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Industrial Biography
by Samuel Smiles
January, 1995 [Etext #404]
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INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY
Iron Workers and Tool Makers
by Samuel Smiles
(this etext was produced from a reprint of the 1863 first edition)
PREFACE.
The Author offers the following book as a continuation, in a more
generally accessible form, of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Men
introduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that work
he frequently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors,
mechanics, and iron-workers--the founders, in a great measure, of the
modern industry of Britain--whose labours seemed to him well worthy
of being traced out and placed on record, and the more so as their
lives presented many points of curious and original interest. Having
been encouraged to prosecute the subject by offers of assistance from
some of the most eminent living mechanical engineers, he is now
enabled to present the following further series of memoirs to the
public.
Without exaggerating the importance of this class of biography, it
may at least be averred that it has not yet received its due share of
attention. While commemorating the labours and honouring the names of
those who have striven to elevate man above the material and
mechanical, the labours of the important industrial class to whom
society owes so much of its comfort and well-being are also entitled
to consideration. Without derogating from the biographic claims of
those who minister to intellect and taste, those who minister to
utility need not be overlooked. When a Frenchman was praising to Sir
John Sinclair the artist who invented ruffles, the Baronet shrewdly
remarked that some merit was also due to the man who added the shirt.
A distinguished living mechanic thus expresses himself to the Author
on this point: - "Kings, warriors, and statesmen have heretofore
monopolized not only the pages of history, but almost those of
biography. Surely some niche ought to be found for the Mechanic,
without whose skill and labour society, as it is, could not exist. I
do not begrudge destructive heroes their fame, but the constructive
ones ought not to be forgotten; and there IS a heroism of skill and
toil belonging to the latter class, worthy of as grateful
record,--less perilous and romantic, it may be, than that of the
other, but not less full of the results of human energy, bravery, and
character. The lot of labour is indeed often a dull one; and it is
doing a public service to endeavour to lighten it up by records of
the struggles and triumphs of our more illustrious workers, and the
results of their labours in the cause of human advancement."
As respects the preparation of the following memoirs, the Author's
principal task has consisted in selecting and arranging the materials
so liberally placed at his disposal by gentlemen for the most part
personally acquainted with the subjects of them, and but for whose
assistance the book could not have been written. The materials for
the biography of Henry Maudslay, for instance, have been partly
supplied by the late Mr. Joshua Field, F.R.S. (his partner), but
principally by Mr. James Nasmyth, C.E., his distinguished pupil. In
like manner Mr. John Penn, C.E., has supplied the chief materials for
the memoir of Joseph Clement, assisted by Mr. Wilkinson, Clement's
nephew. The Author has also had the valuable assistance of Mr.
William Fairbairn, F.R.S., Mr. J. O. March, tool manufacturer (Mayor
of Leeds), Mr. Richard Roberts, C.E., Mr. Henry Maudslay, C.E., and
Mr. J. Kitson, Jun., iron manufacturer, Leeds, in the preparation of
the other memoirs of mechanical engineers included in this volume.
The materials for the memoirs of the early iron-workers have in like
manner been obtained for the most part from original sources; those
of the Darbys and Reynoldses from Mr. Dickinson of Coalbrookdale, Mr.
William Reynolds of Coed-du, and Mr. William G. Norris of the former
place, as well as from Mr. Anstice of Madeley Wood, who has kindly
supplied the original records of the firm. The substance of the
biography of Benjamin Huntsman, the inventor of cast-steel, has been
furnished by his lineal representatives; and the facts embodied in
the memoirs of Henry Cort and David Mushet have been supplied by the
sons of those inventors. To Mr. Anderson Kirkwood of Glasgow the
Author is indebted for the memoir of James Beaumont Neilson, inventor
of the hot blast; and to Mr. Ralph Moore, Inspector of Mines in
Scotland, for various information relative to the progress of the
Scotch iron manufacture.
The memoirs of Dud Dudley and Andrew Yarranton are almost the only
ones of the series in preparing which material assistance has been
derived from books; but these have been largely illustrated by facts
contained in original documents preserved in the State Paper Office,
the careful examination of which has been conducted by Mr. W. Walker
Wilkins.
It will thus be observed that most of the information embodied in
this volume, more especially that relating to the inventors of tools
and machines, has heretofore existed only in the memories of the
eminent mechanical engineers from whom it has been collected. The
estimable Joshua Field has died since the date at which he
communicated his recollections; and in a few more years many of the
facts which have been caught and are here placed on record would,
probably, in the ordinary course of things, have passed into
oblivion. As it is, the Author feels that there are many gaps yet to
be filled up; but the field of Industrial Biography is a wide one,and
is open to all who will labour in it.
London, October, 1863.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND CIVILIZATION.
The South Sea Islanders and iron
Uses of iron for tools
The Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages
Recent discoveries in the beds of the Swiss lakes
Iron the last metal to come into general use, and why
The first iron smelters
Early history of iron in Britain
The Romans
Social importance of the Smith in early times
Enchanted swords
Early scarcity of iron in Scotland
Andrea de Ferrara
Scarcity of iron in England at the time of the Armada
Importance of iron for national defence
CHAPTER II.
BEGINNINGS OF THE IRON-MANUFACTURER IN BRITAIN.
Iron made in the Forest of Dean in Anglo-Saxon times
Monkish iron-workers
Early iron-smelting in Yorkshire
Much iron imported from abroad
Iron manufactures of Sussex
Manufacture of cannon
Wealthy ironmasters of Sussex
Founder of the Gale family
Extensive exports of English ordnance
Destruction of timber in iron-smelting
The manufacture placed under restrictions
The Sussex furnaces blown out
CHAPTER III.
IRON SMELTING BY PIT-COAL--DUD DUDLEY.
Greatly reduced production of English iron
Proposal to use pit-coal instead of charcoal of wood in smelting
Sturtevant's patent
Rovenson's
Dud Dudley; his family his history
Uses pit-coal to smelt iron with success
Takes out his patent
The quality of the iron proved by tests
Dudley's works swept away by a flood
Rebuilds his works, and they are destroyed by a mob
Renewal of his patent
Outbreak of the Civil War
Dudley joins the Royalists, and rises to be General of artillery
His perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes
His estate confiscated
Recommences iron-smelting
Various attempts to smelt with pit-coal
Dudley's petitions to the King
His death
CHAPTER IV.
ANDREW YARRANTON.
A forgotten patriot
The Yarranton family
Andrew Yarranton's early life
A soldier under the Parliament
Begins iron works
Is seized and imprisoned
His plans for improving internal navigation
Improvements in agriculture
Manufacture of tin plate
His journey into Saxony to learn it
Travels in Holland
His views of trade and industry
His various projects
His 'England's Improvement by Sea and Land'
His proposed Land Bank
His proposed Registry of Real Estate
His controversies
His iron-mining
Value of his labours
CHAPTER V.
COALBROOKDALE IRON WORKS--THE DARBYS AND REYNOLDSES.
Failure in the attempts to smelt iron with pit-coal
Dr. Blewstone's experiment
Decay of the ironmanufacture
Abraham Darby
His manufacture of cast-iron pots at Bristol
Removes to Coalbrookdale
His method of smelting iron
Increased use of coke
Use of pit-coal by Richard Ford
Richard Reynolds joins the Coalbrookdale firm
Invention of the Craneges in iron-refining
Letter of Richard Reynolds on the subject
Invention of cast-iron rails by Reynolds
Abraham Darby the Second constructs the first iron bridge
Extension of the Coalbrookdale Works
William Reynolds: his invention of inclined planes for working canals
Retirement of Richard Reynolds from the firm
His later years, character, and death
CHAPTER VI.
INVENTION OF CAST STEEL - BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN.
Conversion of iron into steel
Early Sheffield manufactures
Invention of blistered steel
Important uses of cast-steel
Le Play's writings on the subject
Early career of Benjamin Huntsman at Doncaster
His experiments in steel-making
Removes to the neighbourhood of Sheffield
His laborious investigations, failures, and eventual success
Process of making cast-steel
The Sheffield manufacturers refuse to use it
Their opposition foiled
How they wrested Huntsman's secret from him
Important results of the invention to the industry of Sheffield
Henry Bessemer and his process
Heath's invention
Practical skill of the Sheffield artisans
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT.
Parentage of Henry Cort
Becomes a navy agent
State of the iron trade
Cort's experiments in iron-making
Takes a foundry at Fontley
Partnership with Jellicoe
Various improvers in iron-making: Roebuck, Cranege, Onions
Cort's improved processes described
His patents
His inventions adopted by Crawshay, Homfray, and other ironmasters
Cort's iron approved by the Admiralty
Public defalcations of Adam Jellicoe, Cort's partner
Cort's property and patents confiscated
Public proceedings thereon
Ruin of Henry Cort
Account of Richard Crawshay, the great ironmaster
His early life
Ironmonger in London
Starts an iron-furnace at Merthyr Tydvil
Projects and makes a canal
Growth of Merthyr Tydvil and its industry
Henry Cort the founder of the iron aristocracy, himself unrewarded
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE--Dr. ROEBUCK--DAVID MUSHET.
Dr. Roebuck, a forgotten public benefactor
His birth and education
Begins business as a physician at Birmingham
Investigations in metallurgy
Removes to Scotland, and begins the manufacture of chemicals, &c.
Starts the Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk
His invention of refining iron in a pit-coal fire
Embarks in coal-mining at Boroughstoness
Residence at Kinneil House
Pumping-engines wanted for his colliery
Is introduced to James Watt
Progress of Watt in inventing the steam-engine
Interviews with Dr. Roebuck
Roebuck becomes a partner in the steam-engine patent
Is involved in difficulties, and eventually ruined
Advance of the Scotch iron trade
Discovery of the Black Band by David Mushet
Early career of Mushet
His laborious experiments
His inventions and discoveries in iron and steel, and death
CHAPTER IX.
INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.
Difficulty of smelting the Black Band by ordinary process until the
invention of the hot blast
Early career of James Beaumont Neilson
Education and apprenticeship
Works as an engine-fireman
As colliery engine-wright
Appointed foreman of the Glasgow Gas-works; afterwards manager and engineer
His self-education
His Workmen's Institute
His experiments in iron-smelting
Trials with heated air in the blast-furnace
Incredulity of ironmasters
Success of his experiments, and patenting of his process
His patent right disputed, and established
Extensive application of the hot blast
Increase of the Scotch iron trade
Extraordinary increase in the value of estates yielding Black Band
Scotch iron aristocracy
CHAPTER X.
MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS.
Tools and civilization
The beginnings of tools
Dexterity of hand chiefly relied on
Opposition to manufacturing machines
Gradual process of invention
The human race the true inventor
Obscure origin of many inventions
Inventions born before their time
"Nothing new under the sun"
The power of steam known to the ancients
Passage from Roger Bacon
Old inventions revived
Printing
Atmospheric locomotion
The balloon
The reaping machine
Tunnels
Gunpowder
Ancient firearms
The steam gun
The Congreve rocket
Coal-gas
Hydropathy
Anaesthetic agents
The Daguerreotype anticipated
The electric telegraph not new
Forgotten inventors
Disputed inventions
Simultaneous inventions
Inventions made step by step
James Watt's difficulties with his workmen
Improvements in modern machine-tools
Their perfection
The engines of "The Warrior"
CHAPTER XI.
JOSEPH BRAMAH.
The inventive faculty
Joseph Bramah's early life
His amateur work
Apprenticed to a carpenter
Starts as cabinet-maker in London
Takes out a patent for his water-closet
Makes pumps and ironwork
Invention of his lock
Invents tools required in lock-making
Invents his hydrostatic machine
His hydraulic press
The leathern collar invented by Henry Maudslay
Bramah's other inventions
His fire-engine
His beer-pump
Improvements in the steam-engine
His improvements in machine-tools
His number-printing machine
His pen-cutter
His hydraulic machinery
Practises as civil engineer
Altercation with William Huntington, "S.S."
Bramah's character and death
CHAPTER XII.
HENRY MAUDSLAY.
The Maudslays
Henry Maudslay
Employed as powder-boy in Woolwich Arsenal
Advanced to the blacksmiths' shop
His early dexterity in smith-work
His "trivet" making
Employed by Bramah
Proves himself a first-class workman
Advanced to be foreman of the works
His inventions of tools required for lock-making
His invention of the leathern collar in the hydraulic press
Leaves Bramah's service and begins business for himself
His first smithy in Wells Street
His first job
Invention of the slide-lathe
Resume of the history of the turning-lathe
Imperfection of tools about the middle of last century
The hand-lathe
Great advantages of the slide rest
First extensively used in constructing Brunel's Block Machinery
Memoir of Brunel
Manufacture of ships' blocks
Sir S. Bentham's specifications
Introduction of Brunel to Maudslay
The block-machinery made, and its success
Increased operations of the firm
Improvements in the steam-engine
Invention of the punching-machine
Further improvements in the slide-lathe
Screw-cutting machine
Maudslay a dexterous and thoughtful workman
His character described by his pupil, James Nasmyth
Anecdotes and traits
Maudslay's works a first-class school for workmen
His mode of estimating character
His death
CHAPTER XIII.
JOSEPH CLEMENT.
Skill in contrivance a matter of education
Birth and parentage of Joseph Clement
Apprenticed to the trade of a slater
His skill in amateur work
Makes a turning-lathe
Gives up slating, and becomes a mechanic
Employed at Kirby Stephen in making power-looms
Removes to Carlisle
Glasgow
Peter Nicholson teaches him drawing
Removes to Aberdeen
Works as a mechanic and attends College
London
Employed by Alexander Galloway
Employed by Bramah
Advanced to be foreman
Draughtsman at Maudslay and Field's
Begins business on his own account
His skill as a mechanical draughtsman
Invents his drawing instrument
His drawing-table
His improvements in the self-acting lathe
His double-driving centre-chuck and two-armed driver
His fluted taps and dies
Invention of his Planing Machine
Employed to make Babbage's Calculating Machine
Resume of the history of apparatus for making calculations
Babbage's engine proceeded with
Its great cost
Interruption of the work
Clement's steam-whistles
Makes an organ
Character and death
CHAPTER XIV.
FOX OF DERBY--MURRAY OF LEEDS--ROBERTS AND WHITWORTH OF MANCHESTER.
The first Fox of Derby originally a butler
His genius for mechanics
Begins business as a machinist
Invents a Planing Machine
Matthew Murray's Planing Machine
Murray's early career
Employed as a blacksmith by Marshall of Leeds
His improvements of flax-machinery
Improvements in steam-engines
Makes the first working locomotive for Mr. Blenkinsop
Invents the Heckling Machine
His improvements in tools
Richard Roberts of Manchester
First a quarryman, next a pattern-maker
Drawn for the militia, and flies
His travels
His first employment at Manchester
Goes to London, and works at Maudslay's
Roberts's numerous inventions
Invents a planing machine
The self-acting mule
Iron billiard-tables
Improvements in the locomotive
Invents the Jacquard punching machine
Makes turret-clocks and electro-magnets
Improvement in screw-steamships
Mr. Whitworth's improvement of the planing machine
His method of securing true surfaces
His great mechanical skill
CHAPTER XV.
JAMES NASMYTH.
Traditional origin of the Naesmyths
Alexander Nasmyth the painter, and his family
Early years of James Nasmyth
The story of his life told by himself
Becomes a pupil of Henry Maudslay
How he lived and worked in London
Begins business at Manchester
Story of the invention of the Steam Hammer
The important uses of the Hammer in modem engineering
Invents the steam pile-driving machine
Designs a new form of steam-engine
Other inventions How he "Scotched" a strike
Uses of strikes
Retirement from business
Skill as a draughtsman
Curious speculations on antiquarian subjects
Mr. Nasmyth's wonderful discoveries in Astronomy
described by Sir John Herschel
CHAPTER XVI.
WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN.
Summary of progress in machine-tools
William Fairbairn's early years
His education
Life in the Highlands
Begins work at Kelso Bridge
An apprentice at Percy Main Colliery, North Shields
Diligent self-culture
Voyage to London
Adventures
Prevented obtaining work by the Millwrights' Union
Travels into the country, finds work, and returns to London
His first order, to make a sausage-chopping machine
Wanderschaft
Makes nail-machinery for a Dublin employer
Proceeds to Manchester, where he settles and marries
Begins business
His first job
Partnership with Mr. Lillie
Employed by Messrs. Adam Murray and Co.
Employed by Messrs. MacConnel and Kennedy
Progress of the Cotton Trade
Memoir of John Kennedy
Mr. Fairbairn introduces great improvements in the gearing, &c.
of mill machinery
Increasing business Improvements in water-wheels
Experiments as to the law of traction of boats
Begins building iron ships
Experiments on the strength of wrought iron
Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges
Reports on iron
On boiler explosions
Iron construction
Extended use of iron
Its importance in civilization
Opinion of Mr. Cobden
Importance of modern machine-tools
Conclusion
INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND CIVILIZATION.
"Iron is not only the soul of every other manufacture, but the main
spring perhaps of civilized society."--FRANCIS HORNER.
"Were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be
unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage
Americans; so that he who first made known the use of that
contemptible mineral may be truly styled the father of Arts and the
author of Plenty."--JOHN LOCKE.
When Captain Cook and the early navigators first sailed into the
South Seas on their voyages of discovery, one of the things that
struck them with most surprise was the avidity which the natives
displayed for iron. "Nothing would go down with our visitors," says
Cook, "but metal; and iron was their beloved article." A nail would
buy a good-sized pig; and on one occasion the navigator bought some
four hundred pounds weight of fish for a few wretched knives
improvised out of an old hoop.
"For iron tools," says Captain Carteret, "we might have purchased
everything upon the Freewill Islands that we could have brought away.
A few pieces of old iron hoop presented to one of the natives threw
him into an ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the
people were found generally well-behaved and honest; but they were
not proof against the fascinations of iron. Captain Cook says that
one of them, after resisting all other temptations, "was at length
ensnared by the charms of basket of nails." Another lurked about for
several days, watching the opportunity to steal a coal-rake.
The navigators found they could pay their way from island to island
merely with scraps of iron, which were as useful for the purpose as
gold coins would have been in Europe. The drain, however, being
continuous, Captain Cook became alarmed at finding his currency
almost exhausted; and he relates his joy on recovering an old anchor
which the French Captain Bougainville had lost at Bolabola, on which
he felt as an English banker would do after a severe run upon him for
gold, when suddenly placed in possession of a fresh store of bullion.
The avidity for iron displayed by these poor islanders will not be
wondered at when we consider that whoever among them was so fortunate
as to obtain possession of an old nail, immediately became a man of
greater power than his fellows, and assumed the rank of a capitalist.
"An Otaheitan chief," says Cook, "who had got two nails in his
possession, received no small emolument by letting out the use of
them to his neighbours for the purpose of boring holes when their own
methods failed, or were thought too tedious."
The native methods referred to by Cook were of a very clumsy sort;
the principal tools of the Otaheitans being of wood, stone, and
flint. Their adzes and axes were of stone. The gouge most commonly
used by them was made out of the bone of the human forearm. Their
substitute for a knife was a shell, or a bit of flint or jasper.
A shark's tooth, fixed to a piece of wood, served for an auger;
a piece of coral for a file; and the skin of a sting-ray for a
polisher. Their saw was made of jagged fishes' teeth fixed on the
convex edge of a piece of hard wood. Their weapons were of a
similarly rude description; their clubs and axes were headed with
stone, and their lances and arrows were tipped with flint. Fire was
another agency employed by them, usually in boat-building. Thus, the
New Zealanders, whose tools were also of stone, wood, or bone, made
their boats of the trunks of trees hollowed out by fire.
The stone implements were fashioned, Captain Cook says, by rubbing
one stone upon another until brought to the required shape; but,
after all, they were found very inefficient for their purpose. They
soon became blunted and useless; and the laborious process of making
new tools had to be begun again. The delight of the islanders at
being put in possession of a material which was capable of taking a
comparatively sharp edge and keeping it, may therefore readily be
imagined; and hence the remarkable incidents to which we have
referred in the experience of the early voyagers. In the minds of the
natives, iron became the representative of power, efficiency, and
wealth; and they were ready almost to fall down and worship their new
tools, esteeming the axe as a deity, offering sacrifices to the saw,
and holding the knife in especial veneration.
In the infancy of all nations the same difficulties must have been
experienced for want of tools, before the arts of smelting and
working in metals had become known; and it is not improbable that the
Phoenician navigators who first frequented our coasts found the same
avidity for bronze and iron existing among the poor woad-stained
Britons who flocked down to the shore to see their ships and exchange
food and skins with them, that Captain Cook discovered more than two
thousand years later among the natives of Otaheite and New Zealand.
For, the tools and weapons found in ancient burying-places in all
parts of Britain clearly show that these islands also have passed
through the epoch of stone and flint.
There was recently exhibited at the Crystal Palace a collection of
ancient European weapons and implements placed alongside a similar
collection of articles brought from the South Seas; and they were in
most respects so much alike that it was difficult to believe that
they did not belong to the same race and period, instead of being the
implements of races sundered by half the globe, and living at periods
more than two thousand years apart. Nearly every weapon in the one
collection had its counterpart in the other,--the mauls or celts of
stone, the spearheads of flint or jasper, the arrowheads of flint or
bone, and the saws of jagged stone, showing how human ingenuity,
under like circumstances, had resorted to like expedients. It would
also appear that the ancient tribes in these islands, like the New
Zealanders, used fire to hollow out their larger boats; several
specimens of this kind of vessel having recently been dug up in the
valleys of the Witham and the Clyde, some of the latter from under
the very streets of modern Glasgow.*
[footnote...
"Mr.John Buchanan, a zealous antiquary, writing in 1855, informs us
that in the course of the eight years preceding that date, no less
than seventeen canoes had been dug out of this estuarine silt [of the
valley of the Clyde], and that he had personally inspected a large
number of them before they were exhumed. Five of them lay buried in
silt under the streets of Glasgow, one in a vertical position with
the prow uppermost, as if it had sunk in a storm.... Almost every one
of these ancient boats was formed out of a single oak-stem, hollowed
out by blunt tools, probably stone axes, aided by the action of fire;
a few were cut beautifully smooth, evidently with metallic tools.
Hence a gradation could be traced from a pattern of extreme rudeness
to one showing great mechanical ingenuity.... In one of the canoes a
beautifully polished celt or axe of greenstone was found; in the
bottom of another a plug of cork, which, as Mr. Geikie remarks,
'could only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France,
or Italy.'"-- Sir C. LYELL, Antiquity of Man, 48-9.
...]
Their smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers interwoven,
covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails and thong tackle.
It will readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at
present understood, must have been next to impossible under such
circumstances. "Miserable indeed," says Carlyle, "was the condition
of the aboriginal savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of
hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round
them like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick
natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living
on wild fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonians, squatted himself in
morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,
without arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole
possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord
of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with
deadly, unerring skill."
The injunction given to man to "replenish the earth and subdue it"
could not possibly be fulfilled with implements of stone. To fell a
tree with a flint hatchet would occupy the labour of a month, and to
clear a small patch of ground for purposes of culture would require
the combined efforts of a tribe. For the same reason, dwellings could
not be erected; and without dwellings domestic tranquillity,
security, culture, and refinement, especially in a rude climate, were
all but impossible. Mr. Emerson well observes, that "the effect of a
house is immense on human tranquillity, power, and refinement. A man
in a cave or a camp--a nomad--dies with no more estate than the wolf
or the horse leaves. But so simple a labour as a house being
achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the
teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine
faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Inventions and arts are
born, manners, and social beauty and delight." But to build a house
which should serve for shelter, for safety, and for comfort--in a
word, as a home for the family, which is the nucleus of
society--better tools than those of stone were absolutely
indispensable.
Hence most of the early European tribes were nomadic: first hunters,
wandering about from place to place like the American Indians, after
the game; then shepherds, following the herds of animals which they
had learnt to tame, from one grazing-ground to another, living upon
their milk and flesh, and clothing themselves in their skins held
together by leathern thongs. It was only when implements of metal had
been invented that it was possible to practise the art of agriculture
with any considerable success. Then tribes would cease from their
wanderings, and begin to form settlements, homesteads, villages, and
towns. An old Scandinavian legend thus curiously illustrates this
last period: -- There was a giantess whose daughter one day saw a
husbandman ploughing in the field. She ran and picked him up with her
finger and thumb, put him and his plough and oxen into her apron, and
carried them to her mother, saying, "Mother, what sort of beetle is
this that I have found wriggling in the sand? " But the mother said,
"Put it away, my child; we must begone out of this land, for these
people will dwell in it."
M. Worsaae of Copenhagen, who has been followed by other antiquaries,
has even gone so far as to divide the natural history of civilization
into three epochs, according to the character of the tools used in
each. The first was the Stone period, in which the implements chiefly
used were sticks, bones, stones, and flints. The next was the Bronze
period, distinguished by the introduction and general use of a metal
composed of copper and tin, requiring a comparatively low degree of
temperature to smelt it, and render it capable of being fashioned
into weapons, tools, and implements; to make which, however,
indicated a great advance in experience, sagacity, and skill in the
manipulation of metals. With tools of bronze, to which considerable
hardness could be given, trees were felled, stones hewn, houses and
ships built, and agriculture practised with comparative facility.
Last of all came the Iron period, when the art of smelting and
working that most difficult but widely diffused of the minerals was
discovered; from which point the progress made in all the arts of
life has been of the most remarkable character.
Although Mr. Wright rejects this classification as empirical, because
the periods are not capable of being clearly defined, and all the
three kinds of implements are found to have been in use at or about
the same time,*
[footnote...
THOMAS WRIGHT, F.S.A., The Celt, The Roman, and The Saxon,
ed. 1861.
...]
there is, nevertheless, reason to believe that it is, on the whole,
well founded. It is doubtless true that implements of stone continued
in use long after those of bronze and iron had been invented, arising
most probably from the dearness and scarcity of articles of metal;
but when the art of smelting and working in iron and steel had
sufficiently advanced, the use of stone, and afterwards of bronze
tools and weapons, altogether ceased.
The views of M. Worsaae, and the other Continental antiquarians who
follow his classification, have indeed received remarkable
confirmation of late years, by the discoveries which have been made
in the beds of most of the Swiss lakes.*
[footnote...
Referred to at length in the Antiquity of Man, by Sir C. Lyell, who
adopts M. Worsaae's classification.
...]
It appears that a subsidence took place in the waters of the Lake of
Zurich in the year 1854, laying bare considerable portions of its
bed. The adjoining proprietors proceeded to enclose the new land, and
began by erecting permanent dykes to prevent the return of the
waters. While carrying on the works, several rows of stakes were
exposed; and on digging down, the labourers turned up a number of
pieces of charred wood, stones blackened by fire, utensils, bones,
and other articles, showing that at some remote period, a number of
human beings had lived over the spot, in dwellings supported by
stakes driven into the bed of the lake.
The discovery having attracted attention, explorations were made at
other places, and it was shortly found that there was scarcely a lake
in Switzerland which did not yield similar evidence of the existence
of an ancient Lacustrine or Lake-dwelling population. Numbers of
their tools and implements were brought to light--stone axes and
saws, flint arrowheads, bone needles, and such like--mixed with the
bones of wild animals slain in the chase; pieces of old boats,
portions of twisted branches, bark, and rough planking, of which
their dwellings had been formed, the latter still bearing the marks
of the rude tools by which they had been laboriously cut. In the most
ancient, or lowest series of deposits, no traces of metal, either of
bronze or iron, were discovered; and it is most probable that these
lake-dwellers lived in as primitive a state as the South Sea
islanders discovered by Captain Cook, and that the huts over the
water in which they lived resembled those found in Papua and Borneo,
and the islands of the Salomon group, to this day.
These aboriginal Swiss lake-dwellers seem to have been succeeded by a
race of men using tools, implements, and ornaments of bronze. In some
places the remains of this bronze period directly overlay those of the
stone period, showing the latter to have been the most ancient; but in
others, the village sites are altogether distinct. The articles with
which the metal implements are intermixed, show that considerable
progress had been made in the useful arts. The potter's wheel had been
introduced. Agriculture had begun, and wild animals had given place to
tame ones. The abundance of bronze also shows that commerce must have
existed to a certain extent; for tin, which enters into its
composition, is a comparatively rare metal, and must necessarily have
been imported from other European countries.
The Swiss antiquarians are of opinion that the men of bronze suddenly
invaded and extirpated the men of flint; and that at some still later
period, another stronger and more skilful race, supposed to have been
Celts from Gaul, came armed with iron weapons, to whom the men of
bronze succumbed, or with whom, more probably, they gradually
intermingled. When iron, or rather steel, came into use, its
superiority in affording a cutting edge was so decisive that it seems
to have supplanted bronze almost at once;*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet, however, observes that "the general use of hardened
copper by the ancients for edge-tools and warlike instruments, does
not preclude the supposition that iron was then comparatively
plentiful, though it is probable that it was confined to the ruder
arts of life. A knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc,
seems to have been among the first discoveries of the metallurgist.
Instruments fabricated from these alloys, recommended by the use of
ages, the perfection of the art, the splendour and polish of their
surfaces, not easily injured by time and weather, would not soon be
superseded by the invention of simple iron, inferior in edge and
polish, at all times easily injured by rust, and in the early stages
of its manufacture converted with difficulty into forms that required
proportion or elegance."--(Papers on Iron and Steel, 365-6.) By some
secret method that has been lost, perhaps because no longer needed
since the invention of steel, the ancients manufactured bronze tools
capable of taking a fine edge. in our own time, Chantrey the
sculptor, in his reverence for classic metallurgy, had a bronze razor
made with which he martyred himself in shaving; but none were found
so hardy and devoted as to follow his example.
...]
the latter metal continuing to be employed only for the purpose of
making scabbards or sword-handles. Shortly after the commencement of
the iron age, the lake-habitations were abandoned, the only
settlement of this later epoch yet discovered being that at Tene, on
Lake Neufchatel: and it is a remarkable circumstance, showing the
great antiquity of the lake-dwellings, that they are not mentioned by
any of the Roman historians.
That iron should have been one of the last of the metals to come into
general use, is partly accounted for by the circumstance that iron,
though one of the most generally diffused of minerals, never presents
itself in a natural state, except in meteorites; and that to
recognise its ores, and then to separate the metal from its matrix,
demands the exercise of no small amount of observation and invention.
Persons unacquainted with minerals would be unable to discover the
slightest affinity between the rough ironstone as brought up from the
mine, and the iron or steel of commerce. To unpractised eyes they
would seem to possess no properties in common, and it is only after
subjecting the stone to severe processes of manufacture that usable
metal can be obtained from it. The effectual reduction of the ore
requires an intense heat, maintained by artificial methods, such as
furnaces and blowing apparatus.*
[footnote...
It may be mentioned in passing, that while Zinc is fusible at
3 degrees of Wedgwood's pyrometer, Silver at 22 degrees, Copper at
27 degrees, and Gold at 32 degrees, Cast Iron is only fusible at
130 degrees. Tin (one of the constituents of the ancient bronze) and
Lead are fusible at much lower degrees than zinc.
...]
But it is principally in combination with other elements that iron is
so valuable when compared with other metals. Thus, when combined with
carbon, in varying proportions, substances are produced, so
different, but each so valuable, that they might almost be regarded
in the light of distinct metals,--such, for example, as cast-iron,
and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to
be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the
needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's
lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron
ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and
a tubular bridge.
The variety of purposes to which iron is thus capable of being
applied, renders it of more use to mankind than all the other metals
combined. Unlike iron, gold is found pure, and in an almost workable
state; and at an erly period in history, it seems to have been much
more plentiful than iron or steel. But gold was unsuited for the
purposes of tools, and would serve for neither a saw, a chisel, an
axe, nor a sword; whilst tempered steel could answer all these
purposes. Hence we find the early warlike nations making the backs of
their swords of gold or copper, and economizing their steel to form
the cutting edge. This is illustrated by many ancient Scandinavian
weapons in the museum at Copenhagen, which indicate the greatest
parsimony in the use of steel at a period when both gold and copper
appear to have been comparatively abundant.
The knowledge of smelting and working in iron, like most other arts,
came from the East. Iron was especially valued for purposes of war,
of which indeed it was regarded as the symbol, being called "Mars" by
the Romans.*
[footnote...
The Romans named the other metals after the gods. Thus Quicksilver
was called Mercury, Lead Saturn, Tin Jupiter, Copper Venus, Silver
Luna, and so on; and our own language has received a colouring from
the Roman nomenclature, which it continues to retain.
...]
We find frequent mention of it in the Bible. One of the earliest
notices of the metal is in connexion with the conquest of Judea by
the Philistines. To complete the subjection of the Israelites, their
conquerors made captive all the smiths of the land, and carried them
away. The Philistines felt that their hold of the country was
insecure so long as the inhabitants possessed the means of forging
weapons. Hence "there was no smith found throughout all the land of
Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords
or spears. But the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his
mattock."*
[footnote...
I. Samuel xiii. 19, 20.
...]
At a later period, when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, one
of their first acts was to carry the smiths and other craftsmen
captives to Babylon.*
[footnote...
II. Kings xxiv. 16.
...]
Deprived of their armourers, the Jews were rendered comparatively
powerless.
It was the knowledge of the art of iron-forging which laid the
foundation of the once great empire of the Turks. Gibbon relates that
these people were originally the despised slaves of the powerful Khan
of the Geougen. They occupied certain districts of the mountain-ridge
in the centre of Asia, called Imaus, Caf, and Altai, which yielded
iron in large quantities. This metal the Turks were employed by the
Khan to forge for his use in war. A bold leader arose among them, who
persuaded the ironworkers that the arms which they forged for their
masters might in their own hands become the instruments of freedom.
Sallying forth from their mountains, they set up their standard, and
their weapons soon freed them. For centuries after, the Turkish
nation continued to celebrate the event of their liberation by an
annual ceremony, in which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and
a smith's hammer was successively handled by the prince and his
nobles.
We can only conjecture how the art of smelting iron was discovered.
Who first applied fire to the ore, and made it plastic; who
discovered fire itself, and its uses in metallurgy? No one can tell.
Tradition says that the metal was discovered through the accidental
burning of a wood in Greece. Mr. Mushet thinks it more probable that
the discovery was made on the conversion of wood into charcoal for
culinary or chamber purposes. "If a mass of ore," he says,
"accidentally dropped into the middle of the burning pile during a
period of neglect, or during the existence of a thorough draught, a
mixed mass, partly earthy and partly metallic, would be obtained,
possessing ductility and extension under pressure. But if the
conjecture is pushed still further, and we suppose that the ore was
not an oxide, but rich in iron, magnetic or spicular, the result
would in all probability be a mass of perfectly malleable iron. I
have seen this fact illustrated in the roasting of a species of
iron-stone, which was united with a considerable mass of bituminous
matter. After a high temperature had been excited in the interior of
the pile, plates of malleable iron of a tough and flexible nature
were formed, and under circumstances where there was no fuel but that
furnished by the ore itself."*
[footnote...
Papers on Iron and Steel, 363-4.
...]
The metal once discovered, many attempts would be made to give to
that which had been the effect of accident a more unerring result.
The smelting of ore in an open heap of wood or charcoal being found
tedious and wasteful, as well as uncertain, would naturally lead to
the invention of a furnace; with the object of keeping the ore
surrounded as much as possible with fuel while the process of
conversion into iron was going forward. The low conical furnaces
employed at this day by some of the tribes of Central and Southern
Africa, are perhaps very much the same in character as those adopted
by the early tribes of all countries where iron was first made. Small
openings at the lower end of the cone to admit the air, and a larger
orifice at the top, would, with charcoal, be sufficient to produce
the requisite degree of heat for the reduction of the ore. To this
the foot-blast was added, as still used in Ceylon and in India; and
afterwards the water-blast, as employed in Spain (where it is known
as the Catalan forge), along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and in
some parts of America.
It is worthy of remark, that the ruder the method employed for the
reduction of the ore, the better the quality of the iron usually is.
Where the art is little advanced, only the most tractable ores are
selected; and as charcoal is the only fuel used, the quality of the
metal is almost invariably excellent. The ore being long exposed to
the charcoal fire, and the quantity made small, the result is a metal
having many of the qualities of steel, capable of being used for
weapons or tools after a comparatively small amount of forging.
Dr. Livingstone speaks of the excellent quality of the iron made by
the African tribes on the Zambesi, who refuse to use ordinary English
iron, which they consider "rotten."*
[footnote...
Dr. Livingstone brought with him to England a piece of the Zambesi
iron, which he sent to a skilled Birmingham blacksmith to test.
The result was, that he pronounced the metal as strongly resembling
Swedish or Russian; both of which kinds are smelted with charcoal.
The African iron was found "highly carbonized," and "when chilled it
possessed the properties of steel."
...]
Du Chaillu also says of the Fans, that, in making their best knives
and arrow-heads, they will not use European or American iron, greatly
preferring their own. The celebrated wootz or steel of India, made in
little cakes of only about two pounds weight, possesses qualities
which no European steel can surpass. Out of this material the famous
Damascus sword-blades were made; and its use for so long a period is
perhaps one of the most striking proofs of the ancient civilization
of India.
The early history of iron in Britain is necessarily very obscure.
When the Romans invaded the country, the metal seems to have been
already known to the tribes along the coast. The natives had probably
smelted it themselves in their rude bloomeries, or obtained it from
the Phoenicians in small quantities in exchange for skins and food,
or tin. We must, however, regard the stories told of the ancient
British chariots armed with swords or scythes as altogether
apocryphal. The existence of iron in sufficient quantity to be used
for such a purpose is incompatible with contemporary facts, and
unsupported by a single vestige remaining to our time. The country
was then mostly forest, and the roads did not as yet exist upon which
chariots could be used; whilst iron was too scarce to be mounted as
scythes upon chariots, when the warriors themselves wanted it for
swords. The orator Cicero, in a letter to Trebatius, then serving
with the army in Britain, sarcastically advised him to capture and
convey one of these vehicles to Italy for exhibition; but we do not
hear that any specimen of the British war-chariot was ever seen in
Rome.
It is only in the tumuli along the coast, or in those of the
Romano-British period, that iron implements are ever found; whilst in
the ancient burying places of the interior of the country they are
altogether wanting. Herodian says of the British pursued by Severus
through the fens and marshes of the east coast, that they wore iron
hoops round their middles and their necks, esteeming them as
ornaments and tokens of riches, in like manner as other barbarous
people then esteemed ornaments of silver and gold. Their only money,
according to Caesar, consisted of pieces of brass or iron, reduced to
a certain standard weight.*
[footnote...
HOLINSHED, i. 517. Iron was also the currency of the Spartans, but it
has been used as such in much more recent times. Adam Smith, in his
Wealth of Nations (Book I. ch. 4, published in 1776), says, "there is
at this day a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am
told, for a workman to carry nails, instead of money, to the baker's
shop or the alehouse."
...]
It is particularly important to observe, says M. Worsaae, that all
the antiquities which have hitherto been found in the large burying
places of the Iron period, in Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, France,
England, and the North, exhibit traces more or less of Roman
influence.
[footnote...
Primeval Antiquities of Denmark. London, 1849, p. 140.
...]
The Romans themselves used weapons of bronze when they could not
obtain iron in sufficient quantity, and many of the Roman weapons dug
out of the ancient tumuli are of that metal. They possessed the art
of tempering and hardening bronze to such a degree as to enable them
to manufacture swords with it of a pretty good edge; and in those
countries which they penetrated, their bronze implements gradually
supplanted those which had been previously fashioned of stone. Great
quantities of bronze tools have been found in different parts of
England,--sometimes in heaps, as if they had been thrown away in
basketfuls as things of little value. It has been conjectured that
when the Romans came into Britain they found the inhabitants,
especially those to the northward, in very nearly the same state as
Captain Cook and other voyagers found the inhabitants of the South
Sea Islands; that the Britons parted with their food and valuables
for tools of inferior metal made in imitation of their stone ones;
but finding themselves cheated by the Romans, as the natives of
Otaheite have been cheated by Europeans, the Britons relinquished the
bad tools when they became acquainted with articles made of better
metal.*
[footnote...
See Dr. Pearson's paper in the Philosophical Transactions, 1796,
relative to certain ancient arms and utensils found in the river
Witham between Kirkstead and Lincoln.
...]
The Roman colonists were the first makers of iron in Britain on any
large scale. They availed themselves of the mineral riches of the
country wherever they went. Every year brings their extraordinary
industrial activity more clearly to light. They not only occupied the
best sites for trade, intersected the land with a complete system of
well-constructed roads, studded our hills and valleys with towns,
villages, and pleasure-houses, and availed themselves of our
medicinal springs for purposes of baths to an extent not even
exceeded at this day, but they explored our mines and quarries, and
carried on the smelting and manufacture of metals in nearly all parts
of the island. The heaps of mining refuse left by them in the valleys
and along the hill-sides of North Derbyshire are still spoken of by
the country people as "old man," or the "old man's work." Year by
year, from Dartmoor to the Moray Firth, the plough turns up fresh
traces of their indefatigable industry and enterprise, in pigs of
lead, implements of iron and bronze, vessels of pottery, coins, and
sculpture; and it is a remarkable circumstance that in several
districts where the existence of extensive iron beds had not been
dreamt of until within the last twenty years, as in Northamptonshire
and North Yorkshire, the remains of ancient workings recently
discovered show that the Roman colonists were fully acquainted with
them.
But the principal iron mines worked by that people were those which
were most conveniently situated for purposes of exportation, more
especially in the southern counties and on the borders of Wales. The
extensive cinder heaps found in the--Forest of De an--which formed
the readiest resource of the modern iron-smelter when improved
processes enabled him to reduce them--show that their principal iron
manufactures were carried on in that quarter*
[footnote...
"In the Forest of Dean and thereabouts the iron is made at this day
of cinders, being the rough and offal thrown by in the Roman time;
they then having only foot-blasts to melt the ironstone; but now, by
the force of a great wheel that drives a pair of Bellows twenty feet
long, all that iron is extracted out of the cinders which could not
be forced from it by the Roman foot-blast. And in the Forest of Dean
and thereabouts, and as high as Worcester, there ave great and
infinite quantities of these cinders; some in vast mounts above
ground, some under ground, which will supply the iron works some
hundreds of years; and these cinders ave they which make the prime
and best iron, and with much less charcoal than doth the
ironstone."--A. YARRANTON, England's Improvement by Sea and Land.
London, 1677.
...]
It is indeed matter of history, that about seventeen hundred years
since (A.D. 120) the Romans had forges in the West of England, both
in the Forest of Dean and in South Wales; and that they sent the
metal from thence to Bristol, where it was forged and made into
weapons for the use of the troops. Along the banks of the Wye, the
ground is in many places a continuous bed of iron cinders, in which
numerous remains have been found, furnishing unmistakeable proofs of
the Roman furnaces. At the same time, the iron ores of Sussex were
extensively worked, as appears from the cinder heaps found at
Maresfield and several places in that county, intermixed with Roman
pottery, coins, and other remains. In a bed of scoriae several acres
in extent, at Old Land Farm in Maresfield, the Rev. Mr. Turner found
the remains of Roman pottery so numerous that scarcely a barrow-load
of cinders was removed that did not contain several fragments,
together with coins of the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, and
Dioclesian.*
[footnote...
M. A. LOWER, Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian,
and Metrical. London, 1854, pp. 88-9.
...]
In the turbulent infancy of nations it is to be expected that we
should hear more of the Smith, or worker in iron, in connexion with
war, than with more peaceful pursuits. Although he was a nail-maker
and a horse-shoer--made axes, chisels, saws, and hammers for the
artificer -- spades and hoes for the farmer--bolts and fastenings for
the lord's castle-gates, and chains for his draw-bridge--it was
principally because of his skill in armour-work that he was esteemed.
He made and mended the weapons used in the chase and in war--the
gavelocs, bills, and battle-axes; he tipped the bowmen's arrows, and
furnished spear-heads for the men-at-arms; but, above all, he forged
the mail-coats and cuirasses of the chiefs, and welded their swords,
on the temper and quality of which, life, honour, and victory in
battle depended. Hence the great estimation in which the smith was
held in the Anglo-Saxon times. His person was protected by a double
penalty. He was treated as an officer of the highest rank, and
awarded the first place in precedency. After him ranked the maker of
mead, and then the physician. In the royal court of Wales he sat in
the great hall with the king and queen, next to the domestic
chaplain; and even at that early day there seems to have been a hot
spark in the smith's throat which needed much quenching; for he was
"entitled to a draught of every kind of liquor that was brought into
the hall."
The smith was thus a mighty man. The Saxon Chronicle describes the
valiant knight himself as a "mighty war-smith." But the smith was
greatest of all in his forging of swords; and the bards were wont to
sing the praises of the knight's "good sword " and of the smith who
made it, as well as of the knight himself who wielded it in battle.
The most extraordinary powers were attributed to the weapon of steel
when first invented. Its sharpness seemed so marvellous when compared
with one of bronze, that with the vulgar nothing but magic could
account for it. Traditions, enshrined in fairy tales, still survive
in most countries, illustrative of its magical properties. The weapon
of bronze was dull; but that of steel was bright--the "white sword of
light," one touch of which broke spells, liberated enchanted
princesses, and froze giants' marrow. King Arthur's magic sword
"Excalibur" was regarded as almost heroic in the romance of
chivalry.*
[footnote...
This famous sword was afterwards sent by Richard I. as a present to
Tancred; and the value attached to the weapon may be estimated by the
fact that the Crusader sent the English monarch, in return for it,
"four great ships and fifteen galleys."
...]
So were the swords "Galatin" of Sir Gawain, and "Joyeuse" of
Charlemague, both of which were reputed to be the work of Weland the
Smith, about whose name clusters so much traditional glory as an
ancient worker in metals.*
[footnote...
Weland was the Saxon Vulcan. The name of Weland's or Wayland's Smithy
is still given to a monument on Lambourn Downs in Wiltshire. The
place is also known as Wayland Smith's Cave. It consists of a rude
gallery of stones.
...]
The heroes of the Northmen in like manner wielded magic swords. Olave
the Norwegian possessed the sword "Macabuin," forged by the dark
smith of Drontheim, whose feats are recorded in the tales of the
Scalds. And so, in like manner, traditions of the supernatural power
of the blacksmith are found existing to this day all over the
Scottish Highlands.*
[footnote...
Among the Scythians the iron sword was a god. It was the image of
Mars, and sacrifices were made to it. "An iron sword," says Mr.
Campbell, really was once worshipped by a people with whom iron was
rare. Iron is rare, while stone and bronze weapons are common, in
British tombs, and the sword of these stories is a personage. It
shines, it cries out -- the lives of men are bound up in it. And so
this mystic sword may, perhaps, have been a god amongst the Celts, or
the god of the people with whom the Celts contended somewhere on
their long journey to the west. It is a fiction now, but it may be
founded on fact, and that fact probably was the first use of iron."
To this day an old horse-shoe is considered a potent spell in some
districts against the powers of evil; and for want of a horse-shoe a
bit of a rusty reaping-hook is supposed to have equal power, "Who
were these powers of evil who could not resist iron--these fairies
who shoot STONE arrows, and are of the foes to the human race? Is all
this but a dim, hazy recollection of war between a people who had
iron weapons and a race who had not--the race whose remains are found
all over Europe? If these were wandering tribes, they had leaders; if
they were warlike, they had weapons. There is a smith in the Pantheon
of many nations. Vulcan was a smith; Thor wielded a hammer; even
Fionn had a hammer, which was heard in Lochlann when struck in
Eirinn. Fionn may have borrowed his hammer from Thor long ago, or
both may have got theirs from Vulcan, or all three may have brought
hammers with them from the land where some primeval smith wielded the
first sledge-hammer; but may not all these 'smith-gods be the smiths
who made iron weapons for those who fought with the skin-clad
warriors who shot flint-arrows, and who are now bogles, fairies , and
demons? In any case, tales about smiths seem to belong to mythology,
and to be common property."--CAMPBELL, Popular Tales of the West
Highlands, Preface, 74-6.
...]
When William the Norman invaded Britain, he was well supplied with
smiths. His followers were clad in armour of steel, and furnished
with the best weapons of the time. Indeed, their superiority in this
respect is supposed to have been the principal cause of William's
victory over Harold; for the men of both armies were equal in point
of bravery. The Normans had not only smiths to attend to the arms of
the knights, but farriers to shoe their horses. Henry de Femariis, or
Ferrers, "prefectus fabrorum," was one of the principal officers
entrusted with the supervision of the Conqueror's ferriery
department; and long after the earldom was founded his descendants
continued to bear on their coat of arms the six horse-shoes
indicative of their origin.*
[footnote...
BROOK, Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, 198.
...]
William also gave the town of Northampton, with the hundred of
Fackley, as a fief to Simon St. Liz, in consideration of his
providing shoes for his horses.*
[footnote...
MEYRICK, i. 11.
...]
But though the practice of horse-shoeing is said to have been
introduced to this country at the time of the Conquest, it is
probably of an earlier date; as, according to Dugdale, an old Saxon
tenant in capite of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, named Gamelbere, held
two carucates of land by the service of shoeing the king's palfrey on
all four feet with the king's nails, as oft as the king should lie at
the neighbouring manor of Mansfield.
Although we hear of the smith mostly in connexion with the
fabrication of instruments of war in the Middle Ages, his importance
was no less recognized in the ordinary affairs of rural and
industrial life. He was, as it were, the rivet that held society
together. Nothing could be done without him. Wherever tools or
implements were wanted for building, for trade, or for husbandry, his
skill was called into requisition. In remote places he was often the
sole mechanic of his district; and, besides being a tool-maker, a
farrier, and agricultural implement maker, he doctored cattle, drew
teeth, practised phlebotomy, and sometimes officiated as parish clerk
and general newsmonger; for the smithy was the very eye and tongue of
the village. Hence Shakespeare's picture of the smith in King John:
"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news."
The smith's tools were of many sorts; but the chief were his hammer,
pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety
of articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude
implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the
capabilities of iron, he greatly surpassed the modern workman; for
the mediaeval blacksmith was an artist as well as a workman. The
numerous exquisite specimens of his handicraft which exist in our old
gateways, church doors, altar railings, and ornamented dogs and
andirons, still serve as types for continual reproduction. He was,
indeed, the most "cunninge workman" of his time. But besides all
this, he was an engineer. If a road had to be made, or a stream
embanked, or a trench dug, he was invariably called upon to provide
the tools, and often to direct the work. He was also the military
engineer of his day, and as late as the reign of Edward III. we find
the king repeatedly sending for smiths from the Forest of Dean to act
as engineers for the royal army at the siege of Berwick.
The smith being thus the earliest and most important of mechanics, it
will readily be understood how, at the time when surnames were
adopted, his name should have been so common in all European
countries.
"From whence came Smith, all be he knight or squire,
But from the smith that forgeth in the fire?"*
[footnote...
GILBERT, Cornwall.
...]
Hence the multitudinous family of Smiths in England, in some cases
vainly disguised under the "Smythe" or "De Smijthe;" in Germany, the
Schmidts; in Italy, the Fabri, Fabricii,or Fabbroni; in France, the
Le Febres or Lefevres; in Scotland, the Gows, Gowans, or Cowans.
We have also among us the Brownsmiths, or makers of brown bills; the
Nasmyths, or nailsmiths; the Arrowsmiths, or makers of arrowheads;
the Spearsmiths, or spear makers; the Shoosmiths, or horse shoers;
the Goldsmiths, or workers in gold; and many more. The Smith proper
was, however, the worker in iron--the maker of iron tools,
implements, and arms--and hence this name exceeds in number that of
all the others combined.
In course of time the smiths of particular districts began to
distinguish themselves for their excellence in particular branches of
iron-work. From being merely the retainer of some lordly or religious
establishment, the smith worked to supply the general demand, and
gradually became a manufacturer. Thus the makers of swords, tools,
bits, and nails, congregated at Birmingham; and the makers of knives
and arrowheads at Sheffield. Chaucer speaks of the Miller of
Trompington as provided with a Sheffield whittle: -
"A Shefeld thwytel bare he in his hose."*
[footnote...
Before table-knives were invented, in the sixteenth century, the
knife was a very important article; each guest at table bearing his
own, and sharpening it at the whetstone hung up in the passage,
before sitting down to dinner, Some even carried a whetstone as well
as a knife; and one of Queen Elizabeth's presents to the Earl of
Leicester was a whetstone tipped with gold.
...]
The common English arrowheads manufactured at Sheffield were long
celebrated for their excellent temper, as Sheffield iron and steel
plates are now. The battle of Hamildon, fought in Scotland in 1402,
was won mainly through their excellence. The historian records that
they penetrated the armour of the Earl of Douglas, which had been
three years in making; and they were "so sharp and strong that no
armour could repel them." The same arrowheads were found equally
efficient against French armour on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt.
Although Scotland is now one of the principal sources from which our
supplies of iron are drawn, it was in ancient times greatly
distressed for want of the metal. The people were as yet too little
skilled to be able to turn their great mineral wealth to account.
Even in the time of Wallace, they had scarcely emerged from the Stone
period, and were under the necessity of resisting their iron-armed
English adversaries by means of rude weapons of that material. To
supply themselves with swords and spearheads, they imported steel
from Flanders, and the rest they obtained by marauding incursions
into England. The district of Furness in Lancashire--then as now an
iron-producing district--was frequently ravaged with that object;
and on such occasions the Scotch seized and carried off all the
manufactured iron they could find, preferring it, though so heavy, to
every other kind of plunder.*
[footnote...
The early scarcity of iron in Scotland is confirmed by Froissart, who
says,--"In Scotland you will never find a man of worth; they are like
savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any one, are envious of
the good fortune of others, and suspicious of losing anything
themselves; for their country is very poor. When the English make
inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their
provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for
nothing is to be had in that country without great difficulty. There
is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles,
or bridles: all these things come ready made from Flanders by sea;
and should these fail, there is none to be had in the country.'
...]
About the same period, however, iron must have been regarded as
almost a precious metal even in England itself; for we find that in
Edward the Third's reign, the pots, spits, and frying-pans of the
royal kitchen were classed among his Majesty's jewels.*
[footnote...
PARKER'S English Home, 77
...]
The same famine of iron prevailed to a still greater extent in the
Highlands, where it was even more valued, as the clans lived chiefly
by hunting, and were in an almost constant state of feud. Hence the
smith was a man of indispensable importance among the Highlanders,
and the possession of a skilful armourer was greatly valued by the
chiefs. The story is told of some delinquency having been committed
by a Highland smith, on whom justice must be done; but as the chief
could not dispense with the smith, he generously offered to hang two
weavers in his stead!
At length a great armourer arose in the Highlands, who was able to
forge armour that would resist the best Sheffield arrow-heads, and to
make swords that would vie with the best weapons of Toledo and Milan.
This was the famous Andrea de Ferrara, whose swords still maintain
their ancient reputation. This workman is supposed to have learnt his
art in the Italian city after which he was called, and returned to
practise it in secrecy among the Highland hills. Before him, no man
in Great Britain is said to have known how to temper a sword in such
a way as to bend so that the point should touch the hilt and spring
back uninjured. The swords of Andrea de Ferrara did this, and were
accordingly in great request; for it was of every importance to the
warrior that his weapon should be strong and sharp without being
unwieldy, and that it should not be liable to snap in the act of
combat. This celebrated smith, whose personal identity*
[footnote...
The precise time at which Andrea de Ferrara flourished cannot be
fixed with accuracy; but Sir Waiter Scott, in one of the notes to
Waverley, says he is believed to have been a foreign artist brought
over by James IV. or V. of Scotland to instruct the Scots in the
manufacture of sword-blades. The genuine weapons have a crown marked
on the blades.
...]
has become merged in the Andrea de Ferrara swords of his manufacture,
pursued his craft in the Highlands, where he employed a number of
skilled workmen in forging weapons, devoting his own time principally
to giving them their required temper. He is said to have worked in a
dark cellar, the better to enable him to perceive the effect of the
heat upon the metal, and to watch the nicety of the operation of
tempering, as well as possibly to serve as a screen to his secret
method of working.*
[footnote...
Mr. Parkes, in his Essay on the Manufacture of Edge Tools, says, "Had
this ingenious artist thought of a bath of oil, he might have heated
this by means of a furnace underneath it, and by the use of a
thermometer, to the exact point which he found necessary; though it
is inconvenient to have to employ a thermometer for every distinct
operation. Or, if he had been in the possession of a proper bath of
fusible metal, he would have attained the necessary certainty in his
process, and need not have immured himself in a subterranean
apartment.--PARKES' Essays, 1841, p. 495.
...]
Long after Andrea de Ferrara's time, the Scotch swords were famous
for their temper; Judge Marshal Fatten, who accompanied the
Protector's expedition into Scotland in 1547, observing that "the
Scots came with swords all broad and thin, of exceeding good temper,
and universally so made to slice that I never saw none so good, so I
think it hard to devise a better." The quality of the steel used for
weapons of war was indeed of no less importance for the effectual
defence of a country then than it is now. The courage of the
attacking and defending forces being equal, the victory would
necessarily rest with the party in possession of the best weapons.
England herself has on more than one occasion been supposed to be in
serious peril because of the decay of her iron manufactures. Before
the Spanish Armada, the production of iron had been greatly
discouraged because of the destruction of timber in the smelting of
the ore--the art of reducing it with pit coal not having yet been
invented; and we were consequently mainly dependent upon foreign
countries for our supplies of the material out of which arms were
made. The best iron came from Spain itself, then the most powerful
nation in Europe, and as celebrated for the excellence of its weapons
as for the discipline and valour of its troops. The Spaniards prided
themselves upon the superiority of their iron, and regarded its
scarcity in England as an important element in their calculations of
the conquest of the country by their famous Armada. "I have heard,"
says Harrison, "that when one of the greatest peers of Spain espied
our nakedness in this behalf, and did solemnly utter in no obscure
place, that it would be an easy matter in short time to conquer
England because it wanted armour, his words were not so rashly
uttered as politely noted." The vigour of Queen Elizabeth promptly
supplied a remedy by the large importations of iron which she caused
to be made, principally from Sweden, as well as by the increased
activity of the forges in Sussex and the Forest of Dean; "whereby,"
adds Harrison, "England obtained rest, that otherwise might have been
sure of sharp and cruel wars. Thus a Spanish word uttered by one man
at one time, overthrew, or at the leastwise hindered sundry privy
practices of many at another." *
[footnote...
HOLINSHED, History of England. It was even said to have been one of
the objects of the Spanish Armada to get the oaks of the Forest of
Dean destroyed, in order to prevent further smelting of the iron.
Thus Evelyn, in his Sylva, says, "I have heard that in the great
expedition of 1588 it was expressly enjoined the Spanish Armada that
if, when landed, they should not be able to subdue our nation and
make good their conquest, they should yet be sure not to leave a tree
standing in the Forest of Dean."--NICHOLS, History of the Forest of
Dean, p. 22.
...]
Nor has the subject which occupied the earnest attention of
politicians in Queen Elizabeth's time ceased to be of interest; for,
after the lapse of nearly three hundred years, we find the smith and
the iron manufacturer still uppermost in public discussions. It has
of late years been felt that our much-prized "hearts of oak" are no
more able to stand against the prows of mail which were supposed to
threaten them, than the sticks and stones of the ancient tribes were
able to resist the men armed with weapons of bronze or steel. What
Solon said to Croesus, when the latter was displaying his great
treasures of gold, still holds true: -- "If another comes that hath
better iron than you, he will be master of all that gold." So, when
an alchemist waited upon the Duke of Brunswick during the Seven
Years' War, and offered to communicate the secret of converting iron
into gold, the Duke replied: -- "By no means: I want all the iron I
can find to resist my enemies: as for gold, I get it from England."
Thus the strength and wealth of nations depend upon coal and iron,
not forgetting Men, far more than upon gold.
Thanks to our Armstrongs and Whitworths, our Browns and our Smiths,
the iron defences of England, manned by our soldiers and our sailors,
furnish the assurance of continued security for our gold and our
wealth, and, what is infinitely more precious, for our industry and
our liberty.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE.
"He that well observes it, and hath known the welds of Sussex, Surry,
and Kent', the grand nursery especially of oake and beech, shal find
such an alteration, within lesse than 30 yeeres, as may well strike a
feare, lest few yeeres more, as pestilent as the former, will leave
fewe good trees standing in those welds. Such a heate issueth out of
the many forges and furnaces for the making of iron, and out of the
glasse kilnes, as hath devoured many famous woods within the
welds,"-- JOHN NORDEN, Surveyors' Dialogue (1607).
Few records exist of the manufacture of iron in England in early
times. After the Romans left the island, the British, or more
probably the Teutonic tribes settled along the south coast, continued
the smelting and manufacture of the metal after the methods taught
them by the colonists. In the midst of the insecurity, however,
engendered by civil war and social changes, the pursuits of industry
must necessarily have been considerably interfered with, and the art
of iron-forging became neglected. No notice of iron being made in
Sussex occurs in Domesday Book, from which it would appear that the
manufacture had in a great measure ceased in that county at the time
of the Conquest, though it was continued in the iron-producing
districts bordering on Wales. In many of the Anglo-Saxon graves which
have been opened, long iron swords have been found, showing that
weapons of that metal were in common use. But it is probable that
iron was still scarce, as ploughs and other agricultural implements
continued to be made of wood,--one of the Anglo-Saxon laws enacting
that no man should undertake to guide a plough who could not make
one; and that the cords with which it was bound should be of twisted
willows. The metal was held in esteem principally as the material of
war. All male adults were required to be provided with weapons, and
honour was awarded to such artificers as excelled in the fabrication
of swords, arms, and defensive armour.*
[footnote...
WILKINS, Leges Sax. 25.
...]
Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron was continued
in the western counties during the Saxon era, more particularly in
the Forest of Dean, and that in the time of Edward the Confessor the
tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of
iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's
ships. An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day
as heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated
with worldly prosperity. On the occasion of St. Egwin's visit to the
smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given
up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto
them, they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as
completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to
heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.*
[footnote...
Life of St. Egwin, in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglioe. Alcester was,
as its name indicates, an old Roman settlement (situated on the
Icknild Street), where the art of working in iron was practised from
an early period. It was originally called Alauna, being situated on
the river Alne in Warwickshire. It is still a seat of the needle
manufacture.
...]
But the first reception given to John Wesley by the miners of the
Forest of Dean, more than a thousand years later, was perhaps
scarcely more gratifying than that given to St. Egwin.
That working in iron was regarded as an honourable and useful calling
in the Middle Ages, is apparent from the extent to which it was
followed by the monks, some of whom were excellent craftsmen. Thus
St. Dunstan, who governed England in the time of Edwy the Fair, was a
skilled blacksmith and metallurgist. He is said to have had a forge
even in his bedroom, and it was there that his reputed encounter with
Satan occurred, in which of course the saint came off the victor.
There was another monk of St. Alban's, called Anketil, who flourished
in the twelfth century, so famous for his skill as a worker in iron,
silver, gold, jewelry, and gilding, that he was invited by the king
of Denmark to be his goldsmith and banker. A pair of gold and silver
candlesticks of his manufacture, presented by the abbot of St.
Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., were so much esteemed for their exquisite
workmanship that they were consecrated to St. Peter, and were the
means of obtaining high ecclesiastical distinction for the abbey.
We also find that the abbots of monasteries situated in the iron
districts, among their other labours, devoted themselves to the
manufacture of iron from the ore. The extensive beds of cinders still
found in the immediate neighbourhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in
Yorkshire, show that the monks were well acquainted with the art of
forging, and early turned to account the riches of the Cleveland
ironstone. In the Forest of Dean also, the abbot of Flaxley was
possessed of one stationary and one itinerant forge, by grant from
Henry II, and he was allowed two oaks weekly for fuel,--a privilege
afterwards commuted, in 1258, for Abbot's Wood of 872 acres, which
was held by the abbey until its dissolution in the reign of Henry
VIII. At the same time the Earl of Warwick had forges at work in his
woods at Lydney; and in 1282, as many as 72 forges were leased from
the Crown by various iron-smelters in the same Forest of Dean.
There are numerous indications of iron-smelting having been conducted
on a considerable scale at some remote period in the neighbourhood of
Leeds, in Yorkshire. In digging out the foundations of houses in
Briggate, the principal street of that town, many "bell pits" have
been brought to light, from which ironstone has been removed. The new
cemetery at Burmandtofts, in the same town, was in like manner found
pitted over with these ancient holes. The miner seems to have dug a
well about 6 feet in diameter, and so soon as he reached the mineral,
he worked it away all round, leaving the bell-shaped cavities in
question. He did not attempt any gallery excavations, but when the
pit was exhausted, a fresh one was sunk. The ore, when dug, was
transported, most probably on horses' backs, to the adjacent
districts for the convenience of fuel. For it was easier to carry the
mineral to the wood--then exclusively used for smelting'--than to
bring the wood to the mineral. Hence the numerous heaps of scoriae
found in the neighbourhood of Leeds,--at Middleton, Whitkirk, and
Horsforth--all within the borough. At Horsforth, they are found in
conglomerated masses from 30 to 40 yards long, and of considerable
width and depth. The remains of these cinder-beds in various
positions, some of them near the summit of the hill, tend to show,
that as the trees were consumed, a new wind furnace was erected in
another situation, in order to lessen the labour of carrying the
fuel. There are also deposits of a similar kind at Kirkby Overblow, a
village a few miles to the north-east of Leeds; and Thoresby states
that the place was so called because it was the village of the "Ore
blowers,"--hence the corruption of "Overblow." A discovery has
recently been made among the papers of the Wentworth family, of a
contract for supplying wood and ore for iron "blomes" at Kirskill
near Otley, in the fourteenth century;*
[footnote...
The following is an extract of this curious document, which is dated
the 26th Dec. 1352: "Ceste endenture fait entre monsire Richard de
Goldesburghe, chivaler,dune part, et Robert Totte, seignour, dautre
tesmoigne qe le dit monsire Richard ad graunte et lesse al dit Robert
deuz Olyveres contenaunz vynt quatre blomes de la feste seynt Piere
ad vincula lan du regne le Roi Edward tierce apres le conqueste vynt
sysme, en sun parke de Creskelde, rendant al dit monsire Richard
chesqune semayn quatorzse soutz dargent duraunt les deux Olyvers
avaunt dist; a tenir et avoir al avaunt dit Robert del avaunt dit
monsire Richard de la feste seynt Piere avaunt dist, taunque le bois
soit ars du dit parke a la volunte le dit monsire Richard saunz
interrupcione [e le dicte monsieur Richard trovera a dit Robert urre
suffisaunt pur lez ditz Olyvers pur le son donaunt: these words are
interlined]. Et fait a savoir qe le dit Robert ne nule de soens
coupard ne abatera nule manere darbre ne de boys put les deuz olyvers
avaunt ditz mes par la veu et la lyvere le dit monsire Richard , ou
par ascun autre par le dit monsire Richard assigne. En tesmoigaunz
(sic) de quenx choses a cestes presentes endentures les parties
enterchaungablement ount mys lour seals. Escript a Creskelde le
meskerdy en le semayn de Pasque lan avaunt diste."
It is probable that the "blomes" referred to in this agreement were
the bloomeries or fires in which the iron was made; and that the
"olyveres" were forges or erections, each of which contained so many
bloomeries, but were of limited durability, and probably perished in
the using.
...]
though the manufacture near that place has long since ceased.
Although the making of iron was thus carried on in various parts of
England in the Middle Ages, the quantity produced was altogether
insufficient to meet the ordinary demand, as it appears from our
early records to have long continued one of the principal articles
imported from foreign countries. English iron was not only dearer,
but it was much inferior in quality to that manufactured abroad; and
hence all the best arms and tools continued to be made of foreign
iron. Indeed the scarcity of this metal occasionally led to great
inconvenience, and to prevent its rising in price Parliament enacted,
in 1354, that no iron, either wrought or unwrought, should be
exported, under heavy penalties. For nearly two hundred years--that
is, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the English
market was principally supplied with iron and steel from Spain and
Germany; the foreign merchants of the Steelyard doing a large and
profitable trade in those commodities. While the woollen and other
branches of trade were making considerable progress, the manufacture
of iron stood still. Among the lists of articles, the importation of
which was prohibited in Edward IV.'s reign, with a view to the
protection of domestic manufactures, we find no mention of iron,
which was still, as a matter of necessity, allowed to come freely
from abroad.
The first indications of revival in the iron manufacture showed
themselves in Sussex, a district in which the Romans had established
extensive works, and where smelting operations were carried on to a
partial extent in the neighbourhood of Lewes, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, where the iron was principally made into nails
and horse-shoes. The county abounds in ironstone, which is contained
in the sandstone beds of the Forest ridge, lying between the chalk
and oolite of the district, called by geologists the Hastings sand.
The beds run in a north-westerly direction, by Ashburnham and
Heathfield, to Crowborough and thereabouts. In early times the region
was covered with wood, and was known as the Great Forest of Anderida.
The Weald, or wild wood, abounded in oaks of great size, suitable for
smelting ore; and the proximity of the mineral to the timber, as well
as the situation of the district in the neighbourhood of the capital,
sufficiently account for the Sussex iron-works being among the most
important which existed in England previous to the discovery of
smelting by pit-coal.
The iron manufacturers of the south were especially busy during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their works were established near
to the beds of ore, and in places where water-power existed, or could
be provided by artificial means. Hence the numerous artificial ponds
which are still to be found all over the Sussex iron district. Dams
of earth, called "pond-bays," were thrown across watercourses, with
convenient outlets built of masonry, wherein was set the great wheel
which worked the hammer or blew the furnace. Portions of the
adjoining forest-land were granted or leased to the iron-smelters;
and the many places still known by the name of "Chart" in the Weald,
probably mark the lands chartered for the purpose of supplying the
iron-works with their necessary fuel. The cast-iron tombstones and
slabs in many Sussex churchyards,--the andirons and chimney backs*
[footnote...
The back of a grate has recently been found, cast by Richard Leonard
at Brede Furnace in 1636. It is curious as containing a
representation of the founder with his dog and cups; a drawing of the
furnace, with the wheelbarrow and other implements for the casting,
and on a shield the pincers and other marks of the blacksmith.
Leonard was tenant of the Sackville furnace at Little
Udimore.--Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol.xii.
...]
still found in old Sussex mansions and farm-houses, and such names as
Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, Forge Farm, and Hammer Pond, which are of
very frequent occurrence throughout the county, clearly mark the
extent and activity of this ancient branch of industry.*
[footnote ...
