On 29 November 2024 at 16:15 norm norton Said:

Well, the internal combustion engine wasn’t home brewed.

Yup. Nicéphore Niépce, France, 1807.  First practical engine was Étienne Lenoir, Belgium, 1860, a two stroke that ran on coal gas, which is British!

 

I thought that it was German, or am I wrong. Britain was then very behind in the development of motor vehicles because of repressive road laws.

No, some excellent cars despite the damage caused by Red Flag legislation.  Rolls Royce started by selling the most reliable car in the world.

Similarly aircraft?

1842: The Aerial Steam Carriage of William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow was patented, but was never successful, although a steam-powered model was flown in 1848.

… we were never at the front in aircraft development, with the exception of the Merlin and the glorious set of 1950s jet aircraft.

Not sure about that, British aircraft were big hitters during WW1, with the Sopwith Camel and Bristol SE 5 both dominating the skies.  The Vimy Bomber was impressive too.   And although the Merlin was an excellent engine, RR made plenty of other excellent aero engines.   As did Bristol, whose 1,294 kW Hercules XVII made the early Merlins look a little weedy!  But comparing engines is tricky, because they were developed to do a particular job, and engines designed to deliver high power at low altitudes tended to flag out a high altitudes and vice versa.  Some sad failures too – the propeller driven Brabazon was designed to fly a few rich toffs in slow luxury, and completely missed the market for fast jets packed with passengers able to fly more economically and in less turbulence at high altitude.  The Comet would have dominated the jet market except they fell out of the sky due engineers missing metal fatigue.  Claimed at the time this was because metal fatigue was a new phenomenon, but I don’t believe it.  Metal fatigue caused considerable problems in ships ten years before, and all the warnings were there.

Perhaps after being ahead in initial railway development, we were all burnt out of creativity after around 1860?

Norm

Far from it!  First power stations, first turbines, world wide telegraph system, first refrigerated ships and many other maritime innovations.  First transatlantic wireless, followed by the Empire Chain which was global.  First television broadcast…

But it’s true momentum was lost.  Too many working in industry at all levels, having got jobs they understood, hated change and did everything in their power to stop it.   So many British ideas and designs were sold overseas and products manufactured abroad.  Allowed Pops to stay happy with Whitworth, blissfully unaware that the world wanted Metric, apart from the US, who didn’t need to buy British.

Dave