Model engineering was popularized by pioneering steam enthusiasts, and rapidly grew into an exciting worldwide hobby for amateur engineers. This book describes how model steam engines work, outlines the development of the machine tools used to build the models, and investigates the seven different categories of model engines, which include models built to support patent applications, and those built purely for pleasure.
The author, himself a model steam locomotive driver, also delves into the possible pitfalls and practicalities of scale model engineering. Generously illustrated, this...
Model engineering was popularized by pioneering steam enthusiasts, and rapidly grew into an exciting worldwide hobby for amateur engineers. This bo...
The local post office has a special place in the social history of Britain. This book provides an historical overview of the development of this public institution - from 'letter receiving house' to familiar high-street presence. It outlines the range of services post offices have provided over time - from stamps, pensions and postal orders, to airmail, savings certificates, dog and TV licences. Highlighting the 'heyday of the GPO' during the 1930s, 40s and 50s, the author recalls childhood memories of post office counters selling stamps and sweets, the weekly pension lines, and the friendly...
The local post office has a special place in the social history of Britain. This book provides an historical overview of the development of this publi...
From the 1930s to the 1960s, millions of British people chose to spend their annual summer break at a holiday camp, taking advantage of the all-included package that provided accommodation, food, and plentiful entertainment. The market leader was Billy Butlin whose camps operated on a vast scale, and offered a brightly colored leisure land in contrast to the drabness of post-war rationing. The holiday camp story, however, goes back to the 1890s, and it continues into the present day with signs of a revival in camp fortunes.
Kathryn Ferry celebrates the communal and the kitsch,...
From the 1930s to the 1960s, millions of British people chose to spend their annual summer break at a holiday camp, taking advantage of the all-inc...
The way we shop has undergone many transformations over the years, and a pioneer of one such change was the department store. Selling everything from clothes to cosmetics, furniture to food, the department store is a one-stop shop for consumers. Claire Masset charts the history of the department store, the innovations in retailing, advertising and technology, and the developments in fashion, design and working practices.
Using evocative adverts, prints, memorabilia and photographs, the highs and lows of these retail giants are discussed, including the golden age of department stores...
The way we shop has undergone many transformations over the years, and a pioneer of one such change was the department store. Selling everything fr...
In 1851 an event was organized in London that changed the world: The Great Exhibition. It was a spectacular showcase of technology, manufacture and design from all over the world. In just a few months over six million people attended the exhibition in Joseph Paxton's famous Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. This was a landmark moment that characterized Victoria's reign, and became the model for the other famous exhibitions in Chicago and Paris. Chronicling the first exciting spectacles, through to the much-maligned Millennium Dome, the details and stories behind the great exhibitions are brought...
In 1851 an event was organized in London that changed the world: The Great Exhibition. It was a spectacular showcase of technology, manufacture and de...
Tracing the footsteps of British milkman over the past one hundred years, this book takes a nostalgic look at a great British tradition. Investigating the many changes that have taken place over the years, from the delivery of milk via a seventeen gallon churn to the gentle electric milk float, The British Milkman discusses how many obstacles, including two World Wars, were overcome, revealing many forgotten facts and including several never-before-published photographs of the milkman at work.
Tracing the footsteps of British milkman over the past one hundred years, this book takes a nostalgic look at a great British tradition. Investigating...
The iconic shape of George and Robert Stephenson's Rocket, as unveiled to the world in 1829, is arguably the most enduring silhouette in railway history. But why was Rocket that special, curious, shape? And why does the surviving locomotive, a star exhibit at London's Science Museum, look so unlike the striking yellow image associated with the Rocket today?
Rocket was built to take part in The Rainhill Trials, the competition to find a locomotive design to pull trains on the world's first passenger line, the Liverpool and Manchester. The trials caught the public's imagination and its...
The iconic shape of George and Robert Stephenson's Rocket, as unveiled to the world in 1829, is arguably the most enduring silhouette in railway hi...
The Edwardian period is often seen as something of a gilded age; war would imminently remove hundreds of thousands of men from the labor force, and instigate progress to mechanize. Illustrated with a wealth of archive material, this book tells the story of farming in Britain in the early years of the twentieth century - an age of horse, steam and intensive labor. Looking at the structure of farming and its output, alongside the lives of the people who worked the land, this is a fascinating picture of British agriculture at a turning point in history.
The Edwardian period is often seen as something of a gilded age; war would imminently remove hundreds of thousands of men from the labor force, and in...
From its demonstration to Queen Victoria in 1878, through the bake light models of the 1920s and '30s to the chic plastic designs of the 1970s and '80s, Andrew Emmerson traces the evolution of the humble telephone over more than an a century. Magneto, skeleton and candlestick telephones accompany the National Telephone Company, telephone kiosks and railway platform telephones in this fascinating history of Alexander Graham Bell's most famous invention.
From its demonstration to Queen Victoria in 1878, through the bake light models of the 1920s and '30s to the chic plastic designs of the 1970s and '80...
The safety bicycle, with front-wheel steering and pedal-driven rear wheel, has existed in some form since the experiments of Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839, but his ideas were almost forgotten when the front-wheel driven boneshakers and penny farthings reigned supreme. Then, in the 1870s, experimental safeties appeared, culminating in Henry Lawson's Bicyclette of 1879. Within ten years the modern bicycle had developed, to remain basically unchanged for over seventy years. Ian Jones looks into the intriguing history of this niche subject, accompanied by numerous images and photos.
The safety bicycle, with front-wheel steering and pedal-driven rear wheel, has existed in some form since the experiments of Kirkpatrick Macmillan in ...
