Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

It is certainly possible to access a lot of erroneous material via the internet, but I would also argue that it would be foolish to deliberately ignore all material accessible via the internet when researching a subject, because there is an absolute stack of good stuff out there too. Knowing how to use the internet intelligently is a key skill these days, just as much as how to use a 'hard' library. Not that I'm claiming to know well how to do either!

 

As an electrical bod, my pet internet hate is the widespread confusion of 'three-wire' (a largely defunct system of direct current distribution) with 'three-phase' (a system that can, by definition, only be applied with alternating current), by means of which Edison is widely credited with inventing three-phase distribution, which he didn't. As it happens, he lost a patent law case over his claimed invention of 'three-wire' too, but he certainly popularised it. I'm sure each trade and profession can cite similar examples.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RedGemAlchemist]

In all fairness for all his fame Edison actually invented very little. Most of his "inventions" were either adapted from others' work or was others' work he straight up stole.

[Hroth]

In all fairness for all his fame Edison actually invented very little. Most of his "inventions" were either adapted from others' work or was others' work he straight up stole.

 

Edison borrowed?  A "Lightbulb" moment....  

[drmditch]

In relation to Mr Edwardian's (Victorian?) Window:-

 

When using exploratory/innovative techniques, might I recommend the advantages of experiment and prototyping.

In my recently constructed four-span double-warren-truss girder bridge I used:

Computer laid out and printed templates (good old MS Word) fastened with spray contact adhesive to thin card from cereal packets.

Cutting out with sharp scalpel blades.

Building up webs and flanges with more carefully cut card (some useful card comes in some ladies hosiery packs.)

Varnishing with UV stable mat varnish.

Spray painting.

 

There are some old pictures on my layout thread on this forum, and when I can spend a bit longer out of bed and in the railway room I will post some more.

 

It took  three designs of basic truss before I was happy, even though two complete girders had been made to a rejected design.

For the rail-bearing through girder it took four prototypes, including a lot of cutting to produce a lattice, before I abandoned them and used a steel plate girder, again built up on a printed substrate.

 

My point is, having found the strengths and weaknesses of a particular technique, do not be afraid to be selective and discard work which can be done better.

At least, I do have some useful girders which may get used elsewhere, and the material cost of experimentation is very low!

 

(Sorry, writing this on my bed-side tablet computer, and can't work out how to insert pictures and links. Will update when mobility and technology allow!)

[Nearholmer]

One very important thing that Edison may have invented is the process of ‘industrialised innovation’, putting a herd of specialists together in one place, giving them facilities, setting them objectives, then exploiting the outcomes of their work. Maybe some military ‘laboratories’ and the development departments of big firms like Siemens were close to having the same arrangement, but he probably perfected it.

 

I’d need to read-up a bit more to be sure.

[Regularity]

Edison borrowed? A "Lightbulb" moment....

Now accepted to have been invented by Swan, in England...

 

...so he even borrowed the lightbulb!

Edited December 12, 2018 by Regularity

[Edwardian]

Now accepted to have been invented by Swan, in England...

 

...so he even borrowed the lightbulb!

 

Speaking of false attribution ...

 

The night WE invented champagne ...!

[Regularity]

There is probably a website somewhere which lists English inventions falsely attributed to other nations.

 

But then again, look at our record, including the ratio of Nobel prizes to population, and I suppose we can afford to be generous.

Not that it will improve our popularity in the rest of the world...

[RedGemAlchemist]

Nikola Tesla. Now THERE was a real genius.

[TheQ]

and he's even had his name stolen to put on cars...

[RedGemAlchemist]

and he's even had his name stolen to put on cars...

Because the man was a pioneer of the practical usage of electricity as a general commodity. His ideas were decades ahead of his time. I'm fact if it wasn't for a concept he came up with the Internet wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

[Hroth]

Now accepted to have been invented by Swan, in England...

 

...so he even borrowed the lightbulb!

I was going to add that folk in Newcastle would laugh at the idea that Edison "invented", patented or even installed a domestic electric light system first, but I thought by now that it was common knowledge that Swan got there first!

