The ability to bleach products was increasingly important during the Industrial Revolution as industries such as cotton manufacturing and papermaking grew rapidly. In traditional bleaching, materials were [...] Charles Tennant, made it far easier to transport and use. It became a pillar of the new chemical industries. Charles Tennant was born into a farming family in Ayrshire, south-west Scotland. As a boy he was

British Industrial Revolution, particularly in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, iron production and the invention of the steam engine. He helped to establish central Scotland as a heavy industrial region [...] confidently applied new methods on a large scale. It was fuelled by coal when almost all of the iron industry still relied on charcoal and it was unique in being built with multiple blast furnaces from the [...] works at Kinneil, about 10 km east of Carron, though he could raise enough capital to develop the industries as intended. At the same time, he went into partnership with the young inventor James Watt and

leading millwright and one of the most prolific British engineers of docks and waterways in the Industrial Revolution. As either designer or consulting engineer he reported on over 200 projects. Rennie grew up [...] Mint and devised machinery for flour mills, textile factories, breweries and other steam-powered industries. In 1810 he built a new factory at Southwark, London, for his mechanical projects. He began supplying

glassworks. Cobalt blue was exported widely, especially to Britain’s porcelain, glass, paint and paper industries. Wegner bought the company on behalf of an investment group and was made Director-General and co-owner [...] world’s cobalt pigment. The business was highly profitable but the economic crisis following the revolutions of 1848 and the invention of synthetic ultramarine led to bankruptcy in 1849. (The cobalt works

during the Industrial Revolution by taking their skills and knowledge to another country. He worked in the cotton industry in Britain and then helped to establish mechanised textile industries in two regions [...] rs. At this time, Britain banned the export of machinery from the country’s innovative textile industries and the emigration of skilled workers, but entrepreneurs in Europe and America were keen to compete [...] Hamburg by an entrepreneur and agent for the Habsburg crown, Karl Glave-Kobielski, who was also an industrial spy in England. As a result, Thornton built the first water-powered cotton factories in Austria

generation, remembered for his contributions to electrical power – the basis for the second industrial revolution. Among his multiple discoveries and inventions were the rotating magnetic field, multiphase [...] quickly dominated the new market for flexible and convenient electric motors for industrial use. This began a revolution in mechanical power, in which designs were continuously improved and developed in

appointed an engineer to work with Robert on improvements but progress disrupted by the French Revolution. Didot bought the patent and prototype from Robert and in 1801 Didot’s English brother-in-law John [...] lly as the ‘Fourdrinier’. It was used widely, bringing about the industrialisation of the paper industry. Productivity increased dramatically and paper could be made to almost any practical size, including [...] first Fourdrinier machine was installed in France in 1811, Nicholas-Louis Robert left the paper industry. He instead established a small elementary school and worked as a teacher.

powerful family business at Maastricht producing ceramics and glassware. He diversified into other industries and led the industrialisation of the city. His family for several generations before him were merchants [...] and send out his products. In 1830 a Dutch ban on importing Belgian goods following the Belgian Revolution led Regout to begin manufacturing glass himself. He attracted skilled workers from Belgium and

Murdoch (or Murdock) was one of the most brilliant and prolific inventors of the British Industrial Revolution. Among his many innovations were improvements to Boulton and Watt steam engines and the i [...] reliable rotative motion from their reciprocating beam engines – a key development of the Industrial Revolution - Murdoch devised the Sun and Planet Gear, patented in Watt’s name. In 1782 he invented an

The brilliant inventor John Kay was one of the most significant figures of the early Industrial Revolution. His invention of the flying shuttle for weaving stimulated successive inventions in the mechanisation [...] invention was taken up in the woollen industry and from the 1750s for weaving cotton. It was used across England by the 1790s and a century later in the vast textile industries of Japan, India and China. In 1747

was a pioneer of the industrial revolution in Silesia - then in Prussia but today part of Poland. He developed mining for coal and zinc in the region and built the largest industrial empire of the period

started a revolution in the mechanisation of textile weaving. While his own machines were ineffective, other inventors developed his patent with important results for the textile industry worldwide. [...] was awarded a grant of £10,000 by the British government in recognition of his achievements for industry. He retired to a farm in south-east England where he died aged 80. Although he proved that weaving

British canal engineer in the early part of the Industrial Revolution. He was responsible for a network of waterways that became the arteries of Britain’s industrial regions and linked its principal navigable [...] began the great age of canals as the arteries to transport the fuel, raw materials and products of industrial Britain. This was the 66-km Bridgewater Canal, completed in 1761, which carried coal to Manchester

engineer of railway routes and a mechanical engineer of rails and locomotives during the industrial revolution, he transformed transport. Stephenson was self-taught as an engineer. He was born at Wylam [...] of the nineteenth century, exporting engines around the world. Railways evolved during the industrial revolution from precursors in the Middle Ages. However, Stephenson’s Liverpool and Manchester Railway

Iron foundries and engineering works were essential to equip new industries in the industrial revolution. In Denmark, Søren Frich was an engineer who created an important iron foundry and engineering works

In 1784, Henry Cort invented one of the most important iron-making processes of the Industrial Revolution. This was a new method of transforming cast iron into the more versatile and valuable material

known for his work with steel, Bessemer was a professional inventor with 129 patents across many industries. He came from a Huguenot family of printers in the south-east of England. His father, Anthony Bessemer [...] went to France as a young man to work for the Paris mint but returned to England during the French Revolution and began a type-foundry. After elementary school, Bessemer educated himself in his father’s workshop [...] iron broke easily, he decided to investigate a better material. With little knowledge of the iron industry, he tried an original idea of blowing air through molten iron in an open crucible – his ‘converter’

Steam power was one of the critical innovations of the industrial revolution, allowing mechanical power to be concentrated wherever it was needed. The evolution of the technology relied on many inventors

mills for the woollen and flax industries were built, notably by Wendisch in 1827 and Gayers in 1835. However, tariffs between Poland and Russia caused the industries to decline. When tariffs were removed [...] Karl (or Karol) Scheibler learned about the mechanised textile industries in several parts of Europe and took his knowledge to Łodz in Poland. The factory he built there in 1855 was one of the biggest [...] biggest in the world, covering 168 hectares. The population of Łodz as an industrial city grew from 18,000 in 1851 to 100,000 in 1878. It became one of the most important textile manufacturing cities in Europe

Bauwens was an entrepreneur and industrial spy who spread new cotton manufacturing technologies from England to Belgium and France at a key point in the early Industrial Revolution. He was born in Ghent, where [...] a leading European centre of the cotton industry: it became known as ‘the Manchester of Belgium’. Bauwens had broken the British monopoly of the cotton industry. For achieving this while Britain was at [...] tannery on modern principles. While he was in England Bauwens also saw the great success of the cotton industry. At the age of 27 he opened his first cotton factory, which was at Passy near Paris. Very soon