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Birmingham is the largest city in the West Midlands and it is also one of the principal industrial cities in England , with a very long history of industrial and scientific innovation. 18TH CENTURY and John Wyatt , of Birmingham, patent the Roller Spinning Machine and the Flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing Wool to a more even thickness. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds this was later to be used in the first Cotton spinning Mill during the Industrial Revolution . , this is not profitable and soon closes. , fifty spindles turn on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines proving more successful than their first Mill this operates until 1764. factory set up at Steelhouse Lane to use the Lead Chamber Process invented by its co-founder John Roebuck . machine. A coat of wire slips are placed around a card which is then wrapped around a cylinder. Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton , although this came about under great suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn 's factory in Leominster which specifically used Paul and Wyatt's spindles. Bourn produced a similar patent in the same year. . opens the Soho Foundry engineering works, Handsworth; his partnership with Scottish engineer James Watt made the Steam Engine into the power plant of the Industrial Revolution. The term " Horsepower " was coined by Watt. Watt also invented the Letter Copying Machine , a forerunner of the Photocopier . attaches a Screw Propellor to a Steam Engine . published ''An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses'', pioneering its use as a Cardiac drug, Digitalis . 1785: William Murdoch invents the Oscillating Cylinder . was lit with Gas Lighting by William Murdoch . Murdoch, its developer, worked for Matthew Boulton and James Watt at Soho. 19TH CENTURY improved a cheap, efficient slip-in Nib which could be added to a Fountain Pen . 1830 . With the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott , William Mitchell and James Stephen Perry devise a way to mass manufacture robust, cheap steel pen nibs. was invented by Pharmacist Alfred Bird. George Elkington and Henry Elkington founded the English Electroplating industry in the early 1800s . In 1840 , they aided John Wright , who discovered that Potassium Cyanide was a suitable Electrolyte for gold and silver electroplating. Carl Wilhelm Siemens had several meetings with George Elkington, and made speeches on 'Science and Industry,' to the Birmingham And Midland Institute , he latter set up a works in Birmingham and carried out experiments on metals and Telegraphy . Richard Bissell Prosser wrote 58 lives for the Dictionary Of National Biography , and supplied much material for the New English Dictionary . Prosser also wrote Birmingham Inventors and Inventions, 1881 and was a pioneer of the study of technical history, his published biographies and manuscript records are an incomparable source for present-day researchers. He was heavily involved with the introduction of the Patent Law Amendment Act Of 1852 , and his 700-volume library, combined with that of Bennet Woodcroft formed the basis of the Patent Office Library . Birmingham Glass works were among the early mass-producers of Uranium Glass . Manufacturers included Bacchus, Green & Green (later George Bacchus & Sons), Union Glassworks, in the 1840s , and Lloyd & Summerfield in the 1850s who were the first to use uranium in glass commercially. takes out the first of many patents for his improvements in manufacture of the Firearm . The first Celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects was made in 1856 by Alexander Parkes , many years later and with the recognition of celluloid as a format for making film for camera's an American court declared Parkes as the true inventor of celluloid. Collodion , a Nitrocellulose -based solution that dried to a celluloid-like film but was useless for industrial purposes, as well as several natural plastics). gunmakers takes out it's first of many patents relating to the firearm, for which Gold Medal s and Royal Warrant s, were awarded. patented a design for the wheels of Roller Skates which embodied his effort to keep the two Bearing surfaces of an Axle , fixed and moving, apart. Bown worked closely with Joseph Henry Hughes who drew up the patent for a ball or Roller Bearing race for Bicycle and Carriage wheels which includes all the elements of an adjustable system in 1877 . is invgented by Joseph Sampson Gamgee , a surgical dressing which has a thick layer of absorbent cotton wool between two layers of absorbent gauze. It represents the first use of cotton wool in a medical context, and was a major advancement in the prevention of infection of surgical wounds. It is still the basis for many modern surgical dressings. and Gynaecologist , Lawson Tait (pioneer of several surgical procedures), carried out the world's first successful operation on a ruptured Ectopic Pregnancy . Sir Francis Galton , who formulated (and later coined the term for) Eugenics as well as Questionnaire s and many important tools in Statistics , was born in Birmingham. Galton avidly supported the theories of his cousin Charles Darwin , and also furthered the most important advances in Fingerprinting . and his brother built the first petrol driven four-wheeled Car in Britain. Lanchester also experimented with the wick Carburetor , Fuel Injection , Turbochargers and invented the Accelerator Pedal and the Pendulum Governor for controlling the speed of an engine. In 1893 he designed and built his first engine (a vertical single cylinder) which was fitted to the first British Motorboat . established its Birmingham factory Fort Dunlop , later to become the focus of Dunlop as one of the largest multinational manufacturers of automotive and aeronautical tyres. used to assist in Surgery was taken in Birmingham by the British pioneer of medical X-Ray s, Major John Hall-Edwards . 