National Inventors' Day: Ayrshire's brightest minds remembered

1. Alexander Fleming

Born in 1881 in Darvel, Sir Alexander Fleming is the man who discovered penicillin – the world’s first effective antibiotic - and in the process saved millions of lives across the world.

Already known as a brilliant researcher, he found cultures of bacteria left in his lab to have been contaminated by a fungus…. which was destroying them. That was penicillin. He shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945 and was recently voted the Third Greatest Scot, behind Robert The Bruce and William Wallace.

2. John Dunlop

John Boyd Dunlop, born in Dreghorn in 1840, invented the pneumatic tyre. An inventor and vet, he came up with the first inflatable tyre for his son’s bicycle in Ireland and revolutionised transport in the process. It was soon used for cycle racing and within years, Dunlop tyres made their name around the world.

3. John McAdam

John Loudon McAdam was in many ways the father of the modern road system. Born in Ayr in 1756, he worked as a civil engineer and invented ‘macadamisation’ – the process of making roads using crushed gravel on a bed of stones, covered in tar. The idea took off in America, where the first ‘macadamed’ road was constructed in the 1830s.

4. William Murdoch

Murdoch, born in Lugar, Cumnock in 1745, was the man who popularised gas lighting. A steam engine designer, he invented the oscillating cylinder steam engine, as well as the pneumatic tube message system. He then produced gas from heated coal, running it through a tube to an old gun rifle and igniting it to produce light. His own home was the first in the world to be lit by gas.

5. Henry Faulds

Born in Beith in 1843, doctor and missionary Faulds was the man who invented the science of fingerprint identification. Studying fingerprints in clay on an archaeological dig, he became convinced each person’s print was unique. He then used his discovery to exonerate a man accused of breaking into a hospital by proving his fingerprints were different from those found at the scene. His idea was backed by Charles Darwin and would later revolutionise police forensic science.

6. Charles Tennant

Born in Alloway in 1768, where his family were friends with the poet Burns, Tennant was a chemist and industrialist who discovered bleaching powder. That revolutionised the clothing industry. He would go on to found the St Rollox chemical works in Glasgow, which soon became the biggest chemical works in the world.

7. Baron Kelvin

The physicist and engineer William Thomson was born in Belfast in 1824 but spent much of his life in Largs, where he made his home. Regarded as one of the greatest minds of his time, he formed the first and second laws of thermodynamics and absolute temperatures are still known as Kelvin units in his honour. He was also involved in the mission to build the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

8. John Walker

Born in Kilmarnock in 1805, this teetotal grocer developed his own whisky brand, first known as Walker’s Kilmarnock Whisky. After a disastrous flood in 1852 destroyed his stock, his more business-minded son Alexander persuaded him to abandon grocery and go into wholesale trading. That led to one of the world’s most famous whisky brands, Johnnie Walker.