An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology part 97 pdf

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economical, easy to use and needing a minimum of attention, it was made of
cast iron and enclosed in an enamelled insulated jacket: Dalen used kieselguhr,
a diatomaceous earth, as insulating material. The heat was conducted to the
various parts at precisely the correct temperature for the types of cooking
needed: boiling, baking, grilling etc. The temperature of the hob plates was
maintained by the fitting of insulated hinged covers which were retained in
place when the plates were not in use. The Aga was introduced in Britain in
1929. It is still in use today but the modern version is thermostatically
controlled and can function on solid fuel, gas or oil.
Cooking by gas
In the early nineteenth century, as the supply of gas was extended (see Chapter
3), experiments took place to try to use the fuel for cooking, but the problems
of making it financially viable were formidable. The cost of gas was much
greater than coal; there were no meters, so there was difficulty in measuring
consumption; more important still, the public were prejudiced against the use
of gas, believing it to be dangerously explosive and the fumes and impurities in
the gas to be harmful to any food cooked by it.
Despite these problems inventors continued to try to make satisfactory
appliances. One of the early workable devices was a griller of 1824, made at
the Aetna Ironworks near Liverpool. It was a kind of gridiron made from a
gun-barrel, with holes pierced in it, then twisted round to a circular shape. It
could be used horizontally with pans placed on top or vertically so that a joint
could be roasted in front. Commercial, box-shaped cookers were marketed
from the 1830s and in 1847, A.A.Croll read a paper to the Royal Society of
Arts in London on the ‘Domestic Uses of Gas’. In this he referred to Alexis
Soyer, the famous French chef, who took the lead in promoting cooking by gas
because he believed it to be clean, efficient and economical in comparison with
coal; he had introduced it into the kitchens of the Reform Club in London in
1841.

By 1855 there were many designs of appliance on the market and gas
cooking had been clearly demonstrated to be a practical proposition, but it was
only used by a small minority of the population. The chief reasons for this
were the still entrenched fear of using this type of fuel and its high cost. The
incorporation of Bunsen-type atmospheric burners helped to popularize the
cookers, but because gas was still more expensive than coal, coupled with the
fact that most people already possessed a coal range, acted as a great deterrent.
Two important incentives were then offered by the gas companies which
tipped the scales in favour of gas cooking. The first was the introduction in the
1870s of facilities for hiring cookers instead of insisting on purchase. The
second, which came in the 1890s, was the installation of prepayment slot
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943
machines, which brought gas within the financial reach of everyone. By 1911
the Gas Light and Coke Company were taking 230 million pennies annually
from their machines, an amount which weighed nearly 2000 tonnes.
From the 1890s gas largely took over from coal as a cooking fuel, but the
design of the cooker continued to be cumbersome and difficult to clean. It was
made of the same materials as the kitchen range—cast iron, which needed
black-leading, with taps and fittings of brass and steel, which were hard to keep
shiny (see Figure 19.7 for an example of this period). It was only with the
dearth of servant labour which occurred after the First World War and the
consequent demand of housewives for a more attractive and labour-saving
appliance, which they then had to clean themselves, that the manufacturers
responded.
Cookers appeared clad in cream enamelled iron sheeting, replaced in the
1930s by coloured vitreous enamel. The design was streamlined and ovens
were lined with easy-to-clean materials. Technical advances followed also, the
most important of which was the introduction in 1923 of oven thermostatic
control—Regulo—developed by Radiation Ltd.

