List of British innovations and discoveries

Engineers during World War Two test a model of a Halifax bomber in a wind tunnel, an invention that dates back to 1871.

The following is a list and timeline of innovations as well as inventions and discoveries that involved British people or the United Kingdom including predecessor states in the history of the formation of the United Kingdom. This list covers, but is not limited to, innovation and invention in the mechanical, electronic, and industrial fields, as well as medicine, military devices and theory, artistic and scientific discovery and innovation, and ideas in religion and ethics.

Factors that historians note spurred innovation and discovery include the 17th century scientific revolution and the 18th/19th century industrial revolution. Another possible influence is the British patent system which had medieval origins and was codified with the Patent Act of 1852.

17th century

The 1698 Savery Engine
1605
1614
1620
1625
1657
1667
1668
1698

18th century

The Watt steam engine was conceived in 1765. James Watt transformed the steam engine from a reciprocating motion that was used for pumping to a rotating motion suited to industrial applications. Watt and others significantly improved the efficiency of the steam engine.
1701
  • An improved seed drill is designed by Jethro Tull. It is used to spread seeds around a field with a rotating handle which makes seed planting a lot easier.
1705
1712
1718
1730
  • The Rotherham plough, the first plough to be widely built in factories and commercially successful, is patented by Joseph Foljambe.
1737
1740
1744
  • The earliest known reference to baseball is made in a publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of "base-ball" and a woodcut that shows a field set-up somewhat similar to the modern game—though in a triangular rather than diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level bases.
1753
  • Invention of hollow-pipe drainage is credited to Sir Hugh Dalrymple who died in 1753.

1761

1765
1767
1776
  • Scottish economist Adam Smith, often known as 'The father of modern economics', publishes his seminal text The Wealth of Nations.
  • The Watt steam engine, conceived in 1765, goes into production. It is the first type of steam engine to make use of steam at a pressure just above atmospheric.
1779
1781
1783
1786
1798

19th century

A trial model of a part of the Analytical Engine, first described by Charles Babbage in 1837
1802
1804
1807
1814
c1820
1822
1823
1824
1825
1828
1831
1835
1836
1837
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1846
  • A design for a chemical telegraph is patented by Alexander Bain. Bain's telegraph is installed on the wires of the Electric Telegraph Company on one line. Later, in 1850, it was used in America by Henry O'Reilly.
1847
1851
1852
  • A steam-driven ploughing engine is invented by John Fowler.
1853
  • Scottish physician Alexander Wood develops a medical hypodermic syringe with a needle fine enough to pierce the skin.
1854
1868
1869
1873
1876
1878
1883
1884
1885
  • The first commercially successful safety bicycle, called the Rover, is designed by John Kemp Starley. The following year Dan Albone produces a derivative of this called the Ivel Safety cycle.
1886
1892
1897

20th century

A Colossus computer, developed by British codebreakers in 1943–1945
1901
  • The first wireless signal across the Atlantic is sent from Cornwall in England and received in Newfoundland in Canada (a distance of 2,100 miles) by Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi.
  • The first commercially successful light farm tractor is patented by Dan Albone.
1902
1906
1907
1910
1916
  • The first use in battle of the military tank (although the tank was also developed independently elsewhere).
1918
  • The Royal Air Force becomes the first independent air force in the world
  • The introduction of HMS Argus the first example of the standard pattern of aircraft carrier, with a full-length flight deck that allowed wheeled aircraft to take off and land.
1922
  • In Sorbonne, France, Englishman Edwin Belin demonstrates a mechanical scanning device, an early precursor to modern television.
1926
1930
1932
  • The Anglepoise lamp is patented by George Carwardine, a design consultant specialising in vehicle suspension systems.
1933
1936
1937
1939
1943
  • Colossus computer begins working, the world's first electronic digital programmable computer.
1949
1951
  • The concept of microprogramming is developed by Maurice Wilkes from the realisation that the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a computer could be controlled by a miniature, highly specialised computer program in high-speed ROM.
  • LEO is the first business application (a payroll system) on an electronic computer.
1952
1953
1955
  • The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, is built by Louis Essen at the National Physical Laboratory. This clock enabled further development of general relativity, and started a basis for an enhanced SI unit system.
1956
1961
1963
1964
1965
  • A pioneer of the development of dairy farming systems, Rex Paterson, set out his principles for labour management.
  • The Touchscreen was invented by E. A. Johnson working at the Radar Research Establishment, Malvern, Worcestershire.
1966
1969
1970
1973
1976
1977
  • Steptoe and Edwards successfully carried out a pioneering conception which resulted in the birth of the world's first baby to be conceived by IVF, Louise Brown on 25 July 1978, in Oldham General Hospital, Greater Manchester, UK.
1979
1984
1989
1991
1992
  • The first SMS message in the world is sent over the UK's GSM network.
1995
1996
  • Animal cloning, a female domestic sheep became the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, by scientists at the Roslin institute.
1997
  • Scottish scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, produce the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
  • The ThrustSSC jet-propelled car, designed and built in England, sets the land speed record.

