When Joseph Whitworth was growing up in Stockport, the man who became the greatest mechanical engineer of the Victorian age witnessed a traumatic sight. In 1812, this unlovely industrial town on the outskirts of Manchester was overrun by Luddite rioters, all the more terrifying as they were wearing women’s clothes as they went on the rampage, smashing power looms and burning down textiles mills. Many of the Luddites were later hanged, their protest against new technology in vain.

Today, the impact of new technology on jobs and social order is as burning a political and economic question as it was in the 19th century. In recent years, millions of Americans and others around the world have lost their jobs in manufacturing, their disaffection helping to propel Donald Trump to the White House.

There seem to be increasingly few jobs that a computer cannot do better than a mere human being, from flipping burgers to driving a lorry or processing an insurance claim. Whitworth, who lived from 1803 to 1887, was at the heart of a similar Victorian debate.

Less celebrated than Brunel or Stephenson, Whitworth’s impact was arguably more important than these better-known figures. Together with other mechanical engineers such as Henry Maudslay, Richard Roberts, and James Nasmyth, Whitworth pioneered a manufacturing revolution that saw Great Britain transformed from a craft economy to full mechanization in the space of two generations. Without this, the railways could not have come into being, the textiles industry would not have become so dominant, and shipbuilding would not have evolved into a great industry.

When Whitworth started out, the main tools used in the primitive factories of London, Birmingham, and Manchester were hammer and chisel, wielded by hand. The UK’s craftsmen were highly skilled, but standards of accuracy were poor. Mass production was at a rudimentary stage. By the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851, when Whitworth carried off more prizes for engineering excellence than anyone else, all had changed: the UK was the undisputed workshop of the world.