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Balloons, Biscuits, Botany & Bridges: The Bath Scientific Heritage Trail A Joint Meeting with the British Association, Western Branch Colin Axon, on 19 January 2001 Three and a half years ago, Colin Axon realised that the literary, musical and political history of Bath was well documented for tourists, but the story of the scientists and engineers who lived and worked there was missing, except for occasional world-famous individuals like Herschel. He gathered a team, including Tim Barnett (photos & DTP), Bob Draper (data), Helen Featherstone (exhibition), Rob Randall (database), John Trott (drawings) and John Williams (history), and, with the help of various other people, started to assemble the information and decide the presentation of it. The result was a double-sided map showing the location of the houses and workshops of some of the many scientists and engineers, and describing their constructions, products and work. The 150 entries on the database could not all be shown on the map but it does show enough to provide a most interesting tour of the Bath area, going out as far as Keynsham, Saltford, Midford and Limpley Stoke. The BRLSI building is on the site of Dr Oliver's house; he invented the biscuit bearing his portrait. Nearby in Gay Street (No. 34) is the workshop of William Freise-Green, pioneer of cine-photography. The Circus (No. 27) was the home of both Hillier Parry, who flew a balloon from Bath soon after the Montgolfier's flight in Paris, discovered the cause of angina and cross-bred sheep, and his son, Charles, the explorer. Plasticine was invented by William Harbutt at 15 Alfred Street; the Anglepoise lamp by George Carwardine, who lived at four addresses in Bath. John Haygarth, a doctor at the Mineral Water Hospital, who lived at 7 Lansdown Crescent, made the first controlled clinical trial and separated infectious patients from the others in `fever wards'. Outside Bath there is the Brass Mill at Saltford, the Somerset Coal Canal at Limpley Stoke and William Smith's (`Father of British Geology') cottage at Tucking Mill to be visited and dozens of other places in and out of Bath. Colin, his team and the British Association, who Donald Lovell |
