The Victorian Era

Victorian Inventions

Article · Science & Invention · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The Victorian period was one of the most inventive periods in human history. The inventions of the period transformed almost every aspect of daily life: the railway and the steam locomotive, the steamship, the electric telegraph and the telephone, the typewriter and the sewing machine, the photograph and the cinematograph, the phonograph, and the electric light all came out of the period between 1837 and 1901. The history of Victorian inventions is examined in Victorian Science, Invention, and Technology, and the context of the period is set out in The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.

The Steam Engine

The high-pressure steam engine was the most important invention that the Victorians inherited, and the Victorian period saw its further development. The high-pressure engine had been developed by Richard Trevithick and Arthur Woolf in the early years of the century, and the compound engine, which used the steam twice, in a high-pressure and a low-pressure cylinder, was developed by the Scottish engineers John Elder and Charles Randolph in the 1860s. The triple-expansion engine, which used the steam three times, was developed in the 1870s and 1880s and was the standard marine engine of the late Victorian period, and the quadruple-expansion engine, which used the steam four times, was developed in the 1890s. The steam turbine, developed by Charles Parsons in 1884 and first installed in his yacht Turbinia in 1894, would dominate the steamship of the twentieth century. The history of the steam engine is examined in The Victorian Economy and Industrialization.

The Steam Locomotive

The steam locomotive was one of the most important inventions of the early Victorian period, and the steam locomotive was the foundation of the modern railway. The steam locomotive had been developed in the early nineteenth century by Richard Trevithick, Timothy Hackworth, William Hedley, George Stephenson, and Robert Stephenson, and the Victorian era saw the development of express, goods, and tank locomotives of ever greater speed and power. The great Victorian locomotive engineers were Daniel Gooch of the Great Western Railway, Patrick Stirling of the Great Northern Railway, Joseph Armstrong of the Midland Railway, and Henry Ivatt of the Great Northern Railway, and the great Victorian locomotives included the North Star of 1837, the Patentee of 1833, the Stirling Single of 1870, and the City of Truro of 1903, which was the first locomotive in the world to exceed 100 miles per hour. The history of the steam locomotive is examined in Transport in the Victorian Era and in When did the first steam train run?.

The Steamship

The steamship was one of the most important inventions of the Victorian period, and the steamship was the foundation of the modern shipping industry. The steamship had been developed in the early nineteenth century by William Symington, Robert Fulton, and John Stevens, and the Victorian era saw the development of the paddle steamer, the screw steamer, the ocean liner, the river steamer, the tugboat, the ironclad warship, and a great range of specialised merchant and naval vessels. The great Victorian steamships included the Great Western of 1838, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic on a regular schedule; the Great Britain of 1843, the first iron-hulled, screw-propelled ship to cross the Atlantic; the Persia of 1856, the first iron screw steamer of the Cunard Line; and the Great Eastern of 1858, by tonnage the largest ship in the world for nearly forty years. The history of the steamship is examined in Transport in the Victorian Era and in How did Victorian ships change trade?.

The Telegraph

The telegraph was one of the most important inventions of the early Victorian period, and the telegraph was the foundation of the modern communication industry. The electric telegraph had been developed in the 1830s and 1840s by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England, who demonstrated their five-needle telegraph on the London and Birmingham Railway in 1837, and by Samuel Morse in the United States, who patented his single-wire telegraph in 1840 and demonstrated it between Washington and Baltimore in 1844. The Victorian era saw the development of the submarine cable, the transatlantic telegraph of 1858 and 1866, the Wheatstone automatic telegraph of 1867, the teleprinter of 1901, and, in the final years of the century, the wireless telegraph of Guglielmo Marconi, who transmitted the letter S across the Bristol Channel in 1895 and across the Atlantic in 1901. The Telegraph Act of 1868 authorised the post office to acquire the inland telegraph companies, and the subsequent Telegraph Act of 1870 completed the acquisition, making the post office one of the largest employers in the country. The history of the telegraph is examined in The Victorian Economy and Industrialization.

The Telephone

The telephone was one of the most important inventions of the late Victorian period, and the telephone was the foundation of the modern communication industry. The telephone had been developed in the 1870s by Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the device in 1876, by Elisha Gray, by Antonio Meucci, and by David Edward Hughes, who developed the carbon-pencil microphone in 1878. The Victorian era saw the development of the carbon-granule transmitter by Western Electric in 1886, the telephone exchange and switchboard, and the first long-distance telephone lines. The first British telephone exchange opened in London in 1879, and the first British trunk line, London to Brighton, opened in 1888. The history of the telephone is examined in Who invented the telephone?.

