Industrial Biography

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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.

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