Research Results For 'Wolverhampton'

SUNBEAM

Sunbeam were a British manufacturer of bicycles and later motor cycles, founded by John Masrston in Wolverhampton around 1871, experiments into motor cycles beginning in about 1903 and then being halted following a fatal accident in 1904 until in 1911 an engineer was brought in and production of the Sunbeam motor cycle range began in 1912 and ceased in the late 1930's with the demise of the Sunbeam company.
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EDWARD BIRD

Edward Bird was an English painter. He was born in 1772 at Wolverhampton and died in 1819. He became an academician in 1815. He excelled in historical and genre subjects. Among his chief pictures are the Surrender of Calais, Death of Eli, and Field of Chevy Chase.
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JONATHAN WILD

Jonathan Wild was an English detective and highwayman. He was born in 1682 at Wolverhampton and died in 1725. Famed as a detective, he was resonsible for thirty-five highwaymen and twenty-two housebreakers being hanged and returning ten escaped convicts back to prison. However, he became the head of an elaborate organization of thieves in London. His career was checked by imprisonment on the ground of causing a riot and terminated by hanging at Tyburn on a charge of housebreaking.
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LAURENCE FOSTER

Laurence Foster is an English actor. He was born in 1944 at Wolverhampton. Educated at Birmingham Theatre School he worked at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre before moving to Ireland in 1968 and working in theatre. In 1974, he joined the RTE Radio Drama Department as an actor, and performed in over 750 Radio Plays. Film and TV appearances include Privilege, The Manions of America, Cal, The Escapist, and The Tudors. His autobiography, Rising Without Trace, was published by Ashfield Press in 2007.
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BEVERLEY KNIGHT

Beverley Knight is an English singer and actress. She was born in 1973 at Wolverhampton. She was made MBE in 2006 for her services to music.
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FRANCES BARBER

Frances Barber is an English actress. She was born in 1958 at Wolverhampton. She is primarily a stage actress working with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, but also appears on television and in films.
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MARGARET LEE

Margaret Lee (real name Margaret Gwendolyn Box) is an English actress. She was born in 1943 at Wolverhampton.
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MEERA SYAL

Meera Syal is an English actress, writer and television producer. She was born in 1964 at Wolverhampton, Staffordshire to immigrant Indian parents. She is perhaps best known as a script writer and actress in the 1998 television comedy show 'Goodness Gracious Me'.
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AERONAUTICS

Aeronautics is the art of sailing in or navigating the air. The first form in which the idea of aerial locomotion naturally suggested itself was that of providing men with wings by which they should be enabled to fly. By about 1905, however, it was generally admitted that it is impossible for man by his muscular strength alone to give motion to wings of sufficient extent to keep him suspended in the air. Hence later attempts at aerial navigation structures of a different kind were generally tried, such as some sort of flying car, elevated and propelled by machinery which eventually gave rise to the modern aircraft, or a vehicle so buoyant as to float in the air, the balloon being the most common. Early pioneers in flight encountered one great difficulty in that of supporting in mid-air a sufficient weight of machinery to provide the necessary power for propelling and steering purposes.

The navigation of the air by means of the balloon dates only from nearly the close of the eighteenth century. In 1766 Henry Cavendish showed that hydrogen gas was at least seven times lighter than ordinary air, and it at once occurred to Dr. Black of Edinburgh that a thin bag filled with this gas would rise in the air, but his experiments were for some reason unsuccessful. Some years afterwards Tiberius Cavallo found that a bladder was too heavy and paper too porous, but in 1782 he succeeded in elevating soap-bubbles by inflating them with hydrogen gas. In this and the following year two Frenchmen, the brothers Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, acting on the observation of the suspension of clouds in the atmosphere and the ascent of smoke, were able to cause several bags to ascend by rarefying the air within them by means of a fire below. These experiments roused much attention at Paris; and soon after a balloon was constructed under the superintendence of Professor Charles, which being inflated with hydrogen gas rose over 3000 feet in two minutes, disappeared in the clouds, and fell after three quarters of an hour about fifteen miles from Paris. These Montgolfier and Charles balloons already represented the two distinct principles in respect to the source of elevating power for balloons, the one being inflated with common air rarefied by heat, requiring a fire to keep up the rarefaction, the other being filled with gas lighter at a common temperature than air, and thus rendered permanently buoyant. Both forms were used for a considerable time, but the greater safety and convenience of the gaseous inflation finally prevailed. After the use of coal-gas had been introduced it superseded hydrogen gas, as being much less expensive, though having a far less elevating power.