For an interesting account of the early iron industry of Sussex see
M. A. LOWER'S Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian,
and Metrical. London, 1854.
...]
Steel was also manufactured at several places in the county, more
particularly at Steel-Forge Land, Warbleton, and at Robertsbridge.
The steel was said to be of good quality, resembling Swedish--both
alike depending for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal
in smelting the ore,--iron so produced maintaining its superiority
over coal-smelted iron to this day.
When cannon came to be employed in war, the nearness of Sussex to
London and the Cinque Forts gave it a great advantage over the
remoter iron-producing districts in the north and west of England,
and for a long time the iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a
monopoly of the manufacture. The metal was still too precious to be
used for cannon balls, which were hewn of stone from quarries on
Maidstone Heath. Iron was only available, and that in limited
quantities, for the fabrication of the cannon themselves, and
wrought-iron was chiefly used for the purpose. An old mortar which
formerly lay on Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the
first mortar made in England;*
[footnote...
Archaeologia, vol. x. 472.
...]
only the chamber was cast, while the tube consisted of bars
strongly hooped together. Although the local distich says that
"Master Huggett and his man John
They did cast the first cannon,"
there is every reason to believe that both cannons and mortars were
made in Sussex before Huggett's time; the old hooped guns in the
Tower being of the date of Henry VI. The first cast-iron cannons of
English manufacture were made at Buxtead, in Sussex, in 1543, by
Ralph Hogge, master founder, who employed as his principal assistant
one Peter Baude, a Frenchman. Gun-founding was a French invention,
and Mr. Lower supposes that Hogge brought over Baude from France to
teach his workmen the method of casting the guns. About the same time
Hogge employed a skilled Flemish gunsmith named Peter Van Collet,
who, according to Stowe, "devised or caused to be made certain mortar
pieces, being at the mouth from eleven to nine inches wide, for the
use whereof the said Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of
cast-iron to be stuffed with fyrework, whereof the bigger sort for
the same has screws of iron to receive a match to carry fyre for to
break in small pieces the said hollow shot, whereof the smallest
piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." In short, Peter Van
Collet here introduced the manufacture of the explosive shell in the
form in which it continued to be used down to our own day.
Baude, the Frenchman, afterwards set up business on his own account,
making many guns, both of brass and iron, some of which are still
preserved in the Tower.*
[footnote...
One of these, 6 1/2 feet long, and of 2 1/2 inches bore, manufactured
in 1543, bears the cast inscription of Petrus Baude Gallus operis
artifex.
...]
Other workmen, learning the trade from him, also began to manufacture
on their own account; one of Baude's servants, named John Johnson,
and after him his son Thomas, becoming famous for the excellence of
their cast-iron guns. The Hogges continued the business for several
generations, and became a wealthy county family. Huggett was another
cannon maker of repute; and Owen became celebrated for his brass
culverins. Mr. Lower mentions, as a curious instance of the tenacity
with which families continue to follow a particular vocation, that
many persons of the name of Huggett still carry on the trade of
blacksmith in East Sussex. But most of the early workmen at the
Sussex iron-works, as in other branches of skilled industry in
England during the sixteenth century, were foreigners-- Flemish and
French--many of whom had taken refuge in this country from the
religious persecutions then raging abroad, while others, of special
skill, were invited over by the iron manufacturers to instruct their
workmen in the art of metal-founding.*
[footnote...
Mr. Lower says," Many foreigners were brought over to carry on the
works; which perhaps may account for the number of Frenchmen and
Germans whose names appear in our parish registers about the middle of
the sixteenth century ."-- Contributions to Literature, 108.
...]
As much wealth was gained by the pursuit of the revived iron
manufacture in Sussex, iron-mills rapidly extended over the
ore-yielding district. The landed proprietors entered with zeal into
this new branch of industry, and when wood ran short, they did not
hesitate to sacrifice their ancestral oaks to provide fuel for the
furnaces. Mr. Lower says even the most ancient families, such as the
Nevilles, Howards, Percys, Stanleys, Montagues, Pelhams, Ashburnhams,
Sidneys, Sackvilles, Dacres, and Finches, prosecuted the manufacture
with all the apparent ardour of Birmingham and Wolverhampton men in
modern times. William Penn, the courtier Quaker, had iron-furnaces at
Hawkhurst and other places in Sussex. The ruins of the Ashburnham
forge, situated a few miles to the north-east of Battle, still serve
to indicate the extent of the manufacture. At the upper part of the
valley in which the works were situated, an artificial lake was
formed by constructing an embankment across the watercourse
descending from the higher ground,*
[footnote ...
The embankment and sluices of the furnace-pond at the upper part of
the valley continue to be maintained, the lake being used by the
present Lord Ashburnham as a preserve for fish and water-fowl.
...]
and thus a sufficient fall of water was procured for the purpose of
blowing the furnaces, the site of which is still marked by
surrounding mounds of iron cinders and charcoal waste. Three quarters
of a mile lower down the valley stood the forge, also provided with
water-power for working the hammer; and some of the old buildings are
still standing, among others the boring-house, of small size, now
used as an ordinary labourer's cottage, where the guns were bored.
The machine was a mere upright drill worked by the water-wheel, which
was only eighteen inches across the breast. The property belonged, as
it still does, to the Ashburnham family, who are said to have derived
great wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, which were
among the last carried on in Sussex. The Ashburnham iron was
distinguished for its toughness, and was said to be equal to the best
Spanish or Swedish iron.
Many new men also became enriched, and founded county families; the
Fuller family frankly avowing their origin in the singular motto of
Carbone et forcipibus--literally, by charcoal and tongs.*
[footnote...
Reminding one of the odd motto assumed by Gillespie, the tobacconist
of Edinburgh, founder of Gillespie's Hospital, on whose
carriage-panels was emblazoned a Scotch mull, with the motto,
"Wha wad ha' thocht it,
That noses could ha' bought it!"
It is just possible that the Fullers may have taken their motto from
the words employed by Juvenal in describing the father of Demosthenes,
who was a blacksmith and a sword-cutler --
"Quem pater ardentis massae fuligine lippus,
A carbone et forcipibus gladiosque parante
Incude et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit."
...]
Men then went into Sussex to push their fortunes at the forges, as
they now do in Wales or Staffordshire; and they succeeded then, as
they do now, by dint of application, industry, and energy. The Sussex
Archaeological Papers for 1860 contain a curious record of such an
adventurer, in the history of the founder of the Gale family. Leonard
Gale was born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his father
pursued the trade of a blacksmith. When the youth had reached his
seventeenth year, his father and mother, with five of their sons and
daughters, died of the plague, Leonard and his brother being the only
members of the family that survived. The patrimony of 200L. left them
was soon spent; after which Leonard paid off his servants, and took
to work diligently at his father's trade. Saving a little money, he
determined to go down into Sussex, where we shortly find him working
the St. Leonard's Forge, and afterwards the Tensley Forge near
Crawley, and the Cowden Iron-works, which then bore a high
reputation. After forty years' labour, he accumulated a good fortune,
which he left to his son of the same name, who went on iron-forging,
and eventually became a county gentleman, owner of the house and
estate of Crabbett near Worth, and Member of Parliament for East
Grinstead.
Several of the new families, however, after occupying a high position
in the county, again subsided into the labouring class, illustrating
the Lancashire proverb of "Twice clogs, once boots," the sons
squandering what the father's had gathered, and falling back into the
ranks again. Thus the great Fowles family of Riverhall disappeared
altogether from Sussex. One of them built the fine mansion of
Riverhall, noble even in decay. Another had a grant of free warren
from King James over his estates in Wadhurst, Frant, Rotherfield, and
Mayfield. Mr. Lower says the fourth in descent from this person kept
the turnpike-gate at Wadhurst, and that the last of the family, a
day-labourer, emigrated to America in 1839, carrying with him, as the
sole relic of his family greatness, the royal grant of free warren
given to his ancestor. The Barhams and Mansers were also great
iron-men, officiating as high sheriffs of the county at different
times, and occupying spacious mansions. One branch of these families
terminated, Mr. Lower says, with Nicholas Barham, who died in the
workhouse at Wadhurst in 1788; and another continues to be
represented by a wheelwright at Wadhurst of the same name.
The iron manufacture of Sussex reached its height towards the close
of the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade became so prosperous that,
instead of importing iron, England began to export it in considerable
quantities, in the shape of iron ordnance. Sir Thomas Leighton and
Sir Henry Neville had obtained patents from the queen, which enabled
them to send their ordnance abroad, the conseqnence of which was that
the Spaniards were found arming their ships and fighting us with guns
of our own manufacture. Sir Walter Raleigh, calling attention to the
subject in the House of Commons, said, "I am sure heretofore one ship
of Her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards, but now, by reason
of our own ordnance, we are hardly matcht one to one." Proclamations
were issued forbidding the export of iron and brass ordnance, and a
bill was brought into Parliament to put a stop to the trade; but, not
withstanding these prohibitions, the Sussex guns long continued to be
smuggled out of the country in considerable numbers. "It is almost
incredible," says Camden, "how many guns are made of the iron in this
county. Count Gondomar (the Spanish ambassador) well knew their
goodness when he so often begged of King James the boon to export
them." Though the king refused his sanction, it appears that Sir
Anthony Shirley of Weston, an extensive iron-master, succeeded in
forwarding to the King of Spain a hundred pieces of cannon.
So active were the Sussex manufacturers, and so brisk was the trade
they carried on, that during the reign of James I. it is supposed
one-half of the whole quantity of iron produced in England was made
there. Simon Sturtevant, in his 'Treatise of Metallica,' published in
1612, estimates the whole number of iron-mills in England and Wales
at 800, of which, he says, "there are foure hundred milnes in Surry,
Kent, and Sussex, as the townsmen of Haslemere have testified and
numbered unto me. But the townsmen of Haslemere must certainly have
been exaggerating, unless they counted smiths' and farriers' shops in
the number of iron-mills. About the same time that Sturtevant's
treatise was published, there appeared a treatise entitled the
'Surveyor's Dialogue,' by one John Norden, the object of which was to
make out a case against the iron-works and their being allowed to
burn up the timber of the country for fuel. Yet Norden does not make
the number of iron-works much more than a third of Sturtevant's
estimate. He says, "I have heard that there are or lately were in
Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron, and in it and Surrey
adjoining three or four glasse-houses." Even the smaller number
stated by Norden, however, shows that Sussex was then regarded as the
principal seat of the iron-trade. Camden vividly describes the noise
and bustle of the manufacture--the working of the heavy hammers,
which, "beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about,
day and night, with continual noise." These hammers were for the most
part worked by the power of water, carefully stored in the artificial
"Hammer-ponds" above described. The hammer-shaft was usually of ash,
about 9 feet long, clamped at intervals with iron hoops. It was
worked by the revolutions of the water-wheel, furnished with
projecting arms or knobs to raise the hammer, which fell as each knob
passed, the rapidity of its action of course depending on the
velocity with which the water-wheel revolved. The forge-blast was
also worked for the most part by water-power. Where the furnaces were
small, the blast was produced by leather bellows worked by hand, or
by a horse walking in a gin. The foot-blasts of the earlier
iron-smelters were so imperfect that but a small proportion of the
ore was reduced, so that the iron-makers of later times, more
particularly in the Forest of Dean, instead of digging for ironstone,
resorted to the beds of ancient scoriae for their principal supply of
the mineral.
Notwithstanding the large number of furnaces in blast throughout the
county of Sussex at the period we refer to, their produce was
comparatively small, and must not be measured by the enormous produce
of modern iron-works; for while an iron-furnace of the present day
will easily turn out 150 tons of pig per week, the best of the older
furnaces did not produce more than from three to four tons. One of
the last extensive contracts executed in Sussex was the casting of
the iron rails which enclose St. Paul's Cathedral. The contract was
thought too large for one iron-master to undertake, and it was
consequently distributed amongst several contractors, though the
principal part of the work was executed at Lamberhurst, near
Tunbridge Wells. But to produce the comparatively small quantity of
iron turned out by the old works, the consumption of timber was
enormous; for the making of every ton of pig-iron required four loads
of timber converted into charcoal fuel, and the making of every ton
of bar-iron required three additional loads. Thus, notwithstanding
the indispensable need of iron, the extension of the manufacture, by
threatening the destruction of the timber of the southern counties,
came to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to a
certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense growth of
underwood had been of advantage, by affording better opportunities
for the operations of agriculture. But the "voragious iron-mills"
were proceeding to swallow up everything that would burn, and the old
forest growths were rapidly disappearing. An entire wood was soon
exhausted, and long time was needed before it grew again. At
Lamberhurst alone, though the produce was only about five tons of
iron a-week, the annual consumption of wood was about 200,000 cords!
Wood continued to be the only material used for fuel generally--a
strong prejudice existing against the use of sea-coal for domestic
purposes.*
[footnote...
It was then believed that sea or pit-coal was poisonous when burnt in
dwellings, and that it was especially injurious to the human
complexion. All sorts of diseases were attributed to its use, and at
one time it was even penal to burn it. The Londoners only began to
reconcile themselves to the use of coal when the wood within reach of
the metropolis had been nearly all burnt up, and no other fuel was to
be had.
...]
It therefore began to be feared that there would be no available fuel
left within practicable reach of the metropolis; and the contingency
of having to face the rigorous cold of an English winter without fuel
naturally occasioning much alarm, the action of the Government was
deemed necessary to remedy the apprehended evil.
To check the destruction of wood near London, an Act was passed in
1581 prohibiting its conversion into fuel for the making of iron
within fourteen miles of the Thames, forbidding the erection of new
ironworks within twenty-two miles of London, and restricting the
number of works in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, beyond the above limits.
Similar enactments were made in future Parliaments with the same
object, which had the effect of checking the trade, and several of
the Sussex ironmasters were under the necessity of removing their
works elsewhere. Some of them migrated to Glamorganshire, in South
Wales, because of the abundance of timber as well as ironstone in
that quarter, and there set up their forges, more particularly at
Aberdare and Merthyr Tydvil. Mr. Llewellin has recently published an
interesting account of their proceedings, with descriptions of their
works,*
[footnote ...
Archaeologia Cambrensis, 3rd Series, No. 34, April, 1863. Art.
"Sussex Ironmasters in Glamorganshire."
...]
remains of which still exist at Llwydcoed, Pontyryns, and other
places in the Aberdare valley. Among the Sussex masters who settled
in Glamorganshire for the purpose of carrying on the iron
manufacture, were Walter Burrell, the friend of John Ray, the
naturalist, one of the Morleys of Glynde in Sussex, the Relfes from
Mayfield, and the Cheneys from Crawley.
Notwithstanding these migrations of enterprising manufacturers, the
iron trade of Sussex continued to exist until the middle of the
seventeenth century, when the waste of timber was again urged upon
the attention of Parliament, and the penalties for infringing the
statutes seem to have been more rigorously enforced. The trade then
suffered a more serious check; and during the civil wars, a heavy
blow was given to it by the destruction of the works belonging to all
royalists, which was accomplished by a division of the army under Sir
William Waller. Most of the Welsh ironworks were razed to the ground
about the same time, and were not again rebuilt. And after the
Restoration, in 1674, all the royal ironworks in the Forest of Dean
were demolished, leaving only such to be supplied with ore as were
beyond the forest limits; the reason alleged for this measure being
lest the iron manufacture should endanger the supply of timber
required for shipbuilding and other necessary purposes.
From this time the iron manufacture of Sussex, as of England
generally, rapidly declined. In 1740 there were only fifty-nine
furnaces in all England, of which ten were in Sussex; and in 1788
there were only two. A few years later, and the Sussex iron furnaces
were blown out altogether. Farnhurst, in western, and Ashburnham, in
eastern Sussex, witnessed the total extinction of the manufacture.
The din of the iron hammer was hushed, the glare of the furnace
faded, the last blast of the bellows was blown, and the district
returned to its original rural solitude. Some of the furnace-ponds
were drained and planted with hops or willows; others formed
beautiful lakes in retired pleasure-grounds; while the remainder were
used to drive flour-mills, as the streams in North Kent, instead of
driving fulling-mills, were employed to work paper-mills. All that
now remains of the old iron-works are the extensive beds of cinders
from which material is occasionally taken to mend the Sussex roads,
and the numerous furnace-ponds, hammer-posts, forges, and cinder
places, which mark the seats of the ancient manufacture.
CHAPTER III.
IRON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL--DUD DUDLEY.
"God of his Infinite goodness (if we will but take notice of his
goodness unto this Nation) hath made this Country a very Granary for
the supplying of Smiths with Iron, Cole, and Lime made with cole,
which hath much supplied these men with Corn also of late; and from
these men a great part, not only of this Island, but also of his
Majestie's other Kingdoms and Territories, with Iron wares have their
supply, and Wood in these parts almost exhausted, although it were of
late a mighty woodland country."--DUDLEY's Metallum Martis, 1665.
The severe restrictions enforced by the legislature against the use
of wood in iron-smelting had the effect of almost extinguishing the
manufacture. New furnaces ceased to be erected, and many of the old
ones were allowed to fall into decay, until it began to be feared
that this important branch of industry would become completely lost.
The same restrictions alike affected the operations of the glass
manufacture, which, with the aid of foreign artisans, had been
gradually established in England, and was becoming a thriving branch
of trade. It was even proposed that the smelting of iron should be
absolutely prohibited: "many think," said a contemporary writer,
"that there should be NO WORKS ANYWHERE--they do so devour the
woods."
The use of iron, however, could not be dispensed with. The very
foundations of society rested upon an abundant supply of it, for
tools and implements of peace, as well as for weapons of war. In the
dearth of the article at home, a supply of it was therefore sought
for abroad; and both iron and steel came to be imported in
largely-increased quantities. This branch of trade was principally in
the hands of the Steelyard Company of Foreign Merchants, established
in Upper Thames Street, a little above London Bridge; and they
imported large quantities of iron and steel from foreign countries,
principally from Sweden, Germany, and Spain. The best iron came from
Spain, though the Spaniards on their part coveted our English made
cannons, which were better manufactured than theirs; while the best
steel came from Germany and Sweden.*
[footnote...
As late as 1790, long after the monopoly of the foreign merchants had
been abolished, Pennant says, "The present Steelyard is the great
repository of imported iron, which furnishes our metropolis with that
necessary material. The quantity of bars that fills the yards and
warehouses of this quarter strikes with astonishment the most
indifferent beholder."--PENNANT, Account of London, 309.
...]
Under these circumstances, it was natural that persons interested in
the English iron manufacture should turn their attention to some
other description of fuel which should serve as a substitute for the
prohibited article. There was known to be an abundance of coal in the
northern and midland counties, and it occurred to some speculators
more than usually daring, to propose it as a substitute for the
charcoal fuel made from wood. But the same popular prejudice which
existed against the use of coal for domestic purposes, prevented its
being employed for purposes of manufacture; and they were thought
very foolish persons indeed who first promulgated the idea of
smelting iron by means of pit-coal. The old manufacturers held it to
be impossible to reduce the ore in any other way than by means of
charcoal of wood. It was only when the wood in the neighbourhood of
the ironworks had been almost entirely burnt up, that the
manufacturers were driven to entertain the idea of using coal as a
substitute; but more than a hundred years passed before the practice
of smelting iron by its means became general.
The first who took out a patent for the purpose was one Simon
Sturtevant, a German skilled in mining operations; the professed
object of his invention being "to neale, melt, and worke all kind of
metal oares, irons, and steeles with sea-coale, pit-coale,
earth-coale, and brush fewell." The principal end of his invention,
he states in his Treatise of Metallica,*
[footnote...
STURTEVANT'S Metallica; briefly comprehending the Doctrine of Diverse
New Metallical Inventions, &c. Reprinted and published at the Great
Seal Patent Office, 1858.
...]
is to save the consumption and waste of the woods and timber of the
country; and, should his design succeed, he holds that it "will prove
to be the best and most profitable business and invention that ever
was known or invented in England these many yeares." He says he has
already made trial of the process on a small scale, and is confident
that it will prove equally successful on a large one. Sturtevant was
not very specific as to his process; but it incidentally appears to
have been his purpose to reduce the coal by an imperfect combustion
to the condition of coke, thereby ridding it of "those malignant
proprieties which are averse to the nature of metallique substances."
The subject was treated by him, as was customary in those days, as a
great mystery, made still more mysterious by the multitude of learned
words under which he undertook to describe his "Ignick Invention" All
the operations of industry were then treated as secrets. Each trade
was a craft, and those who followed it were called craftsmen. Even
the common carpenter was a handicraftsman; and skilled artisans were
"cunning men." But the higher branches of work were mysteries, the
communication of which to others was carefully guarded by the
regulations of the trades guilds. Although the early patents are
called specifications, they in reality specify nothing. They are for
the most part but a mere haze of words, from which very little
definite information can be gleaned as to the processes patented. It
may be that Sturtevant had not yet reduced his idea to any
practicable method, and therefore could not definitely explain it.
However that may be, it is certain that his process failed when tried
on a large scale, and Sturtevant's patent was accordingly cancelled
at the end of a year.
The idea, however, had been fairly born, and repeated patents were
taken out with the same object from time to time. Thus, immediately
on Sturtevant's failure becoming known, one John Rovenzon, who had
been mixed up with the other's adventure, applied for a patent for
making iron by the same process, which was granted him in 1613. His
'Treatise of Metallica'*
[footnote...
Reprinted and published at the Great Seal Patent Office, 1858.
...]
shows that Rovenzon had a true conception of the method of
manufacture. Nevertheless he, too, failed in carrying out the
invention in practice, and his patent was also cancelled. Though
these failures were very discouraging, like experiments continued to
be made and patents taken out,--principally by Dutchmen and Germans,*
[footnote...
Among the early patentees, besides the names of Sturtevant and
Rovenzon, we find those of Jordens, Francke, Sir Phillibert Vernatt,
and other foreigners of the above nations.
...]
--but no decided success seems to have attended their efforts until
the year 1620, when Lord Dudley took out his patent "for melting iron
ore, making bar-iron, &c., with coal, in furnaces, with bellows."
This patent was taken out at the instance of his son Dud Dudley,
whose story we gather partly from his treatise entitled 'Metallum
Martis,' and partly from various petitions presented by him to the
king, which are preserved in the State Paper Office, and it runs as
follows: --
Dud Dudley was born in 1599, the natural son of Edward Lord Dudley of
Dudley Castle in the county of Worcester. He was the fourth of eleven
children by the same mother, who is described in the pedigree of the
family given in the Herald's visitation of the county of Stafford in
the year 1663, signed by Dud Dudley himself, as "Elizabeth, daughter
of William Tomlinson of Dudley, concubine of Edward Lord Dudley."
Dud's eldest brother is described in the same pedigree as Robert
Dudley, Squire, of Netherton Hall; and as his sisters mostly married
well, several of them county gentlemen, it is obvious that the
family, notwithstanding that the children were born out of wedlock,
held a good position in their neighbourhood, and were regarded with
respect. Lord Dudley, though married and having legitimate heirs at
the time, seems to have attended to the up-bringing of his natural
children; educating them carefully, and afterwards employing them in
confidential offices connected with the management of his extensive
property. Dud describes himself as taking great delight, when a
youth, in his father's iron-works near Dudley, where he obtained
considerable knowledge of the various processes of the manufacture.
The town of Dudley was already a centre of the iron manufacture,
though chiefly of small wares, such as nails, horse-shoes, keys,
locks, and common agricultural tools; and it was estimated that there
were about 20,000 smiths and workers in iron of various kinds living
within a circuit of ten miles of Dudley Castle. But, as in the
southern counties, the production of iron had suffered great
diminution from the want of fuel in the district, "though formerly a
mighty woodland country; and many important branches of the local
trade were brought almost to a stand-still. Yet there was an
extraordinary abundance of coal to be met with in the
neighbourhood--coal in some places lying in seams ten feet
thick--ironstone four feet thick immediately under the coal, with
limestone conveniently adjacent to both. The conjunction seemed
almost providential--"as if." observes Dud, "God had decreed the time
when and how these smiths should be supplied, and this island also,
with iron, and most especially that this cole and ironstone should
give the first and just occasion for the invention of smelting iron
with pit-cole;" though, as we have already seen, all attempts
heretofore made with that object had practically failed.
Dud was a special favourite of the Earl his father, who encouraged
his speculations with reference to the improvement of the iron
manufacture, and gave him an education calculated to enable him to
turn his excellent practical abilities to account. He was studying at
Baliol College, Oxford, in the year 1619, when the Earl sent for him
to take charge of an iron furnace and two forges in the chase of
Pensnet in Worcestershire. He was no sooner installed manager of the
works, than, feeling hampered by the want of wood for fuel, his
attention was directed to the employment of pit-coal as a substitute.
He altered his furnace accordingly, so as to adapt it to the new
process, and the result of the first trial was such as to induce him
to persevere. It is nowhere stated in Dud Dudley's Treatise what was
the precise nature of the method adopted by him; but it is most
probable that, in endeavouring to substitute coal for wood as fuel,
he would subject the coal to a process similar to that of
charcoal-burning. The result would be what is called Coke; and as
Dudley informs us that he followed up his first experiment with a
second blast, by means of which he was enabled to produce good
marketable iron, the presumption is that his success was also due to
an improvement of the blast which he contrived for the purpose of
keeping up the active combustion of the fuel. Though the quantity
produced by the new process was comparatively small--not more than
three tons a week from each furnace--Dudley anticipated that greater
experience would enable him to increase the quantity; and at all
events he had succeeded in proving the practicability of smelting
iron with fuel made from pit-coal, which so many before him had tried
in vain.
Immediately after the second trial had been made with such good
issue, Dud wrote to his father the Earl, then in London, informing
him what he had done, and desiring him at once to obtain a patent for
the invention from King James. This was readily granted, and the
patent (No. 18), dated the 22nd February, 1620, was taken out in the
name of Lord Dudley himself.
Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet, and also at
Cradley in Staffordshire, where he erected another furnace; and a
year after the patent was granted he was enabled to send up to the
Tower, by the King's command, a considerable quantity of the new iron
for trial. Many experiments were made with it: its qualities were
fairly tested, and it was pronounced "good merchantable iron." Dud
adds, in his Treatise, that his brother-in-law, Richard Parkshouse,
of Sedgeley,*
[footnote...
Mr. Parkshouse was one of the esquires to Sir Ferdinando Dudley (the
legitimate son of the Earl of Dudley) When he was made Knight of the
Bath. Sir Ferdinando's only daughter Frances married Humble Ward, son
and heir of William Ward, goldsmith and jeweller to Charles the
First's queen. Her husband having been created a baron by the title
of Baron Ward of Birmingham, and Frances becoming Baroness of Dudley
in her own right on the demise of her father, the baronies of Dudley
and Ward thus became united in their eldest son Edward in the year
1697.
...]
"had a fowling-gun there made of the Pit-cole iron," which was "well
approved." There was therefore every prospect of the new method of
manufacture becoming fairly established, and with greater experience
further improvements might with confidence be anticipated, when a
succession of calamities occurred to the inventor which involved him
in difficulties and put an effectual stop to the progress of his
enterprise.
The new works had been in successful operation little more than a
year, when a flood, long after known as the "Great May-day Flood,"
swept away Dudley's principal works at Cradley, and otherwise
inflicted much damage throughout the district. "At the market town
called Stourbridge," says Dud, in the course of his curious
narrative, "although the author sent with speed to preserve the
people from drowning, and one resolute man was carried from the
bridge there in the day-time, the nether part of the town was so deep
in water that the people had much ado to preserve their lives in the
uppermost rooms of their houses." Dudley himself received very little
sympathy for his losses. On the contrary, the iron-smelters of the
district rejoiced exceedingly at the destruction of his works by the
flood. They had seen him making good iron by his new patent process,
and selling it cheaper than they could afford to do. They accordingly
put in circulation all manner of disparaging reports about his iron.
It was bad iron, not fit to be used; indeed no iron, except what was
smelted with charcoal of wood, could be good. To smelt it with coal
was a dangerous innovation, and could only result in some great
public calamity. The ironmasters even appealed to King James to put a
stop to Dud's manufacture, alleging that his iron was not
merchantable. And then came the great flood, which swept away his
works; the hostile ironmasters now hoping that there was an end for
ever of Dudley's pit-coal iron.
But Dud, with his wonted energy, forthwith set to work and repaired
his furnaces and forges, though at great cost; and in the course of a
short time the new manufacture was again in full progress. The
ironmasters raised a fresh outcry against him, and addressed another
strong memorial against Dud and his iron to King James. This seems to
have taken effect; and in order to ascertain the quality of the
article by testing it upon a large scale, the King commanded Dudley
to send up to the Tower of London, with every possible speed,
quantities of all the sorts of bar-iron made by him, fit for the
"making of muskets, carbines, and iron for great bolts for shipping;
which iron," continues Dud, "being so tried by artists and smiths,
the ironmasters and iron-mongers were all silenced until the 21st
year of King James's reign." The ironmasters then endeavoured to get
the Dudley patent included in the monopolies to be abolished by the
statute of that year; but all they could accomplish was the
limitation of the patent to fourteen years instead of thirty-one; the
special exemption of the patent from the operation of the statute
affording a sufficient indication of the importance already attached
to the invention. After that time Dudley "went on with his invention
cheerfully, and made annually great store of iron, good and
merchantable, and sold it unto diverse men at twelve pounds per ton."
"I also," said he, "made all sorts of cast-iron wares, as brewing
cisterns, pots, mortars, &c., better and cheaper than any yet made in
these nations with charcoal, some of which are yet to be seen by any
man (at the author's house in the city of Worcester) that desires to
be satisfied of the truth of the invention."
Notwithstanding this decided success, Dudley encountered nothing but
trouble and misfortune. The ironmasters combined to resist his
invention; they fastened lawsuit's upon him, and succeeded in getting
him ousted from his works at Cradley. From thence he removed to
Himley in the county of Stafford, where he set up a pit-coal furnace;
but being without the means of forging the iron into bars, he was
constrained to sell the pig-iron to the charcoal-ironmasters, "who
did him much prejudice, not only by detaining his stock, but also by
disparaging his iron." He next proceeded to erect a large new furnace
at Hasco Bridge, near Sedgeley, in the same county, for the purpose
of carrying out the manufacture on the most improved principles. This
furnace was of stone, twenty-seven feet square, provided with
unusually large bellows; and when in full work he says he was enabled
to turn out seven tons of iron per week, "the greatest quantity of
pit-coal iron ever yet made in Great Britain." At the same place he
discovered and opened out new workings of coal ten feet thick, lying
immediately over the ironstone, and he prepared to carry on his
operations on a large scale; but the new works were scarcely finished
when a mob of rioters, instigated by the charcoal-ironmasters, broke
in upon them, cut in pieces the new bellows, destroyed the machinery,
and laid the results of all his deep-laid ingenuity and persevering
industry in ruins. From that time forward Dudley was allowed no rest
nor peace: he was attacked by mobs, worried by lawsuits, and
eventually overwhelmed by debts. He was then seized by his creditors
and sent up to London, where he was held a prisoner in the Comptoir
for several thousand pounds. The charcoal-iron men thus for a time
remained masters of the field.
Charles I. seems to have taken pity on the suffering inventor; and on
his earnest petition, setting forth the great advantages to the
nation of his invention, from which he had as yet derived no
advantage, but only losses, sufferings, and persecution, the King
granted him a renewal of his patent*
[footnote...
Patent No. 117, Old Series, granted in 1638, to Sir George Horsey,
David Ramsey, Roger Foulke, and Dudd Dudley.
...]
in the year 1638; three other gentlemen joining him as partners, and
doubtless providing the requisite capital for carrying on the
manufacture after the plans of the inventor. But Dud's evil fortune
continued to pursue him. The patent had scarcely been securedere the
Civil War broke out, and the arts of peace must at once perforce give
place to the arts of war. Dud's nature would not suffer him to be
neutral at such a time; and when the nation divided itself into two
hostile camps, his predilections being strongly loyalist, he took the
side of the King with his father. It would appear from a petition
presented by him to Charles II. in 1660, setting forth his sufferings
in the royal cause, and praying for restoral to certain offices which
he had enjoyed under Charles I., that as early as the year 1637 he
had been employed by the King on a mission into Scotland,*
[footnote...
By his own account, given in Metallum Martis, while in Scotland in
1637, he visited the Highlands as well as the Lowlands, spending the
whole summer of that year "in opening of mines and making of
discoveries;" spending part of the time with Sir James Hope of Lead
Hills, near where, he says, "he got gold." It does not appear,
however, that any iron forges existed in Scotland at the time: indeed
Dudley expressly says that "Scotland maketh no iron;" and in his
treatise of 1665 he urges that the Corporation of the Mines Royal
should set him and his inventions at work to enable Scotland to enjoy
the benefit of a cheap and abundant supply of the manufactured
article.
...]
in the train of the Marquis of Hamilton, the King's Commissioner.
Again in 1639, leaving his ironworks and partners, he accompanied
Charles on his expedition across the Scotch border, and was present
with the army until its discomfiture at Newburn near Newcastle in the
following year.
The sword was now fairly drawn, and Dud seems for a time to have
abandoned his iron-works and followed entirely the fortunes of the
king. He was sworn surveyor of the Mews or Armoury in 1640, but being
unable to pay for the patent, another was sworn in in his place. Yet
his loyalty did not falter, for in the beginning of 1642, when
Charles set out from London, shortly after the fall of Strafford and
Laud, Dud went with him.*
[footnote...
The Journals of the House of Commons, of the 13th June, 1642, contain
the resolution "that Captain Wolseley, Ensign Dudley, and John
Lometon be forthwith sent for, as delinquents, by the
Serjeant-at-Arms attending on the House, for giving interruption to
the execution of the ordinance of the militia in the county of
Leicester."
...]
He was present before Hull when Sir John Hotham shut its gates in the
king's face; at York when the royal commissions of array were sent
out enjoining all loyal subjects to send men, arms, money, and
horses, for defence of the king and maintenance of the law; at
Nottingham, where the royal standard was raised; at Coventry, where
the townspeople refused the king entrance and fired upon his troops
from the walls; at Edgehill, where the first great but indecisive
battle was fought between the contending parties; in short, as Dud
Dudley states in his petition, he was "in most of the battailes that
year, and also supplyed his late sacred Majestie's magazines of
Stafford, Worcester, Dudley Castle, and Oxford, with arms, shot,
drakes, and cannon; and also, became major unto Sir Frauncis
Worsley's regiment, which was much decaied."
In 1643, according to the statement contained in his petition above
referred to, Dud Dudley acted as military engineer in setting out the
fortifications of Worcester and Stafford, and furnishing them with
ordnance. After the taking of Lichfield, in which he had a share, he
was made Colonel of Dragoons, and accompanied the Queen with his
regiment to the royal head-quarters at Oxford. The year after we find
him at the siege of Gloucester, then at the first battle of Newbury
leading the forlorn hope with Sir George Lisle, afterwards marching
with Sir Charles Lucas into the associate counties, and present at
the royalist rout at Newport. That he was esteemed a valiant and
skilful officer is apparent from the circumstance, that in 1645 he
was appointed general of Prince Maurice's train of artillery, and
afterwards held the same rank under Lord Ashley. The iron districts
being still for the most part occupied by the royal armies, our
military engineer turned his practical experience to account by
directing the forging of drakes*
[footnote...
Small pieces of artillery, specimens of which are still to be seen in
the museum at Woolwich Arsenal and at the Tower. ...]
of bar-iron, which were found of great use, giving up his own
dwelling-house in the city of Worcester for the purpose of carrying
on the manufacture of these and other arms. But Worcester and the
western towns fell before the Parliamentarian armies in 1646, and all
the iron-works belonging to royalists, from which the principal
supplies of arms had been drawn by the King's army, were forthwith
destroyed.
Dudley fully shared in the dangers and vicissitudes of that trying
period, and bore his part throughout like a valiant soldier. For two
years nothing was heard of him, until in 1648, when the king's party
drew together again, and made head in different parts of the country,
north and south. Goring raised his standard in Essex, but was driven
by Fairfax into Colchester, where he defended himself for two months.
While the siege was in progress, the royalists determined to make an
attempt to raise it. On this Dud Dudley again made his appearance in
the field, and, joining sundry other counties, he proceeded to raise
200 men, mostly at his own charge. They were, however, no sooner
mustered in Bosco Bello woods near Madeley, than they were attacked
by the Parliamentarians, and dispersed or taken prisoners. Dud was
among those so taken, and he was first carried to Hartlebury Castle
and thence to Worcester, where he was imprisoned. Recounting the
sufferings of himself and his followers on this occasion, in the
petition presented to Charles II. in 1660,*
[footnote...
State Paper Office, Dom. Charles II., vol. xi. 54.
...]
he says, "200 men were dispersed, killed, and some taken, namely,
Major Harcourt, Major Elliotts, Capt. Long, and Cornet Hodgetts, of
whom Major Harcourt was miserably burned with matches. The petitioner
and the rest were stripped almost naked, and in triumph and scorn
carried up to the city of Worcester (which place Dud had fortified
for the king), and kept close prisoners, with double guards set upon
the prison and the city."
Notwithstanding this close watch and durance, Dudley and Major
Elliotts contrived to break out of gaol, making their way over the
tops of the houses, afterwards passing the guards at the city gates,
and escaping into the open country. Being hotly pursued , they
travelled during the night, and took to the trees during the daytime.
They succeeded in reaching London, but only to drop again into the
lion's mouth; for first Major Elliotts was captured, then Dudley, and
both were taken before Sir John Warner, the Lord Mayor, who forthwith
sent them before the "cursed committee of insurrection," as Dudley
calls them. The prisoners were summarily sentenced to be shot to
death, and were meanwhile closely imprisoned in the Gatehouse at
Westminster, with other Royalists.
The day before their intended execution, the prisoners formed a plan
of escape. It was Sunday morning, the 20th August, 1648, when they
seized their opportunity, "at ten of the cloeke in sermon time;" and,
overpowering the gaolers, Dudley, with Sir Henry Bates, Major
Elliotts, Captain South, Captain Paris, and six others, succeeded in
getting away, and making again for the open country. Dudley had
received a wound in the leg, and could only get along with great
difficulty. He records that he proceeded on crutches, through
Worcester, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester, to Bristol, having been "fed
three weeks in private in an enemy's hay mow." Even the most
lynx-eyed Parliamentarian must have failed to recognise the quondam
royalist general of artillery in the helpless creature dragging
himself along upon crutches; and he reached Bristol in safety.
His military career now over, he found himself absolutely penniless.
His estate of about 200L. per annum had been sequestrated and sold by
the government;*
[footnote...
The Journals of the House of Commons, on the 2nd Nov. 1652, have the
following entry: "The House this day resumed the debate upon the
additional Bill for sale of several lands and estates forfeited to
the Commonwealth for treason, when it was resolved that the name of
Dud Dudley of Green Lodge be inserted into this Bill."
...]
his house in Worcester had been seized and his sickly wife turned out
of doors; and his goods, stock, great shop, and ironworks, which he
himself valued at 2000L., were destroyed. He had also lost the
offices of Serjeant-at-arms, Lieutenant of Ordnance, and Surveyor of
the Mews, which he had held under the king; in a word, he found
himself reduced to a state of utter destitution.
Dudley was for some time under the necessity of living in great
privacy at Bristol; but when the king had been executed, and the
royalists were finally crushed at Worcester, Dud gradually emerged
from his concealment. He was still the sole possessor of the grand
secret of smelting iron with pit-coal, and he resolved upon one more
commercial adventure, in the hope of yet turning it to good account.
He succeeded in inducing Walter Stevens, linendraper, and John Stone,
merchant, both of Bristol, to join him as partners in an ironwork,
which they proceeded to erect near that city. The buildings were well
advanced, and nearly 700L. had been expended, when a quarrel occurred
between Dudley and his partners, which ended in the stoppage of the
works, and the concern being thrown into Chancery. Dudley alleges
that the other partners "cunningly drew him into a bond," and "did
unjustly enter staple actions in Bristol of great value against him,
because he was of the king's party;" but it would appear as if there
had been some twist or infirmity of temper in Dudley himself, which
prevented him from working harmoniously with such persons as he
became associated with in affairs of business.
In the mean time other attempts were made to smelt iron with
pit-coal. Dudley says that Cromwell and the then Parliament granted a
patent to Captain Buck for the purpose; and that Cromwell himself,
Major Wildman, and various others were partners in the patent. They
erected furnaces and works in the Forest of Dean;*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet, in his 'Papers on Iron,' says, that "although he had
carefully examined every spot and relic in Dean Forest likely to
denote the site of Dud Dudley's enterprising but unfortunate
experiment of making pig-iron with pit coal," it had been without
success; neither could he find any traces of the like operations of
Cromwell and his partners.
...]
but, though Cromwell and his officers could fight and win battles,
they could not smelt and forge iron with pit-coal. They brought one
Dagney, an Italian glass-maker, from Bristol, to erect a new furnace
for them, provided with sundry pots of glass-house clay; but no
success attended their efforts. The partners knowing of Dudley's
possession of the grand secret, invited him to visit their works; but
all they could draw from him was that they would never succeed in
making iron to profit by the methods they were pursuing. They next
proceeded to erect other works at Bristol, but still they failed.
Major Wildman*
[footnote...
Dudley says, "Major Wildman, more barbarous to me than a wild man,
although a minister, bought the author's estate, near 200L. per
annum, intending to compell from the author his inventions of making
iron with pitcole, but afterwards passed my estate unto two barbarous
brokers of London, that pulled down the author's two mantion houses,
sold 500 timber trees off his land, and to this day are his houses
unrepaired. Wildman himself fell under the grip of Cromwell. Being
one of the chiefs of the Republican party, he was seized at Exton,
near Marlborough, in l654, and imprisoned in Chepstow Castle.
...]
bought Dudley's sequestrated estate, in the hope of being able to
extort his secret of making iron with pit-coal; but all their
attempts proving abortive, they at length abandoned the enterprise in
despair. In 1656, one Captain Copley obtained from Cromwell a further
patent with a similar object; and erected works near Bristol, and
also in the Forest of Kingswood. The mechanical engineers employed by
Copley failed in making his bellows blow; on which he sent for
Dudley, who forthwith "made his bellows to be blown feisibly;" but
Copley failed, like his predecessors, in making iron, and at length
he too desisted from further experiments.
Such continued to be the state of things until the Restoration, when
we find Dud Dudley a petitioner to the king for the renewal of his
patent. He was also a petitioner for compensation in respect of the
heavy losses he had sustained during the civil wars. The king was
besieged by crowds of applicants of a similar sort, but Dudley was no
more successful than the others. He failed in obtaining the renewal
of his patent. Another applicant for the like privilege, probably
having greater interest at court, proved more successful. Colonel
Proger and three others*
[footnote...
June 13, 1661. Petition of Col. Jas. Proger and three others to the
king for a patent for the sole exercise of their invention of melting
down iron and other metals with coal instead of wood, as the great
consumption of coal [charcoal ?] therein causes detriment to
shipping, &c. With reference thereon to Attorney-General Palmer, and
his report, June 18, in favour of the petition,--State Papers,
Charles II. (Dom. vol, xxxvii, 49.
...]
were granted a patent to make iron with coal; but Dudley knew the
secret, which the new patentees did not; and their patent came to
nothing.
Dudley continued to address the king in importunate petitions, asking
to be restored to his former offices of Serjeant-at-arms, Lieutenant
of Ordnance, and Surveyor of the Mews or Armoury. He also petitioned
to be appointed Master of the Charter House in Smithfield, professing
himself willing to take anything, or hold any living.*
[footnote...
In his second petition he prays that a dwelling-house situated in
Worcester, and belonging to one Baldwin, "a known traitor," may be
assigned to him in lieu of Alderman Nash's, which had reverted to
that individual since his return to loyalty; Dudley reminding the
king that his own house in that city had been given up by him for the
service of his father Charles I., and turned into a factory for arms.
It does not appear that this part of his petition was successful.
...]
We find him sending in two petitions to a similar effect in June,
1660; and a third shortly after. The result was, that he was
reappointed to the office of Serjeant-at-Arms; but the Mastership of
the Charter-House was not disposed of until 1662, when it fell to the
lot of one Thomas Watson.*
[footnote...
State Papers, vol. xxxi. Doquet Book, p.89.
...]
In 1661, we find a patent granted to Wm. Chamberlaine and--Dudley,
Esq., for the sole use of their new invention of plating steel, &c.,
and tinning the said plates; but whether Dud Dudley was the person
referred to, we are unable precisely to determine. A few years later,
he seems to have succeeded in obtaining the means of prosecuting his
original invention; for in his Metallum Martis, published in 1665, he
describes himself as living at Green's Lodge, in Staffordshire; and
he says that near it are four forges, Green's Forge, Swin Forge,
Heath Forge, and Cradley Forge, where he practises his "perfect
invention." These forges, he adds, "have barred all or most part of
their iron with pit-coal since the authors first invention In 1618,
which hath preserved much wood. In these four, besides many other
forges, do the like [sic ]; yet the author hath had no benefit
thereby to this present." From that time forward, Dud becomes lost to
sight. He seems eventually to have retired to St. Helen's in
Worcestershire, where he died in 1684, in the 85th year of his age.
He was buried in the parish church there, and a monument, now
destroyed, was erected to his memory, bearing the inscription partly
set forth underneath.*
[footnote...
Pulvis et umbra sumus
Memento mori.
Dodo Dudley chiliarchi nobilis Edwardi nuper domini de Dudley filius,
patri charus et regiae Majestatis fidissimus subditus et servus in
asserendo regein, in vindicartdo ecclesiam, in propugnando legem ac
libertatem Anglicanam, saepe captus, anno 1648, semel condemnatus et
tamen non decollatus, renatum denuo vidit diadaema hic inconcussa
semper virtute senex.
Differt non aufert mortem longissima vita
Sed differt multam cras hodiere mori.
Quod nequeas vitare, fugis:
Nec formidanda est.
Plot frequently alludes to Dudley in his Natural History of
Staffordshire, and when he does so he describes him as the "worshipful
Dud Dudley," showing the estimation in which he was held by his
contemporaries.
...]
CHAPTER IV.
ANDREW YARRANTON.
"There never have been wanting men to whom England's improvement by
sea and land was one of the dearest thoughts of their lives, and to
whom England's good was the foremost of their worldly considerations.
And such, emphatically, was Andrew Yarranton, a true patriot in the
best sense of the word."--DOVE, Elements of Political Science.
That industry had a sore time of it during the civil wars will
further appear from the following brief account of Andrew Yarranton,
which may be taken as a companion memoir to that of Dud Dudley. For
Yarranton also was a Worcester ironmaster and a soldier--though on
the opposite side,--but more even than Dudley was he a man of public
spirit and enterprise, an enlightened political economist (long
before political economy had been recognised as a science), and in
many respects a true national benefactor. Bishop Watson said that he
ought to have had a statue erected to his memory because of his
eminent public services; and an able modern writer has gone so far as
to say of him that he was "the founder of English political economy,
the first man in England who saw and said that peace was better than
war, that trade was better than plunder, that honest industry was
better than martial greatness, and that the best occupation of a
government was to secure prosperity at home, and let other nations
alone."*
[footnote...
PATRICK EDWARD DOVE, Elements of Political Science. Edinburgh, 1854.
...]
Yet the name of Andrew Yarranton is scarcely remembered, or is at
most known to only a few readers of half-forgotten books. The
following brief outline of his history is gathered from his own
narrative and from documents in the State Paper Office.
Andrew Yarranton was born at the farmstead of Larford, in the parish
of Astley, in Worcestershire, in the year 1616.*
[footnote...
A copy of the entries in the parish register relating to the various
members of the Yarranton family, kindly forwarded to us by the Rev.
H. W. Cookes, rector of Astley, shows them to have resided in that
parish for many generations. There were the Yarrantons of Yarranton,
of Redstone, of Larford, of Brockenton, and of Longmore. With that
disregard for orthography in proper names which prevailed some three
hundred years since, they are indifferently designated as Yarran,
Yarranton, and Yarrington. The name was most probably derived from
two farms named Great and Little Yarranton, or Yarran (originally
Yarhampton), situated in the parish of Astley. The Yarrantons
frequently filled local offices in that parish, and we find several
of them officiating at different periods as bailiffs of Bewdley.
...]
In his sixteenth year he was put apprentice to a Worcester
linendraper, and remained at that trade for some years; but not
liking it, he left it, and was leading a country life when the civil
wars broke out. Unlike Dudley, he took the side of the Parliament,
and joined their army, in which he served for some time as a soldier.
His zeal and abilities commended him to his officers, and he was
raised from one position to another, until in the course of a few
years we find him holding the rank of captain. "While a soldier,"
says he, "I had sometimes the honour and misfortune to lodge and
dislodge an army;" but this is all the information he gives us of his
military career. In the year 1648 he was instrumental in discovering
and frustrating a design on the part of the Royalists to seize Doyley
House in the county of Hereford, and other strongholds, for which he
received the thanks of Parliament "for his ingenuity, discretion, and
valour," and a substantial reward of 500L.*
[footnote...
Journals of the House of Commons, lst July, 1648.
...]
He was also recommended to the Committee of Worcester for further
employment. But from that time we hear no more of him in connection
with the civil wars. When Cromwell assumed the supreme control of
affairs, Yarranton retired from the army with most of the
Presbyterians, and devoted himself to industrial pursuits.
We then find him engaged in carrying on the manufacture of iron at
Ashley, near Bewdley, in Worcestershire. "In the year 1652", says he,
"I entered upon iron-works, and plied them for several years."*
[footnote...
YARRANTON'S England's Improvement by Sea and Land. Part I. London,
1677.
...]
He made it a subject of his diligent study how to provide employment
for the poor, then much distressed by the late wars. With the help of
his wife, he established a manufacture of linen, which was attended
with good results. Observing how the difficulties of communication,
by reason of the badness of the roads, hindered the development of
the rich natural resources of the western counties,*
[footnote...
There seems a foundation of truth in the old English distich --
The North for Greatness, the East for Health,
The South for Neatness, the West for Wealth.
...]
he applied himself to the improvement of the navigation of the larger
rivers, making surveys of them at his own cost, and endeavouring to
stimulate local enterprise so as to enable him to carry his plans
into effect.
While thus occupied, the restoration of Charles II. took place, and
whether through envy or enmity Yarranton's activity excited the
suspicion of the authorities. His journeys from place to place seemed
to them to point to some Presbyterian plot on foot. On the 13th of
November, 1660, Lord Windsor, Lord-Lieutenant of the county, wrote to
the Secretary of State--"There is a quaker in prison for speaking
treason against his Majesty, and a countryman also, and Captain
Yarrington for refusing to obey my authority."*
[footnote...
State Paper Office. Dom. Charles II. 1660-1. Yarranton afterwards
succeeded in making a friend of Lord Windsor, as would appear from
his dedication of England's Improvement to his Lordship, whom he
thanks for the encouragement he had given to him in his survey of
several rivers with a view to their being rendered navigable.
...]
It would appear from subsequent letters that Yarranton must have lain
in prison for nearly two years, charged with conspiring against the
king's authority, the only evidence against him consisting of some
anonymous letter's. At the end of May, 1662, he succeeded in making
his escape from the custody of the Provost Marshal. The High Sheriff
scoured the country after him at the head of a party of horse, and
then he communicated to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas,
that the suspected conspirator could not be found, and was supposed
to have made his way to London. Before the end of a month Yarranton
was again in custody, as appears from the communication of certain
justices of Surrey to Sir Edward Nicholas.*
[footnote...
The following is a copy of the document from the State Papers: --
"John Bramfield, Geo. Moore, and Thos. Lee, Esqrs. and Justices of
Surrey, to Sir Edw. Nicholas.--There being this day brought before us
one Andrew Yarranton, and he accused to have broken prison, or at
least made his escape out of the Marshalsea at Worcester, being there
committed by the Deputy-Lieuts. upon suspicion of a plot in November
last; we having thereupon examined him, he allegeth that his Majesty
hath been sought unto on his behalf, and hath given order to yourself
for his discharge, and a supersedeas against all persons and
warrants, and thereupon hath desired to appeal unto you. The which we
conceiving to be convenient and reasonable (there being no positive
charge against him before us), have accordingly herewith conveyed
him unto you by a safe hand, to be further examined or disposed of as
you shall find meet.--S. P. O. Dom. Chas. II. 23rd June, 1662.
...]
As no further notice of Yarranton occurs in the State Papers, and as
we shortly after find him publicly occupied in carrying out his plans
for improving the navigation of the western rivers, it is probable
that his innoceney of any plot was established after a legal
investigation. A few years later he published in London a 4to. tract
entitled 'A Full Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot,'
which most probably contained a vindication of his conduct.*
[footnote...
We have been unable to refer to this tract, there being no copy of it
in the British Museum.
...]
Yarranton was no sooner at liberty than we find him again occupied
with his plans of improved inland navigation. His first scheme was to
deepen the small river Salwarp, so as to connect Droitwich with the
Severn by a water communication, and thus facilitate the transport of
the salt so abundantly yielded by the brine springs near that town.
In 1665, the burgesses of Droitwich agreed to give him 750L. and
eight salt vats in Upwich, valued at 80L. per annum, with
three-quarters of a vat in Northwich, for twenty-one years, in
payment for the work. But the times were still unsettled, and
Yarranton and his partner Wall not being rich, the scheme was not
then carried into effect.*
[footnote...
NASH'S Worcestershire, i. 306.
...]
In the following year we find him occupied with a similar scheme to
open up the navigation of the river Stour, passing by Stourport and
Kidderminster, and connect it by an artificial cut with the river
Trent. Some progress was made with this undertaking, so far in
advance of the age, but, like the other, it came to a stand still for
want of money, and more than a hundred years passed before it was
carried out by a kindred genius--James Brindley, the great canal
maker. Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was first
brought forward, it met with violent opposition and ridicule. The
undertaking was thought wonderfully bold, and, joined to its great
extent, the sandy, spongy nature of the ground, the high banks
necessary to prevent the inundation of the Stour on the canal,
furnished its opponents, if not with sound argument, at least with
very specious topics for opposition and laughter.*
[footnote...
JOHN CHAMBERS, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire. London,
1820.
...]
Yarranton's plan was to make the river itself navigable, and by
uniting it with other rivers, open up a communication with the Trent;
while Brindley's was to cut a canal parallel with the river, and
supply it with water from thence. Yarranton himself thus accounts for
the failure of his scheme in 'England's Improvement by Sea and
Land': -- "It was my projection," he says, "and I will tell you the
reason why it was not finished. The river Stour and some other rivers
were granted by an Act of Parliament to certain persons of honor, and
some progress was made in the work, but within a small while after
the Act passed*
[footnote...
The Act for making the Stour and Salwarp navigable originated in the
Lords and was passed in the year 1661.
...]
it was let fall again; but it being a brat of my own, I was not
willing it should be abortive, wherefore I made offers to perfect it,
having a third part of the inheritance to me and my heirs for ever,
and we came to an agreement, upon which I fell on, and made it
completely navigable from Stourbridge to Kidderminster, and carried
down many hundred tons of coal, and laid out near 1000L., and there
it was obstructed for want of money."*
[footnote...
Nash, in his Hist. of Worc., intimates that Lord Windsor subsequently
renewed the attempt to make the Salwarp navigable. He constructed
five out of the six locks, and then abandoned the scheme. Gough, in
his edition of Camden's Brit. ii. 357, Lond. 1789, says, "It is not
long since some of the boats made use of in Yarranton's navigation
were found. Neither tradition nor our projector's account of the
matter perfectly satisfy us why this navigation was neglected..... We
must therefore conclude that the numerous works and glass-houses upon
the Stour, and in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge, did not then
exist, A.D. 1666. ....The navigable communication which now connects
Trent and Severn, and which runs in the course of Yarranton's
project, is already of general use.... The canal since executed under
the inspection of Mr. Brindley, running parallel with the river....
cost the proprietors 105,000L."
...]
Another of Yarranton's far-sighted schemes of a similar kind was one
to connect the Thames with the Severn by means of an artificial cut,
at the very place where, more than a century after his death, it was
actually carried out by modern engineers. This canal, it appears, was
twice surveyed under his direction by his son. He did, however,
succeed in his own time in opening up the navigation. of the Avon,
and was the first to carry barges upon its waters from Tewkesbury to
Stratford.
The improvement of agriculture, too, had a share of Yarranton's
attention. He saw the soil exhausted by long tillage and constantly
repeated crops of rye, and he urged that the land should have rest or
at least rotation of crop. With this object he introduced
clover-seed, and supplied it largely to the farmers of the western
counties, who found their land doubled in value by the new method of
husbandry, and it shortly became adopted throughout the country.
Seeing how commerce was retarded by the small accommodation provided
for shipping at the then principal ports, Yarranton next made surveys
and planned docks for the city of London; but though he zealously
advocated the subject, he found few supporters, and his plans proved
fruitless. In this respect he was nearly a hundred and fifty years
before his age, and the London importers continued to conduct their
shipping business in the crowded tideway of the Thames down even to
the beginning of the present century.
While carrying on his iron works, it occurred to Yarranton that it
would be of great national advantage if the manufacture of tin-plate
could be introduced into England. Although the richest tin mines then
known existed in this country, the mechanical arts were at so low an
ebb that we were almost entirely dependent upon foreigners for the
supply of the articles manufactured from the metal. The Saxons were
the principal consumers of English tin, and we obtained from them in
return nearly the whole of our tin-plates. All attempts made to
manufacture them in England had hitherto failed; the beating out of
the iron by hammers into laminae sufficiently thin and smooth, and
the subsequent distribution and fixing of the film of tin over the
surface of the iron, proving difficulties which the English
manufacturers were unable to overcome. To master these difficulties
the indefatigable Yarranton set himself to work. "Knowing," says he,
"the usefulness of tin-plates and the goodness of our metals for that
purpose, I did, about sixteen years since (i.e. about 1665),
endeavour to find out the way for making thereof; whereupon I
acquainted a person of much riches, and one that was very
understanding in the iron manufacture, who was pleased to say that he
had often designed to get the trade into England, but never could
find out the way. Upon which it was agreed that a sum of monies
should be advanced by several persons,*
[footnote...
In the dedication of his book, entitled Englands Improvement by Sea
and Land, Part I., Yarranton gives the names of the "noble patriots"
who sent him on his journey of inquiry. They were Sir Waiter Kirtham
Blount, Bart., Sir Samuel Baldwin and Sir Timothy Baldwin, Knights,
Thomas Foley and Philip Foley, Esquires, and six other gentlemen. The
father of the Foleys was himself supposed to have introduced the art
of iron-splitting into England by an expedient similar to that
adopted by Yarranton in obtaining a knowledge of the tin-plate
manufacture (Self-Help, p.145). The secret of the silk-throwing
machinery of Piedmont was in like manner introduced into England by
Mr. Lombe of Derby, who shortly succeeded in founding a flourishing
branch of manufacture. These were indeed the days of romance and
adventure in manufactures.
...]
for the defraying of my charges of travelling to the place where
these plates are made, and from thence to bring away the art of
making them. Upon which, an able fire-man, that well understood the
nature of iron, was made choice of to accompany me; and being fitted
with an ingenious interpreter that well understood the language, and
that had dealt much in that commodity, we marched first for Hamburgh,
then to Leipsic, and from thence to Dresden, the Duke of Saxony's
court, where we had notice of the place where the plates were made;
which was in a large tract of mountainous land, running from a place
called Seger-Hutton unto a town called Awe [Au], being in length
about twenty miles."*
[footnote...
The district is known as the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, and the
Riesengebirge or Giant Mountains, MacCulloch says that upwards of 500
mines are wrought in the former district, and that one-thirtieth of
the entire population of Saxony to this day derive their subsistence
from mining industry and the manufacture of metallic products.--
Geographical Dict. ii. 643, edit. 1854.
...]
It is curious to find how much the national industry of England has
been influenced by the existence from time to time of religious
persecutions abroad, which had the effect of driving skilled
Protestant artisans, more particularly from Flanders and France, into
England, where they enjoyed the special protection of successive
English Governments, and founded various important branches of
manufacture. But it appears from the history of the tin manufactures
of Saxony, that that country also had profited in like manner by the
religious persecutions of Germany, and even of England itself. Thus
we are told by Yarranton that it was a Cornish miner, a Protestant,
banished out of England for his religion in Queen Mary's time, who
discovered the tin mines at Awe, and that a Romish priest of Bohemia,
who had been converted to Lutheranism and fled into Saxony for
refuge, "was the chief instrument in the manufacture until it was
perfected." These two men were held in great regard by the Duke of
Saxony as well as by the people of the country; for their ingenuity
and industry proved the source of great prosperity and wealth,
"several fine cities," says Yarranton, "having been raised by the
riches proceeding from the tin-works"--not less than 80,000 men
depending upon the trade for their subsistence; and when Yarranton
visited Awe, he found that a statue had been erected to the memory of
the Cornish miner who first discovered the tin.
Yarranton was very civilly received by the miners, and, contrary to
his expectation, he was allowed freely to inspect the tin-works and
examine the methods by which the iron-plates were rolled out, as well
as the process of tinning them. He was even permitted to engage a
number of skilled workmen, whom he brought over with him to England
for the purpose of starting the manufacture in this country. A
beginning was made, and the tin-plates manufactured by Yarranton's
men were pronounced of better quality even than those made in Saxony.
"Many thousand plates," Yarranton says, "were made from iron raised
in the Forest of Dean, and were tinned over with Cornish tin; and the
plates proved far better than the German ones, by reason of the
toughness and flexibleness of our forest iron. One Mr. Bison, a
tinman in Worcester, Mr. Lydiate near Fleet Bridge, and Mr. Harrison
near the King's Bench, have wrought many, and know their goodness."
As Yarranton's account was written and published during the lifetime
of the parties, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his
statement.
Arrangements were made to carry on the manufacture upon a large
scale; but the secret having got wind, a patent was taken out, or
"trumpt up" as Yarranton calls it, for the manufacture, "the patentee
being countenanced by some persons of quality," and Yarranton was
precluded from carrying his operations further. It is not improbable
that the patentee in question was William Chamberlaine, Dud Dudley's
quondam partner in the iron manufacture.*
[footnote...
Chamberlaine and Dudley's first licence was granted in 1661 for
plating steel and tinning the said plates; and Chamberlaine's sole
patent for "plating and tinning iron, copper, &c.," was granted in
1673, probably the patent in question.
...]
"What with the patent being in our way," says Yarranton, "and the
richest of our partners being afraid to offend great men in power,
who had their eye upon us, it caused the thing to cool, and the
making of the tin-plates was neither proceeded in by us, nor possibly
could be by him that had the patent; because neither he that hath the
patent, nor those that have countenanced him, can make one plate fit
for use." Yarranton's labours were thus lost to the English public
for a time; and we continued to import all our tin-plates from
Germany until about sixty years later, when a tin-plate manufactory
was established by Capel Hanbury at Pontypool in Monmouthshire, where
it has since continued to be successfully carried on.
We can only briefly refer to the subsequent history of Andrew
Yarranton. Shortly after his journey into Saxony, he proceeded to
Holland to examine the inland navigations of the Dutch, to inspect
their linen and other manufactures, and to inquire into the causes of
the then extraordinary prosperity of that country compared with
England. Industry was in a very languishing state at home. "People
confess they are sick," said Yarranton, "that trade is in a
consumption, and the whole nation languishes." He therefore
determined to ascertain whether something useful might not be learnt
from the example of Holland. The Dutch were then the hardest working
and the most thriving people in Europe. They were manufacturers and
carriers for the world. Their fleets floated on every known sea; and
their herring-busses swarmed along our coasts as far north as the
Hebrides. The Dutch supplied our markets with fish caught within
sight of our own shores, while our coasting population stood idly
looking on. Yarranton regarded this state of things as most
discreditable, and he urged the establishment of various branches of
home industry as the best way of out-doing the Dutch without fighting
them.
Wherever he travelled abroad, in Germany or in Holland, he saw
industry attended by wealth and comfort, and idleness by poverty and
misery. The same pursuits, he held, would prove as beneficial to
England as they were abundantly proved to have been to Holland. The
healthy life of work was good for all--for individuals as for the
whole nation; and if we would out-do the Dutch, he held that we must
out-do them in industry. But all must be done honestly and by fair
means. "Common Honesty," said Yarranton, "is as necessary and needful
in kingdoms and commonwealths that depend upon Trade, as discipline
is in an army; and where there is want of common Honesty in a kingdom
or commonwealth, from thence Trade shall depart. For as the Honesty
of all governments is, so shall be their Riches; and as their Honour,
Honesty, and Riches are, so will be their Strength; and as their
Honour, Honesty, Riches, and Strength are, so will be their Trade.
These are five sisters that go hand in hand, and must not be parted."
Admirable sentiments, which are as true now as they were two hundred
years ago, when Yarranton urged them upon the attention of the
English public.
On his return from Holland, he accordingly set on foot various
schemes of public utility. He stirred up a movement for the
encouragement of the British fisheries. He made several journeys into
Ireland for the purpose of planting new manufactures there. He
surveyed the River Slade with the object of rendering it navigable,
and proposed a plan for improving the harbour of Dublin. He also
surveyed the Dee in England with a view to its being connected with
the Severn. Chambers says that on the decline of his popularity in
1677, he was taken by Lord Clarendon to Salisbury to survey the River
Avon, and find out how that river might be made navigable, and also
whether a safe harbour for ships could be made at Christchurch; and
that having found where he thought safe anchorage might be obtained,
his Lordship proceeded to act upon Yarranton's recommendations.*
[footnote...
JOHN CHAMBERS, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire. London,
1820.
...]
Another of his grand schemes was the establishment of the linen
manufacture in the central counties of England, which, he showed,
were well adapted for the growth of flax; and he calculated that if
success attended his efforts, at least two millions of money then
sent out of the country for the purchase of foreign linen would be
retained at home, besides increasing the value of the land on which
the flax was grown, and giving remunerative employment to our own
people, then emigrating for want of work. " Nothing but Sloth or
Envy," he said, "can possibly hinder my labours from being crowned
with the wished for success; our habitual fondness for the one hath
already brought us to the brink of ruin, and our proneness to the
other hath almost discouraged all pious endeavours to promote our
future happiness."
In 1677 he published the first part of his England's Improvement by
Sea and Land--a very remarkable book, full of sagacious insight as
respected the future commercial and manufacturing greatness of
England. Mr. Dove says of this book that Yarranton" chalks out in it
the future course of Britain with as free a hand as if second-sight
had revealed to him those expansions of her industrial career which
never fail to surprise us, even when we behold them realized."
Besides his extensive plans for making harbours and improving
internal navigation with the object of creating new channels for
domestic industry, his schemes for extending the iron and the woollen
trades, establishing the linen manufacture, and cultivating the home
fisheries, we find him throwing out various valuable suggestions with
reference to the means of facilitating commercial transactions, some
of winch have only been carried out in our own day. One of his
grandest ideas was the establishment of a public bank, the credit of
which, based upon the security of freehold land,*
[footnote...
Yarranton's Land Bank was actually projected in 1695, and received
the sanction of Parliament; though the Bank of England (founded in
the preceding year) petitioned against it, and the scheme was
dropped.
...]
should enable its paper "to go in trade equal with ready money." A
bank of this sort formed one of the principal means by which the
Dutch had been enabled to extend their commercial transactions, and
Yarranton accordingly urged its introduction into England. Part of
his scheme consisted of a voluntary register of real property, for
the purpose of effecting simplicity of title, and obtaining relief
from the excessive charges for law,*
[footnote...
It is interesting to note in passing, that part of Yarranton's scheme
has recently been carried into effect by the Act (25 and 26 Vict. c.
53) passed in 1862 for the Registration of Real Estate.
...]
as well as enabling money to be readily raised for commercial
purposes on security of the land registered.
He pointed out very graphically the straits to which a man is put who
is possessed of real property enough, but in a time of pressure is
unable to turn himself round for want of ready cash. "Then," says he,
"all his creditors crowd to him as pigs do through a hole to a bean
and pease rick." "Is it not a sad thing," he asks, "that a
goldsmith's boy in Lombard Street, who gives notes for the monies
handed him by the merchants, should take up more monies upon his
notes in one day than two lords, four knights, and eight esquires in
twelve months upon all their personal securities? We are, as it were,
cutting off our legs and arms to see who will feed the trunk. But we
cannot expect this from any of our neighbours abroad, whose interest
depends upon our loss."
He therefore proposed his registry of property as a ready means of
raising a credit for purposes of trade. Thus, he says, "I can both in
England and Wales register my wedding, my burial, and my christening,
and a poor parish clerk is entrusted with the keeping of the book;
and that which is registered there is held good by our law. But I
cannot register my lands, to be honest, to pay every man his own, to
prevent those sad things that attend families for want thereof, and
to have the great benefit and advantage that would come thereby. A
register will quicken trade, and the land registered will be equal as
cash in a man's hands, and the credit thereof will go and do in trade
what ready money now doth." His idea was to raise money, when
necessary, on the land registered, by giving security thereon after a
form which be suggested. He would, in fact, have made land, as gold
now is, the basis of an extended currency; and he rightly held that
the value of land as a security must always be unexceptionable, and
superior to any metallic basis that could possibly be devised.
This indefatigable man continued to urge his various designs upon the
attention of the public until he was far advanced in years. He
professed that he was moved to do so (and we believe him) solely by
an ardent love for his country, "whose future flourishing," said he,
"is the only reward I ever hope to see of all my labours." Yarranton,
however, received but little thanks for his persistency, while he
encountered many rebuffs. The public for the most part turned a deaf
ear to his entreaties; and his writings proved of comparatively small
avail, at least during his own lifetime. He experienced the lot of
many patriots, even the purest--the suspicion and detraction of his
contemporaries. His old political enemies do not seem to have
forgotten him, of which we have the evidence in certain rare
"broadsides" still extant, twitting him with the failure of his
schemes, and even trumping up false charges of disloyalty against
him.*
[footnote...
One of these is entitled 'A Coffee-house Dialogue, or a Discourse
between Captain Y--and a Young Barrister of the Middle Temple; with
some Reflections upon the Bill against the D. of Y.' In this
broadside, of 3 1/2 pages folio, published about 1679, Yarranton is
made to favour the Duke of York's exclusion from the throne, not only
because he was a papist, but for graver reasons than he dare express.
