Industrial Biography

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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.

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