This week in 1856

With the last print edition of The Engineer now on the shelves it seems fitting in this regular archive slot to return to the very first edition of the magazine in 1856.

In the introduction to the readers, the editor sets out the vision and scope of the publication, something to bear in mind as we go fully digital.

‘Every new moon is witness to the advent of some invention, some happy discovery, or successful application, some change at least, which like more fuel, becomes new incitement to fresh efforts.

‘There is, therefore, no want of scope under the title we have assumed; and so long as it is the bent of inventive genius to press continually forward, never satisfied with what it has accomplished.

‘That an organ of this wide capacity is demanded by the expanded state of the industrial arts, does not admit of doubt. Progress is too rapid to allow the practical man to wait till the information he is in search of shall have found its way into a treatise. it must be caught as it springs — caught in the nascent state.