Scottish inventions and discoveries

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Scottish inventions and discoveries are objects, processes or techniques which owe their existence either partially or entirely to a person born in or descended from Scotland; in some cases, the invention's Scottishness is determined by the fact that they were brought into existence in Scotland (e.g. animal cloning), by non-Scots working in the country. Often, things which are discovered for the first time, are also called "inventions", and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.

The Scots take enormous pride in the history of Scottish invention and discovery.^{[citation needed]} There are many books devoted solely to the subject,^{[citation needed]} as well as scores of websites listing Scottish inventions and discoveries with varying degrees of science.^{[citation needed]}

Even before the Industrial Revolution, Scots have been at the forefront of innovation and discovery across a wide range of spheres: the steam engine,^[1] the flush toilet, the bicycle,^[2] macadamisation (not to be confused with Tarmac or Tarmacadam^[3]) the telephone,^[4] television,^[5] the motion picture,^[6] penicillin,^[7] electromagnetics, radar,^[8] and insulin,^[9] are only a few of the most significant products of Scottish ingenuity.

Things That Were Invented By Scots By Seamus Macleod

Bicycles- Thomas McCall in 1869 worked on a design and upgraded it to creat the penny farthing bike (historically known as an "ordinary bicycle",since there were then no other kind of bike made then). Even though Thomas McCall created the penny farthing he didn’t invent the bicycle but with his invention he helped quite significantly in the creation of the ordinary bicycle.

Adhesive postage stamps- James Chalmers is considered the creater of the postage stamp.

The bolt action application for rifles used widely through the first half of the 20th century- Was invented by James Paris Lee hence the name pf the rifle the Lee Enfield rifle.

Penicillin- Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Flemming noticed a halo of inhibition of bacterial growth around a contaminant blue-green mould on a Staphylococcus plate culture. He concluded that the mould was releasing a substance that was inhibiting bacterial growth. He grew a pure culture of the mould and discovered that it was Penicillium notatum other wise known as penicillin. With help from a chemist he isolated what he later named "penicillin". During the next twelve years, he grew and distributed the original mould, unsuccessfully trying to get help from any chemist that had enough skill to make a stable form of it for mass production.

Television- (T.V)- John Logie Baird invented the first television even though many other people also worked on the television after him he is considered the father of the modern television.

Telephone- Alexander Graham Bell who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone. Both his mother and wife were deaf, which weirdly influenced his life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876. In retrospect, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.

The following is a list of inventions or discoveries often held to be in some way Scottish.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Contents 1 Road transport innovations 2 Civil engineering innovations 2.1 Bridges 2.2 Canals and docks 2.3 Lighthouses 3 Power innovations 4 Shipbuilding innovations 5 Heavy industry innovations 6 Agricultural innovations 7 Communication innovations 7.1 Publishing firsts 8 Scientific innovations 9 Sports innovations 10 Medical innovations 11 Household innovations 12 Weapons innovations 13 Economics innovations 14 Miscellaneous innovations 15 See also 16 References 17 External links 17.1 Publications

[edit] Road transport innovations

• The first British working model of a steam car (steam engine): William Murdoch (1754–1839)^[10] (First steam car invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769)
• Macadamised roads (the basis for, but not specifically, Tarmac): John Loudon MacAdam (1756–1836)^[3] [1]
• The pedal bicycle: Attributed to both Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813–1878)^[2] and Thomas McCall (1834–1904)
• The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822–1873) [2]
• The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854–1929)

[edit] Civil engineering innovations

[edit] Bridges

• Bridge design: Sir William Arrol (1838–1913), Thomas Telford (1757–1834) & John Rennie (1761–1821)
• Suspension bridge improvements: Sir Samuel Brown (1776–1852)
• Tubular steel: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874)

[edit] Canals and docks

• Falkirk Wheel: ??? (Opened 2002)
• Canal design: Thomas Telford (1757–1834)
• Dock design: John Rennie (1761–1821)
• The patent slip for docking vessels: Thomas Morton (1781–1832)
• Crane design: James Bremner (1784–1856)

[edit] Lighthouses

• Lighthouse design: Robert Stevenson (1772–1850)
• The Drummond Light: Thomas Drummond (1797–1840)

[edit] Power innovations

• Condensing steam engine improvements: James Watt (1736–1819)^[1]
• Coal-gas lighting: William Murdoch (1754–1839)
• The Stirling heat engine: Rev. Robert Stirling (1790–1878)
• Electro-magnetic innovations: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79)
• Carbon brushes for dynamos: George Forbes (1849–1936)
• The Clark cycle gas engine: Sir Dugald Clark (1854–1932)
• Wireless transformer improvements: Sir James Swinburne (1858–1958)
• Cloud chamber recording of atoms: Charles T. R. Wilson (1869–1959)
• Wave-powered electricity generator:By South African Engineer Stephen Salter in 1977

