Challenge Gallery

Lady Dufferin, Wife of 8th Viceroy of India

Hariot Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava (Lady Dufferin, 1843-1936), wife of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, 8th Viceroy of India, 1884-1888. Lady Dufferin, as Vicereine of India, accompanied her husband and made her own name there as a pioneer in the medical training of women. Her travel writings and photographs, in addition to her medical work, challenge traditional assumptions about the role of women in colonial life. Date: circa 1880s

© Mary Evans Picture Library/Pump Park Photography

Houdini & Daily MIrror Challenge

Houdini's great lock-picking feat at the London Hippodrome. Harry Houdini shown on stage at the London Hippodrome, having specially made cuffs locked to his wrists in the presence of representatives of some London newspapers. The cuff was allegedly made by a Birmingham blacksmith, Nathaniel Hart, who had spent five years perfecting its locks. On 17 March, In a challenge by the Daily Mirror (then called the Daily Illustrated Mirror), Houdini was manacled into the cuffs and took over an hour to escape in front of a packed theatre. There are various conspiracy theories about how Houdini managed the escape and it is possible he and the Mirror colluded together. Date: 1904

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Babcock and Wilcox 6 ton Steam Roller YB7976 Toby

Babcock and Wilcox 6 ton Steam Roller YB7976 Toby (msn 95/4009). Seen with a 1955 Standard 10 motor car 200CPJ at a 1959 Walford Cross auction. Built in 1925 to the design of Messrs. Clayton & Shuttleworth Ltd. who had been taken over by Babcock & Wilcox in 1924. YB7976 is one of eight delivered to W W Buncombe of Highbridge, Somerset in January 1926, where it worked until 1966. Only five Babcock & Wilcox rollers survive, two 6 ton and three 10 ton models. (Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) began in 1867 with one patent, two friends and an unwavering commitment to reliable and effective innovation. When Stephen Wilcox first avowed that here must be a better way to safely generate power, he and George Babcock responded with the design for the first inherently safe water-tube boiler, and the company was born. This challenge to continuously improve endures today, over 150 years later). Date: 1959

© The Peter Butt Steam Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library