SNN109956 - Engineering History and Heritage: A Norwegian Roadmaster's 1838 Tour of Britain and Beyond

In Norway around 1840 a new generation of politicians and professionals looked abroad for technology to help modernise the production sectors and associated transport infrastructure. In 1838, at a time when British mentors inspired a common international technological culture, roadmaster G.D.B Johnson went on a government mission to Britain and around the North Sea to study modern roads and bridges, harbours and the new railroads. This paper outlines how Johnson sought out and copied two British suspension bridges to design Norway’s first of it’s kind. Both Johnson and his competitor Bergh made successful careers at the forefront of contemporary technologies. Johnson advised against Norwegian railroads, but worked in vain to introduce stone tramways. His report cum engineering textbook illustrates the historical value of the little known foreign reports of the British Industrial Revolution.