Innovations after the Second World War included the standardization by
manufacturers of their thermostat settings, the introduction of the high-level
Figure 19.7: Parkinson cooker, c. 1890.
Made of cast iron with silicate packing for insulation. Water heater at left side.
Plate warming hood over hotplate.
The Gas Council.
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grill, automatic ignition to burners, thermostatic hot-plate burners and lift-off
oven doors. The design was further streamlined and the cooker lost its legs,
the space at the bottom being utilized for a storage drawer. The Sola Grill
appeared in the 1960s. Since 1965 has come conversion to natural gas,
automatic oven timing, self-clean oven linings, electric spark ignition for
burners, graduated simmer control and the flame-failure safety device.
Cooking by electricity
The possibilities of cooking by electricity were being explored as early as the
1890s. In 1891 an electric cooker was demonstrated at the Electrical Fair at
Crystal Palace and two years later a model electric kitchen was on display at
the Chicago World’s Fair. Meanwhile, in Britain, Crompton, in collaboration
with Dowsing and Fox (see p. 916–17), was designing and manufacturing a
range of electrical appliances. In 1900 the Crompton Company catalogue was
advertising ovens, hot-plates, saucepans, frying pans, kettles, coffee urns and
hot cupboards.
Most of the early cookers, like the Crompton designs, consisted of a
number of separate appliances. The oven was like a safe, made of metal
sheeting on a metal frames. It was heated by elements at top and bottom,
controlled by brass switches; the elements consisted of cylindrical ceramic
formers coiled with wire. The oven had no hot-plate but there were a number
of ancillary appliances—griller, kettle, frying pan and hot-plate—which were all
wired separately and plugged into a panel of wall switches; these appliances

were put on top of the oven or on the floor beside it.
Like gas cookers, electric cookers were for many reasons slow to attract
custom. By 1900 they were a practical proposition but they were, like their gas
counterparts, black, ugly and difficult to clean. Also, people distrusted them. The
heat was not visible and it was easy to burn oneself. The elements were as yet
unreliable; they easily burned out, they took a long time to heat up and so were
expensive to use. Most people already had a gas cooker and/or solid fuel kitchener
and, lastly, only a minority of homes were yet wired for electric current.
Various attempts were made in the 1920s to convert customers to ‘cooking
electric’. Electric lighting companies offered to hire cookers. Smaller cookers of
more attractive design were produced. C.R.Belling brought out his
‘Modernette’ made of light steel which had two boiling burners on top, a grill,
plate warmer and oven, all in one conveniently designed cooker. But, like all
electric cookers of the time, the burners were of open type and if the contents
of a saucepan boiled over, the spillage ran directly down on to the heating
element, usually causing a short circuit.
It was not until the 1930s that electricity began seriously to compete with
gas for cooking, Figure 19.8 shows an example of the first generation of
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945
successful electric cookers. By 1939 over a million households were using
electricity compared to nine and a half million opting for gas. But, by this time
also, most households were wired for electricity and great improvements had
been made in the design and technical performance of the cookers.
Appearance and materials had kept pace with gas appliances. Functionally the
fast-heating tubular-sheathed radiant rings had replaced the earlier burners and
later solid hot-plates, which had been slow to heat, and ovens were
thermostatically controlled.
Since 1950 electric cookers have marched in step with gas cookers in all
modern advances. Importantly, what had always been the great drawback of

electric cooking—the excessive time taken for elements to heat up and
consequent high expense of using the appliance—has been overcome. Boiling
rings heat quickly and split rings lead to economy. There is a wide range of
heat control. With the 1970s came the ceramic hob and the cool-top hob, both
products of modern technology. In the 1980s the cost of electric current is now
only marginally greater than gas and new cookers are so fast, clean and
efficient in conservation of energy that running costs are not dissimilar. Also
electric cookers tend to be cheaper to purchase than their gas counterparts.
Figure 19.8: Creda electric cooker, 1933.
First model to have thermostatic control of oven. Hot plate has two elements,
one of the new spiral tube type, the other a metal plate with coiled wire element
beneath to heat grill.
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These factors have dramatically altered the nation’s preferences and over 40
per cent of the population use electric cookers.
The pressure cooker
Denis Papin, the French physicist, invented the first pressure cooker, which he
called ‘A New Digester or Engine for sofning Bones’, in 1679 and he
demonstrated it two years later at the Royal Society. His vessel was designed
with a tight-fitting lid and had a safety valve to guard against excessive rise of
pressure.
The idea of a pressure cooker is that a vessel is designed to seal in and
control the steam which normally escapes when cooking is done in a saucepan.
As the steam is retained, the pressure rises and so does the temperature at
which the water boils. The pressure forces the super-heated steam through the
food, so greatly reducing the cooking time needed.
After Papin the idea languished, but it was revived during the nineteenth
century when a cast-iron version was marketed: it was called a digester. Cast
aluminium was used in the 1930s and pressure cookers, as they were then

