List of British inventors and discoverers
The List of British Inventors and Discoverers is a list of inventors and discoverers from the United Kingdom in alphabetical order by family name.
list
A.
- Frederick Augustus Abel : Gun cotton production 1865
- George Anson : circumnavigator and admiral, mapped large areas of the Pacific from 1740–1744, e. B. the Mariana Islands
- Augustus Applegath : round bending of stereos 1816, four-cylinder press 1828, high-speed letterpress press 1846/47 (each with Edward Cowper), table coloring
- Frederick Scott Archer : Wet collodion plate (negative film) 1850/51 (with Gustave Le Gray)
- Richard Arkwright : spinning, waterframe spinning machine, carding, draw frame
- William George Armstrong : hydraulic crane
- John Arnold : Cylindrical spiral for chronometers, 1775
- Neil Arnott : Hydrostatic Bed (Water Bed)
- Joseph Aspdin : inventor of Portland cement
- Stain Atkinson : Complete casting machine 1862 (with John Robert Johnson)
- George Atwood : Atwood's fall machine 1784
- James Ayscough : 1752 sunglasses
B.
- Charles Babbage : calculating machine, analytical engine, difference machine, precursor of the computer
- Francis Bacon : pioneer of empiricism
- Richard Bacon : Schnellpresse 1813 (with Bryan Donkin)
- Roger Bacon : magnifying glass; possibly glasses (doubtful)
- William Baffin : Navigators, Baffin Bay , Baffin Island
- Alexander Bain : electric clock 1841, fax 1842/43, recording of telegraphic messages on a paper disk 1849
- John Logie Baird : Mechanical Television
- Samuel White Baker : African explorer, discoverer of Lake Albert and the Murchison Falls
- John Barber : Gas Turbine 1791
- Edward Barlow : rack mechanism 1668, cylinder escapement 1695
- Yvonne M. Barr : Discovery and description of the Epstein-Barr virus (together with Michael Epstein )
- Robert Barron : Safe lock 1778
- William Bateson : coined the term genetics in 1906
- Trevor Baylis : wind-up radio
- Wiliam Baylis : Together with Ernest Starling , Bayliss discovered the hormone secretin in 1902 and together the peristalsis of the digestive tract; he also used the term hormone for the first time ; Bayliss effect
- Alexander Graham Bell : (Scotland and USA) - Telephone 1876
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell : astrophysicist, Nobel Prize, co-discoverer of the first neutron star (together with Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle )
Tim Berners-Lee , 2009
- Tim Berners-Lee : Inventor of the World Wide Web
- John Bentley: Internet on TV
- Henry Bessemer : Bessemerbirne, wind freshening process for steel production 1855/56
- Thomas Bewick : Wood engraving at the end of the 18th century
- Benjamin Biram : vane anemometer (Biram's anemometer) 1842 or 1844
- Joseph Black : Discoverer of carbon dioxide , the element magnesium and latent heat.
- John Blenkinsop : Steam locomotive with rack and pinion 1811
- William Bligh : Explorer of the Bounty Islands, some Fiji Islands and parts of the New Hebrides
- Katharine Burr Blodgett : non-reflective glass, Langmuir-Blodgett layer
- Alan Dower Blumlein : Stereo recording 1931
- Hubert Cecil Booth : vacuum cleaner 1901
- Frank Bowden : Bowden cable 1902 (supposedly)
- William Henry Bragg : Bragg equation (Nobel Prize)
- Joseph Bramah : hydraulic press 1795, pumps, dispensing system, cylinder mold paper machine 1805
- Harry Brearley : stainless steel
- David Brewster : Kaleidoscope 1816, dioptric stereoscope 1849
- Robert Brown , Cell nucleus in plants, 1831
- Samuel Brown : chain locks
- Edwin Beard Budding : mechanical cylinder mower
- Richard Francis Burton : Africa explorer
C.
