The Anonymous Widower

Hidden Heroes At The Science Museum

I went to see Hidden Heroes at the Science Museum  yesterday.  It was quite an interesting little exhibition documenting the stories behind a selection of everyday objects.

As you would expect most of the items shown, had been invented or designed in the major industrial countries like the UK, the United States, Germany, France and Sweden.

But what was surprising was that only one had been designed or invented by a woman.  and that was the coffee filter, which was invented by a German housewife called Melitta Bentz. Could it be that she was fed up with her family’s comments on her bad coffee?

In some ways it’s strange, but one of Britain’s most successful and well-known female engineers of the mid-twentieth century, Tilly Shilling, made her name in the field of getting liquids to flow properly. She designed a device, which meant that the Merlin engines in Spitfires and Hurricanes could perform negative-G manoeuvres and thus not be shot down by German fighters.

November 26, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Design, World | Engineering, Museum, Science