Scottish inventions and discoveries

 

Scottish inventions and discoveries are objects, processes or techniques which owe their existence either partially or entirely to a person born in 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. There are many books devoted solely to the subject, as well as scores of websites listing Scottish inventions and discoveries with varying degrees of exhaustiveness and accuracy.

Even before the Industrial Revolution, Scots have been at the forefront of innovation and discovery across a wide range of spheres: the steam engine, the bicycle, tarmacadam roads, the telephone, television, the transistor, the motion picture, penicillin, electromagnetics, radar, insulin and calculus are only a few of the most significant products of Scottish ingenuity.

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

Road Transport Innovations

• A gas powered things (gas mask) : James Gregory (1638–1675) ^{[citation needed]}
• A steam car (steam engine): William Murdoch (1754–1839) ^[1]
• Macadam roads: John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) [1]
• Driving on the left: Determined by a Scottish-inspired Act of Parliament in 1772^{[citation needed]}
• The pedal bicycle: Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813–1878) [2]
• The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822–1873) [3]
• The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854–1929)^{[citation needed]}
• The speedometer: Sir Keith Elphinstone (1864–1944)^{[citation needed]}
• The motor lorry: John Yule in 1870^{[citation needed]}
• The steam tricycle: Andrew Lawson in 1895^{[citation needed]}

Civil Engineering Innovations

Bridges

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

Canals & Docks

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

Lighthouses

• Lighthouse design: Robert Stevenson (1772–1850)^{[citation needed]}
• The Drummond Light: Thomas Drummond (1797–1840)^{[citation needed]}

Power Innovations

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

Shipbuilding Innovations

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

Heavy Industry Innovations

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

Agricultural Innovations

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

Communication Innovations

• Print stereotyping: William Ged (1690–1749)^{[citation needed]}
• The balloon post: John Anderson (1726–1796)^{[citation needed]}
• The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782–1853)^{[citation needed]}
• The post office^{[citation needed]}
• The mail-van service^{[citation needed]}
• Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827–1915)^{[citation needed]}
• Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831–1899)^{[citation needed]}
• The telephone: Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922)^{[citation needed]}
• The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871–1957)^{[citation needed]}
• The television: John Logie Baird (1888–1946)^[2]
• Radar: Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973)^{[citation needed]}
• Personal Identification Number (PIN) technology: James Goodfellow (born 1937)
• Automated Teller Machine (ATM) technology: James Goodfellow and John Shepherd-Barron (born 1925)

Some Scottish publishing firsts:

• The first book translated from English into a foreign language^{[citation needed]}
• The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–81)^{[citation needed]}
• The first English textbook on surgery (1597)^{[citation needed]}
• The first modern pharmacopaedia, the Materia Medica Catalogue (1776)^{[citation needed]}
• The first textbook on Newtonian science^{[citation needed]}
• The first colour newspaper advertisement^{[citation needed]}
• The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK^{[citation needed]}
• The Decimal point

Scientific innovations

• Logarithms: John Napier (1550–1617)^{[citation needed]}
• Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550–1617)^{[citation needed]}
• The Gregorian telescope: James Gregory (1638–1675)^{[citation needed]}
• The concept of latent heat: Joseph Black (1728–1799)^{[citation needed]}
• The pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope scientific instruments: Sir John Leslie (1766–1832)^{[citation needed]}
• Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Browen (1773–1858)^{[citation needed]}
• Hypnosis: James Braid (1795–1860)^{[citation needed]}
• Colloid chemistry: Thomas Graham (1805–1869)^{[citation needed]}
• The kelvin SI unit of temperature: William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907)^{[citation needed]}
• Devising the diagramatic system of representing chemical bonds: Alexander Crum Brown (1838–1922)^{[citation needed]}
• Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843–1930)^{[citation needed]}
• The noble gases: Sir William Ramsay (1852–1916)^{[citation needed]}
• Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880–1971)^{[citation needed]}
• The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910–1987)^{[citation needed]}
• Ferrocene synthetic substances: Peter Ludwig Pauson in 1955^{[citation needed]}
• The MRI body scanner: John Mallard in 1980^{[citation needed]}
• The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996{{citation