- Verney Lovett Cameron : African explorer
- Howard Carter : Tutankhamun's Tomb , 1922
- Archie Cochrane : Evidence-Based Medicine
- Joseph Constantine Carpue : plastic nose surgery , rhinoplasty
- Edmund Cartwright : mechanical loom (1784) (patent 1785)
- Henry Cavendish : Chemist, Discovery of Hydrogen
- George Cayley : glider 1852, spoked wheel, chain drive
- James Chadwick : Discovery of the Neutron , (Nobel Prize)
- Ernst Boris Chain : Penicillin 1928 (with Fleming, Florey)
- Richard Chancellor : reached Dvina Bay in the White Sea in 1553 while searching for the Northeast Passage
- John Charnley : pioneer of the hip replacement
- Dugald Clerk : two-stroke engine 1878
- Henry Clothier : Control cabinet around 1904
- John Douglas Cockcroft : Particle Accelerator 1929 (with Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton)
- Christopher Cockerell : Hovercraft (Hovercraft) 1954
- James Cook : Evidence that the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific is impracticable and that the long suspected southern continent does not exist. His measures against scurvy also became important .
- Thomas Cook : group tour 1841, travel agency 1845, package tour (Nile cruise) 1869
- William Fothergill Cooke : electrical telegraphy 1837, 1-needle telegraph 1845
- Henry Cort : iron rolling mill, puddling process 1783/84
- William Cotton : Cotton scales (magnetic scales)
- William Cotton : Weft knitting machine ( Cotton machine)
- Edward Alfred Cowper : Cowper (blast furnace heater), bicycle tangential spokes 1868
- Alan Cox : software developers, one of the first and best-known Linux - kernel developers
- Thomas Russell Crampton : steam powered driving machine 1834, Crampton locomotive 1843
- Francis Crick : Biochemist, (Nobel Prize), discovered the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) together with James Watson .
- Samuel Crompton : Spinning Mule 1779
- William Crookes : light mill (radiometer)
- William Cruickshank : chlorinated water
- William Cullen : refrigerator
- Alexander Cumming : Water closet with siphon 1775
D.
- Abraham Darby I : Sand mold casting 1707, iron melting with coke 1709
- Abraham Darby II : Blast furnace ironmaking with coke 1735
- Erasmus Darwin : horizontal windmill, stable carriage 1766, caisson elevator for inland waterway vessels 1777, artificial bird, copying machine 1778, weather observation devices, artesian well 1783, speaking machine 1799
- John Daugman : Biometric Iris Recognition
- Charles Darwin : founder of the modern theory of evolution
- Robert Davidson : Electric Locomotive 1837
- Donald Watts Davies : Information Technology Pioneer
- John Davis : explored the polar seas and coasts from 1585
- Humphry Davy : chemist, photosensitive silver salt (silver iodide), miner's lamp (Davy lamp), arc lamp 1809
- James Dewar : Dewar (thermos) 1892, smokeless powder, cordite
- William Kennedy Laurie Dickson : Scotland / USA - film camera, kinetograph, kinetoscope (with Edison)
- Paul Dirac : Prediction of the Positron ; Dirac equation
- Ian Donald : Ultrasound image (sonography) 1958
- Francis Drake : first English circumnavigator between 1577 and 1580
- Thomas Drummond : Drummond's light 1826
- John Boyd Dunlop : (GB / Ireland) air-filled tire
- Peter Durand : Tin can
- James Dyson : vacuum cleaner with centrifugal separator 1980s
E.
- Arthur Stanley Eddington : Astronomer, Eddington Limit
- Thomas Edmondson : Edmondson's ticket 1839
- Robert Edwards : In Vitro Fertilization (IVF, test tube fertilization ) (with Patrick Steptoe ) 1978
- Michael Epstein : Discovery and description of the Epstein-Barr virus (together with Yvonne M. Barr), 1964
F.
