Items23The creator’s order
  1. 1Alexander CummingAlexander CummingThe S-bend. Flushing toilets existed before him, but in 1775 the Scottish watchmaker Cumming patented a valve closet with a bend in the waste pipe that kept a pool of water standing in it, sealing out sewer smells. That small piece of plumbing, refined by Joseph Bramah and others, is what made…0i
  2. 2James StarleyJames StarleyBorn 21 Apr 1830Bicycle wheels and the differential. A Coventry sewing-machine maker, Starley turned the city into the centre of the cycle trade. With William Hillman he built the Ariel high-wheeler in 1870, and in 1874 patented the tangent-spoked wheel, whose angled spokes carry driving and braking forces far…0i
  3. 3Margaret E. KnightMargaret E. KnightThe flat-bottomed paper bag. Paper bags of the 1860s were envelope-shaped and could not stand up. Knight, working at a Massachusetts paper bag company, designed a machine that cut, folded and glued square-bottomed bags automatically, and patented it in 1871 after winning a court case against a man…0i
  4. 4Joseph SwanJoseph SwanBorn 31 Oct 1828The carbon-filament lamp. The Newcastle chemist Swan had worked on electric lamps for decades before better vacuum pumps let him demonstrate a working carbon-filament bulb in 1878 and 1879, independently of Thomas Edison. His lamps lit Cragside, the first house powered by hydroelectricity, and the…0i
  5. 5Lewis Howard LatimerLewis Howard LatimerBorn 4 Sept 1848Longer-lasting lamp filaments. Early carbon filaments burned out quickly. Latimer, a self-taught draughtsman working for Hiram Maxim's lighting company, patented a better way of making carbon filaments in 1882, wrapping them in cardboard while they were baked so they did not crack. Cheaper,…0i
  6. 6Lewis WatermanLewis WatermanBorn 20 Nov 1836The reliable fountain pen. Fountain pens had existed for decades but blotted and flooded because ink and air could not swap evenly. Waterman, a New York insurance salesman, patented a feed in 1884 with fine channels that used capillary action to let air in as ink flowed out, giving a steady line.…0i
  7. 7John Kemp StarleyJohn Kemp StarleyBorn 24 Dec 1855The Rover safety bicycle. James Starley's nephew, working in Coventry, launched the Rover in 1885: two wheels of similar size, a chain driving the rear wheel, and the rider seated safely between them instead of perched over a giant front wheel. Others had tried chain drives, but the Rover's layout…0i
  8. 8Josephine CochraneJosephine CochraneBorn 8 Mar 1839The dishwasher. Earlier washing machines for dishes splashed water about without cleaning much. Cochrane, an Illinois hostess tired of chipped china, designed wire racks shaped to hold each plate, cup and saucer while hot soapy water was pumped over them, and patented it in 1886. She founded a…0i
  9. 9John Boyd DunlopJohn Boyd DunlopBorn 5 Feb 1840The pneumatic tyre. In Belfast in 1888 the vet Dunlop made air-filled tyres for his son's tricycle to soften the jolts of cobbled streets, and they proved faster as well as more comfortable. His patent was later ruled invalid because Robert William Thomson had patented the idea in the 1840s, but…0i
  10. 10Willis CarrierWillis CarrierBorn 26 Nov 1876Air conditioning by calculation. Asked in 1902 to stop paper swelling in a Brooklyn printing works, the young engineer Carrier designed a system that controlled humidity as well as temperature. His 1911 paper of psychrometric formulae let engineers calculate a cooling plant instead of guessing,…0i