| Firsts for Nottinghamshire | |
|  | | Catwalk - Nottingham Trent University brought about the world's first virtual reality catwalk |
| | Robin Hood county has never been known as backwards in coming forwards - here are ten shining examples of the Nottinghamshire people as pioneers. |
| | | | 1 - Children's library | | Nottingham was the home of the country's first children's library founded in 1882. |
| 2 - Braille signs | | Nottingham was the first city to install Braille signs for blind people in its shopping centres. |
| 3 - Aerial photo | | The first aerial press photo was taken in Nottingham in 1910. |
| 4 - Police forensic laboratory | | Nottingham set up the first police forensic laboratory in 1934. It also sent the first radio message by police car in 1932. |
| 5 - Wooden rail track | | Nottingham had the country's first two miles of wooden track, which connected coal mines in Strelley and Wollaton. It was laid in 1604. |
| 6 - High-pressure water supply | Nottingham had the country's first high-pressure water supply.
In 1830 the Waterworks Company abandoned and the River Leen as their source of supply in favour of purer spring water collected in a reservoir of about one acre at Scotholme, Basford.
Water from the reservoir was fed by gravity through a 10-inch iron pipe to a new pumping station on the River Leen at the foot of the Castle Rock. It was then pumped to the reservoir close to the General Hospital.
The pumps at the Castle Works could be driven either by a water wheel or a rotative beam engine of about 16 HP each. The new Trent Waterworks Company opened its works near the present Town Arms at Trent Bridge in 1831.
This remarkable system, the first in the country to provide a supply at constant high pressure - preventing contamination from entering the mains - was constructed under supervision of its designer, 25-year-old company engineer Thomas Hawksley. |
| 7 - Virtual-reality catwalk | | Nottingham Trent University's fashion courses are world famous. So is its high-tech research for the textiles trade. This research brought about the world's first virtual-reality catwalk. |
| 8 - First ever organic sugar beet crop | | Nottinghamshire had the first ever organic sugar beet crop grown in the UK. A Newark factory in Nottinghamshire began slicing the organic sugar beet crop on the night of Thursday 30th November 2001. |
| 9 - Live webcast | | The first ever live webcast of a Nottinghamshire County Council meeting took place on on Thursday May 16th 2002. |
| 10 - First player to reach 1000 | | Peter Shilton was the first football player to make 1,000 League appearances (1005 in total). A breakdown of Shilton's record that stretched from 1966 to 1997: Leicester City 286 League games, Stoke City 110, Nottingham Forest 202, Southampton 188, Derby County 175, Plymouth Argyle 34, Bolton Wanderers 1, Leyton Orient 9). |
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