The Typewriter

The typewriter was one of the most important inventions of the mid-Victorian period, and the typewriter was the foundation of the modern office. The typewriter had been developed in the 1860s and 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule, and the first commercial machine, the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer, was manufactured by E. Remington & Sons from 1873. The Victorian era saw the development of steadily more practical commercial typewriters, and the machine became a fixture of the office in the last decades of the century. The shift key was added in 1878, the QWERTY keyboard layout became standard, the touch-typing method was developed by Frank McGurrin in the 1880s, and the female typist became a recognised figure of the late Victorian office. The history of the typewriter is examined in What did the typewriter do for Victorian offices?.

The Sewing Machine

The sewing machine was one of the most important inventions of the mid-Victorian period, and the sewing machine was the foundation of the modern garment industry. The sewing machine had been developed in the 1840s and 1850s by Barthélemy Thimonnier, Walter Hunt, Elias Howe, and Isaac Singer, and the Victorian era saw the development of the lockstitch and chainstitch sewing machines for both factory and domestic use. Isaac Merritt Singer founded the Singer Manufacturing Company in 1851, and the Singer family sewing machine of 1851 was the first practical domestic sewing machine. The history of the sewing machine is examined in Victorian Fashion and Dress.

The Camera and the Photograph

The camera and the photograph were among the most important inventions of the Victorian period, and the camera and the photograph were the foundation of the modern image industry. The camera and the photograph had been developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and William Henry Fox Talbot, and the Victorian era saw the development of the daguerreotype of 1839, the calotype of 1841, the wet collodion process of 1851, the dry plate process of the 1870s, the gelatin silver process of the 1880s, and the Kodak roll-film camera of 1888. The history of the camera and the photograph is examined in When was the first photograph taken?.

The Electric Light and Power

The electric light was one of the most important inventions of the late Victorian period, and the electric light was the foundation of the modern lighting industry. The electric light had been developed in the 1870s and 1880s by Joseph Swan, who demonstrated his incandescent lamp at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1878, and by Thomas Edison, who demonstrated his carbon-filament lamp at Menlo Park in 1879. The Victorian era saw the development of the arc lamp, the incandescent light bulb, the dynamo, the electric motor, and the central power station. The first public electricity supply was at Godalming in Surrey in 1881, the first hydroelectric power station at Cragside in Northumberland in 1878, and the first large central power station at Deptford in 1891. The electric motor, developed by Michael Faraday in 1821 and by Werner von Siemens in 1866, was the foundation of the modern electrical industry. The history of the electric light is examined in Victorian Engineering Marvels.

The Phonograph and the Cinematograph

The phonograph and the cinematograph were the last of the great Victorian inventions. The phonograph, developed by Thomas Edison and his assistant John Kruesi in 1877, was the first device to record and reproduce sound, and the gramophone, developed by Emile Berliner in 1887, was the basis of the modern record industry. The kinetoscope, developed by Edison and William Kennedy Dickson in 1891, was the first device to display moving images, and the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe of 1895 was the first device to project them. The Vitascope of 1896 and the Biograph of 1896 were the first American projection systems, and the first British projection, by Robert Paul and Birt Acres, was at the Olympia in 1896. The history of the phonograph and the cinematograph is examined in Victorian Entertainment and Leisure.

The Materials of the Industrial Age

The Victorian period saw the development of the new materials of the industrial age. The Bessemer converter, patented by Henry Bessemer in 1856 and developed by Robert Mushet and Görans Ahlsjö in Sweden, made possible the bulk production of mild steel, and the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace, patented by Carl Wilhelm Siemens in 1865 and Pierre-Émile Martin in 1864, produced a higher quality steel. The first true plastic, Parkesine, was developed by Alexander Parkes in 1856, and the first synthetic dye, mauveine, was discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856. The vulcanisation of rubber, developed by Charles Goodyear in 1839, made possible the mass production of rubber goods, and the Portland cement of Joseph Aspdin, patented in 1824, was the basis of the modern concrete industry. The story of these materials is part of the wider history of the Victorian Economy and Industrialization.

The Bicycle and the Motor Car

The bicycle and the motor car were the last of the great Victorian inventions of personal transport. The boneshaker, the penny-farthing, and the Rover safety bicycle of John Kemp Starley, patented in 1885, made the bicycle the dominant form of personal transport in the late Victorian period, and the Coventry machinists, James Starley, John Kemp Starley, and the Hillman, Humber, and Rudge companies, were the great names of the British cycle industry. The motor car, developed by Karl Benz in 1886 and by Gottlieb Daimler in the same year, was a German invention, but the British motor industry, founded in the 1890s by Frederick Lanchester, the Daimler Motor Company of Coventry, and the Panhard et Levassor of Paris, grew rapidly at the end of the period. The history of the bicycle and the motor car is examined in Transport in the Victorian Era.