Major #inventions in #Wales that built the modern world
This is a work in progress. There will be additions and alterations. What is this list about? English historians usually do not write the histories of the other members of the UK as if they were separate entities and, a few nods to Scotland aside, the progress they make is ignored. One field that suffers is the role of Wales in the industrial revolution and beyond. Wales took perhaps the earliest part in the industrial revolution. The physical evidence of prior prosperity is there to see for example, in the big medieval ironworks in South Wales built by Cistercian monks. The copper industry was already active on an industrial by the 17th C both around Swansea Bay and in North Wales. In the late 18th C the iron industry exploded upon the world especially around Merthyr Tydfil. The world's first passenger railway and steam locomotive were from Wales as was the precision engineering to make the steam engines. This early activity led to invention and innovation of world significance.