Heroes of Invention
Technology, Liberalism and British Identity, 1750–1914

An innovative study of why inventors rose to heroic stature and popular acclaim in Victorian Britain.

Christine MacLeod (Author)

9780521153829, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 June 2010

476 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.69 kg

'In this interesting and valuable book, Christine MacLeod has chosen the inventor to reflect on British national identity, an individual she describes as an improbable hero. [She] has written an illuminating account of the way in which culture, economics, and politics converged to give to the inventor a brief hegemonic interlude.' Richard A. Cosgrove, University of Arizona

This innovative study adopts a distinct perspective on both the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century British culture. It investigates why inventors rose to heroic stature and popular acclaim in Victorian Britain, attested by numerous monuments, biographies and honours, and contends there was no decline in the industrial nation's self-esteem before 1914. In a period notorious for hero-worship, the veneration of inventors might seem unremarkable, were it not for their previous disparagement and the relative neglect suffered by their twentieth-century successors. Christine MacLeod argues that inventors became figureheads of various nineteenth-century factions, from economic and political liberals to impoverished scientists and radical artisans, who deployed their heroic reputation, not least to challenge the aristocracy's hold on power and the militaristic national identity that bolstered it. Although this was a challenge that ultimately failed, its legacy of ideas about invention, inventors, and the history of the industrial revolution remains highly influential.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of illustrations
1. Introduction: inventors and other heroes
2. The new Prometheus
3. The inventor's progress
4. The apotheosis of James Watt
5. Watt, inventor of the Industrial Revolution
6. 'What's Watt?' The radical critique
7. The technological pantheon
8. Heroes of the Pax Britannica
9. Debating the patent system
10. The workers' heroes
11. Maintaining the industrial spirit
12. Science and the disappearing inventor
Epilogue. The Victorian legacy
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Industrialisation & industrial history [HBTK], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]