Amy Johnson (1903-1941), the famous English aviator shown in the image above, was the first woman pilot to fly solo from Britain to Australia. Either solo or together with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance flying records in... Continue Reading →
In December 1934, Theresa Wallach and her friend Florence Blenkiron set out from London to Cape Town, South Africa, on a 600cc single-cylinder Panther motorcycle with sidecar and trailer. They rode straight through the Sahara desert without a compass to... Continue Reading →
Earlier this year the IET Archives was very fortunate to receive a donation of the records of the Decca Navigator Company. This company owned and developed the Decca Navigator System, probably one of the UK’s major contributions to radio navigation... Continue Reading →
The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) commissioned two bronze statues of Michael Faraday in the late 1980s. One statue was to be positioned in front of the IEE’s London venue at Savoy Place and the other at its Stevenage Office,... Continue Reading →
The IET Archives has an ongoing multi-year project to conserve a collection of pamphlets known as the S P Thompson pamphlets. These pamphlets, covering a multitude of scientific and engineering subjects, came to the Institution of Electrical Engineers along with... Continue Reading →
After the recent celebrations concerning the length of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, we have delved back into the IET Archive collections to uncover a fond tribute to the young Princess Elizabeth which occurred in 1947 on... Continue Reading →
Today, with the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II surpassing the length of Queen Victoria’s reign, we have taken the opportunity to look through the IET Archives collections to see how the IET’s predecessors and other organisations commemorated notable... Continue Reading →
Further research on a letter and postcard from 1914 has not only uncovered the letter writer, Robert B Clifton, Professor of Physics at Oxford University from 1865 to 1915, but also brought to light an interesting story about a ‘perpetual... Continue Reading →
The IET Archives recently received a donation of 6 booklets dating from the 1920s to 1940s covering the subject of tabulating machines which give a fascinating insight into the history of computing and also the forerunners of the well-known computing... Continue Reading →
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