Talk:Richard Trevithick

Regarding "Penydarren" versus "Pen-Y-darren", as far as I know, the former is what is used now. The latter may have been used then, but if so I'd be willing to bet it was actually "Pen-y-darren", no capital 'y'. Varitek 02:27, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the version with the hyphens was the one used then. At least for the locomotive/mine. I definitely remember this being in too many books. One has to remember that these are Welsh place names as rendered by Englishmen, too ... --Morven 05:20, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia policy about which place name to use when the name has changed? Do we refer, e.g., to Bombay or Mumbai when talking about events that happened pre-name-change? Varitek 19:34, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy in the general case is to use whichever name is more common among English speakers. I don't think it's so clear cut in a case like this.

If the article is correct that the locomotive itself was nameless and it's known by the name of the place it was used at, then probably the current usage is good here.

On the other hand, if the locomotive ITSELF was officially named for the place, then we'd use the spelling used then. I'd say the naming is fine as is right now -- but that whoever used 'Pen-y-darren' wasn't making their own spelling, but following some book or other, because this usage is quite common in railway history books. --Morven 08:46, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Penydarren was Samuel Homfray's ironworks. I do not think the locomortive had a specific name. The railway (or tramroad) did not just go to Penydarren and is best described as the Merthyr tramroad. Peterkingiron 08:52, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

This article is rather overwhelmed with pictures at the moment, they certainly need organising better, if no-one else does this, then I might well do it. G-Man 00:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree and hope the article as I have just left it is an improvement. Best wishes, David Kernow 01:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Incomplete

This article seems to be heavily focused on road and rail transport. However Trevithick was more important in the long run as the person who introduced for this introduction of steam engines that worked above atmossphereic pressure. The present article is incomplete in failing to say enough about the rest of life. Peterkingiron 08:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Substantial New Material

I have just added quite a bit of new material (eg. South American exploits, reaction engine etc) much of it from Richard's biography by James Hodge (from the Science Museum, bookshop London which will hopefully address the above comment in part. I have tried to merge it with the existing article and make it flow reasonably and I have not actually deleted much at all, just moved it around quite a bit. Further tidy-ups welcome.ChrisAngove 17:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! You have done a very good job in expanding what was previously a grossly inadequate article. I have made a few minor adjustments today, unfortunately some of them while inadvertently not logged in. Peterkingiron 22:40, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Peter, my pleasure. I hope to contribute more in due course and I would like to see it as a class A article eventually. Its a good excuse to spend lots of holidays in Cornwall visiting the second hand bookshops!ChrisAngove 13:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Revert warring over England / English vs United Kingdom / British

A large number of Cornish people do not identify as English or see themselves as from Cornwall, 'England' for reasons relating to the ongoing debate about the past, present and future constitutional status of Cornwall, together with many people's sense of a distinct Cornish cultural identity - see Constitutional status of Cornwall and Revert warring over England/English vs United Kingdom/British. Since 2001 the Cornish have had their own unique ethnic UK Census code '06' similar to the Irish, Scots, Welsh and English, 2001 Ethnic Codes, and on many official forms it is now possible to register as Cornish as opposed to English.

Catch Me who Can

I did a google seach for Trevithick "Torrington Square", and found 173 matches. I did another search for Trevithick "Euston Square" and found 294 matches. The majority opinion is that the 1808 circular railway was in Euston Square, not Torrington Square. Euston Square no longer exists, but there is a black plaque on Gower Street, close to the entrance on UCL, saying that Trevithick's engine was displayed near here. That plaque is quite a long was from Torrington Square. The illustration that is used in this article is held in a library called "Science and Society" http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?txtkeys1=Catch Their website refers to Euston Square. This poster http://www.fromheretohere.com/euston_sq/index.html also exists as a mosaic on the walls of Embankment station. It says that the site was Euston Square, not Torrington Square. Ogg 19:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the site is underneath the Chadwick building, University College London. 19 June 2007

The view expressed by Ogg is out of date. The location in Torrington Square is a recent archaeological discovery, and it is not surprising that older sources, such as the plaque cited (a serivative source) should repeat the older claim. The correctness of a view does not sepend on how many Ghits it gets, but how good the sources for the rival views are. In this case, the source for Torrington Square is a peer-reviewed journal, descrining the results of archaeological work: you could hardly get better. Peterkingiron 21:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about the situation. Your edit of 31 March 2007 at 15.09 deleted Torrington Square and replaced it with a reference to the site being under part of the UCL (but you did not then state which part). You gave as a reference "Tyler.N" Trans. Newcomen Soc.

My understanding is that this person is Nick Tyler the head of the UCL Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, which is in the UCL Chadwick Building. Can you say what part or department of UCL is over the site so that the article's existing text can be corrected. 19 June 2007

Presumably he is referring to this paper by Nick Tyler: http://www.newcomen.com/abstracts/abstracts_2005to6.htm. As far as I can see, it doesn't dispute the idea that the site was Euston Square. Instead he is simply being more specific, since Euston Square was pretty huge. Ogg 18:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)