termed, were fitted with pressure gauges on top. The modern cooker is made
of aluminium or stainless steel and has a non-stick finish. Pressure cookers
have been in less demand since 1960 owing to the introduction of such
alternatives as readily available convenience foods, the auto-timer fitted to
cookers, the slow cooker and the microwave oven.
Microwave ovens
Microwave cooking makes use of short radio waves (as short as 12cm (4.75
in)). Such waves were first generated by Britain and the USA for the operation
of radar during the Second World War. Americans then adapted the research
for cooking and produced a microwave cooker; the method was introduced to
Britain in 1959.
Whatever the means of cooking the effect of the heat is to raise the
temperature of the food, by increasing the agitation of its constituent
molecules. In traditional cooking methods by solid fuel, gas or electricity, the
surface of the food is heated from an exterior source and it is only cooked to
the centre by such heat after a considerable period of time has passed. In
microwave cooking the radio waves penetrate very quickly to the centre of the
food and raise its temperature. Microwave cooking will not, therefore, ‘brown’
food; if this is desired it must be done afterwards by conventional heat.
The interior of a microwave oven has polished reflecting surfaces which
concentrate the microwaves on the food. Also, a rotating fan is attached to the
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947
roof of the oven in order to spread the heat evenly. As is well known,
microwave cooking and de-frosting is extremely fast. As it is only the food
which is heated and not the oven, such cooking is extremely clean as well as
inexpensive. The output power of most microwave ovens is thyristor-controlled
and microprocessor control is gradually being introduced.
PLASTICS IN THE HOME
No material has ever changed the appearance of the home as much as plastics

have done and it is not only appearance but their resistance to wear and their
easy-care characteristics which have altered everyone’s way of domestic life.
The word, which derives from the Greek plastikos, meaning ‘that which may be
moulded, describes their quality of being easily shaped to any required form.
The development of plastics took place rapidly in the years since 1920 (see
Chapter 3). In the modern home a very wide range of plastics is in use for a
great variety of purposes. Three types which particularly serve domestic needs
are polyvinylchloride (PVC), polyethylene and polystyrene and each of these
may be found in different forms which meet different needs. For example, PVC
(often called simply vinyl) may be manufactured to be rigid or flexible, thin or
thick, transparent or opaque. The rigid type is suited to the making of structural
parts such as piping and guttering; it is also used for making gramophone discs.
Vinyl floor tiles or soles for footwear are manufactured from a more flexible
version. A softer type is used for a wide range of goods from furnishing fabrics
and garments to wallpaper and hosepipes. Transparent PVC provides the
wrapping film used for a multitude of purposes in the kitchen.
There are two chief types of polyethylene—more commonly known as
polythene. An early type was produced as long ago as the 1930s, when it was
manufactured into sheets of fairly heavy wrapping material. High density
polythene was developed in the 1950s. This is heavier and more rigid and has
proved most suitable for making a range of useful containers such as buckets,
large bowls and dustbins.
Polystyrene appears in three chief forms in the home. There is the
toughened type which lines refrigerators, the clear but strong and rigid type
made into moulded containers for eggs, butter, salads etc. and expanded
polystyrene, which is a lightweight foam ideal for a broad range of goods from
moulded packaging to ceiling tiles.
A more recent development is the use of glass fibre as a reinforcement for
plastic. Polyester is ideal for this purpose and this combination of materials has
made the use of plastics possible for heavy, structural parts of a house as well

