AIA Awards : Recent Prizewinners

THE DOROTHEA AWARD FOR CONSERVATION 2008

The 2008 Dorothea prize was awarded to The Kew Bridge Steam Museum volunteers for the conservation and restoration of the 70-inch Bull Type Cornish engine, still on its original site. One of five original steam pumping engines situated at Kew Bridge Steam Museum, West London, the former Brentford pumping station, The engine was built by Harvey & Co. of Hayle between 1857 and 1859 and ran until the station was decommissioned in 1944.This type of engine was developed in Cornwall in the late 18th century by Edward Bull in direct competition with the conventional beam engines being produced by Boulton & Watt. Bull's design dispensed with the need for the massive cast iron beam and large engine house which were typical of the conventional Watt beam engine. One of the major advantages of this configuration was that the Bull engines were cheaper to buy than beam engines as they were much more compact and easier to erect, needing considerably smaller engine houses and requiring fewer metal castings. Bull's design, however, fell foul of the James Watt patent and he was forced to stop selling them, manufacture only recommencing after the patent had expired. It took off again by the using the Cornish cycle of steam expansion in the 1830s.

The picture shows the TV presenter Anna Ford performing the operation initiation ceremony on 12 May 2008. The award was accepted at the AIA conference by Nick Morgan, secretary of the Bull Engine Restoration Committee.

THE PETER NEAVERSON AWARD

This is a new award to honour the memory of Peter Neaverson, a long-standing Council member and joint Editor of Industrial Archaeology Review for nearly twenty years. It is given for outstanding scholarship in industrial archaeology. The first of these awards was made to last year’s Rolt Memorial Lecturer, Dr Colin Rynne of the University of Cork, for his magnificent Industrial Ireland 1750 – 1930: an Archaeology. This well illustrated book strikes a nice balance between the two sides in the current debates about the future directions of industrial archaeology, setting the scene in the first chapter but then covering familiar topics such Animal, Wind and Water Power, Roads and Bridges, Textiles and so on.

Winner 2008
Tone Works, Wellington Somerset (NBR 76469 ISSN 1749 8775)
Survey and analysis of buildings, power systems and machinery by Mike Williams and Lucy Jessop.
A detailed piece of recording work by English Heritage. The report combines detailed recording of the buildings and machinery of this textile finishing works owned by Fox Brothers with surviving documentary evidence painting a detailed picture of the site and how it functioned and evolved over time.

Initiative Award 2008
Barlavington, West Sussex, Duncton Water Mill Report by Ron Martin, Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society.
An excellent example of the recording of a complex site. The detailed drawings reveal the development of the site and give some insight into how it functioned. This entry highlights the important work local societies do by recording local sites thus adding to the national data of our industrial heritage.

Student Award 2008
Under Slate Grey Victorian Sky (University of Manchester MA Archaeological Field Practice) by Lee Gregory.
An excellent piece of research which married excavation evidence with census data to create a picture of the the Victorian Slums of Ancoats. Not only were the buildings examined but also the community that inhabited them, a mixture of Irish and Italian immigrants, distributed amongst local people who were predominately employed in the textile trades. To these people the area was not a slum but their home.

PUBLICATION AWARDS

These received a lot of entries this year as a result of our new leaflet but please keep them coming.
The Occasional Publications Award went to Ken Redmore, Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, for his Ploughs, Chaff Cutters and Steam Engines, a well illustrated account of various agricultural implement makers in Lincolnshire.
The Journals Award was presented to Alan Brittan of the Leicester Industrial History Society for a memorial issue of their journal which commemorated two of their former members, Dick Thomson and Peter Neaverson. Peter had been the Editor of this journal for twenty years and Alan republished – with much better maps – some of the articles with which Peter had been involved over the years.
The Newsletters Award - a category for which we had the largest number of entries – went once again to the Waterworks Museum, Hereford, for their Waterworlds, Autumn, 2007. This is produced on glossy paper which resulted in excellent reproduction of the many photographs it contained. This award was received by Derek Duffett on behalf of the Museum.

ESSAY AWARD

The aim of this award particularly is to encourage younger people to send in essays often written as part of their courses on industrial or post-medieval archaeology. This year’s winner was Hilary Orange of University College, London, for her essay based on her PhD research on public perceptions and experiences of Cornish tin and copper mining landscape, entitled’ Industrial Archaeology: its place within the academic discipline, the public realm and the heritage industry’. We wish her every success in her future.