Editing North West England (section)

===Industrial heritage===
[[File:Rainhill Bridge, from Bury's Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1831 - artfinder 3408.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Rainhill Skew Bridge]] in 1831]]

The [[Liverpool & Manchester Railway]] was the world's first passenger [[inter-city rail]]way in 1830. [[Manchester Liverpool Road railway station]] is the world's oldest surviving railway station, having opened on 15 September 1830; the [[Stockton & Darlington Railway]] had opened in 1825. [[Chat Moss]] was a problem to constructing the railway, with [[Wapping Tunnel|Edge Hill Tunnel]] and [[Sankey Viaduct]]; the line was bitterly opposed by [[William Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton]]. The [[Bridgewater Canal]] was the first recognised canal of the modern era. [[Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater]] had visited France and noted their canals. [[John Gilbert (agent)|John Gilbert]] had the innovative idea to use water pumped out of his coal mines to fill a canal from the Duke's Worsley mines to Manchester. It was designed by [[James Brindley]] and built in 1761.

{{See also|Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution}}

The [[Nasmyth, Gaskell & Company|Bridgewater Foundry]] in [[Patricroft]] (Salford) can claim to be the world's first factory
with an [[assembly line]] type arrangement in 1836. [[Joseph Huddart]] of Cumbria was the first to mechanise the production of rope in 1793. The [[spinning jenny]] was invented in 1764 in Lancashire by [[James Hargreaves]], a mechanical advance on the [[spinning wheel]].

{{See also|History of computing hardware}}

The [[University of Manchester]] built the world's first [[Stored-program computer|programmable computer]], the [[Manchester Baby]], on 21 June 1948; the [[Williams tube|Williams–Kilburn tube]] on the machine was the world's first computer memory, and the beginning of [[random-access memory]] (RAM); the baby computer was made from 550 [[Mullard]] valves. The first commercially available computer, the [[Ferranti Mark 1]], was made in Manchester and sold in February 1951 to the University of Manchester. The world's first [[transistor computer]] was the Manchester Transistor Computer in November 1953. [[Atlas (computer)|Atlas]] was another important computer developed at the University of Manchester, largely developed by [[Tom Kilburn]]; at the time in 1962 it was most powerful computer in the world. The government had dropped its financial support of this computer, and was only funded by Ferranti—the total development cost was around £1m. Britain was leading the world at this time in computing, with the only main competitor being IBM; after the mid-1950s America took over the industry. The spreadsheet was invented in 1974, known as the [[Works Record System]], and used an [[Adabas]] database on an [[IBM 3270]] at ICI in Northwich; it was developed by [[Robert Mais]] and it was around four years before (the more well-known) [[VisiCalc]] in 1978. The University of Manchester has collected 25 Nobel prizes, though recent years have been less notable.

[[Parsonage Colliery]] at Leigh had the UK's deepest mine—1,260 metres in 1949. Macclesfield was the base of UK's [[silk]] weaving industry. [[John Benjamin Dancer]] of Manchester invented [[microphotograph]]y in 1839, which would lead to [[microform]] in the 1920s. [[Frank Hornby]] from Liverpool invented [[Meccano]] in 1901, where [[Meccano Ltd]] would be based for over 60 years. [[Bryant & May]]'s site in [[Garston, Merseyside|Garston]] was the last wooden [[match]] factory in the UK, closing in 1994 to become [[Mersey Match Factory|The Matchworks]] business centre off the A561 west of the former Speke airport. [[Cottonopolis]] was the industrial name for Manchester and the local area. Manchester at one time was the world's richest city. The [[CIS Tower]], built by [[Laing O'Rourke|John Laing]] in 1962, was Europe's tallest building, and Britain's tallest building until 1963, and Manchester's tallest building until 2006.

Kirkby was planned in the 1950s as the largest [[Industrial park|trading estate]] in Britain—1,800 acres. Trafford Park is the world's first planned industrial estate. [[Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers]] opened their first co-operative outlet on 21 December 1844.