20TH CENTURY is patented by Gunsmith Frank Clarke, he called it "An Apparatus Whereby a Cup of Tea or Coffee is Automatically Made" and it was later marketed as "A Clock That Makes Tea!", however, the original machine and all rights to it were purchased from Albert E Richardson, a Clockmaker from Ashton-under-Lyne . Clarke later abandoned Tea making machines and made several important patents to the Air Pistol . patents Disc Brakes . . wins a Scholarship to the University Of Birmingham and it was in his studies of electronic discharge tubes there that he discovers the Phenomenon now known as the Aston Dark Space . He later moves to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge where he used a method of electromagnetic focusing to invent the Mass Spectrograph , which rapidly allowed him to identify no fewer than 212 of the 287 naturally occurring Isotope s. His work on isotopes also led to his formulation of the Whole Number Rule which was later used extensively in the development of Nuclear Energy . In 1922 he won the Nobel Prize In Chemistry for the invention of the mass spectrometer. was invented by manufacturer Walter Griffiths of 72, Conybere Street, Highgate. It was originally patented as 'Griffiths' Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets'. Although an electric cleaner had been patented in 1901 by H. Cecil Booth , Griffiths' design was more similar to modern portable cleaners than Booth's cart-mounted device. s was registered by Mills Munitions. , invents the immersed heating Resistor , a major advancement in the Electric Kettle (A Safety Valve was introduced by kettle maker Walter H. Bullpitt, also from Birmingham, in 1931 . (made famous by the Teddy Boy ) was invented in the city and later gave rise to other hair styling products. was invented by EA Murphy at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories, Fort Dunlop . is the first to use Synthetic Vitamin C as treatment for Scurvy in children. is awarded the Nobel Prize For Chemistry for his pioneering work on Carbohydrates and synthetic vitamin C. and Dr Wilfred Gaisford begin trials of the world's first Antibiotic M&B ( Sulphapydrine ) as treatment for Lobar Pneumonia . Birmingham was the major British manufacturer of the Phenolic plastic Bakelite . The Magnetron , the core component in the development of Radar , and the first Microwave power oscillators were developed at the University Of Birmingham during World War II (the Microwave Oven owes its existence to these developments). was finalised by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls while both working at Birmingham University - the first document to set out a process by which an atomic explosion could be generated. , New Zealand born British physicist and Nobel Laureate for his work on DNA structure, was educated at King Edward's School . He received his PhD for the study of Phosphor s at the University Of Birmingham Physics Department, where he worked on Radar display screens and Uranium Isotope separation before moving to the Manhattan Project . Between 1947 and 1951 Professor Peter Medawar pioneered research on Skin Graft rejection at Birmingham University, this led to the discovery of a substance which aids Nerves to reunite and the discovery of acquired Immunological tolerance, he was awarded the Nobel Prize For Medicine in 1960 for his work during this time. for 'hole-in-the-heart' (congenital Atrial Septal Defect ) was performed at Birmingham Children's Hospital . (Leonard Parsons Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health) was one of the team who proved that the Gluten s in Wheat caused Coeliac Disease , from this gluten-free diets were intoduced. s and Plastic Heart Valve s is carried out by Leon Abrams at Birmingham Universtity. During the later half of the 20th century the first trials of the Contraceptive Pill outside the USA take place at Birmingham University and extesive research into advanced Allergy Vaccine s and the Synthesisation of Artificial Blood take place. Sir John Robert Vane , winner of a Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine in 1982 for his work on Aspirin , was educated at King Edward's School and studied Chemistry at the University Of Birmingham . The city has also become an internationally important centre for Cancer Research . 21ST CENTURY Since the establishment of its Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory, the University Of Birmingham has become one of the significant UK research centres for Nanotechnology . REFERENCES
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