Anderson, Sir John (1814–1886), inventor of ordnance manufacture machinery and arsenal manager, was born at Woodside, near Aberdeen, on 9 December 1814, the posthumous child of a local merchant, J. Anderson, and his wife, Helen Hosie. His mother remarried and his stepfather, Irvine Kempt...
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Lionel Alexander Ritchie
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Bell, John (1746/7–1798), army officer and inventor, was born in the parish of St Cuthbert's, Carlisle, the eldest son of William Bell, hatter, of Botchergate, Carlisle. He was baptized at St Cuthbert's Church on 22 February 1747. After working in the family business, ...
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Maker: Henry Edridge
Samuel Bentham (1757–1831) by Henry Edridge, c. 1795–1800 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Catherine Pease-Watkin
Bentham, Samuel (1757–1831), naval architect and inventor, was born in London on 11 January 1757, the youngest of the seven children of Jeremiah Bentham (1712–1792), an attorney, and his wife, Alicia Woodward Whitehorne (d. 1759), the eldest daughter of Thomas Grove, an ...
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John Albert Bentinck (1737–1775) by Mason Chamberlin, 1775 [left, with his son William Bentinck] © National Maritime Museum, London
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Bentinck, John Albert (1737–1775), naval officer and inventor of mechanical devices, was born on 29 December 1737, the second son of William, Count Bentinck (1704–1774) and Countess Charlotte Sophie of Aldenburg (1715–1800), and grandson of Hans Willem Bentinck, first earl of Portland. His parents separated when he was about a year old and he never knew his mother. He went to sea at the age of fourteen in the ...
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Ronald M. Birse
revised
Bickford, William (bap. 1774, d. 1834), currier and inventor of the safety fuse, was baptized in Ashburton, Devon, on 23 January 1774, the son of William and Mary Beckford. He was in business as a currier, dressing and colouring tanned leather, first rather unsuccessfully in ...
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Ford, Sir Edward (bap. 1605, d. 1670), royalist army officer and inventor, was born at Up Park, in the parish of Harting, Sussex, and baptized in the parish church of Harting on 22 April 1605. He was the eldest son of Sir William Ford (...
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Forsyth, Alexander John (1768–1843), inventor, son of James Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie in Aberdeenshire, and Isabella, daughter of Walter Syme, minister of Tullynessle, was born on 28 December 1768 in his father's manse. He attended King's College, Aberdeen, from 1782 to 1786, and in 1790 was licensed as a preacher. After his father died suddenly on 1 December 1790, a presbytery meeting held in ...
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Hale, William (1797–1870), rocket inventor and entrepreneur, was born on 21 October 1797 in Colchester, Essex, the son of Robert Hale, baker, and his wife, Elizabeth, and may have been descended from Sir Matthew Hale, lord chief justice.
Hale's early education is unknown, but his maternal grandfather, ...
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Harrison, Edward Frank (1869–1918), analytical chemist and army officer, was born at 264 Albany Road, Camberwell, London, on 18 July 1869, the third child of William Harrison (1822/3–1878), a Home Office clerk, and his wife, Susannah, née Lawson. His father died when he was nine and his mother opened a small school, which enabled her sons to be educated at the ...
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Herbert George Hasler (1914–1987) by Eileen Ramsay, c.1960 © Eileen Ramsay / PPL
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Ewen Southby-Tailyour
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Hasler, Herbert George (1914–1987), inventor of sailing equipment and Royal Marines officer, was born in Dublin on 27 February 1914, the younger child and younger son of Lieutenant Arthur Thomas Hasler, quartermaster, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and his wife, Annie Georgina Andrews...
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H. M. Chichester
revised by K. D. Reynolds
Maceroni, Francis [known as Count Maceroni] (1788–1846), soldier and mechanical inventor, was born in the suburbs of Manchester. His father, Peter Augustus Maceroni, with two brothers, had served in a French regiment in America during the War of Independence, and after a roving life settled down at ...
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Henry Young Darracott Scott (1822–1883) by unknown engraver, pubd 1883 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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John Weiler
Scott, Henry Young Darracott (1822–1883), inventor of selenitic cement and military engineer, second son of Edward Scott, a quarry owner, was born at Plymouth, Devon, on 2 January 1822. He was educated privately and entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1838. Commissioned as second lieutenant in 1840, early the next year ...
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Shrapnel, Henry (1761–1842), army officer and inventor of the Shrapnel shell, was born on 3 June 1761, the youngest son of the nine children of Zachariah Shrapnel (1724–1796) from Midway Manor House, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, and his wife, Lydia (née Needham). The family name appears as ...
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Maker: Thomas Arrowsmith
Henry Shrapnel (1761–1842) attrib. Thomas Arrowsmith, 1817 from the collection of The Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich
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E. I. Carlyle
revised by Anita McConnell
Stokes, Sir (Frederick) Wilfrid Scott (1860–1927), civil engineer and inventor, was born at 28 Huskisson Street, Liverpool, on 9 April 1860, the fifth and youngest son of Scott Nasmyth Stokes (1821–1891), barrister and inspector of schools, and his wife, Emma Louisa (1820–1896), youngest daughter of ...