[[File:The World of Glass Museum, St Helens - geograph.org.uk - 280250.jpg|thumb|left|The [[World of Glass (St Helens)|World of Glass]] museum in October 2006]]
[[Alastair Pilkington]] invented the [[float glass]] method of manufacture in 1957 at St Helens, announcing it in January 1959. It was manufactured from 1961, and 80% of the world's glass is made with the process; the former site closed in 2014 and it is made now at the Green Gate site. [[Pears soap]], made at Port Sunlight, is the world's first registered brand, and world's oldest brand in existence. [[Elihu Thomson]], born in Manchester who subsequently moved to America, formed [[Thomson-CSF]] which became [[Thales Group]] in 2000. The British part ([[British Thomson-Houston]]) would later become part of GEC; he invented the [[arc lamp]]. [[Henry Brunner]] from Liverpool would join with [[Ludwig Mond]] in the 1860s to form a chemical company which became ICI in 1926. [[Mossbay Steelworks]] in Workington, when opened in 1877, were the world's first large-scale steelworks; its [[Austenite|austenitic]] manganese steel ([[mangalloy]]) was produced from 1877 until 1974, with Britain's railways converting from iron to steel by the 1880s. Track was made there for the UK's railways (exclusively from the 1970s onwards, with the steel made in Teesside) until August 2006; much of the rails made were exported (from 1882), with its main competitor being [[Voestalpine]] of Austria, and a plant (bought by British Steel in 1999) in [[Hayange]], France, who make all of [[SNCF]]'s railway tracks, and the [[Katowice Steelworks]] in Poland. Workington was thought to make the best quality [[Track (rail transport)|rail track]] in the world.

{{See also|War of the currents|Mains electricity}}

[[Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti]], born in Liverpool in 1864, was an [[Electrical engineering|electrical engineer]] who designed the layout for [[Deptford Power Station]], the first [[AC power|alternating current]] [[power station]] in the world in 1887, and whose design all others would follow; his later company [[Ferranti]], of Oldham, would later be an industry leader in Britain's defence electronics, on the [[FTSE 100 Index]]. Ferranti's design of increasing AC voltage to [[High voltage|high tension]] at the power station, to be stepped-down at a transformer at [[Electrical substation|substations]] before entering properties, is the system all electricity networks take today; the system reduces wasteful heating of electricity transmission cables.

[[File:HD.15.019 (11823864155).jpg|thumb|right|200px|Calder Hall in 1973]]
The [[Chain Home]] radar transmitters were built by [[Metropolitan-Vickers|Metrovick]] at its Trafford Park Works, which became part of [[Associated Electrical Industries|AEI]] in 1929, [[General Electric Company|GEC]] in 1968, and as [[Alstom]] it was closed in June 2000. [[2ZY]], the first broadcasts in the [[Northern England|north of England]], were made from the Metrovick factory in November 1922, which became part of the [[BBC National Programme]] in 1927. GEC opened its first factory in Manchester in 1888, moving to Salford in 1895 at the [[Peel Works]], and had built the [[Osram]] electric light company in 1893. The [[Metropolitan-Vickers F.2]] of [[Trafford Park Works]], Manchester was the first [[Axial compressor|axial-flow]] jet engine, with a nine-stage compressor, first running in 1941. It would end up as the [[Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire]] and the American-built [[Wright J65]]. The F.2 gas turbine would power [[MGB.2009]] the first gas-turbine-powered vessel in 1947. [[No. 1 Parachute Training School RAF]]—the main parachute training site for the war—was at [[RAF Ringway]] (the [[Central Landing Establishment]] and [[Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment]]) now Manchester Airport; many aircraft were built there too, and the [[Ford Trafford Park Factory]] built 34,000 aircraft engines—mostly [[Rolls-Royce Merlin|Merlin]] [[Aircraft engine|engine]]s; the nearby Metropolitan-Vickers factory built many Lancasters.

{{See also|Nuclear power by country|Nuclear power in the United Kingdom|Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom}}
[[Sellafield|Calder Hall]] was the world's first nuclear power station in 1956. There are approximately 430 [[nuclear power]] stations around the world, and the UK is the third most experienced operator of nuclear reactors after the US and France, and is the world's ninth largest producer of nuclear-generated electricity, with [[Nuclear power in the United Kingdom|nine stations operating in the UK]] producing around 10GW. New-build nuclear power stations will either be the [[AP1000]] (Toshiba Westinghouse [[NuGeneration]]) or [[EPR (nuclear reactor)|EPR]] design (developed by [[Areva]]). BNFL bought Pittsburgh-based [[Westinghouse Electric Company]] in 1999; it was sold in October 2006 for £5.4 billion to Toshiba. [[British Energy]] was sold in 2009 for £12.5 billion to [[Électricité de France|EDF]]; [[Centrica]] ([[British Gas]]) had also wanted to buy it; 26 Magnox reactors were built in the UK, followed by 14 AGR reactors.

[[Operation Hurricane]] on 3 October 1952, Britain's first [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear bomb]], detonated on [[HMS Plym (K271)|HMS ''Plym'']] on the [[Montebello Islands]] in the state of [[Western Australia]], was made of [[plutonium-239]] mostly made at Windscale (which began production in 1950), with some possibly from [[Chalk River Laboratories]] in [[Ontario]], Canada (where the [[Tube Alloys]] project was later moved).

