Editing South East England (section)

====Other industries====
The [[Wealden iron industry]] in the [[Weald]] was the site of the first [[blast furnace]] in Britain in 1491, and produced much of Britain's [[cast iron]] until the 1770s.

[[Portsmouth Block Mills]] were the site of the world's first metal [[machine tool]]s, built for the manufacture of wooden [[pulley]]s, invented by [[Henry Maudslay]], and the site of the world's first industrial [[assembly line]] in 1803.

[[South Foreland Lighthouse]] on 8 December 1858 was the world's first lighthouse with electric light, with the first type of industrial electrical generator made by [[Frederick Hale Holmes]], from work he had carried out with [[Floris Nollet]] of Belgium, and 36 permanent magnets. By 1880, of the ten lighthouses with electric light, five were in the UK. From the lighthouse in 1899, the first international radio broadcast to France was made. [[Zénobe Gramme]] of Belgium made a much [[Gramme machine|better design]] in 1870 with [[Excitation (magnetic)|self-excitation]] of magnets, and the first modern [[dynamo]]. North Foreland Lighthouse was the UK's last-staffed lighthouse until 1998.

Portland cement was developed in Northfleet, Kent, by William Aspdin, son of [[Joseph Aspdin]]. The development was to heat the ingredients to around 1450&nbsp;°C, producing [[Clinker (cement)|clinker]]. Previously, temperatures were taken to only 800&nbsp;°C, which was not enough. The first ever cement kiln is still in Northfleet today in a cardboard factory. In the late 1800s, the rotary kiln made the process much more efficient. Concrete, effectively human-made stone, is the most widespread human-made material. 5% of all carbon emissions worldwide are from concrete production.

The [[List of tallest structures in the United Kingdom|tallest freestanding structure]] in the region is the chimney of [[Grain Power Station]] at 801&nbsp;ft; it is the second-tallest chimney in the UK after [[Drax power station]].

[[George Albert Smith (film pioneer)|George Albert Smith]] developed the first [[Color photography|colour film]] process, known as [[Kinemacolor]], in 1906 at [[Southwick, West Sussex]]. [[George E. Davis]] from Slough, is the founding father of chemical engineering. Wiggins Teape, later [[Arjo Wiggins|ARJO Wiggins Fine Papers]], had the largest paper research centre in Europe at Butlers Court in Beaconsfield; built in 1891 and vacated in 2009. [[Bentalls]] in Bracknell (now [[Fenwick (department store)|Fenwick]] since 2017) had the first [[Payment terminal|point of sale terminal]] in Europe - the [[NCR Corporation|NCR]] 280 in 1973.

The [[National Fruit Collection]] is the largest collection of [[fruit tree]]s in the world, at [[Brogdale]], and is next to the M2 at the A251 junction in [[Ospringe]]. [[Scalextric]] was invented by Fred Francis in 1956, who founded Minimodels in Havant; initially the model cars had been [[clockwork]]; it was made from 1967 at [[Tri-ang Railways|Triang]] in Margate. The world's first [[Mars (chocolate bar)|Mars Bar]] was made in Slough in 1932; it was modelled on the [[Milky Way (chocolate bar)|Milky Way]], popular at the time in the USA. Twix was introduced at Slough in 1967, with production moving to eastern France (Mars Chocolat France at [[Haguenau]] in [[Alsace]]) in 2005. The [[Ford GT40]] was developed by [[Ford Advanced Vehicles]] at Slough in the mid-1960s.