Sarah Guppy, inventor, lived here. Born  Sarah Maria Beach in Birmingham in 1770, she had married Samuel Guppy, a Bristol merchant involved in the copper trade, in 1795 and they lived in Queen Square and Prince Street. In 1811 she patented the first of her inventions, a method of making safe piling for bridges. Thomas Telford asked her for permission to use her patented design for suspension bridge foundations, and she granted it to him free of charge. As a friend of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his family she became involved in the Great Western Railway, writing to the directors with ideas and giving her support. The Guppy family took out 10 patents in the first half of the nineteenth century, including a method of keeping ships free of barnacles that led to a government contract worth £40,000. Other inventions included a bed with built-in exercise equipment, a device for a tea or coffee urn which would cook eggs in the steam as well as having a small dish to keep toast warm and a device for ‘improvements in caulking ships, boats and other vessels.’ The Guppys also created their own coins which were legal tender. In 1808, Sarah Guppy wrote The Cottagers and Labourers Friend and Dialogues for Children. She went on to invent the fire hood or Cook’s Comforter, and patented a new type of candlestick that enabled candles to burn longer.