Another scurrilous pamphlet, entitled 'A Word Without Doors,' was
also aimed at him. Yarranton, or his friends, replied to the first
attack in a folio of two pages, entitled 'The Coffee-house Dialogue
Examined and Refuted, by some Neighbours in the Country ,
well-wishers to the Kingdom's interest.' The controversy was followed
up by 'A Continuation of the Coffee-house Dialogue,' in which the
chief interlocutor hits Yarranton rather hard for the miscarriage of
his "improvements." "I know," says he, "when and where you undertook
for a small charge to make a river navigable, and it has cost the
proprietors about six times as much, and is not yet effective; nor
can any man rationally predict when it will be. I know since you left
it your son undertook it, and this winter shamefully left his
undertaking." Yarrantons friends immediately replied in a four-page
folio, entitled 'England's Improvements Justified; and the Author
thereof, Captain Y., vindicated from the Scandals in a paper called a
Coffee-house Dialogue; with some Animadversions upon the Popish
Designs therein contained.' The writer says he writes without the
privity or sanction of Yarranton, but declares the dialogue to be a
forgery, and that the alleged conference never took place. "His
innocence, when he heard of it, only provoked a smile, with this
answer, Spreta vilescunt, falsehoods mu st perish, and are soonest
destroyed by contempt; so that he needs no further vindication. The
writer then proceeds at some length to vindicate the Captain's famous
work and the propositions contained in it.
...]
In 1681 he published the second part of 'England's Improvement,'*
[footnote...
This work (especially with the plates) is excessively rare. There is
a copy of it in perfect condition in the Grenville Library, British
Museum.
...]
in which he gave a summary account of its then limited growths and
manufactures, pointing out that England and Ireland were the only
northern kingdoms remaining unimproved; he re-urged the benefits and
necessity of a voluntary register of real property; pointed out a
method of improving the Royal Navy, lessening the growing power of
France, and establishing home fisheries; proposed the securing and
fortifying of Tangier; described a plan for preventing fires in
London, and reducing the charge for maintaining the Trained Bands;
urged the formation of a harbour at Newhaven in Sussex; and, finally,
discoursed at considerable length upon the tin, iron, linen, and
woollen trades, setting forth various methods for their improvement.
In this last section, after referring to the depression in the
domestic tin trade (Cornish tin selling so low as 70s. the cwt.), he
suggested a way of reviving it. With the Cornish tin he would combine
"the Roman cinders and iron-stone in the Forest of Dean, which makes
the best iron for most uses in the world, and works up to the best
advantage, with delight and pleasure to the workmen." He then
described the history of his own efforts to import the manufacture of
tin-plates into England some sixteen years before, in which he had
been thwarted by Chamberlaine's patent, as above described,--and
offered sundry queries as to the utility of patents generally, which,
says he, "have the tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom."
Appended to the chapter on Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue
between a tin-miner of Cornwall, an iron-miner of Dean Forest, and a
traveller (himself). From this we gather that Yarranton's business
continued to be that of an iron-manufacturer at his works at Ashley
near Bewdley. Thus the iron-miner says, "About 28 years since Mr.
Yarranton found out a vast quantity of Roman cinders, near the walls
of the city of Worcester, from whence he and others carried away many
thousand tons or loads up the river Severn, unto their iron-furnaces,
to be melted down into iron, with a mixture of the Forest of Dean
iron-stone; and within 100 yards of the walls of the city of
Worcester there was dug up one of the hearths of the Roman
foot-blasts, it being then firm and in order, and was 7 foot deep in
the earth; and by the side of the work there was found a pot of Roman
coin to the quantity of a peck, some of which was presented to Sir
[Wm.] Dugdale, and part thereof is now in the King's Closet."*
[footnote...
Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, has thrown some doubts
upon this story; but Mr. Green, in his Historical Antiquities of the
city, has made a most able defence of Yarranton's statement (vol.i.
9, in foot-note).
...]
In the same year (1681) in which the second part of 'England's
Improvement' appeared, Yarranton proceeded to Dunkirk for the purpose
of making a personal survey of that port, then belonging to England;
and on his return he published a map of the town, harbour, and castle
on the sea, with accompanying letterpress, in which he recommended,
for the safety of British trade, the demolition of the fortifications
of Dunkirk before they were completed, which he held would only be
for the purpose of their being garrisoned by the French king. His
'Full Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot' was published in
the same year; and from that time nothing further is known of Andrew
Yarranton. His name and his writings have been alike nearly
forgotten; and, though Bishop Watson declared of him that he deserved
to have a statue erected to his memory as a great public benefactor,
we do not know that he was so much as honoured with a tombstone; for
we have been unable, after careful inquiry, to discover when and
where he died.
Yarranton was a man whose views were far in advance of his age. The
generation for whom he laboured and wrote were not ripe for their
reception and realization; and his voice sounded among the people
like that of one crying in the wilderness. But though his
exhortations to industry and his large plans of national improvement
failed to work themselves into realities in his own time, he broke
the ground, he sowed the seed, and it may be that even at this day we
are in some degree reaping the results of his labours. At all events,
his books still live to show how wise and sagacious Andrew Yarranton
was beyond his contemporaries as to the true methods of establishing
upon solid foundations the industrial prosperity of England.
CHAPTER V.
COALBROOKDALE IRON WORKS--THE DARBYS AND REYNOLDSES.
"The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of
civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have
hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the
country far move than the most splendid victories of successful
war.--C. BABBAGE, The Exposition of 1851.
Dud Dudley's invention of smelting iron with coke made of pit-coal
was, like many others, born before its time. It was neither
appreciated by the iron-masters nor by the workmen. All schemes for
smelting ore with any other fuel than charcoal made from wood were
regarded with incredulity. As for Dudley's Metallum Martis, as it
contained no specification, it revealed no secret; and when its
author died, his secret, whatever it might be, died with him. Other
improvements were doubtless necessary before the invention could be
turned to useful account. Thus, until a more powerful blowing-furace
had been contrived, the production of pit-coal iron must necessarily
have been limited. Dudley himself does not seem to have been able to
make more on an average than five tons a-week, and seven tons at the
outside. Nor was the iron so good as that made by charcoal; for it is
admitted to have been especially liable to deterioration by the
sulphureous fumes of the coal in the process of manufacture.
Dr. Plot, in his 'History of Staffordshire,' speaks of an experiment
made by one Dr. Blewstone, a High German, as "the last effort" made
in that county to smelt iron-ore with pit-coal. He is said to have
"built his furnace at Wednesbury, so ingeniously contrived (that only
the flame of the coal should come to the ore, with several other
conveniences), that many were of opinion he would succeed in it. But
experience, that great baffler of speculation, showed it would not
be; the sulphureous vitriolic steams that issue from the pyrites,
which frequently, if not always, accompanies pit-coal, ascending with
the flame, and poisoning the ore sufficiently to make it render much
worse iron than that made with charcoal, though not perhaps so much
worse as the body of the coal itself would possibly do."*
[footnote...
Dr. PLOT, Natural History of Staffordshire, 2nd ed. 1686, p. 128.
...]
Dr. Plot does not give the year in which this "last effort" was made;
but as we find that one Dr. Frederic de Blewston obtained a patent
from Charles II. on the 25th October, 1677, for "a new and effectual
way of melting down, forging, extracting, and reducing of iron and
all metals and minerals with pit-coal and sea-coal, as well and
effectually as ever hath yet been done by charcoal, and with much
less charge;" and as Dr. Plot's History, in which he makes mention
of the experiment and its failure, was published in 1686, it is
obvious that the trial must have been made between those years.
As the demand for iron steadily increased with the increasing
population of the country, and as the supply of timber for smelting
purposes was diminishing from year to year, England was compelled to
rely more and more upon foreign countries for its supply of
manufactured iron. The number of English forges rapidly dwindled, and
the amount of the home production became insignificant in comparison
with what was imported from abroad. Yarranton, writing in 1676,
speaks of "the many iron-works laid down in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and
in the north of England, because the iron of Sweadland, Flanders, and
Spain, coming in so cheap, it cannot be made to profit here." There
were many persons, indeed, who held that it was better we should be
supplied with iron from Spain than make it at home, in consequence of
the great waste of wood involved by the manufacture; but against this
view Yarranton strongly contended, and held, what is as true now as
it was then, that the manufacture of iron was the keystone of
England's industrial prosperity. He also apprehended great danger to
the country from want of iron in event of the contingency of a
foreign war. "When the greatest part of the iron-works are asleep,"
said he, "if there should be occasion for great quantities of guns
and bullets, and other sorts of iron commodities, for a present
unexpected war, and the Sound happen to be locked up, and so prevent
iron coming to us, truly we should then be in a fine case!"
Notwithstanding these apprehended national perils arising from the
want of iron, no steps seem to have been taken to supply the
deficiency, either by planting woods on a large scale, as recommended
by Yarranton, or by other methods; and the produce of English iron
continued steadily to decline. In 1720-30 there were found only ten
furnaces remaining in blast in the whole Forest of Dean, where the
iron-smelters were satisfied with working up merely the cinders left
by the Romans. A writer of the time states that we then bought
between two and three hundred thousand pounds' worth of foreign iron
yearly, and that England was the best customer in Europe for Swedish
and Russian iron.*
[footnote...
JOSHUA GEE, The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered,
1731.
...]
By the middle of the eighteenth century the home manufacture had so
much fallen off, that the total production of Great Britain is
supposed to have amounted to not more than 18,000 tons a year;
four-fifths of the iron used in the country being imported from
Sweden.*
[footnote...
When a bill was introduced into Parliament in 1750 with the object of
encouraging the importation of iron from our American colonies, the
Sheffield tanners petitioned against it, on the ground that, if it
passed, English iron would be undersold; many forges would
consequently be discontinued; in which case the timber used for fuel
would remain uncut, and the tanners would thereby be deprived of bark
for the purposes of their trade!
...]
The more that the remaining ironmasters became straitened for want of
wood, the more they were compelled to resort to cinders and coke made
from coal as a substitute. And it was found that under certain
circumstances this fuel answered the purpose almost as well as
charcoal of wood. The coke was made by burning the coal in heaps in
the open air, and it was usually mixed with coal and peat in the
process of smelting the ore. Coal by itself was used by the country
smiths for forging whenever they could procure it for their smithy
fires; and in the midland counties they had it brought to them,
sometimes from great distances, slung in bags across horses'
backs,--for the state of the roads was then so execrable as not to
admit of its being led for any considerable distance in carts. At
length we arrive at a period when coal seems to have come into
general use, and when necessity led to its regular employment both in
smelting the ore and in manufacturing the metal. And this brings us
to the establishment of the Coalbrookdale works, where the smelting
of iron by means of coke and coal was first adopted on a large scale
as the regular method of manufacture.
Abraham Darby, the first of a succession of iron manufacturers who
bore the same name, was the son of a farmer residing at Wrensnest,
near Dudley. He served an apprenticeship to a maker of malt-kilns
near Birmingham, after which he married and removed to Bristol in
1700, to begin business on his own account. Industry is of all
politics and religions: thus Dudley was a Royalist and a Churchman,
Yarranton was a Parliamentarian and a Presbyterian, and Abraham Darby
was a Quaker. At Bristol he was joined by three partners of the same
persuasion, who provided the necessary capital to enable him to set
up works at Baptist Mills, near that city, where he carried on the
business of malt-mill making, to which he afterwards added brass and
iron founding.
At that period cast-iron pots were in very general use, forming the
principal cooking utensils of the working class. The art of casting
had, however, made such small progress in England that the pots were
for the most part imported from abroad. Darby resolved, if possible,
to enter upon this lucrative branch of manufacture; and he proceeded
to make a number of experiments in pot-making. Like others who had
preceded him, he made his first moulds of clay; but they cracked and
burst, and one trial failed after another. He then determined to find
out the true method of manufacturing the pots, by travelling into the
country from whence the best were imported, in order to master the
grand secret of the trade. With this object he went over to Holland
in the year 1706, and after diligent inquiry he ascertained that the
only sure method of casting "Hilton ware," as such castings were then
called, was in moulds of fine dry sand. This was the whole secret.
Returning to Bristol, accompanied by some skilled Dutch workmen,
Darby began the new manufacture, and succeeded to his satisfaction.
The work was at first carried on with great secrecy, lest other
makers should copy the art; and the precaution was taken of stopping
the keyhole of the workshop-door while the casting was in progress.
To secure himself against piracy, he proceeded to take out a patent
for the process in the year 1708, and it was granted for the term of
fourteen years. The recital of the patent is curious, as showing the
backward state of English iron-founding at that time. It sets forth
that "whereas our trusty and well-beloved Abraham Darby, of our city
of Bristol, smith, hath by his petition humbly represented to us,
that by his study, industry, and expense, he hath found out and
brought to perfection a new way of casting iron bellied pots and
other iron bellied ware in sand only, without loam or clay, by which
such iron pots and other ware may be cast fine and with more ease and
expedition, and may be afforded cheaper than they can be by the way
commonly used; and in regard to their cheapness may be of great
advantage to the poor of this our kingdom, who for the most part use
such ware, and in all probability will prevent the merchants of
England going to foreign markets for such ware, from whence great
quantities are imported, and likewise may in time supply other
markets with that manufacture of our dominions," &c..... grants the
said Abraham Darby the full power and sole privilege to make and sell
such pots and ware for and during the term of fourteen years thence
ensuing."
Darby proceeded to make arrangements for carrying on the manufacture
upon a large scale at the Baptist Mills; but the other partners
hesitated to embark more capital in the concern, and at length
refused their concurrence. Determined not to be baulked in his
enterprise, Darby abandoned the Bristol firm; and in the year 1709 he
removed to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, with the intention of
prosecuting the enterprise on his own account. He took the lease of a
little furnace which had existed at the place for more than a
century, as the records exist of a "smethe" or "smeth-house" at
Coalbrookdale in the time of the Tudors. The woods of oak and hazel
which at that time filled the beautiful dingles of the dale, and
spread in almost a continuous forest to the base of the Wrekin,
furnished abundant fuel for the smithery. As the trade of the
Coalbrookdale firm extended, these woods became cleared, until the
same scarcity of fuel began to be experienced that had already
desolated the forests of Sussex, and brought the manufacture of iron
in that quarter to a stand-still.
It appears from the 'Blast Furnace Memorandum Book' of Abraham Darby,
which we have examined, that the make of iron at the Coalbrookdale
foundry, in 1713, varied from five to ten tons a week. The principal
articles cast were pots, kettles, and other "hollow ware," direct
from the smelting-furnace; the rest of the metal was run into pigs.
In course of time we find that other castings were turned out: a few
grates, smoothing-irons, door-frames, weights, baking-plates,
cart-bushes, iron pestles and mortars, and occasionally a tailor's
goose. The trade gradually increased, until we find as many as 150
pots and kettles cast in a week.
The fuel used in the furnaces appears, from the Darby
Memorandum-Book, to have been at first entirely charcoal; but the
growing scarcity of wood seems to have gradually led to the use of
coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in
the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking
the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted
even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of
ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most
favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five baskets of coke,
two of brays, and one of peat; next followed the ore, and then the
limestone. The use of charcoal was gradually given up as the art of
smelting with coke and brays improved, most probably aided by the
increased power of the furnace-blast, until at length we find it
entirely discontinued.
The castings of Coalbrookdale gradually acquired a reputation, and
the trade of Abraham Darby continued to increase until the date of
his death, which occurred at Madeley Court in 1717. His sons were too
young at the time to carry on the business which he had so
successfully started, and several portions of the works were sold at
a serious sacrifice. But when the sons had grown up to manhood, they
too entered upon the business of iron-founding; and Abraham Darby's
son and grandson, both of the same name, largely extended the
operations of the firm, until Coalbrookdale, or, as it was popularly
called, "Bedlam," became the principal seat of one of the most
important branches of the iron trade.
There seems to be some doubt as to the precise time when pit-coal was
first regularly employed at Coalbrookdale in smelting the ore. Mr.
Scrivenor says, "pit-coal was first used by Mr. Abraham Darby, in his
furnace at Coalbrookdale, in 1713;"*
[footnote...
History of the Iron Trade, p. 56.
...]
but we can find no confirmation of this statement in the records of
the Company. It is probable that Mr. Darby used raw coal, as was done
in the Forest of Dean at the same time,*
[footnote...
See Mr. Powle's account of the Iron Works in the Forest of Dean
(1677-8), in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. ii. p. 418, where
he says, "After they have pounded their ore, their first work is to
calcine it, which is done in kilns, much after the fashion of
ordinary lime-kilns, These they fill up to the top with coal and ore,
stratum super stratum, until it be full; and so setting fire to the
bottom, they let it burn till the coal be wasted, and then renew the
kilns with fresh ore and coal, in the same manner as before. This is
done without fusion of the metal, and serves to consume the more
drossy parts of the ore and to make it friable." The writer then
describes the process of smelting the ore mixed with cinder in the
furnaces, where, he says, the fuel is "always of charcoal." "Several
attempts," he adds, "have been made to introduce the use of sea-coal
in these works instead of charcoal, the former being to be had at an
easier rate than the latter; but hitherto they have proved
ineffectual, the workmen finding by experience that a sea-coal fire,
how vehement soever, will not penetrate the most fixed parts of the
ore, and so leaves much of the metal unmelted"
...]
in the process of calcining the ore; but it would appear from his own
Memoranda that coke only was used in the process of smelting. We
infer from other circumstances that pit-coal was not employed for the
latter purpose until a considerably later period. The merit of its
introduction, and its successful use in iron-smelting, is due to Mr.
Richard Ford, who had married a daughter of Abraham Darby, and
managed the Coalbrookdale works in 1747. In a paper by the Rev. Mr.
Mason, Woodwardian Professor at Cambridge, given in the
'Philosophical Transactions' for that year,*
[footnote...
Phil. Trans. vol. xliv. 305.
...]
the first account of its successful
employment is stated as follows: -- "Several attempts have been made
to run iron-ore with pit-coal: he (Mr.Mason) thinks it has not
succeeded anywhere, as we have had no account of its being practised;
but Mr. Ford, of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal,
both got in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases,
there being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning like
wrought-iron." Most probably, however, it was not until the time of
Richard Reynolds, who succeeded Abraham Darby the second in the
management of the works in 1757, that pit-coal came into large and
regular use in the blasting-furnaces as well as the fineries of
Coalbrookdale.
Richard Reynolds was born at Bristol in 1735. His parents, like the
Darbys, belonged to the Society of Friends, and he was educated in
that persuasion. Being a spirited, lively youth, the "old Adam"
occasionally cropped out in him; and he is even said, when a young
man, to have been so much fired by the heroism of the soldier's
character that he felt a strong desire to embrace a military career;
but this feeling soon died out, and he dropped into the sober and
steady rut of the Society. After serving an apprenticeship in his
native town, he was sent to Coalbrookdale on a mission of business,
where he became acquainted with the Darby family, and shortly after
married Hannah, the daughter of Abraham the second. He then entered
upon the conduct of the iron and coal works at Ketley and Horsehay,
where he resided for six years, removing to Coalbrookdale in 1763, to
take charge of the works there, on the death of his father-in-law.
By the exertions and enterprise of the Darbys, the Coalbrookdale
Works had become greatly enlarged, giving remunerative employment to
a large and increasing population. The firm had extended their
operations far beyond the boundaries of the Dale: they had
established foundries at London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and agencies
at Newcastle and Truro for the disposal of steam-engines and other
iron machinery used in the deep mines of those districts. Watt had
not yet perfected his steam-engine; but there was a considerable
demand for pumping-engines of Newcomen's construction, many of which
were made at the Coalbrookdale Works. The increasing demand for iron
gave an impetus to coal-mining, which in its turn stimulated
inventors in their improvement of the power of the steam-engine; for
the coal could not be worked quickly and advantageously unless the
pits could be kept clear of water. Thus one invention stimulates
another; and when the steam-engine had been perfected by Watt, and
enabled powerful-blowing apparatus to be worked by its agency, we
shall find that the production of iron by means of pit-coal being
rendered cheap and expeditious, soon became enormously increased.
We are informed that it was while Richard Reynolds had charge of the
Coalbrookdale works that a further important improvement was effected
in the manufacture of iron by pit-coal. Up to this time the
conversion of crude or cast iron into malleable or bar iron had been
effected entirely by means of charcoal. The process was carried on in
a fire called a finery, somewhat like that of a smith's forge; the
iron being exposed to the blast of powerful bellows, and in constant
contact with the fuel. In the first process of fusing the ironstone,
coal had been used for some time with increasing success; but the
question arose, whether coal might not also be used with effect in
the second or refining stage. Two of the foremen, named Cranege,
suggested to Mr. Reynolds that this might be performed in what is
called a reverberatory furnace,*
[footnote...
Reverberatory, so called because the flame or current of heated gases
from the fuel is caused to be reverberated or reflected down upon the
substance under operation before passing into the chimney. It is
curious that Rovenson, in his Treatise of Metallica of 1613,
describes a reverberatory furnace in which iron was to be smelted by
pit-coal, though it does not appear that he succeeded in perfecting
his invention. Dr. Percy, in his excellent work on Metallurgy, thus
describes a reverberatory furnace: -- "It consists essentially of
three parts--a fireplace at one end, a stack or chimney at the other,
and a bed between both on which the matter is heated. The fireplace
is separated from the bed by a low partition wall called the
fire-bridge, and both are covered by an arched roof which rises from
the end wall of the fireplace and gradually dips toward the furthest
end of the bed connected with the stack. On one or both sides of the
bed, or at the end near the stack, may be openings through which the
ore spread over the surface of the bed may be stirred about and
exposed to the action of the air. The matter is heated in such a
furnace by flame, and is kept from contact with the solid fuel. The
flame in its course from the fireplace to the stack is reflected
downwards or REVERBERATED on the matter beneath, whence the name
REVERBERATORY furnace."
...]
in which the iron should not mix with the coal, but be heated solely
by the flame. Mr. Reynolds greatly doubted the feasibility of the
operation, but he authorized the Cranege, to make an experiment of
their process, the result of which will be found described in the
following extract of a letter from Mr. Reynolds to Mr. Thomas Goldney
of Bristol, dated "Coalbrookdale, 25th April, 1766 ": --
.... "I come now to what I think a matter of very great consequence.
It is some time since Thos. Cranege, who works at Bridgenorth Forge,
and his brother George, of the Dale, spoke to me about a notion they
had conceived of making bar iron without wood charcoal. I told them,
consistent with the notion I had adopted in common with all others I
had conversed with, that I thought it impossible, because the
vegetable salts in the charcoal being an alkali acted as an absorbent
to the sulphur of the iron, which occasions the red-short quality of
the iron, and pit coal abounding with sulphur would increase it. This
specious answer, which would probably have appeared conclusive to
most, and which indeed was what I really thought, was not so to them.
They replied that from the observations they had made, and repeated
conversations together, they were both firmly of opinion that the
alteration from the quality of pig iron into that of bar iron was
effected merely by heat, and if I would give them leave, they would
make a trial some day. I consented, but, I confess, without any great
expectation of their success; and so the matter rested some weeks,
when it happening that some repairs had to be done at Bridgenorth,
Thomas came up to the Dale, and, with his brother, made a trial in
Thos. Tilly's air-furnace with such success as I thought would
justify the erection of a small air-furnace at the Forge for the more
perfectly ascertaining the merit of the invention. This was
accordingly done, and a trial of it has been made this week, and the
success has surpassed the most sanguine expectations. The iron put
into the furnace was old Bushes, which thou knowest are always made
of hard iron, and the iron drawn out is the toughest I ever saw. A
bar 1 1/4 inch square, when broke, appears to have very little cold
short in it. I look upon it as one of the most important discoveries
ever made, and take the liberty of recommending thee and earnestly
requesting thou wouldst take out a patent for it immediately.... The
specification of the invention will be comprised in a few words, as
it will only set forth that a reverberatory furnace being built of a
proper construction, the pig or cast iron is put into it, and without
the addition of anything else than common raw pit coal, is converted
into good malleable iron, and, being taken red-hot from the
reverberatory furnace to the forge hammer, is drawn out into bars of
various shapes and sizes, according to the will of the workmen."
Mr. Reynolds's advice was implicitly followed. A patent was secured
in the name of the brothers Cranege, dated the 17th June, 1766; and
the identical words in the above letter were adopted in the
specification as descriptive of the process. By this method of
puddling, as it is termed, the manufacturer was thenceforward enabled
to produce iron in increased quantity at a large reduction in price;
and though the invention of the Craneges was greatly improved upon by
Onions, and subsequently by Cort, there can be no doubt as to the
originality and the importance of their invention. Mr. Tylor states
that he was informed by the son of Richard Reynolds that the wrought
iron made at Coalbrookdale by the Cranege process "was very good,
quite tough, and broke with a long, bright, fibrous fracture: that
made by Cort afterwards was quite different."*
[footnote...
Mr. TYLOR on Metal Work--Reports on the Paris Exhibition of 1855.
Part II. 182. We are informed by Mr. Reynolds of Coed-du, a grandson
of Richard Reynolds, that "on further trials many difficulties arose.
The bottoms of the furnaces were destroyed by the heat, and the
quality of the iron varied. Still, by a letter dated May, 1767, it
appears there had been sold of iron made in the new way to the value
of 247L. 14s. 6d."
...]
Though Mr. Reynolds's generosity to the Craneges is apparent; in the
course which he adopted in securing for them a patent for the
invention in their own names, it does not appear to have proved of
much advantage to them; and they failed to rise above the rank which
they occupied when their valuable discovery was patented. This,
however, was no fault of Richard Reynolds, but was mainly
attributable to the circumstance of other inventions in a great
measure superseding their process, and depriving them of the benefits
of their ingenuity.
Among the important improvements introduced by Mr. Reynolds while
managing the Coalbrookdale Works, was the adoption by him for the
first time of iron instead of wooden rails in the tram-roads along
which coal and iron were conveyed from one part of the works to
another, as well as to the loading-places along the river Severn. He
observed that the wooden rails soon became decayed, besides being
liable to be broken by the heavy loads passing over them, occasioning
much loss of time, interruption to business, and heavy expenses in
repairs. It occurred to him that these inconveniences would be
obviated by the use of rails of cast-iron; and, having tried an
experiment with them, it answered so well, that in 1767 the whole of
the wooden rails were taken up and replaced by rails of iron. Thus
was the era of iron railroads fairly initiated at Coalbrookdale, and
the example of Mr. Reynolds was shortly after followed on all the
tramroads throughout the Country.
It is also worthy of note that the first iron bridge ever erected was
cast and made at the Coalbrookdale Works--its projection as well as
its erection being mainly due to the skill and enterprise of Abraham
Darby the third. When but a young man, he showed indications of that
sagacity and energy in business which seemed to be hereditary in his
family. One of the first things he did on arriving at man's estate
was to set on foot a scheme for throwing a bridge across the Severn
at Coalbrookdale, at a point where the banks were steep and slippery,
to accommodate the large population which had sprung up along both
banks of the river. There were now thriving iron, brick, and pottery
works established in the parishes of Madeley and Broseley; and the
old ferry on the Severn was found altogether inadequate for ready
communication between one bank and the other. The want of a bridge
had long been felt, and a plan of one had been prepared during the
life time of Abraham Darby the second; but the project was suspended
at his death. When his son came of age, he resolved to take up his
father's dropped scheme, and prosecute it to completion, which he
did. Young Mr. Darby became lord of the manor of Madeley in 1776, and
was the owner of one-half of the ferry in right of his lordship. He
was so fortunate as to find the owner of the other or Broseley half
of the ferry equally anxious with himself to connect the two banks of
the river by means of a bridge. The necessary powers were accordingly
obtained from Parliament, and a bridge was authorized to be built "of
cast-iron, stone, brick, or timber." A company was formed for the
purpose of carrying out the project, and the shares were taken by the
adjoining owners, Abraham Darby being the principal subscriber.*
[footnote...
Among the other subscribers were the Rev. Mr. Harris, Mr. Jennings,
and Mr. John Wilkinson, an active promoter of the scheme, who gave
the company the benefit of his skill and experience when it was
determined to construct the bridge of iron. For an account of John
Wilkinson see Lives of the Engineers, vol. ii. 337, 356. In the
description of the first iron bridge given in that work we have, it
appears, attributed rather more credit to Mr. Wilkinson than he is
entitled to. Mr. Darby was the most active promoter of the scheme,
and had the principal share in the design. Wilkinson nevertheless was
a man of great energy and originality. Besides being the builder of
the first iron ship, he was the first to invent, for James Watt, a
machine that would bore a tolerably true cylinder. He afterwards
established iron works in France, and Arthur Young says, that "until
that well-known English manufacturer arrived, the French knew nothing
of the art of casting cannon solid and then boring them" (Travels in
France, 4to. ed. London, 1792, p.90). Yet England had borrowed her
first cannon-maker from France in the person of Peter Baude, as
described in chap. iii. Wilkinson is also said to have invented a
kind of hot-blast, in respect of which various witnesses gave
evidence on the trial of Neilson's patent in 1839; but the invention
does not appear to have been perfected by him.
...]
The construction of a bridge of iron was an entirely new idea. An
attempt had indeed been made at Lyons, in France, to construct such a
bridge more than twenty years before; but it had entirely failed, and
a bridge of timber was erected instead. It is not known whether the
Coalbrookdale masters had heard of that attempt; but, even if they
had, it could have been of no practical use to them.
Mr. Pritchard, an architect of Shrewsbury, was first employed to
prepare a design of the intended structure, which is still preserved.
Although Mr. Pritchard proposed to introduce cast-iron in the arch of
the bridge, which was to be of 120 feet span, it was only as a sort
of key, occupying but a few feet at the crown of the arch. This
sparing use of cast iron indicates the timidity of the architect in
dealing with the new material--his plan exhibiting a desire to effect
a compromise between the tried and the untried in
bridge-construction. But the use of iron to so limited an extent, and
in such a part of the structure, was of more than questionable
utility; and if Mr. Pritchard's plan had been adopted, the problem of
the iron bridge would still have remained unsolved.
The plan, however, after having been duly considered, was eventually
set aside, and another, with the entire arch of cast-iron, was
prepared under the superintendence of Abraham Darby, by Mr. Thomas
Gregory, his foreman of pattem-makers. This plan was adopted, and
arrangements were forthwith made for carrying it into effect. The
abutments of the bridge were built in 1777-8, during which the
castings were made at the foundry, and the ironwork was successfully
erected in the course of three months. The bridge was opened for
traffic in 1779, and proved a most serviceable structure. In 1788 the
Society of Arts recognised Mr. Darby's merit as its designer and
erector by presenting him with their gold medal; and the model of the
bridge is still to be seen in the collection of the Society. Mr.
Robert Stephenson has said of the structure: " If we consider that
the manipulation of cast-iron was then completely in its infancy, a
bridge of such dimensions was doubtless a bold as well as an original
undertaking, and the efficiency of the details is worthy of the
boldness of the conception."*
[footnote...
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th ed. Art. "Iron Bridges."
...]
Mr. Stephenson adds that from a defect in the construction the
abutments were thrust inwards at the approaches and the ribs
partially fractured. We are, however, informed that this is a
mistake, though it does appear that the apprehension at one time
existed that such an accident might possibly occur.
To remedy the supposed defect, two small land arches were, in the
year 1800, substituted for the stone approach on the Broseley side of
the bridge. While the work was in progress, Mr. Telford, the
well-known engineer, carefully examined the bridge, and thus spoke of
its condition at the time: -- "The great improvement of erecting upon
a navigable river a bridge of cast-iron of one arch only was first
put in practice near Coalbrookdale. The bridge was executed in 1777
by Mr. Abraham Darby, and the ironwork is now quite as perfect as
when it was first put up. Drawings of this bridge have long been
before the public, and have been much and justly admired."*
[footnote...
PLYMLEY, General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire.
...]
A Coalbrookdale correspondent, writing in May, 1862, informs us that
"at the present time the bridge is undergoing repair; and, special
examination having been made, there is no appearance either that the
abutments have moved, or that the ribs have been broken in the centre
or are out of their proper right line. There has, it is true, been a
strain on the land arches, and on the roadway plates, which, however,
the main arch has been able effectually to resist."
The bridge has now been in profitable daily use for upwards of eighty
years, and has during that time proved of the greatest convenience to
the population of the district. So judicious was the selection of its
site, and so great its utility, that a thriving town of the name of
Ironbridge has grown up around it upon what, at the time of its
erection, was a nameless part of "the waste of the manor of Madeley."
And it is probable that the bridge will last for centuries to come.
Thus, also, was the use of iron as an important material in
bridge-building fairly initiated at Coalbrookdale by Abraham Darby,
as the use of iron rails was by Richard Reynolds. We need scarcely
add that since the invention and extensive adoption of railway
locomotion, the employment of iron in various forms in railway and
bridge structures has rapidly increased, until iron has come to be
regarded as the very sheet-anchor of the railway engineer.
In the mean time the works at Coalbrookdale had become largely
extended. In 1784, when the government of the day proposed to levy a
tax on pit-coal, Richard Reynolds strongly urged upon Mr. Pitt, then
Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as on Lord Gower, afterwards
Marquis of Stafford, the impolicy of such a tax. To the latter he
represented that large capitals had been invested in the iron trade,
which was with difficulty carried on in the face of the competition
with Swedish and Russian iron. At Coalbrookdale, sixteen "fire
engines," as steam engines were first called, were then at work,
eight blast-furnaces and nine forges, besides the air furnaces and
mills at the foundry, which, with the levels, roads, and more than
twenty miles of iron railways, gave employment to a very large number
of people. "The advancement of the iron trade within these few
years," said he, "has been prodigious. It was thought, and justly,
that the making of pig-iron with pit coal was a great acquisition to
the country by saving the wood and supplying a material to
manufactures, the production of which, by the consumption of all the
wood the country produced, was formerly unequal to the demand, and
the nail trade, perhaps the most considerable of any one article of
manufactured iron, would have been lost to this country had it not
been found practicable to make nails of iron made with pit coal. We
have now another process to attempt, and that is to make BAR IRON
with pit coal; and it is for that purpose we have made, or rather are
making, alterations at Donnington Wood, Ketley, and elsewhere, which
we expect to complete in the present year, but not at a less expense
than twenty thousand pounds, which will be lost to us, and gained by
nobody, if this tax is laid upon our coals." He would not, however,
have it understood that he sought for any PROTECTION for the homemade
iron, notwithstanding the lower prices of the foreign article. "From
its most imperfect state as pig-iron," he observed to Lord Sheffield,
"to its highest finish in the regulating springs of a watch, we have
nothing to fear if the importation into each country should be
permitted without duty." We need scarcely add that the subsequent
history of the iron trade abundantly justified these sagacious
anticipations of Richard Reynolds.
He was now far advanced in years. His business had prospered, his
means were ample, and he sought retirement. He did not desire to
possess great wealth, which in his opinion entailed such serious
responsibilities upon its possessor; and he held that the
accumulation of large property was more to be deprecated than
desired. He therefore determined to give up his shares in the
ironworks at Ketley to his sons William and Joseph, who continued to
carry them on. William was a man of eminent ability, well versed in
science, and an excellent mechanic. He introduced great improvements
in the working of the coal and iron mines, employing new machinery
for the purpose, and availing himself with much ingenuity of the
discoveries then being made in the science of chemistry. He was also
an inventor, having been the first to employ (in 1788) inclined
planes, consisting of parallel railways, to connect and work canals
of different levels,--an invention erroneously attributed to Fulton,
but which the latter himself acknowledged to belong to William
Reynolds. In the first chapter of his 'Treatise on Canal Navigation,'
published in 1796, Fulton says: -- "As local prejudices opposed the
Duke of Bridgewater's canal in the first instance, prejudices equally
strong as firmly adhered to the principle on which it was
constructed; and it was thought impossible to lead one through a
country, or to work it to any advantage, unless by locks and boats of
at least twenty-five tons, till the genius of Mr. William Reynolds,
of Ketley, in Shropshire, stepped from the accustomed path,
constructed the first inclined plane, and introduced boats of five
tons. This, like the Duke's canal, was deemed a visionary project,
and particularly by his Grace, who was partial to locks; yet this is
also introduced into practice, and will in many instances supersede
lock canals." Telford, the engineer, also gracefully acknowledged the
valuable assistance he received from William Reynolds in planning the
iron aqueduct by means of which the Ellesmere Canal was carried over
the Pont Cysylltau, and in executing the necessary castings for the
purpose at the Ketley foundry.
The future management of his extensive ironworks being thus placed in
able hands, Richard Reynolds finally left Coalbrookdale in 1804, for
Bristol, his native town, where he spent the remainder of his life in
works of charity and mercy. Here we might leave the subject, but
cannot refrain from adding a few concluding words as to the moral
characteristics of this truly good man. Though habitually religious,
he was neither demure nor morose, but cheerful, gay, and humorous. He
took great interest in the pleasures of the young people about him,
and exerted himself in all ways to promote their happiness. He was
fond of books, pictures, poetry, and music, though the indulgence of
artistic tastes is not thought becoming in the Society to which he
belonged. His love for the beauties of nature amounted almost to a
passion, and when living at The Bank, near Ketley, it was his great
delight in the summer evenings to retire with his pipe to a rural
seat commanding a full view of the Wrekin, the Ercall Woods, with
Cader Idris and the Montgomeryshire hills in the distance, and watch
the sun go down in the west in his glory. Once in every year he
assembled a large party to spend a day with him on the Wrekin, and
amongst those invited were the principal clerks in the company's
employment, together with their families. At Madeley, near
Coalbrookdale, where he bought a property, he laid out, for the
express use of the workmen, extensive walks through the woods on
Lincoln Hill, commanding beautiful views. They were called "The
Workmen's Walks," and were a source of great enjoyment to them and
their families, especially on Sunday afternoons.
When Mr. Reynolds went to London on business, he was accustomed to
make a round of visits, on his way home, to places remarkable for
their picturesque beauty, such as Stowe, Hagley Park, and the
Leasowes. After a visit to the latter place in 1767, he thus, in a
letter to his friend John Maccappen, vindicated his love for the
beautiful in nature: -- "I think it not only lawful but expedient to
cultivate a disposition to be pleased with the beauties of nature, by
frequent indulgences for that purpose. The mind, by being continually
applied to the consideration of ways and means to gain money,
contracts an indifferency if not an insensibility to the profusion of
beauties which the benevolent Creator has impressed upon every part
of the material creation. A sordid love of gold, the possession of
what gold can purchase, and the reputation of being rich, have so
depraved the finer feelings of some men, that they pass through the
most delightful grove, filled with the melody of nature, or listen to
the murmurings of the brook in the valley, with as little pleasure
and with no more of the vernal delight which Milton describes, than
they feel in passing through some obscure alley in a town."
When in the prime of life, Mr. Reynolds was an excellent rider,
performing all his journeys on horseback. He used to give a ludicrous
account of a race he once ran with another youth, each having a lady
seated on a pillion behind him; Mr. Reynolds reached the goal first,
but when he looked round he found that he had lost his fair
companion, who had fallen off in the race! On another occasion he had
a hard run with Lord Thurlow during a visit paid by the latter to the
Ketley Iron-Works. Lord Thurlow pulled up his horse first, and
observed, laughing, "I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the
first time that ever a Lord Chancellor rode a race with a Quaker!"
But a stranger rencontre was one which befel Mr. Reynolds on
Blackheath. Though he declined Government orders for cannon, he seems
to have had a secret hankering after the "pomp and circumstance" of
military life. At all event's he was present on Blackheath one day
when George III. was reviewing some troops. Mr. Reynold's horse, an
old trooper, no sooner heard the sound of the trumpet than he started
off at full speed, and made directly for the group of officers before
whom the troops were defiling. Great was the surprise of the King
when he saw the Quaker draw up alongside of him, but still greater,
perhaps, was the confusion of the Quaker at finding himself in such
company.
During the later years of his life, while living at Bristol, his hand
was in every good work; and it was often felt where it was not seen.
For he carefully avoided ostentation, and preferred doing his good in
secret. He strongly disapproved of making charitable bequests by
will, which he observed in many cases to have been the foundation of
enormous abuses, but held it to be the duty of each man to do all the
possible good that he could during his lifetime. Many were the
instances of his princely, though at the time unknown, munificence.
Unwilling to be recognised as the giver of large sums, he employed
agents to dispense his anonymous benefactions. He thus sent 20,000L.
to London to be distributed during the distress of 1795. He had four
almoners constantly employed in Bristol, finding out cases of
distress, relieving them, and presenting their accounts to him
weekly, with details of the cases relieved. He searched the debtors'
prisons, and where, as often happened, deserving but unfortunate men
were found confined for debt, he paid the claims against them and
procured their release. Such a man could not fail to be followed with
blessings and gratitude; but these he sought to direct to the Giver
of all Good. "My talent," said he to a friend, "is the meanest of all
talents--a little sordid dust; but as the man in the parable who had
but one talent was held accountable, I also am accountable for the
talent that I possess, humble as it is, to the great Lord of all." On
one occasion the case of a poor orphan boy was submitted to him,
whose parents, both dying young, had left him destitute, on which Mr.
Reynolds generously offered to place a sum in the names of trustees
for his education and maintenance until he could be apprenticed to a
business. The lady who represented the case was so overpowered by the
munificence of the act that she burst into tears, and, struggling to
express her gratitude, concluded with--"and when the dear child is
old enough, I will teach him to thank his benefactor." "Thou must
teach him to look higher," interrupted Reynolds: "Do we thank the
clouds for rain? When the child grows up, teach him to thank Him who
sendeth both the clouds and the rain." Reynolds himself deplored his
infirmity of temper, which was by nature hasty; and, as his
benevolence was known, and appeals were made to him at all times,
seasonable and unseasonable, he sometimes met them with a sharp word,
which, however, he had scarcely uttered before he repented of it: and
he is known to have followed a poor woman to her home and ask
forgiveness for having spoken hastily in answer to her application
for help.
This "great good man" died on the l0th of September, 1816, in the
81st year of his age. At his funeral the poor of Bristol were the
chief mourners. The children of the benevolent societies which he had
munificently supported during his lifetime, and some of which he had
founded, followed his body to the grave. The procession was joined by
the clergy and ministers of all denominations, and by men of all
classes and persuasions. And thus was Richard Reynolds laid to his
rest, leaving behind him a name full of good odour, which will long
be held in grateful remembrance by the inhabitants of Bristol.
CHAPTER VI.
INVENTION OF CAST STEEL--BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN.
"It may be averred that as certainly as the age of iron superseded
that of bronze, so will the age of steel reign triumphant over
iron."-- HENRY BESSEMER.
"Aujourd'hui la revolution que devait amener en Grande-Bretagne la
memorable decouverte de Benjamin Huntsman est tout a fait
accomplie, et chaque jour les consequetces sen feront plus vivement
sentir sur le confinent."--LE PLAY, Sur la Fabricatio n de l' Acier
en Yorkshire.
Iron, besides being used in various forms as bar and cast iron, is
also used in various forms as bar and cast steel; and it is
principally because of its many admirable qualities in these latter
forms that iron maintains its supremacy over all the other metals.
The process of converting iron into steel had long been known among
the Eastern nations before it was introduced into Europe. The Hindoos
were especially skilled in the art of making steel, as indeed they
are to this day; and it is supposed that the tools with which the
Egyptians covered their obelisks and temples of porphyry and syenite
with hieroglyphics were made of Indian steel, as probably no other
metal was capable of executing such work. The art seems to have been
well known in Germany in the Middle Ages, and the process is on the
whole very faithfully described by Agricola in his great work on
Metallurgy.*
[footnote...
AGRICOLA, De Re Metallica. Basle, 1621.
...]
England then produced very little steel, and was mainly dependent for
its supply of the article upon the continental makers.
From an early period Sheffield became distinguished for its
manufacture of iron and steel into various useful articles. We find
it mentioned in the thirteenth century as a place where the best
arrowheads were made,--the Earl of Richmond owing his success at the
battle of Bosworth partly to their superior length, sharpness, and
finish. The manufactures of the town became of a more pacific
character in the following centuries, during which knives, tools, and
implements of husbandry became the leading articles.
Chaucer's reference to the 'Sheffield thwytel' (or case-knife) in his
Canterbury Tales, written about the end of the fourteenth century,
shows that the place had then become known for its manufacture of
knives. In 1575 we find the Earl of Shrewsbury presenting to his
friend Lord Burleigh "a case of Hallamshire whittells, being such
fruites as his pore cuntrey affordeth with fame throughout the
realme." Fuller afterwards speaks of the Sheffield knives as "for
common use of the country people," and he cites an instance of a
knave who cozened him out of fourpence for one when it was only worth
a penny.
In 1600 Sheffield became celebrated for its tobacco-boxes and
Jew's-harps. The town was as yet of small size and population; for
when a survey of it was made in 1615 it was found to contain not more
than 2207 householders, of whom one-third, or 725, were "not able to
live without the charity of their neighbours: these are all Begging
poor."*
[footnote...
The Rev. JOSEPH HUNTER, History of Hallamshire.
...]
It must, however, have continued its manufacture of knives; for we
find that the knife with which Felton stabbed the Duke of Buckingham
at Portsmouth in 1628 was traced to Sheffield. The knife was left
sticking in the duke's body, and when examined was found to bear the
Sheffield corporation mark. It was ultimately ascertained to have
been made by one Wild, a cutler, who had sold the knife for tenpence
to Felton when recruiting in the town. At a still later period, the
manufacture of clasp or spring knives was introduced into Sheffield
by Flemish workmen. Harrison says this trade was begun in 1650. The
clasp-knife was commonly known in the North as a jocteleg. Hence
Burns, describing the famous article treasured by Captain Grose the
antiquarian, says that--
"It was a faulding jocteleq,
Or lang-kail gully;"
the word being merely a corruption of Jacques de Liege, a famous
foreign cutler, whose knives were as well known throughout Europe as
those of Rogers or Mappin are now. Scythes and sickles formed other
branches of manufacture introduced by the Flemish artisans, the
makers of the former principally living in the parish of Norton,
those of the latter in Eckington.
Many improvements were introduced from time to time in the material
of which these articles were made. Instead of importing the German
steel, as it was called, the Sheffield manufacturers began to make it
themselves, principally from Dannemora iron imported from Sweden. The
first English manufacturer of the article was one Crowley, a
Newcastle man; and the Sheffield makers shortly followed his example.
We may here briefly state that the ordinary method of preparing this
valuable material of manufactures is by exposing iron bars, placed in
contact with roughly-granulated charcoal, to an intense heat,--the
process lasting for about a week, more or less, according to the
degree of carbonization required. By this means, what is called
BLISTERED STEEL is produced, and it furnishes the material out of
which razors, files, knives, swords, and various articles of hardware
are manufactured. A further process is the manufacture of the metal
thus treated into SHEAR STEEL, by exposing a fasciculus of the
blistered steel rods, with sand scattered over them for the purposes
of a flux, to the heat of a wind-furnace until the whole mass becomes
of a welding heat, when it is taken from the fire and drawn out under
a forge-hammer,--the process of welding being repeated, after which
the steel is reduced to the required sizes. The article called FAGGOT
steel is made after a somewhat similar process.
But the most valuable form in which steel is now used in the
manufactures of Sheffield is that of cast-steel, in which iron is
presented in perhaps its very highest state of perfection. Cast-steel
consists of iron united to carbon in an elastic state together with a
small portion of oxygen; whereas crude or pig iron consists of iron
combined with carbon in a material state.*
[footnote...
MUSHET, Papers On Iron and Steel.
...]
chief merits of cast-steel consist in its possessing great cohesion
and closeness of grain, with an astonishing degree of tenacity and
flexibility,-- qualities which render it of the highest value in all
kinds of tools and instruments where durability, polish, and fineness
of edge are essential requisites. It is to this material that we are
mainly indebted for the exquisite cutting instrument of the surgeon,
the chisel of the sculptor, the steel plate on which the engraver
practises his art, the cutting tools employed in the various
processes of skilled handicraft, down to the common saw or the axe
used by the backwoodsman in levelling the primeval forest.
The invention of cast-steel is due to Benjamin Huntsman, of
Attercliffe, near Sheffield. M. Le Play, Professor of Metallurgy in
the Royal School of Mines of France, after making careful inquiry and
weighing all the evidence on the subject, arrived at the conclusion
that the invention fairly belongs to Huntsman. The French professor
speaks of it as a "memorable discovery," made and applied with
admirable perseverance; and he claims for its inventor the
distinguished merit of advancing the steel manufactures of Yorkshire
to the first rank, and powerfully contributing to the establishment
on a firm foundation of the industrial and commercial supremacy of
Great Britain. It is remarkable that a French writer should have been
among the first to direct public attention to the merits of this
inventor, and to have first published the few facts known as to his
history in a French Government Report,--showing the neglect which men
of this class have heretofore received at home, and the much greater
esteem in which they are held by scientific foreigners.*
[footnote...
M. Le Play's two elaborate and admirable reports on the manufacture
of steel, published in the Annales des Mines, vols. iii. and ix., 4th
series, are unique of their kind, and have as yet no counterpart in
English literature. They are respectively entitled 'Memoire sur la
Fabrication de l'Acier en Yorkshire,' and 'Memoire sur le
Fabrication et le Commerce des Fers a Acier dans le Nord de
l'Europe.'
...]
Le Play, in his enthusiastic admiration of the discoverer of so
potent a metal as cast-steel, paid a visit to Huntsman's grave in
Atterclifle Churchyard, near Sheffield, and from the inscription on
his tombstone recites the facts of his birth, his death, and his
brief history. With the assistance of his descendants, we are now
enabled to add the following record of the life and labours of this
remarkable but almost forgotten man.
Benjamin Huntsman was born in Lincolnshire in the year 1704. His
parents were of German extraction, and had settled in this country
only a few years previous to his birth. The boy being of an ingenious
turn, was bred to a mechanical calling; and becoming celebrated for
his expertness in repairing clocks, he eventually set up in business
as a clock maker and mender in the town of Doncaster. He also
undertook various other kinds of metal work, such as the making and
repairing of locks, smoke-jacks, roasting-jacks, and other articles
requiring mechanical skill. He was remarkably shrewd, observant,
thoughtful, and practical; so much so that he came to be regarded as
the "wise man" of his neighbourhood, and was not only consulted as to
the repairs of machinery, but also of the human frame. He practised
surgery with dexterity, though after an empirical fashion, and was
held in especial esteem as an oculist. His success was such that his
advice was sought in many surgical diseases, and he was always ready
to give it, but declined receiving any payment in return.
In the exercise of his mechanical calling, he introduced several
improved tools, but was much hindered by the inferior quality of the
metal supplied to him, which was common German steel. He also
experienced considerable difficulty in finding a material suitable
for the springs and pendulums of his clocks. These circumstances
induced him to turn his attention to the making of a better kind of
steel than was then procurable, for the purposes of his trade. His
first experiments were conducted at Doncaster;*
[footnote...
There are several clocks still in existence in the neighbourhood of
Doncaster made by Benjamin Huntsman; and there is one in the
possession of his grandson, with a pendulum made of cast-steel. The
manufacture of a pendulum of such a material at that early date is
certainly curious; its still perfect spring and elasticity showing
the scrupulous care with which it had been made.
...]
but as fuel was difficult to be had at that place, he determined, for
greater convenience, to remove to the neighbourhood of Sheffield,
which he did in 1740. He first settled at Handsworth, a few miles to
the south of that town, and there pursued his investigations in
secret. Unfortunately, no records have been preserved of the methods
which he adopted in overcoming the difficulties he had necessarily to
encounter. That they must have been great is certain, for the process
of manufacturing cast-steel of a first-rate quality even at this day
is of a most elaborate and delicate character, requiring to be
carefully watched in its various stages. He had not only to discover
the fuel and flux suitable for his purpose, but to build such a
furnace and make such a crucible as should sustain a heat more
intense than any then known in metallurgy. Ingot-moulds had not yet
been cast, nor were there hoops and wedges made that would hold them
together, nor, in short, were any of those materials at his disposal
which are now so familiar at every melting-furnace.
Huntsman's experiments extended over many years before the desired
result was achieved. Long after his death, the memorials of the
numerous failures through which he toilsomely worked his way to
success, were brought to light in the shape of many hundredweights of
steel, found buried in the earth in different places about his
manufactory. From the number of these wrecks of early experiments, it
is clear that he had worked continuously upon his grand idea of
purifying the raw steel then in use, by melting it with fluxes at an
intense heat in closed earthen crucibles. The buried masses were
found in various stages of failure, arising from imperfect melting,
breaking of crucibles, and bad fluxes; and had been hid away as so
much spoiled steel of which nothing could be made. At last his
perseverance was rewarded, and his invention perfected; and though a
hundred years have passed since Huntsman's discovery, the description
of fuel (coke) which he first applied for the purpose of melting the
steel, and the crucibles and furnaces which he used, are for the most
part similar to those in use at the present day. Although the making
of cast-steel is conducted with greater economy and dexterity, owing
to increased experience, it is questionable whether any maker has
since been able to surpass the quality of Huntsman's manufacture.
The process of making cast-steel, as invented by Benjamin Huntsman,
may be thus summarily described. The melting is conducted in clay
pots or crucibles manufactured for the purpose, capable of holding
about 34 lbs. each. Ten or twelve of such crucibles are placed in a
melting-furnace similar to that used by brass founders; and when the
furnace and pots are at a white heat, to which they are raised by a
coke fire, they are charged with bar steel reduced to a certain
degree of hardness, and broken into pieces of about a pound each.
When the pots are all thus charged with steel, lids are placed over
them, the furnace is filled with coke, and the cover put down. Under
the intense heat to which the metal is exposed, it undergoes an
apparent ebullition. When the furnace requires feeding, the workmen
take the opportunity of lifting the lid of each crucible and judging
how far the process has advanced. After about three hours' exposure
to the heat, the metal is ready for "teeming." The completion of the
melting process is known by the subsidence of all ebullition, and by
the clear surface of the melted metal, which is of a dazzling
brilliancy like the sun when looked at with the naked eye on a clear
day. The pots are then lifted out of their place, and the liquid
steel is poured into ingots of the shape and size required. The pots
are replaced, filled again, and the process is repeated; the red-hot
pots thus serving for three successive charges, after which they are
rejected as useless.
When Huntsman had perfected his invention, it would naturally occur
to him that the new metal might be employed for other purposes
besides clock-springs and pendulums. The business of clock-making was
then of a very limited character, and it could scarcely have been
worth his while to pursue so extensive and costly a series of
experiments merely to supply the requirements of that trade. It is
more probable that at an early stage of his investigations he
shrewdly foresaw the extensive uses to which cast-steel might be
applied in the manufacture of tools and cutlery of a superior kind;
and we accordingly find him early endeavouring to persuade the
manufacturers of Sheffield to employ it in the manufacture of knives
and razors. But the cutlers obstinately refused to work a material so
much harder than that which they had been accustomed to use; and for
a time he gave up all hopes of creating a demand in that quarter.
Foiled in his endeavours to sell his steel at home, Huntsman turned
his attention to foreign markets; and he soon found he could readily
sell abroad all that he could make. The merit of employing cast-steel
for general purposes belongs to the French, always so quick to
appreciate the advantages of any new discovery, and for a time the
whole of the cast-steel that Huntsman could manufacture was exported
to France. When he had fairly established his business with that
country, the Sheffield cutlers became alarmed at the reputation which
cast-steel was acquiring abroad; and when they heard of the
preference displayed by English as well as French consumers for the
cutlery manufactured of that metal, they readily apprehended the
serious consequences that must necessarily result to their own trade
if cast-steel came into general use. They then appointed a deputation
to wait upon Sir George Savile, one of the members for the county of
York, and requested him to use his influence with the government to
obtain an order to prohibit the exportation of cast-steel. But on
learning from the deputation that the Sheffield manufacturers
themselves would not make use of the new steel, he positively
declined to comply with their request. It was indeed fortunate for
the interests of the town that the object of the deputation was
defeated, for at that time Mr. Huntsman had very pressing and
favourable offers from some spirited manufacturers in Birmingham to
remove his furnaces to that place; and it is extremely probable that
had the business of cast-steel making become established there, one
of the most important and lucrative branches of its trade would have
been lost to the town of Sheffield.
The Sheffield makers were therefore under the necessity of using the
cast-steel, if they would retain their trade in cutlery against
France; and Huntsman's home trade rapidly increased. And then began
the efforts of the Sheffield men to wrest his secret from him. For
Huntsman had not taken out any patent for his invention, his only
protection being in preserving his process as much a mystery as
possible. All the workmen employed by him were pledged to inviolable
secrecy; strangers were carefully excluded from the works; and the
whole of the steel made was melted during the night. There were many
speculations abroad as to Huntsman's process. It was generally
believed that his secret consisted in the flux which he employed to
make the metal melt more readily; and it leaked out amongst the
workmen that he used broken bottles for the purpose. Some of the
manufacturers, who by prying and bribing got an inkling of the
process, followed Huntsman implicitly in this respect; and they would
not allow their own workmen to flux the pots lest they also should
obtain possession of the secret. But it turned out eventually that no
such flux was necessary, and the practice has long since been
discontinued. A Frenchman named Jars, frequently quoted by Le Play in
his account of the manufacture of steel in Yorkshire,*
[footnote...
Annales des Mines, vols. iii. and ix., 4th Series.
...]
paid a visit to Sheffield towards the end of last century, and
described the process so far as he was permitted to examine it.
According to his statement all kinds of fragments of broken steel
were used; but this is corrected by Le Play, who states that only the
best bar steel manufactured of Dannemora iron was employed. Jars adds
that "the steel is put into the crucible with A FLUX, the composition
of which is kept secret;" and he states that the time then occupied
in the conversion was five hours.
It is said that the person who first succeeded in copying Huntsman's
process was an ironfounder named Walker, who carried on his business
at Greenside near Sheffield, and it was certainly there that the
making of cast-steel was next begun. Walker adopted the "ruse" of
disguising himself as a tramp, and, feigning great distress and
abject poverty, he appeared shivering at the door of Huntsman's
foundry late one night when the workmen were about to begin their
labours at steel-casting, and asked for admission to warm himself by
the furnace fire. The workmen's hearts were moved, and they permitted
him to enter. We have the above facts from the descendants of the
Huntsman family; but we add the traditional story preserved in the
neighbourhood, as given in a well-known book on metallurgy : --
"One cold winter's night, while the snow was falling in heavy flakes,
and the manufactory threw its red glared light over the
neighbourhood, a person of the most abject appearance presented
himself at the entrance, praying for permission to share the warmth
and shelter which it afforded. The humane workmen found the appeal
irresistible, and the apparent beggar was permitted to take up his
quarters in a warm corner of the building. A careful scrutiny would
have discovered little real sleep in the drowsiness which seemed to
overtake the stranger; for he eagerly watched every movement of the
workmen while they went through the operations of the newly
discovered process. He observed, first of all, that bars of blistered
steel were broken into small pieces, two or three inches in length,
and placed in crucibles of fire clay. When nearly full, a little
green glass broken into small fragments was spread over the top, and
the whole covered over with a closely-fitting cover. The crucibles
were then placed in a furnace previously prepared for them, and after
a lapse of from three to four hours, during which the crucibles were
examined from time to time to see that the metal was thoroughly
melted and incorporated, the workmen proceeded to lift the crucible
from its place on the furnace by means of tongs, and its molten
contents, blazing, sparkling, and spurting, were poured into a mould
of cast-iron previously prepared: here it was suffered to cool, while
the crucibles were again filled, and the process repeated. When cool,
the mould was unscrewed, and a bar of cast-steel presented itself,
which only required the aid of the hammerman to form a finished bar
of cast-steel. How the unauthorized spectator of these operations
effected his escape without detection tradition does not say; but it
tells us that, before many months had passed, the Huntsman
manufactory was not the only one where cast-steel was produced."*
[footnote...
The Useful Metals and their Alloys (p. 348), an excellent little
work, in which the process of cast-steel making will be found fully
described.
...]
However the facts may be, the discovery of the elder Huntsman proved
of the greatest advantage to Sheffield; for there is scarcely a
civilized country where Sheffield steel is not largely used, either
in its most highly finished forms of cutlery, or as the raw material
for some home manufacture. In the mean time the demand for Huntsman's
steel steadily increased, and in l770, for the purpose of obtaining
greater scope for his operations, he removed to a large new
manufactory which he erected at Attercliffe, a little to the north of
Sheffield, more conveniently situated for business purposes. There he
continued to flourish for six years more, making steel and practising
benevolence; for, like the Darbys and Reynoldses of Coalbrookdale, he
was a worthy and highly respected member of the Society of Friends.
He was well versed in the science of his day, and skilled in
chemistry, which doubtless proved of great advantage to him in
pursuing his experiments in metallurgy.*
[footnote...
We are informed that a mirror is still preserved at Attercliffe, made
by Huntsman in the days of his early experiments.
...]
That he was possessed of great perseverance will be obvious from the
difficulties he encountered and overcame in perfecting his valuable
invention. He was, however, like many persons of strong original
character, eccentric in his habits and reserved in his manner. The
Royal Society wished to enrol him as a member in acknowledgment of
the high merit of his discovery of cast-steel, as well as because of
his skill in practical chemistry; but as this would have drawn him in
some measure from his seclusion, and was also, as he imagined,
opposed to the principles of the Society to which he belonged, he
declined the honour. Mr. Huntsman died in 1776, in his seventy-second
year, and was buried in the churchyard at Attercliffe, where a
gravestone with an inscription marks his resting-place.
His son continued to carry on the business, and largely extended its
operations. The Huntsman mark became known throughout the civilised
world. Le Play the French Professor of Metallurgy, in his Memoire of
1846, still speaks of the cast-steel bearing the mark of "Huntsman
and Marshall" as the best that is made, and he adds, "the buyer of
this article, who pays a higher price for it than for other sorts, is
not acting merely in the blind spirit of routine, but pays a logical
and well-deserved homage to all the material and moral qualities of
which the true Huntsman mark has been the guarantee for a century."*
[footnote...
Annales des Mines, vol. ix., 4th Series, 266.
...]
Many other large firms now compete for their share of the trade; and
the extent to which it has grown, the number of furnaces constantly
at work, and the quantity of steel cast into ingots, to be tilted or
rolled for the various purposes to which it is applied, have rendered
Sheffield the greatest laboratory in the world of this valuable
material. Of the total quantity of cast-steel manufactured in
England, not less than five-sixths are produced there; and the
facilities for experiment and adaptation on the spot have enabled the
Sheffield steel-makers to keep the lead in the manufacture, and
surpass all others in the perfection to which they have carried this
important branch of our national industry. It is indeed a remarkable
fact that this very town, which was formerly indebted to Styria for
the steel used in its manufactures, now exports a material of its own
conversion to the Austrian forges and other places on the Continent
from which it was before accustomed to draw its own supplies.
Among the improved processes invented of late years for the
manufacture of steel are those of Heath, Mushet, and Bessemer. The
last promises to effect before long an entire revolution in the iron
and steel trade. By it the crude metal is converted by one simple
process, directly as it comes from the blast-furnace. This is
effected by driving through it, while still in a molten state,
several streams of atmospheric air, on which the carbon of the crude
iron unites with the oxygen of the atmosphere, the temperature is
greatly raised, and a violent ebullition takes place, during which,
if the process be continued, that part of the carbon which appears to
be mechanically mixed and diffused through the crude iron is entirely
consumed. The metal becomes thoroughly cleansed, the slag is ejected
and removed, while the sulphur and other volatile matters are driven
off; the result being an ingot of malleable iron of the quality of
charcoal iron. An important. feature in the process is, that by
stopping it at a particular stage, immediately following the boil,
before the whole of the carbon has been abstracted by the oxygen, the
crude iron will be found to have passed into the condition of
cast-steel of ordinary quality. By continuing the process, the metal
losing its carbon, it passes from hard to soft steel, thence to
steely iron, and last of all to very soft iron; so that by
interrupting the process at any stage, or continuing it to the end,
almost any quality of iron and steel may be obtained. One of the most
valuable forms of the metal is described by Mr. Bessemer as
"semi-steel," being in hardness about midway between ordinary
cast-steel and soft malleable iron. The Bessemer processes are now in
full operation in England as well as abroad, both for converting
crude into malleable iron, and for producing steel; and the results
are expected to prove of the greatest practical utility in all cases
where iron and steel are extensively employed.
Yet, like every other invention, this of Mr. Bessemer had long been
dreamt of, if not really made. We are informed in Warner's Tour
through the Northern. Counties of England, published at Bath in l80L,
that a Mr. Reed of Whitehaven had succeeded at that early period in
making steel direct from the ore; and Mr. Mushet clearly alludes to
the process in his "Papers on Iron and Steel." Nevertheless, Mr.
Bessemer is entitled to the merit of working out the idea, and
bringing the process to perfection, by his great skill and
indomitable perseverance. In the Heath process, carburet of manganese
is employed to aid the conversion of iron into steel, while it also
confers on the metal the property of welding and working more soundly
under the hammer--a fact discovered by Mr. Heath while residing in
India. Mr. Mushet's process is of a similar character. Another
inventor, Major Uchatius, an Austrian engineer, granulates crude iron
while in a molten state by pouring it into water, and then subjecting
it to the process of conversion. Some of the manufacturers still
affect secrecy in their operations; but as one of the Sanderson
firm--famous for the excellence of their steel--remarked to a visitor
when showing him over their works, "the great secret is to have the
courage to be honest--a spirit to purchase the best material, and the
means and disposition to do justice to it in the manufacture."
It remains to be added, that much of the success of the Sheffield
manufactures is attributable to the practical skill of the workmen,
who have profited by the accumulated experience treasured up by their
class through many generations. The results of the innumerable
experiments conducted before their eyes have issued in a most
valuable though unwritten code of practice, the details of which are
known only to themselves. They are also a most laborious class; and
Le Play says of them, when alluding to the fact of a single workman
superintending the operations of three steel-casting furnaces--"I
have found nowhere in Europe, except in England, workmen able for an
entire day, without any interval of rest, to undergo such toilsome
and exhausting labour as that performed by these Sheffield workmen."
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT.
"I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to
devise manie and profitable inventions, than to dispose of one of
them to the good of the author himself."--Sir Hugh Platt, 1589.
Henry Cort was born in 1740 at Lancaster, where his father carried on
the trade of a builder and brickmaker. Nothing is known as to Henry's
early history; but he seems to have raised himself by his own efforts
to a respectable position. In 1765 we find him established in Surrey
Street, Strand, carrying on the business of a navy agent, in which he
is said to have realized considerable profits. It was while
conducting this business that he became aware of the inferiority of
British iron compared with that obtained from foreign countries. The
English wrought iron was considered so bad that it was prohibited
from all government supplies, while the cast iron was considered of
too brittle a nature to be suited for general use.*
[footnote...
Life of Brunel, p. 60.
...]
Indeed the Russian government became so
persuaded that the English nation could not carry on their
manufactures without Russian iron, that in 1770 they ordered the
price to be raised from 70 and 80 copecs per pood to 200 and 220
copecs per pood.*
[footnote...
SCRIVENOR, History of the Iron Trade, 169.
...]
Such being the case, Cort's attention became directed to the subject
in connection with the supply of iron to the Navy, and he entered on
a series of experiments with the object of improving the manufacture
of English iron. What the particular experiments were, and by what
steps he arrived at results of so much importance to the British iron
trade, no one can now tell. All that is known is, that about the year
1775 he relinquished his business as a navy agent, and took a lease
of certain premises at Fontley, near Fareham, at the north-western
corner of Portsmouth Harbour, where he erected a forge and an iron
mill. He was afterwards joined in partnership by Samuel Jellicoe (son
of Adam Jellicoe, then Deputy-Paymaster of Seamen's Wages), which
turned out, as will shortly appear, a most unfortunate connection for
Cort.
As in the case of other inventions, Cort took up the manufacture of
iron at the point to which his predecessors had brought it, carrying
it still further, and improving upon their processes. We may here
briefly recite the steps by which the manufacture of bar-iron by
means of pit-coal had up to this time been advanced. In 1747, Mr.
Ford succeeded at Coalbrookdale in smelting iron ore with pit-coal,
after which it was refined in the usual way by means of coke and
charcoal. In 1762, Dr. Roebuck (hereafter to be referred to) took out
a patent for melting the cast or pig iron in a hearth heated with
pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and then working the iron until it
was reduced to nature, or metallized, as it was termed; after which
it was exposed to the action of a hollow pit-coal fire urged by a
blast, until it was reduced to a loop and drawn out into bar-iron
under a common forge-hammer. Then the brothers Cranege, in 1766,
adopted the reverberatory or air furnace, in which they placed the
pig or cast iron, and without blast or the addition of anything more
than common raw pit-coal, converted the same into good malleable
iron, which being taken red hot from the reverberatory furnace to the
forge hammer, was drawn into bars according to the will of the
workman. Peter Onions of Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, carried the
manufacture a stage further, as described by him in his patent of
that year. Having charged his furnace ("bound with iron work and well
annealed") with pig or fused cast iron from the smelting furnace, it
was closed up and the doors were luted with sand. The fire was urged
by a blast admitted underneath, apparently for the purpose of keeping
up the combustion of the fuel on the grate. Thus Onions' furnace was
of the nature of a puddling furnace, the fire of which was urged by a
blast. The fire was to be kept up until the metal became less fluid,
and "thickened into a kind of froth, which the workman, by opening
the door, must turn and stir with a bar or other iron instrument, and
then close the aperture again, applying the blast and fire until
there was a ferment in the metal." The patent further describes that
"as the workman stirs the metal," the scoriae will separate, "and the
particles of iron will adhere, which particles the workman must
collect or gather into a mass or lump." This mass or lump was then to
be raised to a white heat, and forged into malleable iron at the
forge-hammer.
Such was the stage of advance reached in the manufacture of bar-iron,
when Henry Cort published his patents in 1783 and 1784. In dispensing
with a blast, he had been anticipated by the Craneges, and in the
process of puddling by Onions; but he introduced so many improvements
of an original character, with which he combined the inventions of
his predecessors, as to establish quite a new era in the history of
the iron manufacture, and, in the course of a few years, to raise it
to the highest state of prosperity. As early as 1786, Lord Sheffield
recognised the great national importance of Cort's improvements in
the following words: - If Mr. Cort's very ingenious and meritorious
improvements in the art of making and working iron, the steam-engine
of Boulton and Watt, and Lord Dundonald's discovery of making coke at
half the present price, should all succeed, it is not asserting too
much to say that the result will be more advantageous to Great
Britain than the possession of the thirteen colonies (of America);
for it will give the complete command of the iron trade to this
country, with its vast advantages to navigation." It is scarcely
necessary here to point out how completely the anticipations of Lord
Sheffield have been fulfilled, sanguine though they might appear to
be when uttered some seventy-six years ago.*
[footnote...
