Palmer C Putnam was an American engineer and a pioneer of wind power. He was born in 1900 to American writer George Haven Putnam and his wife, Emily Putnam. Putnam served in the RAF during the First World War, likely because his dad was born in London, before graduating from MIT in 1924 as a…
Author: Hayden Francis-Legg
Charles Brush (1849-1929)
Charles Brush was an inventor and engineer born in March 1849. After developing an early interest in science, Brush attended the University of Michigan to study mining engineering, graduating in 1869. He then finished his PhD at Western Reserve in Cleveland in 1880. Prior to finishing his PhD, Brush secured backing for his design of…
Edward William Golding (1902-1965)
E.W Golding was born in Northwich, Cheshire in 1902 and was educated at the Manchester College of Technology graduating with a BSc in Electrical Engineering. After graduating from college, Golding worked for the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company in their research department. Following this, Golding assumed a position at Nottingham University as a lecturer in electrical engineering.…
James Blyth (1839-1906)
Professor James Blyth was a Scottish electrical engineer who was also an academic at Anderson’s College in Glasgow. Blyth was a pioneer in harnessing the wind for electricity generation. In his early years, Blyth studied his BA and MA at the University of Edinburgh before he was appointed to the position of professor of Natural…
Johannes Juul (1887-1969)
Johannes Juul was a Danish engineer who was born in Ormslev near Aaurhus. As a child he attended a free school, finding a passion for physics, before becoming a student at Askov High School at the age of seventeen. Here he was one of the first students to study wind electricity applications under the pioneer,…
Poul la Cour (1846-1908)
Portrait of Poul la Cour. Image courtesy of the Poul la Cour Museum Poul la Cour was a Danish scientist born on the 13th of April 1846. La Cour was educated at Danish Randers Latin School before studying physics and mathematics at the University of Copenhagen in 1865. In 1869 he wrote his master’s thesis…
An insight into one of our oldest books – ‘the Moolen-boek’
In our special collections here at the Mills Archive, we have an original copy of the Theatrum Machinarum Universale of Groot Algemeen Moolen-Boek, which translates as the Universal Theatre of Machines or Large General Mills Book, produced by Johannis van Zyl and Jan Schenk in 1734, and republished in 1761.This large folio-sized book was produced as a…
Growth and Decline of Millwrighting
Since the creation of mills, whether powered by water or wind, the need for their construction, repair and maintenance has also existed. Evidence of millwrighting has been noted across the world and across centuries from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Europe and, finally, to Modern Britain. Though the term…
Remembering Vincent Pargeter
Vincent Pargeter with dog, Gran Canaria It has been 6 years now since the milling industry sadly lost Vincent Pargeter on the 31st of October 2015. During the first few weeks of my internship here at the Mills Archive, which you can find more about here, I have become oddly attached to and fascinated with Vincent’s…
Coronavirus and the Milling Industry
By Hayden Francis-Legg, Mildred Cookson and Nathanael Hodge Introduction The milling industry has been pivotal to many historical events. The situation in 2020 also brought mills to the forefront in a period of adversity when the world was placed into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the USA and UK, the lockdown led to…