Invented in Brum

The following list contains some of the many thousands of things invented in Birmingham over the centuries and goes toward explaining why the city was called the City of 1001 trades.

The heavy engineering may have diminished but the scientific research still continues and new discoveries are made each year.

This will never be an all-encompassing list but does include some notable inventions.

Auto-Changing Record Player In 1932, Daniel McLean McDonald founded the company Birmingham Sound Reproducers, later known as BSR McDonald, and by 1961 it was employing 2,600 people. It made its own player - the Monarch Automatic Record Changer that could select and play 7”, 10” and 12” records at 33, 45 or 78rpm, changing between the various settings automatically. BSR McDonald also supplied turntables and auto-changers to most of the world’s record player manufacturers, eventually gaining 87 per cent of the market.
Balti Spicy Food Invented in Birmingham by Mohammed Ajaib in 1977. The ingredients for a balti are cooked largely in the same way as those for a curry. However, for the last ten minutes, the contents are cooked at high temperatures in a distinctive flat-bottomed wok which gives the dish its name: a balti.
Bhangra (music) The Bhujhangy Group, founded by brothers Balbir Singh Khanpur and Dalbir Singh Khanpur in Birmingham in 1967. Bhujhangy Group's first major hit was "Bhabiye Akh Larr Gayee" in the early 1980s, released on Birmingham's Oriental Star Agencies label. This was the first song to combine traditional Asian music with modern western instruments, forming Bhangra.
Bicycle Bell John Richard Dedicoat invented the bicycle bell in Birmingham, with patents appearing as early as 1877. At last, cyclists could make a distinctive and immediately recognisable warning sound to alert people that they were coming and therefore avoid accidents. Dedicoat - who was an apprentice of James Watt - went on to become a bicycle manufacturer who made and sold the Pegasus bicycle.
Car Horn Joseph Lucas’s Birmingham components manufacturing firm - which later became Lucas Industries and is today part of LucasVarity - made an electric car horn in 1910 that became the industry standard, followed by a motorcycle horn the following year.
Centrifugal Governor Invented by James Watt, in Birmingham in 1788. This device automatically controlled the speed of a steam engine.
Cluedo The popular board game 'Cluedo' can trace its roots back to Birmingham. In 1944, musician and inventor Anthony Ernest Pratt took out a patent for the board game 'Murder'. Pratt was born and raised in Balsall Heath, Birmingham and developed the game alongside his wife, Elva. After selling the game to publishers Waddingtons, it was developed into the game we all know and love today.
(Electronic) Computer Birmingham-born mathematician and computer scientist Conway Maurice Berners-Lee was part of the team which, in 1951, unveiled the Ferranti Mark 1, the world’s first-ever commercially-available electronic computer. It’s worth noting that it was Second World War codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing who had written the operating manual for the machine. In 1954, Berners-Lee married computer programmer Mary Lee Woods, who was also from Birmingham. Woods had done a maths degree at the University of Birmingham and worked in the team that developed programs for the Manchester Mark 1, Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers. In 1955, the Lees become parents to Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web and put forward the first proposal for it in March 1989.
Cooker (cooking stove) In the late 18th century, the Birmingham joiner John Heard invented a standalone cooking range or stove that was capable of roasting, boiling and baking - as well as heating the room it was in. For the first time, the smoke and fumes were carried off by a flue pipe that led to the chimney. Earlier models did not have flues and needed to be in a hearth right under the chimney. This led to the development of gas cookers & later electric ones too.
Cotton Wool Joseph Sampson Gamgee (1828-80), a Birmingham doctor, invented the surgical dressing.
