The locomotive was a symbol of design that reached the most remote corners of the British Empire: an engineering marvel of a scale and complexity staggering to those unfamiliar with such machines. Heaving through the colonial bush, it could induce ‘stampedes of the natives,’ with a blow of its whistle, and served as a reminder of Britain’s power as much as solving logistical issues.1 Successful and sustainable adaptation of technology, however, meant a deep understanding of colonial conditions was crucial. What commercial factors influenced the chosen route? How was the line plotted and the engine specified to cope with the local environment? Who collaborated to manufacture and assemble the locomotive itself? And what relationships formed in the installation and operation of this new mode of transport? The stories behind not just locomotives but many of the iconic technologies of the industrial revolution are bound up in the process of their realisation – their design in the broadest sense of the word.
In focusing on the intensely collaborative nature of design, we examine the multifarious links formed in supporting the industrialisation of Britain’s empire and uncover the motivations, dynamics and legacies of those working within its structures. There has been broad historical debate on the nature of imperial linkages, with networks, bridgeheads, nodes and webs among the proposed structures and definitions put forward. The long-standing discussion around, firstly, the diffusion, and latterly, the transfer of technology, has contributed a great deal to this wider debate and has built a postcolonial historiographical position that decentres Europe and emphasises instead the circularity of imperial connections. Design, Technology and Communication seeks to add to this debate by focusing not on the technologies themselves, but on their exploitation and the way the design process acted as a conduit for communication between, across and within Britain and the empire.
Our central research question interrogates the role of design in communicating and applying industrial technologies to culturally diverse imperial locations between c. 1830 and the First World War. Rather than examining the impacts of the technologies – particularly revolutionary technologies and their multiple incarnations, such as steam power – we focus on incremental and adaptive design developments, which account for the majority of innovative activity in this period. Through the processes of identification, specification and application to and for new environments, we argue that design acted as a conduit for intra-imperial communication in the long nineteenth century, that is, as a form of communication within and across the different internal British contexts and the myriad, expanding imperial contexts. We examine not only the adaptation of industrial technologies for specific purposes but also the practical communication and links that emerged as necessities of their realisation.2 Design, Technology and Communication utilises detailed archival case studies to explore the mechanics of collaboration and poses two fundamental questions: what was the nature of design in the British Empire with regard to location, stakeholders, motivation and format? And what do both the opportunities and restrictions posed by the imperial context tell us about how design functioned as a conduit for communication?
We also hope to shed fresh light on the semantics, politics and conceptualisation of the term ‘design’. ‘Design’ is such a widely used term (noun, verb, adjective, cross-sector, positive/pejorative) that it is difficult to define, both historically and particularly in contemporary contexts. There has been an increasing consideration of ‘design thinking’ and how it can aid innovation. Yet during the chronology studied here, the terms ‘design’ and ‘innovation’ were entirely unused, or barely so. Instead, the ‘betterment’ that was part of the overall conception of the empire project and the assertion of new ways of life were tied up with the growing faith in the developments in technology, science and medicine that were taking place.3 Often, significant engineering risks – and all the design work documented here was undertaken by engineers – were taken, and huge resources spent on projects: contextualising these in relation to the tentacles of empire at each stage of the product development process should be illustrative for both design scholars and historians. Design in this book is therefore considered a conduit for communication. As the mechanism by which ideas became reality, it enabled links between people and organisations through the exchange of information, logistical movement of goods, installation of facilities and use of equipment. Design has also been described as a social process, and the necessity of engaging a range of stakeholders made it a critical component in understanding the establishment and development of links between and within Britain and the imperial territories.4 While the installation of finished artefacts (railways, production machinery, agricultural equipment, bridges) signified the reach of the British Empire, it was the process of design itself that helped to reinforce these links. In applying these interpretations as a framework to examine how technologies were used and applied in the British Empire, we hope to contribute to the understanding of the nature of design during this period. The rapid technological breakthroughs, environmental challenges, disparate markets and institutional networks are the backdrop to the story of how the process of design was a powerful driver in shaping the relationship between Britain and its colonies.5
As such, Design, Technology and Communication situates itself in three key areas of historical enquiry and literature: the imperial – including imperial economics and shifting ideas of colonial knowledge; the industrial – including business models and patents; and, lastly, design and innovation – both theoretical and practical.6 It seeks to make a contribution to each of these areas by utilising a detailed case study approach that encompasses a range of industrial technologies (railways, steam ploughs, sheep shears, bridges, sugar production and road steamers) to test some of the wide-ranging claims and ideas debated in the overarching literature.
In order to understand our case studies, we have had to consider carefully the very different imperial contexts in which technologies were identified, designed and developed. These included formal and informal imperial structures, the financial and economic linkages of empire, widely varied constitutional and institutional structures, and professional networks. A key intellectual context for our work has been that of P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, with their emphasis on the financial and economic linkages of empire and ‘gentlemanly capitalism’.7 The development of design was at the heart of an international economy: an extension of capitalism into and across wildly varying territories over the globe.8 The importance placed by these authors on the financial and economic circuits of empire and their ‘gentlemanly’ drivers are borne out at least to some extent by our work. In nearly all of our case study technologies, elite wealth, but more importantly, elite connections – be they British or among and across colonised peoples – were key.9 Most involved incremental improvement to existing industrial equipment, rather than the revolutionary inventions or technology systems that dominate popular thinking about the industrial revolution, such as steam power or the telegraph. What we show is the importance of elites – British or colonial – and their patronage, networks and funds in the innovation process. This was as true for the formal empire of crown colonies and dominions as it was of the informal empire, such as Cuba, Argentina and Peru.10
Laidlaw describes a general transition from 1830 onwards from imperial control towards more pragmatic forms of administration and management in colonial settings.11 Variances in socio-economic, technological and cultural status, however, meant different imperial territories absorbed technologies at different rates. Part of this particular strand of the litera...