Science and Politics: The Blackett Memorial Lecture

Abstract

Tribute is paid to Lord Blackett - who, like the Author, was President of the Royal Society - as a scientist, as a research leader during World War II and in his capacity as an adviser on science in India. Next, the distinctions amI analogies between science and politics are discussed; pure, applied and strategic research are defined; and the ambivalence between scientists and politicians is pointed out. Science for the Third World is touched on, and the difficulty of offering scientific advice to government is illustrated with the examples of nuclear war and acid rain; to render such advice valuable and relevant, financial independence is essential.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2017: Conserving the Waterways Heritage

ABSTRACT

This article describes the work of the Canal & River Trust in managing and conserving the heritage assets and the wider historic environment of the Trust's waterways in England and Wales. Various types of heritage assets are described, and the ways in which these assets are managed, including via archaeological recording, along with conservation-led repairs to historic engineering structures and other historic waterway-related buildings, are considered. New directions that offer effective and efficient ways of dealing with heritage assets are examined.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2018: Science and Engineering at War in Orkney

Initially conceived as a contribution to a conference which was to have been based in Caithness and was to have included a visit to Orkney, this paper examines the scientific and technological background to some of the wartime remains associated with the defence of Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy’s principal fleet anchorage in home waters in World Wars I and II. Summarising the surviving evidence of selected aspects of vessel-related, marine and aerial science and engineering around Scapa Flow, it is prefaced by a short account of Tom Rolt’s own wartime career, and concludes with a comparative appreciation of his place in the pantheon of literary engineers.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture, 1978 Sir Humphry Davy: His Life and Work

Abstract

Sir Humphry Davy, a largely self-taught genius of humble birth, made major contributions to the development of chemistry, physics, geology and natural history in the early nineteenth century. Much of his research was directly beneficial to various industries principally agriculture, mining and metallurgy, electro-chemicals and leather processing. He is best remembered for his miners' safety lamp and the story of its development forms the core of this paper.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2004: Landscape with Writers: Engineering and the Industrial Landscape in English Literature

Abstract

The National Trust is creating an Energy Centre based on the work of Williiam George Armstrong at Cragside in Northumberland. A focal point of the Centre is the Burnfoot Powerhouse, the first phase of which was built in 1886 to house an early hydroelectric plant for incandescent lighting. The Powerhouse expanded over the years to meet the growing electrical needs of Cragside and various generating units were installed. These have now been restored by the British Engineerium to illustrate the story of electricity supply on the site. This paper describes the development of Burnfoot between 1886 and 1945 and points out the importance of Cragside in the history of hydroelectricity and incandescent lighting.     

The Geoff Egan Memorial Lecture 2011 Artefacts,art and artifice: reconsidering iconographic sources for archaeological objects in early modern Europe

Abstract

This paper reviews a key dynamic in post-medieval archaeology, that is, the relationship between artefacts and images, and in particular the questions raised in the study of historic domestic material culture depicted in contemporaneous painting and prints. Both media underwent a major transformation from c. 1400. Two main groups of pictorial art containing domestic material culture are reviewed, namely pre- and post-Reformation art in the Netherlands and Germany and genre paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. The historical iconographic record may shed a potentially rich qualitative light onto the quantitative archaeological patterning. Excavations at Duisburg in the Lower Rhineland are selected as a rich source of archaeological correspondence.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture, 1983 Our Debt to Roman Engineering: The Water Supply of Lincoln to the Present Day

Abstract

Lincoln was one of the four colonia of Roman Britain and therefore intended to serve as an example of cultured urban life to the surrounding region. A good water supply was essential in Roman towns but Lincoln, stand above the 200ft contour, could not receive a normal gravity fed system. This paper examines the archaeological evidence for the water supply to Roman Lincoln and looks at how the problem was solved in later generations. Dr Lewis argues that a comparison of the solutions to engineering problems of even the distant past and the present is an important aspect of industrial archaeology.