The first person who made an ascent in a balloon was Pilatre de Rozier, who ascended 50 feet at Paris in 1783 in one of Montgolfier's. A short time afterwards M. Charles and M. Robert ascended in a balloon inflated with hydrogen gas, and travelled a distance of 27 miles from the Tuileries; M. Charles by himself also ascended to a height of about two miles. Since then a multitude of ascents and aerial voyages were made, with, strange to say, comparatively few disastrous results in the early years. Among the names of the earlier balloonists we may mention Lunardi, who first made an ascent in Great Britain in September 1784, unless we assign this honour to J. Tytler (' Balloon' Tytler), who seems to have made two short ascents from Edinburgh in the preceding month; Blanchard, who, along with the American Dr. Jeffries, first crossed the Channel from Dover to Calais, in January 1785; Garnerin, who first descended by a parachute from a balloon in October 1797; and Gay Lussac, who reached the height of 23,000 feet in September 1804.

In 1836 a balloon carrying Messrs. Green, Holland, and Mason traversed the 500 miles between London and Weilburg in Nassau in eighteen hours. In 1859 Mr. J. Wise, the chief of American aeronauts, accompanied by several others, rose from New York, and landed, after a flight of 1150 miles, in twenty hours. In September 1862, the renowned aeronaut, Mr. Glaisher, accompanied by a Mr. Coxwell, made an ascent from Wolverhampton, and reached the estimated elevation of 37,000 feet, or 7 miles, a height far greater than any other then attained, if it can be depended on as exactly ascertained. But the aeronauts were for a time in great peril, Mr. Glaisher having become insensible, and Mr. Coxwell having his hands so severely frozen that he was unable to pull the valve for descent, and was compelled to use his teeth. Early aeronauts were clearly unaware of the thinning of the atmosphere and dramatic reduction in temperature with altitude. It is claimed that the first greatest really authentic height-35,000 feet-was attained by two German aeronauts at Berlin in 1901. The most daring early attempt at an aerial voyage was that of the Swede, Andree, who, with two companions in 1897 ascended from Spitzbergen in hopes of reaching the North Pole, their fate remaining unknown.

All the features of the ordinary balloon as now used are more or less due to Professor Charles, already mentioned. Early balloons were usually a large pear-shaped bag, made of pliable silk cloth, covered with a varnish of caoutchouc dissolved in oil of turpentine to render it air-tight. The ordinary size ranged from 20 to 30 feet in equatorial diameter, with a proportionate height, but balloons of far greater dimensions were also constructed. A car, or basket, generally of wicker-work, supported by a network which extends over the balloon, contained the aeronaut; and a valve, usually placed near the top, and to which is attached a string reaching the car, gave him the power of allowing the gas to escape, whereby the balloon lowered at pleasure. A quantity of sand ballast in small bags was usually taken, and when the balloon tended to descend too far sand was thrown out and it rose again. The guide-rope, a long and heavy rope trailing over the ground, was sometimes used when the country was such that no serious damage would result from its trailing. The principle of this device was that as the balloon tended to rise it must lift more of the rope off the ground, while when the balloon sunk it was relieved of so much weight, and thus it tended to float at one level above the ground.

The problem of how to steer or propel a balloon in a desired horizontal direction was an early issue and numerous attempts at producing navigable balloons were made at the start of the 20th century. In a navigable balloon to be propelled through the air by some kind of motor, against the wind if necessary, the familiar balloon shape was departed from as quite unsuitable, and the 'air-ship' usually of an elongated form and more or less cylindrical or cigar-shaped adopted. A design still used a hundred years later.

Balloons of a fish or cigar shape, floated by gas, and propelled by a screw driven by a dynamo-electric machine, and steered by a large rudder, made several ascents in Paris in 1884 and 1885; and being generally able to return to the starting-point, at the time it was claimed for them that they had settled the question of balloon steerage, but it was several years before the matter was settled. The names of Count Zeppelin and M. Santos Dumont became well known in connection with such balloons. In 1897-1900 the former constructed a huge cylindrical air-ship of great length, with parabolic ends, divided into a number of separate chambers filled with hydrogen gas and these enclosed in an outer air balloon, the whole being braced and made rigid by an aluminium framework, and the means of propulsion being screws driven by Daimler petrol motors and fixed to the longitudinal axis of the air-ship. The success of this great structure, even after various improvements were introduced, appears to have been only partial, and want of sufficient funds brought operations to a stop for a while. M. Santos Dumont constructed several navigable balloons, and one of them was so successful at Paris in 1901 as to gain a prize of 100,000 francs. On this occasion his airship made the journey from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back again, a distance of about 9.5 miles, in half an hour. M.M. Lebaudy of Paris also made some very successful trips with a dirigible balloon ; that is, one that can be steered or directed-to some extent at least.

