In 1839 the Board of Trade in the United Kingdom established the Designs Registry. It was early in the Victorian era, and advances in steam, transportation, and communication technologies meant that England’s economy was prosperously humming along. People like Richard Arkwright, who designed the factory system, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who revolutionized public transportation, were like the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the day, inspiring waves of other people to start tinkering with their own inventions.
These inventions would inevitably need patents. The patent system at the time was slow, drawn-out, and expensive, so when the government launched the Designs Registry---intended for “ornamental designs,” rather than utilitarian wares---inventors of all stripes started to pursue copyright protection through it instead. To do that, the inventor would need two exact copies of his drawing, one for the Registrar, to be stamped and saved, and one to keep. A new book called Inventions That Didn’t Change the World is a compilation of those designs.
The title of the book kind of gives things away, but these aren’t exactly early-stage blueprints for the telephone, or the subway. Instead, the designs are for oddities like “an improved pickle fork,” “an elastic dress and opera hat,” “the pillow cap for travelers,” (which might be the precursor to the ugly but popular Ostrich Pillow) and “for a gold digger’s dwelling.”
“Trifling or otherwise, these designs provide a fascinating insight into the social history and technology of the period,” says author Julie Halls in the book’s preliminary remarks. “Some seemingly inexplicable inventions make sense within their historical context.” Well-mannered Victorians seemed to be interested in inventions like the ‘Spring Bible and Prayer Case,’ which “ ‘obviates the necessity of a ribbon’ for removing the book from the case, suggest[ing] the need for urgent moral guidance of a kind few of us turn to today,” Halls writes. Likewise, cutlery featured prominently in a gallery of these designs at the Great Exhibition of 1851, because the correct cutlery, as used at dinner parties, spoke volumes about propriety and social status.
Whether or not all the inventions stood the test of time doesn’t matter so much; the culture of amateur inventing as a whole can be credited for creating an environment that encouraged tinkering, discovery, and therefore progress. Physicians started experimenting with ether as a numbing agent in 1846; in 1847 a inventor registered a design for an inhaler that used ether. Obviously, people shouldn’t be breathing in ether, but the invention of the inhaler would eventually mean that many of previously hindered asthmatics could live easier lives.
This era of inventions has a familiar ring to them. Not because artificial leeches are making a comeback, but because right now it’s easier than ever for designers to scheme up a gadget and campaign for a public reception on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Even if we aren’t yet sure we need a smorgasbord of chirping, Internet of Things gadgets and quantifying wearables, who knows what will come next?
Inventions That Didn’t Change the World is available on Amazon. Buy it here.