needed}}

Medical Innovations

• Devising the cure for scurvy: James Lind (1716–1794)^{[citation needed]}
• Discovering quinine as the cure for malaria: George Cleghorn (1716–1794)^{[citation needed]}
• Pioneering the use of surgical anaesthesia: Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870)^{[citation needed]}
• The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817–1884)^{[citation needed]}
• Pioneering the use of antiseptics: Joseph Lister (1827–1912)^{[citation needed]}
• Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932)^{[citation needed]}
• Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855–1931)^{[citation needed]}
• Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865–1926)^{[citation needed]}
• Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876–1935) with others^{[citation needed]}
• Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955)^{[citation needed]}
• Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s^{[citation needed]}
• 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^{[citation needed]}
• Glasgow Coma Scale: Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett (1974)^{[citation needed]}

Household Innovations

• The Dewar Flask: Sir James Dewar (1847–1932)^{[citation needed]}
• The piano with footpedals: John Broadwood (1732–1812)^{[citation needed]}
• The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766–1843)^{[citation needed]}
• The kaleidoscope: Sir David Brewster (1781–1868)^{[citation needed]}
• The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801–1845)^{[citation needed]}
• The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807–1897)^{[citation needed]}
• Paraffin: James Young (1811–1883)^{[citation needed]}
• The fountain pen: Robert Thomson (1822–1873)^{[citation needed]}
• Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley^{[citation needed]}
• Lime Cordial: Lachlan Rose in 1867^{[citation needed]}

Weapons Innovations

• The Ferguson rifle: Patrick Ferguson in 1770 or 1776^{[citation needed]}
• The Lee bolt system as used in the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series rifles: James Paris Lee^{[citation needed]}
• The MacKellar Heat Seeking Bullet: Kieran MacKellar in 2006^{[citation needed]}

See also

• English inventions

References

1. ^ Griffiths, John (1992). The Third Man, The Life and Times of William Murdoch 1754-1839. Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-98778-9. 
2. ^ Electro-mechanical system

Anon. John Loudon MacAdam 1756–1836. Retrieved on 10th December 2006.

Anon. Kirkpatrick Macmillan. Retrieved on 10th December 2006.

Anon. Robert William Thomson, Scotland's forgotten inventor. Retrieved on 10th December 2006.

Topics on Scotland
History	Timeline · Prehistoric Scotland · Kingdom of Scotland · Scotland in the High Middle Ages · Davidian Revolution · Wars of Scottish Independence · Scotland in the Late Middle Ages · Scottish Reformation · Scottish colonisation of the Americas · Acts of Union 1707 · Scottish Enlightenment · Jacobitism · Highland Clearances · Lowland Clearances
Geography	Geology · Climate · Demographics · Mountains and hills · Islands · Lochs · Fauna · Highlands
Economy	Companies · Bank of Scotland · Royal Bank of Scotland · North Sea oil · Whisky · Tourism · Harris Tweed · Renewable energy · Transport
Law	Courts · Lord President · Crown Office · Lord Advocate · Solicitor General · Procurator Fiscal
People	List of Scots · Actors · Inventors · Musicians · Scientists · Writers
Politics	Political parties · Elections · Scottish Parliament · Scottish Government · First Minister of Scotland · Secretary of State for Scotland · Scotland Office · Local government · Monarchs of Scotland · Military · Scottish independence
Religion	Church of Scotland · General Assembly · Roman Catholicism · Judaism · Scottish Episcopal Church · Islam · Hinduism
Language	Scottish Gaelic language · Scots language · Scottish English · Highland English
Culture	Clans · Cuisine · Education · Flags · Coat of arms · Anthem · Hogmanay · Innovations · Literature · Music · Sport · World Heritage sites · Nationalism
See also

Donate to Wikimedia