In 1903-4 a large air-ship was constructed by Dr. F. A. Barton at Alexandra Park, London. This structure had a bamboo framework suspended below it, connected with which was the propelling machinery, two engines each of 4.7 ihp, driving a series of fans, there being a large square sail serving as a rudder. In 1905 an improved form of this air-ship was experimented with, the name Barton-Rawson air-ship, 'designed for the War Office', later being given to it. In this form it consisted of a silk balloon 180 feet long and 40 in diameter, with a bamboo car 127 ft. long and 18 ft. high, carrying a 50-horsepower motor at either end driving four propellers 7 ft. in diameter and revolving at a high speed, the total weight being about 14,000 lbs. Ascents made in July 1905 were not very successful, the air-ship driving with the wind and being unable to take a course of its own. The British War Office expressed its readiness to give an order for an air-ship on certain conditions, one being that it must be able to turn in a circle of 100 yards radius.

Besides balloons, which are lighter than a corresponding volume of air, and air-ships depending on the same principle, various apparatus were constructed for aerial navigation that are heavier than the air at the start of the 20th century at a time when the feasibility of attaining success with such was supported by the flight of birds, many of which are decidedly heavy compared with their expanse of wing. Some of these apparatus were intended more for gliding or soaring through the air than for actual flight, having somewhat the nature of a huge bird with outstretched wings, beneath which a man attached himself, and on springing from a height gradually descends to the bottom - an idea revisited some years later for the hang-glider.

The kite, or structures on the same principle, were much experimented with, and it was found considerable weights can be raised and carried in this way. The kite rises in the air if drawn along by its string, and if instead of drawing it along a propeller is fitted to drive it through the air it ought to ascend in the same manner. Hence the invention of the aeroplane, which shows a large flat surface contrived to float nearly horizontally in the air, but with the front edge very slightly raised, so that in being propelled rapidly along it receives the pressure of the air on the under side, the air thus tending to counteract the force of gravity. Sir H. S. Maxim in 1894 constructed a huge machine with main and several subsidiary aeroplanes, propelled by two large screws driven by steam-engines of 300 hp, and able to rise with a great weight. As a model, at least, Prof. Langley's aerodrome had some success, flying through the air a distance of three-quarters of a mile. It had two rigid pairs of wings about 12 ft. in width, with large screw-propellers between them driven by a small steam-engine. Aviation is the term applied to attempts at flight otherwise than by balloons.

Manned balloons were successfully used for taking meteorological and military observation from the end of the 19th century. The latter class of balloons were usually 'captive' balloons - balloons that are kept by a rope from going farther than is desired, and that can be drawn back at will. Their use was only really suited for fairly calm weather and in certain circumstances. The balloon may have had a telephone connection with the earth below. There was a balloon service in the British army, the duties falling upon the Royal Engineers. Since about 1900 small captive and other balloons have sent up for purely scientific purposes, unaccompanied by any person, but provided with self-recording thermometers, barometers, etc., by which valuable facts have been ascertained. Some of these early balloons reached heights of 60,000 or 70,000 feet. During the siege of Paris in 1870-71 over sixty persons (including Gambetta) and innumerable letters left the city in balloons.
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CYCLING

Cycling is a sport and also leisure pursuit whereby a cycle, formerly also known as a velocipede, which is a light vehicle, is impelled by the person or persons whom it carries, and in its most common form is a bicycle ,being two-wheeled.

The forerunner of the bicycle; dating from about 1817, had two wheels of nearly equal size, one before the other, and connected by a beam on which the driver sat, and was propelled by the thrust of the rider's feet on the ground. The 'dandy horse' was a name given to this kind of cycle, which never came into very common use.

About 1861 a superior vehicle was introduced, having treadles operating cranks on the axle of the front wheel, and soon many forms of the machine became popular; but for a time the bicycle was a clumsy article requiring much labour to get any speed out of it, and the derisive name of ' boneshaker' was not undeserved. It formed the basis, nevertheless, for the various kinds of cycle now so common, which, were originally constructed almost entirely of steel (or, in some cases, of aluminium), with the greatest economy of material, and furnished with improvements that gradually came into use.

