Tagged with Objects
Resource : Difference Engine No.1 or ‘The Gem of all Mechanisms’
The Difference Engine aimed to mechanise the process of calculation. Composed of thousands of cogs, springs, brackets and other moving parts, it was designed to perform a multitude of calculations, as opposed to a single sum, surpassing anything that had gone before it. It was designed by Charles Babbage (1791-1871), who dreamed of creating an automatic, error-free, calculating machine. A machine, which today, would be recognised as a computer.
Resource : Anti-slavery sugar bowl
Between the 1500s and early 1800s, millions of Africans were kidnapped, sold and transported to the Americas to work as slaves in unimaginably cruel conditions on hugely profitable plantations. These plantations were largely owned by Europeans and Euro-Americans. Britain grew rich on the profits from this transatlantic slave trade, reinvesting the profits in other economic sectors. Only in the late eighteenth century did public opinion slowly begin to turn against the trade in Africans, and campaigners for abolition used every way they could to bring the issue to people’s attention in Europe.
Resource : Steam Whistle
The steam engine was one of the most important technologies of the industrial revolution. But it could be dangerous. The invention of the steam whistle made steam power much safer, saving countless lives as steam technology developed and grew through the 1800s.
Resource : James Hope’s Death Mask
This is the death mask of James Hope, a leading activist in the Society of United Irishmen. He is regarded today as having been the most egalitarian and socialist of the United Irishmen leadership.
