Editing East Midlands (section)

===Industrial heritage===
{{see also|History of photographic lens design}}
The region can claim the world's first factory, [[Sir Richard Arkwright]]'s [[Cromford Mill]]. Additionally, the world's oldest working factory can also be found in the area, producing textiles at [[Dethick, Lea and Holloway|Lea Bridge]], owned by [[John Smedley (industrialist)|John Smedley]]. Both sites are part of the region's only [[List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom|World Heritage Site]], the [[Derwent Valley Mills]]. An opportunist employee of the Derbyshire textile factories, [[Samuel Slater]] of [[Belper]] saw his chance and (illegally) eloped in 1789 to [[Rhode Island]] in the US after memorising the layout of the textile machinery while working at [[Jedediah Strutt]]'s [[Milford, Derbyshire|Milford]] Mill. He was warmly welcomed by the inhabitants of the newly formed USA, so much so that he was later named the "Father of the [[American Industrial Revolution]]".

Britain's hosiery and knitwear industry was largely based in the region, and in the 1980s it had more textile workers than any other British region. The [[stocking frame]] was invented 1587 in [[Calverton, Nottinghamshire]] by Rev [[William Lee (inventor)|William Lee]]; these were the first known [[knitting machine]]s and heralded the industrial revolution by providing the necessary machinery. The world's first (horse-powered) cotton mill was built in central Nottingham in 1768. [[Marvel's Mill]] in Northampton was the first [[cotton mill]] to be powered by water.

[[John Barber (engineer)|John Barber]] of Nottinghamshire had invented a simple [[gas turbine]] in 1791 (when living in [[Nuneaton]]). [[Lincoln, England|Lincoln]] was the site of the first [[Tanks in World War I|tank]] (first built on 8 September 1915, [[Little Willie]] was the first tank, and is the oldest surviving tank in the world, originally called the No.1 Lincoln Machine), and [[Grantham]] the first [[diesel engine]] (in 1892). The [[jet engine]] was first [[Timeline of jet power|developed]] in the region in [[Lutterworth]] and [[Whetstone, Leicestershire|Whetstone]], with the [[VTOL]] engine also (initially) [[Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig|developed]] in [[Hucknall]]. The first jet aircraft flew from [[RAF Cranwell]] in May 1941. During the Second World War, [[Derby]] was an important strategic location, as it was in Derby that [[Rolls-Royce plc|Rolls-Royce]] developed and manufactured their iconic [[Rolls-Royce Merlin|Merlin]] aero-engine. During the Second World War, all of R-R's engineering staff had been transferred to Belper.

[[File:APT 370-004, Rocket 150, Rainhill, May 1980 Slides187 (9859941613).jpg|thumb|left|The innovative but aborted APT, designed in Derby, seen here in May 1980]]
Derby was home to two railway workshops, [[Derby Works]] and [[Derby Litchurch Lane Works]] initially for the [[Midland Railway]], then the [[London, Midland & Scottish Railway]], and finally [[British Rail]]. [[British Rail Research Division]] in Derby invented the [[Advanced Passenger Train|APT]] ([[British Rail Class 370]]) and [[Maglev]]. The first ever steel rails were laid in 1857 at [[Derby railway station]] for the [[Midland Railway]]. Derby Litchurch Lane Works remains in operation under the ownership of [[Alstom]]

At its peak, [[Corby Steelworks]] was the largest in Britain. The collapsible [[Baby transport|baby buggy]] was invented in 1965 at [[Barby, Northamptonshire]] by [[Owen Finlay Maclaren|Owen Maclaren]]. [[Ford of Britain|Ford]]'s £8&nbsp;million Daventry Parts Distribution Centre (Ford Parts Centre) was fully opened on 6 September 1972, the first southern section opened in 1968, and was the UK's largest building by floor area for many years at {{convert|36.7|acre|m2}}, and is situated opposite the [[Cummins UK|Cummins]] factory.

[[File:Zoomlens2.png|thumb|right|How a zoom lens works; the principle was largely first invented in Leicester.]]

