Q 01/05

Which Scottish engineer began rating steam engines in horsepower, showing buyers how many animals each could replace?

A) Thomas Telford

B) George Stephenson

C) James Watt

D) William Murdoch

Answer · why

C) James Watt

James Watt fixed one horsepower at 33,000 foot-pounds of work a minute. The metric unit of power that later displaced it, the watt, was named after hi...

Q 02/05

Which textile workers wrecked machines in raids across England from 1811 in the name of a legendary apprentice?

A) Luddites

B) Levellers

C) Diggers

D) Jacobins

Answer · why

A) Luddites

Luddites signed their threats 'Ned Ludd', after an apprentice said to have smashed two stocking frames in 1779. Today the word means anyone opposed to...

Q 03/05

Which novelist left school at twelve to work in a London boot-blacking factory while his father sat in debtors' prison?

A) Thomas Hardy

B) Charles Dickens

C) Anthony Trollope

D) William Thackeray

Answer · why

B) Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens pasted labels on pots of blacking for six shillings a week. He later wrote Hard Times, his only novel-length treatment of the industri...

Q 04/05

Which trade's 'climbing boys', some as young as four, were finally protected by a British law passed in 1875?

A) Coal mining

B) Shipyard riveting

C) Slate quarrying

D) Chimney sweeping

Answer · why

D) Chimney sweeping

Chimney sweeping sent small boys up hot flues as narrow as nine inches square. The 1875 law followed the death of twelve-year-old George Brewster, who...

Q 05/05

Which Quaker chocolate family built the model village of Bournville beside its factory near Birmingham?

A) Cadbury

B) Rowntree

C) Terry

D) Thornton

Answer · why

A) Cadbury

Cadbury moved its cocoa works out of central Birmingham to a greenfield site to expand. Because George Cadbury was a temperance Quaker, no pub has eve...