 

An excellent chap, he also invented bromide photographic printing paper. 

 

Of course, this has little to do with Castle Aching.  Did they have gas lighting in 190x?  Or was it still candles and oil lamps?

Edited December 12, 2018 by Hroth

[RedGemAlchemist]

Did they have gas lighting in 190x? Or was it still candles and oil lamps?

Yes. Gas street lighting is an invention of the mid 1800s.

Edited December 12, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Hroth]

Yes. Gas street lighting is an invention of the mid 1800s.

Yes, but did CA have a gas works?

[Regularity]

Yes, but did CA have a gas works?

A town that size would have had a gas works, most likely. But it might not have been next to the station. It might also have come by sea from the Durham coalfields, for example.

[TheQ]

Yes, but did CA have a gas works?

Joseph Swan Swan was installing electric light from  1881.

 

We've been round the gas main before, Just up the road from Castle Aching is a perfect example of domestic gas production at the Fakenham gas museum..http://fakenhamgasmuseum.com/

Edited December 12, 2018 by TheQ

[Edwardian]

I was going to add that folk in Newcastle would laugh at the idea that Edison "invented", patented or even installed a domestic electric light system first, but I thought by now that it was common knowledge that Swan got there first!

 

An excellent chap, he also invented bromide photographic printing paper. 

 

Of course, this has little to do with Castle Aching.  Did they have gas lighting in 190x?  Or was it still candles and oil lamps?

 

 

Yes, but did CA have a gas works?

 

You touch on a problematic point.

 

I had decided that, whereas Achingham would have Town Gas (and a gasworks near the railway, in true Buckingham GC style, after all Achingham is rather like Fakenham, where the gasworks survives as a musuem), Castle Aching, after all just a big village, would not.

 

Sparse platform lighting at the station is by oil lamp, and there is no street lighting. 

 

So far, so good, but a large and modern (well, 1860s) military installation (!) might arguably be poorly served if the only means of interior lighting were oil lamps.  Yet, how were Drill Halls originally lit? The volunteer rifle movement dates from 1859, which saw many Drill Halls built in the 1860s and 1870s.  I have assumed c.1864 for Castle Aching's, following the passing of the Volunteer Act of 1863, which permitted volunteer units to acquire premises, and about five years after the advent of the railway. The branch to Achingham would certainly have been authorised by then, but probaly not open. 

 

Most Drill Halls were in towns, but not all, and I am not sure all of them could have benefited from gas lighting from the outset. How would similar buildings, featuring both offices and a large 'congregational' hall have been lit?  Churches, church halls, village halls, chapels, 'Tin Tabernacles',  and Masonic, Oddfellows and, Heaven forfend, Temperance Halls ...etc? 

 

Small Drill Halls might be found in smaller places, though clearly urban and suburban locations made more sense.  A small example of which I am fond is Castlebergh Hall, Settle.  In may ways CA's Drill Hall is just such a Hall, but with the mad Victorian exuberance of Norwich's vastly larger Chapel Field Road edifice grafted on. In the case of Castle Aching, we assume the sponsorship of the then Lord Erstwhile, who would head the public subscription for the building of the Hall, but, crucially, would donate the land.  The site incorporates a gate tower and section of wall from the old castle.  We assume that the castle was acquired by the Erstwhiles, though their seat was built in the centre of the adjacent Park, Aching Hall.

 

The fact that Castle Aching was on the railway added to the viability of the site. Recruits could come from the Achings district, and one source of them would be the railway workers at Aching Constable, home of the WNR's works. 

 

The association with the Erstwhiles, the ample provision of offices and stores relative to the hall itself, and the architectural pretensions of the site argue, to my mind, that the Castle Aching Drill Hall was intended to be the home of the Head Quarters of the West Norfolk Rifle Volunteers. By 1905 this would translate to HQ Company, Third (Volunteer) Battalion, The West Norfolk Regiment.

 

Lots of interesting comings and goings. 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

The incandescent lamp was much more a case of simultaneous development in two places, with Swan able to demonstrate that he’d ‘got there’ ever so slightly sooner.

