| Eleven Nottinghamshire inventors | |
|  | | A Nottinghamshire man invented the tomato - well nearly |
| | The people of Nottinghamshire are very clever - not only did they invent GM tomatoes but also the brown sauce to go on them. |
| | | | 1 - HP Sauce | A Nottingham shopkeeper invented the recipe for HP Sauce, but missed the chance of making his fortune, when he traded the recipe with a Midlands' vinegar company to settle a debt!
Garton's HP Sauce was developed by FG Garton, who ran a small grocery shop in Nottingham.
He called the sauce HP because he claimed to have heard that it was available in a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament.
A businessman called in on Mr Garton with regard to some unpaid bills and noticed his sauce-making activities. The recipe and brand were sold for £150 and the cancellation of the debt.
HP is known as `Wilson's Gravy' after Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister of the 1960s and 1970s, who was rumoured to cover his food with HP Sauce. |
| 2 - Spinning Jenny | James Hargreaves fled from Lancashire when his new invention the Spinning Jenny was wrecked by fellow weavers.
He settled in Nottingham, where he built a small spinning mill off Lower Parliament Street in 1767.
His invention resulted in massive changes in the spinning industry, but he died in obscurity in a Nottingham workhouse in 1777. |
| 3 - Stocking knitting machine | William Lee, a Calverton clergyman, invented the first stocking knitting machine in 1589.
Queen Elizabeth I feared it would cause unemployment.
Lee was forced to take his frame to France. |
| 4 - GM Tomatoes | Professor Don Grierson of the University of Nottingham led the team that produced the first genetically engineered tomato.
The tomato was the first genetically modified plant food to be approved for sale on both sides of the Atlantic. |
| 5 - Shin guards | Shin guards for football were invented in Nottingham in the late 19th Century.
In 1865 a group of youngsters attached to St. Andrew's Church on Mansfield Road, Nottingham, formed a football club and since they played on the Forest Recreation Ground, the town's racecourse, they called themselves Nottingham Forest.
Hacking of shins, tripping and elbowing were allowed and the goalkeeper could be charged out of the way of a shot even if he was nowhere near the ball.
Forest were the first team to wear the shin guards, invented by club player Samuel Widdowson in 1874.
It sounds like they were needed! |
| 6 - Bicycle gears | | James Samuel Archer, 1854-1920, was the co-inventor of the famous Sturmey-Archer gears, the three-speed bicycle gears. He lived in Nottingham, and worked at the Raleigh Cycle Company. |
| 7 - The tank | A Nottingham man was partly responsible for modern mechanical warfare when he came up with the idea of the tank.
His invention was turned down by the War Office as 'too cranky', but the first tanks were eventually manufactured in 1915.
The Tank was developed in Grantham and enjoyed limited success in WWI. |
| 8 - The video recorder | | The inventors of one type of video recorder were two Nottingham men, Norman Rutherford and Michael Turner, in 1957. |
| 9 - Walking clothes dryer | An inventor from Nottingham has just come up with a product that can dry moisture out of boots and clothing.
Guy Tinsley from Cotgrave has developed a pouch containing a chemical crystal that acts like a giant sponge. It goes into something like a boot and draws out the moisture, preventing damp and mould.
The Dampire can be dried out on a radiator, in a microwave or by hanging from a rucksack and then used time and time again. |
| 10 - MR scanners | Perhaps the most far-reaching invention of the past fifty years is the development of magnetic resonance imaging as a medical diagnostic tool.
This was pioneered by Professor (now Sir) Peter Mansfield in the early 1970s in the Department of Physics at The University of Nottingham.
Now hospitals throughout the world have MR scanners. Sir Peter was knighted in honour of his discovery. |
| 11 - Invisible bra | Dr Joanne Morgan from Stapleford, Nottinghamshire has won a national business award for her bra idea that could give the lingerie industry a big boost. Find out more. |
| | | |
|
|