as for articles such as water tanks.
Apart from all these widely used plastics there are others of particular
assistance in the kitchen. The development of non-stick cookware has been
PART FIVE: TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
948
made possible by the use of polytetrafluorethylene, generally abbreviated to
PTFE, which is inert to a wide range of chemicals and is also resistant to
sunlight and to moisture. Polypropylene is a rigid thermoplastic which is
highly resistant to liquids and solvents, so is used extensively for kitchenware
of all kinds as well as garden equipment such as wheelbarrows.
Elsewhere in the house melamine resins are made into unbreakable
tableware and phenolic resins into electrical fittings. Carpets are backed with
polyurethane foam. Lastly there is the extensive range of synthetic textiles
manufactured into garments and furnishings fabrics, dating from the first
production of nylon by Du Pont of America in 1938, after eleven years of
research costing $27 million, to the later numerous varieties of polyester and
acrylic fibres marketed under the plethora of different trade names adopted by
their countries of manufacture.
FURTHER READING
Adamson, G. Machines at home (Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, 1969)
Conran, T. and C. Kitchens past and present (Hygena Ltd., 1976)
Haan, D. de Antique household gadgets and appliances c. 1860–1930 (Blandford Press,
London, 1977)
Harrison, M. The kitchen in history (Osprey Publishing, London, 1972)
Hole, C. English home life 1500–1800 (Batsford, London, 1949)
Joy, E. The Country Life book of English furniture (Country Life, London, 1964)
Lindsay, J.S. Iron and brass implements of the English home (Tiranti, London, 1964)
McRobert, R. Ironing today and yesterday (Forbes Publications, London, 1970)
Megson, B. English homes and housekeeping 1700–1960 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,
1973)

Singer, C. et al. A history of technology ( 7 vols .) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1958–78)
Wright, L. Clean and decent (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1960)
—— Home fires burning (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1964)
Yarwood, D. The English home (Batsford, London, 1979)
—— The British kitchen (Batsford, London, 1981)
—— 500 years of technology in the home (Batsford, London, 1983)

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20

PUBLIC UTILITIES

R.A.BUCHANAN
INTRODUCTION
The complexity of modern life and, in particular, the organization of large
towns and cities on which it is based, can only be sustained by an intricate
network of public services. When towns were generally small, such services
were simple because the population could depend upon local wells and rivers
for their water supply, and food and raw materials were available from the
adjacent countryside. But the magnificent Roman system of roads and
aqueducts should remind us that even ancient cities required basic services in
order to function efficiently. The skills which had created these engineering
achievements were virtually forgotten in western Europe for many centuries,
during which most towns were small and their services rudimentary. During
these centuries, the existence of a river or a fast flowing stream was usually all
that was necessary in the way of water supply, providing for drinking,
drainage, sewage and garbage disposal, transport, power for industry, and fire-
prevention measures. As long as towns remained small and could retain an
intimate association with the surrounding countryside, such multiple use of
natural water-courses could sustain them indefinitely.

With the onset of rapid industrialization in western Europe at the end of the
eighteenth century, however, towns grew prodigiously as centres of trade and
industrial production, and with this development the need to provide adequate
services became critical. Failure to make adequate provision almost caused a
breakdown of British town-life in the 1830s and 1840s, when the ravages of
cholera and other diseases induced by overcrowding in insanitary conditions were
most severe. But from the middle of the nineteenth century a determined effort
was made to improve the conditions of life in the towns of Britain. The appalling
squalor reported in dozens of official statements by doctors and administrators,
and described so vividly by Friedrich Engels in his account of Manchester in 1844,
became a thing of the past, replaced by towns which had a good supply of fresh
PART FIVE: TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
950
water, an efficient means of disposing of organic waste and garbage, and all the
other services of paving, lighting, transport, shopping and trading facilities which
have come to be taken for granted as the normal features of life in ‘megalopolis’—
the huge urban conglomerations which have become the dominant pattern of
existence for most people in the developed nations of the twentieth century.
All the public services which sustain megalopolis have been created by the
co-operation of many individual technologies developed over a number of
years. These technologies are the subjects of other parts of this volume but the
present chapter is concerned with the development of those public services
which have made life in large towns and cities possible.
The services considered fall into two categories:
(1) The primary services of water supply (sources, treatment, distribution,
drainage and sewage disposal), power supply (gas, electricity, hydraulics and
pneumatics) and waste disposal.
(2) The secondary road, postal, telephone and telegraph services.
WATER SUPPLY
Water supply is the most basic of the public service industries. No town can