The bicycle is kept in an upright position by the action of the rider's body and legs, by the steering power, and also by its own momentum. The tricycle followed the bicycle, and "sociables', tandems, and other forms of cycle have also been introduced.

At first the wheels of the bicycle were of the same size later the front or driving wheel was made very much larger than the hinder wheel, by 1905 the front or steering wheel and the hinder or driving wheel were generally made nearly or quite the same size. One great improvement in early cycles was in the use of india-rubber tyres to the wheels, which greatly reduced the jolting, and a further improvement was the introduction of 'pneumatic' or hollow tyres of india-rubber, which have to be pumped quite full of air and kept so when the vehicle is in use.

The usual diameter of the wheels of early cycles was 28 inches, but in some early machines the steering-wheel was made about two inches larger. Ball-bearings are used in the hubs, the pedals, and other parts of the machine where it is desirable to diminish as much as possible the friction of rotation; brakes of more than one kind have been in use, but the most common for many years comprised the brake power being gained by a block of india-rubber made to press against one or both wheels (both in the case of the 'free-wheel' cycle common since about 1900); and the general appearance and structure of the ordinary bicycle is familiar to all.

Multi-cycles of various kinds, ranging from tandems, through triplets and quadruplets to quintuplets, and even higher forms, were also fairly common at the start of the 20th century.

Motorcycles, in which the main driving power is a small petrol motor, were first constructed about 1900, and by 1905 were becoming quite common. In the early motorcyles the rider could take a companion along with him in a 'trailer' or in a 'fore-car', or 'side-car', by the later half of the 20th century such passengers were almost solely carried pillion on a double saddle.

Since 1900 the speed attained by an expert rider has been very great with the cycles then in use, by 1905 a speed of 40 mph having been recorded for a one mile sprint and 10 miles at an average of 52 mph; 50 miles in a similar average speed also. Coming to longer distances, it was record
ded that 100 miles have been covered in about 2 hours 26 minutes; and 634 miles 774 yards in 24 hours recorded in 1899; while the 874 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats had been accomplished in 3 days 5 minutes 49 seconds before 1905. A remarkable cycling feat was the journey of 12,000 miles by Thomas Stevens across the continents of America, Europe, and Asia on a bicycle, commencing in April, 1884, at San Francisco. Many longer rides of a similar kind have since been done, an early one being that carried out by by Foster Fraser and two companions in 1896 to 1898, covering 19,237 miles in 774 days.

The tricycle offers a safer seat to its occupant, but owing to the friction and weight of the vehicle the same rate of speed has not been got out of it. Cycling had become exceedingly common by the start of the 20th century, almost wherever there are roads that allowed it. The manufacture of cycles had also become important industry, the chief seats of it in England traditionally being Coventry, Birmingham, London, Nottingham, and Wolverhampton.

Since its invention, the cycle has been recognised not only as affording a healthy exercise and enabling the cyclist to enjoy natural scenery and to travel from place to place with cheapness and facility, but was very commonly used for business purposes, as by tradesmen in distributing goods, workmen going to and from their work, post-office employees, and others, while it was also adopted for various military purposes.

Cycling clubs quickly became very numerous in Britian. The early Cyclists' Touring Club (CTC) and the National Cyclists' Union (NCU) were the more comprehensive early organizations, the former indeed having an international character. Both were of great service to the early cycling public in various ways. In the United Kingdom, bicycles, tricycles, and similar machines are by law declared to be carriages within the meaning of the acts relating to roads and highways, and special enactments have been in force. Early laws governing cycling in the Uk included:

'During the period between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise, every person riding or being upon such a carriage shall carry attached to the carriage a lamp, which shall be so constructed and placed as to exhibit a light in the direction in which he is proceeding, and so lighted and kept lighted as to afford adequate means of signalling the approach or position of the carriage.'

'Upon overtaking any foot-passenger or cart or carriage, or any horse, mule, or other beast of burden, the rider must, by sounding a bell or otherwise, give audible and sufficient warning of the approach of the carriage. Any person summarily convicted of offending against these regulations is liable to a fine of not more than forty shillings.'.

By the late 20th century cycling had become a diverse sport with such distinct disciplines as BMX, Cycle Speedway, Road Racing, Time Trialling, Cytclo-Cross, Mountain Biking, Cross-Country Cycling, Downhill Racing, Track Racing and of course leisure cycling and commuting.
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	The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by Matt and Leela Probert ©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia Southampton, United Kingdom