[edit] Shipbuilding innovations

• The steamship paddle wheel: Patrick Miller (1731–1815)
• Improvements in The steam boat: William Symington (1763–1831)
• Europe's first passenger steamboat: Henry Bell (1767–1830)
• The first iron-hulled steamship: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874)
• The first practical screw propeller: Robert Wilson (1803–1882)
• Marine engine innovations: James Howden (1832–1913)

[edit] Heavy industry innovations

• The carronade cannon: Robert Melville (1723–1809)
• Making cast steel from wrought iron: David Mushet (1772–1847)
• Wrought iron sash bars for glass houses: John C. Loudon (1783–1865)
• The hot blast oven: James Beaumont Neilson (1792–1865)
• The steam hammer: James Nasmyth (1808–1890)
• Wire rope: Robert Stirling Newall (1812–1889)
• Steam engine improvements: William Mcnaught (1831–1881)
• The Fairlie, a narrow gauge, double-bogie railway engine: Robert Francis Fairlie (1831–1885)
• Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel

[edit] Agricultural innovations

• Threshing machine improvements: James Meikle (c.1690-c.1780) & Andrew Meikle (1719–1811)
• Hollow pipe drainage: Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord Drummore (1700–1753)
• The Scotch Plough: James Anderson of Hermiston (1739–1808)
• Deanstonisation soil-drainage system: James Smith (1789–1850)
• The mechanical reaping machine: Rev. Patrick Bell (1799–1869)
• The Fresno Scraper: James Porteous (1848–1922)
• The Tuley tree shelter: Graham Tuley in 1979

[edit] Communication innovations

• Print stereotyping: William Ged (1690–1749)
• The balloon post: John Anderson (1726–1796)
• Roller printing: Thomas Bell (patented 1783)
• The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782–1853)
• The mail-van service
• Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827–1915)
• Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831–1899)
• The telephone:(disputed) Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922)^[4]
• The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871–1957)
• The first working television: John Logie Baird (1888–1946)^[5]
• Radar: Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973)^[8]
• Fax Machine - Alexander Bain
• The underlying principles of Radio - James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)

[edit] Publishing firsts

• The first book translated from English into a foreign language
• The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–81)
• The first English textbook on surgery (1597) (although Englishman Thomas Gale (surgeon) (1507 - 1586) had already published "Certaine workes of chirurgie" in 1563)
• The first modern pharmacopaedia, the Materia Medica Catalogue (1776)
• The first textbook on Newtonian science
• The first colour newspaper advertisement
• The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK and the light houe was tomis telford

[edit] Scientific innovations

• Logarithms: John Napier (1550–1617)
• The theory of electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)
• Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550–1617)
• The Gregorian telescope: James Gregory (1638–1675)
• The concept of latent heat: Joseph Black (1728–1799)
• The pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope scientific instruments: Sir John Leslie (1766–1832)
• Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Brown (1773–1858)
• Hypnotism: James Braid (1795–1860)
• Colloid chemistry: Thomas Graham (1805–1869)
• The kelvin SI unit of temperature: William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907)
• Devising the diagramatic system of representing chemical bonds: Alexander Crum Brown (1838–1922)
• Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843–1930)
• The noble gases: Sir William Ramsay (1852–1916)
• The Cloud chamber: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959)
• Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880–1971)
• The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910–1987) (although English born\educated John J. Wild is described by British Medical Journal as the "father of diagnostic ultrasound"^[11])
• Ferrocene synthetic substances: Peter Ludwig Pauson in 1955
• The MRI body scanner: John Mallard in 1980
• The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): Was conducted in The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996 although by two Englishmen, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell.
• Seismometer innovations thereof - James David Forbes

[edit] Sports innovations

Scots have been instrumental in the invention and early development of several sports:

• several modern athletics events, i.e. shot put and the hammer throw, possibly derive from Highland Games events^{[citation needed]}

• Curling^{[citation needed]}
• Cycling, invention of the pedal-cycle^{[citation needed]}
• Golf (see Golf in Scotland)
• Shinty The history of Shinty pre-dates Scotland the Nation. It is thought to have originated in Ireland.^{[citation needed]}
• Rugby sevens

[edit] Medical innovations

• Pioneering the use of surgical anaesthesia with Chloroform: Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870)
• The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817–1884)
• Discovery of hypnotism (November 1841): James Braid (1795-180)
• Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932)
• Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855–1931)
• Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865–1926)
• Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876–1935) with others
• Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955)
• Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s
• Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe - Later Queen's physician in Scotland)
• Developing the first beta-blocker drugs: Sir James W. Black in 1964
• Glasgow Coma Scale: Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett (1974)
• EKG [Electrocardiography]: Alexander Muirhead (1911)

