We must blow our own trumpets

For centuries the engineer has been the backbone of society and the means by which the world has progressed and developed.

Artist Leonardo DaVinci was valued as an engineer during his lifetime and conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptually inventing a helicopter, a tank, the use of concentrated solar power, the double hull, and many others. In 1499 he devised a system of moveable barricades to protect Venice from attack. He also had a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno River in order to flood Pisa.

From the 18th century and into the 19th century came the Industrial Revolution and such names as James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, James Watt, George Stephenson, Thomas Telford, Isambard Brunel, Nicholas Otto, Joseph Whitworth and others.

In the first half of the 20th century we had Sidney Camm, R J Mitchell, Nigel Gresley and Frank Whittle, but none of note in the latter half.