction. It is a common instrument used in weather stations. The earliest known description of an anemometer was by Italian architect and author Leon Battista Alberti ( ...

." * ''Tomlinson’s New Cyclopaedia'' (1866): About 4,300 words, six figures * ''Encyclopædia Britannica,'' 11th Edition (1911): About 1,800 words, two figure

* ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 15th Edition (1986): About 500 words, one figure The work is a valuable source of information about the 'how', of handicraft, industry and manufacturing, since it contains numerous illustrated articles describing the techniques. It was devised to celebrate the

Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary The Crystal Palace, structure in which it was held), was an International Exhib ...

, and the monograph-length introduction (160 pp) is a valuable illustrated account of the antecedents of the Exhibition with material on earlier ones, on the construction of the building, the arrangement of the displays and accounts of the highlights of the exhibits. The articles in ''Tomlinson'' cover a range of topics from a British perspective, and the woodcuts portray people in a workshop context. As this was published before the days of photography, this is a useful source for images not otherwise available. Neither the original or the newer edition of ''Tomlinson’s'' is restricted by copyright.

References

Tomlinson, Charles, ed., ''A New Edition of Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts,'' (London & New York: circa 1866).

External links

''Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts'' (Vol. I)
at the Internet Archive
''Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts'' (Vol. II)
at the Internet Archive. Accessed December 2011
mirror
{{Authority control British encyclopedias English-language encyclopedias 1852 non-fiction books 1866 non-fiction books 19th-century encyclopedias