[[File:Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2 (801), UK - Air Force AN1914655.jpg|thumb|left|200px|A [[Hawker Siddeley Nimrod]] MR2 (HS 801), built at Woodford (former Avro) and designed in Manchester in the mid-1960s, with ''XV148'' (former Comet 4C) making its [[John Cunningham (RAF officer)|first flight]] on 23 May 1967, flying from Chester ([[Hawarden Airport|Broughton]], which had built many [[de Havilland]] fighter jet aircraft) to Woodford; 49 Nimrods were made for the RAF, entering service with [[No. 201 Squadron RAF|201 Sqn]] on 6 November 1970, serving until March 2010 with [[No. 38 Squadron RAF|38 Sqn]] ]]

[[W. T. Glover & Co.]] of Salford were important electricity cable manufacturers throughout the early 20th century. BAE Systems [[Wind Tunnel Department]] at Warton—one of its four wind tunnels—the High Speed Wind Tunnel—can test speeds intermittently up to Mach 3.8 ([[Supersonic speed|trisonic]])—the second fastest in the UK, to the University of Manchester's [[Aero-Physics Laboratory]] which has a hypersonic wind tunnel up to Mach 6. [[Osborne Reynolds]] of Owens College (which became the [[Victoria University of Manchester]] in 1904), known worldwide for his [[Reynolds number]] (introduced elsewhere by the mathematician [[Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet|George Gabriel Stokes]]), showed in the early 1880s that wind tunnels (invented by [[Francis Herbert Wenham]] in 1871) could model large-scale objects accurately. [[BAE Systems Regional Aircraft]] assembled Britain's last airliner, the [[British Aerospace 146]] (Avro RJX), at [[Woodford, Greater Manchester|Woodford]] in November 2001. The Merlin-powered [[Avro Tudor]] G-AGPF, which took off from what is now Manchester Airport on 14 June 1945, was Britain's first [[Cabin pressurization|pressurised]] civilian aircraft; only 38 were built and it was designed for the [[Transatlantic flight|North Atlantic route]]. On 13 May 1949, ''VN799'' the English Electric Canberra first flew from Warton: Warton at the time was a former [[United States Army Air Forces|USAAF]] wartime maintenance base; the German [[Arado Ar 234]] was technically the world's first jet bomber; the Canberra would be the first jet aircraft to make a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic on 21 February 1951.

[[Robert Whitehead (engineer)|Robert Whitehead]] of Bolton invented the modern-day [[Whitehead torpedo|torpedo]] in 1866. Sir [[William Pickles Hartley]] of Lancashire founded [[Hartley's]] Jam in 1871, building a purpose-built village at [[Aintree]]. Sir [[Henry Tate]] also came from Lancashire, joining [[Abram Lyle]] in 1921, of whose [[Golden syrup]] tins are claimed to be Britain's oldest brand; he established the [[Tate]] Gallery in 1897. [[Robert Hope-Jones]] of the Wirral invented the [[Wurlitzer theatre organs in the United Kingdom|Wurlitzer]] organ. The [[Christys' & Co]] factory in Stockport was the largest hat-making factory in the world in the nineteenth century; it became part of [[Associated British Hat Manufacturers]] and is now in [[Oxfordshire]]. The company owner's son founded [[Christy (towel manufacturer)|Christy]] in 1850 in [[Droylsden]] (now in Tameside), which invented the industrially produced [[Terrycloth|towel]].

[[File:Where rabbits once hopped... - geograph.org.uk - 119794.jpg|thumb|right|JLR at Halewood]]
Britain's most popular car, the [[Ford Escort (Europe)|Ford Escort]], was made throughout its life (until 21 July 2000) at Halewood by Ford; 5&nbsp;million were made there from 1967. In 1998, production of its replacement the Focus was transferred to [[Saarlouis Body & Assembly|Saarlouis]] and [[Ford Valencia Plant|Valencia]], which signalled the end of the site's ownership by Ford. The [[Jaguar X-Type]] was first made there in May 2001, until late 2009. In the UK, the [[Ford Mondeo|Mondeo]] has sold 1.4m since 1993, and is made in [[Ford Valencia Plant|Valencia]] in Spain.

[[Starchaser Industries]] of Hyde is hoping to send a British citizen into space, on a [[British space programme|British rocket]]; [[British Aircraft Corporation|BAC]] at Preston had proposed its [[MUSTARD]] re-usable spacecraft in 1964, which although not built had given [[NASA]] a concept.