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‘It consists of a windmill, but one totally different in appearance and principle from all windmills known hitherto.’ This is a Ventimotor, designed by an Artillery Officer. It is a very early version of an electricity-producing wind turbine. Designed by Major Kurt Bilau, it makes use of principles from aeroplane design to produce greater centrifugal…
Feeding an army in the depths of a Russian winter requires some handy ideas. Handmills like this one were carried by thousands of Swedish soldiers during the Great Northern Wars of the 18th Century. They were used by the Caroleans, the highly professional soldiers of the Swedish Empire. Grain both lasts longer than flour, and…
These tools of war enabled centuries of explosive bloodshed. This Gem is an adjustable copper measure for gunpowder and shot. Without these, it would once have been impossible for riflemen and sportsmen to reliably measure the correct amount of powder for their weapon and launch projectiles. To work it, one would twist the bottom of…
“Those over there are not giants but windmills.” You’ve probably heard the common phrase ’tilting at windmills’, which, as the well-read amongst you might know, originates in the misadventures of Don Quixote – the influential novel written by the Spanish writer Cervantes in the early 17th century. As an idiom it refers to wasting time, fighting imaginary…
This flour was Hitler’s secret weapon. This Gem is a photograph of two flour bags, which were produced under Government regulations during the Second World War. At the start of the war Britain was importing around 70% of its grain, but with the demands of war and the risk posed by U-Boats to imported supplies,…
“You worked blindly and towards an unknown end; but your end was certain.” This beautiful watercolour is from a collection by Frank Brangwyn and Hayter Preston. The collection consists of a number of watercolours of different windmills, each with poetic anecdotes, which make up a beautiful and moving series exploring the state of milling and…
‘By a piece of singular good fortune, no one was killed.’ This book called A Train Errant shines a light on a little-known aspect of the First World War. The book contains a bound collection of newsletters called The Orderly Review, which were published on board Great War Ambulance Train No.16, which was donated to the war effort by the…
Mills are often used as a symbol of rebirth. This intriguing Gem is a pre-First World War postcard entitled ‘The Reservist Mill’. It depicts German recruits going into the mill and coming out as reservists – the image explained by a poem underneath the mill: ‘Just as the finely-milled cornComes out as flourThe Recruit goes…
An American frigate lost and found. This sketch of Chesapeake Mill is by John Munnings, the nephew of Sir Alfred Munnings, the controversial President of the Royal Academy who was famous for his paintings of horses. However, as these sketches show it was not just Sir Alfred with an artist’s eye. John was born the son of a miller…
A lifesaving link between milling and The First World War. These two identical oval plaques once decorated two railway carriages of a First World War Ambulance Train. The two carriages (numbers 16 and 17) from which the plaques come were on one of the earliest ambulance trains, which played a crucial role in the support…
