News
The Latest Newcomen Society Journal – Vol 90 No. 1
Woman engineer drilling an aero engine crankshaft at the Tongland Works in Galloway during the first decades of the 20th Century (Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright) The Latest Newcomen Society [...]
Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work
Design you see everywhere - Deborah Jaffé reviews the exhibition Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work currently showing at the Design Museum, London.
The Shed Lectures
The Newcomen Shed Lectures given online at the time of Coronavirus are now free to watch online. Learn about Britain's Iron Industry in the middle ages, British Rails TOPS system, Charles Babbage's Abstraction of Mechanism and the 'famous' Flying Scotsman.
Coals to Whitstable
Jonathan Aylen tells a sailor’s yarn of how old technologies fade away. Much effort is spent considering the diffusion of new technologies, yet old technologies fade away unremarked.
The Latest Newcomen Society Journal – Vol 89 No’s 1 & 2
A section of Joseph von Baader’s new hydraulic equipment for pumping water in the Royal Gardens in Nymphenburg, 1804 (Deutsches Museum) The Latest Newcomen Society Journal - Vol [...]
Rhosus – The Vessel That Carried The Beirut Ammonium Nitrate
The Rhosus, built in 1986 by Tokuoka Zosen KK, Naruto, Tokushima on the island of Shikoku, South West Japan, was 27-years old when she arrived in Beirut with her cargo of ammonium nitrate in 2013.
Nuclear Power in Britain
Dr Fred Starr reviews the book Golden Egg or Poisoned Chalice: The Story of Nuclear Power in the UK by Tony Wooldridge and Stephen Druce, discussing nuclear's troubled history and its struggle against Gas Generators.
Steelmaking Technology and a Trade Union Banner
A trade union banner from 1920 featuring a set of eleven paintings of steelworks around the UK, sheds light not only on the technology of the times but also the working conditions and social relationships between workers. These paintings by British artist Herbert Finn were originally commissioned for the banner and offer a snapshot of the UK steel industry a century ago as it emerged from the First World War.
Newcomen Helps Save Sydney Industrial Museum
The Society has campaigned for the retention of The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, one of the world’s leading science and technology museums. Engines on display include an early house-built Bolton & Watt rotative beam engine and a Maudslay beam engine.
Newcomen Researchers Refute Claim That Stephenson Built Hetton Locomotive
Dr Michael Bailey and Peter Davidson conducted a forensic analysis of the steam locomotive Lyons, claimed to have been designed by George Stephenson and to pre-date Locomotion I (1825) and Rocket (1829).