[edit] Household innovations

• The Refrigerator: William Cullen (1748)
• The Flush toilet: Alexander Cummings (1775)
• The Dewar Flask: Sir James Dewar (1847–1932)
• The first distiller to triple distill Irish whiskey^[12]:John Jameson (Whisky distiller)
• The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732–1812)
• The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766–1843)
• The kaleidoscope: Sir David Brewster (1781–1868)
• The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801–1845)
• The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807–1897)
• The self filling pen: Robert Thomson (1822–1873)
• Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley
• Lime Cordial: Peter Burnett in 1867
• Bovril beef extract: Jamie Nelson in 1874
• The life ring, or personal flotation device: Captain Ward in 1854
• Electric clock - Alexander Bain (1840)

[edit] Weapons innovations

• The Ferguson rifle: Patrick Ferguson in 1770 or 1776
• The Lee bolt system as used in the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series rifles: James Paris Lee
• The Ghillie suit

[edit] Economics innovations

Adam Smith; Smith was born in 1723, hailing from Kirkcaldy, a Scottish town north of Edinburgh; the 18th century Scot considered to be the father of modern economics; Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which argued that minimal government interference in commerce would promote human welfare and alleviate poverty, was published in 1776. He is the first Scotsman to appear on the central bank's currency in England, replacing Elgar's image in the next few years on as many as 1 billion notes.

[edit] Miscellaneous innovations

• The digestive biscuit, invented by McVitie's in Edinburgh in 1892 by Alexander Grant.
• Boys' Brigade
• Bank of England
• Bank of Scotland
• Bank of France
• Colour photography: the first known permanent colour photograph was taken by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)
• The comb - Aberdeen
• The keyring - Aberdeen
• Robinson Crusoe - influenced by the real-life Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway
• The US Navy

[edit] See also

• List of domesticated Scottish breeds
• Homecoming Scotland 2009
• English inventions and discoveries
• Welsh inventions and discoveries
• Irish inventions and discoveries
• Dutch inventions and discoveries
• German inventions and discoveries
• Swedish inventions

[edit] References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008)

1. ^ ^{a b} "BBC - History - James Watt". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/watt_james.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "BBC - History - Kirkpatrick Macmillan". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/macmillan_kirkpatrick.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "John Loudon MacAdam 1756–1836". http://www.visitscotland.com/library/johnmacadam. Retrieved 2006-12-10. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online: Alexander Graham Bell". http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=7894. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
5. ^ ^{a b} "BBC - History - John Logie Baird". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/baird_logie.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
6. ^ "Who's Who of Victorian Cinema". http://www.victorian-cinema.net/dickson.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
7. ^ "Nobelprize.org: Sir Alexander Fleming - Biography". http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1945/fleming-bio.html. 
8. ^ ^{a b} "Radar Personalities: Sir Robert Watson-Watt". http://www.radarpages.co.uk/people/watson-watt/watson-watt.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
9. ^ "Nobelprize.org: John Macleod - Biography". http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/macleod-bio.html. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
10. ^ Griffiths, John (1992). The Third Man, The Life and Times of William Murdoch 1754-1839. Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-98778-9. 
11. ^ BMJ 2009;339:b4428
12. ^ http://www.jamesonwhiskey.com/Home.aspx

• Scottish Inventions, visitscotland

"John Loudon MacAdam 1756–1836". http://www.visitscotland.com/library/johnmacadam. Retrieved 2006-12-10. 

"Kirkpatrick Macmillan". http://www.webscot.co.uk/greatscots/kirkpatrickmacmillan.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-10. 

"Robert William Thomson, Scotland's forgotten inventor". http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/RobertWilliamThomson.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-10. 

[edit] External links

• A few things the Scots have given the world ..., Scottish Enterprise
• Top Twenty Scottish Inventions, 15th International World Wide Web Conference, Edinburgh, 2006
• Scottish Inventors . . . who keep the world in touch, Global Friends of Scotland (a Scottish Executive website)
• Scottish Inventions and Innovation, Tartan TV
• Scottish Inventors and their Inventions, Kenmay Academy
• Patently Scottish, firstfoot.com (humorous)

[edit] Publications

• Great Scottish Discoveries and Inventions, Bill Fletcher, William W. Fletcher, John Harrold, Drew, 1985, University of California, ISBN 0862670845, 9780862670849
• Great Scottish inventions and discoveries: a concise guide : a selection of Scottish inventions and discoveries made over a period stretching back to the fifteenth century, John Geddes, Northern Books, 1994
• Scottish Inventors, Alistair Fyfe, HarperCollins, 1999, ISBN 0004723260, 9780004723266
• The Scottish invention of America, democracy and human rights: a history of liberty and freedom from the ancient Celts to the New Millennium, Alexander Leslie Klieforth, Robert John Munro, University Press of America, 2004, ISBN 0761827919, 9780761827917
• The Scottish invention of English literature, Robert Crawford, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0521590388, 9780521590389
• Philosophical chemistry in the Scottish enlightenment: the doctrines and discoveries of William Cullen and Joseph Black, Arthur L. Donovan

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