Wire Gallery

Harold Abrahams wins 100m - 1924 Olympics

Harold Maurice Abrahams, CBE, (18991978) - a British athlete of Jewish origin. He was champion in the 100 metres sprint at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (July 7th), France (a feat made legendary in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire'). His time was 10.6 seconds. Jackson Scholz (second from right) was second and Arthur Porritt (far left) was third. The other named athlete was the World Record holder at the time, Charles Paddock. The other two competitors featured were fourth placed Chester Bowman (second left) and sixth placed Loren Murchison (third from right).
1924

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

In No Mans Land

"In No Man's Land: The Dread Territory Which Belongs to Neither German nor Briton" Royal engineers, working in the dark of No Man's Land to construct barbed wire barriers in front of British trenches, are exposed by German magnesium flares, giving this illustration a Caravaggioesque quality. Such work was extremely risky, or "nervy", as one Royal Engineer described it to The Times. He went on to say, "..it is done in the open and out of the kindly cover afforded by a trench... fortunate indeed is the working party if the enemy does not hear the sound of the picket being driven into the ground and open fire..." Flares lasted for 15 seconds, an eternity for men who had to throw themselves flat to the ground and lie inert until darkness returned. Bruce Bairnsfather depicted a similar situation in a cartoon accompanied by a quote from Wolfam's aria in Tannhauser. "Oh star of eve, whose tender bean Falls on my spirit's troubled dream." Date: 1915

© Illustrated London News/Mary Evans

Lecture on Stephen Grays discoveries in electricity

A lecture at the Charterhouse, London on Stephen Gray's discoveries in electricity. In the early eighteenth century, Gray demonstrated that charges of electricity could be conducted by some materials for distances as great as 765 feet, while others did not conduct electricity at all. Eventually, he was able to send charges through 88 metres of wire suspended on silken threads to operate an electroscope - an instrument used to detect static electricity. By sending an electrical signal from one place to another, Gray established the basic principle of the electric telegraph

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans