THE GRAMOPHONE RECORDER.

 

In his book "The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century" - Edward W, Byrn describes the workings of the Gramophone Recorder. -

"The gramophone is also another speaking machine. This is the invention of Mr. E. Berliner and covered by him in patent No. 372,786, Nov. 8, 1887. Instead of a wax cylinder, this machine employs a flat disc on which the record is formed as a volute spiral groove, gradually drawing toward the center. It is produced as follows: A zinc disc is covered by a thin film of acid-resisting material, such as wax or grease, and is placed in a horizontal pan, mounted to revolve as a turn table about a vertical axis. A stylus and diaphragm, with a speaking tube attached, are arranged above the disc, and when spoken into the vibrations of the diaphragm cause, through the stylus, a record to be traced through the wax, down to the zinc. As the waxed disc and pan are revolved, the stylus and diaphragm are gradually moved by gears toward the center of the disc. While the record is being traced the waxed disc is kept flooded with alcohol from a glass jar, seen in the cut, to soften the film and prevent the clogging of the stylus. The disc, when completed, is then rinsed off and etched with acid, chromic acid being used, to prevent the liberation of hydrogen bubbles. The etched disc is then electrotyped to form a matrix, and from this electrotype hard rubber duplicates of the original record are molded, which are capable of giving 1,000 reproductions. These rubber discs are placed on the reproducing instrument, which is arranged to cause the stylus to freely trail along in the spiral groove, and when the disc is rotated under the said stylus its record is converted into articulate speech. Such flat disc records give quite loud reproductions, are not easily destroyed, and may be compactly stored and transported. In the gramophone the diaphragm stands at right angles to the record disc and the stylus does not vibrate endwise to make a path of varying depth, as in the phonograph and graphophone, but the stylus vibrates laterally and traces a little zigzag line."

Building Folies

About 1866 there was much poverty in Yeovil and the surrounding districts. Many poorer people being near to starvation and begging at the larger houses. The Messiter family of Barwick House caused four follies to be erected – ‘Jack the Treacle Eater’, ‘The Fish Tower’, ‘The Ball Tower’, and ‘The Needle’ – preferring to give employment rather than alms; thereby helping to restore dignity.

The Doctor's Car

The Red Flag Act was repealed in 1896 and Mrs. Grimstone of Halse, Somerset remembers seeing the first car in Bishop’s Lydeard bring driven up the Minehead Road, preceded by a man carrying a red flag. One fine Sunday afternoon she and a friend were going for a walk dressed in their Sunday best when the local Doctor offered them a ride in his car. Very excited to be travelling in a motor – practically unknown in this quiet country village – they accepted, but as they had to get out and help push the car up every slight incline, She said that it took a month of Sundays to get their gloves, hats, scarves all clean again. 

Queen Victoria's Carriage Horse

In the 1890’s Queen Victoria paid a visit to Bristol. Driving up Park Street, one of her carriage horses cast a shoe, which cab cause irreparable damage to the horse’s foot. The situation was saved by Herbert William Smith, a young farrier, perhaps still an apprentice, who, travelling between jobs, was watching the scene. He had the tools of his trade with him and volunteered to shoe the Queen’s carriage horse. This he quickly did and was rewarded with half-a-crown, a tidy sum in those days. Mr. Smith, who was born in 1878, cherished the coin for the rest of his long life.

Salvation Army Riots

There were ‘Salvation Army riots’ in Worthing, East Sussex in the 1880’s and in Eastbourne in the early 1890s as the evangelical movement clashed with publicans and members of the public who resented the attack on their drinking habits.

In Eastbourne the authorities attempted to enforce a law banning the Salvation Army from ‘marching bands’ on Sundays, but the brave Salvationists carried on anyway – being physically attacked by angry mobs and then being thrown into prison. They were vigorously opposed by the major, William Epps Morrison, who went so far as to ask the home secretary for permission to leave the ‘Salvationists’ to the mercy of the ‘Skelton army’ organised to attack them, but this callous approach was refused. The case of ‘unlawful assembly’ against the Salvationists eventually reached the High Court in London, and was thrown out. In 1892, Parliament repealed the clause in the Law which had caused all the trouble, and the Salvationists were able to claim a great and hard-won victory.

