Quick Timeline Facts
1311-1594 - Lincoln Cathedral was the tallest structure in the world.
1877 - Joseph Ruston persuaded a group of Lancashire businessmen that a ship canal from Liverpool to Manchester would be an economic viability if Ruston-built mechanical excavators were used for the digging.
1880 - Robey & Co‘s Globe works was the first factory in the world to be lit by electricity.
1870 - Robey & Co. made the world’s first rubber-tyred road vehicle.
1881 - William Rose of Gainsborough created a tobacco-wrapping machine that made tobacco the first product to be mechanically wrapped for sale.
1895 - A Hornsby-Akroyd oil engine provided power for lighting the Statue of Liberty.
1905 - Hornsby & Sons produced the world’s first fully-tracked vehicle – nicknamed by the workforce ‘Caterpillar’. The patent was later sold to an American company now called Caterpillar.
1910 - Lincoln College held the first ever part-time classes of engineering apprentices - the first in the country.
1914 - WM Foster & Co. developed and produced the first military tank. All modern tanks are descended from these Lincoln-made machines.
1914-18 - Ruston & Proctor were the largest British builder of aero-engines in WWI.
1918 - Clayton & Shuttleworth made the Sopwith Camel plane B7270 flown by Canadian Roy Brown who was officially credited with the downing of the Red Baron in WW1.
1938 - Cadbury’s Roses chocolates are named after Rose Brothers of Gainsborough who developed the first machine capable of wrapping multi-shaped sweets.
1939 - Rose Brothers created the Rose Turret used on the Lancaster bomber.
1970 - Rose Bearings sponsored James Hunt, Formula 1 motor racing legend.
1983 - Rose Bearings were used in Richard Noble's land speed record car, Thrust 2.
2000 - NMB Minebea make titanium landing gear bearings for passenger airliners such as the Airbus A380 – the world’s largest passenger airliner.
2008 - Wyman & Gordon have Europe's largest counterblow hammer and make parts for Rolls Royce engines, including the Trent 1000 engine for the Boeing Dreamliner.
2011 - Supported by Siemens, the first new Engineering school in the UK for more than 20 years opened in Lincoln.
2012 - NMB Minebea supplied 500 bearings as an integral structural part of Louis Vuitton’s recently opened foundation building in the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris. It has been widely acclaimed as a state of the art architectural masterpiece.
2015 - ITP Engines estimates that within the next 20 years, it will reach a 50% share of the wide-body and 45% of single aisle aircraft market, meaning over half of all airplanes will fly with ITP low pressure turbines.
