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Curated category

Machine tool builders

  • James Fox (engineer)James Fox began his working life not in a workshop, but in a country house in Staffordshire, employed as a butler to the Reverend Thomas Gisborne at Foxhall…
  • Thomas Blanchard (inventor)Thomas Blanchard was born on the 24th of June 1788 in Sutton, Massachusetts. He grew up with a deep love for mechanical work and often worked alongside his…
  • Richard Roberts (engineer)Richard Roberts was born on the 22nd of April 1789 at Llanymynech, Powys. This village sat directly on the border between England and Wales.
  • Henry MaudslayHenry Maudslay was born on the 22nd of August 1771, the fifth of seven children, in a family that lived in a narrow alley off Beresford Square in Woolwich.
  • Joseph ClementJoseph Clement was born on the 13th of June 1779 in Great Asby, Westmorland, the son of a hand-loom weaver. He would go on to become the craftsman most…
  • Marc Isambard BrunelMarc Isambard Brunel arrived into the world on the 25th of April 1769. He was born on a family farm in Hacqueville, Normandy.
  • Eli WhitneyEli Whitney Jr. died on the 8th of January 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut, just one month after his fifty-ninth birthday.
  • Joseph BramahJoseph Bramah was born on the 13th of April 1748, the second son of a farmer in South Yorkshire, and he died on the 9th of December 1814 at a forest in…
  • Joseph WhitworthJohn Street in Stockport, Cheshire, marked the birthplace of Joseph Whitworth on the 21st of December 1803. The site now holds a blue plaque on the back wall…
  • Matthew MurrayMatthew Murray was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1765, and he left school at fourteen with no particular distinction to his name.
  • John Wilkinson (industrialist)John Wilkinson was born in 1728 in the small settlement of Little Clifton, Bridgefoot, Cumberland, the son of an iron founder who stoked his blast furnace…