Custard Powder Pharmacist Alfred Bird invented Custard Powder because his wife was allergic to eggs – the main ingredient in traditional custard making. He then founded 'Alfred Bird and Sons Ltd', which went on to become the iconic Bird's Custard brand, based out of what is now the Custard Factory in Digbeth, Birmingham.
(Table) Cutlery Birmingham firm Arthur Price was the first company to make spoons and forks from chromium plate – the forerunner of stainless steel. And the family are still active and working in Birmingham today.
Discatron Portable Record Player The Discatron was a revolutionary portable record player that emerged in the mid-60s. Way ahead of its time, it may even have been the forerunner of modern CD players. It was so small for its time that music buffs have dubbed it the 60s iPod. Made in Aston, Birmingham by Discatron Ltd, it had a slot into which 7-inch 45rpm singles were inserted, in the same way as a car's CD player is operated today. You could hold it at any angle, it didn't need to be laid flat like a traditional turntable. Twelve inches wide by seven inches long, the Discatron was powered by two large, nine-volt batteries. A label on the contraption stated "Discatron – the world’s most revolutionary record player. Patent applied for in the principal countries of the world."
Double-acting Engine Invented by James Watt in 1782 enabling a steam engine piston to push as well as pull.
Electric Kettle Back in 1922, Arthur L. Large - an engineer at Birmingham firm Bulpitt & Sons - invented the immersed heating resistor, bringing in the era of plug-in kettles. That was followed in 1930 by the invention of a safety valve by the same company. Although it wasn’t until 1955 that kettles had a thermostat that automatically switched them off when they boiled, electric kettles have changed very little - apart from some sleeker designs - since both Birmingham inventions appeared.
Electroplating Birmingham surgeon John Wright experimented with electricity in his spare time and discovered a process for coating metal objects in gold and silver. Wright’s associates George Elkington and Henry Elkington were awarded the first patents for electroplating in 1840.
Fire Alarms The first European electrical heat detector was patented in 1903 by an electrical engineer from Birmingham called George Andrew Darby. His 'Heat-Indicator and Fire Alarm' could be used to detect an increase in temperature and sounded an alarm when the temperature rose above a certain safe limit.
Football League William McGregor, born in Perthshire, Scotland in 1847, McGregor moved to Birmingham in 1870, running a linen draper’s shop in Summer Lane with his brother. Invited to join the Aston Villa Football Club committee in 1877, and subsequently held every office with the club. But his influence extended far beyond this corner of Birmingham. After coming up with the idea to play competitive matches rather than friendlies and after writing to 11 other clubs inviting them to join Aston Villa in a regular competion and they all agreed, resulting in the birth of the first league system (in any sport/anywhere) in 1888, McGregor was appointed the first chairman of the Football League, becoming President four years later. In 1894 Villa played a Football League XI in a testimonial match for his benefit, and he was also elected the league’s first Life President. A member of the FA Council and an active member of the International Selection Committee, he was presented with the Football Association’s long service gold medal just two weeks before his death in December 1911.
Gas Lighting In 1777 William Murdock entered the engineering firm of Matthew Boulton and James Watt in their Soho works at Birmingham and about two years later was sent to Cornwall to superintend the fitting of Watt’s steam engines. At his home in Redruth, Cornwall, he experimented with distilling coal and in 1792 lighted his cottage and offices with coal gas. After returning to Birmingham in about 1799, he perfected further practical methods for making, storing, and purifying gas. The Birmingham lane that contained the site of Murdock's first gas retort was later renamed Gas St in his honour.