 

The further one delves into the recent (past few hundred years) history of technology, the more it becomes apparent that the incremental nature of development, everyone standing on one another’s shoulders, the more it becomes apparent that many ‘inventions’ arose near-simultaneously in more than one place, and/or were the practical realisation of things that had been described as a theoretical target some time before, giving technologists something to aim at.

 

Programmable electronic computers are a really interesting case, because of the very short duration between the developed theoretical description and the physical realisation.

[Regularity]

The incandescent lamp was much more a case of simultaneous development in two places, with Swan able to demonstrate that he’d ‘got there’ ever so slightly sooner.

The further one delves into the recent (past few hundred years) history of technology, the more it becomes apparent that the incremental nature of development, everyone standing on one another’s shoulders, the more it becomes apparent that many ‘inventions’ arose near-simultaneously in more than one place, and/or were the practical realisation of things that had been described as a theoretical target some time before, giving technologists something to aim at.

Programmable electronic computers are a really interesting case, because of the very short duration between the developed theoretical description and the physical realisation.

This all supports a Marxist view of history* being driven by historical forces rather than by individual people.

 

Maybe that’s true, but more likely it reflects the fact that scientific and technological knowledge is freely shared, so the various components come together and there is always some thinker around to put the disparate ideas into a coherent synthesis.

 

Bu99er. That still supports a Marxist view of how history “works”!

 

*Not his political conclusions.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Regularity

[Edwardian]

Re Gaslight ..... 

 

I had decided that, whereas Achingham would have Town Gas (and a gasworks near the railway, in true Buckingham GC style, after all Achingham is rather like Fakenham, where the gasworks survives as a musuem), Castle Aching, after all just a big village, would not.

 

Sparse platform lighting at the station is by oil lamp, and there is no street lighting. 

 

So far, so good, but a large and modern (well, 1860s) military installation (!) might arguably be poorly served if the only means of interior lighting were oil lamps.  Yet, how were Drill Halls originally lit? The volunteer rifle movement dates from 1859, which saw many Drill Halls built in the 1860s and 1870s.  I have assumed c.1864 for Castle Aching's, following the passing of the Volunteer Act of 1863, which permitted volunteer units to acquire premises, and about five years after the advent of the railway. The branch to Achingham would certainly have been authorised by then, but probaly not open. 

 

Most Drill Halls were in towns, but not all, and I am not sure all of them could have benefited from gas lighting from the outset. How would similar buildings, featuring both offices and a large 'congregational' hall have been lit?  Churches, church halls, village halls, chapels, 'Tin Tabernacles',  and Masonic, Oddfellows and, Heaven forfend, Temperance Halls ...etc? 

 

Small Drill Halls might be found in smaller places, though clearly urban and suburban locations made more sense.  A small example of which I am fond is Castlebergh Hall, Settle.  In may ways CA's Drill Hall is just such a Hall, but with the mad Victorian exuberance of Norwich's vastly larger Chapel Field Road edifice grafted on. In the case of Castle Aching, we assume the sponsorship of the then Lord Erstwhile, who would head the public subscription for the building of the Hall, but, crucially, would donate the land.  The site incorporates a gate tower and section of wall from the old castle.  We assume that the castle was acquired by the Erstwhiles, though their seat was built in the centre of the adjacent Park, Aching Hall.

 

The fact that Castle Aching was on the railway added to the viability of the site. Recruits could come from the Achings district, and one source of them would be the railway workers at Aching Constable, home of the WNR's works. 

 

The association with the Erstwhiles, the ample provision of offices and stores relative to the hall itself, and the architectural pretensions of the site argue, to my mind, that the Castle Aching Drill Hall was intended to be the home of the Head Quarters of the West Norfolk Rifle Volunteers. By 1905 this would translate to HQ Company, Third (Volunteer) Battalion, The West Norfolk Regiment.

 

Lots of interesting comings and goings. 

 

Well, I was going to edit the above post with a modest update, but, as ever, things had moved on!

 

The hindquarters, as it were, begin to take shape ...  

[Nearholmer]

Regularity

 

I didn’t seek to explain why what I said is true, I merely asserted it as a truth (everyone is free to contradict!).

