Notes and News

Abstract

The history of industrial activity in an area not normally thought of as an engineering stronghold shows how some highly significant engineering developed; up to the 1950s more people were employed in engineering in the Bristol area than in any other single trade. Bath, as a centre of tourism and of 'polite' society, is archetypal of British attitudes to industry yet the development here of Stothert &; Pitt crane and pump making and the forgotten lessons of the Day two-stroke engine of 1891 show the vital importance of manufacturing industry to the creation of wealth in Bath as elsewhere. Yet we continue scandalously to ignore the proper study of our industrial past in favour of more attractive but much less significant aspects of our history, and thus fail to learn the many lessons that history could reveal. This paper is a revised version of an invited lecture given to the Association for Industrial Archaeology, at its ninth annual conference at Bath in September 1987.