This is a list of inventions and discoveries made in Wales or by Welsh people.
Innovations in Wales or by Welsh people
1557 – Equals = and plus + signs
Robert Recorde (c. 1512 – 1558) was a Welsh physician and mathematician. He invented the equals sign (=) and also introduced the pre-existing plus sign (+) to English speakers in 1557.
1706 – pi symbol William Jones, FRS (1675 – 1 July 1749) was a Welsh mathematician, most noted for his use of the symbol π (the Greek letter Pi) to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
1794 – Ball bearing Philip Vaughan was a Welsh inventor and ironmaster who patented the first design for a ball bearing in 1794.
1810 – Utopian socialism, cooperative and 8-hour day Robert Owen (14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. He strove to improve factory working conditions, promoted experimental socialistic communities, and sought a more collective approach to child rearing, including government control of education. In the early 19th century, Robert Owen raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his "socialist" enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan: "Eight hours' labour, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest".
1836 – Iron smelting David Thomas was widely regarded as one of the foremost ironmasters in the United Kingdom. It was while employed at the Yniscedwyn Works, in Ystradgynlais in the Swansea Valley, that he devised the process which would advance the Industrial Revolution. On February 5, 1837, Thomas used a hot blast to smelt iron ore and anthracite coal.
1842 – The hydrogen fuel cell The first references to hydrogen fuel cells appeared in 1838. In a letter dated October 1838 but published in the December 1838 edition of The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Welsh physicist and barrister Sir William Grove wrote about the development of his first crude fuel cells. He used a combination of sheet iron, copper and porcelain plates, and a solution of sulphate of copper and dilute acid.
1861 – Mail-order shopping
Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones (16 October 1834 – 11 January 1920) was a Welsh entrepreneur who formed the first mail order business, revolutionising how products were sold. Creating the first mail-order catalogues in 1861 – which consisted of woollen goods – for the first time customers could order by post, and the goods were delivered by railway. The BBC summed up his legacy as "The mail-order pioneer who started a billion-pound industry". Pryce-Jones became hugely successful in the United Kingdom where he had over 100,000 customers, which included Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria. In England, he was able to promise next-day delivery. His business also took off overseas, selling Welsh flannel to the rest of Europe, the United States followed by Australia. During the 1870s he took part in exhibitions all over the world, winning several awards, and he became world-famous. The Queen knighted him in 1887.
Orthopaedic advancements inc. the Thomas splint and Thomas test
Hugh Owen Thomas was descended from a line of Welsh bone setters and placed great importance on rest in treatment of fractures. He is responsible for a number of contributions to orthopaedic treatment and surgery, producing a number of books and methods that revolutionised orthopaedic practice. He is particularly known for the Thomas splint, which was widely used during World War I, reducing mortality from 80% to just 8% by the end of the war. The Thomas test, is a method of detecting hip flexion contracture (fixed partial flexion of the hip) and to measure hip extensibility by having a patient lie flat on a firm bed/table while holding one knee to their chest. The opposite thigh is then observed for hip contracture and extensibility.
1878 – The microphone
David Edward Hughes (16 May 1831– 22 January 1900), was a Welsh inventor, practical experimenter, and professor of music known for his work on the printing telegraph and the microphone. His family moved around the time of his birth so he may have been born in London or Corwen.
1880 – Women in medicine, social reform Frances Elizabeth Hoggan (née Morgan; 20 December 1843 – 5 February 1927) was a Welsh doctor and the first British woman to receive a doctorate in medicine from any university in Europe. She was also a pioneering medical practitioner, researcher and social reformer and the first female doctor to be registered in Wales. She and her husband opened the first husband-and-wife medical practice in Britain. Following her graduation, Frances did post-graduate work at top medical schools in Vienna, Prague and Paris before returning to Britain. She spent several years as a medical practitioner working with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson at the New Hospital for Women in London. She also helped to found the National Health Society with Elizabeth Blackwell in 1871. Its purpose was to "promote health amongst all classes of the population."
1884 – Legalising cremation Doctor William Price (1800–1893) cremated his son on a Llantrisant hilltop following his death, which was considered blasphemous at the time. While in court, Price noted that while cremation was not legal in the UK, it was also not illegal. This led to the Cremation Act 1902. Today, a statue still stands of Price in the town of Llantrisant.
1886 – Deep space photography Isaac Roberts FRS (27 January 1829 – 17 July 1904) was a Welsh engineer and businessman best known for his work as an amateur astronomer, pioneering the field of astrophotography of nebulae. On 29 December 1888, he took what is believed to be the first photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy, although he believed the object to be a nebula. He was a member of the Liverpool Astronomical Society in England and was a fellow of the Royal Geological Society. Roberts was also awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1895.
1896 – Early flying machine William (Bill) Frost (1848–1935) was the first person to fly a powered airplane. He was a Welsh designer of an early flying machine, the Frost Airship Glider. Frost's ambition to invent the flying machine started in ~1880. Despite his poverty, he managed to construct the "Frost Airship Glider", which seems, in principle, to have resembled a vertical takeoff aeroplane, with gas-filled tanks.
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