- Michael Faraday : electrical transformer, Faraday's laws , discoverer of benzene and butene
- Eric Fawcett : Polyethylene 1933 (with Reginald Gibson )
- Samuel Fedida : Screen text 1968/1975
- Marc Feldmann : With antibodies against TNF-α he succeeded in discovering a therapy against rheumatoid arthritis
- Patrick Ferguson : Ferguson rifle 1776
- Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti : Arc light for street lamps 1877, Ferranti-Dynamo 1880, Ferranti-Effect 1890
- Alexander Fleming : Penicillin 1928 (with Ernst Boris Chain )
- John Ambrose Fleming : tube diode (diode, rectifier tube, Fleming valve) 1900 (patent 1904)
- Tommy Flowers : precursor to a computer, the Colossus
- Robert Foulis : GB / Canada - lighthouse lighting 1852, steam-operated fog horn (fog-steam whistle) 1852
- John Fowler : Steam Plow 1858, Drainage System 1850
- Thomas Fowler : central heating 1828, wooden calculator 1840
- Charles Fox : Railway switch, switch setting mechanism 1832
- Samuel Fox : Wire frame for an umbrella 1851 (en)
- William Friese-Greene : Cinematography
- Martin Frobisher : discovered Frobisher Bay named after him in 1576 while searching for the Northwest Passage
- John Franklin : polar explorer who died in 1847 while looking for the Northwest Passage
G
- William Edward Gaine : Vegetable parchment (real parchment paper ) 1853
- Francis Galton , "father" of behavioral genetics , fingerprint identification of people
- Herbert William Garratt : Garratt Locomotive 1907
- Reginald Oswald Gibson : Polyethylene 1933 (with Eric William Fawcett)
- Percy Carlyle Gilchrist : Thomas process (iron dephosphorization) 1876/77 (with Sidney Thomas)
- Lewis Gompertz : Hand drive for draisines 1821
- Richard Hall Gower : hull, rigging
- George Graham : Graham escapement 1715, cylinder escapement 1720, compensation pendulum 1726
- Joseph Mortimer Granville : Electric vibrator 1883
- William Grove : Co-inventor of the fuel cell
- John Gurdon : Animal Cloning 1970
- Goldsworthy Gurney : steam bus 1826, cutting torch, blowpipe
H
- John Hadley : modern sextant , octant 1731 (next to Thomas Godfrey )
- Chester Moor Hall : achromatic lens 1733
- Edmond Halley : Diving Bell 1690
- John Harington : Water closet 1596
- John Harrison : Ship Chronometer 1735 and 1759
- James Hargreaves : Industrial Spinning Machine Spinning Jenny
- William Harvey : Blood Circulation, 1628
- John Harwood : automatic watch 1923
- Oliver Heaviside : Heaviside function
- John Hetherington : Cylinder 1797
- Antony Hewish : astrophysicist, Nobel Prize, co-discoverer of the first neutron star (together with Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Martin Ryle )
- Peter Higgs : Development of the Higgs Mechanism
- Rowland Hill : "Father" of the postage stamp
- Robert Hooke : balance (clock) 1658, photographic aperture (iris diaphragm)
- Frederick Gowland Hopkins : is considered the founder of vitamin research. He discovered vitamins A and B in milk. He discovered glutathione and tryptophan in the amino acids
- Frank Hornby : Meccano metal construction kit
- William George Horner : Horner scheme
- Godfrey Hounsfield : Computed Tomography 1973 (with Allan M. Cormack)
- Edward Charles Howard : Mercury synthesis 1799 (next to Johannes Kunckel)
- Henry Hudson : explored the Northwest Passage several times between 1607 and 1611
- David Edward Hughes : Hughes Telephone
- Benjamin Huntsman : Cast steel 1746 (1742 ?, 1740?)
