Also-Rans
The Injustice of history
Who was the first to invent or discover the aeroplane, the steam locomotive, evolution and natural selection, vaccination, aspirin, DNA, oxygen, the incandescent light bulb, the telephone, the first programmable electronic computer and the vacuum cleaner? Perhaps not who you think.
Ann Spokes Symonds tells us that those people who have received fame and praise are not always the ones who should rightly have the credit. History has been unjust to the Also-Rans and her aim has been to put the record straight.
Sir Frederick Grant Banting concerning diabetes and insulin, William Penny Brookes who was the first to revive the modern Olympic Games, Sir George Cayley, pioneer in the field of aviation a hundred years before the Wright brothers and Josephine Cochrane who invented the power-driven dishwasher.
Rosalind Franklin whom most agree should have been more credited with the discovery of DNA than at least one other who received the Nobel Prize. Tommy Flowers’ essential Colossus computer at Bletchley Park is overshadowed by the decoding of the Enigma machine.
Josef Ganz’s invention of the ‘Beetle’ car was forgotten when Hitler expunged his name from history because he was Jewish. Norman Heatley should be much more remembered for his part in the development of penicillin. Ada Lovelace is not always recognised as the first computer programmer and Antonio Meucci is not, unfortunately, a name which people remember as the inventor of the telephone.
Carl Scheele’s discovery of oxygen is usually forgotten and it was Benjamin Jesty rather than Edward Jenner who first proved the effectiveness of vaccination, The Reverend Edward Stone discovered aspirin and Sir Joseph Swann’s name should be at least as recognised as that of Edison for his invention of the incandescent light bulb.
It was the Cornishman Richard Trevithick who invented the steam locomotive despite others being given the credit and Alfred Russel Wallace’s part in the discovery of evolution and natural selection should be as much recognised as that of Charles Darwin.
A favourite is the American cleaner in a factory who, because he suffered from bad asthma when sweeping the carpets, invented the vacuum cleaner. He had no money to develop it but told his cousin whose name was Hoover.
There is a special chapter on the place of women in science and invention. They have had a part to play in history just as much as the men.
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£ 10.72 Available from Robert Boyd Publications, 260 Colwell Drive, Witney, Oxfordshire,
OX 26 5LW
ISBN 10: 1908738162 ISBN 13: 9781908738165
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