Although the iron manufacture had gradually been increasing since the
middle of the century, it was as yet comparatively insignificant in
amount. Thus we find, from a statement by W. Wilkinson, dated Dec.
25, 1791, contained in the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds of
Coalbrookdale, that the produce in England and Scotland was then
estimated to be
Coke Furnaces. Charcoal Furnaces.
In England ......73 producing 67,548 tons 20 producing 8500 tons
In Scotland......12 " 12,480 " 2 " 1000 "
---- ------ -- ----
85 " 80,028 " 22 " 9500 "
At the same time the annual import of Oregrounds iron from Sweden
amounted to about 20,000 tons, and of bars and slabs from Russia
about 50,000 tons, at an average cost of 35L. a ton!
...]
We will endeavour as briefly as possible to point out the important
character of Mr. Cort's improvements, as embodied in his two patents
of 1783 and 1784. In the first he states that, after "great study,
labour, and expense, in trying a variety of experiments, and making
many discoveries, he had invented and brought to perfection a
peculiar method and process of preparing, welding, and working
various sorts of iron, and of reducing the same into uses by
machinery: a furnace, and other apparatus, adapted and applied to the
said process." He first describes his method of making iron for
"large uses," such as shanks, arms, rings, and palms of anchors, by
the method of piling and faggoting, since become generally practised,
by laying bars of iron of suitable lengths, forged on purpose, and
tapering so as to be thinner at one end than the other, laid over one
another in the manner of bricks in buildings, so that the ends should
everywhere overlay each other. The faggots so prepared, to the amount
of half a ton more or less, were then to be put into a common air or
balling furnace, and brought to a welding heat, which was
accomplished by his method in a much shorter time than in any hollow
fire; and when the heat was perfect, the faggots were then brought
under a forge-hammer of great size and weight, and welded into a
solid mass. Mr. Cort alleges in the specification that iron for
"larger uses" thus finished, is in all respect's possessed of the
highest degree of perfection; and that the fire in the balling
furnace is better suited, from its regularity and penetrating
quality, to give the iron a perfect welding heat throughout its whole
mass, without fusing in any part, than any fire blown by a blast.
Another process employed by Mr. Cort for the purpose of cleansing the
iron and producing a metal of purer grain, was that of working the
faggots by passing them through rollers. "By this simple process,"
said he, "all the earthy particles are pressed out and the iron
becomes at once free from dross, and what is usually called cinder,
and is compressed into a fibrous and tough state." The objection has
indeed been taken to the process of passing the iron through rollers,
that the cinder is not so effectually got rid of as by passing it
under a tilt hammer, and that much of it is squeezed into the bar and
remains there, interrupting its fibre and impairing its strength.
It does not appear that there was any novelty in the use of rollers
by Cort; for in his first specification he speaks of them as already
well known.*
[footnote...
"It is material to observe", says Mr. Webster, "that Cort, in this
specification, speaks of the rollers, furnaces, and separate
processes, as well known. There is no claim to any of them
separately; the claim is to the reducing of the faggots of piled iron
into bars, and the welding of such bars by rollers instead of by
forge-hammers."--Memoir of Henry Cort, in Mechanic's Magazine, 15
July, 1859, by Thomas Webster, M.A., F.R.S.
...]
His great merit consisted in apprehending the value of certain
processes, as tested by his own and others' experience, and combining
and applying them in a more effective practical form than had ever
been done before. This power of apprehending the best methods, and
embodying the details in one complete whole, marks the practical,
clear-sighted man, and in certain cases amounts almost to a genius.
The merit of combining the inventions of others in such forms as that
they shall work to advantage, is as great in its way as that of the
man who strikes out the inventions themselves, but who, for want of
tact and experience, cannot carry them into practical effect.
It was the same with Cort's second patent, in which he described his
method of manufacturing bar-iron from the ore or from cast-iron. All
the several processes therein described had been practised before his
time; his merit chiefly consisting in the skilful manner in which he
combined and applied them. Thus, like the Craneges, he employed the
reverberatory or air furnace, without blast, and, like Onions, he
worked the fused metal with iron bars until it was brought into
lumps, when it was removed and forged into malleable iron. Cort,
however, carried the process further, and made it more effectual in
all respects. His method may be thus briefly described: the bottom of
the reverberatory furnace was hollow, so as to contain the fluid
metal, introduced into it by ladles; the heat being kept up by
pit-coal or other fuel. When the furnace was charged, the doors were
closed until the metal was sufficiently fused, when the workman
opened an aperture and worked or stirred about the metal with iron
bars, when an ebullition took place, during the continuance of which
a bluish flame was emitted, the carbon of the cast-iron was burned
off, the metal separated from the slag, and the iron, becoming
reduced to nature, was then collected into lumps or loops of sizes
suited to their intended uses, when they were drawn out of the doors
of the furnace. They were then stamped into plates, and piled or
worked in an air furnace, heated to a white or welding heat, shingled
under a forge hammer, and passed through the grooved rollers after
the method described in the first patent.
The processes described by Cort in his two patents have been followed
by iron manufacturers, with various modifications, the results of
enlarged experience, down to the present time. After the lapse of
seventy-eight years, the language employed by Cort continues on the
whole a faithful description of the processes still practised: the
same methods of manufacturing bar from cast-iron, and of puddling,
piling, welding, and working the bar-iron through grooved
rollers--all are nearly identical with the methods of manufacture
perfected by Henry Cort in 1784. It may be mentioned that the
development of the powers of the steam-engine by Watt had an
extraordinary effect upon the production of iron. It created a
largely increased demand for the article for the purposes of the
shafting and machinery which it was employed to drive; while at the
same time it cleared pits of water which before were unworkable, and
by being extensively applied to the blowing of iron-furnaces and the
working of the rolling-mills, it thus gave a still further impetus to
the manufacture of the metal. It would be beside our purpose to enter
into any statistical detail on the subject; but it will be sufficient
to state that the production of iron, which in the early part of last
century amounted to little more than 12,000 tons, about the middle of
the century to about 18,000 tons, and at the time of Cort's
inventions to about 90,000 tons, was found, in 1820, to have
increased to 400,000 tons; and now the total quantity produced is
upwards of four millions of tons of pig-iron every year, or more than
the entire production of all other European countries. There is
little reason to doubt that this extraordinary development of the
iron manufacture has been in a great measure due to the inventions of
Henry Cort. It is said that at the present time there are not fewer
than 8200 of Cort's furnaces in operation in Great Britain alone.*
[footnote...
Letter by Mr. Truran in Mechanic's Magazine.
...]
Practical men have regarded Cort's improvement of the process of
rolling the iron as the most valuable of his inventions. A competent
authority has spoken of Cort's grooved rollers as of "high
philosophical interest, being scarcely less than the discovery of a
new mechanical Power, in reversing the action of the wedge, by the
application of force to four surfaces, so as to elongate a mass,
instead of applying force to a mass to divide the four surfaces." One
of the best authorities in the iron trade of last century, Mr.
Alexander Raby of Llanelly, like many others, was at first entirely
sceptical as to the value of Cort's invention; but he had no sooner
witnessed the process than with manly candour he avowed his entire
conversion to his views.
We now return to the history of the chief author of this great branch
of national industry. As might naturally be expected, the principal
ironmasters, when they heard of Cort's success, and the rapidity and
economy with which he manufactured and forged bar-iron, visited his
foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and, if found
expedient, of employing it at their own works. Among the first to try
it were Richard Crawshay of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran
(both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. Richard
Crawshay was then (in 1787) forging only ten tons of bar-iron weekly
under the hammer; and when he saw the superior processes invented by
Cort he readily entered into a contract with him to work under his
patents at ten shillings a ton royalty, In 1812 a letter from Mr.
Crawshay to the Secretary of Lord Sheffield was read to the House of
Commons, descriptive of his method of working iron, in which he said,
"I took it from a Mr. Cort, who had a little mill at Fontley in
Hampshire: I have thus acquainted you with my method, by which I am
now making more than ten thousand tons of bar-iron per annum." Samuel
Homfray was equally prompt in adopting the new process. He not only
obtained from Cort plans of the puddling-furnaces and patterns of the
rolls, but borrowed Cort's workmen to instruct his own in the
necessary operations; and he soon found the method so superior to
that invented by Onions that he entirely confined himself to
manufacturing after Cort's patent. We also find Mr. Reynolds inviting
Cort to conduct a trial of his process at Ketley, though it does not
appear that it was adopted by the firm at that time.*
[footnote...
In the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds appears the following entry on
the subject: --
"Copy of a paper given to H. Cort, Esq.
"W. Reynolds saw H. C. in a trial which he made at Ketley,
Dec. 17, 1784, produce from the same pig both cold short and tough iron
by a variation of the process used in reducing them from the state of
cast-iron to that of malleable or bar-iron; and in point of yield his
processes were quite equal to those at Pitchford, which did not
exceed the proportion of 31 cwt. to the ton of bars. The experiment
was made by stamping and potting the blooms or loops made in his
furnace, which then produced a cold short iron; but when they were
immediately shingled and drawn, the iron was of a black tough."
The Coalbrookdale ironmasters are said to have been deterred from
adopting the process because of what was considered an excessive
waste of the metal--about 25 per cent,--though, with greater
experience, this waste was very much diminished.
...]
The quality of the iron manufactured by the new process was found
satisfactory; and the Admiralty having, by the persons appointed by
them to test it in 1787, pronounced it to be superior to the best
Oregrounds iron, the use of the latter was thenceforward
discontinued, and Cort's iron only was directed to be used for the
anchors and other ironwork in the ships of the Royal Navy. The merits
of the invention seem to have been generally conceded, and numerous
contracts for licences were entered into with Cort and his partner by
the manufacturers of bar-iron throughout the country.*
[footnote...
Mr. Webster, in the 'Case of Henry Cort,' published in the Mechanic's
Magazine (2 Dec. 1859), states that "licences were taken at royalties
estimated to yield 27,500L. to the owners of the patents." ...]
Cort himself made arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a
large scale, and with that object entered upon the possession of a
wharf at Gosport, belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his partner's father,
where he succeeded in obtaining considerable Government orders for
iron made after his patents. To all ordinary eyes the inventor now
appeared to be on the high road to fortune; but there was a fatal
canker at the root of this seeming prosperity, and in a few years the
fabric which he had so laboriously raised crumbled into ruins. On the
death of Adam Jellicoe, the father of Cort's partner, in August,
1789,*
[footnote...
In the 'Case of Henry Cort,' by Mr. Webster, above referred to
(Mechanic's Magazine, 2 Dec. 1859), it is stated that Adam Jellicoe
"committed suicide under the pressure of dread of exposure," but this
does not appear to be confirmed by the accounts in the newspapers of
the day. He died at his private dwelling-house, No.14, Highbury
Place, Islingtonn, on the 30th August,1789, after a fortnight's
illness.
...]
defalcations were discovered in his public accounts to the extent of
39,676l., and his books and papers were immediately taken possession
of by the Government. On examination it was found that the debts due
to Jellicoe amounted to 89,657l, included in which was a sum of not
less than 54,853l. owing to him by the Cort partnership. In the
public investigation which afterwards took place, it appeared that
the capital possessed by Cort being insufficient to enable him to
pursue his experiments, which were of a very expensive character,
Adam Jellicoe had advanced money from time to time for the purpose,
securing himself by a deed of agreement entitling him to one-half the
stock and profits of all his contracts; and in further consideration
of the capital advanced by Jellicoe beyond his equal share, Cort
subsequently assigned to him all his patent rights as collateral
security. As Jellicoe had the reputation of being a rich man, Cort
had not the slightest suspicion of the source from which he obtained
the advances made by him to the firm, nor has any connivance whatever
on the part of Cort been suggested. At the same time it must be
admitted that the connexion was not free from suspicion, and, to say
the least, it was a singularly unfortunate one. It was found that
among the moneys advanced by Jellicoe to Cort there was a sum of
27,500L. entrusted to him for the payment of seamen's and officers'
wages. How his embarrassments had tempted him to make use of the
public funds for the purpose of carrying on his speculations, appears
from his own admissions. In a memorandum dated the 11th November,
l782, found in his strong box after his death, he set forth that he
had always had much more than his proper balance in hand, until his
engagement, about two years before, with Mr. Cort, "which by degrees
has so reduced me, and employed so much more of my money than I
expected, that I have been obliged to turn most of my Navy bills into
cash, and at the same time, to my great concern, am very deficient in
my balance. This gives me great uneasiness, nor shall I live or die
in peace till the whole is restored." He had, however, made the first
false step, after which the downhill career of dishonesty is rapid.
His desperate attempts to set himself right only involved him the
deeper; his conscious breach of trust caused him a degree of daily
torment which he could not bear; and the discovery of his
defalcations, which was made only a few days before his death,
doubtless hastened his end.
The Government acted with promptitude, as they were bound to do in
such a case. The body of Jellicoe was worth nothing to them, but they
could secure the property in which he had fraudulently invested the
public moneys intrusted to him. With this object the them Paymaster
of the Navy proceeded to make an affidavit in the Exchequer that
Henry Cort was indebted to His Majesty in the sum of 27,500L. and
upwards, in respect of moneys belonging to the public treasury, which
"Adam Jellicoe had at different times lent and advanced to the said
Henry Cort, from whom the same now remains justly due and owing; and
the deponent saith he verily believes that the said Henry Cort is
much decayed in his credit and in very embarrassed circumstances; and
therefore the deponent verily believes that the aforesaid debt so due
and owing to His Majesty is in great danger of being lost if some
more speedy means be not taken for the recovery than by the ordinary
process of the Court." Extraordinary measures were therefore adopted.
The assignments of Cort's patents, which had been made to Jellicoe in
consideration of his advances, were taken possession of; but Samuel
Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, singular to say, was put in
possession of the properties at Fontley and Gosport, and continued to
enjoy them, to Cort's exclusion, for a period of fourteen years. It
does not however appear that any patent right was ever levied by the
assignees, and the result of the proceeding was that the whole
benefit of Cort's inventions was thus made over to the ironmasters
and to the public. Had the estate been properly handled, and the
patent rights due under the contracts made by the ironmasters with
Cort been duly levied, there is little reason to doubt that the whole
of the debt owing to the Government would have been paid in the
course of a few years. "When we consider," says Mr. Webster, "how
very simple was the process of demanding of the contracting
ironmasters the patent due (which for the year 1789 amounted to
15,000L., in 1790 to 15,000L., and in 1791 to 25,000L.), and which
demand might have been enforced by the same legal process used to
ruin the inventor, it is not difficult to surmise the motive for
abstaining." The case, however, was not so simple as Mr. Webster puts
it; for there was such a contingency as that of the ironmasters
combining to dispute the patent right, and there is every reason to
believe that they were prepared to adopt that course.*
[footnote...
This is confirmed by the report of a House of Commons Committee on
the subject Mr. Davies Gilbert chairman), in which they say, "Your
committee have not been able to satisfy themselves that either of the
two inventions, one for subjecting cast-iron to an operation termed
puddling during its conversion to malleable iron, and the other for
passing it through fluted or grooved rollers, were so novel in their
principle or their application as fairly to entitle the petitioners
[Mr. Cort's survivors] to a parliamentary reward." It is, however,
stated by Mr. Mushet that the evidence was not fairly taken by the
committee--that they were overborne by the audacity of Mr. Samuel
Homfray, one of the great Welsh ironmasters, whose statements were
altogether at variance with known facts--and that it was under his
influence that Mr. Gilbert drew up the fallacious report of the
committee. The illustrious James Watt, writing to Dr. Black in 1784,
as to the iron produced by Cort's process, said, "Though I cannot
perfectly agree with you as to its goodness, yet there is much
ingenuity in the idea of forming the bars in that manner, which is
the only part of his process which has any pretensions to novelty....
Mr. Cort has, as you observe, been most illiberally treated by the
trade: they are ignorant brutes; but he exposed himself to it by
showing them the process before it was perfect, and seeing his
ignorance of the common operations of making iron, laughed at and
despised him; yet they will contrive by some dirty evasion to use his
process, or such parts as they like, without acknowledging him in it.
I shall be glad to be able to be of any use to him. Watts
fellow-feeling was naturally excited in favour of the plundered
inventor, he himself having all his life been exposed to the attacks
of like piratical assailants.
...]
Although the Cort patents expired in 1796 and 1798 respectively, they
continued the subject of public discussion for some time after, more
particularly in connection with the defalcations of the deceased Adam
Jellicoe. It does not appear that more than 2654l. was realised by
the Government from the Cort estate towards the loss sustained by the
public, as a balance of 24,846l. was still found standing to the
debit of Jellicoe in 1800, when the deficiencies in the naval
account's became matter of public inquiry. A few years later, in
1805, the subject was again revived in a remarkable manner. In that
year, the Whigs, Perceiving the bodily decay of Mr. Pitt, and being
too eager to wait for his removal by death, began their famous series
of attacks upon his administration. Fearing to tackle the popular
statesman himself, they inverted the ordinary tactics of an
opposition, and fell foul of Dundas, Lord Melville, then Treasurer of
the Navy, who had successfully carried the country through the great
naval war with revolutionary France. They scrupled not to tax him
with gross peculation, and exhibited articles of impeachment against
him, which became the subject of elaborate investigation, the result
of which is matter of history. In those articles, no reference
whatever was made to Lord Melville's supposed complicity with
Jellicoe; nor, on the trial that followed, was any reference made to
the defalcations of that official. But when Mr. Whitbread, on the 8th
of April, 1805, spoke to the "Resolutions" in the Commons for
impeaching the Treasurer of the Navy, he thought proper to intimate
that he "had a strong suspicion that Jellicoe was in the same
partnership with Mark Sprott, Alexander Trotter, and Lord Melville.
He had been suffered to remain a public debtor for a whole year after
he was known to be in arrears upwards of 24,000L. During next year
11,000L. more had accrued. It would not have been fair to have turned
too short on an old companion. It would perhaps, too, have been
dangerous, since unpleasant discoveries might have met the public
eye. It looked very much as if, mutually conscious of criminality,
they had agreed to be silent, and keep their own secrets."
In making these offensive observations Whitbread was manifestly
actuated by political enmity. They were utterly unwarrantable. In the
first place, Melville had been formally acquitted of Jellicoe's
deficiency by a writ of Privy Seal, dated 31st May, 1800; and
secondly, the committee appointed in that very year (1805) to
reinvestigate the naval accounts, had again exonerated him, but
intimated that they were of opinion there was remissness on his part
in allowing Jellicoe to remain in his office after the discovery of
his defalcations.
the report made by the commissioners to the Houses of Parliament in
1805,*
[footnote...
Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. See also Report
of Select Committee on the 10th Naval Report. May, 1805.
...]
the value of Corts patents was estimated at only 100L. Referring to
the schedule of Jellicoe's alleged assets, they say "Many of the
debts are marked as bad; and we apprehend that the debt from Mr.
Henry Cort, not so marked, of 54,000L. and upwards, is of that
description." As for poor bankrupt Henry Cort, these discussions
availed nothing. On the death of Jellicoe, he left his iron works,
feeling himself a ruined man. He made many appeals to the Government
of the day for restoral of his patents, and offered to find security
for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In
1794, an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential
members of Parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute
family of twelve children, when a pension of 200L. a-year was granted
him. This Mr. Cort enjoyed until the year 1800, when he died, broken
in health and spirit, in his sixtieth year. He was buried in
Hampstead Churchyard, where a stone marking the date of his death is
still to be seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has
recently been restored by his surviving son.
Though Cort thus died in comparative poverty, he laid the foundations
of many gigantic fortunes. He may be said to have been in a great
measure the author of our modern iron aristocracy, who still
manufacture after the processes which he invented or perfected, but
for which they never paid him a shilling of royalty. These men of
gigantic fortunes have owed much--we might almost say everything-- to
the ruined projector of "the little mill at Fontley." Their wealth
has enriched many families of the older aristocracy, and has been the
foundation of several modern peerages. Yet Henry Cort, the rock from
which they were hewn, is already all but forgotten; and his surviving
children, now aged and infirm, are dependent for their support upon
the slender pittance wrung by repeated entreaty and expostulation
from the state.
The career of Richard Crawshay, the first of the great ironmasters
who had the sense to appreciate and adopt the methods of
manufacturing iron invented by Henry Cort, is a not unfitting
commentary on the sad history we have thus briefly described. It
shows how, as respects mere money-making, shrewdness is more potent
than invention, and business faculty than manufacturing skill.
Richard Crawshay was born at Normanton near Leeds, the son of a small
Yorkshire farmer. When a youth, he worked on his father's farm, and
looked forward to occupying the same condition in life; but a
difference with his father unsettled his mind, and at the age of
fifteen he determined to leave his home, and seek his fortune
elsewhere. Like most unsettled and enterprising lads, he first made
for London, riding to town on a pony of his own, which, with the
clothes on his back, formed his entire fortune. It took him a
fortnight to make the journey, in consequence of the badness of the
roads. Arrived in London, he sold his pony for fifteen pounds, and
the money kept him until he succeeded in finding employment. He was
so fortunate as to be taken upon trial by a Mr. Bicklewith, who kept
an ironmonger's shop in York Yard, Upper Thames Street; and his first
duty there was to clean out the office, put the stools and desks in
order for the other clerks, run errands, and act as porter when
occasion required. Young Crawshay was very attentive, industrious,
and shrewd; and became known in the office as "The Yorkshire Boy."
Chiefly because of his "cuteness," his master appointed him to the
department of selling flat irons. The London washerwomen of that day
were very sharp and not very honest, and it used to be said of them
that where they bought one flat iron they generally contrived to
steal two. Mr. Bicklewith thought he could not do better than set the
Yorkshireman to watch the washerwomen, and, by way of inducement to
him to be vigilant, he gave young Crawshay an interest in that branch
of the business, which was soon found to prosper under his charge.
After a few more years, Mr. Bicklewith retired, and left to Crawshay
the cast-iron business in York Yard. This he still further increased,
There was not at that time much enterprise in the iron trade, but
Crawshay endeavoured to connect himself with what there was of it.
The price of iron was then very high, and the best sorts were still
imported from abroad; a good deal of the foreign iron and steel being
still landed at the Steelyard on the Thames, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Crawshay's ironmongery store.
It seems to have occurred to some London capitalists that money was
then to be made in the iron trade, and that South Wales was a good
field for an experiment. The soil there was known to be full of coal
and ironstone, and several small iron works had for some time been
carried on, which were supposed to be doing well. Merthyr Tydvil was
one of the places at which operations had been begun, but the place
being situated in a hill district, of difficult access, and the
manufacture being still in a very imperfect state, the progress made
was for some time very slow. Land containing coal and iron was deemed
of very little value, as maybe inferred from the fact that in the
year 1765, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a man of much foresight, took a lease
from Lord Talbot, for 99 years, of the minerals under forty square
miles of country surrounding the then insignificant hamlet of Merthyr
Tydvil, at the trifling rental of 200L. a-year. There he erected iron
works, and supplied the Government with considerable quantities of
cannon and iron for different purposes; and having earned a
competency, he retired from business in 1782, subletting his mineral
tract in four divisions--the Dowlais, the Penydarran, the Cyfartha,
and the Plymouth Works, north, east, west, and south, of Merthyr
Tydvil.
Mr. Richard Crawshay became the lessee of what Mr. Mushet has called
"the Cyfartha flitch of the great Bacon domain." There he proceeded
to carry on the works established by Mr. Bacon with increased spirit;
his son William, whom he left in charge of the ironmongery store in
London, supplying him with capital to put into the iron works as
fast. as he could earn it by the retail trade. In 1787, we find
Richard Crawshay manufacturing with difficulty ten tons of bar-iron
weekly, and it was of a very inferior character,*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet says of the early manufacture of iron at Merthyr Tydvil
that "A modification of the charcoal refinery, a hollow fire, was
worked with coke as a substitute for charcoal, but the bar-iron
hammered from the produce was very inferior." The pit-coal cast-iron
was nevertheless found of a superior quality for castings, being more
fusible and more homogeneous than charcoal-iron. Hence it was well
adapted for cannon, which was for some time the principal article of
manufacture at the Welsh works.
...]
-- the means not having yet been devised at Cyfartha for
malleableizing the pit-coal cast-iron with economy or good effect.
Yet Crawshay found a ready market for all the iron he could make, and
he is said to have counted the gains of the forge-hammer close by his
house at the rate of a penny a stroke. In course of time he found it
necessary to erect new furnaces, and, having adopted the processes
invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled greatly to increase
the production of his forges, until in 1812 we find him stating to a
committee of the House of Commons that he was making ten thousand
tons of bar-iron yearly, or an average produce of two hundred tons a
week. But this quantity, great though it was, has since been largely
increased, the total produce of the Crawshay furnaces of Cyfartha,
Ynysfach, and Kirwan, being upwards of 50,000 tons of bar-iron
yearly.
The distance of Merthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, being
considerable, and the cost of carriage being very great by reason of
the badness of the roads, Mr. Crawshay set himself to overcome this
great impediment to the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district;
and, in conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, he
planned and constructed the canal*
[footnote...
It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a
railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803,
which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the Old
Forge. The engine was taken off the road because the tram-plates were
found too weak to bear its weight without breaking.
...]
to Cardiff, the opening of which, in 1795, gave an immense impetus to
the iron trade of the neighbourhood. Numerous other extensive iron
works became established there, until Merthyr Tydvil attained the
reputation of being at once the richest and the dirtiest district in
all Britain. Mr. Crawshay became known in the west of England as the
"Iron King," and was quoted as the highest authority in all questions
relating to the trade. Mr. George Crawshay, recently describing the
founder of the family at a social meeting at Newcastle, said,--"In
these days a name like ours is lost in the infinity of great
manufacturing firms which exist through out the land; but in those
early times the man who opened out the iron district of Wales stood
upon an eminence seen by all the world. It is preserved in the
traditions of the family that when the 'Iron King' used to drive from
home in his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out to
see him, and quite a commotion took place when he passed through
Bristol on his way to the works. My great grandfather was succeeded
by his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one
another for four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there
they still stand at the head of the trade." The occasion on which
these words were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men,
about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks,
Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded
in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade
consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving
man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined
him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the
Crawshays, in 1842, became a principal partner in the firm.
Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied to any extent,
showing the growth in our own time of an iron aristocracy of great
wealth and influence, the result mainly of the successful working of
the inventions of the unfortunate and unrequited Henry Cort. He has
been the very Tubal Cain of England--one of the principal founders of
our iron age. To him we mainly owe the abundance of wrought-iron for
machinery, for steam-engines, and for railways, at one-third the
price we were before accustomed to pay to the foreigner. We have by
his invention, not only ceased to be dependent upon other nations for
our supply of iron for tools, implements, and arms, but we have
become the greatest exporters of iron, producing more than all other
European countries combined. In the opinion of Mr. Fairbairn of
Manchester, the inventions of Henry Cort have already added six
hundred millions sterling to the wealth of the kingdom, while they
have given employment to some six hundred thousand working people
during three generations. And while the great ironmasters, by freely
availing themselves of his inventions, have been adding estate to
estate, the only estate secured by Henry Cort was the little domain
of six feet by two in which he lies interred in Hampstead Churchyard.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE - Dr. ROEBUCK DAVID MUSHET.
"Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewers of
wood and drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and
enterprise would be deprived of their most coveted distinction."--Sir
Henry Englefield.
The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography,
recently published in Glasgow, runs as follows: -- "Roebuck, John, a
physician and experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died,
after ruining himself by his projects, 1794. Such is the short shrift
which the man receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in
his projects, he would probably have been esteemed as among the
greatest of Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a
failure, as we think will sufficiently appear from the following
brief account of his labours: --
At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's father carried on
the manufacture of cutlery at Sheffield,*
[footnote...
Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular
coincidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British
Parliament.
...]
in the course of which he realized a competency. He intended his son
to follow his own business, but the youth was irresistibly attracted
to scientific pursuits, in which his father liberally encouraged him;
and he was placed first under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at
Northampton, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, where he
applied himself to the study of medicine, and especially of
chemistry, which was then attracting considerable attention at the
principal seats of learning in Scotland. While residing at Edinburgh
young Roebuck contracted many intimate friendships with men who
afterwards became eminent in literature, such as Hume and Robertson
the historians, and the circumstance is supposed to have contributed
not a little to his partiality in favour of Scotland, and his
afterwards selecting it as the field for his industrial operations.
After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck returned to
England, and settled at Birmingham in the year 1745 for the purpose
of practising his profession. Birmingham was then a principal seat of
the metal manufacture, and its mechanics were reputed to be among the
most skilled in Britain. Dr. Roebuck's attention was early drawn to
the scarcity and dearness of the material in which the mechanics
worked, and he sought by experiment to devise some method of smelting
iron otherwise than by means of charcoal. He had a laboratory fitted
up in his house for the purpose of prosecuting his inquiries, and
there he spent every minute that he could spare from his professional
labours. It was thus that he invented the process of smelting iron by
means of pit-coal which he afterwards embodied in the patent
hereafter to be referred to. At the same time he invented new methods
of refining gold and silver, and of employing them in the arts, which
proved of great practical value to the Birmingham trades-men, who
made extensive use of them in their various processes of manufacture.
Dr. Roebuck's inquiries had an almost exclusively practical
direction, and in pursuing them his main object was to render them
subservient to the improvement of the industrial arts. Thus he sought
to devise more economical methods of producing the various chemicals
used in the Birmingham trade, such as ammonia, sublimate, and several
of the acids; and his success was such as to induce him to erect a
large laboratory for their manufacture, which was conducted with
complete success by his friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of
this character, was the modern process of manufacturing vitriolic
acid in leaden vessels in large quantities, instead of in glass
vessels in small quantities as formerly practised. His success led
him to consider the project of establishing a manufactory for the
purpose of producing oil of vitriol on a large scale; and, having
given up his practice as a physician, he resolved, with his partner
Mr. Garbett, to establish the proposed works in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh. He removed to Scotland with that object, and began the
manufacture of vitriol at Prestonpans in the year 1749. The
enterprise proved eminently lucrative, and, encouraged by his
success, Roebuck proceeded to strike out new branches of manufacture.
He started a pottery for making white and brown ware, which
eventually became established, and the manufacture exists in the same
neighbourhood to this day.
The next enterprise in which he became engaged was one of still
greater importance, though it proved eminently unfortunate in its
results as concerned himself. While living at Prestonpans, he made
the friendship of Mr. William Cadell, of Cockenzie, a gentleman who
had for some time been earnestly intent on developing the industry of
Scotland, then in a very backward condition. Mr. Cadell had tried,
without success, to establish a manufactory of iron; and, though he
had heretofore failed, he hoped that with the aid of Dr. Roebuck he
might yet succeed. The Doctor listened to his suggestions with
interest, and embraced the proposed enterprise with zeal. He
immediately proceeded to organize a company, in which he was joined
by a number of his friends and relatives. His next step was to select
a site for the intended works, and make the necessary arrangements
for beginning the manufacture of iron. After carefully examining the
country on both sides of the Forth, he at length made choice of a
site on the banks of the river Carron, in Stirlingshire, where there
was an abundant supply of wafer, and an inexhaustible supply of iron,
coal, and limestone in the immediate neighbourhood, and there Dr.
Roebuck planted the first ironworks in Scotland,
In order to carry them on with the best chances of success, he
brought a large number of skilled workmen from England, who formed a
nucleus of industry at Carron, where their example and improved
methods of working served to train the native labourers in their art.
At a subsequent period, Mr. Cadell, of Carronpark, also brought a
number of skilled English nail-makers into Scotland, and settled them
in the village of Camelon, where, by teaching others, the business
has become handed down to the present day.
The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day of January,
1760; and in the course of the same year the Carron Iron Works turned
out 1500 tons of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland.
Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the
production steadily increased. Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his
endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first,
as we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore,
as appears from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new
process as follows: -- "I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a
hearth heated with pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and work the
metal until it is reduced to nature, which I take out of the fire and
separate to pieces; then I take the metal thus reduced to nature and
expose it to the action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the
blast of bellows, until it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out
under a common forge hammer into bar-iron." This method of
manufacture was followed with success, though for some time, as
indeed to this day, the principal production of the Carron Works was
castings, for which the peculiar quality of the Scotch iron admirably
adapts it. The well-known Carronades,*
[footnote...
The carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth
says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging
68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the
increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result
from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the
Carron Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in
their possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription: --
"Gift of the Carron Company to Lieutenant-general Melville, inventor
of the smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, ship, shell, and
carcass shot, &c. First used against French ships in 1779."
...]
or "Smashers," as they were named, were cast in large numbers at the
Carron Works. To increase the power of his blowing apparatus,
Dr.Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, the
engineer, who contrived and erected for him at Carron the most
perfect apparatus of the kind then in existence. It may also be
added, that out of the Carron enterprise, in a great measure, sprang
the Forth and Clyde Canal, the first artificial navigation in
Scotland. The Carron Company, with a view to securing an improved
communication with Glasgow, themselves surveyed a line, which was
only given up in consequence of the determined opposition of the
landowners; but the project was again revived through their means,
and was eventually carried out after the designs of Smeaton and
Brindley.
While the Carron foundry was pursuing a career of safe prosperity,
Dr. Roebuck's enterprise led him to embark in coal-mining, with the
object of securing an improved supply of fuel for the iron works. He
became the lessee of the Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal-mines at
Boroughstoness, as well as of the salt-pans which were connected with
them. The mansion of Kinneil went with the lease,and there Dr.
Roebuck and his family took up their abode. Kinneil House was
formerly a country seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, and is to this day
a stately old mansion, reminding one of a French chateau. Its
situation is of remarkable beauty, its windows overlooking the broad
expanse of the Firth of Forth, and commanding an extensive view of
the country along its northern shores. The place has become in a
measure classical, Kinneil House having been inhabited, since Dr.
Roebuck's time, by Dugald Stewart, who there wrote his Philosophical
Essays.*
[footnote...
Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland
studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found
for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he
introduced in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary
inhabitants as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn,
once an occupant of the place, still "haunting" some of the
unoccupied chambers. Dugald Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was
going to bed, of the unearthly wailings which he himself had heard
proceeding from the ancient apartments; but to him at least they had
been explained by the door opening out upon the roof being blown in
on gusty nights, when a jarring and creaking noise was heard all over
the house. One advantage derived from the house being "haunted" was,
that the garden was never broken into, and the winter apples and
stores were at all times kept safe from depredation in the apartments
of the Lady Lilburn.
...]
When Dr. Roebuck began to sink for coal at the new mines, he found it
necessary to erect pumping-machinery of the most powerful kind that
could be contrived, in order to keep the mines clear of water. For
this purpose the Newcomen engine, in its then state, was found
insufficient; and when Dr. Roebuck's friend, Professor Black, of
Edinburgh, informed him of a young man of his acquaintance, a
mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow, having invented a
steam-engine calculated to work with increased power, speed, and
economy, compared with Newcomen's; Dr. Roebuck was much interested,
and shortly after entered into a correspondence with James Watt, the
mathematical instrument maker aforesaid on the subject. The Doctor
urged that Watt, who, up to that time, had confined himself to
models, should come over to Kinneil House, and proceed to erect a
working; engine in one of the outbuildings. The English workmen whom
he had brought; to the Carron works would, he justly thought, give
Watt a better chance of success with his engine than if made by the
clumsy whitesmiths and blacksmiths of Glasgow, quite unaccustomed as
they were to first-class work; and he proposed himself to cast the
cylinders at Carron previous to Watt's intended visit to him at
Kinneil.
Watt paid his promised visit in May, 1768, and Roebuck was by this
time so much interested in the invention, that the subject of his
becoming a partner with Watt, with the object of introducing the
engine into general use, was seriously discussed. Watt had been
labouring at his invention for several years, contending with many
difficulties, but especially with the main difficulty of limited
means. He had borrowed considerable sums of money from Dr. Black to
enable him to prosecute his experiments, and he felt the debt to hang
like a millstone round his neck. Watt was a sickly, fragile man, and
a constant sufferer from violent headaches; besides he was by nature
timid, desponding, painfully anxious, and easily cast down by
failure. Indeed, he was more than once on the point of abandoning his
invention in despair. On the other hand, Dr. Roebuck was accustomed
to great enterprises, a bold and undaunted man, and disregardful of
expense where he saw before him a reasonable prospect of success. His
reputation as a practical chemist and philosopher, and his success as
the founder of the Prestonpans Chemical Works and of the Carron Iron
Works, justified the friends of Watt in thinking that he was of all
men the best calculated to help him at this juncture, and hence they
sought to bring about a more intimate connection between the two. The
result was that Dr. Roebuck eventually became a partner to the extent
of two-thirds of the invention, took upon him the debt owing by Watt
to Dr. Black amounting to about 1200L., and undertook to find the
requisite money to protect the invention by means of a patent. The
necessary steps were taken accordingly and the patent right was
secured by the beginning of 1769, though the perfecting of his model
cost Watt much further anxiety and study.
It was necessary for Watt occasionally to reside with Dr. Roebuck at
Kinneil House while erecting his first engine there. It had been
originally intended to erect it in the neighbouring town of
Boroughstoness, but as there might be prying eyes there, and Watt
wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at
length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the
mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of
water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the
subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his
anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to
despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful
nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to
admit this; for, writing to his friend Dr.Small, he once said, "I
have met with many disappointments; and I must have sunk under the
burthen of them if I had not been supported by the friendship of Dr.
Roebuck."
But more serious troubles were rapidly accumulating upon Dr. Roebuck
himself; and it was he, and not Watt, that sank under the burthen.
The progress of Watt's engine was but slow, and long before it could
be applied to the pumping of Roebuck's mines, the difficulties of the
undertaking on which he had entered overwhelmed him. The opening out
of the principal coal involved a very heavy outlay, extending over
many years, during which he sank not only his own but his wife's
fortune, and--what distressed him most of all--large sums borrowed
from his relatives and friends, which he was unable to repay. The
consequence was, that he was eventually under the necessity of
withdrawing his capital from the refining works at Birmingham, and
the vitriol works at Prestonpans. At the same time, he transferred to
Mr. Boulton of Soho his entire interest in Watt's steam-engine, the
value of which, by the way, was thought so small that it was not even
included among the assets; Roebuck's creditors not estimating it as
worth one farthing. Watt sincerely deplored his partner's
misfortunes, but could not help him. "He has been a most sincere and
generous friend," said Watt, "and is a truly worthy man." And again,
"My heart bleeds for him, but I can do nothing to help him: I have
stuck by him till I have much hurt myself; I can do so no longer; my
family calls for my care to provide for them." The later years of Dr.
Roebuck's life were spent in comparative obscurity; and he died in
1794, in his 76th year.
He lived to witness the success of the steam-engine, the opening up
of the Boroughstoness coal,*
[footnote...
Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did
not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband
Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes: -- "Strange to say, he was
leaving behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal
which he worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil
Iron Works are now founded. The coal-field continued to be worked
until the accidental discovery of the blackband about 1845. The old
coal-pits are now used for working the ironstone."
...]
and the rapid extension of the Scotch iron trade, though he shared in
the prosperity of neither of those branches of industry. He had been
working ahead of his age, and he suffered for it. He fell in the
breach at the critical moment, and more fortunate men marched over
his body into the fortress which his enterprise and valour had mainly
contributed to win. Before his great undertaking of the Carron Works,
Scotland was entirely dependent upon other countries for its supply
of iron. In 1760, the first year of its operations, the whole produce
was 1500 tons. In course of time other iron works were erected, at
Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon--the managers and overseers of
which, as well as the workmen, had mostly received their training and
experience at Carron--until at length the iron trade of Scotland has
assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are enabled to export
to England and other countries upwards of 500,000 tons a-year. How
different this state of things from the time when raids were made
across the Border for the purpose of obtaining a store of iron
plunder to be carried back into Scotland!
The extraordinary expansion of the Scotch iron trade of late years
has been mainly due to the discovery by David Mushet of the Black
Band ironstone in 1801, and the invention of the Hot Blast by James
Beaumont Neilson in 1828. David Mushet was born at Dalkeith, near
Edinburgh, in 1772.*
[footnpote...
The Mushets are an old Kincardine family; but they were almost
extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second. Their
numbers were then reduced to two; one of whom remained at Kincardine,
and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet , accompanied
Montrose as chaplain. He is buried in Kincardine churchyard.
...]
Like other members of his family he was brought up to metal-founding.
At the age of nineteen he joined the staff of the Clyde Iron Works,
near Glasgow, at a time when the Company had only two blast-furnaces
at work. The office of accountant, which he held, precluded him from
taking any part in the manufacturing operations of the concern. But
being of a speculative and ingenious turn of mind, the remarkable
conversions which iron underwent in the process of manufacture very
shortly began to occupy his attention. The subject was much discussed
by the young men about the works, and they frequently had occasion to
refer to Foureroy's well-known book for the purpose of determining
various questions of difference which arose among them in the course
of their inquiries. The book was, however, in many respects
indecisive and unsatisfactory; and, in 1793, when a reduction took
place in the Company's staff, and David Mushet was left nearly the
sole occupant of the office, he determined to study the subject for
himself experimentally, and in the first place to acquire a thorough
knowledge of assaying, as the true key to the whole art of
iron-making.
He first set up his crucible upon the bridge of the reverberatory
furnace used for melting pig-iron, and filled it with a mixture
carefully compounded according to the formula of the books; but,
notwithstanding the shelter of a brick, placed before it to break the
action of the flame, the crucible generally split in two, and not
unfrequently melted and disappeared altogether. To obtain better
results if possible, he next had recourse to the ordinary smith's
fire, carrying on his experiments in the evenings after office-hours.
He set his crucible upon the fire on a piece of fire brick, opposite
the nozzle of the bellows; covering the whole with coke, and then
exciting the flame by blowing. This mode of operating produced
somewhat better results, but still neither the iron nor the cinder
obtained resembled the pig or scoria of the blast-furnace, which it
was his ambition to imitate. From the irregularity of the results,
and the frequent failure of the crucibles, he came to the conclusion
that either his furnace, or his mode of fluxing, was in fault, and he
looked about him for a more convenient means of pursuing his
experiments. A small square furnace had been erected in the works for
the purpose of heating the rivets used for the repair of steam-engine
boilers; the furnace had for its chimney a cast-iron pipe six or
seven inches in diameter and nine feet long. After a few trials with
it, he raised the heat to such an extent that the lower end of the
pipe was melted off, without producing any very satisfactory results
on the experimental crucible, and his operations were again brought
to a standstill. A chimney of brick having been substituted for the
cast-iron pipe, he was, however, enabled to proceed with his trials.
He continued to pursue his experiments in assaying for about two
years, during which he had been working entirely after the methods
described in books; but, feeling the results still unsatisfactory, he
determined to borrow no more from the books, but to work out a system
of his own, which should ensure results similar to those produced at
the blast-furnace. This he eventually succeeded in effecting by
numerous experiments performed in the night; as his time was fully
occupied by his office-duties during the day. At length these patient
experiments bore their due fruits. David Mushet became the most
skilled assayer at the works; and when a difficulty occurred in
smelting a quantity of new ironstone which had been contracted for,
the manager himself resorted to the bookkeeper for advice and
information; and the skill and experience which he had gathered
during his nightly labours, enabled him readily and satisfactorily to
solve the difficulty and suggest a suitable remedy. His reward for
this achievement was the permission, which was immediately granted
him by the manager, to make use of his own assay-furnace, in which he
thenceforward continued his investigations, at the same time that he
instructed the manager's son in the art of assaying. This additional
experience proved of great benefit to him; and he continued to
prosecute his inquiries with much zeal, sometimes devoting entire
nights to experiments in assaying, roasting and cementing iron-ores
and ironstone, decarbonating cast-iron for steel and bar-iron, and
various like operations. His general practice, however, at that time
was, to retire between two and three o'clock in the morning, leaving
directions with the engine-man to call him at half-past five, so as
to be present in the office at six. But these praiseworthy
experiments were brought to a sudden end, as thus described by
himself: --
"In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,*
[footnote...
Papers on Iron and Steel. By David Mushet. London, 1840.
...]
"and without a cause being assigned, I was stopped short. My
furnaces, at the order of the manager, were pulled in pieces, and an
edict was passed that they should never be erected again. Thus
terminated my researches at the Clyde Iron Works. It happened at a
time when I was interested--and I had been two years previously
occupied--in an attempt to convert cast-iron into steel, without
fusion, by a process of cementation, which had for its object the
dispersion or absorption of the superfluous carbon contained in the
cast-iron,--an object which at that time appeared to me of so great
importance, that, with the consent of a friend, I erected an assay
and cementing Furnace at the distance of about two miles from the
Clyde Works. Thither I repaired at night, and sometimes at the
breakfast and dinner hours during the day. This plan of operation was
persevered in for the whole of one summer, but was found too
uncertain and laborious to be continued. At the latter end of the
year 1798 I left my chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works to the
distance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces for
assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater temperature
than any to which I before had access; and thus for nearly two years
I continued to carry on my investigations connected with iron and the
alloys of the metals.
"Though operating in a retired manner, and holding little
communication with others, my views and opinions upon the RATIONALE
of iron-making spread over the establishment. I was considered
forward in affecting to see and explain matters in a different way
from others who were much my seniors, and who were content to be
satisfied with old methods of explanation, or with no explanation at
all..... Notwithstanding these early reproaches, I have lived to see
the nomenclature of my youth furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art
of iron-making, which is used by many of the ironmasters of the
present day with freedom and effect, in communicating with each other
on the subject of their respective manufactures. Prejudices seldom
outlive the generation to which they belong, when opposed by a more
rational system of explanation. In this respect, Time (as my Lord
Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators.
"In a similar manner, Time operated in my favour in respect to the
Black Band Ironstone.*
[footnote...
This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet,
as he afterwards informs us (Papers on Iron and Steel, 121),in the
year 1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old
Monkland. Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed
to the test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its
properties, and proceeded to ascertain its geological position and
relations. He shortly found that it belonged to the upper part of the
coal-formation, and hence he designated it carboniferous ironstone.
He prosecuted his researches, and found various rich beds of the
mineral distributed throughout the western counties of Scotland. On
analysis, it was found to contain a little over 50 per cent. of
protoxide of iron. The coaly matter it contained was not its least
valuable ingredient; for by the aid of the hot blast it was
afterwards found practicable to smelt it almost without any addition
of coal. Seams of black band have since been discovered and
successfully worked in Edinburghshire, Staffordshire, and North
Wales.
...]
The discovery of this was made in 1801, when I was engaged in
erecting for myself and partners the Calder Iron Works. Great
prejudice was excited against me by the ironmasters and others of
that day in presuming to class the WILD COALS of the country (as
Black Band was called) with ironstone fit and proper for the blast
furnace. Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable
rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in
store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such are the
consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer
considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the
acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of
an extensive class of coal and mine proprietors and iron masters, who
have derived, and are still deriving, great wealth from this
important discovery; and who, in the spirit of grateful
acknowledgment, have pronounced it worthy of a crown of gold, or a
monumental record on the spot where the discovery was first made.
"At an advanced period of life, such considerations are soothing and
satisfactory. Many under similar circumstances have not, in their own
lifetime, had that measure of justice awarded to them by their
country to which they were equally entitled. I accept it, however, as
a boon justly due to me, and as an equivalent in some degree for that
laborious course of investigation which I had prescribed for myself,
and which, in early life, was carried on under circumstances of
personal exposure and inconvenience, which nothing but a frame of
iron could have supported. They atone also ,in part, for that
disappointment sustained in early life by the speculative habits of
one partner, and the constitutional nervousness of another, which
eventually occasioned my separation from the Calder Iron Works, and
lost me the possession of extensive tracts of Black Band iron-stone,
which I had secured while the value of the discovery was known only
to myself."
Mr. Mushet published the results of his laborious investigations in a
series of papers in the Philosophical Magazine,--afterwards reprinted
in a collected form in 1840 under the title of "Papers on Iron and
Steel." These papers are among the most valuable original
contributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that have yet
been given to the world. They contain the germs of many inventions
and discoveries in iron and steel, some of which were perfected by
Mr. Mushet himself, while others were adopted and worked out by
different experimenters. In 1798 some of the leading French chemists
were endeavouring to prove by experiment that steel could be made by
contact of the diamond with bar-iron in the crucible, the carbon of
the diamond being liberated and entering into combination with the
iron, forming steel. In the animated controversy which occurred on
the subject, Mr. Mushet's name was brought into considerable notice;
one of the subjects of his published experiments having been the
conversion of bar-iron into steel in the crucible by contact with
regulated proportions of charcoal. The experiments which he made in
connection with this controversy, though in themselves unproductive
of results, led to the important discovery by Mr. Mushet of the
certain fusibility of malleable iron at a suitable temperature.
Among the other important results of Mr. Mushet's lifelong labours,
the following may be summarily mentioned: The preparation of steel
from bar-iron by a direct process, combining the iron with carbon;
the discovery of the beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on iron
and steel; the use of oxides of iron in the puddling-furnace in
various modes of appliance; the production of pig-iron from the
blast-furnace, suitable for puddling, without the intervention of the
refinery; and the application of the hot blast to anthracite coal in
iron-smelting. For the process of combining iron with carbon for the
production of steel, Mr. Mushet took out a patent in November, 1800;
and many years after, when he had discovered the beneficial effects
of oxide of manganese on steel, Mr. Josiah Heath founded upon it his
celebrated patent for the making of cast-steel, which had the effect
of raising the annual production of that metal in Sheffield from 3000
to 100,000 tons. His application of the hot blast to anthracite coal,
after a process invented by him and adopted by the Messrs. Hill of
the Plymouth Iron Works, South Wales, had the effect of producing
savings equal to about 20,000L. a year at those works; and yet,
strange to say, Mr. Mushet himself never received any consideration
for his invention.
The discovery of Titanium by Mr. Mushet in the hearth of a
blast-furnace in 1794 would now be regarded as a mere isolated fact,
inasmuch as Titanium was not placed in the list of recognised metals
until Dr. Wollaston, many years later, ascertained its qualities. But
in connection with the fact, it may be mentioned that Mr. Mushet's
youngest son, Robert, reasoning on the peculiar circumstances of the
discovery in question, of which ample record is left, has founded
upon it his Titanium process, which is expected by him eventually to
supersede all other methods of manufacturing steel, and to reduce
very materially the cost of its production.
While he lived, Mr. Mushet was a leading authority on all matters
connected with Iron and Steel, and he contributed largely to the
scientific works of his time. Besides his papers in the Philosophical
Journal, he wrote the article "Iron" for Napiers Supplement to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and
"Blowing Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia. The two latter articles had
a considerable influence on the opposition to the intended tax upon
iron in 1807, and were frequently referred to in the discussions on
the subject in Parliament. Mr. Mushet died in 1847.
CHAPTER IX.
INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.
"Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the
demagogue are faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the
persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, developing the best
blessings of the Deity to man, are often consigned to oblivion."--
David Mushet.
The extraordinary value of the Black Band ironstone was not at first
duly recognised, perhaps not even by Mr. Mushet himself. For several
years after its discovery by him, its use was confined to the Calder
Iron Works, where it was employed in mixture with other ironstones of
the argillaceous class. It was afterwards partially used at the Clyde
Iron Works, but nowhere else, a strong feeling of prejudice being
entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally. It
was not until the year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone,
without any other mixture than the necessary quantity of limestone
for a flux. "The success of this Company," says Mr. Mushet, "soon
gave rise to the Gartsherrie and Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of
which progress came the use of raw pit-coal and the Hot Blast--the
latter one of the greatest discoveries in metallurgy of the present
age, and, above every other process, admirably adapted for smelting
the Blackband ironstone." From the introduction of this process the
extraordinary development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland may be
said to date; and we accordingly propose to devote the present
chapter to an account of its meritorious inventor.
James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village
about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792. His
parents belonged to the working class. His father's earnings during
many laborious years of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a
week. He had been bred to the trade of a mill-wright, and was for
some time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck as an engine-wright at his
colliery near Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity
by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs.
Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was
appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal
Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while
working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his
future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a
woman remarkable through life for her clever, managing, and
industrious habits. She had the charge of Mrs. Cunningham's children
for some time after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it
was in compliment to her former mistress and her husband that she
named her youngest son James Beaumont after the latter.
The boy's education was confined to the common elements of reading,
writing, and arithmetic, which he partly acquired at the parish
school of Strathbungo near Glasgow, and partly at the Chapel School,
as it was called, in the Gorbals at Glasgow. He had finally left
school before he was fourteen. Some time before he left, he had been
partially set to work, and earned four shillings a week by employing
a part of each day in driving a small condensing engine which his
father had put up in a neighbouring quarry. After leaving school, he
was employed for two years as a gig boy on one of the winding engines
at the Govan colliery. His parents now considered him of fit age to
be apprenticed to some special trade, and as Beaumont had much of his
father's tastes for mechanical pursuits, it was determined to put him
apprentice to a working engineer. His elder brother John was then
acting as engineman at Oakbank near Glasgow, and Beaumont was
apprenticed under him to learn the trade. John was a person of a
studious and serious turn of mind, and had been strongly attracted to
follow the example of the brothers Haldane, who were then exciting
great interest by their preaching throughout the North; but his
father set his face against his son's "preaching at the back o'
dikes," as he called it; and so John quietly settled down to his
work. The engine which the two brothers managed was a very small one,
and the master and apprentice served for engineman and fireman. Here
the youth worked for three years, employing his leisure hours in the
evenings in remedying the defects of his early education, and
endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of English grammar, drawing, and
mathematics.
On the expiry of his apprenticeship, Beaumont continued for a time to
work under his brother as journeyman at a guinea a week; after which,
in 1814, he entered the employment of William Taylor, coal-master at
Irvine, and he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery at a
salary of from 70L. to 80L. a year. One of the improvements which he
introduced in the working of the colliery, while he held that office,
was the laying down of an edge railway of cast-iron, in lengths of
three feet, from the pit to the harbour of Irvine, a distance of
three miles. At the age of 23 he married his first wife, Barbara
Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a "tocher" of 250L. This little
provision was all the more serviceable to him, as his master, Taylor,
becoming unfortunate in business, he was suddenly thrown out of
employment, and the little fortune enabled the newly-married pair to
hold their heads above water till better days came round. They took a
humble tenement, consisting of a room and a kitchen, in the
Cowcaddens, Glasgow, where their first child was born.
About this time a gas-work, the first in Glasgow, was projected, and
the company having been formed, the directors advertised for a
superintendent and foreman, to whom they offered a "liberal salary."
Though Beaumont had never seen gaslight before, except at the
illumination of his father's colliery office after the Peace of
Amiens, which was accomplished in a very simple and original manner,
without either condenser, purifier, or gas-holder, and though he knew
nothing of the art of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the
situation. He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate one;
and in August, 1817, we find him appointed foreman of the Glasgow
Gasworks, for five years, at the salary of 90L. a year. Before the
expiry of his term he was reappointed for six years more, at the
advanced salary of 200L., with the status of manager and engineer of
the works. His salary was gradually increased to 400L. a year, with a
free dwelling-house, until 1847, when, after a faithful service of
thirty years, during which he had largely extended the central works,
and erected branch works in Tradeston and Partick, he finally
resigned the management.
The situation of manager of the Glasgow Gas-works was in many
respects well suited for the development of Mr. Neilson's peculiar
abilities. In the first place it afforded him facilities for
obtaining theoretical as well as practical knowledge in Chemical
Science, of which he was a diligent student at the Andersonian
University, as well as of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in their
higher branches. In the next place it gave free scope for his
ingenuity in introducing improvements in the manufacture of gas, then
in its infancy. He was the first to employ clay retorts; and he
introduced sulphate of iron as a self-acting purifier, passing the
gas through beds of charcoal to remove its oily and tarry elements.
The swallow-tail or union jet was also his invention, and it has
since come into general use.
While managing the Gas-works, one of Mr.Neilson's labours of love was
the establishment and direction by him of a Workmen's Institution for
mutual improvement. Having been a workman himself, and experienced
the disadvantages of an imperfect education in early life, as well as
the benefits arising from improved culture in later years, he desired
to impart some of these advantages to the workmen in his employment,
who consisted chiefly of persons from remote parts of the Highlands
or from Ireland. Most of them could not even read, and his principal
difficulty consisted in persuading them that it was of any use to
learn. For some time they resisted his persuasions to form a
Workmen's Institution, with a view to the establishment of a library,
classes, and lectures, urging as a sufficient plea for not joining
it, that they could not read, and that books would be of no use to
them. At last Mr. Neilson succeeded, though with considerable
difficulty, in inducing fourteen of the workmen to adopt his plan.
Each member was to contribute a small sum monthly, to be laid out in
books, the Gas Company providing the members with a comfortable room
in which they might meet to read and converse in the evenings instead
of going to the alehouse. The members were afterwards allowed to take
the books home to read, and the room was used for the purpose of
conversation on the subjects of the books read by them, and
occasionally for lectures delivered by the members themselves on
geography, arithmetic, chemistry, and mechanics. Their numbers
increased so that the room in which they met became insufficient for
their accommodation, when the Gas Company provided them with a new
and larger place of meeting, together with a laboratory and workshop.
In the former they studied practical chemistry, and in the latter
they studied practical mechanics, making for themselves an air pump
and an electrifying machine, as well as preparing the various models
used in the course of the lectures. The effects on the workmen were
eminently beneficial, and the institution came to be cited as among
the most valuable of its kind in the kingdom.*
[footnote...
Article by Dugald Bannatyne in Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, No. 53,
Dec. 1824.
...]
Mr. Neilson throughout watched carefully over its working, and
exerted himself in all ways to promote its usefulness, in which he
had the zealous co-operation of the leading workmen themselves, and
the gratitude of all. On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms in
1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, which was thought
worthy of republication, together with the reply of George
Sutherland, one of the workmen, in which Mr. Neilson's exertions as
its founder and chief supporter were gratefully and forcibly
expressed.*
[footnote...
Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 159.
...]
It was during the period of his connection with the Glasgow Gas-works
that Mr. Neilson directed his attention to the smelting of iron. His
views in regard to the subject were at first somewhat crude, as
appears from a paper read by him before the Glasgow Philosophical
Society early in 1825. It appears that in the course of the preceding
year his attention had been called to the subject by an iron-maker,
who asked him if he thought it possible to purify the air blown into
the blast furnaces, in like manner as carburetted hydrogen gas was
purified. The ironmaster supposed that it was the presence of sulphur
in the air that caused blast-furnaces to work irregularly, and to
make bad iron in the summer months. Mr. Neilson was of opinion that
this was not the true cause, and he was rather disposed to think it
attributable to the want of a due proportion of oxygen in summer,
when the air was more rarefied, besides containing more aqueous
vapour than in winter. He therefore thought the true remedy was in
some way or other to throw in a greater proportion of oxygen; and he
suggested that, in order to dry the air, it should be passed, on its
way to the furnace, through two long tunnels containing calcined
lime. But further inquiry served to correct his views, and eventually
led him to the true theory of blasting.
Shortly after, his attention was directed by Mr. James Ewing to a
defect in one of the Muirkirk blast-furnaces, situated about half a
mile distant from the blowing-engine, which was found not to work so
well as others which were situated close to it. The circumstances of
the case led Mr. Neilson to form the opinion that, as air increases
in volume according to temperature, if he were to heat it by passing
it through a red-hot vessel, its volume would be increased, according
to the well-known law, and the blast might thus be enabled to do more
duty in the distant furnace. He proceeded to make a series of
experiments at the Gas-works, trying the effect of heated air on the
illuminating power of gas, by bringing up a stream of it in a tube so
as to surround the gas-burner. He found that by this means the
combustion of the gas was rendered more intense, and its illuminating
power greatly increased. He proceeded to try a similar experiment on
a common smith's fire, by blowing the fire with heated air, and the
effect was the same; the fire was much more brilliant, and
accompanied by an unusually intense degree of heat.
Having obtained such marked results by these small experiments, it
naturally occurred to him that a similar increase in intensity of
combustion and temperature would attend the application of the
process to the blast-furnace on a large scale; but being only a
gas-maker, he had the greatest difficulty in persuading any
ironmaster to permit him to make the necessary experiment's with
blast-furnaces actually at work. Besides, his theory was altogether
at variance with the established practice, which was to supply air as
cold as possible, the prevailing idea being that the coldness of the
air in winter was the cause of the best iron being then produced.
Acting on these views, the efforts of the ironmasters had always been
directed to the cooling of the blast, and various expedients were
devised for the purpose. Thus the regulator was painted white, as
being the coolest colour; the air was passed over cold water, and in
some cases the air pipes were even surrounded by ice, all with the
object of keeping the blast cold. When, therefore, Mr. Neilson
proposed entirely to reverse the process, and to employ hot instead
of cold blast, the incredulity of the ironmasters may well be
imagined. What! Neilson, a mere maker of gas, undertake to instruct
practical men in the manufacture of iron! And to suppose that heated
air can be used for the purpose! It was presumption in the extreme,
or at best the mere visionary idea of a person altogether
unacquainted with the subject!
At length, however, Mr. Neilson succeeded in inducing Mr. Charles
Macintosh of Crossbasket, and Mr. Colin Dunlop of the Clyde Iron
Works, to allow him to make a trial of the hot air process. In the
first imperfect attempts the air was heated to little more than 80
degrees Fahrenheit, yet the results were satisfactory, and the
scoriae from the furnace evidently contained less iron. He was
therefore desirous of trying his plan upon a more extensive scale,
with the object, if possible, of thoroughly establishing the
soundness of his principle. In this he was a good deal hampered even
by those ironmasters who were his friends, and had promised him the
requisite opportunities for making a fair trial of the new process.
They strongly objected to his making the necessary alterations in the
furnaces, and he seemed to be as far from a satisfactory experiment
as ever. In one instance, where he had so far succeeded as to be
allowed to heat the blast-main, he asked permission to introduce
deflecting plates in the main or to put a bend in the pipe, so as to
bring the blast more closely against the heated sides of the pipe,
and also increase the area of heating surface, in order to raise the
temperature to a higher point; but this was refused, and it was said
that if even a bend were put in the pipe the furnace would stop
working. These prejudices proved a serious difficulty in the way of
our inventor, and several more years passed before he was allowed to
put a bend in the blast-main. After many years of perseverance, he
was, however, at length enabled to work out his plan into a definite
shape at the Clyde Iron Works, and its practical value was at once
admitted. At the meeting of the Mechanical Engineers' Society held in
May, 1859, Mr. Neilson explained that his invention consisted solely
in the principle of heating the blast between the engine and the
furnace, and was not associated with any particular construction of
the intermediate heating apparatus. This, he said, was the cause of
its success; and in some respects it resembled the invention of his
countryman, James Watt, who, in connection with the steam-engine,
invented the plan of condensing the steam in a separate vessel, and
was successful in maintaining his invention by not limiting it to any
particular construction of the condenser. On the same occasion he
took the opportunity of acknowledging the firmness with which the
English ironmasters had stood by him when attempts were made to
deprive him of the benefits of his invention; and to them he
acknowledged he was mainly indebted for the successful issue of the
severe contests he had to undergo. For there were, of course, certain
of the ironmasters, both English and Scotch, supporters of the cause
of free trade in others' inventions, who sought to resist the patent,
after it had come into general use, and had been recognised as one of
the most valuable improvements of modem times.*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet described it as "a wonderful discovery," and one of the
"most novel and beautiful improvements in his time." Professor
Gregory of Aberdeen characterized it as "the greatest improvement
with which he was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English iron
manufacturer, declared it to be "of as great advantage in the iron
trade as Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade; and
Mr. Fairbairn, in his contribution on "Iron" in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says that it "has effected an entire revolution in the
iron industry of Great Britain, and forms the last era in the history
of this material."
...]
The patent was secured in 1828 for a term of fourteen years; but, as
Mr. Neilson did not himself possess the requisite capital to enable
him to perfect the invention, or to defend it if attacked, he found
it necessary to invite other gentlemen, able to support him in these
respects, to share its profits; retaining for himself only
three-tenths of the whole. His partners were Mr. Charles Macintosh,
Mr. Colin Dunlop, and Mr.John Wilson of Dundyvan. The charge made by
them was only a shilling a ton for all iron produced by the new
process; this low rate being fixed in order to ensure the
introduction of the patent into general use, as well as to reduce to
a minimum the temptations of the ironmasters to infringe it.
The first trials of the process were made at the blast-furnaces of
Clyde and Calder; from whence the use of the hot blast gradually
extended to the other iron-mining districts. In the course of a few
years every furnace in Scotland, with one exception (that at Carron),
had adopted the improvement; while it was also employed in half the
furnaces of England and Wales, and in many of the furnaces on the
Continent and in America. In course of time, and with increasing
experience, various improvements were introduced in the process, more
particularly in the shape of the air-heating vessels; the last form
adopted being that of a congeries of tubes, similar to the tubular
arrangement in the boiler of the locomotive, by which the greatest
extent of heating surface was provided for the thorough heating of
the air. By these modifications the temperature of the air introduced
into the furnace has been raised from 240 degrees to 600 degrees, or
the temperature of melting lead. To protect the nozzle of the
air-pipe as it entered the furnace against the action of the intense
heat to which it was subjected, a spiral pipe for a stream of cold
water constantly to play in has been introduced within the sides of
the iron tuyere through which the nozzle passes; by which means the
tuyere is kept comparatively cool, while the nozzle of the air-pipe
is effectually protected.*
[footnote...
The invention of the tubular air-vessels and the water-tuyere
belongs, we believe, to Mr. John Condie, sometime manager of the
Blair Iron Works.
...]
This valuable invention did not escape the usual fate of successful
patents, and it was on several occasions the subject of protracted
litigation. The first action occurred in 1832; but the objectors
shortly gave in, and renewed their licence. In 1839, when the process
had become generally adopted throughout Scotland, and, indeed, was
found absolutely essential for smelting the peculiar ores of that
country--more especially Mushet's Black Band--a powerful combination
was formed amongst the ironmasters to resist the patent. The
litigation which ensued extended over five years, during which period
some twenty actions were proceeding in Scotland, and several in
England. Three juries sat upon the subject at different times, and on
three occasions appeals were carried to the House of Lords. One jury
trial occupied ten days, during which a hundred and two witnesses
were examined; the law costs on both sides amounting, it is supposed,
to at least 40,000L. The result was, that the novelty and merit of
Mr. Neilson's invention were finally established, and he was secured
in the enjoyment of the patent right.
We are gratified to add, that, though Mr. Neilson had to part with
two-thirds of the profits of the invention to secure the capital and
influence necessary to bring it into general use, he realized
sufficient to enable him to enjoy the evening of his life in peace
and comfort. He retired from active business to an estate which he
purchased in 1851 in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, where he is
found ready to lend a hand in every good work--whether in
agricultural improvement, railway extension, or the moral and social
good of those about him. Mindful of the success of his Workmen's
Institution at the Glasgow Gas-Works, he has, almost at his own door,
erected a similar Institution for the use of the parish in which his
property is situated, the beneficial effects of which have been very
marked in the district. We may add that Mr. Neilson's merits have
been recognised by many eminent bodies--by the Institution of Civil
Engineers, the Chemical Society, and others--the last honour
conferred on him being his election as a Member of the Royal Society
in 1846.
The invention of the hot blast, in conjunction with the discovery of
the Black Band ironstone, has had an extra ordinary effect upon the
development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland. The coals of that
country are generally unfit for coking, and lose as much as 55 per
cent. in the process. But by using the hot blast, the coal could be
sent to the blast-furnace in its raw state, by which a large saving
of fuel was effected.*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet says, "The greatest produce in iron per furnace with the
Black Band and cold blast never exceeded 60 tons a-week. The produce
per furnace now averages 90 tons a-week. Ten tons of this I attribute
to the use of raw pit-coal, and the other twenty tons to the use of
hot blast." [Papers on Iron and Steel, 127.] The produce per furnace
is now 200 tons a-week and upwards. The hot blast process was
afterwards applied to the making of iron with the anthracite or stone
coal of Wales; for which a patent was taken out by George Crane in
1836. Before the hot blast was introduced, anthracite coal would not
act as fuel in the blast-furnace. When put in, it merely had the
effect of putting the fire out. With the aid of the hot blast,
however, it now proves to be a most valuable fuel in smelting.
...]
Even coals of an inferior quality were by its means made available
for the manufacture of iron. But one of the peculiar qualities of the
Black Band ironstone is that in many cases it contains sufficient
coaly matter for purposes of calcination, without any admixture of
coal whatever. Before its discovery, all the iron manufactured in
Scotland was made from clay-band; but the use of the latter has in a
great measure been discontinued wherever a sufficient supply of Black
Band can be obtained. And it is found to exist very extensively in
most of the midland Scotch counties,--the coal and iron measures
stretching in a broad belt from the Firth of Forth to the Irish
Channel at the Firth of Clyde. At the time when the hot blast was
invented, the fortunes of many of the older works were at a low ebb,
and several of them had been discontinued; but they were speedily
brought to life again wherever Black Band could be found. In 1829,
the year after Neilson's patent was taken out, the total make of
Scotland was 29,000 tons. As fresh discoveries of the mineral were
made, in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, new works were erected, until, in
1845, we find the production of Scotch pig-iron had increased to
475,000 tons. It has since increased to upwards of a million of tons,
nineteen-twentieths of which are made from Black Band ironstone.*
[footnote...
It is stated in the North British Review for Nov. 1845, that "As in
Scotland every furnace--with the exception of one at Carron--now uses
the hot blast the saving on our present produce of 400,000 tons of
pig-iron is 2,000,000 tons of coals, 200,000 tons of limestone, and
#650,000 sterling per annum." But as the Scotch produce is now above
a million tons of pig-iron a year, the above figures will have to be
multiplied by 2 1/2 to give the present annual savings.
...]
Employment has thus been given to vast numbers of our industrial
population, and the wealth and resources of the Scotch iron districts
have been increased to an extraordinary extent. During the last year
there were 125 furnaces in blast throughout Scotland, each employing
about 400 men in making an average of 200 tons a week; and the money
distributed amongst the workmen may readily be computed from the fact
that, under the most favourable circumstances, the cost of making
iron in wages alone amounts to 36s. a-ton.*
[footnote...