 

But, sharing of knowledge/information must have played a huge part - nobody can stand on the shoulders of a person, if they are completely oblivious to the existence of said shoulders.

 

As to whether it is a Marxian view or not I don’t know. Isn’t it the case that modern theories of history look at influential individuals in the light of broader context, personal development etc, so as to better understand the true nature of their contribution, rather than attributing more to them than it is objective to do?

 

Kevin

[corneliuslundie]

Briefly on lamps - not light bulbs please, they are the glass bits enclosing the filaments - I seem to remember from my working days that the Hungarians also have a good claim to their almost simultaneous invention, though I can't remember the name.

And on volunteer regiments etc, I have just been rereading the history of the Hereford, Hay & Brecon line, and it is interesting how often volunteer rifle corps are mentioned during the latter part of the nineteenth century, usually travelling on the line to give a band performance somewhere.

But referring back a few days earlier to how the post would arrive in CA, may I offer you this:

i think it is GWR and dates from the last decade of the nineteenth century. Whatever the source, it cries out to be modelled. I imagine though that the design is pretty generic.

Two interesting things: the "gauge" is 4 ft 2 in,; and the "horizontal" lines on which the wheels sit are a few inches apart. I am not sure what that signifies, other than that it would not have sat level.

The drawing came to me with about 1000 others from the late Jack Slinn. I am in the process of listing them and deciding on the best home for them long term.

Jonathan

PS the images are not appearing as I posted them. I certainly didn't post the side view twice and they were all together before the description.

Edited December 12, 2018 by corneliuslundie

[Nearholmer]

I think that the Hungarian contribution to incandescent lamps was the use of tungsten for the filament.

 

Pre-WW1, Hungarian industry and academia made huge contributions to the development of electrical engineering, possibly of most interest here being the Ganz company, and Kalman Kando's in particular, contributions to the development of electric traction. Westinghouse and Ganz had a working partnership, and Ganz as a company possibly contributed as much to the 'practicalisation' of AC distribution and utilisation as did Tesla individually.

 

And, the Italian contribution shouldn't be forgotten either ....... Galileo Ferraris probably beat Tesla to it with polyphase systems.

 

Should we move this discussion out of CA? Some of this is undoubtedly Edwardian, in a temporal sense, but hardly something of rural Norfolk!

[Hroth]

Wheeeeee!!!!!!

 

Its the sort of vehicle that you would have driven then if you drive a BMW M series nowadays!

 

I doubt if the post would arrive in anything like that, there's no storage room, and the driver and his companion occupied the front seats with the hood to keep off the rain, whilst the groom clung onto the rails around the back seat, keeping the back end down on bumpy stretches, getting wet and muddy.  The semi-circular cut-out abaft the driving seat is to allow the front wheels to turn at right-angles for tight turns.

[Edwardian]

Briefly on lamps - not light bulbs please, they are the glass bits enclosing the filaments - I seem to remember from my working days that the Hungarians also have a good claim to their almost simultaneous invention, though I can't remember the name.

And on volunteer regiments etc, I have just been rereading the history of the Hereford, Hay & Brecon line, and it is interesting how often volunteer rifle corps are mentioned during the latter part of the nineteenth century, usually travelling on the line to give a band performance somewhere.

But referring back a few days earlier to how the post would arrive in CA, may I offer you this:

Mail phaeton_1.jpg

Mail phaeton_1.jpg

Mail phaeton_3.jpg

i think it is GWR and dates from the last decade of the nineteenth century. Whatever the source, it cries out to be modelled. I imagine though that the design is pretty generic.

Two interesting things: the "gauge" is 4 ft 2 in,; and the "horizontal" lines on which the wheels sit are a few inches apart. I am not sure what that signifies, other than that it would not have sat level.

The drawing came to me with about 1000 others from the late Jack Slinn. I am in the process of listing them and deciding on the best home for them long term.

Jonathan

PS the images are not appearing as I posted them. I certainly didn't post the side view twice and they were all together before the description.

 

A Mail Phaeton?  Sexy.

 

Like this one (still in the Castle Aching paint shop)....?