- James Hutton : Geologist, founder of modern geology, especially the idea of the cycle of rocks and currentism (with Karl Ernst Adolf von Hoff and Charles Lyell )
J
- Alec John Jeffreys : Genetic Fingerprint 1985
- Edward Jenner : Smallpox Vaccination 1796
- Isaac Charles Johnson : Clinker
- Henry Hamilton Johnston : African explorer, discovery of the okapi
- James Prescott Joule : Joule's Law , Joule Effect
- Brian D. Josephson : Physicist (Nobel Prize) - Josephson Effect
K
- Henry Kater : Reversion pendulum 1817/18, floating collimator for telescopes
- John Kay : High-speed loom 1733
- Janet Keiller : bitter orange jam before 1797
- John Kerr : Kerr Effect 1875, Kerr Cell
- Frederic Stanley Kipping : Silicon 1904
- Kane Kramer : digital music player 1979
L.
- Charles Lapworth , geologist, Ordovician
- Robert John Le Mesurier McClure : discovered the Northwest Passage in 1850
- Frederick William Lanchester : Winglet 1897
- William Lee : Hand ball chair
- James Bowman Lindsay : Incandescent lamp 1835, underwater telegraphy 1843/53, electric welding 1835
- Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister : "father" of antiseptic surgery, "listing", listing device
- Samuel Lister : air brake for railways, Lister roller comb, silk comb, velvet loom
- James Livesey : Folding Machine 1851
- David Livingstone : Africa explorer
- Archibald Low : image transmission (television forerunner) 1914, radio remote control 1917
- Charles Lyell : geologist, contemporaryism (Karl Ernst Adolf von Hoff and James Hutton)
M.
- Alexander MacKenzie : Exploring the Mackenzie River to its mouth in Canada
- Charles Macintosh : waterproof raincoat 1823, life jacket, steel preparation by annealing the iron in hydrocarbon gas 1825
- Richard Leach Maddox : Silver Bromide Gelatin Drying Plate 1871
- George William Manby : Fire Extinguishers
- Peter Mansfield : Magnetic resonance tomography (magnetic resonance tomograph) 1973 (with Paul Christian Lauterbur )
- James Marsh : Marsh's probe , classic detection reaction in chemistry and forensic medicine for arsenic, antimony and germanium 1836
- John Nevil Maskelyne typewriter 1889, telegraphy, railway signals, coin operated toilet lock
- Henry Maudslay : Lead screw lathe (lathe for turning screws) around 1810, micrometer 1829
- Hiram Maxim : machine gun
- James Clerk Maxwell : Color Photography (with Thomas Sutton )
- John Loudon McAdam : Macadam 1815
- Thomas McCall : Pole Velocipede 1869
- Francis Leopold McClintock : explored the Canadian-Arctic island world in the 1850s
- Andrew Meikle : Threshing machine 1786
- Henry Mill : forerunner of the typewriter patent 1714
- Samuel Morland : Calculators, valve piston pump (water pump) 1675, speaking trumpet 1671, metal fire hearth 1666
- Roderick Murchison , geologist, Silurian ; Devon (with Adam Sedgwick )
- William Murdoch : Gaslight 1792
- Eadweard Muybridge : zoo practice , photographer and pioneer of photographic technology
N
Isaac Newton , 1702
- Edward Nairne : eraser 1770
- John Napier : logarithm
- James Nasmyth Steam Hammer 1839, Nasmyth Telescope
- James Beaumont Neilson : First coil heaters, more precisely tubular coil heaters for blast furnaces
- Thomas Newcomen : atmospheric steam engine for dewatering 1712
- Isaac Newton : reflecting telescope 1668/72, calculus 1670s
- William Nicholson : Hydrometer 1790
O
- William Oughtred : Mathematician, introduced the multiplier "×" and the divided symbol "/" in 1631 and also the symbol "\ pi" for the circle number.
- John O'Keefe , neuroscientist, co-discoverer of the cells that make spatial orientation possible in the brain (together with the Norwegian neuroscientists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser)
- Richard Owen : During his research on reptile fossils found in Great Britain, he coined the term " Dinosauria " in 1841 .