Papers read by Mr. Ralph Moore, Mining Engineer, Glasgow, before the
Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Edin. 1861, pp. 13, 14.
...]
An immense additional value was given to all land in which the Black
Band was found. Mr. Mushet mentions that in 1839 the proprietor of
the Airdrie estate derived a royalty of 16,500L. from the mineral,
which had not before its discovery yielded him one farthing. At the
same time, many fortunes have been made by pushing and energetic men
who have of late years entered upon this new branch of industry.
Amongst these may be mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie
with the Guests and Crawshays of South Wales, and have advanced
themselves in the course of a very few years from the station of
small farmers to that of great capitalists owning estates in many
counties, holding the highest character commercial men, and ranking
among the largest employers of labour in the kingdom.
CHAPTER X.
MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS.
"L'invention nest-elle pas la poesie de la science? . . . Toutes les
grandes decouvertes portent avec elles la trace ineffacable d'une
pensee poetique. ll faut etre poete pour creer. Aussi, sommes-nous
convaincus que si les puissantes machines, veritable source de la
production et de l'industrie de nos jours, doivent recevoir des
modifications radicales, ce sera a des hommes d'imagination, et non
point a dea hommes purement speciaux, que l'on devra cette
transformation."--E. M. BATAILLE, Tr aite des Machines a Vapeur.
Tools have played a highly important part in the history of
civilization. Without tools and the ability to use them, man were
indeed but a "poor, bare, forked animal,"--worse clothed than the
birds, worse housed than the beaver, worse fed than the jackal. "Weak
in himself," says Carlyle, "and of small stature, he stands on a
basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half square foot,
insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, Jest the very wind
supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load
for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag.
Nevertheless he can use tools, can devise tools: with these the
granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing
iron as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and
fire his unvarying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools:
without tools he is nothing; with tools he is all." His very first
contrivances to support life were tools of the simplest and rudest
construction; and his latest achievements in the substitution of
machinery for the relief of the human hand and intellect are founded
on the use of tools of a still higher order. Hence it is not without
good reason that man has by some philosophers been defined as A
TOOL-MAKING ANIMAL.
Tools, like everything else, had small beginnings. With the primitive
stone-hammer and chisel very little could be done. The felling of a
tree would occupy a workman a month, unless helped by the destructive
action of fire. Dwellings could not be built, the soil could not be
tilled, clothes could not be fashioned and made, and the hewing out
of a boat was so tedious a process that the wood must have been far
gone in decay before it could be launched. It was a great step in
advance to discover the art of working in metals, more especially in
steel, one of the few metals capable of taking a sharp edge and
keeping it. From the date of this discovery, working in wood and
stone would be found comparatively easy; and the results must
speedily have been felt not only in the improvement of man's daily
food, but in his domestic and social condition. Clothing could then
be made, the primitive forest could be cleared and tillage carried
on; abundant fuel could be obtained, dwellings erected, ships built,
temples reared; every improvement in tools marking a new step in the
development of the human intellect, and a further stage in the
progress of human civilization.
The earliest tools were of the simplest possible character,
consisting principally of modifications of the wedge; such as the
knife, the shears (formed of two knives working on a joint), the
chisel, and the axe. These, with the primitive hammer, formed the
principal stock-in-trade of the early mechanics, who were
handicraftsmen in the literal sense of the word. But the work which
the early craftsmen in wood, stone, brass, and iron, contrived to
execute, sufficed to show how much expertness in the handling of
tools will serve to compensate for their mechanical imperfections.
Workmen then sought rather to aid muscular strength than to supersede
it, and mainly to facilitate the efforts of manual skill. Another
tool became added to those mentioned above, which proved an
additional source of power to the workman. We mean the Saw, which was
considered of so much importance that its inventor was honoured with
a place among the gods in the mythology of the Greeks. This invention
is said to have been suggested by the arrangement of the teeth in the
jaw of a serpent, used by Talus the nephew of Daedalus in dividing a
piece of wood. From the representations of ancient tools found in the
paintings at Herculaneum it appears that the frame-saw used by the
ancients very nearly resembled that still in use; and we are informed
that the tools employed in the carpenters' shops at Nazareth at this
day are in most respects the same as those represented in the buried
Roman city. Another very ancient tool referred to in the Bible and in
Homer was the File, which was used to sharpen weapons and implements.
Thus the Hebrews "had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters,
and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads."*
[footnote...
1 Samuel, ch. xiii. v. 21.
...]
When to these we add the adze, plane-irons, the anger, and the
chisel, we sum up the tools principally relied on by the early
mechanics for working in wood and iron.
Such continued to be the chief tools in use down almost to our own
day. The smith was at first the principal tool-maker; but special
branches of trade were gradually established, devoted to tool-making.
So long, however, as the workman relied mainly on his dexterity of
hand, the amount of production was comparatively limited; for the
number of skilled workmen was but small. The articles turned out by
them, being the product of tedious manual labour, were too dear to
come into common use, and were made almost exclusively for the richer
classes of the community. It was not until machinery had been
invented and become generally adopted that many of the ordinary
articles of necessity and of comfort were produced in sufficient
abundance and at such prices as enabled them to enter into the
consumption of the great body of the people.
But every improver of tools had a long and difficult battle to fight;
for any improvement in their effective power was sure to touch the
interests of some established craft. Especially was this the case
with machines, which are but tools of a more complete though
complicated kind than those above described.
Take, for instance, the case of the Saw. The tedious drudgery of
dividing timber by the old fashioned hand-saw is well known. To avoid
it, some ingenious person suggested that a number of saws should be
fixed to a frame in a mill, so contrived as to work with a
reciprocating motion, upwards and downwards, or backwards and
forwards, and that this frame so mounted should be yoked to the mill
wheel, and the saws driven by the power of wind or water. The plan
was tried, and, as may readily be imagined, the amount of effective
work done by this machine-saw was immense, compared with the tedious
process of sawing by hand.
It will be observed, however, that the new method must have seriously
interfered with the labour of the hand-sawyers; and it was but
natural that they should regard the establishment of the saw-mills
with suspicion and hostility. Hence a long period elapsed before the
hand-sawyers would permit the new machinery to be set up and worked.
The first saw-mill in England was erected by a Dutchman, near London,
in 1663, but was shortly abandoned in consequence of the determined
hostility of the workmen. More than a century passed before a second
saw-mill was set up; when, in 1767, Mr. John Houghton, a London
timber-merchant, by the desire and with the approbation of the
Society of Arts, erected one at Limehouse, to be driven by wind. The
work was directed by one James Stansfield, who had gone over to
Holland for the purpose of learning the art of constructing and
managing the sawing machinery. But the mill was no sooner erected
than a mob assembled and razed it to the ground. The principal
rioters having been punished, and the loss to the proprietor having
been made good by the nation, a new mill was shortly after built, and
it was suffered to work without further molestation.
Improved methods of manufacture have usually had to encounter the
same kind of opposition. Thus, when the Flemish weavers came over to
England in the seventeenth century, bringing with them their skill
and their industry, they excited great jealousy and hostility amongst
the native workmen. Their competition as workmen was resented as an
injury, but their improved machinery was regarded as a far greater
source of mischief. In a memorial presented to the king in 1621 we
find the London weavers complaining of the foreigners' competition,
but especially that "they have made so bould of late as to devise
engines for working of tape, lace, ribbin, and such like, wherein one
man doth more among them than 7 Englishe men can doe; so as their
cheap sale of commodities beggereth all our Englishe artificers of
that trade, and enricheth them."*
[footnote...
State Papers, Dom. 1621, Vol. 88, No. 112.
...]
At a much more recent period new inventions have had to encounter
serious rioting and machine-breaking fury. Kay of the fly-shuttle,
Hargreaves of the spinning-jenny, and Arkwright of the
spinning-frame, all had to fly from Lancashire, glad to escape with
their lives. Indeed, says Mr. Bazley, "so jealous were the people,
and also the legislature, of everything calculated to supersede men's
labour, that when the Sankey Canal, six miles long, near Warrington,
was authorized about the middle of last century, it was on the
express condition that the boats plying on it should be drawn by men
only!"*
[footnote...
Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851, 2nd Series,
117.
...]
Even improved agricultural tools and machines have had the same
opposition to encounter; and in our own time bands of rural labourers
have gone from farm to farm breaking drill-ploughs, winnowing,
threshing, and other machines, down even to the common drills,--not
perceiving that if their policy had proved successful, and tools
could have been effectually destroyed, the human race would at once
have been reduced to their teeth and nails, and civilization
summarily abolished.*
[footnote...
Dr. Kirwan, late President of the Royal Irish Academy, who had
travelled much on the continent of Europe, used to relate, when
speaking of the difficulty of introducing improvements in the arts
and manufactures, and of the prejudices entertained for old
practices, that, in Normandy, the farmers had been so long accustomed
to the use of plough's whose shares were made entirely of WOOD that
they could not be prevailed on to make trial of those with IRON; that
they considered them to be an idle and useless innovation on the
long-established practices of their ancestors; and that they carried
these prejudices so far as to force the government to issue an edict
on the subject. And even to the last they were so obstinate in their
attachment to ploughshares of wood that a tumultuous opposition was
made to the enforcement of the edict, which for a short time
threatened a rebellion in the province.-- PARKES, Chemical Essays,
4th Ed. 473.
...]
It is, no doubt, natural that the ordinary class of workmen should
regard with prejudice, if not with hostility, the introduction of
machines calculated to place them at a disadvantage and to interfere
with their usual employments; for to poor and not very far-seeing men
the loss of daily bread is an appalling prospect. But invention does
not stand still on that account. Human brains WILL work. Old tools
are improved and new ones invented, superseding existing methods of
production, though the weak and unskilled may occasionally be pushed
aside or even trodden under foot. The consolation which remains is,
that while the few suffer, society as a whole is vastly benefitted by
the improved methods of production which are suggested, invented, and
perfected by the experience of successive generations.
The living race is the inheritor of the industry and skill of all
past times; and the civilization we enjoy is but the sum of the
useful effects of labour during the past centuries. Nihil per saltum.
By slow and often painful steps Nature's secrets have been mastered.
Not an effort has been made but has had its influence. For no human
labour is altogether lost; some remnant of useful effect surviving
for the benefit of the race, if not of the individual. Even attempts
apparently useless have not really been so, but have served in some
way to advance man to higher knowledge, skill, or discipline. "The
loss of a position gained," says Professor Thomson, "is an event
unknown in the history of man's struggle with the forces of inanimate
nature." A single step won gives a firmer foothold for further
effort. The man may die, but the race survives and continues the
work,--to use the poet's simile, mounting on stepping-stones of dead
selves to higher selves.
Philarete Chasles, indeed, holds that it is the Human Race that is
your true inventor: "As if to unite all generations," he says, "and
to show that man can only act efficiently by association with others,
it has been ordained that each inventor shall only interpret the
first word of the problem he sets himself to solve, and that every
great idea shall be the RESUME of the past at the same time that it
is the germ of the future." And rarely does it happen that any
discovery or invention of importance is made by one man alone. The
threads of inquiry are taken up and traced, one labourer succeeding
another, each tracing it a little further, often without apparent
result. This goes on sometimes for centuries, until at length some
man, greater perhaps than his fellows, seeking to fulfil the needs of
his time, gathers the various threads together, treasures up the gain
of past successes and failures, and uses them as the means for some
solid achievement, Thus Newton discovered the law of gravitation, and
thus James Watt invented the steam-engine. So also of the Locomotive,
of which Robert Stephenson said, "It has not been the invention of
any one man, but of a race of mechanical engineers." Or, as Joseph
Bramah observed, in the preamble to his second Lock patent, "Among
the number of patents granted there are comparatively few which can
be called original so that it is difficult to say where the boundary
of one ends and where that of another begins."
The arts are indeed reared but slowly; and it was a wise observation
of Lord Bacon that we are too apt to pass those ladders by which they
have been reared, and reflect the whole merit on the last new
performer. Thus, what is hailed as an original invention is often
found to be but the result of a long succession of trials and
experiments gradually following each other, which ought rather to be
considered as a continuous series of achievements of the human mind
than as the conquest of any single individual. It has sometimes taken
centuries of experience to ascertain the value of a single fact in
its various bearings. Like man himself, experience is feeble and
apparently purposeless in its infancy, but acquires maturity and
strength with age. Experience, however, is not limited to a lifetime,
but is the stored-up wealth and power of our race. Even amidst the
death of successive generations it is constantly advancing and
accumulating, exhibiting at the same time the weakness and the power,
the littleness and the greatness of our common humanity. And not only
do we who live succeed to the actual results of our predecessors'
labours,--to their works of learning and of art, their inventions and
discoveries, their tools and machines, their roads, bridges , canals,
and railways,--but to the inborn aptitudes of blood and brain which
they bequeath to us, to that "educability," so to speak, which has
been won for us by the labours of many generations, and forms our
richest natural heritage.
The beginning of most inventions is very remote. The first idea, born
within some unknown brain, passes thence into others, and at last
comes forth complete, after a parturition, it may be, of centuries.
One starts the idea, another developes it, and so on progressively
until at last it is elaborated and worked out in practice; but the
first not less than the last is entitled to his share in the merit of
the invention, were it only possible to measure and apportion it
duly. Sometimes a great original mind strikes upon some new vein of
hidden power, and gives a powerful impulse to the inventive faculties
of man, which lasts through generations. More frequently, however,
inventions are not entirely new, but modifications of contrivances
previously known, though to a few, and not yet brought into practical
use. Glancing back over the history of mechanism, we occasionally see
an invention seemingly full born, when suddenly it drops out of
sight, and we hear no more of it for centuries. It is taken up de
novo by some inventor, stimulated by the needs of his time, and
falling again upon the track, he recovers the old footmarks, follows
them up, and completes the work.
There is also such a thing as inventions being born before their time
--the advanced mind of one generation projecting that which cannot be
executed for want of the requisite means; but in due process of time,
when mechanism has got abreast of the original idea, it is at length
carried out; and thus it is that modern inventors are enabled to
effect many objects which their predecessors had tried in vain to
accomplish. As Louis Napoleon has said, "Inventions born before their
time must remain useless until the level of common intellects rises
to comprehend them." For this reason, misfortune is often the lot of
the inventor before his time, though glory and profit may belong to
his successors. Hence the gift of inventing not unfrequently involves
a yoke of sorrow. Many of the greatest inventors have lived neglected
and died unrequited, before their merits could be recognised and
estimated. Even if they succeed, they often raise up hosts of enemies
in the persons whose methods they propose to supersede. Envy, malice,
and detraction meet them in all their forms; they are assailed by
combinations of rich and unscrupulous persons to wrest from them the
profits of their ingenuity; and last and worst of all, the successful
inventor often finds his claims to originality decried, and himself
branded as a copyist and a pirate.
Among the inventions born out of time, and before the world could
make adequate use of them, we can only find space to allude to a few,
though they are so many that one is almost disposed to accept the
words of Chaucer as true, that "There is nothing new but what has
once been old;" or, as another writer puts it, "There is nothing new
but what has before been known and forgotten;" or, in the words of
Solomon, "The thing that hath been is that which shall be, and there
is no new thing under the sun." One of the most important of these is
the use of Steam, which was well known to the ancients; but though it
was used to grind drugs, to turn a spit, and to excite the wonder and
fear of the credulous, a long time elapsed before it became employed
as a useful motive-power. The inquiries and experiments on the
subject extended through many ages. Friar Bacon, who flourished in
the thirteenth century, seems fully to have anticipated, in the
following remarkable passage, nearly all that steam could accomplish,
as well as the hydraulic engine and the diving-bell, though the
flying machine yet remains to be invented: --
"I will now," says the Friar, "mention some of the wonderful works of
art and nature in which there is nothing of magic, and which magic
could not perform. Instruments may be made by which the largest
ships, with only one man guiding them, will be carried with greater
velocity than if they were full of sailors. Chariots may be
constructed that will move with incredible rapidity, without the help
of animals. Instruments of flying may be formed, in which a man,
sitting at his ease and meditating on any subject, may beat the air
with his artificial wings, after the manner of birds. A small
instrument may be made to raise or depress the greatest weights. An
instrument may be fabricated by which one man may draw a thousand men
to him by force and against their will; as also machines which will
enable men to walk at the bottom of seas or rivers without danger."
It is possible that Friar Bacon derived his knowledge of the powers
which he thus described from the traditions handed down of former
inventions which had been neglected and allowed to fall into
oblivion; for before the invention of printing, which enabled the
results of investigation and experience to be treasured up in books,
there was great risk of the inventions of one age being lost to the
succeeding generations. Yet Disraeli the elder is of opinion that the
Romans had invented printing without being aware of it; or perhaps
the senate dreaded the inconveniences attending its use, and did not
care to deprive a large body of scribes of their employment. They
even used stereotypes, or immovable printing-types, to stamp
impressions on their pottery, specimens of which still exist. In
China the art of printing is of great antiquity. Lithography was well
known in Germany, by the very name which it still bears, nearly three
hundred years before Senefelder reinvented it; and specimens of the
ancient art are yet to be seen in the Royal Museum at Munich.*
[footnote...
EDOUARD FOURNIER, Vieux-Neuf, i. 339.
...]
Steam-locomotion by sea and land, had long been dreamt of and
attempted. Blasco de Garay made his experiment in the harbour of
Barcelona as early as 1543; Denis Papin made a similar attempt at
Cassel in 1707; but it was not until Watt had solved the problem of
the steam-engine that the idea of the steam-boat could be developed
in practice, which was done by Miller of Dalswinton in 1788. Sages
and poets have frequently foreshadowed inventions of great social
moment. Thus Dr. Darwin's anticipation of the locomotive, in his
Botanic Garden, published in 1791, before any locomotive had been
invented, might almost be regarded as prophetic:
Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, and drive the rapid car.
Denis Papin first threw out the idea of atmospheric locomotion; and
Gauthey, another Frenchman, in 1782 projected a method of conveying
parcels and merchandise by subterraneous tubes,*
[footnote...
Memoires de l' Academie des Sciences, 6 Feb. 1826.
...]
after the method recently patented and brought into operation by the
London Pneumatic Despatch Company. The balloon was an ancient Italian
invention, revived by Mongolfier long after the original had been
forgotten. Even the reaping machine is an old invention revived. Thus
Barnabe Googe, the translator of a book from the German entitled 'The
whole Arte and Trade of Husbandrie,' published in 1577, in the reign
of Elizabeth, speaks of the reaping-machine as a worn-out
invention--a thing "which was woont to be used in France. The device
was a lowe kinde of carre with a couple of wheeles, and the frunt
armed with sharpe syckles, whiche, forced by the beaste through the
corne, did cut down al before it. This tricke," says Googe, "might be
used in levell and champion countreys; but with us it wolde make but
ill-favoured woorke."*
[footnote...
Farmer's Magazine, 1817, No. ixxi. 291.
...]
The Thames Tunnel was thought an entirely new manifestation of
engineering genius; but the tunnel under the Euphrates at ancient
Babylon, and that under the wide mouth of the harbour at Marseilles
(a much more difficult work), show that the ancients were beforehand
with us in the art of tunnelling. Macadamized roads are as old as the
Roman empire; and suspension bridges, though comparatively new in
Europe, have been known in China for centuries.
There is every reason to believe--indeed it seems clear that the
Romans knew of gunpowder, though they only used it for purposes of
fireworks; while the secret of the destructive Greek fire has been
lost altogether. When gunpowder came to be used for purposes of war,
invention busied itself upon instruments of destruction. When
recently examining the Museum of the Arsenal at Venice, we were
surprised to find numerous weapons of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries embodying the most recent English improvements in arms,
such as revolving pistols, rifled muskets, and breech-loading cannon.
The latter, embodying Sir William Armstrong's modem idea, though in a
rude form, had been fished up from the bottom of the Adriatic, where
the ship armed with them had been sunk hundreds of years ago. Even
Perkins's steam-gun was an old invention revived by Leonardo da Vinci
and by him attributed to Archimedes.*
[footnote...
Vieux-Neuf, i. 228; Inventa Nova-Antiqua, 742.
...]
The Congreve rocket is said to have an Eastern origin, Sir William
Congreve having observed its destructive effects when employed by the
forces under Tippoo Saib in the Mahratta war, on which he adopted and
improved the missile, and brought out the invention as his own.
Coal-gas was regularly used by the Chinese for lighting purposes long
before it was known amongst us. Hydropathy was generally practised by
the Romans, who established baths wherever they went. Even chloroform
is no new thing. The use of ether as an anaesthetic was known to
Albertus Magnus, who flourished in the thirteenth century; and in his
works he gives a recipe for its preparation. In 1681 Denis Papin
published his Traite des Operations sans Douleur, showing that he had
discovered methods of deadening pain. But the use of anaesthetics is
much older than Albertus Magnus or Papin; for the ancients had their
nepenthe and mandragora; the Chinese their mayo, and the Egyptians
their hachisch (both preparations of Cannabis Indica), the effects of
which in a great measure resemble those of chloroform. What is
perhaps still more surprising is the circumstance that one of the
most elegant of recent inventions, that of sun-painting by the
daguerreotype, was in the fifteenth century known to Leonardo da
Vinci,*
[footnote...
Vieux-Neuf, i. 19. See also Inventa Nova-Antiqua, 803.
...]
whose skill as an architect and engraver, and whose accomplishments
as a chemist and natural philosopher, have been almost entirely
overshadowed by his genius as a painter.*
[footnote...
Mr. Hallam, in his Introduction to the History of Europe, pronounces
the following remarkable eulogium on this extraordinary genius: --
"If any doubt could be harboured, not only as to the right of
Leonardo da Vinci to stand as 'the first name of the fifteenth
century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality in so
many discoveries, which probably no one man, especially in such
circumstances, has ever made, it must be on an hypothesis not very
untenable, that some parts of physical science had already attained a
height which mere books do not record." "Unpublished MSS. by Leonado
contain discoveries and anticipations of discoveries," says Mr.
Hallam, "within the compass of a few pages, so as to strike us with
something like the awe of preternatural knowledge."
...]
The idea, thus early born, lay in oblivion until 1760, when the
daguerreotype was again clearly indicated in a book published in
Paris, written by a certain Tiphanie de la Roche, under the
anagrammatic title of Giphantie. Still later, at the beginning of the
present century, we find Thomas Wedgwood, Sir Humphry Davy, and James
Watt, making experiments on the action of light upon nitrate of
silver; and only within the last few months a silvered copper-plate
has been found amongst the old household lumber of Matthew Boulton
(Watt's partner), having on it a representation of the old premises
at Soho, apparently taken by some such process.*
[footnote...
The plate is now to be seen at the Museum of Patents at South
Kensington. In the account which has been published of the above
discovery it is stated that "an old man of ninety (recently dead or
still alive) recollected, or recollects, that Watt and others used to
take portraits of people in a dark (?) room; and there is a letter
extant of Sir William Beechey, begging the Lunar Society to desist
from these experiments, as, were the process to succeed, it would
ruin portrait-painting."
...]
In like manner the invention of the electric telegraph, supposed to
be exclusively modern, was clearly indicated by Schwenter in his
Delasements Physico-Mathematiques, published in 1636; and he there
pointed out how two individuals could communicate with each other by
means of the magnetic needle. A century later, in 1746, Le Monnier
exhibited a series of experiments in the Royal Gardens at Paris,
showing how electricity could be transmitted through iron wire 950
fathoms in length; and in 1753 we find one Charles Marshall
publishing a remarkable description of the electric telegraph in the
Scots Magazine, under the title of 'An expeditions Method of
conveying Intelligence.' Again, in 1760, we find George Louis Lesage,
professor of mathematics at Geneva, promulgating his invention of an
electric telegraph, which he eventually completed and set to work in
1774. This instrument was composed of twenty-four metallic wires,
separate from each other and enclosed in a non-conducting substance.
Each wire ended in a stalk mounted with a little ball of elder-wood
suspended by a silk thread. When a stream of electricity, no matter
how slight., was sent through the wire, the elder-ball at the
opposite end was repelled, such movement designating some letter of
the alphabet. A few years later we find Arthur Young, in his Travels
in France, describing a similar machine invented by a M. Lomond of
Paris, the action of which he also describes.*
[footnote...
"l6th Oct.l787. In the evening to M. Lomond, a very ingenious and
inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement of the jenny for
spinning cotton. Common machines are said to make too hard a thread
for certain fabrics, but this forms it loose and spongy. In
electricity he has made a remarkable discovery: you write two or
three words on a paper; he takes it with him into a room, and turns a
machine inclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an
electrometer, a small fine pith ball; a wire connects with a similar
cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment; and his wife, by
remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the
words they indicate; from which it appears that he has formed an
alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in
the effect, a correspondence might be carried on at any distance:
within and without a besieged town, for instance; or for a purpose
much more worthy, and a thousand times more harmless, between two
lovers prohibited or prevented from any better connexion. Whatever
the use may be, the invention is beautiful."--Arthur Young's Travels
in France in 1787-8-9. London, 1792, 4to. ed. p. 65.
...]
In these and similar cases, though the idea was born and the model of
the invention was actually made, it still waited the advent of the
scientific mechanical inventor who should bring it to perfection, and
embody it in a practical working form.
Some of the most valuable inventions have descended to us without the
names of their authors having been preserved. We are the inheritors
of an immense legacy of the results of labour and ingenuity, but we
know not the names of our benefactors. Who invented the watch as a
measurer of time? Who invented the fast and loose pulley? Who
invented the eccentric? Who, asks a mechanical inquirer,*
[footnote...
Mechanic's Magazine, 4th Feb. 1859.
...]
"invented the method of cutting screws with stocks and dies? Whoever
he might be, he was certainly a great benefactor of his species. Yet
(adds the writer) his name is not known, though the invention has
been so recent." This is not, however, the case with most modern
inventions, the greater number of which are more or less disputed.
Who was entitled to the merit of inventing printing has never yet been
determined. Weber and Senefelder both laid claim to the invention of
lithography, though it was merely an old German art revived. Even the
invention of the penny-postage system by Sir Rowland Hill is
disputed; Dr. Gray of the British Museum claiming to be its inventor,
and a French writer alleging it to be an old French invention.*
[footnote...
A writer in the Monde says: --"The invention of postage-stamps. is far
from being so modern as is generally supposed. A postal regulation in
France of the year 1653, which has recently come to light, gives
notice of the creation of pre-paid tickets to be used for Paris
instead of money payments. These tickets were to be dated and
attached to the letter or wrapped round it, in such a manner that the
postman could remove and retain them on delivering the missive. These
franks were to be sold by the porters of the convents, prisons,
colleges, and other public institutions, at the price of one sou."
...]
The invention of the steamboat has been claimed on behalf of Blasco
de Garay, a Spaniard, Papin, a Frenchman, Jonathan Hulls, an
Englishman, and Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, a Scotchman. The
invention of the spinning machine has been variously attributed to
Paul, Wyatt, Hargreaves, Higley, and Arkwright. The invention of the
balance-spring was claimed by Huyghens, a Dutchman, Hautefeuille, a
Frenchman, and Hooke, an Englishman. There is scarcely a point of
detail in the locomotive but is the subject of dispute. Thus the
invention of the blast-pipe is claimed for Trevithick, George
Stephenson, Goldsworthy Gurney, and Timothy Hackworth; that of the
tubular boiler by Seguin, Stevens, Booth, and W. H. James; that of
the link-motion by John Gray, Hugh Williams, and Robert Stephenson.
Indeed many inventions appear to be coincident. A number of minds are
working at the same time in the same track, with the object of
supplying some want generally felt; and, guided by the same
experience, they not unfrequently arrive at like results. It has
sometimes happened that the inventors have been separated by great
distances, so that piracy on the part of either was impossible. Thus
Hadley and Godfrey almost simultaneously invented the quadrant, the
one in London, the other in Philadelphia; and the process of
electrotyping was invented at the same time by Mr. Spencer, a working
chemist at Liverpool, and by Professor Jacobi at St. Petersburg. The
safety-lamp was a coincident invention, made about the same time by
Sir Humphry Davy and George Stephenson; and perhaps a still more
remarkable instance of a coincident discovery was that of the planet
Neptune by Leverrier at Paris, and by Adams at Cambridge.
It is always difficult to apportion the due share of merit which
belongs to mechanical inventors, who are accustomed to work upon each
other's hints and suggestions, as well as by their own experience.
Some idea of this difficulty may be formed from the fact that, in the
course of our investigations as to the origin of the planing
machine--one of the most useful of modern tools--we have found that
it has been claimed on behalf of six inventors--Fox of Derby, Roberts
of Manchester, Matthew Murray of Leeds, Spring of Aberdeen, Clement
and George Rennie of London; and there may be other claimants of whom
we have not yet heard. But most mechanical inventions are of a very
composite character, and are led up to by the labour and the study of
a long succession of workers. Thus Savary and Newcomen led up to
Watt; Cugnot, Murdock, and Trevithick to the Stephensons; and
Maudslay to Clement, Roberts, Nasmyth, Whitworth, and many more
mechanical inventors. There is scarcely a process in the arts but has
in like manner engaged mind after mind in bringing it to perfection.
"There is nothing," says Mr. Hawkshaw, "really worth having that man
has obtained, that has not been the result of a combined and gradual
process of investigation. A gifted individual comes across some old
footmark, stumbles on a chain of previous research and inquiry. He
meets, for instance, with a machine, the result of much previous
labour; he modifies it, pulls it to pieces, constructs and
reconstructs it, and by further trial and experiment he arrives at
the long sought-for result."*
[footnote...
Inaugural Address delivered before the Institution of Civil
Engineers, l4th Jan. 1862.
...]
But the making of the invention is not the sole difficulty. It is one
thing to invent, said Sir Marc Brunel, and another thing to make the
invention work. Thus when Watt, after long labour and study, had
brought his invention to completion, he encountered an obstacle which
has stood in the way of other inventors, and for a time prevented the
introduction of their improvements, if not led to their being laid
aside and abandoned. This was the circumstance that the machine
projected was so much in advance of the mechanical capability of the
age that it was with the greatest difficulty it could be executed.
When labouring upon his invention at Glasgow, Watt was baffled and
thrown into despair by the clumsiness and incompetency of his
workmen. Writing to Dr. Roebuck on one occasion, he said, "You ask
what is the principal hindrance in erecting engines? It is always the
smith-work." His first cylinder was made by a whitesmith, of hammered
iron soldered together, but having used quicksilver to keep the
cylinder air-tight, it dropped through the inequalities into the
interior, and "played the devil with the solder." Yet, inefficient
though the whitesmith was, Watt could ill spare him, and we find him
writing to Dr. Roebuck almost in despair, saying, "My old white-iron
man is dead!" feeling his loss to be almost irreparable. His next
cylinder was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that it
proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept steam tight,
notwithstanding the various expedients which were adopted of stuffing
it with paper, cork, putty, pasteboard, and old hat. Even after Watt
had removed to Birmingham, and he had the assistance of Boulton's
best workmen, Smeaton expressed the opinion, when he saw the engine
at work, that notwithstanding the excellence of the invention, it
could never be brought into general use because of the difficulty of
getting its various parts manufactured with sufficient precision. For
a long time we find Watt, in his letters, complaining to his partner
of the failure of his engines through "villainous bad workmanship."
Sometimes the cylinders, when cast, were found to be more than an
eighth of an inch wider at one end than the other; and under such
circumstances it was impossible the engine could act with precision.
Yet better work could not be had. First-rate workmen in machinery did
not as yet exist; they were only in process of education. Nearly
everything had to be done by hand. The tools used were of a very
imperfect kind. A few ill-constructed lathes, with some drills and
boring-machines of a rude sort, constituted the principal furniture
of the workshop. Years after, when Brunel invented his
block-machines, considerable time elapsed before he could find
competent mechanics to construct them, and even after they had been
constructed he had equal difficulty in finding competent hands to
work them.*
[footnote...
BEAMISH'S Memoir of Sir I. M. Brunel, 79, 80.
...]
Watt endeavoured to remedy the defect by keeping certain sets of
workmen to special classes of work, allowing them to do nothing else.
Fathers were induced to bring up their sons at the same bench with
themselves, and initiate them in the dexterity which they had
acquired by experience; and at Soho it was not unusual for the same
precise line of work to be followed by members of the same family for
three generations. In this way as great a degree of accuracy of a
mechanical kind was arrived at was practicable under the
circumstances. But notwithstanding all this care, accuracy of fitting
could not be secured so long as the manufacture of steam-engines was
conducted mainly by hand. There was usually a considerable waste of
steam, which the expedients of chewed paper and greased hat packed
outside the piston were insufficient to remedy; and it was not until
the invention of automatic machine-tools by the mechanical engineers
about to be mentioned, that the manufacture of the steam-engine
became a matter of comparative ease and certainty. Watt was compelled
to rest satisfied with imperfect results, arising from imperfect
workmanship. Thus, writing to Dr. Small respecting a cylinder 18
inches in diameter, he said, "at the worst place the long diameter
exceeded the short by only three-eighths of an inch." How different
from the state of things at this day, when a cylinder five feet wide
will be rejected as a piece of imperfect workmanship if it be found
to vary in any part more than the 80th part of an inch in diameter!
Not fifty years since it was a matter of the utmost difficulty to set
an engine to work, and sometimes of equal difficulty to keep it
going. Though fitted by competent workmen, it often would not go at
all. Then the foreman of the factory at which it was made was sent
for, and he would almost live beside the engine for a month or more;
and after easing her here and screwing her up there, putting in a new
part and altering an old one, packing the piston and tightening the
valves, the machine would at length begot to work.*
[footnote...
There was the same clumsiness in all kinds of mill-work before the
introduction of machine-tools. We have heard of a piece of machinery
of the old school, the wheels of which, when set to work, made such a
clatter that the owner feared the engine would fall to pieces. The
foreman who set it agoing, after working at it until he was almost in
despair, at last gave it up, saving, "I think we had better leave the
cogs to settle their differences with one another: they will grind
themselves right in time!"
...]
Now the case is altogether different. The perfection of modern
machine-tools is such that the utmost possible precision is secured,
and the mechanical engineer can calculate on a degree of exactitude
that does not admit of a deviation beyond the thousandth part of an
inch. When the powerful oscillating engines of the 'Warrior' were put
on board that ship, the parts, consisting of some five thousand
separate pieces, were brought from the different workshops of the
Messrs. Penn and Sons, where they had been made by workmen who knew
not the places they were to occupy, and fitted together with such
precision that so soon as the steam was raised and let into the
cylinders, the immense machine began as if to breathe and move like a
living creature, stretching its huge arms like a new-born giant, and
then, after practising its strength a little and proving its
soundness in body and limb, it started off with the power of above a
thousand horses to try its strength in breasting the billows of the
North Sea.
Such are among the triumphs of modern mechanical engineering, due in
a great measure to the perfection of the tools by means of which all
works in metal are now fashioned. These tools are themselves among
the most striking results of the mechanical invention of the day.
They are automata of the most perfect kind, rendering the engine and
machine-maker in a great measure independent of inferior workmen. For
the machine tools have no unsteady hand, are not careless nor clumsy,
do not work by rule of thumb, and cannot make mistakes. They will
repeat their operations a thousand times without tiring, or varying
one hair's breadth in their action; and will turn out, without
complaining, any quantity of work, all of like accuracy and finish.
Exercising as they do so remarkable an influence on the development
of modem industry, we now propose, so far as the materials at our
disposal will admit, to give an account of their principal inventors,
beginning with the school of Bramah.
CHAPTER XI.
JOSEPH BRAMAH.
"The great Inventor is one who has walked forth upon the industrial
world, not from universities, but from hovels; not as clad in silks
and decked with honours, but as clad in fustian and grimed with soot
and oil."--ISAAC TAYLOR, Ultimate Civilization.
The inventive faculty is so strong in some men that it may be said to
amount to a passion, and cannot be restrained. The saying that the
poet is born, not made, applies with equal force to the inventor,
who, though indebted like the other to culture and improved
opportunities, nevertheless invents and goes on inventing mainly to
gratify his own instinct. The inventor, however, is not a creator
like the poet, but chiefly a finder-out. His power consists in a
great measure in quick perception and accurate observation, and in
seeing and foreseeing the effects of certain mechanical combinations.
He must possess the gift of insight, as well as of manual dexterity,
combined with the indispensable qualities of patience and
perseverance,--for though baffled, as he often is, he must be ready
to rise up again unconquered even in the moment of defeat. This is
the stuff of which the greatest inventors have been made. The subject
of the following memoir may not be entitled to take rank as a
first-class inventor, though he was a most prolific one; but, as the
founder of a school from which proceeded some of the most
distinguished mechanics of our time, he is entitled to a prominent
place in this series of memoirs.
Joseph Bramah was born in 1748 at the village of Stainborough, near
Barnsley in Yorkshire, where his father rented a small farm under
Lord Strafford. Joseph was the eldest of five children, and was early
destined to follow the plough. After receiving a small amount of
education at the village school, he was set to work upon the farm.
From an early period he showed signs of constructive skill. When a
mere boy, he occupied his leisure hours in making musical
instruments, and he succeeded in executing some creditable pieces of
work with very imperfect tools. A violin, which he made out of a
solid block of wood, was long preserved as a curiosity. He was so
fortunate as to make a friend of the village blacksmith, whose smithy
he was in the practice of frequenting. The smith was an ingenious
workman, and, having taken a liking for the boy, he made sundry tools
for him out of old files and razor blades; and with these his fiddle
and other pieces of work were mainly executed.
Joseph might have remained a ploughman for life, but for an accident
which happened to his right ankle at the age of 16, which unfitted
him for farm-work. While confined at home disabled he spent his time
in carving and making things in wood; and then it occurred to him
that, though he could not now be a ploughman, he might be a mechanic.
When sufficiently recovered, he was accordingly put apprentice to one
Allott, the village carpenter, under whom he soon became an expert
workman. He could make ploughs, window-frames, or fiddles, with equal
dexterity. He also made violoncellos, and was so fortunate as to sell
one of his making for three guineas, which is still reckoned a good
instrument. He doubtless felt within him the promptings of ambition,
such as every good workman feels, and at all events entertained the
desire of rising in his trade. When his time was out, he accordingly
resolved to seek work in London, whither he made the journey on foot.
He soon found work at a cabinet-maker's, and remained with him for
some time, after which he set up business in a very small way on his
own account. An accident which happened to him in the course of his
daily work, again proved his helper, by affording him a degree of
leisure which he at once proceeded to turn to some useful account.
Part of his business consisted in putting up water-closets, after a
method invented or improved by a Mr. Allen; but the article was still
very imperfect; and Bramah had long resolved that if he could only
secure some leisure for the purpose, he would contrive something that
should supersede it altogether. A severe fall which occurred to him
in the course of his business, and laid him up, though very much
against his will, now afforded him the leisure which he desired, and
he proceeded to make his proposed invention. He took out a patent for
it in 1778, describing himself in the specification as "of Cross
Court, Carnaby Market [Golden Square], Middlesex, Cabinet Maker." He
afterwards removed to a shop in Denmark Street, St. Giles's, and
while there he made a further improvement in his invention by the
addition of a water cock, which he patented in 1783. The merits of
the machine were generally recognised, and before long it came into
extensive use, continuing to be employed, with but few alterations,
until the present day. His circumstances improving with the increased
use of his invention, Bramah proceeded to undertake the manufacture
of the pumps, pipes, &c., required for its construction; and,
remembering his friend the Yorkshire blacksmith, who had made his
first tools for him out of the old files and razor-blades, he sent
for him to London to take charge of his blacksmith's department, in
which he proved a most useful assistant. As usual, the patent was
attacked by pirates so soon as it became productive, and Bramah was
under the necessity, on more than one occasion, of defending his
property in the invention, in which he was completely successful.
We next find Bramah turning his attention to the invention of a lock
that should surpass all others then known. The locks then in use were
of a very imperfect character, easily picked by dexterous thieves,
against whom they afforded little protection. Yet locks are a very
ancient invention, though, as in many other cases, the art of making
them seems in a great measure to have become lost, and accordingly
had to be found out anew. Thus the tumbler lock--which consists in
the use of moveable impediments acted on by the proper key only, as
contradistinguished from the ordinary ward locks, where the
impediments are fixed-- appears to have been well known to the
ancient Egyptians, the representation of such a lock being found
sculptured among the bas-reliefs which decorate the great temple at
Karnak. This kind of lock was revived, or at least greatly improved,
by a Mr. Barron in 1774, and it was shortly after this time that
Bramah directed his attention to the subject. After much study and
many experiments, he contrived a lock more simple, more serviceable,
as well as more secure, than Barron's, as is proved by the fact that
it has stood the test of nearly eighty years' experience,*
[footnote...
The lock invented by Bramah was patented in 1784. Mr. Bramah himself
fully set forth the specific merits of the invention in his
Dissertation on the Construction of Locks. In a second patent, taken
out by him in 1798, he amended his first with the object of
preventing the counterfeiting of keys, and suspending the office of
the lock until the key was again in the possession of the owner. This
he effected by enabling the owner so to alter the sliders as to
render the lock inaccessible to such key if applied by any other
person but himself, or until the sliders had been rearranged so as to
admit of its proper action. We may mention in passing that the
security of Bramah's locks depends on the doctrine of combinations,
or multiplication of numbers into each other, which is known to
increase in the most rapid proportion. Thus, a lock of five slides
admits of 3,000 variations, while one of eight will have no less than
1,935,360 changes; in other words, that number of attempts at making
a key, or at picking it, may be made before it can be opened.
...]
and still holds its ground. For a long time, indeed, Bramah's lock
was regarded as absolutely inviolable, and it remained unpicked for
sixty-seven years until Hobbs the American mastered it in 1851. A
notice had long been exhibited in Bramah's shop-window in Piccadilly,
offering 200L. to any one who should succeed in picking the patent
lock. Many tried, and all failed, until Hobbs succeeded, after
sixteen days' manipulation of it with various elaborate instruments.
But the difficulty with which the lock was picked showed that, for
all ordinary purposes, it might be pronounced impregnable.
The new locks were machines of the most delicate kind, the action of
which depended in a great measure upon the precision with which the
springs, sliders, levers, barrels, and other parts were finished. The
merits of the invention being generally admitted, there was a
considerable demand for the locks, and the necessity thus arose for
inventing a series of original machine-tools to enable them to be
manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet the demand. It is
probable, indeed, that, but for the contrivance of such tools, the
lock could never have come in to general use, as the skill of
hand-workmen, no matter how experienced, could not have been relied
upon for turning out the article with that degree of accuracy and
finish in all the parts which was indispensable for its proper
action. In conducting the manufacture throughout, Bramah was greatly
assisted by Henry Maudslay, his foreman, to whom he was in no small
degree indebted for the contrivance of those tool-machines which
enabled him to carry on the business of lock-making with advantage
and profit.
Bramah's indefatigable spirit of invention was only stimulated to
fresh efforts by the success of his lock; and in the course of a few
years we find him entering upon a more important and original line of
action than he had yet ventured on. His patent of 1785 shows the
direction of his studies. Watt had invented his steam-engine, which
was coming into general use; and the creation of motive-power in
various other forms became a favourite subject of inquiry with
inventors. Bramah's first invention with this object was his
Hydrostatic Machine, founded on the doctrine of the equilibrium of
pressure in fluids, as exhibited in the well known 'hydrostatic
paradox.' In his patent of 1785, in which he no longer describes
himself as Cabinet maker, but 'Engine maker' of Piccadilly, he
indicated many inventions, though none of them came into practical
use,--such as a Hydrostatical Machine and Boiler, and the application
of the power produced by them to the drawing of carriages, and the
propelling of ships by a paddle-wheel fixed in the stern of the
vessel, of which drawings are annexed to the specification; but it
was not until 1795 that he patented his Hydrostatic or Hydraulic
Press.
Though the principle on which the Hydraulic Press is founded had long
been known, and formed the subject of much curious speculation, it
remained unproductive of results until a comparatively recent period,
when the idea occurred of applying it to mechanical purposes. A
machine of the kind was indeed proposed by Pascal, the eminent
philosopher, in 1664, but more than a century elapsed before the
difficulties in the way of its construction were satisfactorily
overcome. Bramah's machine consists of a large and massive cylinder,
in which there works an accurately-fitted solid piston or plunger. A
forcing-pump of very small bore communicates with the bottom of the
cylinder, and by the action of the pump-handle or lever, exceeding
small quantities of water are forced in succession beneath the piston
in the large cylinder, thus gradually raising it up, and compressing
bodies whose bulk or volume it is intended to reduce. Hence it is
most commonly used as a packing-press, being superior to every other
contrivance of the kind that has yet been invented; and though
exercising a prodigious force, it is so easily managed that a boy can
work it. The machine has been employed on many extraordinary
occasions in preference to other methods of applying power. Thus
Robert Stephenson used it to hoist the gigantic tubes of the
Britannia Bridge into their bed,*
[footnote...
The weight raised by a single press at the Britannia Bridge was 1144
tons.
...]
and Brunel to launch the Great Eastern steamship from her cradles. It
has also been used to cut bars of iron, to draw the piles driven in
forming coffer dams, and to wrench up trees by the roots, all of
which feats it accomplishes with comparative ease.
The principal difficulty experienced in constructing the hydraulic
press before the time of Bramah arose from the tremendous pressure
exercised by the pump, which forced the water through between the
solid piston and the side of the cylinder in which it worked in such
quantities as to render the press useless for practical purposes.
Bramah himself was at first completely baffled by this difficulty. It
will be observed that the problem was to secure a joint sufficiently
free to let the piston slide up through it, and at the same time so
water-tight as to withstand the internal force of the pump. These two
conditions seemed so conflicting that Bramah was almost at his wit's
end, and for a time despaired of being able to bring the machine to a
state of practical efficiency. None but those who have occupied
themselves in the laborious and often profitless task of helping the
world to new and useful machines can have any idea of the tantalizing
anxiety which arises from the apparently petty stumbling-blocks which
for awhile impede the realization of a great idea in mechanical
invention. Such was the case with the water-tight arrangement in the
hydraulic press. In his early experiments, Bramah tried the expedient
of the ordinary stuffing-box for the purpose of securing the required
water tightness' That is, a coil of hemp on leather washers was
placed in a recess, so as to fit tightly round the moving ram or
piston, and it was further held in its place by means of a
compressing collar forced hard down by strong screws. The defect of
this arrangement was, that, even supposing the packing could be made
sufficiently tight to resist the passage of the water urged by the
tremendous pressure from beneath, such was the grip which the
compressed material took of the ram of the press, that it could not
be got to return down after the water pressure had been removed.
In this dilemma, Bramah's ever-ready workman, Henry Maudslay, came to
his rescue. The happy idea occurred to him of employing the pressure
of the water itself to give the requisite water-tightness to the
collar. It was a flash of common-sense genius-- beautiful through its
very simplicity. The result was Maudslay's self-tightening collar,
the action of which a few words of description will render easily
intelligible. A collar of sound leather, the convex side upwards and
the concave downwards, was fitted into the recess turned out in the
neck of the press-cylinder, at the place formerly used as a
stuffing-box . Immediately on the high pressure water being turned
on, it forced its way into the leathern concavity and 'flapped out'
the bent edges of the collar; and, in so doing, caused the leather to
apply itself to the surface of the rising ram with a degree of
closeness and tightness so as to seal up the joint the closer exactly
in proportion to the pressure of the water in its tendency to escape.
On the other hand, the moment the pressure was let off and the ram
desired to return, the collar collapsed and the ram slid gently down,
perfectly free and yet perfectly water-tight. Thus, the former
tendency of the water to escape by the side of the piston was by this
most simple and elegant self-adjusting contrivance made instrumental
to the perfectly efficient action of the machine; and from the moment
of its invention the hydraulic press took its place as one of the
grandest agents for exercising power in a concentrated and tranquil
form.
Bramah continued his useful labours as an inventor for many years.
His study of the principles of hydraulics, in the course of his
invention of the press, enabled him to introduce many valuable
improvements in pumping-machinery. By varying the form of the piston
and cylinder he was enabled to obtain a rotary motion,*
[footnote...
Dr. Thomas Young, in his article on Bramah in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, describes the "rotative principle" as consisting in
making the part which acts immediately on the water in the form of a
slider, "sweeping round a cylindrical cavity, and kept in its place
by means of an eccentric groove; a contrivance which was probably
Bramah's own invention, but which had been before described, in a
form nearly similar, by Ramelli, Canalleri, Amontons, Prince Rupert,
and Dr. Hooke.
...]
which he advantageously applied to many purposes. Thus he adopted it
in the well known fire-engine, the use of which has almost become
universal. Another popular machine of his is the beer-pump, patented
in 1797, by which the publican is enabled to raise from the casks in
the cellar beneath, the various liquors sold by him over the counter.
He also took out several patents for the improvement of the
steam-engine, in which, however, Watt left little room for other
inventors; and hence Bramah seems to have entertained a grudge
against Watt, which broke out fiercely in the evidence given by him
in the case of Boulton and Watt versus Hornblower and Maberly, tried
in December 1796. On that occasion his temper seems to have got the
better of his judgment, and he was cut short by the judge in the
attempt which he then made to submit the contents of the pamphlet
subsequently published by him in the form of a letter to the judge
before whom the case was tried.*
[footnote...
A Letter to the Right Hon. Sir James Eyre, Lord Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas, on the subject of the cause Boulton and
Watt v. Hornblower and Maberly, for Infringement on Mr. Watt's Patent
for an Improvement of the Steam Engine. By Joseph Bramah, Engineer.
London, 1797.
...]
In that pamphlet he argued that Watt's specification had no definite
meaning; that it was inconsistent and absurd, and could not possibly
be understood; that the proposal to work steam-engines on the
principle of condensation was entirely fallacious; that Watt's method
of packing the piston was "monstrous stupidity;" that the engines of
Newcomen (since entirely superseded) were infinitely superior, in all
respects, to those of Watt;-- conclusions which, we need scarcely
say, have been refuted by the experience of nearly a century.
On the expiry of Boulton and Watt's patent, Bramah introduced several
valuable improvements in the details of the condensing engine, which
had by that time become an established power,--the most important of
which was his "four-way cock," which he so arranged as to revolve
continuously instead of alternately, thus insuring greater precision
with considerably less wear of parts. In the same patent by which he
secured this invention in 1801, he also proposed sundry improvements
in the boilers, as well as modifications in various parts of the
engine, with the object of effecting greater simplicity and
directness of action.
In his patent of 1802, we find Bramah making another great stride in
mechanical invention, in his tools "for producing straight, smooth,
and parallel surfaces on wood and other materials requiring truth, in
a manner much more expeditious and perfect than can be performed by
the use of axes, saws, planes, and other cutting instruments used by
hand in the ordinary way." The specification describes the object of
the invention to be the saving of manual labour, the reduction in the
cost of production, and the superior character of the work executed.
The tools were fixed on frames driven by machinery, some moving in a
rotary direction round an upright shaft, some with the shaft
horizontal like an ordinary wood-turning lathe, while in others the
tools were fixed on frames sliding in stationary grooves. A
wood-planing machine*
[footnote...
Sir Samuel Bentham and Marc Isambard Brunel subsequently
distinguished themselves by the invention of wood-working machinery,
full accounts of which will be found in the Memoirs of the former by
Lady Bentham, and in the Life of the latter by Mr. Beamish.
...]
was constructed on the principle of this invention at Woolwich
Arsenal, where it still continues in efficient use. The axis of the
principal shaft was supported on a piston in a vessel of oil, which
considerably diminished the friction, and it was so contrived as to
be accurately regulated by means of a small forcing-pump. Although
the machinery described in the patent was first applied to working on
wood, it was equally applicable to working on metals; and in his own
shops at Pimlico Bramah employed a machine with revolving cutters to
plane metallic surfaces for his patent locks and other articles. He
also introduced a method of turning spherical surfaces, either convex
or concave, by a tool moveable on an axis perpendicular to that of
the lathe; and of cutting out concentric shells by fixing in a
similar manner a curved tool of nearly the same form as that employed
by common turners for making bowls. "In fact," says Mr. Mallet,
"Bramah not only anticipated, but carried out upon a tolerably large
scale in his own works--for the construction of the patent hydraulic
press, the water-closet, and his locks--a surprisingly large
proportion of our modern tools."*
[footnote...
"Record of the International Exhibition, 1862." Practical Mechanic's
Journal, 293.
...]
His remarkable predilection in favour of the use of hydraulic
arrangements is displayed in his specification of the surface-planing
machinery, which includes a method of running pivots entirely on a
fluid, and raising and depressing them at pleasure by means of a
small forcing-pump and stop-cock,--though we are not aware that any
practical use has ever been made of this part of the invention.
Bramah's inventive genius displayed itself alike in small things as
in great--in a tap wherewith to draw a glass of beer, and in a
hydraulic machine capable of tearing up a tree by the roots. His
powers of contrivance seemed inexhaustible, and were exercised on the
most various subjects. When any difficulty occurred which mechanical
ingenuity was calculated to remove, recourse was usually had to
Bramah, and he was rarely found at a loss for a contrivance to
overcome it. Thus, when applied to by the Bank of England in 1806, to
construct a machine for more accurately and expeditiously printing
the numbers and date lines on Bank notes, he at once proceeded to
invent the requisite model, which he completed in the course of a
month. He subsequently brought it to great perfection the figures in
numerical succession being changed by the action of the machine
itself,--and it still continues in regular use. Its employment in the
Bank of England alone saved the labour of a hundred clerks; but its
chief value consisted in its greater accuracy, the perfect legibility
of the figures printed by it, and the greatly improved check which it
afforded.
We next find him occupying himself with inventions connected with the
manufacture of pens and paper. His little pen-making machine for
readily making quill pens long continued in use, until driven out by
the invention of the steel pen; but his patent for making paper by
machinery, though ingenious, like everything he did, does not seem to
have been adopted, the inventions of Fourdrinier and Donkin in this
direction having shortly superseded all others. Among his other minor
inventions may be mentioned his improved method of constructing and
sledging carriage-wheels, and his improved method of laying
water-pipes. In his specification of the last-mentioned invention, he
included the application of water-power to the driving of machinery
of every description, and for hoisting and lowering goods in docks
and warehouses,--since carried out in practice, though in a different
manner, by Sir William Armstrong.*
[footnote...
In this, as in other methods of employing power, the moderns had been
anticipated by the ancients; and though hydraulic machinery is a
comparatively recent invention in England, it had long been in use
abroad. Thus we find in Dr. Bright's Travels in Lower Hungary a full
description of the powerful hydraulic machinery invented by M. Holl,
Chief Engineer of the Imperial Mines, which had been in use since the
year 1749, in pumping water from a depth of 1800 feet, from the
silver and gold mines of Schemnitz and Kremnitz. A head of water was
collected by forming a reservoir along the mountain side, from which
it was conducted through water-tight cast-iron pipes erected
perpendicularly in the mine-shaft. About forty-five fathoms down, the
water descending through the pipe was forced by the weight of the
column above it into the bottom of a perpendicular cylinder, in which
it raised a water-tight piston. When forced up to a given point a
self-acting stop-cock shut off the pressure of the descending column,
while a self-acting valve enabled the water contained in the cylinder
to be discharged, on which the piston again descended, and the
process was repeated like the successive strokes of a steam-engine.
Pump-rods were attached to this hydraulic apparatus, which were
carried to the bottom of the shaft, and each worked a pump at
different levels, raising the water stage by stage to the level of
the main adit. The pumps of these three several stages each raised
1790 cubic feet of water from a depth of 600 feet in the hour. The
regular working of the machinery was aided by the employment of a
balance-beam connected by a chain with the head of the large piston
and pump-rods; and the whole of these powerful machines by means of
three of which as much as 789,840 gallons of water were pumped out of
the mines every 24 hours -- were set in operation and regulated
merely by the turning of a stopcock. It will be observed that the
arrangement thus briefly described was equally applicable to the
working of machinery of all kinds, cranes, &c., as well as pumps; and
it will be noted that, notwithstanding the ingenuity of Bramah,
Armstrong, and other eminent English mechanics, the Austrian engineer
Holl was thus decidedly beforehand with them in the practical
application of the principles of hydrostatics.
...]
In this, as in many other matters, Bramah shot ahead of the
mechanical necessities of his time; and hence many of his patents (of
which he held at one time more than twenty) proved altogether
profitless. His last patent, taken out in 1814, was for the
application of Roman cement to timber for the purpose of preventing
dry rot.
Besides his various mechanical pursuits, Bramah also followed to a
certain extent the profession of a civil engineer, though his more
urgent engagements rendered it necessary for him to refuse many
advantageous offers of employment in this line. He was, however, led
to carry out the new water-works at Norwich, between the years l790
and l793, in consequence of his having been called upon to give
evidence in a dispute between the corporation of that city and the
lessees, in the course of which he propounded plans which, it was
alleged, could not be carried out. To prove that they could be
carried out, and that his evidence was correct, he undertook the new
works, and executed them with complete success; besides demonstrating
in a spirited publication elicited by the controversy, the
insufficiency and incongruity of the plans which had been submitted
by the rival engineer.
For some time prior to his death Bramah had been employed in the
erection of several large machines in his works at Pimlico for sawing
stone and timber, to which he applied his hydraulic power with great
success. New methods of building bridges and canal-locks, with a
variety of other matters, were in an embryo state in his mind, but he
did not live to complete them. He was occupied in superintending the
action of his hydrostatic press at Holt Forest, in Hants--where
upwards of 300 trees of the largest dimensions were in a very short
time torn up by the roots,--when he caught a severe cold, which
settled upon his lungs, and his life was suddenly brought to a close
on the 9th of December, 1814, in his 66th year.
His friend, Dr. Cullen Brown,*
[footnote...
Dr. Brown published a brief memoir of his friend in the New Monthly
Magazine for April, 1815, which has been the foundation of all the
notices of Bramah's life that have heretofore appeared.
...]
has said of him, that Bramah was a man of excellent moral character,
temperate in his habits, of a pious turn of mind,*
[footnote...
Notwithstanding his well-known religious character, Bramah seems to
have fallen under the grievous displeasure of William Huntington,
S.S. (Sinner Saved), described by Macaulay in his youth as "a
worthless ugly lad of the name of Hunter," and in his manhood as
"that remarkable impostor" (Essays, 1 vol. ed. 529). It seems that
Huntington sought the professional services of Bramah when
re-edifying his chapel in 1793; and at the conclusion of the work,
the engineer generously sent the preacher a cheque for 8l. towards
defraying the necessary expenses. Whether the sum was less than
Huntington expected, or from whatever cause, the S.S. contemptuously
flung back the gift, as proceeding from an Arian whose religion was
"unsavoury," at the same time hurling at the giver a number of texts
conveying epithets of an offensive character. Bramah replied to the
farrago of nonsense, which he characterised as "unmannerly, absurd,
and illiterate that it must have been composed when the writer was
"intoxicated, mad, or under the influence of Lucifer," and he
threatened that unless Huntington apologised for his gratuitous
insults, he (Bramah) would assuredly expose him. The mechanician
nevertheless proceeded gravely to explain and defend his "profession
of faith," which was altogether unnecessary. On this Huntington
returned to the charge, and directed against the mechanic a fresh
volley of Scripture texts and phraseology, not without humour, if
profanity be allowable in controversy, as where he says, "Poor man!
he makes a good patent lock, but cuts a sad figure with the keys of
the Kingdom of Heaven!" "What Mr. Bramah is," says S.S., "In respect
to his character or conduct in life, as a man, a tradesman, a
neighbour, a gentleman, a husband, friend, master, or subject, I know
not. In all these characters he may shine as a comet for aught I
know; but he appears to me to be as far from any resemblance to a
poor penitent or broken-hearted sinner as Jannes, Jambres, or
Alexander the coppersmith!" Bramah rejoined by threatening to publish
his assailant's letters, but Huntington anticipated him in A Feeble
Dispute with a Wise and Learned Man, 8vo. London, 1793, in which,
whether justly or not, Huntington makes Bramah appear to murder the
king's English in the most barbarous manner.
...]
and so cheerful in temperament, that he was the life of every company
into which he entered. To much facility of expression he added the
most perfect independence of opinion; he was a benevolent and
affectionate man; neat and methodical in his habits, and knew well
how to temper liberality with economy. Greatly to his honour, he
often kept his workmen employed, solely for their sake, when
stagnation of trade prevented him disposing of the products of their
labour. As a manufacturer he was distinguished for his promptitude
and probity, and he was celebrated for the exquisite finish which he
gave to all his productions. In this excellence of workmanship, which
he was the first to introduce, he continued while he lived to be
unrivalled.
Bramah was deservedly honoured and admired as the first mechanical
genius of his time, and as the founder of the art of tool-making in
its highest branches. From his shops at Pimlico came Henry Maudslay,
Joseph Clement, and many more first-class mechanics, who carried the
mechanical arts to still higher perfection, and gave an impulse to
mechanical engineering, the effects of which are still felt in every
branch of industry.
The parish to which Bramah belonged was naturally proud of the
distinction he had achieved in the world, and commemorated his life
and career by a marble tablet erected by subscription to his memory,
in the parish church of Silkstone. In the churchyard are found the
tombstones of Joseph's father, brother, and other members of the
family; and we are informed that their descendants still occupy the
farm at Stainborough on which the great mechanician was born.
CHAPTER XII.
HENRY MAUDSLAY.
"The successful construction of all machinery depends on the
perfection of the tools employed; and whoever is a master in the arts
of tool-making possesses the key to the construction of all
machines..... The contrivance and construction of tools must
therefore ever stand at the head of the industrial arts."
--C. BABBAGE, Exposition of 1851.
Henry Maudslay was born at Woolwich towards the end of last century,
in a house standing in the court at the back of the Salutation Inn,
the entrance to which is nearly opposite the Arsenal gates. His
father was a native of Lancashire, descended from an old family of
the same name, the head of which resided at Mawdsley Hall near
Ormskirk at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The family were
afterwards scattered, and several of its members became workmen.
William Maudslay, the father of Henry, belonged to the neighbourhood
of Bolton, where he was brought up to the trade of a joiner. His
principal employment, while working at his trade in Lancashire,
consisted in making the wood framing of cotton machinery, in the
construction of which cast-iron had not yet been introduced. Having
got into some trouble in his neighbourhood, through some alleged
LIAISON, William enlisted in the Royal Artillery, and the corps to
which he belonged was shortly after sent out to the West Indies. He
was several times engaged in battle, and in his last action he was
hit by a musket-bullet in the throat. The soldier's stock which he
wore had a piece cut out of it by the ball, the direction of which
was diverted, and though severely wounded, his life was saved. He
brought home the stock and preserved it as a relic, afterwards
leaving it to his son. Long after, the son would point to the stock,
hung up against his wall, and say "But for that bit of leather there
would have been no Henry Maudslay." The wounded artilleryman was
invalided and sent home to Woolwich, the headquarters of his corps,
where he was shortly after discharged. Being a handy workman, he
sought and obtained employment at the Arsenal. He was afterwards
appointed a storekeeper in the Dockyard. It was during the former
stage of William Maudslay's employment at Woolwich, that the subject
of this memoir was born in the house in the court above mentioned, on
the 22nd of August, 1771.
The boy was early set to work. When twelve years old he was employed
as a "powder-monkey," in making and filling cartridges. After two
years, he was passed on to the carpenter's shop where his father
worked, and there he became acquainted with tools and the art of
working in wood and iron. From the first, the latter seems to have
had by far the greatest charms for him. The blacksmiths' shop was
close to the carpenters', and Harry seized every opportunity that
offered of plying the hammer, the file, and the chisel, in preference
to the saw and the plane. Many a cuff did the foreman of carpenters
give him for absenting himself from his proper shop and stealing off
to the smithy. His propensity was indeed so strong that, at the end
of a year, it was thought better, as he was a handy, clever boy, to
yield to his earnest desire to be placed in the smithy, and he was
removed thither accordingly in his fifteenth year.
His heart being now in his work, he made rapid progress, and soon
became an expert smith and metal worker. He displayed his skill
especially in forging light ironwork; and a favourite job of his was
the making of "Trivets" out of the solid, which only the "dab hands"
of the shop could do, but which he threw off with great rapidity in
first rate style. These "Trivets" were made out of Spanish iron bolts
--rare stuff, which, though exceedingly tough, forged like wax under
the hammer. Even at the close of his life, when he had acquired
eminent distinction as an inventor, and was a large employer of
skilled labour, he looked back with pride to the forging of his early
days in Woolwich Arsenal. He used to describe with much gusto, how
the old experienced hands, with whom he was a great favourite, would
crowd about him when forging his "Trivets," some of which may to this
day be in use among Woolwich housewives for supporting the
toast-plate before the bright fire against tea time. This was,
however, entirely contraband work, done "on the sly," and strictly
prohibited by the superintending officer, who used kindly to signal
his approach by blowing his nose in a peculiar manner, so that all
forbidden jobs might be put out of the way by the time he entered the
shop.
We have referred to Maudslay's early dexterity in trivet-making--a
circumstance trifling enough in itself--for the purpose of
illustrating the progress which he had made in a branch of his art of
the greatest importance in tool and machine making. Nothing pleased
him more in his after life than to be set to work upon an unusual
piece of forging, and to overcome, as none could do so cleverly as
he, the difficulties which it presented. The pride of art was as
strong in him as it must have been in the mediaeval smiths, who
turned out those beautiful pieces of workmanship still regarded as
the pride of our cathedrals and old mansions. In Maudslay's case, his
dexterity as a smith was eventually directed to machinery, rather
than ornamental work; though, had the latter been his line of labour,
we do not doubt that he would have reached the highest distinction.
The manual skill which our young blacksmith had acquired was such as
to give him considerable reputation in his craft, and he was spoken
of even in the London shops as one of the most dexterous hands in the
trade. It was this circumstance that shortly after led to his removal
from the smithy in Woolwich Arsenal to a sphere more suitable for the
development of his mechanical ability.
We have already stated in the preceding memoir, that Joseph Bramah
took out the first patent for his lock in 1784, and a second for its
improvement several years later; but notwithstanding the acknowledged
superiority of the new lock over all others, Bramah experienced the
greatest difficulty in getting it manufactured with sufficient
precision, and at such a price as to render it an article of
extensive commerce. This arose from the generally inferior character
of the workmanship of that day, as well as the clumsiness and
uncertainty of the tools then in use. Bramah found that even the best
manual dexterity was not to be trusted, and yet it seemed to be his
only resource; for machine-tools of a superior kind had not yet been
invented. In this dilemma he determined to consult an ingenious old
German artisan, then working with William Moodie, a general
blacksmith in Whitechapel. This German was reckoned one of the most
ingenious workmen in London at the time. Bramah had several long
interviews with him, with the object of endeavouring to solve the
difficult problem of how to secure precise workmanship in
lock-making. But they could not solve it; they saw that without
better tools the difficulty was insuperable; and then Bramah began to
fear that his lock would remain a mere mechanical curiosity, and be
prevented from coming into general use.
He was indeed sorely puzzled what next to do, when one of the
hammermen in Moodie's shop ventured to suggest that there was a young
man in the Woolwich Arsenal smithy, named Maudslay, who was so
ingenious in such matters that "nothing bet him," and he recommended
that Mr. Bramah should have a talk with him upon the subject of his
difficulty. Maudslay was at once sent for to Bramah's workshop, and
appeared before the lock-maker, a tall, strong, comely young fellow,
then only eighteen years old. Bramah was almost ashamed to lay his
case before such a mere youth; but necessity constrained him to try
all methods of accomplishing his object, and Maudslay's suggestions
in reply to his statement of the case were so modest, so sensible,
and as the result proved, so practical, that the master was
constrained to admit that the lad before him had an old head though
set on young shoulders. Bramah decided to adopt the youth's
suggestions, made him a present on the spot, and offered to give him
a job if he was willing to come and work in a town shop. Maudslay
gladly accepted the offer, and in due time appeared before Bramah to
enter upon his duties.
As Maudslay had served no regular apprenticeship, and was of a very
youthful appearance, the foreman of the shop had considerable doubts
as to his ability to take rank alongside his experienced hands. But
Maudslay soon set his master's and the foreman's mind at rest.
Pointing to a worn-out vice-bench, he said to Bramah, "Perhaps if I
can make that as good as new by six o'clock to-night, it will satisfy
your foreman that I am entitled to rank as a tradesman and take my
place among your men, even though I have not served a seven years'
apprenticeship." There was so much self-reliant ability in the
proposal, which was moreover so reasonable, that it was at once
acceded to. Off went Maudslay's coat, up went his shirt sleeves, and
to work he set with a will upon the old bench. The vice-jaws were
re-steeled "in no time," filed up, re-cut, all the parts cleaned and
made trim, and set into form again. By six o'clock, the old vice was
screwed up to its place, its jaws were hardened and "let down" to
proper temper, and the old bench was made to look so smart and neat
that it threw all the neighbouring benches into the shade! Bramah and
his foreman came round to see it, while the men of the shop looked
admiringly on. It was examined and pronounced "a first-rate job."
This diploma piece of work secured Maudslay's footing, and next
Monday morning he came on as one of the regular hands.
He soon took rank in the shop as a first-class workman. Loving his
art, he aimed at excellence in it, and succeeded. For it must be
understood that the handicraftsman whose heart is in his calling,
feels as much honest pride in turning out a piece of thoroughly good
workmanship, as the sculptor or the painter does in executing a
statue or a picture. In course of time, the most difficult and
delicate jobs came to be entrusted to Maudslay; and nothing gave him
greater pleasure than to be set to work upon an entirely new piece of
machinery. And thus he rose, naturally and steadily, from hand to
head work. For his manual dexterity was the least of his gifts. He
possessed an intuitive power of mechanical analysis and synthesis. He
had a quick eye to perceive the arrangements requisite to effect
given purposes; and whenever a difficulty arose, his inventive mind
set to work to overcome it.
His fellow-workmen were not slow to recognise his many admirable
qualities, of hand, mind, and heart; and he became not only the
favourite, but the hero of the shop. Perhaps he owed something to his
fine personal appearance. Hence on gala-days, when the men turned out
in procession, "Harry" was usually selected to march at their head
and carry the flag. His conduct as a son, also, was as admirable as
his qualities as a workman. His father dying shortly after Maudslay
entered Bramah's concern, he was accustomed to walk down to Woolwich
every Saturday night, and hand over to his mother, for whom he had
the tenderest regard, a considerable share of his week's wages, and
this he continued to do as long as she lived.