The largest camera in the world was built in 1957 in Derby for Rolls-Royce, which weighed 27&nbsp;tonnes and was around {{convert|8|ft|m}} high, {{convert|8|ft|m}} wide and {{convert|35|ft}} long, with a {{convert|63|in|mm|adj=on}} lens made by [[Cooke Optics|Cooke Apochromatic]]. Cooke Optics and [[Taylor-Hobson]] were major supplier of lenses for Hollywood; ''[[Star Wars]]'' was filmed with their lenses, filmed in England. [[Horace W. Lee]] invented the inverted telephoto lens (known as the [[Angénieux retrofocus]]) in 1931, lengthening the back [[focal length]] of the camera for the 1930s [[Technicolor]] Process and for [[vignetting]].

[[Arthur Warmisham]] of Taylor & Hobson invented the first non-telescopic 35&nbsp;mm [[zoom lens]], the Cooke Varo 40–&nbsp;120mm Lens, in a camera manufactured by [[Bell & Howell]] of the US. The popular 35&nbsp;mm [[Eyemo]] film camera came with Cooke lenses. Much of World War II aerial photography, where definition was important, was through Cooke lenses, due to their [[apochromat|Apochromatic process]]. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Cooke Speed Panchro lenses were the most popular choice for cinema films, then from the 1970s their Varotal zoom lens, which would win [[Gordon Henry Cook]] the 1988 [[Gordon E. Sawyer Award]] at the Oscars. [[Harold Hopkins (physicist)]], of Leicester, also did important work on the zoom lens (he largely invented it) and [[Optical fiber|fibre-optics]].

[[J. P. Knight]] of Nottingham is credited with inventing green and red [[traffic lights]], installed in London on 9 December 1868, but these lasted only three weeks; traffic lights would be introduced only from the 1920s, again in [[London]] (from an American-led design scheme). The first modern-day traffic lights were installed in [[Piccadilly]] from August 1926. [[Edgar Purnell Hooley]], a Nottinghamshire surveyor, in 1901 was in Denby and found a stretch of [[road surface]] that was smooth from an accidental leak of [[tar]] over the surface. He patented a process of mixing tar with chipped stones in 1902, forming [[Tarmacadam|Tarmac]], a name which he patented. Radcliffe Road (A6011) in [[West Bridgford]] in 1902 was the first tarmac road ({{convert|5|mi|km|disp=or}} long) in the world.

[[Mettoy]] was a famous firm in the [[St James End, Northampton|St James]] area of Northampton, which from 1933 produced [[Corgi Toys|Corgi]] toys (mostly made in [[Swansea]] and designed in Northampton), and in the 1970s it made the [[space hopper]]; the company collapsed in 1983, moving to Swansea. In Leicestershire was [[Palitoy]], another world-famous firm in Coalville; [[General Mills]] bought it in 1968, but production ceased in 1984 and the site was closed by [[Hasbro]] in 1994. [[Pedigree Dolls & Toys]] ([[Sindy]]) was in [[Wellingborough]], closing in 1982. The first plastic [[Keep case|DVD case]] was made in Corby by [[Amaray]]. Britain's first out-of-town shopping centre was opened in November 1964 by GEM at West Bridgford, on a site now owned by [[ASDA]].

Much [[integrated circuit]] and semiconductor research was carried out by [[Plessey]] at [[Plessey Research Caswell|Caswell]] near Towcester, ahead of much of what was being achieved in America by [[Jack Kilby]]; Plessey invented a model of the integrated circuit in 1957. Caswell was later a site for manufacturing [[monolithic microwave integrated circuit]]s in the 1990s by [[Marconi plc|Marconi]]. On 15 December 1966, the first electronic telephone exchange in Europe opened at [[Ambergate]] in Derbyshire.

[[Torksey]] [[Torksey railway station|railway viaduct]], built across the Trent in 1849, is considered to be the first [[box girder bridge]], designed by [[Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet]]. The tallest freestanding structure in the region is the chimney of [[West Burton power stations|West Burton power station]] (north Nottinghamshire) at {{convert|656|ft|m|order=flip|abbr=on}}. [[Nottingham Combined Heating and Power Scheme]] is the largest [[district heating]] system in the UK, centred on the Eastcroft incinerator, opened in 1973.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fccenvironment.co.uk/fcc-environments-pioneering-eastcrof-efw-plant-reaches-40-year-milestone.html|title=FCC Environment's 'pioneering' Eastcroft EfW plant reaches 40 year milestone|website=www.fccenvironment.co.uk|access-date=10 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310202009/http://www.fccenvironment.co.uk/fcc-environments-pioneering-eastcrof-efw-plant-reaches-40-year-milestone.html|archive-date=10 March 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>