Eureka Birmingham!

The name John Richard Dedicoat may ring a bell – that’s because he came up with a famous road safety device.

Born in 1840 and an apprentice to James Watt no less, Dedicoat was heavily involved in bicycle manufacture. He patented the bell in 1877 and also made and sold the Pegasus bike.

Dedicoat’s inventions didn’t end there. He also produced a spring step to help mount bikes.

The boffin, who died in 1903, has another claim to fame. He patented the first pencil sharpening machine.

Schoolteacher Rowland Hill’s brainwave takes some licking. Born in Kidderminster on December 3, 1795, Sir Roland was a campaigner for social reform and argued if letters were cheaper to send, the poorer classes would send more of them and profits would rise.

The story goes that Sir Rowland was inspired to reform the postal service after spotting a woman who was too poor to receive a letter sent by her fiance (in the early 1800s, mail was paid for on delivery – and it was expensive). An employee at Birmingham’s Assay Office, Sir Roland came up with the idea of an adhesive stamp in 1839, the first being the Penny Black, which went into circulation a year later.

He died in Hampstead, London, in 1879 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. There is a memorial to the pioneer in Highgate Cemetery.

It would take a lot longer to make a cuppa if not for Arthur L Large’s helping hand.

Nothing much had changed, design wise, since the first kettle was made in Mesopotamia around 2,000BC – then Arthur came up with a game-changer.

In 1922, the engineer at Birmingham’s Bulpitt and Sons whistled-in the changes by turning the kettle electric.

Bulpitt and Sons electrical goods manufacturers were a very big name and, in the early 20th century, launched the “Swan Brand” of appliances. That famous brand was acquired by French company Moulinex in 1988 and Bulpitt and Sons (Swan Brand) was dissolved a year later. They will be remembered for creating a slice of history in the home. And it proved a nice little urner.

OK, America invented them, but it was Birmingham who patented wipers and offered them to the public.

You can thank Mills Munitions – a Brum company that also invented the grenade – for taking a lot of the danger out of driving in bad weather. The company, based in shouted or used rattles.

Hudson came up with a very small, but very loud, whistle – until then, they were mere musical instruments.

He didn’t stop there. Hudson later invented the first whistle for referees – replacing hankies which were waved enthusiastically by the official. He followed that with the “Acme Thunderer” – the world’s first pea whistle which is still the most used in the world.

Hudson died in 1930.

Thank Walter Griffiths for revolutionising housework. Admitedly, the first vacuum cleaner, known as a carpet sweeper, was built by Daniel Hess in Iowa, USA, in 1860. It was big, bulky and used bellows.

But Griffiths took it to a new level and made the machine accessible to the general public. Frankly, he swept the floor with the opposition.

In 1905, Griffiths, from Highgate, invented the first portable model, under the catchy working title “Griffith’s Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets”. Unlike all the others, it looked like a modern vacuum cleaner. Dust was sucked down a removable, flexible pipe and it had a variety of nozzles.

The advertising blurb pledged: “It can be powered by any one person, such as the ordinary domestic servant.” It was seen as a luxury item.

Doctor and keen photographer John Hall-Edwards, from Kings Norton, shocked the medical world on January 11, 1896. He carried out the first clinical radiograph – and discovered a needle under the skin of his patient’s hand.

A month later, Hall-Edwards took the first X-ray used to guide an operation. He also took the first X-ray of the human spine. In 1899, HallEdwards was rewarded with the job as Birmingham General Hospital’s first surgeon radiographer.

Hall-Edwards paid a high price for revolutionising hospitals. He developed cancer through radiation exposure and had his left arm amputated in 1908, followed by the four fingers on his right hand.

He died of cancer at his Edgbaston home on August 15, 1926, aged 68.

Birmingham joiner John Heard changed kitchens forever in the early 19th century by designing the first stand-alone cooking range, which featured a flue-pipe to remove fumes.

His brainchild was revealed in the 1820 Newton’s London Journal of Arts and Sciences Volume II. “This invention consists in the construction of a stove or fireplace for the purpose of baking, boiling, roasting and other culinary purposes, as well as for heating the room in which it may be placed, with a very small consumption of fuel.

“The stove is equally adapted for ships or dwelling houses.”