survive for long without a supply of water for drinking, washing and various
industrial processes, so that if a convenient source such as a river or a well
does not exist it has to be provided, or if natural sources are inadequate they
have to be supplemented. Substantial resources of materials, man-power and
technological skill have thus been required wherever town life has flourished
on a large scale in order to ensure that the need of an urbanized population for
a constant supply of water can be fulfilled. The ancient civilizations of Egypt
and Mesopotamia established intricate irrigation works, bringing water to their
fields and cities. Pergamon in Asia Minor and the Greek city-states constructed
elaborate systems of culverts and aqueducts to bring water to their citizens.
And the Romans made a fine art of the technology of bringing water long
distances in masonry aqueducts to serve the large cities of their Empire, and
especially Rome itself. The remains of many of these aqueducts survive as
eloquent testaments both to the engineering skill of the men who designed and
built them, and to the quality of urban life which they made possible.
Sources
All water becomes available in the course of the hydrological cycle, whereby
water is evaporated from the oceans and precipitated on the land surface,
PUBLIC UTILITIES
951
whence it can be obtained from rivers and lakes, or recovered from springs and
wells if it sinks into the ground to replenish the underground accumulation of
water or aquifer. In certain geological conditions where the aquifer is under
pressure in a basin of water-bearing strata, the water will rise spontaneously up
a shaft bored into it—an artesian well. Normally some form of pumping or
water-raising apparatus is required. By far the simplest form of urban water-
supply is thus a river, and for many large towns, including London, this has
remained the largest source down to the present time. Although direct
extraction from the turbid tidal reaches of the River Thames was abandoned
in the mid-nineteenth century, the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 prohibiting

the extraction of drinking water below Teddington Weir, the bulk of London’s
water supply still comes from the Thames and the Lea, through the elaborate
catchment reservoirs and treatment plant between Staines and Surbiton, and in
the Lea Valley. London, of course, has had a long history of water supply
difficulties, but most of the successful schemes such as the water-wheel-
powered pumps built into an arch of the Old London Bridge by the Dutch
engineer Peter Morice in 1582, and the more ambitious scheme of Sir Hugh
Myddelton’s New River project in 1619, which brought water into the city
through an artificial channel from the Hertfordshire countryside, relied upon
river catchment in one form or other. Subsequently all rivers with a reliable
flow of water in western Europe and many in other parts of the world have
been liable to have a proportion of their volume extracted for public supply
either immediately or at a considerable distance from the point of extraction.
Of large rivers flowing through industrialized countries like the Severn in
England and the Rhine in West Germany and the Netherlands it has been
recognized that any cup-full of water drawn from them might make several
cycles through supply and waste disposal in the course of flowing from their
source to the sea.
The device of impounding rivers to provide reservoirs for water supply,
river control and irrigation, is very ancient. One of the oldest civil engineering
structures in the world is a dam built for such purposes at Sadd el-Kafara in
Egypt, 32km (20 miles) south of Cairo, dating from the third millenium BC,
and many similar archaeological relics of dams survive. Most early dams were
gravity dams—being embankments or masonry walls built straight across a
valley and resisting the load of the water by their weight. More sophisticated
forms are the buttress dam in which a fairly slim masonry wall is supported by
a series of buttresses on its down-stream face, and the arch dam in which a thin
curved wall depends upon arch action for its strength as the main load is
thrown into the adjoining cliffs, making it possible to build a lighter structure
than in other forms. The arch dam has proved particularly suitable for large

modern dams in mountainous terrain, where concrete has been used as the
main structural material. The spectacular Hoover Dam across the Colorado
River in America is an outstanding example of this type, demonstrating the