News and Events
November 2024
FINALLY! We are proud to present a new viewer for our early county map and military survey data is live now on the National Library of Scotland website. Check out the link below to explore mills mapped by 18-19th century surveyors:
October 2024
We are happy to share that Octopus Energy recently cited our data and findings in one of their talks at the Wired Tech Energy Summit in early October.
September 2024
Great to visit again with the Knightswood Local History Group and share our work on early county maps from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
- Mapping the Mills of Britain through the 18-19th-century cartographic revolution, 24 September 2024
August 2024
Another busy month here among the AFTW Team. Both Simon Naylor and Tara Jonell presented at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference in London based on their recent research in the project. Their papers were part of a session based on "Oral
Mapping the historical geographies of water infrastructures" convened by Simon and colleague Lawrence Dritsas at the University of Edinburgh
- Contested Waters: Measuring and mapping water supplies
during Britain’s canal mania - Mapping the mills of Britain: connections among power, technology, and place
Tara's attendance at the conference was supported by the SAGES Small Grants Scheme.
July 2024
Our newest publication is fresh off the press.
- Jonell, T.N., Jones, P., Lucas, A., Naylor, S., 2024, Limited waterpower contributed to rise of steam power in British ‘Cottonopolis’: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus, doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae251.
June 2024
Tara took part in the new workshop series, Data/Culture, organised by the Alan Turing Institute in Lancaster. Over several days, a small group of us explored novel methods in the digital humanities for analysing and exploring big data in historical maps and news texts.
May 2024
Prof Adam Lucas continued to share work from the project with colleagues based in Cambridge at invited seminars, and Tara similarly shared aspects of this work in Edinburgh this month:
- “Revisiting the Industrial Revolution with 21st century geomorphology”, School of GeoSciences, Hutton Club Seminar, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 2 May 2024
- “Slaying the Demons with Steam: Power and Productivity in the First Industrial Revolution”, HPS Seminar Series, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge,16 May 2024
March 2024
Another busy month here with the AFTW Team. During his research visit in the UK, Prof Adam Lucas shared work from the project with colleagues based in Paris and in Coatbridge.
- “'Away from the water’: the first energy transition, British textiles 1770‒1890” Masters Seminar, Campus Condorcet, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, 29 March 2024
- “'Away from the water': the first energy transition, British textiles 1770-1890” Project Overview, Third International Early Engines Conference (IEEC3), Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, 23 March 2024
December 2023
It has been a busy month! Tara Jonell traveled to the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco to share her work revisiting common misconceptions and recalculating historic waterpower potential.
- “Revisiting the Industrial Revolution with 21st century geomorphology”, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 13 December 2023
Attending this conference was made possible by award of an internal GES grant to Jonell.
November 2023
As part of the University College of London Department of Earth Science seminar series, Tara Jonell shared her work revisiting common misconceptions and recalculating historic waterpower potential.
- “Revisiting the Industrial Revolution with 21st century geomorphology”, School of Earth Sciences, Research Seminar Series, University College London, London, 17 Nov 2023
March 2023
As part of our School seminar series, we presented early results from our work to our colleagues. What an enjoyable way to end the week!
- School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK, Waterpower and British industrial transformations, 24 March 2023 (invited seminar)
January 2023
What a wonderful visit today to the Knightswood Local History Group here in Dumbarton. We enjoyed the opportunity to share some of the preliminary results of our work.
- Knightswood Local History Group, Glasgow, UK, ‘Away from the water’: The first energy transition, British textiles 1770-1890, 31 January 2023 (invited seminar)
November 2022
We enjoyed sharing our research with volunteers involved with the Roy Gazetteer transcription project today. As part of a series of short presentations led by the National Library of Scotland, we presented our initial results for historic mill locations.
- National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK, The Roy Military Gazetteer and Scottish Mills, 8 November 2022 (invited presentation)
October 2022
Early work by Tara Jonell on the colder, stormier and drier period of the early Industrial Revolution attracted the attention of the press at the Geological Society of America Fall Meeting. This preliminary work has since supported Tara's more expansive work recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus.
- GSA featured our preliminary work in a news release
- New Scientist, a popular science magazine, featured the same work in a short article
