Industry Gallery

Dolcoath Mine, Camborne, Cornwall. 1893

The Man Engine at 234 fathoms level below adit, in 1893. The man engine went down to the 314 fathom level. Miners can be seen standing on the steps of the engine rod while others stand on solars or platforms fixed in the shaft at intervals of 12 feet. The man engine made 5 strokes a minute, thus enabling men to ride up or down 60 feet a minute. Ordinary ladders were fixed alongside the man engine or against the footwall of the lode. Photographer: John Charles Burrow

© From the collection of the RIC

The Clay Pit, Harold Harvey (1874-1941)

Oil on canvas, Newlyn School, 1923. View of Leswidden China Clay Works near St Just. This painting shows the harsh, labour-intensive working conditions of a china clay pit. Leswidden China Clay Works, near St Just, was a more primitive works than the larger, more mechanised works in the St Austell area. The pit was closed before 1942. Harold Harvey was one of the few successful artists of the period who was born and raised in Cornwall. He grew up surrounded by the industry he would later paint and counted many of the working people he depicted as friends. He originally studied under Norman Garstin, but also visited Paris as a young man where he was greatly influenced by the Post-Impressionist movement. His earlier work was very much influenced by Stanhope Forbes, though it changed as he grew older, his brushwork becoming less thick and his forms more simple. Some of his later work shows a period stylisation but without the Picasso influences of his contemporaries Ernest and Dod Procter. Harvey continued to work right up to his death in 1941

© RIC

Brunels tunnelling shield

The tunnelling shield, or excavating machine designed by Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769- 1849) & used in the construction of the lining of the Thames tunnel. The shield (right) consists of twelve frames, which could be edged forward independently, supporting the side of the tunnel while allowing bricklayers to work from it. A moveable stage enabled building materials to be brought up to the level of the advancing face of the lining. The tunnel, running under the Thames between Rotherhithe & Wapping, was begun by Sir Marc Brunel in 1825 & completed in 1873 after his death. It was designed for foot passengers & later taken over by London Underground

© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY