12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882. Darwin was an English naturalist most famed for his theory of natural selection, which led to the theory of Evolution. Darwin thought that eventually various missing links would be found. He spent 5 years travelling on scientific exploration and in 1859 published On The Origin of the Species.

5 April 1827 – 10 February 1912. Lister was a surgeon and a professor of surgery when he became aware of the need to observe antiseptic conditions in hospitals. Up to this time it was thought that bad air, called miasma, led to infections. His findings were published in the British Medical Journal in 1867 and led to introduction in the UK and the world. In particular surgeons washed their hands between treating patients. this text should now overflow if I am nto wrong testing this text is now overflowing.

March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922. Bell was a Scottish inventor, scientist and engineer who is best known for his invention of the telephone. He is also credited with inventing the metal detector as well as having other successes in the field of aeronautics and hydrofoils.

5 February 1840 – 23 October 1921. Another Scottish inventor, who initially pursued a career as a veterinary surgeon. His pneumatic tyre was invented for his son's tricycle in 1887. The invention came at the time of the development of the motor car, but because of a problem with the patent Dunlop never became rich from the invention, and continued to earn his living as a vet.

5 February 1840 – 23 October 1921. As with many inventors Wheatstone invented many things in addition to the one with which he is most associated. His credits inclides a concertina, stereoscope and an encryption device, but the Wheatstone Bridge, with which he is most associated, was not actually his invention, but he demonstrated many uses for the devoce in measuring resistance in an electrical circuit.

29 December 1813 - 29 June 1890. Although perhaps a lesser-known Victorian inventor, the discovery of Parkes is to be found in every household. Although he was a metallurgist and involved in electroplating, it is for the discovery of Parkesine in 1855 that he is best known. Parkesine, by the way, was the first form of plastic.

9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848. An inventor and engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives. He is styled "Father of Railways" and the Victorians considered him an example of diligent application to work coupled with a thirst for knowledge. He was born in a village near Newcastle and started his working life operating pumping engines. He invented a safety lamp for miners a short time before Sir Humphry Davy, but was eclipsed by the more eminent scientist, and Stephenson's lamp was only used in the North West, while Davy's was used elsewhere. He designed his first locomotive in 1814. He later went on to build other railways around the North of England including the Stockton and Darlington (renowned as the site of the first railway accident) and the Liverpool and Manchester railway.

31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914. A British physicist and chemist best known for the invention of the incandescent light bulb. Born in Sunderland, he served an apprenticeship as a pharmacist and became a partner in a firm of manufacturing chemists. In 1850 he began working on a light bulb which used carbonised paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. Although it worked, it had short life. He took a patent on it in 1860, but later improved the vacuum and filament with a further patent in 1878, a year before Edison. His house Underhill on Kells Lane in Low Fell, Gateshead was the first in the world to have working light bulbs installed. In America Thomas Edison had been working on improvements to Swan's patent and came out with his own design which was marketed in America. Swan meanwhile had made further advances in the design and 1883 Swan and Edison founded the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company. Swan was knighted for his work. A lesser known invention of Swan was in the field of photography in which nitro-cellulose plastic was used to replace glass plates for negatives. He also patented bromide paper for producing black and white prints.

February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931. American inventor, scientist, and businessman who invented many things including the phonograph, the motion picture camera and with Swan, the electric light bulb. He also had many inventions in the field of telecommunications. He also originated the concept of electrical power distribution and established a power station on Manhattan Island. He founded 14 companies including General Electric, one of the largest public traded companies in the world.

April 21, 1830 - June 17, 1881. Styled Father of the Bicycle Industry Starley was an English inventor who began his working life as a gardener, but he repaired clocks and devised gadgets in his spare time. In his early twenties, Starley became involved in repairing sewing machines which were, at the time, rare and expensive. He later formed a sewing machine company in Coventry in 1861 with a business partner. In 1868 the company started making bicycles, first velocipedes (bicycles with equal sized wheels), then penny farthings. Later developments included tricycles and tandems. Starley's sons continued to make bicycles after the death of their father, but Starley's nephew, John Kemp Starley made the most lasting improvement to biciyle design with the Rover safety cycle, which incorporated 26" wheels, a diamond shaped frame and a chain drive, very similar to the modern bicycle.

10 March 1800 - 14 December 1871. Known as The Railway King, he was a financier of railways. Starting his working life as an apprentice draper, Hudson went on to become a partner in a York draper firm that soon became the largest business in the city. In 1827, following the death of his uncle, he inherited £30,000, then a large fortune. He went on to assist in establishing a bank in York. In 1833 a group of businessmen were looking at establishing a railway line to Leeds and Hudson became Treasurer and the largest shareholder, but the plans ran into difficulties and were shelved. In 1837, while serving as Lord Mayor, Hudson met Stephenson and learned of his ambitious plan of a train service to London which ran over a number of railway lines, each run by separate companies. This meant that at each change, a passenger would be required to change to a new carriage, and buy another ticket. Hudson worked to establish the Railway Clearing House in 1842, which managed and allocated fare and freight revenue, dividing it between the various railway companies. By 1844 several lines had merged to form the Midland Railway. He later became an MP. In 1859 he was suddenly ruined by the disclosure of fraud in the Eastern Railway, and it was also found that he bribed some MPs. He lived his later life dependent on the support of a number of his friends.

William Fox Talbot (1800-1877) invented a photographic process called calotype, a process on which most modern photography is based. He was also a noted photographer. He is considered the inventor of photography, having begun photographic experiments in 1834, five years before Louis Daguerre showed his pictures taken by the sun.

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891) is most renowned for his work on improving the sanitation systems of London. He was an English Civil Engineer, and as the chief enginner of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, he had to respond to the Big Stink of 1858. This was accomplished by the creation of a sewer network for London which helped to stem the spread cholera, and by the cleansing of the river Thames, which had been little more than an open sewer. Sewage had been flowing openly through the streets of the Capital, and Bazalgette designed a system involved thousands of miles of sewers which were dumped untreated into the Thames, downstream of London. Sewage treatment centres were not built until much later, but several new pumping stations were established. His system is still in use today. He was knighted in 1875.

David Livingstone (1813 – 1873) is perhaps best known for the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" following a meeting with HM Stanley. He was a Scottish explorer who became famous for his obsession with finding the source of the Nile. He was a popular hero in Victorian times, a medical missionary who served with the London Missionary Society. After missionary work in Africa from 1840, he made several exploratory trips into the African interior from 1852. In 1857 he resigned from the LMS and was then appointed as Her Majesty's Consul for the East Coast of Africa. After various expolorations which met with limited success he went to Zanzibar in 1866 to seek out the source of the Nile. Unfortunately as a result of confusion with another river he failed to find the object of hiis quest, but he did make many other interesting discoveries which added to the maps of the region.After contact with Livingstone was lost a newspaper sent Henry Morton Stanley to find him, which he did, finding that he was now a sick man. He survived a few more years before dying in Africa, with his body being brought back to be interred in Westminster Abbey.

Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) was born in Whitechapel, London. She was educated at home and private school and formed the intention of becoming a doctor, something that was unheard of for a woman at the time. She tried unsuccessfully to obtain admission to various medical schools, but eventually resorted to private tuition. She tried to gain a qualifying diploma allowing her to practise medicine, but was refused by several examining bodies, but eventually the Society of Apothecaries allowed her to sit for her qualification, which she obtained in 1865, only the second woman in Britain qualified to practise as a doctor. In 1866 she began work at St Mary's Dispensary, which served the poor of London, and continued working there for 20 years during which time it became the New Hospital for Women. She obtained further medical qualifications including becoming a member of the British Medical Association, who subsequently banned the admission of further female applicants for a number of years. She founded the London School of Medicine for Women in 1874. In 1908 she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in England.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 - 1890) was best known as an explorer, but he had many other accomplishments. After University, where he showed a proficiency in langiages, he joined the army of the East India Company where, because of his grasp of languages, he was selected for undercover work, and adopted a disguise so that he could work as a spy on the Indians. He also participated in an undercover investigation of a brothel that was offering young boys to visiting soldiers. Sent home on sick leave in 1850 he wrote a travel book of the Goa region.
In 1851 he obtained leave and got approval from the Royal Geographical Society for an expedition to Mecca an a Hajj (pilgrimage). He went in disguise posing as a Moslem, and although almost discovered, returned safely. In 1854 and 1855 he went on exploring expeditions meeting John Hanning Speke who was to accompany him on his most famous trip. This began in 1856 in Zanzibar and was intended to explore the tribes of the areas with the hope of future trade. They made it to Lake Tanganyika, which took them several months, and by which time both men were ill. They then went on to Lake Victoria which they were thought might be the source of the Nile, but having lost their surveying equipment and being in very poor health they were unable to confirm this. The two men returned to London separately, leaving behind a number of debts, and having fallen out with each other. Speke arrived first and immediately staked a claim as the discoverer of the true source of Nile. Burton, Livingstone and others were not convinced that Lake Victoria was the true source. To help settle the matter, a debate was scheduled between Burton and Speke, but on the day before Speke was found laying dead from a gunshot wound. It was speculated that it might be suicide, but the coroner ruled that it was accidental.
In the latter part of his life Burton served in the Diplomatic Service, although he still found some time for exploring. He also co-founded the Anthropological Society of London as well as translating erotic books including the Kama Sutra. He wrote and translated a number of other books.