P
- Frank Pantridge (Northern Ireland): portable defibrillator , 1965
- John Ayrton Paris : Thaumatrop (miracle disk) 1824 or 1827
- William Edward Parry : sailed large parts of the Northwest Passage between 1819 and 1827
- Alexander Parkes : Celluloid
- Charles Algernon Parsons : multi-stage steam turbine 1884
- William Henry Perkin : Mauvein (aniline color) 1856, Perkin reaction 1868
- Stephen Perry : Rubber band
- William Petrie : self-regulating arc lamp 1847 (with William Edwards Staite )
- Alastair Pilkington : Float glass production 1959
- Joseph Priestley : Soda Water 1772
R.
- John Ramsbottom : Safety valves for steam pressure boilers 1856, sealing rings 1852, trough (railroad) 1861, wedge system for the weight distribution of steam locomotives 1864
- John Rae : explored areas of Canada between 1846 and 1854
- William Ramsay : Discovery of the noble gas elements and their classification in the periodic table; Noble gases argon , krypton , xenon , neon and helium
- John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh : Determining the density of the most important gases and for the discovery of argon . Rayleigh scattering (Nobel Prize)
- Robert Recorde : Mathematician, was the first to use the equal sign "=".
- Lewis Fry Richardson : calculated the first weather forecast and thus founded the method of numerical weather forecast
- Isaac Roberts : astronomer, a pioneer in the field of astronomical nebula photography
- Richard Roberts : invented the reduction gear and loose stepped pulleys on the lathe and it is believed that he invented the self-triggering of the tool slide; Self-actuator (spinning machine) around 1825, planing machine 1817, countershaft
- John Roebuck : Lead chamber process for sulfuric acid synthesis 1746
- James Clark Ross : undertook numerous expeditions to the Arctic in 1818–1836 and trips to the Antarctic in 1839–1843
- Martin Ryle : astrophysicist, Nobel Prize, co-discoverer of the first neutron star (together with Antony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell Burnell )
S.
- Charles Sangster : Bicycle 1895, Ariel Tricycle 1898
- Servington Savary : Heliometer (double image micrometer ) 1743
- Thomas Savery : Steam engine pump 1698
- Adam Sedgwick : founder of modern geology. He proposed both the Devonian and Cambrian periods as constituents of the geological timescale.
- James Sharp : Gas Stove 1826
- John Shepherd-Barron : ATM 1967
- Henry Shrapnel : Shrapnel Ammunition
- Clive Sinclair : Sinclair ZX80 home computer 1980, ZX81 1981, Sinclair ZX Spectrum 1982, Sinclair C5 electric vehicle 1981
- Percy Shaw : Cat's Eye
- John Smeaton : hydraulic lime (waterproof mortar) around 1755, water motor 1761, Lincolnshire cross (universal corrugated head for windmill wing crosses), hose-supplied diving bell 1778
- Adam Smith : founder of classical economics
- George Smith (Assyriologist) : The discovery and first translation of the Gilgamesh epic , one of the oldest surviving literary poems of mankind, is attributed to him.