21st century

2003
  • Beagle 2, a British landing spacecraft that forms part of the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission lands on the surface of Mars but fails to communicate. It is located twelve years later in a series of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that suggest two of Beagle's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna.
2004
2005
  • The design for a machine to lay rail track, the "Trac Rail Transposer", is patented and goes on to be used by Network Rail in the United Kingdom and the New York City Subway in the United States.
2012
  • Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer, is launched and quickly becomes popular for education in programming and computer science.
2014
  • The European Space Agency's Philae lander leaves the Rosetta spacecraft and makes the first ever landing on a comet. The Philae lander was built with significant British expertise and technology, alongside that of several other countries.
2016
  • SABRE or Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine is an example of a Rocket-Jet hybrid hypersonic air-breathing rocket engine.
2020
  • Became the first country in the world to deploy an approved COVID-19 vaccine

Ceramics

Clock making

Clothing manufacturing

Communications

Computing

Engineering

Household appliances

Ideas, religion and ethics

Industrial processes

Medicine

Military

Mining

Musical instruments

Photography


Publishing firsts

  • Oldest publisher and printer in the world (having been operating continuously since 1584): Cambridge University Press
  • first book printed in English: "The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye" by Englishman William Caxton in 1475
  • The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–81)
  • The first English textbook on surgery(1597)
  • The first modern pharmacopoeia, William Cullen (1776) The book became 'Europe's principal text on the classification and treatment of disease'
  • The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK

Science

Astronomy

Biology

Chemistry

Sport

  • Football – The rules as we know them today were established in 1848 at Cambridge University, Sheffield F.C. is acknowledged by The Football Association and FIFA as the world's first and oldest football club.
  • RugbyWilliam Webb Ellis
  • Cricket – the world's second-most popular sport[citation needed] can be traced back to the 13th century
  • Tennis – widely known to have originated in England.
  • Boxing – England played a key role in the evolution of modern boxing. Boxing was first accepted as an Olympic sport in Ancient Greece in 688 BC
  • Golf – Modern game invented in Scotland
  • Billiards
  • Badminton
  • Darts – a traditional pub game, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin
  • Table-Tennis – was invented on the dinner tables of Britain as an indoor version of tennis
  • Snooker – Invented by the British Army in India
  • Ping pong – The game has its origins in England, in the 1880s
  • Bowls – has been traced to 13th century England
  • Field hockey – the modern game grew from English public schools in the early 19th century
  • Netball – the sport emerged from early versions of women's basketball, at Madame Österberg's College in England during the late 1890s.
  • Rounders – the game originates in England most likely from an older game known as stool ball
  • The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, the first race was in 1829 on the River Thames in London
  • Thoroughbred Horseracing – Was first developed in 17th and 18th century England
  • Polo – its roots began in Persia as a training game for cavalry units, the formal codification of the rules of modern Polo as a sport were established in 19th century England
  • The format of Modern OlympicsWilliam Penny Brookes
  • The first Paralympic games competition were held in England in 1948 – Ludwig Guttmann
  • Hawk-Eye ball tracking system.

Transport

Aviation

Railways

Locomotives

Other railway developments

Roads

Sea

Scientific innovations

Miscellaneous

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-03-17 20:33 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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