2017/07/20 by Laurence Wright · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Architecture and Urbanism #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies #Architecture, Design, and Social History #Relation (database) #Institution #Statue #Meaning (existential) #Perspective (graphical) #Novelty #Sociology #History #Cultural history #Art history #Environmental ethics #Law #Art #Political science #Social science #Visual arts #Anthropology #Epistemology #Philosophy
paper · pdf · doi:10.4102/lit.v38i1.1324
openalex publication_date 2017/07/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article investigates the origins and early history of the device known as the ‘Greathead Shield’, an important innovation in Victorian engineering crucial to constructing the London Underground. The aim is to explore the basis on which, many years later, a South African engineer, James Henry Greathead, was accorded prominent public acknowledgment, in the form of a statue, for ‘inventing’ the Shield. From a cultural studies perspective, how is the meaning of ‘invention’ to be understood, given that several other brilliant engineers were involved? The question is adjudicated using the notion of cultural ‘extelligence’, seen in relation to several contemporary and historical accounts, including Greathead’s own record of his achievements in the proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers and presented in The City and South London Railway (1896), edited by James Forrest. The paper was first delivered at the conference on ‘Novelty and Innovation in the Nineteenth Century’ held at the North-West University in May 2016.