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Jethro Tull
Tull was the inventor of the seed drill in 1701. He created it as a way to plant seeds more efficiently rather than doing it by hand and scattering the seeds. The finished seed drill was the first agricultural machine with moving parts. It had started as a one-man, one-row device, but later designs sowed seeds in three rows, had wheels and were horse-drawn. -
Abraham Darby
Darby developed a method of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal. In 1709 he produced marketable iron in a coke-fired furnace. He presently demonstrated the superiority of coke in cost and efficiency by building much larger furnaces than were possible with charcoal as a fuel, the latter being too weak to support a heavy charge of iron. -
Thomas Newcomen
Thomas Newcomen had invented the atmospheric steam engine, a precursor of James Watt's engine. He experimented with a steam pump for 10 years. The engine's intensity of pressure was not limited by the pressure of the steam. The atmospheric steam engine pushed the piston down after the condensation of steam had created a vacuum in the cylinder. -
John Roebuck
John Roebuck developed an industrial-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid in 1746. The substitution of leaden chambers for glass globes, which had been employed for years, revolutionized the production process and drastically reduced costs. In 1760 Roebuck became engaged in the manufacture of iron. -
James Watt
Watt was the engineer whose improvements in the steam engine technology drove the industrial revolution. He made many improvements to other inventors inventions while creating his own as well. -
Jeremy Bentham
Bentham was a philosopher and an economist, not an engineer like the rest, but he did invent a government. Utilitarianism the ethical theory holding that actions are morally right if they tend to promote happiness or pleasure. -
Edmund Cartwright
Cartwright had invented the wool-combing machine in 1790. He made a machine that would weave automatically to make more efficient and faster products. Edmund made it very simplistic. -
Nicolas LeBlanc
Nicolas LeBlanc was the developer of the processes of soda ash from common salt by 1790. In the Leblanc process, salt was treated with sulfuric acid to obtain salt cake. This was then roasted with limestone or chalk and coal to produce black ash. The sodium carbonate was dissolved in water and then crystallized. -
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney created the cotton gin in 1793. He figured out a way to separate the seeds from the cotton. He made a machine that made it easier and faster to use cotton. -
George Stephenson
The creator of the railroad locomotive was George Stephenson. George heard of a project for a railroad, employing draft horses, to be built from Stockton to Darlington to facilitate exploitation of a rich vein of coal. -
Elias Howe
Elias Howe invented the lockstitch sewing machine in 1846. He worked on the sewing machine for five years until he was granted a patent in 1846. It wasn't a big hit in America but in England, he sold his patent for £250. -
John Wesly
John was the first person that discovered the process of making the first, cheap, synthetic, plastic material called celluloid in 1870. It was a substitute for hard rubber in denture plates.