Notwithstanding his youth, he was raised from one post to another,
until he was appointed, by unanimous consent, the head foreman of the
works; and was recognised by all who had occasion to do business
there as "Bramah's right-hand man." He not only won the heart of his
master, but--what proved of far greater importance to him--he also
won the heart of his master's pretty housemaid, Sarah Tindel by name,
whom he married, and she went hand-in-hand with him through life, an
admirable "help meet," in every way worthy of the noble character of
the great mechanic. Maudslay was found especially useful by his
master in devising the tools for making his patent locks; and many
were the beautiful contrivances which he invented for the purpose of
ensuring their more accurate and speedy manufacture, with a minimum
degree of labour, and without the need of any large amount of manual
dexterity on the part of the workman. The lock was so delicate a
machine, that the identity of the several parts of which it was
composed was found to be an absolute necessity. Mere handicraft,
however skilled, could not secure the requisite precision of
workmanship; nor could the parts be turned out in sufficient quantity
to meet any large demand. It was therefore requisite to devise
machine-tools which should not blunder, nor turn out imperfect
work;-- machines, in short, which should be in a great measure
independent of the want of dexterity of individual workmen, but which
should unerringly labour in their prescribed track, and do the work
set them, even in the minutest details, after the methods designed by
their inventor. In this department Maudslay was eminently successful,
and to his laborious ingenuity, as first displayed in Bramah's
workshops, and afterwards in his own establishment, we unquestionably
owe much of the power and accuracy of our present self-acting
machines.
Bramah himself was not backward in admitting that to Henry Maudslay's
practical skill in contriving the machines for manufacturing his
locks on a large scale, the success of his invention was in a great
degree attributable. In further proof of his manual dexterity, it may
be mentioned that he constructed with his own hands the identical
padlock which so severely tested the powers of Mr. Hobbs in 1851. And
when it is considered that the lock had been made for more than half
a century, and did not embody any of the modern improvements, it will
perhaps be regarded not only as creditable to the principles on which
it was constructed, but to the workmanship of its maker, that it
should so long have withstood the various mechanical dexterity to
which it was exposed.
Besides the invention of improved machine-tools for the manufacture
of locks, Maudslay was of further service to Bramah in applying the
expedient to his famous Hydraulic Press, without which it would
probably have remained an impracticable though a highly ingenious
machine. As in other instances of great inventions, the practical
success of the whole is often found to depend upon the action of some
apparently trifling detail. This was especially the case with the
hydraulic press; to which Maudslay added the essential feature of the
self-tightening collar, above described in the memoir of Bramah. Mr.
James Nasmyth is our authority for ascribing this invention to
Maudslay, who was certainly quite competent to have made it; and it
is a matter of fact that Bramah's specification of the press says
nothing of the hollow collar,*
[footnote...
The words Bramah uses in describing this part of his patent of 1795
are these--"The piston must be made perfectly watertight by leather
or other materials, as used in pump-making." He elsewhere speaks of
the piston-rod "working through the stuffing-box." But in practice,
as we have above shown, these methods were found to be altogether
inefficient.
...]
on which its efficient action mainly depends. Mr. Nasmyth
says--"Maudslay himself told me, or led me to believe, that it was he
who invented the self-tightening collar for the hydraulic press,
without which it would never have been a serviceable machine. As the
self-tightening collar is to the hydraulic press, so is the
steamblast to the locomotive. It is the one thing needful that has
made it effective in practice. If Maudslay was the inventor of the
collar, that one contrivance ought to immortalize him. He used to
tell me of it with great gusto, and I have no reason to doubt the
correctness of his statement." Whoever really struck out the idea of
the collar, displayed the instinct of the true inventor, who
invariably seeks to accomplish his object by the adoption of the
simplest possible means.
During the time that Maudslay held the important office of manager of
Bramah's works, his highest wages were not more than thirty shillings
a-week. He himself thought that he was worth more to his master--as
indeed he was,--and he felt somewhat mortified that he should have to
make an application for an advance; but the increasing expenses of
his family compelled him in a measure to do so. His application was
refused in such a manner as greatly to hurt his sensitive feelings;
and the result was that he threw up his situation, and determined to
begin working on his own account.
His first start in business was in the year 1797, in a small workshop
and smithy situated in Wells Street, Oxford Street. It was in an
awful state of dirt and dilapidation when he became its tenant. He
entered the place on a Friday, but by the Saturday evening, with the
help of his excellent wife, he had the shop thoroughly cleaned,
whitewashed, and put in readiness for beginning work on the next
Monday morning. He had then the pleasure of hearing the roar of his
own forge-fire, and the cheering ring of the hammer on his own anvil;
and great was the pride he felt in standing for the first time within
his own smithy and executing orders for customers on his own account.
His first customer was an artist, who gave him an order to execute
the iron work of a large easel, embodying some new arrangements; and
the work was punctually done to his employer's satisfaction. Other
orders followed, and he soon became fully employed. His fame as a
first-rate workman was almost as great as that of his former master;
and many who had been accustomed to do business with him at Pimlico
followed him to Wells Street. Long years after, the thought of these
early days of self-dependence and hard work used to set him in a
glow, and he would dilate to his intimate friends up on his early
struggles and his first successes, which were much more highly prized
by him than those of his maturer years.
With a true love of his craft, Maudslay continued to apply himself,
as he had done whilst working as Bramah's foreman, to the best
methods of ensuring accuracy and finish of work, so as in a measure
to be independent of the carelessness or want of dexterity of the
workman. With this object he aimed at the contrivance of improved
machine-tools, which should be as much self-acting and
self-regulating as possible; and it was while pursuing this study
that he wrought out the important mechanical invention with which his
name is usually identified--that of the Slide Rest. It continued to
be his special delight, when engaged in the execution of any piece of
work in which he took a personal interest, to introduce a system of
identity of parts, and to adapt for the purpose some one or other of
the mechanical contrivances with which his fertile brain was always
teeming. Thus it was from his desire to leave nothing to the chance
of mere individual dexterity of hand that he introduced the slide
rest in the lathe, and rendered it one of the most important of
machine-tools. The first device of this kind was contrived by him for
Bramah, in whose shops it continued in practical use long after he
had begun business for himself. "I have seen the slide rest," says
Mr. James Nasmyth, "the first that Henry Maudslay made, in use at
Messrs. Bramah's workshops, and in it were all those arrangements
which are to be found in the most modern slide rest of our own day,*
[footnote...
In this lathe the slide rest and frame were moveable along the
traversing-bar, according to the length of the work, and could be
placed in any position and secured by a handle and screw underneath.
The Rest, however, afterwards underwent many important modifications;
but the principle of the whole machine was there.
...]
all of which are the legitimate offspring of Maudslay's original
rest. If this tool be yet extant, it ought to be preserved with the
greatest care, for it was the beginning of those mechanical triumphs
which give to the days in which we live so much of their
distinguishing character."
A very few words of explanation will serve to illustrate the
importance of Maudslay's invention. Every person is familiar with the
uses of the common turning-lathe. It is a favourite machine with
amateur mechanics, and its employment is indispensable for the
execution of all kinds of rounded work in wood and metal. Perhaps
there is no contrivance by which the skill of the handicraftsman has
been more effectually aided than by this machine. Its origin is lost
in the shades of antiquity. Its most ancient form was probably the
potter's wheel, from which it advanced, by successive improvements,
to its present highly improved form. It was found that, by whatever
means a substance capable of being cut could be made to revolve with
a circular motion round a fixed right line as a centre, a cutting
tool applied to its surface would remove the inequalities so that any
part of such surface should be equidistant from that centre. Such is
the fundamental idea of the ordinary turning-lathe. The ingenuity and
experience of mechanics working such an instrument enabled them to
add many improvements to it; until the skilful artisan at length
produced not merely circular turning of the most beautiful and
accurate description, but exquisite figure-work, and complicated
geometrical designs, depending upon the cycloidal and eccentric
movements which were from time to time added to the machine.
The artisans of the Middle Ages were very skilful in the use of the
lathe, and turned out much beautiful screen and stall work, still to
be seen in our cathedrals, as well as twisted and swash-work for the
balusters of staircases and other ornamental purposes. English
mechanics seem early to have distinguished themselves as improvers of
the lathe; and in Moxon's 'Treatise on Turning,' published in 1680,
we find Mr. Thomas Oldfield, at the sign of the Flower-de-Luce, near
the Savoy in the Strand, named as an excellent maker of oval-engines
and swash-engines, showing that such machines were then in some
demand. The French writer Plumier*
[footnote...
PLUMIER, L'Art de Tourner, Paris, 1754, p. 155. ...]
also mentions an ingenious modification of the lathe by means of
which any kind of reticulated form could be given to the work; and,
from it's being employed to ornament the handles of knives, it was
called by him the "Machine a manche de Couteau d'Angleterre." But
the French artisans were at that time much better skilled than the
English in the use of tools, and it is most probable that we owe to
the Flemish and French Protestant workmen who flocked into England in
such large numbers during the religious persecutions of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the improvement, if not the introduction,
of the art of turning, as well as many other arts hereafter to be
referred to. It is certain that at the period to which we refer
numerous treatises were published in France on the art of turning,
some of them of a most elaborate character. Such were the works of
De la Hire,*
[footnote...
Machines approuvees par l' Academie, 1719.
...]
who described how every kind of polygon might be made by the lathe;
De la Condamine,*
[footnote...
Machines approuvees par l' Academie, 1733.
...]
who showed how a lathe could turn all sorts of irregular figures by
means of tracers; and of Grand Jean, Morin,*
[footnote...
L'Art de Tourner en perfection, 49.
...]
Plumier, Bergeron, and many other writers.
The work of Plumier is especially elaborate, entering into the
construction of the lathe in its various parts, the making of the
tools and cutters, and the different motions to be given to the
machine by means of wheels, eccentrics, and other expedients, amongst
which may be mentioned one very much resembling the slide rest and
planing-machine combined.*
[footnote...
It consisted of two parallel bars of wood or iron connected together
at both extremities by bolts or keys of sufficient width to admit of
the article required to be planed. A moveable frame was placed
between the two bars, motion being given to it by a long cylindrical
thread acting on any tool put into the sliding frame, and,
consequently, causing the screw, by means of a handle at each end of
it, to push or draw the point or cutting-edge of the tool either
way.--Mr. George Rennie's Preface to Buchanan's Practical Essays on
Mill Work, 3rd Ed. xli.
...]
From this work it appears that turning had long been a favourite
pursuit in France with amateurs of all ranks, who spared no expense
in the contrivance and perfection of elaborate machinery for the
production of complex figures.*
[footnote...
Turning was a favourite amusement amongst the French nobles of last
century, many of whom acquired great dexterity in the art, which they
turned to account when compelled to emigrate at the Revolution. Louis
XVI. himself was a very good locksmith, and could have earned a fair
living at the trade. Our own George III. was a good turner, and was
learned in wheels and treadles, chucks and chisels. Henry Mayhew
says, on the authority of an old working turner, that, with average
industry, the King might have made from 40s. to 50s. a-week as a hard
wood and ivory turner. Lord John Hay, though one-armed, was an adept
at the latter, and Lord Gray was another capital turner. Indeed the
late Mr. Holtzapffel's elaborately illustrated treatise was written
quite as much for amateurs as for working mechanics. Among other
noble handicraftsmen we may mention the late Lord Douglas, who
cultivated bookbinding. Lord Traquair's fancy was cutlery, and one
could not come to him in a more welcome fashion than with a pair of
old razors to set up.
...]
There was at that time a great passion for automata in France, which
gave rise to many highly ingenious devices, such as Camus's miniature
carriage (made for Louis XIV. when a child), Degennes' mechanical
peacock, Vancanson's duck, and Maillardet's conjuror. It had the
effect of introducing among the higher order of artists habits of
nice and accurate workmanship in executing delicate pieces of
machinery; and the same combination of mechanical powers which made
the steel spider crawl, the duck quack, or waved the tiny rod of the
magician, contributed in future years to purposes of higher
import,--the wheels and pinions, which in these automata almost
eluded the human senses by their minuteness, reappearing in modern
times in the stupendous mechanism of our self-acting lathes,
spinning-mules, and steam-engines.
"In our own country," says Professor Willis, "the literature of this
subject is so defective that it is very difficult to discover what
progress we were making during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries."*
[footnote...
Professor WILLIS, Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of
1851, lst series, p. 306.
...]
We believe the fact to be, that the progress made in England down to
the end of last century had been very small indeed, and that the
lathe had experienced little or no improvement until Maudslay took it
in hand. Nothing seems to have been known of the slide rest until he
re-invented it and applied it to the production of machinery of a far
more elaborate character than had ever before been contemplated as
possible. Professor Willis says that Bramah's, in other words
Maudslay's, slide rest of 1794 is so different from that described in
the French 'Encyclopedie in 1772, that the two could not have had a
common origin. We are therefore led to the conclusion that Maudslay's
invention was entirely independent of all that had gone before, and
that he contrived it for the special purpose of overcoming the
difficulties which he himself experienced in turning out duplicate
parts in large numbers. At all events, he was so early and zealous a
promoter of its use, that we think he may, in the eyes of all
practical mechanics, stand as the parent of its introduction to the
workshops of England.
It is unquestionable that at the time when Maudslay began the
improvement of machine-tools, the methods of working in wood and
metals were exceedingly imperfect. Mr. William Fairbairn has stated
that when he first became acquainted with mechanical engineering,
about sixty years ago, there were no self-acting tools; everything
was executed by hand. There were neither planing, slotting, nor
shaping machines; and the whole stock of an engineering or machine
establishment might be summed up in a few ill-constructed lathes, and
a few drills and boring machines of rude construction.*
[footnote...
Address delivered before the British Association at Manchester in
1861; and Useful Information for Engineers, 1st series, p. 22.
...]
Our mechanics were equally backward in contrivances for working in
wood. Thus, when Sir Samuel Bentham made a tour through the
manufacturing districts of England in 1791, he was surprised to find
how little had been done to substitute the invariable accuracy of
machinery for the uncertain dexterity of the human hand. Steam-power
was as yet only employed in driving spinning-machines, rolling
metals, pumping water, and such like purposes. In the working of wood
no machinery had been introduced beyond the common turning-lathe and
some saws, and a few boring tools used in making blocks for the navy.
Even saws worked by inanimate force for slitting timber, though in
extensive use in foreign countries, were nowhere to be found in Great
Britain.*
[footnote...
Life of Sir Samuel Bentham, 97-8.
...]
As everything depended on the dexterity of hand and correctness of
eye of the workmen, the work turned out was of very unequal merit,
besides being exceedingly costly. Even in the construction of
comparatively simple machines, the expense was so great as to present
a formidable obstacle to their introduction and extensive use; and
but for the invention of machine-making tools, the use of the
steam-engine in the various forms in which it is now applied for the
production of power could never have become general.
In turning a piece of work on the old-fashioned lathe, the workman
applied and guided his tool by means of muscular strength. The work
was made to revolve, and the turner, holding the cutting tool firmly
upon the long, straight, guiding edge of the rest, along which he
carried it, and pressing its point firmly against the article to be
turned, was thus enabled to reduce its surface to the required size
and shape. Some dexterous turners were able, with practice and
carefulness, to execute very clever pieces of work by this simple
means. But when the article to be turned was of considerable size,
and especially when it was of metal, the expenditure of muscular
strength was so great that the workman soon became exhausted. The
slightest variation in the pressure of the tool led to an
irregularity of surface; and with the utmost care on the workman's
part, he could not avoid occasionally cutting a little too deep, in
consequence of which he must necessarily go over the surface again,
to reduce the whole to the level of that accidentally cut too deep;
and thus possibly the job would be altogether spoiled by the diameter
of the article under operation being made too small for its intended
purpose.
The introduction of the slide rest furnished a complete remedy for
this source of imperfection. The principle of the invention consists
in constructing and fitting the rest so that, instead of being
screwed down to one place, and the tool in the hands of the workman
travelling over it, the rest shall itself hold the cutting tool
firmly fixed in it, and slide along the surface of the bench in a
direction exactly parallel with the axis of the work. Before its
invention various methods had been tried with the object of enabling
the work to be turned true independent of the dexterity of the
workman. Thus, a square steel cutter used to be firmly fixed in a
bed, along which it was wedged from point to point of the work, and
tolerable accuracy was in this way secured. But the slide rest was
much more easily managed, and the result was much more satisfactory.
All that the workman had to do, after the tool was firmly fitted into
the rest, was merely to turn a screw-handle, and thus advance the
cutter along the face of the work as required, with an expenditure of
strength so slight as scarcely to be appreciable. And even this
labour has now been got rid of; for, by an arrangement of the
gearing, the slide itself has been made self-acting, and advances
with the revolution of the work in the lathe, which thus supplies the
place of the workman's hand. The accuracy of the turning done by this
beautiful yet simple arrangement is as mechanically perfect as work
can be. The pair of steel fingers which hold the cutting tool firmly
in their grasp never tire, and it moves along the metal to be cut
with an accuracy and precision which the human hand, however skilled,
could never equal.
The effects of the introduction of the slide rest were very shortly
felt in all departments of mechanism. Though it had to encounter some
of the ridicule with which new methods of working are usually
received, and for a time was spoken of in derision as "Maudslay's
Go-cart,"--its practical advantages were so decided that it gradually
made its way, and became an established tool in all the best
mechanical workshops. It was found alike capable of executing the
most delicate and the most ponderous pieces of machinery; and as
slide-lathes could be manufactured to any extent, machinery,
steam-engines, and all kinds of metal work could now be turned out in
a quantity and at a price that, but for its use, could never have
been practicable. In course of time various modifications of the
machine were introduced--such as the planing machine, the
wheel-cutting machine, and other beautiful tools on the slide-rest
principle,--the result of which has been that extraordinary
development of mechanical production and power which is so
characteristic a feature of the age we live in.
"It is not, indeed, saying at all too much to state," says Mr.
Nasmyth,*
[footnote...
Remarks on the Introduction of the Slide Principle in Tools and
Machines employed in the Production of Machinery, in Buchanan's
Practical Essays on Mill Work and other Machinery. 3rd ed. p. 397.
...]
a most competent judge in such a matter, "that its influence in
improving and extending the use of machinery has been as great as
that produced by the improvement of the steam-engine in respect to
perfecting manufactures and extending commerce, inasmuch as without
the aid of the vast accession to our power of producing perfect
mechanism which it at once supplied, we could never have worked out
into practical and profitable forms the conceptions of those master
minds who, during the last half century, have so successfully
pioneered the way for mankind. The steam-engine itself, which
supplies us with such unbounded power, owes its present perfection to
this most admirable means of giving to metallic objects the most
precise and perfect geometrical forms. How could we, for instance,
have good steam-engines if we had not the means of boring out a true
cylinder, or turning a true piston-rod, or planing a valve face? It
is this alone which has furnished us with the means of carrying into
practice the accumulated result's of scientific investigation on
mechanical subjects. It would be blamable indeed," continues Mr.
Nasmyth, "after having endeavoured to set forth the vast advantages
which have been conferred on the mechanical world, and therefore on
mankind generally, by the invention and introduction of the Slide
Rest, were I to suppress the name of that admirable individual to
whom we are indebted for this powerful agent towards the attainment
of mechanical perfection. I allude to Henry Maudslay, whose useful
life was enthusiastically devoted to the grand object of improving
our means of producing perfect workmanship and machinery: to him we
are certainly indebted for the slide rest, and, consequently, to say
the least, we are indirectly so for the vast benefits which have
resulted from the introduction of so powerful an agent in perfecting
our machinery and mechanism generally. The indefatigable care which
he took in inculcating and diffusing among his workmen, and
mechanical men generally, sound ideas of practical knowledge and
refined views of construction, have rendered and ever will continue
to render his name identified with all that is noble in the ambition
of a lover of mechanical perfection."
One of the first uses to which Mr. Maudslay applied the improved
slide rest, which he perfected shortly after beginning business in
Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, was in executing the requisite
tools and machinery required by Mr. (afterwards Sir Marc Isambard)
Brunel for manufacturing ships' blocks. The career of Brunel was of a
more romantic character than falls to the ordinary lot of mechanical
engineers. His father was a small farmer and postmaster, at the
village of Hacqueville, in Normandy, where Marc Isambard was born in
1769. He was early intended for a priest, and educated accordingly.
But he was much fonder of the carpenter's shop than of the school;
and coaxing, entreaty, and punishment alike failed in making a
hopeful scholar of him. He drew faces and plans until his father was
almost in despair. Sent to school at Rouen, his chief pleasure was in
watching the ships along the quays; and one day his curiosity was
excited by the sight of some large iron castings just landed. What
were they? How had they been made? Where did they come from? His
eager inquiries were soon answered. They were parts of an engine
intended for the great Paris water-works; the engine was to pump
water by the power of steam; and the castings had been made in
England, and had just been landed from an English ship. "England!"
exclaimed the boy, "ah! when I am a man I will go see the country
where such grand machines are made!" On one occasion, seeing a new
tool in a cutler's window, he coveted it so much that he pawned his
hat to possess it. This was not the right road to the priesthood; and
his father soon saw that it was of no use urging him further: but the
boy's instinct proved truer than the father's judgment.
It was eventually determined that he should qualify himself to enter
the royal navy, and at seventeen he was nominated to serve in a
corvette as "volontaire d'honneur." His ship was paid off in 1792,
and he was at Paris during the trial of the King. With the
incautiousness of youth he openly avowed his royalist opinions in the
cafe which he frequented. On the very day that Louis was condemned
to death, Brunel had an angry altercation with some
ultra-republicans, after which he called to his dog, "Viens,
citoyen!" Scowling looks were turned upon him, and he deemed it
expedient to take the first opportunity of escaping from the house,
which he did by a back-door, and made the best of his way to
Hacqueville. From thence he went to Rouen, and succeeded in finding a
passage on board an American ship, in which he sailed for New York,
having first pledged his affections to an English girl, Sophia
Kingdom, whom he had accidentally met at the house of Mr. Carpentier,
the American consul at Rouen.
Arrived in America, he succeeded in finding employment as assistant
surveyor of a tract of land along the Black River, near Lake Ontario.
In the intervals of his labours he made occasional visits to New
York, and it was there that the first idea of his block-machinery
occurred to him. He carried his idea back with him into the woods,
where it often mingled with his thoughts of Sophia Kingdom, by this
time safe in England after passing through the horrors of a French
prison. "My first thought of the block-machinery," he once said, "was
at a dinner party at Major-General Hamilton's, in New York; my second
under an American tree, when, one day that I was carving letters on
its bark, the turn of one of them reminded me of it, and I thought,
'Ah! my block! so it must be.' And what do you think. were the
letters I was cutting? Of course none other than S. K." Brunel
subsequently obtained some employment as an architect in New York,
and promulgated various plans for improving the navigation of the
principal rivers. Among the designs of his which were carried out,
was that of the Park Theatre at New York, and a cannon foundry, in
which he introduced improvements in casting and boring big guns. But
being badly paid for his work, and a powerful attraction drawing him
constantly towards England, he determined to take final leave of
America, which he did in 1799, and landed at Falmouth in the
following March. There he again met Miss Kingdom, who had remained
faithful to him during his six long years of exile, and the pair were
shortly after united for life.
Brunel was a prolific inventor. During his residence in America, he
had planned many contrivances in his mind, which he now proceeded to
work out. The first was a duplicate writing and drawing machine,
which he patented. The next was a machine for twisting cotton thread
and forming it into balls; but omitting to protect it by a patent, he
derived no benefit from the invention, though it shortly came into
very general use. He then invented a machine for trimmings and
borders for muslins, lawns, and cambrics,--of the nature of a sewing
machine. His famous block-machinery formed the subject of his next
patent.
It may be explained that the making of the blocks employed in the
rigging of ships for raising and lowering the sails, masts, and
yards, was then a highly important branch of manufacture. Some idea
may be formed of the number used in the Royal Navy alone, from the
fact that a 74-gun ship required to be provided with no fewer than
1400 blocks of various sizes. The sheaved blocks used for the running
rigging consisted of the shell, the sheaves, which revolved within
the shell, and the pins which fastened them together. The fabrication
of these articles, though apparently simple, was in reality attended
with much difficulty. Every part had to be fashioned with great
accuracy and precision to ensure the easy working of the block when
put together, as any hitch in the raising or lowering of the sails
might, on certain emergencies, occasion a serious disaster. Indeed,
it became clear that mere hand-work was not to be relied on in the
manufacture of these articles, and efforts were early made to produce
them by means of machinery of the most perfect kind that could be
devised. In 1781, Mr. Taylor, of Southampton, set up a large
establishment on the river Itchen for their manufacture; and on the
expiry of his contract, the Government determined to establish works
of their own in Portsmouth Dockyard, for the purpose at the same time
of securing greater economy, and of being independent of individual
makers in the supply of an article of such importance in the
equipment of ships.
Sir Samuel Bentham, who then filled the office of Inspector-General
of Naval Works, was a highly ingenious person, and had for some years
been applying his mind to the invention of improved machinery for
working in wood. He had succeeded in introducing into the royal
dockyards sawing-machines and planing-machines of a superior kind, as
well as block-making machines. Thus the specification of one of his
patents, taken out in 1793, clearly describes a machine for shaping
the shells of the blocks, in a manner similar to that afterwards
specified by Brunel. Bentham had even proceeded with the erection of
a building in Portsmouth Dockyard for the manufacture of the blocks
after his method, the necessary steam-engine being already provided;
but with a singular degree of candour and generosity, on Brunel's
method being submitted to him, Sir Samuel at once acknowledged its
superiority to his own, and promised to recommend its adoption by the
authorities in his department.
The circumstance of Mrs. Brunel's brother being Under-Secretary to
the Navy Board at the time, probably led Brunel in the first instance
to offer his invention to the Admiralty. A great deal, however,
remained to be done before he could bring his ideas of the
block-machinery into a definite shape; for there is usually a wide
interval between the first conception of an intricate machine and its
practical realization. Though Brunel had a good knowledge of
mechanics, and was able to master the intricacies of any machine, he
laboured under the disadvantage of not being a practical mechanic and
it is probable that but for the help of someone possessed of this
important qualification, his invention, ingenious and important
though it was, would have borne no practical fruits. It was at this
juncture that he was so fortunate as to be introduced to Henry
Maudslay, the inventor of the sliderest.
It happened that a M. de Bacquancourt, one of the French emigres,
of whom there were then so many in London, was accustomed almost
daily to pass Maudslay's little shop in Wells-street, and being
himself an amateur turner, he curiously inspected the articles from
time to time exhibited in the window of the young mechanic. One day a
more than ordinarily nice piece of screw-cutting made its appearance,
on which he entered the shop to make inquiries as to the method by
which it had been executed. He had a long conversation with Maudslay,
with whom he was greatly pleased; and he was afterwards accustomed to
look in upon him occasionally to see what new work was going on.
Bacquancourt was also on intimate terms with Brunel, who communicated
to him the difficulty he had experienced in finding a mechanic of
sufficient dexterity to execute his design of the block-making
machinery. It immediately occurred to the former that Henry Maudslay
was the very man to execute work of the elaborate character proposed,
and he described to Brunel the new and beautiful tools which Maudslay
had contrived for the purpose of ensuring accuracy and finish. Brunel
at once determined to call upon Maudslay, and it was arranged that
Bacquancourt should introduce him, which he did, and after the
interview which took place Brunel promised to call again with the
drawings of his proposed model.
A few days passed, and Brunel called with the first drawing, done by
himself; for he was a capital draughtsman, and used to speak of
drawing as the "alphabet of the engineer." The drawing only showed a
little bit of the intended machine, and Brunel did not yet think it
advisable to communicate to Maudslay the precise object he had in
view; for inventors are usually very chary of explaining their
schemes to others, for fear of being anticipated. Again Brunel
appeared at Maudslay's shop with a further drawing, still not
explaining his design; but at the third visit, immediately on looking
at the fresh drawings he had brought, Maudslay exclaimed, "Ah! now I
see what you are thinking of; you want machinery for making blocks."
At this Brunel became more communicative, and explained his designs
to the mechanic, who fully entered into his views, and went on from
that time forward striving to his utmost to work out the inventor's
conceptions and embody them in a practical machine.
While still occupied on the models, which were begun in 1800,
Maudslay removed his shop from Wells-street, where he was assisted by
a single journeyman, to Margaret-street, Cavendish-square, where he
had greater room for carrying on his trade, and was also enabled to
increase the number of his hands. The working models were ready for
inspection by Sir Samuel Bentham and the Lords of the Admiralty in
1801, and having been fully approved by them, Brunel was authorized
to proceed with the execution of the requisite machinery for the
manufacture of the ship's blocks required for the Royal Navy. The
whole of this machinery was executed by Henry Maudslay; it occupied
him very fully for nearly six years, so that the manufacture of
blocks by the new process was not begun until September, 1808.
We despair of being able to give any adequate description in words of
the intricate arrangements and mode of action of the block-making
machinery. Let any one attempt to describe the much more simple and
familiar process by which a shoemaker makes a pair of shoes, and he
will find how inadequate mere words are to describe any mechanical
operation.*
[footnote...
So far as words and drawings can serve to describe the block-making
machinery, it will be found very ably described by Mr. Farey in his
article under this head in Rees's Cyclopaedia, and by Dr. Brewster in
the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia. A very good account will also be found in
Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of the Useful Arts, Art. "Block."
...]
Suffice it to say, that the machinery was of the most beautiful
manufacture and finish, and even at this day will bear comparison
with the most perfect machines which can be turned out with all the
improved appliances of modern tools. The framing was of cast-iron,
while the parts exposed to violent and rapid action were all of the
best hardened steel. In turning out the various parts, Maudslay found
his slide rest of indispensable value. Indeed, without this
contrivance, it is doubtful whether machinery of so delicate and
intricate a character could possibly have been executed. There was
not one, but many machines in the series, each devoted to a special
operation in the formation of a block. Thus there were various
sawing-machines,--the Straight Cross-Cutting Saw, the Circular
Cross-Cutting Saw, the Reciprocating Ripping-saw, and the Circular
Ripping-Saw. Then there were the Boring Machines, and the Mortising
Machine, of beautiful construction, for cutting the sheave-holes,
furnished with numerous chisels, each making from 110 to 150 strokes
a minute, and cutting at every stroke a chip as thick as pasteboard
with the utmost precision. In addition to these were the Corner-Saw
for cutting off the corners of the block, the Shaping Machine for
accurately forming the outside surfaces, the Scoring Engine for
cutting the groove round the longest diameter of the block for the
reception of the rope, and various other machines for drilling,
riveting, and finishing the blocks, besides those for making the
sheaves.
The total number of machines employed in the various operations of
making a ship's block by the new method was forty-four; and after
being regularly employed in Portsmouth Dockyard for upwards of fifty
years, they are still as perfect in their action as on the day they
were erected. They constitute one of the most ingenious and complete
collections of tools ever invented for making articles in wood, being
capable of performing most of the practical operations of carpentry
with the utmost accuracy and finish. The machines are worked by a
steam-engine of 32-horse power, which is also used for various other
dockyard purposes. Under the new system of block-making it was found
that the articles were better made, supplied with much greater
rapidity, and executed at a greatly reduced cost. Only ten men, with
the new machinery, could perform the work which before had required a
hundred and ten men to execute, and not fewer than 160,000 blocks of
various kinds and sizes could be turned out in a year, worth not less
than 541,000L.*
[footnote...
The remuneration paid to Mr. Brunel for his share in the invention
was only one year's savings, which, however, were estimated by Sir
Samuel Bentham at 17,663l.; besides which a grant of 5000L. was
afterwards made to Brunel when labouring under pecuniary
difficulties. But the ANNUAL saving to the nation by the adoption of
the block-making machinery was probably more than the entire sum paid
to the engineer. Brunel afterwards invented other wood-working
machinery, but none to compare in merit and excellence with the
above, For further particulars of his career, see BEAMISH'S Memoirs
of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, C.E. London. 1862. ...]
The satisfactory execution of the block-machinery brought Maudslay a
large accession of fame and business; and the premises in Margaret
Street proving much too limited for his requirements, he again
resolved to shift his quarters. He found a piece of ground suitable
for his purpose in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Little more than a
century since it formed part of a Marsh, the name of which is still
retained in the adjoining street; its principal productions being
bulrushes and willows, which were haunted in certain seasons by snipe
and waterfowl. An enterprising riding-master had erected some
premises on a part of the marsh, which he used for a riding-school;
but the speculation not answering, they were sold, and Henry Maudslay
became the proprietor. Hither he removed his machinery from Margaret
Street in 1810, adding fresh plant from time to time as it was
required; and with the aid of his late excellent partner he built up
the far-famed establishment of Maudslay, Field, and Co. There he went
on improving his old tools and inventing new ones, as the necessity
for them arose, until the original slide-lathes used for making the
block-machinery became thrown into the shade by the comparatively
gigantic machine-tools of the modern school. Yet the original lathes
are still to be found in the collection of the firm in Westminster
Road, and continue to do their daily quota of work with the same
precision as they did when turned out of the hands of their inventor
and maker some sixty years ago.
It is unnecessary that we should describe in any great detail the
further career of Henry Maudslay. The rest of his life was full of
useful and profitable work to others as well as to himself. His
business embraced the making of flour and saw mills, mint machinery,
and steam-engines of all kinds. Before he left Margaret Street, in
1807, he took out a patent for improvements in the steam-engine, by
which he much simplified its parts, and secured greater directness of
action. His new engine was called the Pyramidal, because of its form,
and was the first move towards what are now called Direct-acting
Engines, in which the lateral movement of the piston is communicated
by connecting-rods to the rotatory movement of the crank-shaft. Mr.
Nasmyth says of it, that "on account of its great simplicity and
GET-AT-ABILITY of parts, its compactness and self-contained
steadiness, this engine has been the parent of a vast progeny, all
more or less marked by the distinguishing features of the original
design, which is still in as high favour as ever." Mr. Maudslay also
directed his attention in like manner to the improvement of the
marine engine, which he made so simple and effective as to become in
a great measure the type of its class; and it has held its ground
almost unchanged for nearly thirty years. The 'Regent,' which was the
first steamboat that plied between London and Margate, was fitted
with engines by Maudslay in 1816; and it proved the forerunner of a
vast number of marine engines, the manufacture of which soon became
one of the most important branches of mechanical engineering.
Another of Mr. Maudslay's inventions was his machine for punching
boiler-plates, by which the production of ironwork of many kinds was
greatly facilitated. This improvement originated in the contract
which he held for some years for supplying the Royal Navy with iron
plates for ships' tanks. The operations of shearing and punching had
before been very imperfectly done by hand, with great expenditure of
labour. To improve the style of the work and lessen the labour,
Maudslay invented the machine now in general use, by which the holes
punched in the iron plate are exactly equidistant, and the subsequent
operation of riveting is greatly facilitated. One of the results of
the improved method was the great saving which was at once effected
in the cost of preparing the plates to receive the rivets, the price
of which was reduced from seven shillings per tank to ninepence. He
continued to devote himself to the last to the improvement of the
lathe,--in his opinion the master-machine, the life and soul of
engine-turning, of which the planing, screw-cutting, and other
machines in common use, are but modifications. In one of the early
lathes which he contrived and made, the mandrill was nine inches in
diameter; it was driven by wheel-gearing like a crane motion, and
adapted to different speeds. Some of his friends, on first looking at
it, said he was going "too fast;" but he lived to see work projected
on so large a scale as to prove that his conceptions were just, and
that he had merely anticipated by a few years the mechanical progress
of his time. His large removable bar-lathe was a highly important
tool of the same kind. It was used to turn surfaces many feet in
diameter. While it could be used for boring wheels, or the side-rods
of marine engines, it could turn a roller or cylinder twice or three
times the diameter of its own centres from the ground-level, and
indeed could drive round work of any diameter that would clear the
roof of the shop. This was therefore an almost universal tool,
capable of very extensive uses. Indeed much of the work now executed
by means of special tools, such as the planing or slotting machine,
was then done in the lathe, which was used as a cutter-shaping
machine, fitted with various appliances according to the work.
Maudslay's love of accuracy also led him from an early period to
study the subject of improved screw-cutting. The importance of this
department of mechanism can scarcely be overrated, the solidity and
permanency of most mechanical structures mainly depending on the
employment of the screw, at the same time that the parts can be
readily separated for renewal or repair. Any one can form an idea of
the importance of the screw as an element in mechanical construction
by examining say a steam-engine, and counting the number of screws
employed in holding it together. Previous to the time at which the
subject occupied the attention of our mechanic, the tools used for
making screws were of the most rude and inexact kind. The screws were
for the most part cut by hand: the small by filing, the larger by
chipping and filing. In consequence of the great difficulty of making
them, as few were used as possible; and cotters, cotterils, or
forelocks, were employed instead. Screws, however, were to a certain
extent indispensable; and each manufacturing establishment made them
after their own fashion. There was an utter want of uniformity. No
system was observed as to "pitch," i.e. the number of threads to the
inch, nor was any rule followed as to the form of those threads.
Every bolt and nut was sort of specialty in itself, and neither owed
nor admitted of any community with its neighbours. To such an extent
was this irregularity carried, that all bolts and their corresponding
nuts had to be marked as belonging to each other; and any mixing of
them together led to endless trouble, hopeless confusion, and
enormous expense. Indeed none but those who lived in the
comparatively early days of machine-manufacture can form an adequate
idea of the annoyance occasioned by the want of system in this branch
of detail, or duly appreciate the services rendered by Maudslay to
mechanical engineering by the practical measures which he was among
the first to introduce for its remedy. In his system of screw-cutting
machinery, his taps and dies, and screw-tackle generally, he laid the
foundations of all that has since been done in this essential branch
of machine-construction, in which he was so ably followed up by
several of the eminent mechanics brought up in his school, and more
especially by Joseph Clement and Joseph Whitworth. One of his
earliest self-acting screw lathes, moved by a guide-screw and wheels
after the plan followed by the latter engineer, cut screws of large
diameter and of any required pitch. As an illustration of its
completeness and accuracy, we may mention that by its means a screw
five feet in length, and two inches in diameter, was cut with fifty
threads to the inch; the nut to fit on to it being twelve inches
long, and containing six hundred threads. This screw was principally
used for dividing scales for astronomical purposes; and by its means
divisions were produced so minute that they could not be detected
without the aid of a magnifier. The screw, which was sent for
exhibition to the Society of Arts, is still carefully preserved
amongst the specimens of Maudslay's handicraft at the Lambeth Works,
and is a piece of delicate work which every skilled mechanic will
thoroughly appreciate. Yet the tool by which this fine piece of
turning was produced was not an exceptional tool, but was daily
employed in the ordinary work of the manufactory.
Like every good workman who takes pride in his craft, he kept his
tools in first-rate order, clean, and tidily arranged, so that he
could lay his hand upon the thing he wanted at once, without loss of
time. They are still preserved in the state in which he left them,
and strikingly illustrate his love of order, "nattiness," and
dexterity. Mr. Nasmyth says of him that you could see the man's
character in whatever work he turned out; and as the connoisseur in
art will exclaim at sight of a picture, " That is Turner," or "That
is Stansfield," detecting the hand of the master in it, so the
experienced mechanician, at sight of one of his machines or engines,
will be equally ready to exclaim, "That is Maudslay;" for the
characteristic style of the master-mind is as clear to the
experienced eye in the case of the finished machine as the touches of
the artist's pencil are in the case of the finished picture. Every
mechanical contrivance that became the subject of his study came
forth from his hand and mind rearranged, simplified, and made new,
with the impress of his individuality stamped upon it. He at once
stripped the subject of all unnecessary complications; for he
possessed a wonderful faculty of KNOWING WHAT TO DO WITHOUT--the
result of his clearness of insight into mechanical adaptations, and
the accurate and well-defined notions he had formed of the precise
object to be accomplished. "Every member or separate machine in the
system of block-machinery says Mr. Nasmyth, "is full of Maudslay's
presence; and in that machinery, as constructed by him, is to be
found the parent of every engineering tool by the aid of which we are
now achieving such great things in mechanical construction. To the
tools of which Maudslay furnished the prototypes are we mainly
indebted for the perfection of our textile machinery, our
locomotives, our marine engines, and the various implements of art,
of agriculture, and of war. If any one who can enter into the details
of this subject will be at the pains to analyse, if I may so term it,
the machinery of our modern engineering workshops, he will find in
all of them the strongly-marked features of Maudslay's parent
machine, the slide rest and slide system--whether it be a planing
machine, a slotting machine, a slide-lathe, or any other of the
wonderful tools which are now enabling us to accomplish so much in
mechanism."
One of the things in which Mr. Maudslay took just pride was in the
excellence of his work. In designing and executing it, his main
object was to do it in the best possible style and finish, altogether
irrespective of the probable pecuniary results. This he regarded in
the light of a duty he could not and would not evade, independent of
its being a good investment for securing a future reputation; and the
character which he thus obtained, although at times purchased at
great cost, eventually justified the soundness of his views. As the
eminent Mr. Penn, the head of the great engineering firm, is
accustomed to say, "I cannot afford to turn out second-rate work," so
Mr. Maudslay found both character and profit in striving after the
highest excellence in his productions. He was particular even in the
minutest details. Thus one of the points on which he
insisted--apparently a trivial matter, but in reality of considerable
importance in mechanical construction-- was the avoidance of sharp
interior angles in ironwork, whether wrought or cast; for he found
that in such interior angles cracks were apt to originate; and when
the article was a tool, the sharp angle was less pleasant to the hand
as well as to the eye. In the application of his favourite round or
hollow corner system--as, for instance, in the case of the points of
junction of the arms of a wheel with its centre and rim--he used to
illustrate its superiority by holding up his hand and pointing out
the nice rounded hollow at the junction of the fingers, or by
referring to the junction of the branches to the stem of a tree.
Hence he made a point of having all the angles of his machine
framework nicely rounded off on their exterior, and carefully
hollowed in their interior angles. In forging such articles he would
so shape his metal before bending that the result should be the right
hollow or rounded corner when bent; the anticipated external angle
falling into its proper place when the bar so shaped was brought to
its ultimate form. In all such matters of detail he was greatly
assisted by his early dexterity as a blacksmith; and he used to say
that to be a good smith you must be able to SEE in the bar of iron
the object proposed to be got out of it by the hammer or the tool,
just as the sculptor is supposed to see in the block of stone the
statue which he proposes to bring forth from it by his mind and his
chisel.
Mr. Maudslay did not allow himself to forget his skill in the use of
the hammer, and to the last he took pleasure in handling it,
sometimes in the way of business, and often through sheer love of his
art. Mr Nasmyth says, "It was one of my duties, while acting as
assistant in his beautiful little workshop, to keep up a stock of
handy bars of lead which he had placed on a shelf under his
work-bench, which was of thick slate for the more ready making of his
usual illustrative sketches of machinery in chalk. His love of
iron-forging led him to take delight in forging the models of work to
be ultimately done in iron; and cold lead being of about the same
malleability as red-hot iron, furnished a convenient material for
illustrating the method to be adopted with the large work. I well
remember the smile of satisfaction that lit up his honest face when
he met with a good excuse for 'having a go at' one of the bars of
lead with hammer and anvil as if it were a bar of iron; and how, with
a few dexterous strokes, punchings of holes, and rounded notches, he
would give the rough bar or block its desired form. He always aimed
at working it out of the solid as much as possible, so as to avoid
the risk of any concealed defect, to which ironwork built up of
welded parts is so liable; and when he had thus cleverly finished his
model, he used forthwith to send for the foreman of smiths, and show
him how he was to instruct his men as to the proper forging of the
desired object." One of Mr. Maudslay's old workmen, when informing us
of the skilful manner in which he handled the file, said, "It was a
pleasure to see him handle a tool of any kind, but he was QUITE
SPLENDID with an eighteen-inch file!" The vice at which he worked was
constructed by himself, and it was perfect of its kind. It could be
turned round to any position on the bench; the jaws would turn from
the horizontal to the perpendicular or any other
position--upside-down if necessary--and they would open twelve inches
parallel.
Mr. Nasmyth furnishes the following further recollections of Mr.
Maudslay, which will serve in some measure to illustrate his personal
character. "Henry Maudslay," he says, "lived in the days of
snuff-taking, which unhappily, as I think, has given way to the
cigar-smoking system. He enjoyed his occasional pinch very much. It
generally preceded the giving out of a new notion or suggestion for
an improvement or alteration of some job in hand. As with most of
those who enjoy their pinch, about three times as much was taken
between the fingers as was utilized by the nose, and the consequence
was that a large unconsumed surplus collected in the folds of the
master's waistcoat as he sat working at his bench. Sometimes a file,
or a tool, or some small piece of work would drop, and then it was my
duty to go down on my knees and fetch it up. On such occasions, while
waiting for the article, he would take the opportunity of pulling
down his waistcoat front, which had become disarranged by his
energetic working at the bench; and many a time have I come up with
the dropped article, half-blinded by the snuff jerked into my eyes
from off his waistcoat front.
"All the while he was at work he would be narrating some incident in
his past life, or describing the progress of some new and important
undertaking, in illustrating which he would use the bit of chalk
ready to his hand upon the slate bench before him, which was thus in
almost constant use. One of the pleasures he indulged in while he sat
at work was Music, of which he was very fond,--more particularly of
melodies and airs which took a lasting hold on his mind. Hence he was
never without an assortment of musical boxes, some of which were of a
large size. One of these he would set agoing on his library table,
which was next to his workshop, and with the door kept open, he was
thus enabled to enjoy the music while he sat working at his bench.
Intimate friends would frequently call upon him and sit by the hour,
but though talking all the while he never dropped his work, but
continued employed on it with as much zeal as if he were only
beginning life. His old friend Sir Samuel Bentham was a frequent
caller in this way, as well as Sir Isambard Brunel while occupied
with his Thames Tunnel works*
[footnote...
Among the last works executed by the firm during Mr. Maudslay's
lifetime was the famous Shield employed by his friend Brunel in
carrying forward the excavation of the Thames Tunnel. He also
supplied the pumping-engines for the same great work, the completion
of which he did not live to see.
...]
and Mr. Chantrey, who was accustomed to consult him about the
casting of his bronze statuary. Mr. Barton of the Royal Mint, and Mr.
Donkin the engineer, with whom Mr. Barton was associated in
ascertaining and devising a correct system of dividing the Standard
Yard, and many others, had like audience of Mr. Maudslay in his
little workshop, for friendly converse, for advice, or on affairs of
business.
"It was a special and constant practice with him on a workman's
holiday, or on a Sunday morning, to take a walk through his workshops
when all was quiet, and then and there examine the various jobs in
hand. On such occasions he carried with him a piece of chalk, with
which, in a neat and very legible hand, he would record his remarks
in the most pithy and sometimes caustic terms. Any evidence of want
of correctness in setting things square, or in 'flat filing,' which
he held in high esteem, or untidiness in not sweeping down the bench
and laying the tools in order, was sure to have a record in chalk
made on the spot. If it was a mild case, the reproof was recorded in
gentle terms, simply to show that the master's eye was on the
workman; but where the case deserved hearty approbation or required
equally hearty reproof, the words employed were few, but went
straight to the mark. These chalk jottings on the bench were held in
the highest respect by the workmen themselves, whether they conveyed
praise or blame, as they were sure to be deserved; and when the men
next assembled, it soon became known all over the shop who had
received the honour or otherwise of one of the master's bench
memoranda in chalk."
The vigilant, the critical, and yet withal the generous eye of the
master being over all his workmen, it will readily be understood how
Maudslay's works came to be regarded as a first-class school for
mechanical engineers. Every one felt that the quality of his
workmanship was fully understood; and, if he had the right stuff in
him, and was determined to advance, that his progress in skill would
be thoroughly appreciated. It is scarcely necessary to point out how
this feeling, pervading the establishment, must have operated, not
only in maintaining the quality of the work, but in improving the
character of the workmen. The results were felt in the increased
practical ability of a large number of artisans, some of whom
subsequently rose to the highest distinction. Indeed it may be said
that what Oxford and Cambridge are in letters, workshops such as
Maudslay's and Penn's are in mechanics. Nor can Oxford and Cambridge
men be prouder of the connection with their respective colleges than
mechanics such as Whitworth, Nasmyth, Roberts, Muir, and Lewis, are
of their connection with the school of Maudslay. For all these
distinguished engineers at one time or another formed part of his
working staff, and were trained to the exercise of their special
abilities under his own eye. The result has been a development of
mechanical ability the like of which perhaps is not to be found in
any age or country.
Although Mr. Maudslay was an unceasing inventor, he troubled himself
very little about patenting his inventions. He considered that the
superiority of his tools and the excellence of his work were his
surest protection. Yet he had sometimes the annoyance of being
threatened with actions by persons who had patented the inventions
which he himself had made.*
[footnote...
His principal patent's were--two, taken out in 1805 and 1808, while
in Margaret Street, for printing calicoes (Nos. 2872 and 3117); one
taken out in 1806, in conjunction with Mr. Donkin, for lifting heavy
weights (2948); one taken out in 1807, while still in Margaret
Street, for improvements in the steam-engine, reducing its parts and
rendering it more compact and portable (3050); another, taken out in
conjunction with Robert Dickinson in 1812, for sweetening water and
other liquids (3538); and, lastly, a patent taken out in conjunction
"with Joshua Field in 1824 for preventing concentration of brine in
boilers (5021).
...]
He was much beset by inventors, sometimes sadly out at elbows, but
always with a boundless fortune looming before them. To such as
applied to him for advice in a frank and candid spirit, he did not
hesitate to speak freely, and communicate the results of his great
experience in the most liberal manner; and to poor and deserving men
of this class he was often found as ready to help them with his purse
as with his still more valuable advice. He had a singular way of
estimating the abilities of those who thus called upon him about
their projects. The highest order of man was marked in his own mind
at l00 degrees; and by this ideal standard he measured others,
setting them down at 90 degrees, 80 degrees, and so on. A very
first-rate man he would set down at 95 degrees, but men of this rank
were exceedingly rare. After an interview with one of the applicants
to him for advice, he would say to his pupil Nasmyth, "Jem, I think
that man may be set down at 45 degrees, but he might be WORKED UP TO
60 degrees--a common enough way of speaking of the working of a
steam-engine, but a somewhat novel though by no means an inexpressive
method of estimating the powers of an individual.
But while he had much toleration for modest and meritorious
inventors, he had a great dislike for secret-mongers,--schemers of
the close, cunning sort,--and usually made short work of them. He had
an almost equal aversion for what he called the "fiddle-faddle
inventors," with their omnibus patents, into which they packed every
possible thing that their noddles could imagine. "Only once or twice
in a century," said he, "does a great inventor appear, and yet here
we have a set of fellows each taking out as many patents as would
fill a cart,--some of them embodying not a single original idea, but
including in their specifications all manner of modifications of
well-known processes, as well as anticipating the arrangements which
may become practicable in the progress of mechanical improvement."
Many of these "patents" he regarded as mere pit-falls to catch the
unwary; and he spoke of such "inventors" as the pests of the
profession.
The personal appearance of Henry Maudslay was in correspondence with
his character. He was of a commanding presence, for he stood full six
feet two inches in height, a massive and portly man. His face was
round, full, and lit up with good humour. A fine, large, and square
forehead, of the grand constructive order, dominated over all, and
his bright keen eye gave energy and life to his countenance. He was
thoroughly "jolly" and good-natured, yet full of force and character.
It was a positive delight to hear his cheerful, ringing laugh. He was
cordial in manner, and his frankness set everybody at their ease who
had occasion to meet him, even for the first time. No one could be
more faithful and consistent in his friendships, nor more firm in the
hour of adversity. In fine, Henry Maudslay was, as described by his
friend Mr. Nasmyth, the very beau ideal of an honest, upright,
straight-forward, hard-working, intelligent Englishman.
A severe cold which he caught on his way home from one of his visits to
France, was the cause of his death, which occurred on the l4th of
February, 1831. The void which his decease caused was long and deeply
felt, not only by his family and his large circle of friends, but by
his workmen, who admired him for his industrial skill, and loved him
because of his invariably manly, generous, and upright conduct towards
them. He directed that he should be buried in Woolwich
parish-churchyard, where a cast-iron tomb, made to his own design, was
erected over his remains. He had ever a warm heart for Woolwich, where
he had been born and brought up. He often returned to it, sometimes to
carry his mother a share of his week's wages while she lived, and
afterwards to refresh himself with a sight of the neighbourhood with
which he had been so familiar when a boy. He liked its green common,
with the soldiers about it; Shooter's Hill, with its out-look over Kent
and down the valley of the Thames; the river busy with shipping, and
the royal craft loading and unloading their armaments at the dockyard
wharves. He liked the clangour of the Arsenal smithy where he had first
learned his art, and all the busy industry of the place. It was
natural, therefore, that, being proud of his early connection with
Woolwich, he should wish to lie there; and Woolwich, on its part, let
us add, has equal reason to he proud of Henry Maudslay.
CHAPTER XIII.
JOSEPH CLEMENT.
"It is almost impossible to over-estimate the importance of these
inventions. The Greeks would have elevated their authors among the
gods; nor will the enlightened judgment of modern times deny them the
place among their fellow-men which is so undeniably their due."--
Edinburgh Review.
That Skill in mechanical contrivance is a matter of education and
training as well as of inborn faculty, is clear from the fact of so
many of our distinguished mechanics undergoing the same kind of
practical discipline, and perhaps still more so from the circumstance
of so many of them passing through the same workshops. Thus Maudslay
and Clement were trained in the workshops of Bramah; and Roberts,
Whitworth, Nasmyth, and others, were trained in those of Maudslay.
Joseph Clement was born at Great Ashby in Westmoreland, in the year
1779. His father was a hand-loom weaver, and a man of remarkable
culture considering his humble station in life. He was an ardent
student of natural history, and possessed a much more complete
knowledge of several sub-branches of that science than was to have
been looked for in a common working-man. One of the departments which
he specially studied was Entomology. In his leisure hours he was
accustomed to traverse the country searching the hedge-bottoms for
beetles and other insects, of which he formed a remarkably complete
collection; and the capture of a rare specimen was quite an event in
his life. In order more deliberately to study the habits of the bee
tribe, he had a number of hives constructed for the purpose of
enabling him to watch their proceedings without leaving his work; and
the pursuit was a source of the greatest pleasure to him. He was a
lover of all dumb creatures; his cottage was haunted by birds which
flew in and out at his door, and some of them became so tame as to
hop up to him and feed out of his hand. "Old Clement" was also a bit
of a mechanic, and such of his leisure moments as he did not devote
to insect-hunting, were employed in working a lathe of his own
construction, which he used to turn his bobbing on, and also in
various kinds of amateur mechanics.
His boy Joseph, like other poor men's sons, was early set to work. He
received very little education, and learnt only the merest rudiments
of reading and writing at the village school. The rest of his
education he gave to himself as he grew older. His father needed his
help at the loom, where he worked with him for some years; but, as
handloom weaving was gradually being driven out by improved
mechanism, the father prudently resolved to put his son to a better
trade. They have a saying in Cumberland that when the bairns reach a
certain age, they are thrown on to the house-rigg, and that those who
stick on are made thatchers of, while those who fall off are sent to
St. Bees to be made parsons of. Joseph must have been one of those
that stuck on--at all events his father decided to make him a
thatcher, afterwards a slater, and he worked at that trade for five
years, between eighteen and twenty-three.
The son, like the father, had a strong liking for mechanics, and as
the slating trade did not keep him in regular employment, especially
in winter time, he had plenty of opportunity for following the bent
of his inclinations. He made a friend of the village blacksmith,
whose smithy he was accustomed to frequent, and there he learned to
work at the forge, to handle the hammer and file, and in a short time
to shoe horses with considerable expertness. A cousin of his named
Farer, a clock and watchmaker by trade, having returned to the
village from London, brought with him some books on mechanics, which
he lent to Joseph to read; and they kindled in him an ardent desire
to be a mechanic instead of a slater. He nevertheless continued to
maintain himself by the latter trade for some time longer, until his
skill had grown; and, by way of cultivating it, he determined, with
the aid of his friend the village blacksmith, to make a
turning-lathe. The two set to work, and the result was the production
of an article in every way superior to that made by Clement's father,
which was accordingly displaced to make room for the new machine. It
was found to work very satisfactorily, and by its means Joseph
proceeded to turn fifes, flutes, clarinets, and hautboys; for to his
other accomplishments he joined that of music, and could play upon
the instruments that he made. One of his most ambitious efforts was
the making of a pair of Northumberland bagpipes, which he finished to
his satisfaction, and performed upon to the great delight of the
villagers. To assist his father in his entomological studies, he even
contrived, with the aid of the descriptions given in the books
borrowed from his cousin the watchmaker, to make for him a
microscope, from which he proceeded to make a reflecting telescope,
which proved a very good instrument. At this early period (1804) he
also seems to have directed his attention to screw-making--a branch
of mechanics in which he afterwards became famous; and he proceeded
to make a pair of very satisfactory die-stocks, though it is said
that he had not before seen or even heard of such a contrivance for
making screws.
So clever a workman was not likely to remain long a village slater.
Although the ingenious pieces of work which he turned out by his
lathe did not bring him in much money, he liked the occupation so
much better than slating that he was gradually giving up that trade.
His father urged him to stick to slating as "a safe thing;" but his
own mind was in favour of following his instinct to be a mechanic;
and at length he determined to leave his village and seek work in a
new line. He succeeded in finding employment in a small factory at
Kirby Stephen, a town some thirteen miles from Great Ashby, where he
worked at making power-looms. From an old statement of account
against his employer which we have seen, in his own handwriting,
dated the 6th September, 1805, it appears that his earnings at such
work as "fitting the first set of iron loames," "fitting up
shittles," and "making moddles," were 3s. 6d. a day; and he must,
during the same time, have lived with his employer, who charged him
as a set-off "14 weaks bord at 8s. per weak." He afterwards seems to
have worked at piece-work in partnership with one Andrew Gamble
supplying the materials as well as the workmanship for the looms and
shuttles. His employer, Mr. George Dickinson, also seems to have
bought his reflecting telescope from him for the sum of 12l.
From Kirby Stephen Clement removed to Carlisle, where he was employed
by Forster and Sons during the next two years at the same description
of work; and he conducted himself, according; to their certificate on
his leaving their employment to proceed to Glasgow in 1807, "with
great sobriety and industry, entirely to their satisfaction." While
working at Glasgow as a turner, he took lessons in drawing from Peter
Nicholson, the well-known writer on carpentry--a highly ingenious
man. Nicholson happened to call at the shop at which Clement worked
in order to make a drawing of a power-loom; and Clement's expressions
of admiration at his expertness were so enthusiastic, that Nicholson,
pleased with the youth's praise, asked if he could be of service to
him in any way. Emboldened by the offer, Clement requested, as the
greatest favour he could confer upon him, to have the loan of the
drawing he had just made, in order that he might copy it. The request
was at once complied with; and Clement, though very poor at the time,
and scarcely able to buy candle for the long winter evenings, sat up
late every night until he had finished it. Though the first drawing
he had ever made, he handed it back to Nicholson instead of the
original, and at first the draughtsman did not recognise that the
drawing was not his own. When Clement told him that it was only the
copy, Nicholson's brief but emphatic praise was --- "Young man,
YOU'LL DO!" Proud to have such a pupil, Nicholson generously offered
to give him gratuitous lessons in drawing, which were thankfully
accepted; and Clement, working at nights with great ardour, soon made
rapid progress, and became an expert draughtsman.
Trade being very slack in Glasgow at the time, Clement, after about a
year's stay in the place, accepted a situation with Messrs. Leys,
Masson, and Co., of Aberdeen, with whom he began at a guinea and a
half a week, from which he gradually rose to two guineas, and
ultimately to three guineas. His principal work consisted in
designing and making power-looms for his employers, and fitting them
up in different parts of the country. He continued to devote himself
to the study of practical mechanics, and made many improvements in
the tools with which he worked. While at Glasgow he had made an
improved pair of die-stocks for screws; and, at Aberdeen, he made a
turning-lathe with a sliding mandrill and guide-screws, for cutting
screws, furnished also with the means for correcting guide-screws. In
the same machine he introduced a small slide rest, into which he
fixed the tool for cutting the screws,--having never before seen a
slide rest, though it is very probable he may have heard of what
Maudslay had already done in the same direction. Clement continued
during this period of his life an industrious self-cultivator,
occupying most of his spare hours in mechanical and landscape
drawing, and in various studies. Among the papers left behind him we
find a ticket to a course of instruction on Natural Philosophy given
by Professor Copland in the Marischal College at Aberdeen, which
Clement attended in the session of 1812-13; and we do not doubt that
our mechanic was among the most diligent of his pupils. Towards the
end of 1813, after saving about 100L. out of his wages, Clement
resolved to proceed to London for the purpose of improving himself in
his trade and pushing his way in the world. The coach by which he
travelled set him down in Snow Hill, Holborn; and his first thought
was of finding work. He had no friend in town to consult on the
matter, so he made inquiry of the coach-guard whether he knew of any
person in the mechanical line in that neighbourhood. The guard said,
"Yes; there was Alexander Galloway's show shop, just round the
corner, and he employed a large number of hands." Running round the
corner, Clement looked in at Galloway's window, through which he saw
some lathes and other articles used in machine shops. Next morning he
called upon the owner of the shop to ask employment. "What can you
do?" asked Galloway. "I can work at the forge," said Clement.
"Anything else?" "I can turn." "What else?" "I can draw." "What!"
said Galloway, "can you draw? Then I will engage you." A man who
could draw or work to a drawing in those days was regarded as a
superior sort of mechanic. Though Galloway was one of the leading
tradesmen of his time, and had excellent opportunities for
advancement, he missed them all. As Clement afterwards said of him,
"He was only a mouthing common-council man, the height of whose
ambition was to be an alderman;" and, like most corporation
celebrities, he held a low rank in his own business. He very rarely
went into his workshops to superintend or direct his workmen, leaving
this to his foremen--a sufficient indication of the causes of his
failure as a mechanic.*
[footnote...
On one occasion Galloway had a cast-iron roof made for his workshop,
so flat and so independent of ties that the wonder was that it should
have stood an hour. One day Peter Keir, an engineer much employed by
the government--a clever man, though some what eccentric--was taken
into the shop by Galloway to admire the new roof. Keir, on glancing
up at it, immediately exclaimed, "Come outside, and let us speak
about it there!" All that he could say to Galloway respecting the
unsoundness of its construction was of no avail. The fact was that,
however Keir might argue about its not being able to stand, there it
was actually standing, and that was enough for Galloway. Keir went
home, his mind filled with Galloway's most unprincipled roof. "If
that stands," said he to himself, "all that I have been learning and
doing for thirty years has been wrong." That night he could not sleep
for thinking about it. In the morning he strolled up Primrose Hill,
and returned home still muttering to himself about "that roof."
"What, said his wife to him, "are you thinking of Galloway's roof?"
"Yes, said he. "Then you have seen the papers?" "No -- what about
them?" "Galloway's roof has fallen in this morning, and killed eight
or ten of the men!" Keir immediately went to bed, and slept soundly
till next morning.
...]
On entering Galloway's shop, Clement was first employed in working at
the lathe; but finding the tools so bad that it was impossible to
execute satisfactory work with them, he at once went to the forge,
and began making a new set of tools for himself. The other men, to
whom such a proceeding was entirely new, came round him to observe
his operations, and they were much struck with his manual dexterity.
The tools made, he proceeded to use them, displaying what seemed to
the other workmen an unusual degree of energy and intelligence; and
some of the old hands did not hesitate already to pronounce Clement
to be the best mechanic in the shop. When Saturday night came round,
the other men were curious to know what wages Galloway would allow
the new hand; and when he had been paid, they asked him. "A guinea,"
was the reply. "A guinea! Why, you are worth two if you are worth a
shilling," said an old man who came out of the rank--an excellent
mechanic, who, though comparatively worthless through his devotion to
drink, knew Clement's money value to his employer better than any man
there; and he added, "Wait for a week or two, and if you are not
better paid than this, I can tell you of a master who will give you a
fairer wage." Several Saturdays came round, but no advance was made
on the guinea a week; and then the old workman recommended Clement to
offer himself to Bramah at Pimlico, who was always on the look out
for first-rate mechanics.
Clement acted on the advice, and took with him some of his drawings,
at sight of which Bramah immediately engaged him for a month; and at
the end of that time he had given so much satisfaction, that it was
agreed he should continue for three months longer at two guineas a
week. Clement was placed in charge of the tools of the shop, and he
showed himself so apt at introducing improvements in them, as well as
in organizing the work with a view to despatch and economy, that at
the end of the term Bramah made him a handsome present, adding, "if I
had secured your services five years since, I would now have been a
richer man by many thousands of pounds." A formal agreement for a
term of five years was then entered into between Bramah and Clement,
dated the 1st of April, 1814, by which the latter undertook to fill
the office of chief-draughtsman and superintendent of the Pimlico
Works, in consideration of a salary of three guineas a week, with an
advance of four shillings a week in each succeeding year of the
engagement. This arrangement proved of mutual advantage to both.
Clement devoted himself with increased zeal to the improvement of the
mechanical arrangements of the concern, exhibiting his ingenuity in
many ways, and taking; a genuine pride in upholding the character of
his master for turning out first-class work.
On the death of Bramah, his sons returned from college and entered
into possession of the business. They found Clement the ruling mind
there and grew jealous of him to such an extent that his situation
became uncomfortable; and by mutual consent he was allowed to leave
before the expiry of his term of agreement. He had no difficulty in
finding employment; and was at once taken on as chief draughtsman at
Maudslay and Field's where he was of much assistance in proportioning
the early marine engines, for the manufacture of which that firm were
becoming celebrated. After a short time, he became desirous of
beginning business on his own account as a mechanical engineer. He
was encouraged to do this by the Duke of Northumberland, who, being a
great lover of mechanics and himself a capital turner, used often to
visit Maudslay's, and thus became acquainted with Clement, whose
expertness as a draughtsman and mechanic he greatly admired. Being a
man of frugal and sober habits, always keeping his expenditure very
considerably within his income, Clement had been enabled to
accumulate about 500L., which he thought would be enough for his
purpose; and he accordingly proceeded, in 1817, to take a small
workshop in Prospect Place, Newington Butts, where he began business
as a mechanical draughtsman and manufacturer of small machinery
requiring first-class workmanship.
From the time when he took his first gratuitous lessons in drawing
from Peter Nicholson, at Glasgow, in 1807, he had been steadily
improving in this art, the knowledge of which is indispensable to
whoever aspires to eminence as a mechanical engineer,--until by
general consent Clement was confessed to stand unrivalled as a
draughtsman. Some of the very best drawings contained in the
Transactions of the Society of Arts, from the year 1817
downwards,--especially those requiring the delineation of any
unusually elaborate piece of machinery,--proceeded from the hand of
Clement. In some of these, he reached a degree of truth in mechanical
perspective which has never been surpassed.*
[footnote...
See more particularly The Transactions of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, vol. xxxiii. (l8l7), at pp. 74,l57,l60,175,208
(an admirable drawing; of Mr. James Allen's Theodolite); vol. xxxvi.
(1818), pp. 28,176 (a series of remarkable illustrations of Mr.
Clement's own invention of an Instrument for Drawing Ellipses); vol.
xliii. (1825), containing an illustration of the Drawing Table
invented by him for large drawings; vol. xlvi. (1828), containing a
series of elaborate illustrations of his Prize Turning Lathe; and
xlviii. 1829, containing illustrations of his Self-adjusting Double
Driver Centre Chuck.
...]
To facilitate his labours, he invented an extremely ingenious
instrument, by means of which ellipses of all proportions, as well as
circles and right lines, might be geometrically drawn on paper or on
copper. He took his idea of this instrument from the trammel used by
carpenters for drawing imperfect ellipses; and when he had succeeded
in avoiding the crossing of the points, he proceeded to invent the
straight-line motion. For this invention the Society of Arts awarded
him their gold medal in 1818. Some years later, he submitted to the
same Society his invention of a stand for drawings of large size. He
had experienced considerable difficulty in making such drawings, and
with his accustomed readiness to overcome obstacles, he forthwith set
to work and brought out his new drawing-table.
As with many other original-minded mechanics, invention became a
habit with him, and by study and labour he rarely failed in attaining
the object which he had bent his mind upon accomplishing. Indeed,
nothing pleased him better than to have what he called "a tough job;"
as it stimulated his inventive faculty, in the exercise of which he
took the highest pleasure. Hence mechanical schemers of all kinds
were accustomed to resort to Clement for help when they had found an
idea which they desired to embody in a machine. If there was any
value in their idea, none could be more ready than he to recognise
its merit, and to work it into shape; but if worthless, he spoke out
his mind at once, dissuading the projector from wasting upon it
further labour or expense.
One of the important branches of practical mechanics to which Clement
continued through life to devote himself, was the improvement of
self-acting tools, more especially of the slide-lathe. He introduced
various improvements in its construction and arrangement, until in
his hands it became as nearly perfect as it was possible to be. In
1818, he furnished the lathe with a slide rest twenty-two inches
long, for the purpose of cutting screws, provided with the means of
self-correction; and some years later, in 1827, the Society of Arts
awarded him their gold Isis medal for his improved turning-lathe,
which embodied many ingenious contrivances calculated to increase its
precision and accuracy in large surface-turning.
The beautiful arrangements embodied in Mr. Clement's improved lathe
can with difficulty be described in words; but its ingenuity may be
inferred from a brief statement of the defects which it was invented
to remedy, and which it successfully overcame. When the mandrill of a
lathe, having a metal plate fixed to it, turns round with a uniform
motion, and the slide rest which carries the cutter is moving from
the circumference of the work to the centre, it will be obvious that
the quantity of metal passing over the edge of the cutter at each
revolution, and therefore at equal intervals of time, is continually
diminishing, in exact proportion to the spiral line described by the
cutter on the face of the work. But in turning metal plates it is
found very in expedient to increase the speed of the work beyond a
certain quantity; for when this happens, and the tool passes the work
at too great a velocity, it heats, softens, and is ground away, the
edge of the cutter becomes dull, and the surface of the plate is
indented and burnished, instead of being turned. Hence loss of time
on the part of the workman, and diminished work on the part of the
tool, results which, considering the wages of the one and the capital
expended on the construction of the other, are of no small
importance; for the prime objects of all improvement of tools are,
economy of time and economy of capital--to minimize labour and cost,
and maximize result.