Hand Grenade

 In 1915, William Mills developed a model - known as the Mills bomb - with a ‘pin-and-pineapple’ design, at his factory Mills Munitions. It had a trigger pin with a four-second fuse as well as a grooved surface with segments like a pineapple that offered a better grip so it wasn’t easily dropped. Described as the first ‘safe grenade’, it was adopted by the British Army as its standard model in 1915 and about 75 million of the devices were made during the First World War. It was the standard British Army issue up to 1972, but some were still in use around the world as late as 2004!
Heavy Metal Music The Birmingham band Black Sabbath is credited worldwide with being the creators of the genre of Rock music called Heavy Metal.
Mass Spectrometer If you’ve watched the forensic team on the US TV show CSI, you’ll have seen them analysing crime scene samples using a mass spectrometer, which can detect the elements in an unidentified substance to find out what it is and what it contains. It's all down to Birmingham scientist Francis William Aston. He studied at the University of Birmingham and then continued his research at Cambridge, where he built the first fully functional spectrometer in 1919. In 1922, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discoveries he made using the machine.
Mellotron The idea of ‘sampling’ - taking sounds from one recording and using them in a new production - is well-known in the modern music industry. It was here in Birmingham that the concept first took on physical form. Frank, Norman and Les Bradley of Birmingham tape engineering company Bradmatic invented the Mellotron, a keyboard that was arguably the original sampler. Pressing the keys played recordings of real instruments, sound effects and voices that were stored on a piece of audio tape underneath. It was based on a similar American device called the Chamberlin that hadn't been designed for commercial use by musicians. With the support of BBC conductor Eric Robinson - who arranged the recordings that would go on the internal tape - and backing from British magician and presenter David Nixon, a company called Mellotronics was formed. The first Mellotron keyboards were made in Aston in 1963, costing £1,000 at a time when a typical house was £2,000 to £3,000. The device was popularised by The Beatles and became a crucial part of rock music. Birmingham band The Moody Blues made great use of the device, as did Genesis, Yes and many other groups. As synthesisers grew in popularity during the 80s, the Mellotron waned in popularity but a new version came on the market in 1999.
Microwave Power The first microwave power oscillators were invented & made at the University of Birmingham during the Second World War.
(Heart) Pacemaker Leon Abrams was a Birmingham heart surgeon who loved gadgets. And it was in 1960 that the medical journal The Lancet announced that Abrams had just fitted the first variable-pace heart pacemaker, which he had designed with electronic engineer Ray Lightwood. Abrams was a surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, setting up one of the UK’s top centres for lung and heart surgery and establishing open-heart surgery on the site. The pacemaker he devised solved the infections and pain caused by earlier designs because it was in a small box outside the body. It was marketed by Lucas Industries as the Lucas-Abrams Pacemaker.
(Metal) Pen Nibs In about 1822, John Mitchell, of 36 Newhall Street, Birmingham - in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter - invented the machine that pioneered the mass production of steel-nib pens, at a time when most people used quills for writing. Other companies followed and by the 1850s, Birmingham was a world centre for the pen trade. More than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham, where thousands of skilled craftsmen and craftswomen were employed in the industry. Also, in 1828, Birmingham manufacturer Josiah Mason developed a cheap, efficient slip-in nib that could be added to a fountain pen. Mason became the largest pen-maker in England but is less well-known than Mitchell because he was a supplier to stationer James Perry, whose names were on the pens instead. In 1875 Josiah founded Mason Science College, which later became the University of Birmingham.
Parallel (Engine) Motion Invented in Birmingham by James Watt in 1784. It was an arrangement of connected rods that guided the piston rod in a perpendicular motion - which he described as “one of the most ingenious, simple pieces of mechanism I have contrived.”

