page_title: List of English inventions and discoveries
section_title: Engineering
hierarchical_section_title: List of English inventions and discoveries / Engineering
caption_attribution_description: The Iron Bridge, Shropshire. 'The first bridge to be built of iron in the world in 1779. A UNESCO World Heritage Site'
context_page_description: English inventions and discoveries are objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, in England by a person from England. Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two. Nonetheless, science and technology in England continued to develop rapidly in absolute terms. Furthermore, according to a Japanese research firm, over 40% of the world’s inventions and discoveries were made in the UK, followed by France with 24% of the world’s inventions and discoveries made in France and followed by the US with 20%.
  The following is a list of inventions, innovations or discoveries known or generally recognised to be English.
context_section_description: 1600: The first electrical measuring instrument, the electroscope, invented by William Gilbert (1544–1603).
  1676–1678: First working universal joint devised by Robert Hooke (1635–1703).
  1698: First working steam pump invented by Thomas Savery (c. 1650–1715).
  1709: First coke-consuming blast furnace developed by Abraham Darby I (1678–1717).
  1712: Atmospheric steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen (1664–1729).
  1739: Screw-cutting lathe invented by Henry Hindley (1701–1771).
  1770s: Continuous track first conceived by Anglo-Irish Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817).
  1780: Modified version of the Newcomen engine (the Pickard engine) developed by James Pickard (dates unknown).
  1781: The Iron Bridge, the first metal bridge, cast and built by Abraham Darby III (1750–1789).
  1791: The first true gas turbine invented by John Barber (1734–1801).
  1796–97: The first iron-framed building (and therefore forerunner of the skyscraper) – Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury, Shropshire – built by Charles Bage (1751–1822).
  1800: First industrially practical screw-cutting lathe developed by Henry Maudslay (1771–1831).
  1806: The Fourdrinier machine, a papermaking machine, invented by Henry Fourdrinier (1766–1854).
  1823: First internal combustion engine to be applied industrially patented by Samuel Brown (?–1849).
  1826: Continuous track (under the name "universal railway") patented by Sir George Cayley (1773–1857).
  1830: First (toroidal, closed-core) electric transformer invented by Michael Faraday (1791–1867).
  1831: First Electrical generator (or dynamo), the Faraday disk, invented by Michael Faraday.
  1834–1878: Water and sewerage systems for over thirty cities across Europe designed by William Lindley (1808–1900).
  1840s: The linear motor, a multi-phase alternating current (AC) electric motor, proposed by Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875);  1940s: developed by Eric Laithwaite (1921–1997).
  1841: Widely accepted standard for screw threads devised by Joseph Whitworth (1803–1887).
  1842: The adjustable spanner invented by Edwin Beard Budding (1796–1846).
  1845: Hydraulic crane developed by William Armstrong (1810–1900); in 1863, Armstrong also built the first house in the world powered by hydroelectricity, at Cragside, Northumberland.
  1846: The first fireproof warehousing complex – Albert Dock, Liverpool – designed by Jesse Hartley (1780–1860).
  1848: The Francis turbine developed by James B. Francis (1815–1892), born near Witney, Oxfordshire.
  1868: First commercial steel alloy produced by Robert Forester Mushet (1811–1891).
  1869–1875: Crookes tube, the first cathode ray tube, invented by William Crookes (1832–1919).
  1871: First enclosed wind tunnel invented, designed and operated by Francis Herbert Wenham (1824–1908).
  1872: The Carey Foster bridge, a type of bridge circuit, invented by Carey Foster (1835–1919).
  1880–1883: The Wimshurst machine, an Electrostatic generator for producing high voltages, developed by James Wimshurst (1832–1903).
  1884: Steam turbine invented by Charles Algernon Parsons (1854–1913).
  1885: Compression ignition engine (a.k.a. the diesel engine) invented by Herbert Akroyd Stuart (1864–1927).
  1886: Prototype hot bulb engine or heavy oil engine built by Herbert Akroyd Stuart (1864–1927).
  1889: Two-stroke engine invented by Joseph Day (1855–1946).
  1890: Opening of the Forth Bridge – monumental cantilever railway bridge, and icon of Scotland – designed and engineered by English civil engineers Benjamin Baker (1840–1907) and John Fowler (1817–1898).
  1902: Disc brakes patented by Frederick W. Lanchester (1868–1946).
  1904: Vacuum tube (or valve) invented by John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945).
  1907: First reported observation of electroluminescence from a diode by H. J. Round (1881–1966); Round's discovery led to the creation of the light-emitting diode.
  1917 onwards: Radio guidance systems pioneered by Archibald Low (1888–1956).
  1935: Arnold Frederic Wilkins (1907–1985) contributed to the development of radar.
  1940: Cavity magnetron improved by John Randall (1905–1984) and Harry Boot (1917–1983); consequently a critical component in 
caption: The Iron Bridge, built by Abraham Darby III, 1781
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