- Francis Pettit Smith : Ship's Propeller 1836
- John Hanning Speke : Discoverer of Lake Victoria
- Charles Stanhope : Iron hand press Stanhope press around 1800, plaster stereography 1804
- William Edwards Staite : rotary steam engine 1841, arc lamp 1846 (with Petrie)
- Henry Morton Stanley : African explorer, exploring the Congo
- John Kemp Starley : Bicycle "Rover" 1884
- Ernest Starling : Together with Wiliam Baylis , Bayliss discovered the hormone secretin in 1902 and together the peristalsis of the digestive tract; he also used the term hormone for the first time ; Bayliss effect
- John Stenhouse : Respirator 1854
- George Stephenson : Steam locomotive 1814 or 1829
- Patrick Steptoe : In-Vitro-Fertilization (IVF) 1978 (with Robert Edwards )
- Robert Stirling : Stirling engine 1816
- John Stringfellow : Fixed-wing aircraft
- William Sturgeon : Electromagnet 1823/25, Galvanometer 1836
- Thomas Sutton : SLR camera 1861
- Joseph Wilson Swan : Incandescent lamp 1878
T
- William Henry Fox Talbot : Photogram 1834, photographic negative process (negative-positive process, photogenic drawing, salt pressure) 1839/40
- Smithson Tennant : Chemist, Discovery of the Chemical Elements Iridium and Osmium , 1804
- Sidney Thomas : Thomas process (iron dephosphorization) 1876/77 (with PC Gilchrist)
- Elihu Thomson : Resistance welding around 1877
- James Thomson : Nozzle for Francis turbines , Thomson weir
- Joseph John Thomson : Electron , 1897 (Nobel Prize)
- Robert William Thomson : band saw , electric explosives ignition 1841, pneumatic tires 1845, fountain pen 1849, steam crane 1850s, solid rubber tires 1867
- William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (Lord Kelvin of Largs): Principle of the heat pump 1852, tide calculator 1872, dry compass, Thomson bridge, Thomson effect, Kelvin generator, mirror galvanometer, voltage balance, quadrant electrometer
- Thomas Tompion : Sautrog escapement before 1720
- Richard Trevithick : steam car 1797/1801, high-pressure steam engine 1802, steam locomotive 1804, steam cranes, steam dredgers, screw propellers, floating dock, iron buoys
- William Tritton : Co-inventor of the tank (together with Walter Gordon Wilson ; independently of that also Gunther Burstyn )
- Jethro Tull : 1708 seeder, weed weed hoe
- Alan Turing : Turing machine ; significantly in the deciphering of the German radio messages encrypted with the Enigma
U
- Andrew Ure : Bimetal thermostat 1830
V
W.
- Alfred Russel Wallace : Naturalist, Wallace Line in Indonesia
- John Walker : Matchstick 1826
- Barnes Wallis : roll bomb
- Samuel Wallis : Discovery of the island of Tahiti , 1767
- Frederick Walton : Linoleum 1860 or 1863, Linkrusta wallpaper 1877
- Nathaniel Ward : Greenhouse (terrarium) around 1829
- Harry James Watt drill for almost square holes 1914
- Robert Watson-Watt : Radar 1919
James Watt , 1797
- James Watt : Improvement of the Steam Engine 1765, patent 1769
- Josiah Wedgwood : Wedgwoodware 1768, pyrometer 1782
- Ralph Wedgwood : Carbon paper 1806
- Robert Weldon : Caisson lock 1792 (with Erasmus Darwin)
- Walter Weldon : Weldon process for the production of chlorine from hydrochloric acid
- Charles Wheatstone : Symphonium 1828, Wheatstone Bridge 1833, rheostat 1840, mirror stereoscope 1833, pin telegraph, pointer telegraph 1839, Playfair method 1854
- Robert Whitehead : the first torpedoes with their own propulsion and self-control (together with Giovanni Luppis )
- Frank Whittle : Co-inventor of the jet jet
- John Wilkinson : precision drill for boring cannon barrels 1775
- Robert Wilson : Cosmic Background Radiation (together with Arno Penzias )
- Walter Gordon Wilson : Co-inventor of the tank (together with William Tritton ; also Gunther Burstyn independently )
- James Wimshurst : Influence machines from 1878 (Holtz-Wimshurst machine, Wimshurst machine 1882/83, multi-disc induction machine 1896)
- William Hyde Wollaston : chemist, Wollaston prism , discoverer of the chemical elements palladium and rhodium , 1803
- Alexander Wood : Subcutaneous needle for intravenous drug administration
- Christopher Wren : Rain gauge 1661
- Charles Romley Alder Wright : Heroin 1873/74 (with Felix Hoffmann), fuel cell
- Arthur Wynne : inventor of the crossword puzzle
Y
- Robert Yeates : Can opener 1855 Patent 1858 (next to Ezra Warner)