[2] See more particularly The Transactions of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, vol. xxxiii. (1817), at pp. 74, 157, 160, 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.

[3] Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, vol.
xlix.  p.157.

[4] 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.

[5] History of the Royal Society, ii. 374.




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 modern 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,[1] 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,[2] 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.[3]  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.[4]  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 modern 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 modern 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." [5]

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.



[1] Engineer, Oct. 10th, 1862.

[2] 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.

[3] 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.

[4] 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.

[5] EDWARD BAINES, Esq., M.P., History of the Cotton Manufacture, 212.




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:--[1]

"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 19th 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 10s. 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 10s. 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 1833, 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.[2]  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." [3]