The Railway Arrived In Brighton

The railway arrived in Brighton, East Sussex in 1841, four years after Queen Victoria came to the throne, and it changed the town for ever.

On a day in October 1833, a fleet of stagecoaches had bought 480 visitors to the town from London. That seemed a prodigious figure at the time, but on Easter Monday a single train bought all 1,100 holidaymakers down from London Bridge.

This is how Brighton’s population exploded

1841        47,000

1861        78,000

1881        99,000

1901     123,000

The Man Who Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo

Charles Wells was a very dubious inventor. 

Wells born sometime around 1860 duped people into investing in far-fetched inventions, among them a musical skipping rope. He was successful enough to buy a yacht equipped with a ballroom and church organ. In 1892, he sailed in it to Monte Carlo, where he had a spectacular win of 16,000 pounds at the casino and was later dubbed ‘the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.’ The attendant notoriety alerted disgruntled former investors to his whereabouts and he was sentenced to 8 years hard labour. On his release, he invented a lifebelt, which was demonstrated by a defrocked clergyman,

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

Mrs Hillman of Lyng in Somerset remembered celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 when she was nine years old.

She went to tea in the schoolroom at Lyng where the children were presented with celebration mugs and then went on a ride in a horse-drawn farm wagon to Burrowbridge. Everyone climbed to the top of Burrow Pump where a bonfire was lit.

An Extraordinary Cricket Challenge

On 21^st May 1827 at Harefield Common, near Rickmansworth, farmer Francis Trumper and his sheepdog, ‘Cooper’, challenged ‘two gentlemen of Middlesex’ to a game of cricket, and defeated them. Cooper, the sheepdog, was a poor batsman, as was to be expected, but the day was won by his agility in the field.

Trumper and Cooper batted first and made 31, with the dog scoring only 3. The two county cricketers expected to improve on this total without difficulty, but were confounded by Cooper’s speed in the covers and elsewhere. According to the next day’s Times:

The dog always stood near the master when he was going to bowl, and the moment the ball was hit he started off after it, and, on his masters running up to the wicket, the dog would carry the ball in his mouth and get it into the master’s hand with such wonderful quickness that the gentlemen found it very difficult to get a run even from a very long hit.

Fishing As A Tree

In the 18^th century, Thomas Birch a keeper of books at the British Museum, was a keen fisherman who devised an unusual way of disguising his intentions. Dressed as a tree, he stood by the side of a stream in an outfit designed to make his arms seem like branches and the rod and line a spray of blossom. Any movement, he argued, would be taken by a fish to be the consequence of a mild breeze.

Sir Humphrey Davy. The distinguished chemist, improved on the idea half a century later. His preferred costume consisted of a green coat, green breeches and an old green hat.

“In this attire,” wrote Cordy Jefferson, “Davy flattered himself he resembled vegetable life as closely as it was possible for mortal man to do.”

On shooting expeditions, Davy made himself as conspicuous as possible in order not to be shot by mistake. Usually, he wore a large scarlet hat. One of his friends amusingly pointed out that the hat put him in danger of being shot by an anti-cleric, who mistook him for a cardinal.

Raining Small Fish

On 15^th July 1841, a heavy thunderstorm over Derby brought a shower of things very strange, as described in the Sheffield Patriot newspaper:

Hundreds of small fishes and frogs in great abundance descended with the torrents of rain. Some of the fish had very hard pointed spikes on their backs and are commonly called sticklebacks. The frogs were from the size of a horse bean to that of a garden bean; numbers of them came down alive, and jumped away as fast as they could, but the bulk were killed by the fall on the hard pavement. We have seen some alive today, which appear to enjoy themselves, in a glass of water.

Escaping London

In the middle of the 19^th century, Arthur Gibbs gives a Victorian view of dream of escaping London.

London is becoming miserably hot and dusty; everybody who can get away is rushing off, north, south, east and west, some to the seaside, others to pleasant country houses. Who will fly with me westwards to the land of golden sunshine and silvery trout streams, the land of breezy uplands and valleys nestling under limestone hills, where the scream of the railway whistle is seldom heard and the smoke of the factory darkens not the long summer days?