Photocopier

 In 1779, the famous engineer James Watt patented a ‘letter copying machine’ to deal with the mass of paperwork at his business, and also created a special "ink" to use in the device. This was the first widely used copier for offices and was such a success that it was in use for more than half a century. It's considered to be the first-ever photocopier. Watt lived in Regent Place, Birmingham, from 1777 to 1790 and spent most of his time working with Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton, of Soho House, on developing steam engines.
Plastic In 1856 Alexander Parkes created the first viable man-made plastic which he named eponymously ‘Parkesine’. This led to the development of celluloid film also by Parkes.
Pneumatic Tyre Invented by John Boyd Dunlop in 1888. He sold the rights to Harvey du Cross Jr who founded the Dunlop Rubber Company in 1889. The Birmingham tyre manufacturing plant Fort Dunlop was built in 1916 and was at one time the largest factory in the world, employing more than 3,200 people. It is now the site of a shopping mall and hotel.
(Steam) Pressure Gauge Invented by James Watt, in Birmingham, in 1790, allowed steam engine operators to monitor & therefore control the amount of steam their engines produced.
Rotary Steam Engine Motion Invented by James Watt, in Birmingham, in 1781. His so-called sun-and-planet gear, by means of which a shaft produced two revolutions for each cycle of the engine..
Roller Skate Wheels The wheels on roller skates and skateboards owe their existence to Brummie toolmakers William Bown and Joseph Henry Hughes. In 1877, they patented their new Aeolus design for skate wheels that had a ring of ball bearings in the middle. The tiny steel balls stopped the parts of the wheel directly grinding against each other, reducing friction and creating smoother, faster motion. Skateboards weren’t invented until the 1940s or 1950s in California, but these two men are responsible for the design of modern-day roller skate and skateboard wheels, as well as the use of similar ball-bearing systems in motorbikes and cars.
Smoke Detector Everyone’s aware of today’s public safety campaigns for smoke alarms, and it was in Birmingham back in 1902 that George Andrew Darby patented the first electrical heat detector and smoke detector.
Steam Engine Condenser While repairing a model Newcomen steam engine in 1764, James Watt was impressed by its waste of steam. In May 1765, after wrestling with the problem of improving it, he suddenly came upon a solution - the separate condenser, his first and greatest invention. Watt had realized that the loss of latent heat (the heat involved in changing the state of a substance - e.g, solid or liquid) was the worst defect of the Newcomen engine and that therefore condensation must be effected in a chamber distinct from the cylinder but connected to it. Shortly afterwards he met British physician, chemist, and inventor John Roebuck, the founder of the Carron Works, who urged him to make an engine. He entered into a partnership with him in 1768, after having made a small test engine with the help of loans from Joseph Black. The following year Watt took out the famous patent for “A New Invented Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines.” Meanwhile, Watt in 1766 became a land surveyor; for the next eight years, he was continuously busy marking out routes for canals in Scotland, work that prevented his making further progress with the steam engine. After Roebuck went bankrupt in 1772, English manufacturer and engineer Matthew Boulton, the manufacturer of the Soho Works in Birmingham, took over a share in Watt’s patent. Bored with surveying and with Scotland, Watt moved to Birmingham in 1774.
(Lawn) Tennis In 1859, solicitor Harry Gem and his sportsman friend Augurio Perera pioneered 'lawn tennis' by combining elements of the game racquets and Basque pelota. The pair first played on Perera's croquet lawn at his home in Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Vacuum Cleaner Gloucester engineer Hubert Cecil Booth invented the first motor-driven vacuum cleaner in London in 1901, but it was not exactly practical for household use. Powered by oil and later by electricity, it was hired to clean premises such as shops, theatres, barracks and churches. However, it was so large it had to be transported by horse and carriage and left outside while the suction hose was fed through the windows. It was in 1905 that the idea was revolutionised in Birmingham. Walter Griffiths of 72 Conybere Street, Highgate, built the first portable vacuum cleaner intended as a domestic appliance, patenting it as ‘Griffiths’ Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets. It was small, easy to carry and store and operated by a bellows-like mechanism. This was the first vacuum cleaner that resembled the popular models we know today.
Waterproof Paper Henry Clay of Birmingham, England, patented a process for treating laminated sheets of paper with linseed oil to produce waterproof panels in 1772. These sheets were used for building coach door panels as well as other structural uses.
Whistle Around 1875, a toolmaker called Joseph Hudson made the first whistle in a workshop at the side of his end-terrace home in St Mark’s Square, Birmingham. It was used for the first time in 1878 at the English Football Association Cup 2nd Round game when Nottingham Forest beat Sheffield 2-0, replacing the handkerchiefs previously waved by referees to attract players’ attention. In 1883, Mr Hudson invented and manufactured the first police whistle for the Metropolitan force, so officers no longer had to rely on hand rattles. And then a year later he came up with the first pea whistle - the Acme Thunderer - whose shrill sound carried over long distances and high noise levels. J. Hudson and Co. (Whistles) Ltd still exists today and is based in Barr Street, Birmingham.
Windscreen Wiper Birmingham manufacturer Mills Munitions, in Bridge Street West, patented the windscreen wiper in 1921. Although the first ever wiper had been developed by American inventor Mary Anderson in 1903, Mills Munitions was the first British firm to patent a wiper design.
X-Ray's After X-rays were discovered in 1895, it was John Hall-Edwards who saw the medical potential of the new form of radiation. In Birmingham on 11 January 1896, Hall-Edwards was the first to use the radiation under clinical conditions by taking an X-ray image - or radiograph - of a needle stuck inside someone’s hand. On 14 February 1896, he was the first to use X-rays in a surgical operation. He also took the first X-ray of the human spine. Without Mr Hall-Edwards, there wouldn't be any X-ray machines in hospitals today.