The defect to which we have referred was almost the only remaining
imperfection in the lathe, and Mr. Clement overcame it by making the
machine self-regulating; so that, whatever might be the situation of
the cutter, equal quantities of metal should pass over it in equal
times,--the speed at the centre not exceeding that suited to the work
at the circumference,--while the workman was enabled to convert the
varying rate of the mandrill into a uniform one whenever he chose.
Thus the expedients of wheels, riggers, and drums, of different
diameters, by which it had been endeavoured to alter the speed of the
lathe-mandrill, according to the hardness of the metal and the
diameter of the thing to be turned, were effectually disposed of.
These, though answering very well where cylinders of equal diameter
had to be bored, and a uniform motion was all that was required, were
found very inefficient where a Plane surface had to be turned; and it
was in such cases that Mr. Clement's lathe was found so valuable. By
its means surfaces of unrivalled correctness were produced, and the
slide-lathe, so improved, became recognised and adopted as the most
accurate and extensively applicable of all machine-tools.
The year after Mr. Clement brought out his improved turning-lathe, he
added to it his self-adjusting double driving centre-chuck, for which
the Society of Arts awarded him their silver medal in 1828. In
introducing this invention to the notice of the Society, Mr. Clement
said, "Although I have been in the habit of turning and making
turning-lathes and other machinery for upwards of thirty-five years,
and have examined the best turning-lathes in the principal
manufactories throughout Great Britain, I find it universally
regretted by all practical men that they cannot turn anything
perfectly true between the centres of the lathe." It was found by
experience, that there was a degree of eccentricity, and consequently
of imperfection, in the figure of any long cylinder turned while
suspended between the centres of the lathe, and made to revolve by
the action of a single driver. Under such circumstances the pressure
of the tool tended to force the work out of the right line and to
distribute the strain between the driver and the adjacent centre, so
that one end of the cylinder became eccentric with respect to the
other. By Mr. Clement's invention of the two-armed driver, which was
self-adjusting, the strain was taken from the centre and divided
between the two arms, which being equidistant from the centre,
effectually corrected all eccentricity in the work. This invention
was found of great importance in ensuring the true turning of large
machinery, which before had been found a matter of considerable
difficulty.
In the same year (1828) Mr. Clement began the making of fluted taps
and dies, and he established a mechanical practice with reference to
the pitch of the screw, which proved of the greatest importance in
the economics of manufacture. Before his time, each mechanical
engineer adopted a thread of his own; so that when a piece of work
came under repair, the screw-hob had usually to be drilled out, and a
new thread was introduced according to the usage which prevailed in
the shop in which the work was executed. Mr. Clement saw a great
waste of labour in this practice, and he promulgated the idea that
every screw of a particular length ought to be furnished with its
appointed number of threads of a settled pitch. Taking the inch as
the basis of his calculations, he determined the number of threads in
each case; and the practice thus initiated by him, recommended as it
was by convenience and economy, was very shortly adopted throughout
the trade. It may be mentioned that one of Clement's ablest
journeymen, Mr. Whitworth, has, since his time, been mainly
instrumental in establishing the settled practice; and Whitworth's
thread (initiated by Clement) has become recognised throughout the
mechanical world. To carry out his idea, Clement invented his
screw-engine lathe, with gearing, mandrill, and sliding-table
wheel-work, by means of which he first cut the inside screw-tools
from the left-handed hobs--the reverse mode having before been
adopted,--while in shaping machines he was the first to use the
revolving cutter attached to the slide rest. Then, in 1828, he fluted
the taps for the first time with a revolving cutter,--other makers
having up to that time only notched them. Among his other inventions
in screws may be mentioned his headless tap, which, according to Mr.
Nasmyth, is so valuable an invention, that, "if he had done nothing
else, it ought to immortalize him among mechanics. It passed right
through the hole to be tapped, and was thus enabled to do the duty of
three ordinary screws." By these improvements much greater precision
was secured in the manufacture of tools and machinery, accompanied by
a greatly reduced cost of production; the results of which are felt
to this day.
Another of Mr. Clement's ingenious inventions was his Planing
Machine, by means of which metal plates of large dimensions were
planed with perfect truth and finished with beautiful accuracy. There
is perhaps scarcely a machine about which there has been more
controversy than this; and we do not pretend to be able to determine
the respective merits of the many able mechanics who have had a hand
in its invention. It is exceedingly probable that others besides
Clement worked out the problem in their own way, by independent
methods; and this is confirmed by the circumstance that though the
results achieved by the respective inventors were the same, the
methods employed by them were in many respects different. As regards
Clement, we find that previous to the year 1820 he had a machine in
regular use for planing the triangular bars of lathes and the sides
of weaving-looms. This instrument was found so useful and so
economical in its working, that Clement proceeded to elaborate a
planing machine of a more complete kind, which he finished and set to
work in the year 1825. He prepared no model of it, but made it direct
from the working drawings; and it was so nicely constructed, that
when put together it went without a hitch, and has continued steadily
working for more than thirty years down to the present day.
Clement took out no patent for his invention, relying for protection
mainly on his own and his workmen's skill in using it. We therefore
find no specification of his machine at the Patent Office, as in the
case of most other capital inventions; but a very complete account of
it is to be found in the Transactions of the Society of Arts for
1832, as described by Mr. Varley. The practical value of the Planing
Machine induced the Society to apply to Mr. Clement for liberty to
publish a full description of it; and Mr. Varley's paper was the
result.*
[footnote...
Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, vol. xlix.
p.157.
...]
It may be briefly stated that this engineer's plane differs greatly
from the carpenter's plane, the cutter of which is only allowed to
project so far as to admit of a thin shaving to be sliced off,--the
plane working flat in proportion to the width of the tool, and its
length and straightness preventing the cutter from descending into
any hollows in the wood. The engineer's plane more resembles the
turning-lathe, of which indeed it is but a modification, working up
on the same principle, on flat surfaces. The tools or cutters in
Clement's machine were similar to those used in the lathe, varying in
like manner, but performing their work in right lines,--the tool
being stationary and the work moving under it, the tool only
travelling when making lateral cuts. To save time two cutters were
mounted, one to cut the work while going, the other while returning,
both being so arranged and held as to be presented to the work in the
firmest manner, and with the least possible friction. The bed of the
machine, on which the work was laid, passed under the cutters on
perfectly true rollers or wheels, lodged and held in their bearings
as accurately as the best mandrill could be, and having set-screws
acting against their ends totally preventing all end-motion. The
machine was bedded on a massive and solid foundation of masonry in
heavy blocks, the support at all points being so complete as
effectually to destroy all tendency to vibration, with the object of
securing full, round, and quiet cuts. The rollers on which the
planing-machine travelled were so true, that Clement himself used to
say of them, "If you were to put but a paper shaving under one of the
rollers, it would at once stop all the rest." Nor was this any
exaggeration--the entire mechanism, notwithstanding its great size,
being as true and accurate as that of a watch.
By an ingenious adaptation of the apparatus, which will also be found
described in the Society of Arts paper, the planing machine might be
fitted with a lathe-bed, either to hold two centres, or a head with a
suitable mandrill. When so fitted, the machine was enabled to do the
work of a turning-lathe, though in a different way, cutting cylinders
or cones in their longitudinal direction perfectly straight, as well
as solids or prisms of any angle, either by the longitudinal or
lateral motion of the cutter; whilst by making the work revolve, it
might be turned as in any other lathe. This ingenious machine, as
contrived by Mr. Clement, therefore represented a complete union of
the turning-lathe with the planing machine and dividing engine, by
which turning of the most complicated kind might readily be executed.
For ten years after it was set in motion, Clement's was the only
machine of the sort available for planing large work; and being
consequently very much in request, it was often kept going night and
day,--the earnings by the planing machine alone during that time
forming the principal income of its inventor. As it took in a piece
of work six feet square, and as his charge for planing was
three-halfpence the square inch, or eighteen shillings the square
foot, he could thus earn by his machine alone some ten pounds for
every day's work of twelve hours. We may add that since planing
machines in various forms have become common in mechanical workshops,
the cost of planing does not amount to more than three-halfpence the
square foot.
The excellence of Mr. Clement's tools, and his well-known skill in
designing and executing work requiring unusual accuracy and finish,
led to his being employed by Mr. Babbage to make his celebrated
Calculating or Difference Engine. The contrivance of a machine that
should work out complicated sums in arithmetic with perfect
precision, was, as may readily be imagined, one of the most difficult
feats of the mechanical intellect. To do this was in an especial
sense to stamp matter with the impress of mind, and render it
subservient to the highest thinking faculty. Attempts had been made
at an early period to perform arithmetical calculations by mechanical
aids more rapidly and precisely than it was possible to do by the
operations of the individual mind. The preparation of arithmetical
tables of high numbers involved a vast deal of labour, and even with
the greatest care errors were unavoidable and numerous. Thus in a
multipltcation-table prepared by a man so eminent as Dr. Hutton for
the Board of Longitude, no fewer than forty errors were discovered in
a single page taken at random. In the tables of the Nautical Almanac,
where the greatest possible precision was desirable and necessary,
more than five hundred errors were detected by one person; and the
Tables of the Board of Longitude were found equally incorrect. But
such errors were impossible to be avoided so long as the ordinary
modes of calculating, transcribing, and printing continued in use.
The earliest and simplest form of calculating apparatus was that
employed by the schoolboys of ancient Greece, called the Abacus;
consisting of a smooth board with a narrow rim, on which they were
taught to compute by means of progressive rows of pebbles, bits of
bone or ivory, or pieces of silver coin, used as counters. The same
board, strewn over with sand, was used for teaching the rudiments of
writing and the principles of geometry. The Romans subsequently
adopted the Abacus, dividing it by means of perpendicular lines or
bars, and from the designation of calculus which they gave to each
pebble or counter employed on the board, we have derived our English
word to calculate. The same instrument continued to be employed
during the middle ages, and the table used by the English Court of
Exchequer was but a modified form of the Greek Abacus, the chequered
lines across it giving the designation to the Court, which still
survives. Tallies, from the French word tailler to cut, were another
of the mechanical methods employed to record computations, though in
a very rude way. Step by step improvements were made; the most
important being that invented by Napier of Merchiston, the inventor
of logarithms, commonly called Napier's bones, consisting of a number
of rods divided into ten equal squares and numbered, so that the
whole when placed together formed the common multiplication table. By
these means various operations in multiplication and division were
performed. Sir Samuel Morland, Gunter, and Lamb introduced other
contrivances, applicable to trigonometry; Gunter's scale being still
in common use. The calculating machines of Gersten and Pascal were of
a different kind, working out arithmetical calculations by means of
trains of wheels and other arrangements; and that contrived by Lord
Stanhope for the purpose of verifying his calculations with respect
to the National Debt was of like character. But none of these will
bear for a moment to be compared with the machine designed by Mr.
Babbage for performing arithmetical calculations and mathematical
analyses, as well as for recording the calculations when made,
thereby getting rid entirely of individual error in the operations of
calculation, transcription, and printing.
The French government, in their desire to promote the extension of
the decimal system, had ordered the construction of logarithmical
tables of vast extent; but the great labour and expense involved in
the undertaking prevented the design from being carried out. It was
reserved for Mr. Babbage to develope the idea by means of a machine
which he called the Difference Engine. This machine is of so
complicated a character that it would be impossible for us to give
any intelligible description of it in words . Although Dr. Lardner
was unrivalled in the art of describing mechanism, he occupied
twenty-five pages of the 'Edinburgh Review' (vol.59) in endeavouring
to describe its action, and there were several features in it which
he gave up as hopeless. Some parts of the apparatus and modes of
action are indeed extraordinary and perhaps none more so than that
for ensuring accuracy in the calculated results,--the machine
actually correcting itself, and rubbing itself back into accuracy,
when the disposition to err occurs, by the friction of the adjacent
machinery! When an error is made, the wheels become locked and refuse
to proceed; thus the machine must go rightly or not at all,--an
arrangement as nearly resembling volition as anything that brass and
steel are likely to accomplish.
This intricate subject was taken up by Mr. Babbage in 1821, when he
undertook to superintend for the British government the construction
of a machine for calculating and printing mathematical and
astronomical tables. The model first constructed to illustrate the
nature of his invention produced figures at the rate of 44 a minute.
In 1823 the Royal Society was requested to report upon the invention,
and after full inquiry the committee recommended it as one highly
deserving of public encouragement. A sum of 1500L. was then placed at
Mr. Babbage's disposal by the Lords of the Treasury for the purpose
of enabling him to perfect his invention. It was at this time that he
engaged Mr. Clement as draughtsman and mechanic to embody his ideas
in a working machine. Numerous tools were expressly contrived by the
latter for executing the several parts, and workmen were specially
educated for the purpose of using them. Some idea of the elaborate
character of the drawings may be formed from the fact that those
required for the calculating machinery alone--not to mention the
printing machinery, which was almost equally elaborate--covered not
less than four hundred square feet of surface! The cost of executing
the calculating machine was of course very great, and the progress of
the work was necessarily slow. The consequence was that the
government first became impatient, and then began to grumble at the
expense. At the end of seven years the engineer's bills alone were
found to amount to nearly 7200L., and Mr. Babbage's costs out of
pocket to 7000L. more. In order to make more satisfactory progress,
it was determined to remove the works to the neighbourhood of Mr.
Babbage's own residence; but as Clement's claims for conducting the
operations in the new premises were thought exorbitant, and as he
himself considered that the work did not yield him the average profit
of ordinary employment in his own trade, he eventually withdrew from
the enterprise, taking with him the tools which he had constructed
for executing the machine. The government also shortly after withdrew
from it, and from that time the scheme was suspended, the Calculating
Engine remaining a beautiful but unfinished fragment of a great work.
Though originally intended to go as far as twenty figures, it was
only completed to the extent of being capable of calculating to the
depth of five figures, and two orders of differences; and only a
small part of the proposed printing machinery was ever made. The
engine was placed in the museum of King's College in 1843, enclosed
in a glass case, until the year 1862, when it was removed for a time
to the Great Exhibition, where it formed perhaps the most remarkable
and beautifully executed piece of mechanism the combined result of
intellectual and mechanical contrivance--in the entire collection.*
[footnote...
A complete account of the calculating machine, as well as of an
analytical engine afterwards contrived by Mr. Babbage, of still
greater power than the other, will be found in the Bibliotheque
Universelle de Geneve, of which a translation into English, with
copious original notes, by the late Lady Lovelace, daughter of Lord
Byron, was published in the 3rd vol. of Taylor's Scientific Memoirs
(London, 1843). A history of the machine, and of the circumstances
connected with its construction, will also be found in Weld's History
of the Royal Society, vol. ii. 369-391. It remains to be added, that
the perusal by Messrs. Scheutz of Stockholm of Dr. Lardner's account
of Mr. Babbage's engine in the Edinburgh Review, led those clever
mechanics to enter upon the scheme of constructing and completing it,
and the result is, that their machine not only calculates the tables,
but prints the results. It took them nearly twenty years to perfect
it, but when completed the machine seemed to be almost capable of
thinking. The original was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1855.
A copy of it has since been secured by the English government at a
cost of 1200L., and it is now busily employed at Somerset House in
working out annuity and other tables for the Registrar-General. The
copy was constructed, with several admirable improvements, by the
Messrs. Donkin, the well-known mechanical engineers, after the
working drawings of the Messrs. Scheutz.
...]
Clement was on various other occasions invited to undertake work
requiring extra skill, which other mechanics were unwilling or unable
to execute. He was thus always full of employment, never being under
the necessity of canvassing for customers. He was almost constantly
in his workshop, in which he took great pride. His dwelling was over
the office in the yard, and it was with difficulty he could be
induced to leave the premises. On one occasion Mr. Brunel of the
Great Western Railway called upon him to ask if he could supply him
with a superior steam-whistle for his locomotives, the whistles which
they were using giving forth very little sound. Clement examined the
specimen brought by Brunel, and pronounced it to be "mere
tallow-chandler's work." He undertook to supply a proper article, and
after his usual fashion he proceeded to contrive a machine or tool
for the express purpose of making steam-whistles. They were made and
supplied, and when mounted on the locomotive the effect was indeed
"screaming." They were heard miles off, and Brunel, delighted,
ordered a hundred. But when the bill came in, it was found that the
charge made for them was very high--as much as 40L. the set. The
company demurred at the price,--Brunel declaring it to be six times
more than the price they had before been paying. "That may be;"
rejoined Clement, "but mine are more than six times better. You
ordered a first-rate article, and you must be content to pay for it."
The matter was referred to an arbitrator, who awarded the full sum
claimed. Mr. Weld mentions a similar case of an order which Clement
received from America to make a large screw of given dimensions "in
the best possible manner," and he accordingly proceeded to make one
with the greatest mathematical accuracy. But his bill amounted to
some hundreds of pounds, which completely staggered the American, who
did not calculate on having to pay more than 20L. at the utmost for
the screw. The matter was, however, referred to arbitrators, who gave
their decision, as in the former case, in favour of the mechanic.*
[footnote...
History of the Royal Society, ii. 374.
...]
One of the last works which Clement executed as a matter of pleasure,
was the building of an organ for his own use. It will be remembered
that when working as a slater at Great Ashby, he had made flutes and
clarinets, and now in his old age he determined to try his skill at
making an organ--in his opinion the king of musical instruments. The
building of it became his hobby, and his greatest delight was in
superintending its progress. It cost him about two thousand pounds in
labour alone, but he lived to finish it, and we have been informed
that it was pronounced a very excellent instrument.
Clement was a heavy-browed man, without any polish of manner or
speech; for to the last he continued to use his strong Westmoreland
dialect. He was not educated in a literary sense; for he read but
little, and could write with difficulty. He was eminently a mechanic,
and had achieved his exquisite skill by observation, experience, and
reflection. His head was a complete repertory of inventions, on which
he was constantly drawing for the improvement of mechanical practice.
Though he had never more than thirty workmen in his factory, they
were all of the first class; and the example which Clement set before
them of extreme carefulness and accuracy in execution rendered his
shop one of the best schools of its time for the training of
thoroughly accomplished mechanics. Mr. Clement died in 1844, in his
sixty-fifth year; after which his works were carried on by Mr.
Wilkinson, one of his nephews; and his planing machine still
continues in useful work.
CHAPTER XIV.
FOX OF DERBY - MURRAY OF LEEDS - ROBERTS AND WHITWORTH OF MANCHESTER.
"Founders and senators of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of
tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil
government, were honoured but with titles of Worthies or demi-gods;
whereas, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments,
and commodities towards man's life, were ever consecrated amongst the
gods themselves."--BACON, Advancement of Learning.
While such were the advances made in the arts of tool-making and
engine-construction through the labours of Bramah, Maudslay, and
Clement, there were other mechanics of almost equal eminence who
flourished about the same time and subsequently in several of the
northern manufacturing towns. Among these may be mentioned James Fox
of Derby; Matthew Murray and Peter Fairbairn of Leeds; Richard
Roberts, Joseph Whitworth, James Nasmyth, and William Fairbairn of
Manchester; to all of whom the manufacturing industry of Great
Britain stands in the highest degree indebted.
James Fox, the founder of the Derby firm of mechanical engineers, was
originally a butler in the service of the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of
Foxhall Lodge, Staffordshire. Though a situation of this kind might
not seem by any means favourable for the display of mechanical
ability, yet the butler's instinct for handicraft was so strong that
it could not be repressed; and his master not only encouraged him in
the handling of tools in his leisure hours, but had so genuine an
admiration of his skill as well as his excellent qualities of
character, that he eventually furnished him with the means of
beginning business on his own account.
The growth and extension of the cotton, silk, and lace trades, in the
neighbourhood of Derby, furnished Fox with sufficient opportunities
for the exercise of his mechanical skill; and he soon found ample
scope for its employment. His lace machinery became celebrated, and
he supplied it largely to the neighbouring town of Nottingham; he
also obtained considerable employment from the great firms of
Arkwright and Strutt-- the founders of the modem cotton manufacture.
Mr. Fox also became celebrated for his lathes, which were of
excellent quality, still maintaining their high reputation; and
besides making largely for the supply of the home demand, he exported
much machinery abroad, to France, Russia, and the Mauritius.
The present Messrs. Fox of Derby, who continue to carry on the
business of the firm, claim for their grandfather, its founder, that
he made the first planing machine in 1814,*
[footnote...
Engineer, Oct. 10th, 1862.
...]
and they add that the original article continued in use until quite
recently. We have been furnished by Samuel Hall, formerly a workman
at the Messrs. Fox's, with the following description of the
machine: -- " It was essentially the same in principle as the planing
machine now in general use, although differing in detail. It had a
self-acting ratchet motion for moving the slides of a compound slide
rest, and a self-acting reversing tackle, consisting of three bevel
wheels, one a stud, one loose on the driving shaft, and another on a
socket, with a pinion on the opposite end of the driving shaft
running on the socket. The other end was the place for the driving
pulley. A clutch box was placed between the two opposite wheels,
which was made to slide on a feather, so that by means of another
shaft containing levers and a tumbling ball, the box on reversing was
carried from one bevel wheel to the opposite one." The same James Fox
is also said at a very early period to have invented a screw-cutting
machine, an engine for accurately dividing and cutting the teeth of
wheels, and a self-acting lathe. But the evidence as to the dates at
which these several inventions are said to have been made is so
conflicting that it is impossible to decide with whom the merit of
making them really rests. The same idea is found floating at the same
time in many minds, the like necessity pressing upon all, and the
process of invention takes place in like manner: hence the
contemporaneousness of so many inventions, and the disputes that
arise respecting them, as described in a previous chapter.
There are still other claimants for the merit of having invented the
planing machine; among whom may be mentioned more particularly
Matthew Murray of Leeds, and Richard Roberts of Manchester. We are
informed by Mr. March, the present mayor of Leeds, head of the
celebrated tool-manufacturing firm of that town, that when he first
went to work at Matthew Murray's, in 1814, a planing machine of his
invention was used to plane the circular part or back of the D valve,
which he had by that time introduced in the steam-engine. Mr. March
says, "I recollect it very distinctly, and even the sort of framing
on which it stood. The machine was not patented, and like many
inventions in those days, it was kept as much a secret as possible,
being locked up in a small room by itself, to which the ordinary
workmen could not obtain access. The year in which I remember it
being in use was, so far as I am aware, long before any
planing-machine of a similar kind had been invented."
Matthew Murray was born at Stockton-on-Tees in the year 1763. His
parents were of the working class, and Matthew, like the other
members of the family, was brought up with the ordinary career of
labour before him. When of due age his father apprenticed him to the
trade of a blacksmith, in which he very soon acquired considerable
expertness. He married before his term had expired; after which,
trade being slack at Stockton, he found it necessary to look for work
elsewhere. Leaving his wife behind him, he set out for Leeds with his
bundle on his back, and after a long journey on foot, he reached that
town with not enough money left in his pocket to pay for a bed at the
Bay Horse inn, where he put up. But telling the landlord that he
expected work at Marshall's, and seeming to be a respectable young
man, the landlord trusted him; and he was so fortunate as to obtain
the job which he sought at Mr. Marshall's, who was then beginning the
manufacture of flax, for which the firm has since become so famous.
Mr. Marshall was at that time engaged in improving the method of
manufacture,*
[footnote...
We are informed in Mr. Longstaffe's Annals and Characteristics of
Darlington, that the spinning of flax by machinery was first begun by
one John Kendrew, an ingenious self-taught mechanic of that town, who
invented a machine for the purpose, for which he took out a patent in
1787. Mr. Marshall went over from Leeds to see his machine, and
agreed to give him so much per spindle for the right to use it. But
ceasing to pay the patent right, Kendrew commenced an action against
him for a sum of nine hundred pounds alleged to be due under the
agreement. The claim was disputed, and Kendrew lost his action; and
it is added in Longstaffe's Annals, that even had he succeeded, it
would have been of no use; for Mr. Marshall declared that he had not
then the money wherewith to pay him. It is possible that Matthew
Murray may have obtained some experience of flax-machinery in working
for Kendrew, which afterwards proved of use to him in Mr. Marshall's
establishment.
...]
and the young blacksmith was so fortunate or rather so dexterous as
to be able to suggest several improvements in the machinery which
secured the approval of his employer, who made him a present of 20L.,
and very shortly promoted him to be the first mechanic in the
workshop. On this stroke of good fortune Murray took a house at the
neighbouring village of Beeston, sent to Stockton for his wife, who
speedily joined him, and he now felt himself fairly started in the
world. He remained with Mr. Marshall for about twelve years, during
which he introduced numerous improvements in the machinery for
spinning flax, and obtained the reputation of being a first-rate
mechanic. This induced Mr. James Fenton and Mr. David Wood to offer
to join him in the establishment of an engineering and machine-making
factory at Leeds; which he agreed to, and operations were commenced
at Holbeck in the year 1795.
As Mr. Murray had obtained considerable practical knowledge of the
steam-engine while working at Mr. Marshall's, he took principal
charge of the engine-building department, while his partner Wood
directed the machine-making. In the branch of engine-building Mr.
Murray very shortly established a high reputation, treading close
upon the heels of Boulton and Watt--so close, indeed, that that firm
became very jealous of him, and purchased a large piece of ground
close to his works with the object of preventing their extension.*
[footnote...
The purchase of this large piece of ground, known as Camp Field, had
the effect of "plugging up" Matthew Murray for a time; and it
remained disused, except for the deposit of dead dogs and other
rubbish, for more than half a century. It has only been enclosed
during the present year, and now forms part of the works of Messrs.
Smith, Beacock, and Tannet, the eminent tool-makers.
...]
His additions to the steam-engine were of great practical value, one
of which, the self-acting apparatus attached to the boiler for the
purpose of regulating the intensity of fire under it, and
consequently the production of steam, is still in general use. This
was invented by him as early as 1799. He also subsequently invented
the D slide valve, or at least greatly improved it, while he added to
the power of the air-pump, and gave a new arrangement to the other
parts, with a view to the simplification of the powers of the engine.
To make the D valve work efficiently, it was found necessary to form
two perfectly plane surfaces, to produce which he invented his
planing machine. He was also the first to adopt the practice of
placing the piston in a horizontal position in the common condensing
engine. Among his other modifications in the steam-engine, was his
improvement of the locomotive as invented by Trevithick; and it ought
to be remembered to his honour that he made the first locomotive that
regularly worked upon any railway.
This was the engine erected by him for Blenkinsop, to work the
Middleton colliery railway near Leeds, on which it began to run in
1812, and continued in regular use for many years. In this engine he
introduced the double cylinder--Trevithick's engine being provided
with only one cylinder, the defects of which were supplemented by the
addition of a fly-wheel to carry the crank over the dead points.
But Matthew Murray's most important inventions, considered in their
effects on manufacturing industry, were those connected with the
machinery for heckling and spinning flax, which he very greatly
improved. His heckling machine obtained for him the prize of the gold
medal of the Society of Arts; and this as well as his machine for wet
flax-spinning by means of sponge weights proved of the greatest
practical value. At the time when these inventions were made the flax
trade was on the point of expiring, the spinners being unable to
produce yarn to a profit; and their almost immediate effect was to
reduce the cost of production, to improve immensely the quality of
the manufacture, and to establish the British linen trade on a solid
foundation. The production of flax-machinery became an important
branch of manufacture at Leeds, large quantities being made for use
at home as well as for exportation, giving employment to an
increasing number of highly skilled mechanics.*
[footnote...
Among more recent improvers of flax-machinery, the late Sir Peter
Fairbairn is entitled to high merit: the work turned out by him being
of first-rate excellence, embodying numerous inventions and
improvements of great value and importance.
...]
Mr. Murray's faculty for organising work, perfected by experience,
enabled him also to introduce many valuable improvements in the
mechanics of manufacturing. His pre-eminent skill in mill-gearing
became generally acknowledged, and the effects of his labours are
felt to this day in the extensive and still thriving branches of
industry which his ingenuity and ability mainly contributed to
establish. All the machine tools used in his establishment were
designed by himself, and he was most careful in the personal
superintendence of all the details of their construction. Mr. Murray
died at Leeds in 1826, in his sixty-third year.
We have not yet exhausted the list of claimants to the invention of
the Planing Machine, for we find still another in the person of
Richard Roberts of Manchester, one of the most prolific of modem
inventors. Mr. Roberts has indeed achieved so many undisputed
inventions, that he can readily afford to divide the honour in this
case with others. He has contrived things so various as the
self-acting mule and the best electro-magnet, wet gas-meters and dry
planing machines, iron billard-tables and turret-clocks, the
centrifugal railway and the drill slotting-machine, an apparatus for
making cigars and machinery for the propulsion and equipment of
steamships; so that he may almost be regarded as the Admirable
Crichton of modem mechanics.
Richard Roberts was born in 1789, at Carreghova in the parish of
Llanymynech. His father was by trade a shoemaker, to which he
occasionally added the occupation of toll-keeper. The house in which
Richard was born stood upon the border line which then divided the
counties of Salop and Montgomery; the front door opening in the one
county, and the back door in the other. Richard, when a boy, received
next to no education, and as soon as he was of fitting age was put to
common labouring work. For some time he worked in a quarry near his
father's dwelling; but being of an ingenious turn, he occupied his
leisure in making various articles of mechanism, partly for amusement
and partly for profit. One of his first achievements, while working
as a quarryman, was a spinning-wheel, of which he was very proud, for
it was considered "a good job." Thus he gradually acquired dexterity
in handling tools, and he shortly came to entertain the ambition of
becoming a mechanic.
There were several ironworks in the neighbour hood, and thither he
went in search of employment. He succeeded in finding work as a
pattern-maker at Bradley, near Bilston; under John Wilkinson, the
famous ironmaster--a man of great enterprise as well as mechanical
skill; for he was the first man, as already stated, that Watt could
find capable of boring a cylinder with any approach to truth, for the
purposes of his steam-engines. After acquiring some practical
knowledge of the art of working in wood as well as iron, Roberts
proceeded to Birmingham, where he passed through different shops,
gaining further experience in mechanical practice. He tried his hand
at many kinds of work, and acquired considerable dexterity in each.
He was regarded as a sort of jack-of-all-trades; for he was a good
turner, a tolerable wheel-wright, and could repair mill-work at a
pinch.
He next moved northward to the Horsley ironworks, Tipton, where he
was working as a pattern-maker when he had the misfortune to be drawn
in his own county for the militia. He immediately left his work and
made his way homeward to Llanymynech, determined not to be a soldier
or even a militiaman. But home was not the place for him to rest in,
and after bidding a hasty adieu to his father, he crossed the country
northward on foot and reached Liverpool, in the hope of finding work
there. Failing in that, he set out for Manchester and reached it at
dusk, very weary and very miry in consequence of the road being in
such a wretched state of mud and ruts. He relates that, not knowing a
person in the town, he went up to an apple-stall ostensibly to buy a
pennyworth of apples, but really to ask the stall-keeper if he knew
of any person in want of a hand. Was there any turner in the
neighbourhood? Yes, round the corner. Thither he went at once, found
the wood-turner in, and was promised a job on the following morning.
He remained with the turner for only a short time, after which he
found a job in Salford at lathe and tool-making. But hearing that the
militia warrant-officers were still searching for him, he became
uneasy and determined to take refuge in London.
He trudged all the way on foot to that great hiding-place, and first
tried Holtzapffel's, the famous tool-maker's, but failing in his
application he next went to Maudslay's and succeeded in getting
employment. He worked there for some time, acquiring much valuable
practical knowledge in the use of tools, cultivating his skill by
contact with first-class workmen, and benefiting by the spirit of
active contrivance which pervaded the Maudslay shops. His manual
dexterity greatly increased, and his inventive ingenuity fully
stimulated, he determined on making his way back to Manchester,
which, even more than London itself, at that time presented abundant
openings for men of mechanical skill. Hence we find so many of the
best mechanics trained at Maudslay's and Clement's--Nasmyth, Lewis,
Muir, Roberts, Whitworth, and others--shortly rising into distinction
there as leading mechanicians and tool-makers.
The mere enumeration of the various results of Mr. Roberts's
inventive skill during the period of his settlement at Manchester as
a mechanical engineer, would occupy more space than we can well
spare. But we may briefly mention a few of the more important. In
1816, while carrying on business on his own account in Deansgate, he
invented his improved sector for correctly sizing wheels in blank
previously to their being cut, which is still extensively used. In
the same year he invented his improved screw-lathe; and in the
following year, at the request of the boroughreeve and constables of
Manchester, he contrived an oscillating and rotating wet gas meter of
a new kind, which enabled them to sell gas by measure. This was the
first meter in which a water lute was applied to prevent the escape
of gas by the index shaft, the want of which, as well as its great
complexity, had prevented the only other gas meter then in existence
from working satisfactorily. The water lute was immediately adopted
by the patentee of that meter. The planing machine, though claimed,
as we have seen, by many inventors, was constructed by Mr. Roberts
after an original plan of his own in 1817, and became the tool most
generally employed in mechanical workshops--acting by means of a
chain and rack--though it has since been superseded to some extent by
the planing machine of Whitworth, which works both ways upon an
endless screw. Improvements followed in the slide-lathe (giving a
large range of speed with increased diameters for the same size of
headstocks, &c.), in the wheel-cutting engine, in the scale-beam (by
which, with a load of 2 oz. on each end, the fifteen-hundredth part
of a grain could be indicated), in the broaching-machine, the
slotting-machine, and other engines.
But the inventions by which his fame became most extensively known
arose out of circumstances connected with the cotton manufactures of
Manchester and the neighbourhood. The great improvements which he
introduced in the machine for making weavers' reeds, led to the
formation of the firm of Sharp, Roberts, and Co., of which Mr.
Roberts was the acting mechanical partner for many years. Not less
important were his improvements in power-looms for weaving fustians,
which were extensively adopted. But by far the most famous of his
inventions was unquestionably his Self-acting Mule, one of the most
elaborate and beautiful pieces of machinery ever contrived. Before
its invention, the working of the entire machinery of the
cotton-mill, as well as the employment of the piecers, cleaners, and
other classes of operatives, depended upon the spinners, who, though
receiving the highest rates of pay, were by much the most given to
strikes; and they were frequently accustomed to turn out in times
when trade was brisk, thereby bringing the whole operations of the
manufactories to a standstill, and throwing all the other operatives
out of employment. A long-continued strike of this sort took place in
1824, when the idea occurred to the masters that it might be possible
to make the spinning-mules run out and in at the proper speed by
means of self-acting machinery, and thus render them in some measure
independent of the more refractory class of their workmen. It seemed,
however, to be so very difficult a problem, that they were by no
means sanguine of success in its solution. Some time passed before
they could find any mechanic willing so much as to consider the
subject. Mr. Ashton of Staley-bridge made every effort with this
object, but the answer he got was uniformly the same. The thing was
declared to be impracticable and impossible. Mr. Ashton, accompanied
by two other leading spinners, called on Sharp, Roberts, and Co., to
seek an interview with Mr. Roberts. They introduced the subject to
him, but he would scarcely listen to their explanations, cutting them
short with the remark that he knew nothing whatever about
cotton-spinning. They insisted, nevertheless, on explaining to him
what they required, but they went away without being able to obtain
from him any promise of assistance in bringing out the required
machine.
The strike continued, and the manufacturers again called upon Mr.
Roberts, but with no better result. A third time they called and
appealed to Mr. Sharp, the capitalist of the firm, who promised to
use his best endeavours to induce his mechanical partner to take the
matter in hand. But Mr. Roberts, notwithstanding his reticence, had
been occupied in carefully pondering the subject since Mr. Ashton's
first interview with him. The very difficulty of the problem to be
solved had tempted him boldly to grapple with it, though he would not
hold out the slightest expectation to the cotton-spinners of his
being able to help them in their emergency until he saw his way
perfectly clear. That time had now come; and when Mr. Sharp
introduced the subject, he said he had turned the matter over and
thought he could construct the required self-acting machinery. It was
arranged that he should proceed with it at once, and after a close
study of four months he brought out the machine now so extensively
known as the self-acting mule. The invention was patented in 1825,
and was perfected by subsequent additions, which were also patented.
Like so many other inventions, the idea of the self-acting mule was
not new. Thus Mr. William Strutt of Derby, the father of Lord Belper,
invented a machine of this sort at an early period; Mr. William
Belly, of the New Lanark Mills, invented a second; and various other
projectors tried their skill in the same direction; but none of these
inventions came into practical use. In such cases it has become
generally admitted that the real inventor is not the person who
suggests the idea of the invention, but he who first works it out
into a practicable process, and so makes it of practical and
commercial value. This was accomplished by Mr. Roberts, who, working
out the idea after his own independent methods, succeeded in making
the first self-acting mule that would really act as such; and he is
therefore fairly entitled to be regarded as its inventor.
By means of this beautiful contrivance, spindle-carriages; bearing
hundreds of spindles, run themselves out and in by means of automatic
machinery, at the proper speed, without a hand touching them; the
only labour required being that of a few boys and girls to watch them
and mend the broken threads when the carriage recedes from the roller
beam, and to stop it when the cop is completely formed, as is
indicated by the bell of the counter attached to the working gear.
Mr. Baines describes the self-acting mule while at work as "drawing
out, twisting, and winding up many thousand threads, with unfailing
precision and indefatigable patience and strength--a scene as magical
to the eye which is not familiarized with it, as the effects have
been marvellous in augmenting the wealth and population of the
country."*
[footnote...
EDWARD BAINES, Esq., M.P., History of the Cotton Manufacture, 212.
...]
Mr. Roberts's great success with the self-acting mule led to his
being often appealed to for help in the mechanics of manufacturing.
In 1826, the year after his patent was taken out, he was sent for to
Mulhouse, in Alsace, to design and arrange the machine establishment
of Andre Koechlin and Co.; and in that and the two subsequent years
he fairly set the works a-going, instructing the workmen in the
manufacture of spinning-machinery, and thus contributing largely to
the success of the French cotton manufacture. In 1832 he patented his
invention of the Radial Arm for "winding on" in the self-acting mule,
now in general use; and in future years he took out sundry patents
for roving, slubbing, spinning, and doubling cotton and other fibrous
materials; and for weaving, beetling, and mangling fabrics of various
sorts.
A considerable branch of business carried on by the firm of Sharp,
Roberts, and Co. was the manufacture of iron billiard-tables, which
were constructed with almost perfect truth by means of Mr. Roberts's
planing-machine, and became a large article of export. But a much
more important and remunerative department was the manufacture of
locomotives, which was begun by the firm shortly after the opening of
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had marked this as one of the
chief branches of future mechanical engineering. Mr. Roberts adroitly
seized the opportunity presented by this new field of invention and
enterprise, and devoted himself for a time to the careful study of
the locomotive and its powers. As early as the year 1829 we find him
presenting to the Manchester Mechanics' Institute a machine
exhibiting the nature of friction upon railroads, in solution of the
problem then under discussion in the scientific journals. In the
following year he patented an arrangement for communicating power to
both driving-wheels of the locomotive, at all times in the exact
proportions required when turning to the right or left,--an
arrangement which has since been adopted in many road locomotives and
agricultural engines. In the same patent will be found embodied his
invention of the steam-brake, which was also a favourite idea of
George Stephenson, since elaborated by Mr. MacConnell of the London
and North-Western Railway. In 1834, Sharp, Roberts, and Co. began the
manufacture of locomotives on a large scale; and the compactness of
their engines, the excellence of their workmanship, and the numerous
original improvements introduced in them, speedily secured for the
engines of the Atlas firm a high reputation and a very large demand.
Among Mr. Roberts's improvements may be mentioned his method of
manufacturing the crank axle, of welding the rim and tyres of the
wheels, and his arrangement and form of the wrought-iron framing and
axle-guards. His system of templets and gauges, by means of which
every part of an engine or tender corresponded with that of every
other engine or tender of the same class, was as great an improvement
as Maudslay's system of uniformity of parts in other descriptions of
machinery.
In connection with the subject of railways, we may allude in passing
to Mr. Roberts's invention of the Jacquard punching machine--a
self-acting tool of great power, used for punching any required
number of holes, of any pitch and to any pattern, with mathematical
accuracy, in bridge or boiler plates. The origin of this invention
was somewhat similar to that of the self-acting mule. The contractors
for the Conway Tubular Bridge while under construction, in 1848, were
greatly hampered by combinations amongst the workmen, and they
despaired of being able to finish the girders within the time
specified in the contract. The punching of the iron plates by hand
was a tedious and expensive as well as an inaccurate process; and the
work was proceeding so slowly that the contractors found it
absolutely necessary to adopt some new method of punching if they
were to finish the work in time. In their emergency they appealed to
Mr. Roberts, and endeavoured to persuade him to take the matter up.
He at length consented to do so, and evolved the machine in question
during his evening's leisure--for the most part while quietly sipping
his tea. The machine was produced, the contractors were enabled to
proceed with the punching of the plates independent of the refractory
men, and the work was executed with a despatch, accuracy, and
excellence that would not otherwise have been possible. Only a few
years since Mr. Roberts added a useful companion to the Jacquard
punching machine, in his combined self-acting machine for shearing
iron and punching both webs of angle or T iron simultaneously to any
required pitch; though this machine, like others which have proceeded
from his fertile brain, is ahead even of this fast-manufacturing age,
and has not yet come into general use, but is certain to do so before
many years have elapsed.
These inventions were surely enough for one man to have accomplished;
but we have not yet done. The mere enumeration of his other
inventions would occupy several pages. We shall merely allude to a
few of them. One was his Turret Clock, for which he obtained the
medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Another was his Prize
Electro-Magnet of 1845. When this subject was first mentioned to him,
he said he did not know anything of the theory or practice of
electro-magnetism, but he would try and find out. The result of his
trying was that he won the prize for the most powerful
electro-magnet: one is placed in the museum at Peel Park, Manchester,
and another with the Scottish Society of Arts, Edinburgh. In 1846 he
perfected an American invention for making cigars by machinery;
enabling a boy, working one of his cigar-engines, to make as many as
5000 in a day. In 1852 he patented improvements in the construction,
propelling, and equipment of steamships, which have, we believe, been
adopted to a certain extent by the Admiralty; and a few years later,
in 1855, we find him presenting the Secretary of War with plans of
elongated rifle projectiles to be used in smooth-bore ordnance with a
view to utilize the old-pattern gun. His head, like many inventors of
the time, being full of the mechanics of war, he went so far as to
wait upon Louis Napoleon, and laid before him a plan by which
Sebastopol was to be blown down. In short, upon whatever subject he
turned his mind, he left the impress of his inventive faculty. If it
was imperfect, he improved it; if incapable of improvement, and
impracticable, he invented something entirely new, superseding it
altogether. But with all his inventive genius, in the exercise of
which Mr. Roberts has so largely added to the productive power of the
country, we regret to say that he is not gifted with the commercial
faculty. He has helped others in their difficulties, but forgotten
himself. Many have profited by his inventions, without even
acknowledging the obligations which they owed to him. They have used
his brains and copied his tools, and the "sucked orange" is all but
forgotten. There may have been a want of worldly wisdom on his part,
but it is lamentable to think that one of the most prolific and
useful inventors of his time should in his old age be left to fight
with poverty.
Mr. Whitworth is another of the first-class tool-makers of Manchester
who has turned to excellent account his training in the workshops of
Maudslay and Clement. He has carried fully out the system of
uniformity in Screw Threads which they initiated; and he has still
further improved the mechanism of the planing machine, enabling it to
work both backwards and forwards by means of a screw and roller
motion. His "Jim Crow Machine," so called from its peculiar motion in
reversing itself and working both ways, is an extremely beautiful
tool, adapted alike for horizontal, vertical, or angular motions. The
minute accuracy of Mr. Whitworth's machines is not the least of their
merits; and nothing will satisfy him short of perfect truth. At the
meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Glasgow in 1856
he read a paper on the essential importance of possessing a true
plane as a standard of reference in mechanical constructions, and he
described elaborately the true method of securing it,--namely, by
scraping, instead of by the ordinary process of grinding. At the same
meeting he exhibited a machine of his invention by which he stated
that a difference of the millionth part of an inch in length could at
once be detected. He also there urged his favourite idea of
uniformity, and proper gradations of size of parts, in all the
various branches of the mechanical arts, as a chief means towards
economy of production--a principle, as he showed, capable of very
extensive application. To show the progress of tools and machinery in
his own time, Mr. Whitworth cited the fact that thirty years since
the cost of labour for making a surface of cast-iron true--one of the
most important operations in mechanics--by chipping and filing by the
hand, was 12s. a square foot; whereas it is now done by the planing
machine at a cost for labour of less than a penny. Then in machinery,
pieces of 74 reed printing-cotton cloth of 29 yards each could not be
produced at less cost than 30s. 6d. per piece; whereas the same
description is now sold for 3s. 9d. Mr. Whitworth has been among the
most effective workers in this field of improvement, his tools taking
the first place in point of speed, accuracy, and finish of work, in
which respects they challenge competition with the world. Mr.
Whitworth has of late years been applying himself with his accustomed
ardour to the development of the powers of rifled guns and
projectiles,--a branch of mechanical science in which he confessedly
holds a foremost place, and in perfecting which he is still occupied.
CHAPTER XV.
JAMES NASMYTH.
"By Hammer and Hand
All Arts doth stand."
Hammermen's Motto.
The founder Of the Scotch family of Naesmyth is said to have derived
his name from the following circumstance. In the course of the feuds
which raged for some time between the Scotch kings and their powerful
subjects the Earls of Douglas, a rencontre took place one day on the
outskirts of a Border village, when the king's adherents were
worsted. One of them took refuge in the village smithy, where,
hastily disguising himself, and donning a spare leathern apron, he
pretended to be engaged in assisting the smith with his work, when a
party of the Douglas followers rushed in. They glanced at the
pretended workman at the anvil, and observed him deliver a blow upon
it so unskilfully that the hammer-shaft broke in his hand. On this
one of the Douglas men rushed at him, calling out, "Ye're nae smyth!"
The assailed man seized his sword, which lay conveniently at hand,
and defended himself so vigorously that he shortly killed his
assailant, while the smith brained another with his hammer; and, a
party of the king's men having come to their help, the rest were
speedily overpowered. The royal forces then rallied, and their
temporary defeat was converted into a victory. The king bestowed a
grant of land on his follower "Nae Smyth," who assumed for his arms a
sword between two hammers with broken shafts, and the motto "Non arte
sed Marte," as if to disclaim the art of the Smith, in which he had
failed, and to emphasize the superiority of the warrior. Such is said
to be the traditional origin of the family of Naesmyth of Posso in
Peeblesshire, who continue to bear the same name and arms.
It is remarkable that the inventor of the steam-hammer should have so
effectually contradicted the name he bears and reversed the motto of
his family; for so far from being "Nae Smyth," he may not
inappropriately be designated the very Vulcan of the nineteenth
century. His hammer is a tool of immense power and pliancy, but for
which we must have stopped short in many of those gigantic
engineering works which are among the marvels of the age we live in.
It possesses so much precision and delicacy that it will chip the end
of an egg resting in a glass on the anvil without breaking it, while
it delivers a blow of ten tons with such a force as to be felt
shaking the parish. It is therefore with a high degree of
appropriateness that Mr. Nasmyth has discarded the feckless hammer
with the broken shaft, and assumed for his emblem his own magnificent
steam-hammer, at the same time reversing the family motto, which he
has converted into "Non Marte sed Arte."
James Nasmyth belongs to a family whose genius in art has long been
recognised. His father, Alexander Nasmyth of Edinburgh, was a
landscape-painter of great eminence, whose works are sometimes
confounded with those of his son Patrick, called the English Hobbema,
though his own merits are peculiar and distinctive. The elder Nasmyth
was also an admirable portrait painter, as his head of Burns--the
best ever painted of the poet--bears ample witness. His daughters,
the Misses Nasmyth, were highly skilled painters of landscape, and
their works are well known and much prized. James, the youngest of
the family, inherits the same love of art, though his name is more
extensively known as a worker and inventor in iron. He was born at
Edinburgh, on the 19th of August, 1808; and his attention was early
directed to mechanics by the circumstance of this being one of his
father's hobbies. Besides being an excellent painter, Mr. Nasmyth had
a good general knowledge of architecture and civil engineering, and
could work at the lathe and handle tools with the dexterity of a
mechanic. He employed nearly the whole of his spare time in a little
workshop which adjoined his studio, where he encouraged his youngest
son to work with him in all sorts of materials. Among his visitors at
the studio were Professor Leslie, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, and
other men of distinction. He assisted Mr. Miller in his early
experiments with paddle-boats, which eventually led to the invention
of the steamboat. It was a great advantage for the boy to be trained
by a father who so loved excellence in all its forms, and could
minister to his love of mechanics by his own instruction and
practice. James used to drink in with pleasure and profit the
conversation which passed between his father and his visitors on
scientific and mechanical subjects; and as he became older, the
resolve grew stronger in him every day that he would be a mechanical
engineer, and nothing else. At a proper age, he was sent to the High
School, then as now celebrated for the excellence of its instruction,
and there he laid the foundations of a sound and liberal education.
But he has himself told the simple story of his early life in such
graphic terms that we feel we cannot do better than quote his own
words: -*
[footnote...
Originally prepared for John Hick, Esq., C.E., of Bolton, and
embodied by him in his lectures on "Self Help," delivered before the
Holy Trinity Working Men's Association of that town, on the 18th and
20th March, 1862; the account having been kindly corrected by Mr.
Nasmyth for the present publication.
...]
"I had the good luck," he says, "to have for a school companion the
son of an iron founder. Every spare hour that I could command was
devoted to visits to his father's iron foundry, where I delighted to
watch the various processes of moulding, iron-melting, casting,
forging, pattern-making, and other smith and metal work; and although
I was only about twelve years old at the time, I used to lend a hand,
in which hearty zeal did a good deal to make up for want of strength.
I look back to the Saturday afternoons spent in the workshops of that
small foundry, as an important part of my education. I did not trust
to reading about such and such things; I saw and handled them; and
all the ideas in connection with them became permanent in my mind. I
also obtained there--what was of much value to me in after life--
a considerable acquaintance with the nature and characters of
workmen. By the time I was fifteen, I could work and turn out really
respectable jobs in wood, brass, iron, and steel: indeed, in the
working of the latter inestimable material, I had at a very early age
(eleven or twelve) acquired considerable proficiency. As that was the
pre-lucifer match period, the possession of a steel and tinder box
was quite a patent of nobility among boys. So I used to forge old
files into 'steels' in my father's little workshop, and harden them
and produce such first-rate, neat little articles in that line, that
I became quite famous amongst my school companions; and many a task
have I had excused me by bribing the monitor, whose grim sense of
duty never could withstand the glimpse of a steel.
"My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I
then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and
8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful
work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required
for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were
exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and
as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and
profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam
engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the
movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the
results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of
tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and
chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same
time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in
making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his
lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the
inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably
clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental
principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of
the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire
to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me
by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained
obscure.
"About the years 1827 and 1828, the subject of steam-carriages for
common roads occupied much of the attention of the public. Many tried
to solve the problem. I made a working model of an engine which
performed so well that some friends determined to give me the means
of making one on a larger scale. This I did; and I shall never forget
the pleasure and the downright hard work I had in producing, in the
autumn of 1828, at an outlay of 60L., a complete steam-carriage, that
ran many a mile with eight persons on it. After keeping it in action
two months, to the satisfaction of all who were interested in it, my
friends allowed me to dispose of it, and I sold it a great bargain,
after which the engine was used in driving a small factory. I may
mention that in that engine I employed the waste steam to cause an
increased draught by its discharge up the chimney. This important use
of the waste steam had been introduced by George Stephenson some
years before, though entirely unknown to me.
"The earnest desire which I cherished of getting forward in the real
business of life induced me to turn my attention to obtaining
employment in some of the great engineering establishments of the
day, at the head of which, in my fancy as well as in reality, stood
that of Henry Maudslay, of London. It was the summit of my ambition
to get work in that establishment; but as my father had not the means
of paying a premium, I determined to try what I could do towards
attaining my object by submitting to Mr. Maudslay actual specimens of
my capability as a young workman and draughtsman. To this end I set
to work and made a small steam-engine, every part of which was the
result of my own handiwork, including the casting and the forging of
the several parts. This I turned out in such a style as I should even
now be proud of. My sample drawings were, I may say, highly
respectable. Armed with such means of obtaining the good opinion of
the great Henry Maudslay, on the l9th of May, 1829, I sailed for
London in a Leith smack, and after an eight days' voyage saw the
metropolis for the first time. I made bold to call on Mr. Maudslay,
and told him my simple tale. He desired me to bring my models for him
to look at. I did so, and when he came to me I could see by the
expression of his cheerful, well-remembered countenance, that I had
attained my object. He then and there appointed me to be his own
private workman, to assist him in his little paradise of a workshop,
furnished with the models of improved machinery and engineering tools
of which he has been the great originator. He left me to arrange as
to wages with his chief cashier, Mr. Robert Young, and on the first
Saturday evening I accordingly went to the counting-house to enquire
of him about my pay. He asked me what would satisfy me. Knowing the
value of the situation I had obtained, and having a very modest
notion of my worthiness to occupy it, I said, that if he would not
consider l0s. a week too much, I thought I could do very well with
that. I suppose he concluded that I had some means of my own to live
on besides the l0s. a week which I asked. He little knew that I had
determined not to cost my father another farthing when I left-home to
begin the world on my own account. My proposal was at once acceded
to. And well do I remember the pride and delight I felt when I
carried to my three shillings a week lodging that night my first
wages. Ample they were in my idea; for I knew how little I could live
on, and was persuaded that by strict economy I could easily contrive
to make the money support me. To help me in this object, I contrived
a small cooking apparatus, which I forthwith got made by a tinsmith
in Lambeth, at a cost of 6s., and by its aid I managed to keep the
eating and drinking part of my private account within 3s. 6d. per
week, or 4s. at the outside. I had three meat dinners a week, and
generally four rice and milk dinners, all of which were cooked by my
little apparatus, which I set in action after breakfast. The oil cost
not quite a halfpenny per day. The meat dinners consisted of a stew
of from a half to three quarters of a lb. of leg of beef, the meat
costing 3 1/2d. per lb., which, with sliced potatoes and a little
onion, and as much water as just covered all, with a sprinkle of salt
and black pepper, by the time I returned to dinner at half-past six
furnished a repast in every respect as good as my appetite. For
breakfast I had coffee and a due proportion of quartern loaf. After
the first year of my employment under Mr. Maudslay, my wages were
raised to 15s. a week, and I then, but not till then, indulged in the
luxury of butter to my bread. I am the more particular in all this,
to show you that I was a thrifty housekeeper, although only a lodger
in a 3s. room. I have the old apparatus by me yet, and I shall have
another dinner out of it ere I am a year older, out of regard to days
that were full of the real romance of life.
"On the death of Henry Maudslay in 1831, I passed over to the service
of his worthy partner, Mr. Joshua Field, and acted as his
draughtsman, much to my advantage, until the end of that year, when I
returned to Edinburgh, to construct a small stock of engineering
tools for the purpose of enabling me to start in business on my own
account. This occupied me until the spring of l833, and during the
interval I was accustomed to take in jobs to execute in my little
workshop in Edinburgh, so as to obtain the means of completing my
stock of tools.*
[footnote...
Most of the tools with which he began business in Manchester were
made by his own hands in his father's little workshop at Edinburgh,
He was on one occasion " hard up" for brass with which to make a
wheel for his planing machine. There was a row of old-fashioned brass
candlesticks standing in bright array on the kitchen mantelpiece
which he greatly coveted for the purpose. His father was reluctant to
give them up; "for," said he, "I have had many a crack with Burns
when these candlesticks were on the table. But his mother at length
yielded; when the candlesticks were at once recast, and made into the
wheel of the planing machine, which is still at work in Manchester.
...]
In June, 1834, I went to Manchester, and took a flat of an old mill
in Dale Street, where I began business. In two years my stock had so
increased as to overload the floor of the old building to such an
extent that the land lord, Mr. Wrenn, became alarmed, especially as
the tenant below me--a glass-cutter--had a visit from the end of
a 20-horse engine beam one morning among his cut tumblers. To set
their anxiety at rest, I went out that evening to Patricroft and took
a look at a rather choice bit of land bounded on one side by the
canal, and on the other by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. By
the end of the week I had secured a lease of the site for 999 years;
by the end of the month my wood sheds were erected; the ring of the
hammer on the smith's anvil was soon heard all over the place; and
the Bridgewater Foundry was fairly under way. There I toiled right
heartily until December 31st, 1856, when I retired to enjoy in active
leisure the reward of a laborious life, during which, with the
blessing of God, I enjoyed much true happiness through the hearty
love which I always had for my profession; and I trust I may be
allowed to say, without undue vanity, that I have left behind me some
useful results of my labours in those inventions with which my name
is identified, which have had no small share in the accomplishment of
some of the greatest mechanical works of our age." If Mr. Nasmyth had
accomplished nothing more than the invention of his steam-hammer, it
would have been enough to found a reputation. Professor Tomlinson
describes it as "one of the most perfect of artificial machines and
noblest triumphs of mind over matter that modern English engineers
have yet developed."*
[footnote...
Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts, ii. 739.
...]
The hand-hammer has always been an important tool, and, in the form
of the stone celt, it was perhaps the first invented. When the hammer
of iron superseded that of stone, it was found practicable in the
hands of a "cunning" workman to execute by its means metal work of
great beauty and even delicacy. But since the invention of cast-iron,
and the manufacture of wrought-iron in large masses, the art of
hammer-working has almost become lost; and great artists, such as
Matsys of Antwerp and Rukers of Nuremberg were,*
[footnote...
Matsys' beautiful wrought-iron well cover, still standing in front of
the cathedral at Antwerp, and Rukers's steel or iron chair exhibited
at South Kensington in 1862, are examples of the beautiful hammer
work turned out by the artisans of the middle ages. The railings of
the tombs of Henry VII. and Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, the
hinges and iron work of Lincoln Cathedral, of St. George's Chapel at
Windsor, and of some of the Oxford colleges, afford equally striking
illustrations of the skill of our English blacksmiths several
centuries ago.
...]
no longer think it worth their while to expend time and skill in
working on so humble a material as wrought-iron. It is evident from
the marks of care and elaborate design which many of these early
works exhibit, that the workman's heart was in his work, and that his
object was not merely to get it out of hand, but to execute it in
first-rate artistic style.
When the use of iron extended and larger ironwork came to be forged,
for cannon, tools, and machinery, the ordinary hand-hammer was found
insufficient, and the helve or forge-hammer was invented. This was
usually driven by a water-wheel, or by oxen or horses. The
tilt-hammer was another form in which it was used, the smaller kinds
being worked by the foot. Among Watt's various inventions, was a
tilt-hammer of considerable power, which he at first worked by means
of a water-wheel, and afterwards by a steam engine regulated by a
fly-wheel. His first hammer of this kind was 120 lbs. in weight; it
was raised eight inches before making each blow. Watt afterwards made
a tilt-hammer for Mr. Wilkinson of Bradley Forge, of 7 1/2 cwt., and
it made 300 blows a minute . Other improvements were made in the
hammer from time to time, but no material alteration was made in the
power by which it was worked until Mr. Nasmyth took it in hand, and
applying to it the force of steam, at once provided the worker in
iron with the most formidable of machine-tools. This important
invention originated as follows:
In the early part of 1837, the directors of the Great Western
Steam-Ship Company sent Mr. Francis Humphries, their engineer, to
consult Mr. Nasmyth as to some engineering tools of unusual size and
power, which were required for the construction of the engines of the
"Great Britain" steamship. They had determined to construct those
engines on the vertical trunk-engine principle, in accordance with
Mr. Humphries' designs; and very complete works were erected by them
at their Bristol dockyard for the execution of the requisite
machinery, the most important of the tools being supplied by Nasmyth
and Gaskell. The engines were in hand, when a difficulty arose with
respect to the enormous paddle-shaft of the vessel, which was of such
a size of forging as had never before been executed. Mr. Humphries
applied to the largest engineering firms throughout the country for
tenders of the price at which they would execute this part of the
work, but to his surprise and dismay he found that not one of the
firms he applied to would undertake so large a forging. In this
dilemma he wrote to Mr. Nasmyth on the 24th November,1838, informing
him of this unlooked-for difficulty. "I find," said he, "there is not
a forge-hammer in England or Scotland powerful enough to forge the
paddle-shaft of the engines for the 'Great Britain!' What am I to do?
Do you think I might dare to use cast-iron?"
This letter immediately set Mr. Nasmyth a-thinking. How was it that
existing hammers were incapable of forging a wrought-iron shaft of
thirty inches diameter? Simply because of their want of compass, or
range and fall, as well as power of blow. A few moments' rapid
thought satisfied him that it was by rigidly adhering to the old
traditional form of hand-hammer--of which the tilt, though driven
by steam, was but a modification--that the difficulty had arisen.
When even the largest hammer was tilted up to its full height, its
range was so small, that when a piece of work of considerable size
was placed on the anvil, the hammer became "gagged," and, on such an
occasion, where the forging required the most powerful blow, it
received next to no blow at all,--the clear space for fall being
almost entirely occupied by the work on the anvil.
The obvious remedy was to invent some method, by which a block of
iron should be lifted to a sufficient height above the object on
which it was desired to strike a blow, and let the block fall down
upon the work,--guiding it in its descent by such simple means as
should give the required precision in the percussive action of the
falling mass. Following out this idea, Mr. Nasmyth at once sketched
on paper his steam-hammer, having it clearly before him in his mind's
eye a few minutes after receiving Mr. Humphries' letter narrating his
unlooked-for difficulty. The hammer, as thus sketched, consisted of,
first an anvil on which to rest the work; second, a block of iron
constituting the hammer or blow-giving part; third, an inverted
steam-cylinder to whose piston-rod the block was attached. All that
was then required to produce by such means a most effective hammer,
was simply to admit steam in the cylinder so as to act on the under
side of the piston, and so raise the block attached to the
piston-rod, and by a simple contrivance to let the steam escape and
so permit the block rapidly to descend by its own gravity upon the
work then on the anvil. Such, in a few words, is the rationale of the
steam-hammer.
By the same day's post, Mr. Nasmyth wrote to Mr. Humphries, inclosing
a sketch of the invention by which he proposed to forge the "Great
Britain" paddle-shaft. Mr. Humphries showed it to Mr. Brunel, the
engineer-inchief of the company, to Mr. Guppy, the managing director,
and to others interested in the undertaking, by all of whom it was
heartily approved. Mr. Nasmyth gave permission to communicate his
plans to such forge proprietors as might feel disposed to erect such
a hammer to execute the proposed work,--the only condition which he
made being, that in the event of his hammer being adopted, he was to
be allowed to supply it according to his own design.
The paddle-shaft of the "Great Britain" was, however, never forged.
About that time, the substitution of the Screw for the Paddle-wheel
as a means of propulsion of steam-vessels was attracting much
attention; and the performances of the "Archimedes" were so
successful as to induce Mr. Brunel to recommend his Directors to
adopt the new power. They yielded to his entreaty. The great engines
which Mr. Humphries had designed were accordingly set aside; and he
was required to produce fresh designs of engines suited for screw
propulsion. The result was fatal to Mr. Humphries. The labour, the
anxiety, and perhaps the disappointment, proved too much for him, and
a brain-fever carried him off; so that neither his great paddle-shaft
nor Mr. Nasmyth's steam-hammer to forge it was any longer needed.
The hammer was left to bide its time. No forge-master would take it
up. The inventor wrote to all the great firms, urging its superiority
to every other tool for working malleable iron into all kinds of
forge work. Thus he wrote and sent illustrative sketches of his
hammer to Accramans and Morgan of Bristol, to the late Benjamin Hick
and Rushton and Eckersley of Bolton, to Howard and Ravenhill of
Rotherhithe, and other firms; but unhappily bad times for the iron
trade had set in; and although all to whom he communicated his design
were much struck with its simplicity and obvious advantages, the
answer usually given was--"We have not orders enough to keep in
work the forge-hammers we already have, and we do not desire at
present to add any new ones, however improved." At that time no
patent had been taken out for the invention. Mr. Nasmyth had not yet
saved money enough to enable him to do so on his own account; and his
partner declined to spend money upon a tool that no engineer would
give the firm an order for. No secret was made of the invention, and,
excepting to its owner, it did not seem to be worth one farthing.
Such was the unpromising state of affairs, when M. Schneider, of the
Creusot Iron Works in France, called at the Patricroft works together
with his practical mechanic M. Bourdon, for the purpose of ordering
some tools of the firm. Mr. Nasmyth was absent on a journey at the
time, but his partner, Mr. Gaskell, as an act of courtesy to the
strangers, took the opportunity of showing them all that was new and
interesting in regard to mechanism about the works. And among other
things, Mr. Gaskell brought out his partner's sketch or "Scheme
book," which lay in a drawer in the office, and showed them the
design of the Steam Hammer, which no English firm would adopt. They
were much struck with its simplicity and practical utility; and M.
Bourdon took careful note of its arrangements. Mr. Nasmyth on his
return was informed of the visit of MM. Schneider and Bourdon, but
the circumstance of their having inspected the design of his
steam-hammer seems to have been regarded by his partner as too
trivial a matter to be repeated to him; and he knew nothing of the
circumstance until his visit to France in April, 1840. When passing
through the works at Creusot with M. Bourdon, Mr. Nasmyth saw a crank
shaft of unusual size, not only forged in the piece, but punched. He
immediately asked, "How did you forge that shaft?" M. Bourdon's
answer was, "Why, with your hammer, to be sure!" Great indeed was
Nasmyth's surprise; for he had never yet seen the hammer, except in
his own drawing! A little explanation soon cleared all up. M. Bourdon
said he had been so much struck with the ingenuity and simplicity of
the arrangement, that he had no sooner returned than he set to work,
and had a hammer made in general accordance with the design Mr.
Gaskell had shown him; and that its performances had answered his
every expectation. He then took Mr. Nasmyth to see the steam-hammer;
and great was his delight at seeing the child of his brain in full
and active work. It was not, according to Mr. Nasmyth's ideas, quite
perfect, and he readily suggested several improvements, conformable
with the original design, which M. Bourdon forthwith adopted.
On reaching England, Mr. Nasmyth at once wrote to his partner telling
him what he had seen, and urging that the taking out of a patent for
the protection of the invention ought no longer to be deferred. But
trade was still very much depressed, and as the Patricroft firm
needed all their capital to carry on their business, Mr. Gaskell
objected to lock any of it up in engineering novelties. Seeing
himself on the brink of losing his property in the invention, Mr.
Nasmyth applied to his brother-in-law, William Bennett, Esq., who
advanced him the requisite money for the purpose--about 280L.,--
and the patent was secured in June 1840. The first hammer, of 30
cwt., was made for the Patricroft works, with the consent of the
partners; and in the course of a few weeks it was in full work. The
precision and beauty of its action--the perfect ease with which it
was managed, and the untiring force of its percussive blows--were
the admiration of all who saw it; and from that moment the
steam-hammer became a recognised power in modern mechanics. The
variety or gradation of its blows was such, that it was found
practicable to manipulate a hammer of ten tons as easily as if it had
only been of ten ounces weight. It was under such complete control
that while descending with its greatest momentum, it could be
arrested at any point with even greater ease than any instrument used
by hand. While capable of forging an Armstrong hundred-pounder, or
the sheet-anchor for a ship of the line, it could hammer a nail, or
crack a nut without bruising the kernel. When it came into general
use, the facilities which it afforded for executing all kinds of
forging had the effect of greatly increasing the quantity of work
done, at the same time that expense was saved. The cost of making
anchors was reduced by at least 50 per cent., while the quality of
the forging was improved. Before its invention the manufacture of a
shaft of l5 or 20cwt. required the concentrated exertions of a large
establishment, and its successful execution was regarded as a great
triumph of skill.; whereas forgings of 20 and 30 tons weight are now
things of almost every-day occurrence. Its advantages were so
obvious, that its adoption soon became general, and in the course of
a few years Nasmyth steam-hammers were to be found in every
well-appointed workshop both at home and abroad. Many modifications
have been made in the tool, by Condie, Morrison, Naylor, Rigby, and
others; but Nasmyth's was the father of them all, and still holds its
ground.*
[footnote...
Mr. Nasmyth has lately introduced, with the assistance of Mr. Wilson
of the Low Moor Iron Works, a new, exceedingly ingenious, and very
simple contrivance for working the hammer. By this application any
length of stroke, any amount of blow, and any amount of variation can
be given by the operation of a single lever; and by this improvement
the machine has attained a rapidity of action and change of motion
suitable to the powers of the engine, and the form or consistency of
the articles under the hammer.--Mr. FAIRBAIRN'S Report on the Paris
Universal Exhibition of 1855, p. 100.
...]
Among the important uses to which this hammer has of late years been
applied, is the manufacture of iron plates for covering our ships of
war, and the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ordnance of
Armstrong, Whitworth, and Blakely. But for the steam-hammer, indeed,
it is doubtful whether such weapons could have been made. It is also
used for the re-manufacture of iron in various other forms, to say
nothing of the greatly extended use which it has been the direct
means of effecting in wrought-iron and steel forgings in every
description of machinery, from the largest marine steam-engines to
the most nice and delicate parts of textile mechanism. "It is not too
much to say," observes a writer in the Engineer, "that, without
Nasmyth's steam-hammer, we must have stopped short in many of those
gigantic engineering works which, but for the decay of all wonder in
us, would be the perpetual wonder of this age, and which have enabled
our modern engineers to take rank above the gods of all mythologies.
There is one use to which the steam-hammer is now becoming
extensively applied by some of our manufacturers that deserves
especial mention, rather for the prospect which it opens to us than
for what has already been actually accomplished. We allude to the
manufacture of large articles in DIES. At one manufactory in the
country, railway wheels, for example, are being manufactured with
enormous economy by this means. The various parts of the wheels are
produced in quantity either by rolling or by dies under the hammer;
these parts are brought together in their relative positions in a
mould, heated to a welding heat, and then by a blow of the steam
hammer, furnished with dies, are stamped into a complete and all but
finished wheel. It is evident that wherever wrought-iron articles of
a manageable size have to be produced in considerable quantities, the
same process may be adopted, and the saving effected by the
substitution of this for the ordinary forging process will doubtless
ere long prove incalculable. For this, as for the many other
advantageous uses of the steam-hammer, we are primarily and mainly
indebted to Mr. Nasmyth. It is but right, therefore, that we should
hold his name in honour. In fact, when we think of the universal
service which this machine is rendering us, we feel that some special
expression of our indebtedness to him would be a reasonable and
grateful service. The benefit which he has conferred upon us is so
great as to justly entitle him to stand side by side with the few men
who have gained name and fame as great inventive engineers, and to
whom we have testified our gratitude--usually, unhappily, when it
was too late for them to enjoy it."
Mr. Nasmyth subsequently applied the principle of the steam-hammer in
the pile driver, which he invented in 1845. Until its production, all
piles had been driven by means of a small mass of iron falling upon
the head of the pile with great velocity from a considerable height,
-- the raising of the iron mass by means of the "monkey" being an
operation that occupied much time and labour, with which the results
were very incommensurate. Pile-driving was, in Mr. Nasmyth's words,
conducted on the artillery or cannon-ball principle; the action being
excessive and the mass deficient, and adapted rather for destructive
than impulsive action. In his new and beautiful machine, he applied
the elastic force of steam in raising the ram or driving block, on
which, the block being disengaged, its whole weight of three tons
descended on the head of the pile, and the process being repeated
eighty times in the minute, the pile was sent home with a rapidity
that was quite marvellous compared with the old-fashioned system. In
forming coffer-dams for the piers and abutments of bridges, quays,
and harbours, and in piling the foundations of all kinds of masonry,
the steam pile driver was found of invaluable use by the engineer. At
the first experiment made with the machine, Mr. Nasmyth drove a
14-inch pile fifteen feet into hard ground at the rate of 65 blows a
minute. The driver was first used in forming the great steam dock at
Devonport, where the results were very striking; and it was shortly
after employed by Robert Stephenson in piling the foundations of the
great High Level Bridge at Newcastle, and the Border Bridge at
Berwick, as well as in several other of his great works. The saving
of time effected by this machine was very remarkable, the ratio being
as 1 to 1800; that is, a pile could be driven in four minutes that
before required twelve hours. One of the peculiar features of the
invention was that of employing the pile itself as the support of the
steam-hammer part of the apparatus while it was being driven, so that
the pile had the percussive action of the dead weight of the hammer
as well as its lively blows to induce it to sink into the ground. The
steam-hammer sat as it were on the shoulders of the pile, while it
dealt forth its ponderous blows on the pile-head at the rate of 80 a
minute, and as the pile sank, the hammer followed it down with never
relaxing activity until it was driven home to the required depth. One
of the most ingenious contrivances employed in the driver, which was
also adopted in the hammer, was the use of steam as a buffer in the
upper part of the cylinder, which had the effect of a recoil spring,
and greatly enhanced the force of the downward blow.
In 1846, Mr. Nasmyth designed a form of steam-engine after that of
his steam-hammer, which has been extensively adopted all over the
world for screw-ships of all sizes. The pyramidal form of this
engine, its great simplicity and GET-AT-ABILITY of parts, together
with the circumstance that all the weighty parts of the engine are
kept low, have rendered it a universal favourite. Among the other
labour-saving tools invented by Mr. Nasmyth, may be mentioned the
well-known planing machine for small work, called "Nasmyth's Steam
Arm," now used in every large workshop. It was contrived for the
purpose of executing a large order for locomotives received from the
Great Western Railway, and was found of great use in accelerating the
work, especially in planing the links, levers, connecting rods, and
smaller kinds of wrought-iron work in those engines. His circular
cutter for toothed wheels was another of his handy inventions, which
shortly came into general use. In iron-founding also he introduced a
valuable practical improvement. The old mode of pouring the molten
metal into the moulds was by means of a large ladle with one or two
cross handles and levers; but many dreadful accidents occurred
through a slip of the hand, and Mr. Nasmyth resolved, if possible, to
prevent them. The plan he adopted was to fix a worm-wheel on the side
of the ladle, into which a worm was geared, and by this simple
contrivance one man was enabled to move the largest ladle on its axis
with perfect ease and safety. By this means the work was more
promptly performed, and accidents entirely avoided.
Mr. Nasmyth's skill in invention was backed by great energy and a
large fund of common sense--qualities not often found united. These
proved of much service to the concern of which he was the head, and
indeed constituted the vital force. The firm prospered as it
deserved; and they executed orders not only for England, but for most
countries in the civilized world. Mr. Nasmyth had the advantage of
being trained in a good school--that of Henry Maudslay--where he
had not only learnt handicraft under the eye of that great mechanic,
but the art of organizing labour, and (what is of great value to an
employer) knowledge of the characters of workmen. Yet the Nasmyth
firm were not without their troubles as respected the mechanics in
their employment, and on one occasion they had to pass through the
ordeal of a very formidable strike. The manner in which the inventor
of the steam-hammer literally "Scotched" this strike was very
characteristic.
A clever young man employed by the firm as a brass founder, being
found to have a peculiar capacity for skilled mechanical work, had
been advanced to the lathe. The other men objected to his being so
employed on the ground that it was against the rules of the trade.
"But he is a first-rate workman," replied the employers, "and we
think it right to advance a man according to his conduct and his
merits." "No matter," said the workmen, "it is against the rules, and
if you do not take the man from the lathe, we must turn out." "Very
well; we hold to our right of selecting the best men for the best
places, and we will not take the man from the lathe." The consequence
was a general turn out. Pickets were set about the works, and any
stray men who went thither to seek employment were waylaid, and if
not induced to turn back, were maltreated or annoyed until they were
glad to leave. The works were almost at a standstill. This state of
things could not be allowed to go on, and the head of the firm
bestirred himself accordingly with his usual energy. He went down to
Scotland, searched all the best mechanical workshops there, and after
a time succeeded in engaging sixty-four good hands. He forbade them
coming by driblets, but held them together until there was a full
freight; and then they came, with their wives, families, chests of
drawers, and eight-day clocks, in a steamboat specially hired for
their transport from Greenock to Liverpool. From thence they came by
special train to Patricroft, where houses were in readiness for their
reception. The arrival of so numerous, well-dressed, and respectable
a corps of workmen and their families was an event in the
neighbourhood, and could not fail to strike the "pickets" with
surprise. Next morning the sixty-four Scotchmen assembled in the yard
at Patricroft, and after giving "three cheers," went quietly to their
work. The "picketing" went on for a little while longer, but it was
of no use against a body of strong men who stood "shouther to
shouther," as the new hands did. It was even bruited about that there
were more trains to follow!" It very soon became clear that the back
of the strike was broken. The men returned to their work, and the
clever brass founder continued at his turning-lathe, from which he
speedily rose to still higher employment.
Notwithstanding the losses and suffering occasioned by strikes, Mr.
Nasmyth holds the opinion that they have on the whole produced much
more good than evil. They have served to stimulate invention in an
extraordinary degree. Some of the most important labour-saving
processes now in common use are directly traceable to them. In the
case of many of our most potent self-acting tools and machines,
manufacturers could not be induced to adopt them until compelled to
do so by strikes. This was the ease with the self-acting mule, the
wool-combing machine, the planing machine, the slotting machine,
Nasmyth's steam arm, and many others. Thus, even in the mechanical
world, there may be "a soul of goodness in things evil."
Mr. Nasmyth retired from business in December, 1856. He had the moral
courage to come out of the groove which he had so laboriously made
for himself, and to leave a large and prosperous business, saying, "I
have now enough of this world's goods; let younger men have their
chance." He settled down at his rural retreat in Kent, but not to
lead a life of idle ease. Industry had become his habit, and active
occupation was necessary to his happiness. He fell back upon the
cultivation of those artistic tastes which are the heritage of his
family. When a boy at the High School of Edinburgh, he was so skilful
in making pen and ink illustrations on the margins of the classics,
that he thus often purchased from his monitors exemption from the
lessons of the day. Nor had he ceased to cultivate the art during his
residence at Patricroft, but was accustomed to fall back upon it for
relaxation and enjoyment amid the pursuits of trade. That he
possesses remarkable fertility of imagination, and great skill in
architectural and landscape drawing, as well as in the much more
difficult art of delineating the human figure, will be obvious to any
one who has seen his works,--more particularly his "City of St.
Ann's," "The Fairies," and "Everybody for ever!" which last was
exhibited in Pall Mail, among the recent collection of works of Art
by amateurs and others, for relief of the Lancashire distress. He has
also brought his common sense to bear on such unlikely subject's as
the origin of the cuneiform character. The possession of a brick from
Babylon set him a thinking. How had it been manufactured? Its under
side was clearly marked by the sedges of the Euphrates upon which it
had been laid to dry and bake in the sun. But how about those curious
cuneiform characters? How had writing assumed so remarkable a form?
His surmise was this: that the brickmakers, in telling their tale of
bricks, used the triangular corner of another brick, and by pressing
it down upon the soft clay, left behind it the triangular mark which
the cuneiform character exhibits. Such marks repeated, and placed in
different relations to each other, would readily represent any
number. From the use of the corner of a brick in writing, the
transition was easy to a pointed stick with a triangular end, by the
use of which all the cuneiform characters can readily be produced
upon the soft clay. This curious question formed the subject of an
interesting paper read by Mr. Nasmyth before the British Association
at Cheltenham.
But the most engrossing of Mr. Nasmyth's later pursuits has been the
science of astronomy, in which, by bringing a fresh, original mind to
the observation of celestial phenomena, he has succeeded in making
some of the most remarkable discoveries of our time. Astronomy was
one of his favourite pursuits at Patricroft, and on his retirement
became his serious study. By repeated observations with a powerful
reflecting telescope of his own construction, he succeeded in making
a very careful and minute painting of the craters, cracks, mountains,
and valleys in the moon's surface, for which a Council Medal was
awarded him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. But the most striking
discovery which he has made by means of big telescope--the result
of patient, continuous, and energetic observation--has been that of
the nature of the sun's surface, and the character of the
extraordinary light-giving bodies, apparently possessed of voluntary
motion, moving across it, sometimes forming spots or hollows of more
than a hundred thousand miles in diameter.
The results of these observations were of so novel a character that
astronomers for some time hesitated to receive them as facts.*
[footnote...
See Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,
3rd series, vol.1. 407.
...]
Yet so eminent an astronomer as Sir John Herschel does not hesitate
now to describe them as "a most wonderful discovery." "According to
Mr. Nasmyth's observations," says he, "made with a very fine
telescope of his own making, the bright surface of the sun consists
of separate, insulated, individual objects or things, all nearly or
exactly of one certain definite size and shape, which is more like
that of a willow leaf, as he describes them, than anything else.
These leaves or scales are not arranged in any order (as those on a
butterfly's wing are), but lie crossing one another in all
directions, like what are called spills in the game of spillikins;
except at the borders of a spot, where they point for the most part
inwards towards the middle of the spot,*
[footnote...
Sir John Herschel adds, "Spots of not very irregular, and what may be
called compact form, covering an area of between seven and eight
hundred millions of square miles, are by no means uncommon. One spot
which I measured in the year 1837 occupied no less than three
thousand seven hundred and eighty millions, taking in all the
irregularities of its form; and the black space or nucleus in the
middle of one very nearly round one would have allowed the earth to
drop through it, leaving a thousand clear miles on either side; and
many instances of much larger spots than these are on record."
...]
presenting much the sort of appearance that the small leaves of some
water-plants or sea-weeds do at the edge of a deep hole of clear
water. The exceedingly definite shape of these objects, their exact
similarity one to another, and the way in which they lie across and
athwart each other (except where they form a sort of bridge across a
spot, in which case they seem to affect a common direction, that,
namely, of the bridge itself),--all these characters seem quite
repugnant to the notion of their being of a vaporous, a cloudy, or a
fluid nature. Nothing remains but to consider them as separate and
independent sheets, flakes, or scales, having some sort of solidity.
And these flakes, be they what they may, and whatever may be said
about the dashing of meteoric stones into the sun's atmosphere, &c.,
are evidently THE IMMEDIATE SOURCES OF THE SOLAR LIGHT AND HEAT, by
whatever mechanism or whatever processes they may be enabled to
develope and, as it were, elaborate these elements from the bosom of
the non-luminous fluid in which they appear to float. Looked at in
this point of view, we cannot refuse to regard them as organisms of
some peculiar and amazing kind; and though it would be too daring to
speak of such organization as partaking of the nature of life, yet we
do know that vital action is competent to develop heat and light, as
well as electricity. These wonderful objects have been seen by others
as well as Mr. Nasmyth, so that them is no room to doubt of their
reality."*
[footnote...
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL in Good Words for April, 1863.
...]
Such is the marvellous discovery made by the inventor of the
steam-hammer, as described by the most distinguished astronomer of
the age. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, referring to the subject
in a recent number, says it shows him "to possess an intellect as
profound as it is expert." Doubtless his training as a mechanic, his
habits of close observation and his ready inventiveness, which
conferred so much power on him as an engineer, proved of equal
advantage to him when labouring in the domain of physical science.
Bringing a fresh mind, of keen perception, to his new studies, and
uninfluenced by preconceived opinions, he saw them in new and
original lights; and hence the extraordinary discovery above
described by Sir John Herschel.
Some two hundred years since, a member of the Nasmyth family, Jean
Nasmyth of Hamilton, was burnt for a witch--one of the last martyrs
to ignorance and superstition in Scotland--because she read her
Bible with two pairs of spectacles. Had Mr. Nasmyth himself lived
then, he might, with his two telescopes of his own making, which
bring the sun and moon into his chamber for him to examine and paint,
have been taken for a sorcerer. But fortunately for him, and still
more so for us, Mr. Nasmyth stands before the public of this age as
not only one of its ablest mechanics, but as one of the most
accomplished and original of scientific observers.
CHAPTER XVI.
WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN.
"In science there is work for all hands, more or less skilled; and he
is usually the most fit to occupy the higher posts who has risen from
the ranks, and has experimentally acquainted himself with the nature
of the work to be done in each and every, even the humblest
department." J. D. Forbes.
The development of the mechanical industry of England has been so
rapid, especially as regards the wonders achieved by the
machine-tools above referred to, that it may almost be said to have
been accomplished within the life of the present generation. "When I
first entered this city, said Mr.Fairbairn, in his inaugural address
as President of the British Association at Manchester in 1861, "the
whole of the machinery was executed by hand. There were neither
planing, slotting, nor shaping machines; and, with the exception of
very imperfect lathes and a few drills, the preparatory operations of
construction were effected entirely by the hands of the workmen. Now,
everything is done by machine-tools with a degree of accuracy which
the unaided hand could never accomplish. The automaton or self-acting
machine-tool has within itself an almost creative power; in fact, so
great are its powers of adaptation, that there is no operation of the
human hand that it does not imitate." In a letter to the author, Mr.
Fairbairn says, "The great pioneers of machine-tool-making were
Maudslay, Murray of Leeds, Clement and Fox of Derby, who were ably
followed by Nasmyth, Roberts, and Whitworth, of Manchester, and Sir
Peter Fairbairn of Leeds; and Mr. Fairbairn might well have added, by
himself,--for he has been one of the most influential and successful
of mechanical engineers.
William Fairbairn was born at Kelso on the 19th of February, 1787.
His parents occupied a humble but respectable position in life. His
father, Andrew Fairbairn, was the son of a gardener in the employment
of Mr. Baillie of Mellerston, and lived at Smailholm, a village lying
a few miles west of Kelso. Tracing the Fairbairns still further back,
we find several of them occupying the station of "portioners," or
small lairds, at Earlston on the Tweed, where the family had been
settled since the days of the Solemn League and Covenant. By his
mother's side, the subject of our memoir is supposed to be descended
from the ancient Border family of Douglas.
While Andrew Fairbairn (William's father) lived at Smailholm, Walter
Scott was living with his grandmother in Smailholm or Sandyknowe
Tower, whither he had been sent from Edinburgh in the hope that
change of air would help the cure of his diseased hip-joint; and
Andrew, being nine years his senior, and a strong youth for his age,
was accustomed to carry the little patient about in his arms, until
he was able to walk by himself. At a later period, when Miss Scott,
Walter's aunt, removed from Smailholm to Kelso, the intercourse
between the families was renewed. Scott was then an Edinburgh
advocate, engaged in collecting materials for his Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border, or, as his aunt described his pursuit, "running
after the auld wives of the country gatherin' havers." He used
frequently to read over by the fireside in the evening the results of
his curious industry, which, however, were not very greatly
appreciated by his nearest relatives; and they did not scruple to
declare that for the "Advocate" to go about collecting "ballants" was
mere waste of time as well as money.
William Fairbairn's first schoolmaster was a decrepit old man who
went by the name of "Bowed Johnnie Ker,"--a Cameronian, with a nasal
twang, which his pupils learnt much more readily than they did his
lessons in reading and arithmetic, notwithstanding a liberal use of
"the tawse." Yet Johnnie had a taste for music, and taught his pupils
to SING their reading lessons, which was reckoned quite a novelty in
education. After a short time our scholar was transferred to the
parish-school of the town, kept by a Mr. White, where he was placed
under the charge of a rather severe helper, who, instead of the
tawse, administered discipline by means of his knuckles, hard as
horn, which he applied with a peculiar jerk to the crania of his
pupils. At this school Willie Fairbairn lost the greater part of the
singing accomplishments which he had acquired under "Bowed Johnnie,"
but he learnt in lieu of them to read from Scott and Barrow's
collections of prose and poetry, while he obtained some knowledge of
arithmetic, in which he proceeded as far as practice and the rule of
three. This constituted his whole stock of school-learning up to his
tenth year. Out of school-hours he learnt to climb the ruined walls
of the old abbey of the town, and there was scarcely an arch, or
tower, or cranny of it with which he did not become familiar.
When in his twelfth year, his father, who had been brought up to
farm-work, and possessed considerable practical knowledge of
agriculture, was offered the charge of a farm at Moy in Ross-shire,
belonging to Lord Seaforth of Brahan Castle. The farm was of about
300 acres, situated on the banks of the river Conan, some five miles
from the town of Dingwall. The family travelled thither in a covered
cart, a distance of 200 miles, through a very wild and hilly country,
arriving at their destination at the end of October, 1799. The farm,
when reached, was found overgrown with whins and brushwood, and
covered in many places with great stones and rocks; it was, in short,
as nearly in a state of nature as it was possible to be. The house
intended for the farmer's reception was not finished, and Andrew
Fairbairn, with his wife and five children, had to take temporary
refuge in a miserable hovel, very unlike the comfortable house which
they had quitted at Kelso. By next spring, however, the new house was
ready; and Andrew Fairbairn set vigorously to work at the reclamation
of the land. After about two years' labours it exhibited an
altogether different appearance, and in place of whins and stones
there were to be seen heavy crops of barley and turnips. The barren
years of 1800 and 1801, however, pressed very hardly on Andrew
Fairbairn as on every other farmer of arable land. About that time,
Andrew's brother Peter, who acted as secretary to Lord Seaforth, and
through whose influence the former had obtained the farm, left Brahan
Castle for the West Indies with his Lordship, who--notwithstanding
his being both deaf and dumb -- had been appointed to the
Governorship of Barbadoes; and in consequence of various difficulties
which occurred shortly after his leaving, Andrew Fairbairn found it
necessary to give up his holding, whereupon he engaged as steward to
Mackenzie of Allengrange, with whom he remained for two years.
While the family lived at Moy, none of the boys were put to school.
They could not be spared from the farm and the household. Those of
them that could not work afield were wanted to help to nurse the
younger children at home. But Andrew Fairbairn possessed a great
treasure in his wife, who was a woman of much energy of character,
setting before her children an example of patient industry, thrift,
discreetness, and piety, which could not fail to exercise a powerful
influence upon them in after-life; and this, of itself, was an
education which probably far more than compensated for the boys' loss
of school-culture during their life at Moy. Mrs. Fairbairn span and
made all the children's clothes, as well as the blankets and
sheeting; and, while in the Highlands, she not only made her own and
her daughters' dresses, and her sons' jackets and trowsers, but her
husband's coats and waistcoats; besides helping her neighbours to cut
out their clothing for family wear.
One of William's duties at home was to nurse his younger brother
Peter, then a delicate child under two years old; and to relieve
himself of the labour of carrying him about, he began the
construction of a little waggon in which to wheel him. This was,
however, a work of some difficulty, as all the tools he possessed
were only a knife, a gimlet, and an old saw. With these implements, a
piece of thin board, and a few nails, he nevertheless contrived to
make a tolerably serviceable waggon-body. His chief difficulty
consisted in making the wheels, which he contrived to surmount by
cutting sections from the stem of a small alder-tree, and with a
red-hot poker he bored the requisite holes in their centres to
receive the axle. The waggon was then mounted on its four wheels, and
to the great joy of its maker was found to answer its purpose
admirably. In it he wheeled his little brother--afterwards well known
as Sir Peter Fairbairn, mayor of Leeds -- in various directions about
the farm, and sometimes to a considerable distance from it; and the
vehicle was regarded on the whole as a decided success. His father
encouraged him in his little feats of construction of a similar kind,
and he proceeded to make and rig miniature boats and ships, and then
miniature wind and water mills, in which last art he acquired such
expertness that he had sometimes five or six mills going at a time.
The machinery was all made with a knife, the water-spouts being
formed by the bark of a tree, and the millstones represented by round
discs of the same material. Such were the first constructive efforts
of the future millwright and engineer.
When the family removed to Allengrange in 1801, the boys were sent to
school at Munlachy, about a mile and a half distant from the farm.
The school was attended by about forty barefooted boys in tartan
kilt's, and about twenty girls, all of the poorer class. The
schoolmaster was one Donald Frazer, a good teacher, but a severe
disciplinarian. Under him, William made some progress in reading,
writing, and arithmetic; and though he himself has often lamented the
meagreness of his school instruction, it is clear, from what he has
since been enabled to accomplish, that these early lessons were
enough at all events to set him fairly on the road of self-culture,
and proved the fruitful seed of much valuable intellectual labour, as
well as of many excellent practical books.
After two years' trial of his new situation, which was by no means
satisfactory, Andrew Fairbairn determined again to remove southward
with his family; and, selling off everything, they set sail from
Cromarty for Leith in June, 1803. Having seen his wife and children
temporarily settled at Kelso, he looked out for a situation, and
shortly after proceeded to undertake the management of Sir William
Ingleby's farm at Ripley in Yorkshire. Meanwhile William was placed
for three months under the charge of his uncle William, the parish
schoolmaster of Galashiels, for the purpose of receiving instruction
in book-keeping and land-surveying, from which he derived
considerable benefit. He could not, however, remain longer at school;
for being of the age of fourteen, it was thought necessary that he
should be set to work without further delay. His first employment was
on the fine new bridge at Kelso, then in course of construction after
the designs of Mr. Rennie; but in helping one day to carry a
handbarrow-load of stone, his strength proving insufficient, he gave
way under it, and the stones fell upon him, one of them inflicting a
serious wound on his leg, which kept him a cripple for months. In the
mean time his father, being dissatisfied with his prospects at
Ripley, accepted the appointment of manager of the Percy Main
Colliery Company's farm in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
whither he proceeded with his family towards the end of 1803, William
joining them in the following February, when the wound in his leg had
sufficiently healed to enable him to travel.
Percy Main is situated within two miles of North Shields, and is one
of the largest collieries in that district. William was immediately
set to work at the colliery, his first employment being to lead coals
from behind the screen to the pitmen's houses. His Scotch accent, and
perhaps his awkwardness, exposed him to much annoyance from the "pit
lads," who were a very rough and profligate set; and as boxing was a
favourite pastime among them, our youth had to fight his way to their
respect, passing through a campaign of no less than seventeen pitched
battles. He was several times on the point of abandoning the work
altogether, rather than undergo the buffetings and insults to which
he was almost a daily martyr, when a protracted contest with one of
the noted boxers of the colliery, in which he proved the victor, at
length relieved him from further persecution.
In the following year, at the age of sixteen, he was articled as an
engineer for five years to the owners of Percy Main, and was placed
under the charge of Mr. Robinson, the engine-wright of the colliery.
His wages as apprentice were 8s. a week; but by working over-hours,
making wooden wedges used in pit-work, and blocking out segments of
solid oak required for walling the sides of the mine, he considerably
increased his earnings, which enabled him to add to the gross income
of the family, who were still struggling with the difficulties of
small means and increasing expenses. When not engaged upon over-work
in the evenings, he occupied himself in self-education. He drew up a
scheme of daily study with this object, to which he endeavoured to
adhere as closely as possible,-- devoting the evenings of Mondays to
mensuration and arithmetic; Tuesdays to history and poetry;
Wednesdays to recreation, novels, and romances; Thursdays to algebra
and mathematics; Fridays to Euclid and trigonometry; Saturdays to
recreation; and Sundays to church, Milton, and recreation. He was
enabled to extend the range of his reading by the help of the North
Shields Subscription Library, to which his father entered him a
subscriber. Portions of his spare time were also occasionally devoted
to mechanical construction, in which he cultivated the useful art of
handling tools. One of his first attempts was the contrivance of a
piece of machinery worked by a weight and a pendulum, that should at
the same time serve for a timepiece and an orrery; but his want of
means, as well as of time, prevented him prosecuting this contrivance
to completion. He was more successful with the construction of a
fiddle, on which he was ambitious to become a performer. It must have
been a tolerable instrument, for a professional player offered him
20s. for it. But though he succeeded in making a fiddle, and for some
time persevered in the attempt to play upon it, he did not succeed in
producing any satisfactory melody, and at length gave up the attempt,
convinced that nature had not intended him for a musician.*
[footnote...
Long after, when married and settled at Manchester, the fiddle, which
had been carefully preserved, was taken down from the shelf for the
amusement of the children; but though they were well enough pleased
with it, the instrument was never brought from its place without
creating alarm in the mind of their mother lest anybody should hear
it. At length a dancing-master, who was giving lessons in the
neighbourhood, borrowed the fiddle, and, to the great relief of the
family, it was never returned. Many years later Mr.Fairbairn was
present at the starting of a cotton mill at Wesserling in Alsace
belonging to Messrs. Gros, Deval, and Co., for which his Manchester
firm had provided the mill-work and water-wheel (the first erected in
France on the suspension principle, when the event was followed by an
entertainment. During dinner Mr. Fairbairn had been explaining to M.
Gros, who spoke a little English, the nature of home-brewed beer,
which he much admired, having tasted it when in England. The dinner
was followed by music, in the performance of which the host himself
took part; and on Mr. Fairbairn's admiring his execution on the
violin, M. Gros asked him if he played. "A little," was the almost
unconscious reply. "Then you must have the goodness to play some,"
and the instrument was in a moment placed in his hands, amidst urgent
requests from all sides that he should play. There was no
alternative; so he proceeded to perform one of his best tunes--"The
Keel Row." The company listened with amazement, until the performer's
career was suddenly cut short by the host exclaiming at the top of
his voice, "Stop, stop, Monsieur, by gar that be HOME-BREWED MUSIC!"
...]
In due course of time our young engineer was removed from the
workshop, and appointed to take charge of the pumps of the mine and
the steam-engine by which they were kept in work. This employment was
more to his taste, gave him better "insight," and afforded him
greater opportunities for improvement. The work was, however, very
trying, and at times severe, especially in winter, the engineer being
liable to be drenched with water every time that he descended the
shaft to regulate the working of the pumps; but, thanks to a stout
constitution, he bore through these exposures without injury, though
others sank under them. At this period he had the advantage of
occasional days of leisure, to which he was entitled by reason of his
nightwork; and during such leisure he usually applied himself to
reading and study.
It was about this time that William Fairbairn made the acquaintance
of George Stephenson, while the latter was employed in working the
ballast-engine at Willington Quay. He greatly admired George as a
workman, and was accustomed in the summer evenings to go over to the
Quay occasionally and take charge of George's engine, to enable him
to earn a few shillings extra by heaving ballast out of the collier
vessels. Stephenson's zeal in the pursuit of mechanical knowledge
probably was not without its influence in stimulating William
Fairbairn himself to carry on so diligently the work of self-culture.
But little could the latter have dreamt, while serving his
apprenticeship at Percy Main, that his friend George Stephenson, the
brakesman, should yet be recognised as among the greatest engineers
of his age, and that he himself should have the opportunity, in his
capacity of President of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at
Newcastle, of making public acknowledgment of the opportunities for
education which he had enjoyed in that neighbourhood in his early
years.*
[footnote...
"Although not a native of Newcastle," he then said, "he owed almost
everything to Newcastle. He got the rudiments of his education there,
such as it was; and that was (something like that of his revered
predecessor George Stephenson) at a colliery. He was brought up as an
engineer at the Percy Main Colliery. He was there seven years; and if
it had not been for the opportunities he then enjoyed, together with
the use of the library at North Shields, he believed he would not
have been there to address them. Being self-taught, but with some
little ambition, and a determination to improve himself, he was now
enabled to stand before them with some pretensions to mechanical
knowledge, and the persuasion that he had been a useful contributor
to practical science and objects connected with mechanical
engineering."--Meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1858.
...]
Having finished his five years' apprenticeship at Percy Main, by
which time he had reached his twenty-first year, William Fairbairn
shortly after determined to go forth into the world in search of
experience. At Newcastle he found employment as a millwright for a
few weeks, during which he worked at the erection of a sawmill in the
Close. From thence he went to Bedlington at an advanced wage. He
remained there for six months, during which he was so fortunate as to
make the acquaintance of Miss Mar, who five years after, when his
wanderings had ceased, became his wife. On the completion of the job
on which he had been employed, our engineer prepared to make another
change. Work was difficult to be had in the North, and, joined by a
comrade, he resolved to try his fortune in London. Adopting the
cheapest route, he took passage by a Shields collier, in which he
sailed for the Thames on the 11th of December, 1811. It was then
war-time, and the vessel was very short-handed, the crew consisting
only of three old men and three boys, with the skipper and mate; so
that the vessel was no sooner fairly at sea than both the passenger
youths had to lend a hand in working her, and this continued for the
greater part of the voyage. The weather was very rough, and in
consequence of the captain's anxiety to avoid privateers he hugged
the shore too close, and when navigating the inside passage of the
Swin, between Yarmouth and the Nore, the vessel very narrowly escaped
shipwreck. After beating about along shore, the captain half drunk
the greater part of the time, the vessel at last reached the Thames
with loss of spars and an anchor, after a tedious voyage of fourteen
days.
On arriving off Blackwall the captain went ashore ostensibly in
search of the Coal Exchange, taking our young engineer with him. The
former was still under the influence of drink; and though he failed
to reach the Exchange that night, he succeeded in reaching a public
house in Wapping, beyond which he could not be got. At ten o'clock
the two started on their return to the ship; but the captain took the
opportunity of the darkness to separate from his companion, and did
not reach the ship until next morning. It afterwards came out that he
had been taken up and lodged in the watch-house. The youth, left
alone in the streets of the strange city, felt himself in an awkward
dilemma. He asked the next watchman he met to recommend him to a
lodging, on which the man took him to a house in New Gravel Lane,
where he succeeded in finding accommodation. What was his horror next
morning to learn that a whole family--the Williamsons--had been
murdered in the very next house during the night! Making the best of
his way back to the ship, he found that his comrade, who had suffered
dreadfully from sea-sickness during the voyage, had nearly recovered,
and was able to accompany him into the City in search of work. They
had between them a sum of only about eight pounds, so that it was
necessary for them to take immediate steps to obtain employment.
They thought themselves fortunate in getting the promise of a job
from Mr. Rennie, the celebrated engineer, whose works were situated
at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge. Mr. Rennie sent the two young
men to his foreman, with the request that he should set them to work.
The foreman referred them to the secretary of the Millwrights'
Society, the shop being filled with Union men, who set their
shoulders together to exclude those of their own grade, however
skilled, who could not produce evidence that they had complied with
the rules of the trade. Describing his first experience of London
Unionists, nearly half a century later, before an assembly of working
men at Derby, Mr. Fairbairn said, "When I first entered London, a
young man from the country had no chance whatever of success, in
consequence of the trade guilds and unions. I had no difficulty in
finding employment, but before I could begin work I had to run the
gauntlet of the trade societies; and after dancing attendance for
nearly six weeks, with very little money in my pocket, and having to
'box Harry' all the time, I was ultimately declared illegitimate, and
sent adrift to seek my fortune elsewhere. There were then three
millwright societies in London: one called the Old Society, another
the New Society, and a third the Independent Society. These societies
were not founded for the protection of the trade, but for the
maintenance of high wages, and for the exclusion of all those who
could not assert their claims to work in London and other corporate
towns. Laws of a most arbitrary character were enforced, and they
were governed by cliques of self-appointed officers, who never failed
to take care of their own interests."*
[footnote...
Useful Information for Engineers, 2nd series, 1860, p. 211.
...]
Their first application for leave to work in London having thus
disastrously ended, the two youths determined to try their fortune in
the country, and with aching hearts they started next morning before
daylight. Their hopes had been suddenly crushed, their slender funds
were nearly exhausted, and they scarce knew where to turn. But they
set their faces bravely northward, and pushed along the high road,
through slush and snow, as far as Hertford, which they reached after
nearly eight hours' walking, on the moderate fare during their
journey of a penny roll and a pint of ale each. Though wet to the
skin, they immediately sought out a master millwright, and applied
for work. He said he had no job vacant at present; but, seeing their
sorry plight, he had compassion upon them, and said, "Though I cannot
give you employment, you seem to be two nice lads;" and he concluded
by offering Fairbairn a half-crown. But his proud spirit revolted at
taking money which he had not earned; and he declined the proffered
gift with thanks, saying he was sorry they could not have work. He
then turned away from the door, on which his companion, mortified by
his refusal to accept the half-crown at a time when they were reduced
almost to their last penny, broke out in bitter remonstrances and
regrets. Weary, wet, and disheartened, the two turned into Hertford
churchyard, and rested for a while upon a tombstone, Fairbairn's
companion relieving himself by a good cry, and occasional angry
outbursts of "Why didn't you take the half-crown?" "Come, come, man!"
said Fairbairn, "it's of no use crying; cheer up; let's try another
road; something must soon cast up." They rose, and set out again, but
when they reached the bridge, the dispirited youth again broke down;
and, leaning his back against the parapet, said, "I winna gang a bit
further; let's get back to London." Against this Fairbairn
remonstrated, saying "It's of no use lamenting; we must try what we
can do here; if the worst comes to the worst, we can 'list; you are a
strong chap--they'll soon take you; and as for me, I'll join too; I
think I could fight a bit." After this council of war, the pair
determined to find lodgings in the town for the night, and begin
their search for work anew on the morrow.
Next day, when passing along one of the back streets of Hertford,
they came to a wheelwright's shop, where they made the usual
enquiries. The wheelwright, said that he did not think there was any
job to be had in the town; but if the two young men pushed on to
Cheshunt, he thought they might find work at a windmill which was
under contract to be finished in three weeks, and where the
millwright wanted hands. Here was a glimpse of hope at last; and the
strength and spirits of both revived in an instant. They set out
immediately; walked the seven miles to Cheshunt; succeeded in
obtaining the expected employment; worked at the job a fortnight; and
entered London again with nearly three pounds in their pockets.
Our young millwright at length succeeded in obtaining regular
employment in the metropolis at good wages. He worked first at
Grundy's Patent Ropery at Shadwell, and afterwards at Mr. Penn's of
Greenwich, gaining much valuable insight, and sedulously improving
his mind by study in his leisure hours. Among the acquaintances he
then made was an enthusiastic projector of the name of Hall, who had
taken out one patent for making hemp from bean-stalks, and
contemplated taking out another for effecting spade tillage by steam.
The young engineer was invited to make the requisite model, which he
did, and it cost him both time and money, which the out-at-elbows
projector was unable to repay; and all that came of the project was
the exhibition of the model at the Society of Arts and before the
Board of Agriculture, in whose collection it is probably still to be
found. Another more successful machine constructed By Mr. Fairbairn
about the same time was a sausage-chopping machine, which he
contrived and made for a pork-butcher for 33l. It was the first order
he had ever had on his own account; and, as the machine when made did
its work admirably, he was naturally very proud of it. The machine
was provided with a fly-wheel and double crank, with connecting rods
which worked a cross head. It contained a dozen knives crossing each
other at right angles in such a way as to enable them to mince or
divide the meat on a revolving block. Another part of the apparatus
accomplished the filling of the sausages in a very expert manner, to
the entire satisfaction of the pork-butcher.
As work was scarce in London at the time, and our engineer was bent
on gathering further experience in his trade, he determined to make a
tour in the South of England and South Wales; and set out from London
in April 1813 with 7l. in his pocket. After visiting Bath and Frome,
he settled to work for six weeks at Bathgate; after which he
travelled by Bradford and Trowbridge --- always on foot--to Bristol.
From thence he travelled through South Wales, spending a few days
each at Newport, Llandaff, and Cardiff, where he took ship for
Dublin. By the time he reached Ireland his means were all but
exhausted, only three-halfpence remaining in his pocket; but, being
young, hopeful, skilful, and industrious, he was light of heart, and
looked cheerfully forward. The next day he succeeded in finding
employment at Mr. Robinson's, of the Phoenix Foundry, where he was
put to work at once upon a set of patterns for some nail-machinery.
Mr. Robinson was a man of spirit and enterprise, and, seeing the
quantities of English machine-made nails imported into Ireland, he
was desirous of giving Irish industry the benefit of the manufacture.
The construction of the nail-making machinery occupied Mr. Fairbairn
the entire summer; and on its completion he set sail in the month of
October for Liverpool. It may be added, that, notwithstanding the
expense incurred by Mr. Robinson in setting up the new
nail-machinery, his workmen threatened him with a strike if he
ventured to use it. As he could not brave the opposition of the
Unionists, then all-powerful in Dublin, the machinery was never set
to work; the nail-making trade left Ireland, never to return; and the
Irish market was thenceforward supplied entirely with English-made
nails. The Dublin iron-manufacture was ruined in the same way; not
through any local disadvantages, but solely by the prohibitory
regulations enforced by the workmen of the Trades Unions.
Arrived at Liverpool, after a voyage of two days--which was then
considered a fair passage--our engineer proceeded to Manchester,
which had already become the principal centre of manufacturing
operations in the North of England. As we have already seen in the
memoirs of Nasmyth, Roberts, and Whitworth, Manchester offered great
attractions for highly-skilled mechanics; and it was as fortunate for
Manchester as for William Fairbairn himself that he settled down
there as a working millwright in the year 1814, bringing with him no
capital, but an abundance of energy, skill, and practical experience
in his trade. Afterwards describing the characteristics of the
millwright of that time, Mr, Fairbairn said--"In those days a good
millwright was a man of large resources; he was generally well
educated, and could draw out his own designs and work at the lathe;
he had a knowledge of mill machinery, pumps, and cranes, and could
turn his hand to the bench or the forge with equal adroitness and
facility. If hard pressed, as was frequently the case in country
places far from towns, he could devise for himself expedients which
enabled him to meet special requirements, and to complete his work
without assistance. This was the class of men with whom I associated
in early life--proud of their calling, fertile in resources, and
aware of their value in a country where the industrial arts were
rapidly developing."*
[footnote...
Lecture at Derby--Useful Information for Engineers, 2nd series, p.
212.
...]
When William Fairbairn entered Manchester he was twenty-four years of
age; and his hat still "covered his family." But, being now pretty
well satiated with his "wandetschaft,"--as German tradesmen term
their stage of travelling in search of trade experience,--he desired
to settle, and, if fortune favoured him, to marry the object of his
affections, to whom his heart still faithfully turned during all his
wanderings. He succeeded in finding employment with Mr. Adam
Parkinson, remaining with him for two years, working as a millwright,
at good wages. Out of his earnings he saved sufficient to furnish a
two-roomed cottage comfortably; and there we find him fairly
installed with his wife by the end of 1816. As in the case of most
men of a thoughtful turn, marriage served not only to settle our
engineer, but to stimulate him to more energetic action. He now began
to aim at taking a higher position, and entertained the ambition of
beginning business on his own account. One of his first efforts in
this direction was the preparation of the design of a cast-iron
bridge over the Irwell, at Blackfriars, for which a prize was
offered. The attempt was unsuccessful, and a stone bridge was
eventually decided on; but the effort made was creditable, and proved
the beginning of many designs. The first job he executed on his own
account was the erection of an iron conservatory and hothouse for Mr.
J. Hulme, of Clayton, near Manchester; and he induced one of his
shopmates, James Lillie, to join him in the undertaking. This proved
the beginning of a business connection which lasted for a period of
fifteen years, and laid the foundation of a partnership, the
reputation of which, in connection with mill-work and the
construction of iron machinery generally, eventually became known all
over the civilized world.
Although the patterns for the conservatory were all made, and the
castings were begun, the work was not proceeded with, in consequence
of the notice given by a Birmingham firm that the plan after which it
was proposed to construct it was an infringement of their patent. The
young firm were consequently under the necessity of looking about
them for other employment. And to be prepared for executing orders,
they proceeded in the year 1817 to hire a small shed at a rent of
l2s. a week, in which they set up a lathe of their own making,
capable of turning shafts of from 3 to 6 inches diameter; and they
hired a strong Irishman to drive the wheel and assist at the heavy
work. Their first job was the erection of a cullender, and their next
a calico-polishing machine; but orders came in slowly, and James
Lillie began to despair of success. His more hopeful partner
strenuously urged him to perseverance, and so buoyed him up with
hopes of orders, that he determined to go on a little longer. They
then issued cards among the manufacturers, and made a tour of the
principal firms, offering their services and soliciting work.
Amongst others, Mr. Fairbairn called upon the Messrs. Adam and George
Murray, the large cotton-spinners, taking with him the designs of his
iron bridge. Mr. Adam Murray received him kindly, heard his
explanations, and invited him to call on the following day with his
partner. The manufacturer must have been favourably impressed by this
interview, for next day, when Fairbairn and Lillie called, he took
them over his mill, and asked whether they felt themselves competent
to renew with horizontal cross-shafts the whole of the work by which
the mule-spinning machinery was turned. This was a formidable
enterprise for a young firm without capital and almost without plant
to undertake; but they had confidence in themselves, and boldly
replied that they were willing and able to execute the work. On this,
Mr. Murray said he would call and see them at their own workshop, to
satisfy himself that they possessed the means of undertaking such an
order. This proposal was by no means encouraging to the partners, who
feared that when Mr. Murray spied "the nakedness of the land " in
that quarter, he might repent him of his generous intentions. He paid
his promised visit, and it is probable that he was more favourably
impressed by the individual merits of the partners than by the
excellence of their machine-tools--of which they had only one, the
lathe which they had just made and set up; nevertheless he gave them
the order, and they began with glad hearts and willing hands and
minds to execute this their first contract. It may be sufficient to
state that by working late and early--from 5 in the morning until 9
at night for a considerable period--they succeeded in completing the
alterations within the time specified, and to Mr. Murray's entire
satisfaction. The practical skill of the young men being thus proved,
and their anxiety to execute the work entrusted to them to the best
of their ability having excited the admiration of their employer, he
took the opportunity of recommending them to his friends in the
trade, and amongst others to Mr. John Kennedy, of the firm of
MacConnel and Kennedy, then the largest spinners in the kingdom.
The Cotton Trade had by this time sprung into great importance, and
was increasing with extraordinary rapidity. Population and wealth
were pouring into South Lancashire, and industry and enterprise were
everywhere on foot. The foundations were being laid of a system of
manufacturing in iron, machinery, and textile fabrics of nearly all
kinds, the like of which has perhaps never been surpassed in any
country. It was a race of industry, in which the prizes were won by
the swift, the strong, and the skilled. For the most part, the early
Lancashire manufacturers started very nearly equal in point of
worldly circumstances, men originally of the smallest means often
coming to the front - work men, weavers, mechanics, pedlers, farmers,
or labourers--in course of time rearing immense manufacturing
concerns by sheer force of industry, energy, and personal ability.
The description given by one of the largest employers in Lancashire,
of the capital with which he started, might apply to many of them:
"When I married," said he, "my wife had a spinning-wheel, and I had a
loom--that was the beginning of our fortune." As an illustration of
the rapid rise of Manchester men from small beginnings, the following
outline of John Kennedy's career, intimately connected as he was with
the subject of our memoir--may not be without interest in this place.
John Kennedy was one of five young men of nearly the same age, who
came from the same neighbourhood in Scotland, and eventually settled
in Manchester as cottons-pinners about the end of last century. The
others were his brother James, his partner James MacConnel, and the
brothers Murray, above referred to--Mr. Fairbairn's first extensive
employers. John Kennedy's parents were respectable peasants,
possessed of a little bit of ground at Knocknalling, in the stewartry
of Kirkcudbright, on which they contrived to live, and that was all.
John was one of a family of five sons and two daughters, and the
father dying early, the responsibility and the toil of bringing up
these children devolved upon the mother. She was a strict
disciplinarian, and early impressed upon the minds of her boys that
they had their own way to make in the world. One of the first things
she made them think about was, the learning of some useful trade for
the purpose of securing an independent living; "for," said she, "if
you have gotten mechanical skill and intelligence, and are honest and
trustworthy, you will always find employment and be ready to avail
yourselves of opportunities for advancing yourselves in life." Though
the mother desired to give her sons the benefits of school education,
there was but little of that commodity to be had in the remote
district of Knocknalling. The parish-school was six miles distant,
and the teaching given in it was of a very inferior sort--usually
administered by students, probationers for the ministry, or by
half-fledged dominies, themselves more needing instruction than able
to impart it. The Kennedys could only attend the school during a few
months in summer-time, so that what they had acquired by the end of
one season was often forgotten by the beginning of the next. They
learnt, however, to read the Testament, say their catechism, and
write their own names.
As the children grew up, they each longed for the time to come when
they could be put to a trade. The family were poorly clad; stockings
and shoes were luxuries rarely indulged in; and Mr. Kennedy used in
after-life to tell his grandchildren of a certain Sunday which he
remembered shortly after his father died, when he was setting out for
Dalry church, and had borrowed his brother Alexander's stockings, his
brother ran after him and cried, "See that you keep out of the dirt,
for mind you have got my stockings on!" John indulged in many
day-dreams about the world that lay beyond the valley and the
mountains which surrounded the place of his birth. Though a mere boy,
the natural objects, eternally unchangeable, which daily met his
eyes--the profound silence of the scene, broken only by the bleating
of a solitary sheep, or the crowing of a distant cock, or the
thrasher beating out with his flail the scanty grain of the black
oats spread upon a skin in the open air, or the streamlets leaping
from the rocky clefts, or the distant church-bell sounding up the
valley on Sundays-- all bred in his mind a profound melancholy and
feeling of loneliness, and he used to think to himself, "What can I
do to see and know something of the world beyond this?" The greatest
pleasure he experienced during that period was when packmen came
round with their stores of clothing and hardware, and displayed them
for sale; he eagerly listened to all that such visitors had to tell
of the ongoings of the world beyond the valley.
The people of the Knocknalling district were very poor. The greater
part of them were unable to support the younger members, whose custom
it was to move off elsewhere in search of a living when they arrived
at working years,--some to America, some to the West Indies, and some
to the manufacturing districts of the south. Whole families took
their departure in this way, and the few friendships which Kennedy
formed amongst those of his own age were thus suddenly snapped, and
only a great blank remained. But he too could follow their example,
and enter upon that wider world in which so many others had ventured
and succeeded. As early as eight years of age, his mother still
impressing upon her boys the necessity of learning to work, John
gathered courage to say to her that he wished to leave home and
apprentice himself to some handicraft business. Having seen some
carpenters working in the neighbourhood, with good clothes on their
backs, and hearing the men's characters well spoken of, he thought it
would be a fine thing to be a carpenter too, particularly as the
occupation would enable him to move from place to place and see the
world. He was as yet, however, of too tender an age to set out on the
journey of life; but when he was about eleven years old, Adam Murray,
one of his most intimate acquaintances, having gone off to serve an
apprenticeship in Lancashire with Mr. Cannan of Chowbent, himself a
native of the district, the event again awakened in him a strong
desire to migrate from Knocknalling. Others had gone after Murray,
James MacConnel and two or three more; and at length, at about
fourteen years of age, Kennedy himself left his native home for
Lancashire. About the time that he set out, Paul Jones was ravaging
the coasts of Galloway, and producing general consternation
throughout the district. Great excitement also prevailed through the
occurrence of the Gordon riots in London, which extended into remote
country places; and Kennedy remembered being nearly frightened out of
his wits on one occasion by a poor dominie whose school he attended,
who preached to his boys about the horrors that were coming upon the
land through the introduction of Popery. The boy set out for England
on the 2nd of February, 1784, mounted upon a Galloway, his little
package of clothes and necessaries strapped behind him. As he passed
along the glen, recognising each familiar spot, his heart was in his
mouth, and he dared scarcely trust himself to look back. The ground
was covered with snow, and nature quite frozen up. He had the company
of his brother Alexander as far as the town of New Galloway, where he
slept the first night. The next day, accompanied by one of his future
masters, Mr. James Smith, a partner of Mr. Cannan's, who had
originally entered his service as a workman, they started on ponyback
for Dumfries. After a long day's ride, they entered the town in the
evening, and amongst the things which excited the boy's surprise were
the few street-lamps of the town, and a waggon with four horses and
four wheels. In his remote valley carts were as yet unknown, and even
in Dumfries itself they were comparative rarities; the common means
of transport in the district being what were called "tumbling cars."
The day after, they reached Longtown, and slept there; the boy noting
ANOTHER lamp. The next stage was to Carlisle, where Mr. Smith, whose
firm had supplied a carding engine and spinning-jenny to a small
manufacturer in the town, went to "gate" and trim them. One was put
up in a small house, the other in a small room; and the sight of
these machines was John Kennedy's first introduction to
cotton-spinning. While going up the inn-stairs he was amazed and not
a little alarmed at seeing two men in armour--he had heard of the
battles between the Scots and English--and believed these to be some
of the fighting men; though they proved to be but effigies. Five more
days were occupied in travelling southward, the resting places being
at Penrith, Kendal, Preston, and Chorley, the two travellers arriving
at Chowbent on Sunday the 8th of February, 1784. Mr. Cannan seems to
have collected about him a little colony of Scotsmen, mostly from the
same neighbourhood, and in the evening there was quite an assembly of
them at the "Bear's Paw," where Kennedy put up, to hear the tidings
from their native county brought by the last new comer. On the
following morning the boy began his apprenticeship as a carpenter
with the firm of Cannan and Smith, serving seven years for his meat
and clothing. He applied himself to his trade, and became a good,
steady workman. He was thoughtful and self-improving, always
endeavouring to acquire knowledge of new arts and to obtain insight
into new machines. "Even in early life," said he, in the account of
his career addressed to his children, "I felt a strong desire to know
what others knew, and was always ready to communicate what little I
knew myself; and by admitting at once my want of education, I found
that I often made friends of those on whom I had no claims beyond
what an ardent desire for knowledge could give me."
His apprenticeship over, John Kennedy commenced business*
[footnote...
One of the reasons which induced Kennedy thus early to begin the
business of mule-spinning has been related as follows. While employed
as apprentice at Chowbent, he happened to sleep over the master's
apartment; and late one evening, on the latter returning from market,
his wife asked his success. "I've sold the eightys," said he, "at a
guinea a pound." "What," exclaimed the mistress, in a loud voice,
"sold the eightys for ONLY a guinea a pound! I never heard of such a
thing." The apprentice could not help overhearing the remark, and it
set him a-thinking. He knew the price of cotton and the price of
labour, and concluded there must be a very large margin of profit. So
soon as he was out of his time, therefore, he determined that he
should become a cotton spinner.
...]
in a small way in Manchester in 1791, in conjunction with two other
workmen, Sandford and MacConnel. Their business was machine-making
and mule-spinning, Kennedy taking the direction of the machine
department. The firm at first put up their mules for spinning in any
convenient garrets they could hire at a low rental. After some time,
they took part of a small factory in Canal Street, and carried on
their business on a larger scale. Kennedy and MacConnel afterwards
occupied a little factory in the same street,--since removed to give
place to Fairbairn's large machine works. The progress of the firm
was steady and even rapid, and they went on building mills and
extending their business--Mr. Kennedy, as he advanced in life,
gathering honour, wealth, and troops of friends. Notwithstanding the
defects of his early education, he was one of the few men of his
class who became distinguished for his literary labours in connexion
principally with the cotton trade. Towards the close of his life, he
prepared several papers of great interest for the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Manchester, which are to be found printed in
their Proceedings; one of these, on the Invention of the Mule by
Samuel Crompton, was for a long time the only record which the public
possessed of the merits and claims of that distinguished inventor.
His knowledge of the history of the cotton manufacture in its various
stages, and of mechanical inventions generally, was most extensive
and accurate. Among his friends he numbered James Watt, who placed
his son in his establishment for the purpose of acquiring knowledge
and experience of his profession. At a much later period he numbered
George Stephenson among his friends, having been one of the first
directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and one of the
three judges (selected because of his sound judgment and proved
impartiality, as well as his knowledge of mechanical engineering) to
adjudicate on the celebrated competition of Locomotives at Rainhill.
By these successive steps did this poor Scotch boy become one of the
leading men of Manchester, closing his long and useful life in 1855
at an advanced age, his mental faculties remaining clear and
unclouded to the last. His departure from life was happy and
tranquil--so easy that it was for a time doubtful whether he was dead
or asleep.
To return to Mr. Fairbairn's career, and his progress as a millwright
and engineer in Manchester. When he and his partner undertook the
extensive alterations in Mr. Murray's factory, both were in a great
measure unacquainted with the working of cotton-mills, having until
then been occupied principally with corn-mills, and printing and
bleaching works; so that an entirely new field was now opened to
their united exertions. Sedulously improving their opportunities, the
young partners not only thoroughly mastered the practical details of
cotton-mill work, but they were very shortly enabled to introduce a
series of improvements of the greatest importance in this branch of
our national manufactures. Bringing their vigorous practical minds to
bear on the subject, they at once saw that the gearing of even the
best mills was of a very clumsy and imperfect character. They found
the machinery driven by large square cast-iron shafts, on which huge
wooden drums, some of them as much as four feet in diameter, revolved
at the rate of about forty revolutions a minute; and the couplings
were so badly fitted that they might be heard creaking and groaning a
long way off. The speeds of the driving-shafts were mostly got up by
a series of straps and counter drums, which not only crowded the
rooms, but seriously obstructed the light where most required for
conducting the delicate operations of the different machines. Another
serious defect lay in the construction of the shafts, and in the mode
of fixing the couplings, which were constantly giving way, so that a
week seldom passed without one or more breaks-down. The repairs were
usually made on Sundays, which were the millwrights' hardest working
days, to their own serious moral detriment; but when trade was good,
every consideration was made to give way to the uninterrupted running
of the mills during the rest of the week.
It occurred to Mr. Fairbairn that the defective arrangements thus
briefly described, might be remedied by the introduction of lighter
shafts driven at double or treble the velocity, smaller drums to
drive the machinery, and the use of wrought-iron wherever
practicable, because of its greater lightness and strength compared
with wood. He also provided for the simplification of the hangers and
fixings by which the shafting was supported, and introduced the
"half-lap coupling" so well known to millwrights and engineers. His
partner entered fully into his views; and the opportunity shortly
presented itself of carrying them into effect in the large new mill
erected in 1818, for the firm of MacConnel and Kennedy. The machinery
of that concern proved a great improvement on all that had preceded
it; and, to Messrs. Fairbairn and Lillie's new system of gearing Mr.
Kennedy added an original invention of his own in a system of double
speeds, with the object of giving an increased quantity of twist in
the finer descriptions of mule yarn.
The satisfactory execution of this important work at once placed the
firm of Fairbairn and Lillie in the very front rank of engineering
millwrights. Mr. Kennedy's good word was of itself a passport to fame
and business, and as he was more than satisfied with the manner in
which his mill machinery had been planned and executed, he sounded
their praises in all quarters. Orders poured in upon them so rapidly,
that they had difficulty in keeping pace with the demands of the
trade. They then removed from their original shed to larger premises
in Matherstreet, where they erected additional lathes and other
tool-machines, and eventually a steam-engine. They afterwards added a
large cellar under an adjoining factory to their premises; and from
time to time provided new means of turning out work with increased
efficiency and despatch. In due course of time the firm erected a
factory of their own, fitted with the most improved machinery for
turning out millwork; and they went on from one contract to another,
until their reputation as engineers became widely celebrated. In
1826-7, they supplied the water-wheels for the extensive cotton-mills
belonging to Kirkman Finlay and Company, at Catrine Bank in Ayrshire.
These wheels are even at this day regarded as among the most perfect
hydraulic machines in Europe. About the same time they supplied the
mill gearing and water-machinery for Messrs. Escher and Company's
large works at Zurich, among the largest cotton manufactories on the
continent.
In the mean while the industry of Manchester and the neighbourhood,
through which the firm had risen and prospered, was not neglected,
but had the full benefit of the various improvements which they were
introducing in mill machinery. In the course of a few years an entire
revolution was effected in the gearing. Ponderous masses of timber
and cast-iron, with their enormous bearings and couplings, gave place
to slender rods of wrought-iron and light frames or hooks by which
they were suspended. In like manner, lighter yet stronger wheels and
pulleys were introduced, the whole arrangements were improved, and,
the workmanship being greatly more accurate, friction was avoided,
while the speed was increased from about 40 to upwards of 300
revolutions a minute. The fly-wheel of the engine was also converted
into a first motion by the formation of teeth on its periphery, by
which a considerable saving was effected both in cost and power.
These great improvements formed quite an era in the history of mill
machinery; and exercised the most important influence on the
development of the cotton, flax, silk, and other branches of
manufacture. Mr. Fairbairn says the system introduced by his firm was
at first strongly condemned by leading engineers, and it was with
difficulty that he could overcome the force of their opposition; nor
was it until a wheel of thirty tons weight for a pair of engines of
100-horse power each was erected and set to work, that their
prognostications of failure entirely ceased. From that time the
principles introduced by Mr. Fairbairn have been adopted wherever
steam is employed as a motive power in mills.
Mr. Fairbairn and his partner had a hard uphill battle to fight while
these improvements were being introduced; but energy and
perseverance, guided by sound judgment, secured their usual reward,
and the firm became known as one of the most thriving and
enterprising in Manchester. Long years after, when addressing an
assembly of working men, Mr. Fairbairn, while urging the necessity of
labour and application as the only sure means of self-improvement,
said, "I can tell you from experience, that there is no labour so
sweet, none so consolatory, as that which is founded upon an honest,
straightforward, and honourable ambition." The history of any
prosperous business, however, so closely resembles every other, and
its details are usually of so monotonous a character, that it is
unnecessary for us to pursue this part of the subject; and we will
content ourselves with briefly indicating the several further
improvements introduced by Mr. Fairbairn in the mechanics of
construction in the course of his long and useful career.
His improvements in water-wheels were of great value, especially as
regarded the new form of bucket which he introduced with the object
of facilitating the escape of the air as the water entered the bucket
above, and its readmission as the water emptied itself out below.
This arrangement enabled the water to act upon the wheel with the
maximum of effect in all states of the river; and it so generally
recommended itself, that it very soon became adopted in most
water-mills both at home and abroad.*
[footnote...
The subject will be found fully treated in Mr. Fairbairn's own work,
A Treatise on Mills and Mill-Work, embodying the results of his large
experience.
...]
His labours were not, however, confined to his own particular calling
as a mill engineer, but were shortly directed to other equally
important branches of the constructive art. Thus he was among the
first to direct his attention to iron ship building as a special
branch of business. In 1829, Mr. Houston, of Johnstown, near Paisley,
launched a light boat on the Ardrossan Canal for the purpose of
ascertaining the speed at which it could be towed by horses with two
or three persons on board. To the surprise of Mr. Houston and the
other gentlemen present, it was found that the labour the horses had
to perform in towing the boat was mach greater at six or seven, than
at nine miles an hour. This anomaly was very puzzling to the
experimenters, and at the request of the Council of the Forth and
Clyde Canal, Mr. Fairbairn, who had already become extensively known
as a scientific mechanic, was requested to visit Scotland and
institute a series of experiments with light boats to determine the
law of traction, and clear up, if possible, the apparent anomalies in
Mr. Houston's experiments. This he did accordingly, and the results
of his experiments were afterwards published, The trials extended
over a series of years, and were conducted at a cost of several
thousand pounds. The first experiments were made with vessels of
wood, but they eventually led to the construction of iron vessels
upon a large scale and on an entirely new principle of construction,
with angle iron ribs and wrought-iron sheathing plates. The results
proved most valuable, and had the effect of specially directing the
attention of naval engineers to the employment of iron in ship
building.
Mr. Fairbairn himself fully recognised the value of the experiments,
and proceeded to construct an iron vessel at his works at Manchester,
in 1831, which went to sea the same year. Its success was such as to
induce him to begin iron shipbuilding on a large scale, at the same
time as the Messrs. Laird did at Birkenhead; and in 1835, Mr.
Fairbairn established extensive works at Millwall, on the
Thames,--afterwards occupied by Mr. Scott Russell, in whose yard the
"Great Eastern" steamship was erected,-- where in the course of some
fourteen years he built upwards of a hundred and twenty iron ships,
some of them above 2000 tons burden. It was in fact the first great
iron shipbuilding yard in Britain, and led the way in a branch of
business which has since become of first-rate magnitude and
importance. Mr. Fairbairn was a most laborious experimenter in iron,
and investigated in great detail the subject of its strength, the
value of different kinds of riveted joints compared with the solid
plate, and the distribution of the material throughout the structure,
as well as the form of the vessel itself. It would indeed be
difficult to over-estimate the value of his investigations on these
points in the earlier stages of this now highly important branch of
the national industry.
To facilitate the manufacture of his iron-sided ships, Mr. Fairbairn,
about the year 1839, invented a machine for riveting boiler plates by
steam-power. The usual method by which this process had before been
executed was by hand-hammers, worked by men placed at each side of
the plate to be riveted, acting simultaneously on both sides of the
bolt. But this process was tedious and expensive, as well as clumsy
and imperfect; and some more rapid and precise method of fixing the
plates firmly together was urgently wanted. Mr. Fairbairn's machine
completely supplied the want. By its means the rivet was driven into
its place, and firmly fastened there by a couple of strokes of a
hammer impelled by steam. Aided by the Jacquard punching-machine of
Roberts, the riveting of plates of the largest size has thus become
one of the simplest operations in iron-manufacturing.
The thorough knowledge which Mr. Fairbairn possessed of the strength
of wrought-iron in the form of the hollow beam (which a wrought-iron
ship really is) naturally led to his being consulted by the late
Robert Stephenson as to the structures by means of which it was
proposed to span the estuary of the Conway and the Straits of Menai;
and the result was the Conway and Britannia Tubular Bridges, the
history of which we have fully described elsewhere.*
[footnote...
Lives of the Engineers, vol. iii. 416-40. See also An Account of the
Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges. By William
Fairbairn, C.E. 1849.
...]
There is no reason to doubt that by far the largest share of the
merit of working out the practical details of those structures, and
thus realizing Robert Stephenson's magnificent idea of the tubular
bridge, belongs to Mr. Fairbairn.
In all matters connected with the qualities and strength of iron, he
came to be regarded as a first-rate authority, and his advice was
often sought and highly valued. The elaborate experiments instituted
by him as to the strength of iron of all kinds have formed the
subject of various papers which he has read before the British
Association, the Royal Society, and the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Manchester. His practical inquries as to the strength of
boilers have led to his being frequently called upon to investigate
the causes of boiler explosions, on which subject he has published
many elaborate reports. The study of this subject led him to
elucidate the law according to which the density of steam varies
throughout an extensive range of pressures and atmospheres,--in
singular confirmation of what had before been provisionally
calculated from the mechanical theory of heat. His discovery of the
true method of preventing the tendency of tubes to collapse, by
dividing the flues of long boilers into short lengths by means of
stiffening rings, arising out of the same investigation, was one of
the valuable results of his minute study of the subject; and is
calculated to be of essential value in the manufacturing districts by
diminishing the chances of boiler explosions, and saving the
lamentable loss of life which has during the last twenty years been
occasioned by the malconstruction of boilers. Among Mr. Fairbairn's
most recent, inquiries are those conducted by him at the instance of
the British Government relative to the construction of iron-plated
ships, his report of which has not yet been made public, most
probably for weighty political reasons.
We might also refer to the practical improvements which Mr. Fairbairn
has been instrumental in introducing in the construction of buildings
of various kinds by the use of iron. He has himself erected numerous
iron structures, and pointed out the road which other manufacturers
have readily followed. "I am one of those," said he, in his 'Lecture
on the Progress of Engineering,' "who have great faith in iron walls
and iron beams; and although I have both spoken and written much on
the subject, I cannot too forcibly recommend it to public attention.
It is now twenty years since I constructed an iron house, with the
machinery of a corn-mill, for Halil Pasha, then Seraskier of the
Turkish army at Constantinople. I believe it was the first iron house
built in this country; and it was constructed at the works at
Millwall, London, in 1839."*
[footnote...
Useful Information for Engineers, 2nd series, 225. The mere list of
Mr. Fairbairn's writings would occupy considerable space; for,
notwithstanding his great labours as an engineer, he has also been an
industrious writer. His papers on Iron, read at different times
before the British Association, the Royal Society, and the Literary
and Philosophical Institution of Manchester, are of great value. The
treatise on "Iron" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica is from his pen,
and he has contributed a highly interesting paper to Dr. Scoffern's
Useful Metals and their Alloys on the Application of Iron to the
purposes of Ordnance, Machinery, Bridges, and House and Ship
Building. Another valuable but less-known contribution to Iron
literature is his Report on Machinery in General, published in the
Reports on the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855. The experiments
conducted by Mr. Fairbairn for the purpose of proving the excellent
properties of iron for shipbuilding--the account of which was
published in the Trans actions of the Royal Society eventually led to
his further experiments to determine the strength and form of the
Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, plate-girders, and other
constructions, the result of which was to establish quite a new era
in the history of bridge as well as ship building.
...]
Since then iron structures of all kinds have been erected: iron
lighthouses, iron-and-crystal palaces, iron churches, and iron
bridges. Iron roads have long been worked by iron locomotives; and
before many years have passed a telegraph of iron wire will probably
be found circling the globe. We now use iron roofs, iron bedsteads,
iron ropes, and iron pavement; and even the famous "wooden walls of
England" are rapidly becoming reconstructed of iron. In short, we are
in the midst of what Mr. Worsaae has characterized as the Age of
Iron.
At the celebration of the opening of the North Wales Railway at
Bangor, almost within sight of his iron bridge across the Straits of
Menai, Robert Stephenson said, "We are daily producing from the
bowels of the earth a raw material, in its crude state apparently of
no worth, but which, when converted into a locomotive engine, flies
over bridges of the same material, with a speed exceeding that of the
bird, advancing wealth and comfort throughout the country. Such are
the powers of that all-civilizing instrument, Iron."
Iron indeed plays a highly important part in modem civilization. Out
of it are formed alike the sword and the ploughshare, the cannon and
the printing-press; and while civilization continues partial and
half-developed, as it still is, our liberties and our industry must
necessarily in a great measure depend for their protection upon the
excellence of our weapons of war as well as on the superiority of our
instruments of peace. Hence the skill and ingenuity displayed in the
invention of rifled guns and artillery, and iron-sided ships and
batteries, the fabrication of which would be impossible but for the
extraordinary development of the iron-manufacture, and the marvellous
power and precision of our tool-making machines, as described in
preceding chapters.
"Our strength, wealth, and commerce," said Mr. Cobden in the course
of a recent debate in the House of Commons, "grow out of the skilled
labour of the men working in metals. They are at the foundation of
our manufacturing greatness; and in case you were attacked, they
would at once be available, with their hard hands and skilled brains,
to manufacture your muskets and your cannon, your shot and your
shell. What has given us our Armstrongs, Whitworths, and Fairbairns,
but the free industry of this country? If you can build three times
more steam-engines than any other country, and have threefold the
force of mechanics, to whom and to what do you owe that, but to the
men who have trained them, and to those principles of commerce out of
which the wealth of the country has grown? We who have some hand in
doing that, are not ignorant that we have been and are increasing the
strength of the country in proportion as we are raising up skilled
artisans."*
[footnote...
House of Commons Debate, 7th July, 1862.
...]
The reader who has followed us up to this point will have observed
that handicraft labour was the first stage of the development of
human power, and that machinery has been its last and highest. The
uncivilized man began with a stone for a hammer, and a splinter of
flint for a chisel, each stage of his progress being marked by an
improvement in his tools. Every machine calculated to save labour or
increase production was a substantial addition to his power over the
material resources of nature, enabling him to subjugate them more
effectually to his wants and uses; and every extension of machinery
has served to introduce new classes of the population to the
enjoyment of its benefits. In early times the products of skilled
industry were for the most part luxuries intended for the few,
whereas now the most exquisite tools and engines are employed in
producing articles of ordinary consumption for the great mass of the
community. Machines with millions of fingers work for millions of
purchasers--for the poor as well as the rich; and while the machinery
thus used enriches its owners, it no less enriches the public with
its products.
Much of the progress to which we have adverted has been the result of
the skill and industry of our own time. "Indeed," says Mr. Fairbairn,
"the mechanical operations of the present day could not have been
accomplished at any cost thirty years ago; and what was then
considered impossible is now performed with an exactitude that never
fails to accomplish the end in view." For this we are mainly indebted
to the almost creative power of modern machine-tools, and the
facilities which they present for the production and reproduction of
other machines. We also owe much to the mechanical agencies employed
to drive them. Early inventors yoked wind and water to sails and
wheels, and made them work machinery of various kinds; but modern
inventors have availed themselves of the far more swift and powerful,
yet docile force of steam, which has now laid upon it the heaviest
share of the burden of toil, and indeed become the universal drudge.
Coal, water, and a little oil, are all that the steam-engine, with
its bowels of iron and heart of fire, needs to enable it to go on
working night and day, without rest or sleep. Yoked to machinery of
almost infinite variety, the results of vast ingenuity and labour,
the Steam-engine pumps water, drives spindles, thrashes corn, prints
books, hammers iron, ploughs land, saws timber, drives piles, impels
ships, works railways, excavates docks; and, in a word, asserts an
almost unbounded supremacy over the materials which enter into the
daily use of mankind, for clothing, for labour, for defence, for
household purposes, for locomotion, for food, or for instruction.
End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of "Industrial Biography" by Smiles