Industrial Biography

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There were several ironworks in the neighbour hood, and thither he
went in search of employment. He succeeded in finding work as a
pattern-maker at Bradley, near Bilston; under John Wilkinson, the
famous ironmaster--a man of great enterprise as well as mechanical
skill; for he was the first man, as already stated, that Watt could
find capable of boring a cylinder with any approach to truth, for the
purposes of his steam-engines. After acquiring some practical
knowledge of the art of working in wood as well as iron, Roberts
proceeded to Birmingham, where he passed through different shops,
gaining further experience in mechanical practice. He tried his hand
at many kinds of work, and acquired considerable dexterity in each.
He was regarded as a sort of jack-of-all-trades; for he was a good
turner, a tolerable wheel-wright, and could repair mill-work at a
pinch.

He next moved northward to the Horsley ironworks, Tipton, where he
was working as a pattern-maker when he had the misfortune to be drawn
in his own county for the militia. He immediately left his work and
made his way homeward to Llanymynech, determined not to be a soldier
or even a militiaman. But home was not the place for him to rest in,
and after bidding a hasty adieu to his father, he crossed the country
northward on foot and reached Liverpool, in the hope of finding work
there. Failing in that, he set out for Manchester and reached it at
dusk, very weary and very miry in consequence of the road being in
such a wretched state of mud and ruts. He relates that, not knowing a
person in the town, he went up to an apple-stall ostensibly to buy a
pennyworth of apples, but really to ask the stall-keeper if he knew
of any person in want of a hand. Was there any turner in the
neighbourhood? Yes, round the corner. Thither he went at once, found
the wood-turner in, and was promised a job on the following morning.
He remained with the turner for only a short time, after which he
found a job in Salford at lathe and tool-making. But hearing that the
militia warrant-officers were still searching for him, he became
uneasy and determined to take refuge in London.

He trudged all the way on foot to that great hiding-place, and first
tried Holtzapffel's, the famous tool-maker's, but failing in his
application he next went to Maudslay's and succeeded in getting
employment. He worked there for some time, acquiring much valuable
practical knowledge in the use of tools, cultivating his skill by
contact with first-class workmen, and benefiting by the spirit of
active contrivance which pervaded the Maudslay shops. His manual
dexterity greatly increased, and his inventive ingenuity fully
stimulated, he determined on making his way back to Manchester,
which, even more than London itself, at that time presented abundant
openings for men of mechanical skill. Hence we find so many of the
best mechanics trained at Maudslay's and Clement's--Nasmyth, Lewis,
Muir, Roberts, Whitworth, and others--shortly rising into distinction
there as leading mechanicians and tool-makers.

The mere enumeration of the various results of Mr. Roberts's
inventive skill during the period of his settlement at Manchester as
a mechanical engineer, would occupy more space than we can well
spare. But we may briefly mention a few of the more important. In
1816, while carrying on business on his own account in Deansgate, he
invented his improved sector for correctly sizing wheels in blank
previously to their being cut, which is still extensively used. In
the same year he invented his improved screw-lathe; and in the
following year, at the request of the boroughreeve and constables of
Manchester, he contrived an oscillating and rotating wet gas meter of
a new kind, which enabled them to sell gas by measure. This was the
first meter in which a water lute was applied to prevent the escape
of gas by the index shaft, the want of which, as well as its great
complexity, had prevented the only other gas meter then in existence
from working satisfactorily. The water lute was immediately adopted
by the patentee of that meter. The planing machine, though claimed,
as we have seen, by many inventors, was constructed by Mr. Roberts
after an original plan of his own in 1817, and became the tool most
generally employed in mechanical workshops--acting by means of a
chain and rack--though it has since been superseded to some extent by
the planing machine of Whitworth, which works both ways upon an
endless screw. Improvements followed in the slide-lathe (giving a
large range of speed with increased diameters for the same size of
headstocks, &c.), in the wheel-cutting engine, in the scale-beam (by
which, with a load of 2 oz. on each end, the fifteen-hundredth part
of a grain could be indicated), in the broaching-machine, the
slotting-machine, and other engines.

But the inventions by which his fame became most extensively known
arose out of circumstances connected with the cotton manufactures of
Manchester and the neighbourhood. The great improvements which he
introduced in the machine for making weavers' reeds, led to the
formation of the firm of Sharp, Roberts, and Co., of which Mr.
Roberts was the acting mechanical partner for many years. Not less
important were his improvements in power-looms for weaving fustians,
which were extensively adopted. But by far the most famous of his
inventions was unquestionably his Self-acting Mule, one of the most
elaborate and beautiful pieces of machinery ever contrived. Before
its invention, the working of the entire machinery of the
cotton-mill, as well as the employment of the piecers, cleaners, and
other classes of operatives, depended upon the spinners, who, though
receiving the highest rates of pay, were by much the most given to
strikes; and they were frequently accustomed to turn out in times
when trade was brisk, thereby bringing the whole operations of the
manufactories to a standstill, and throwing all the other operatives
out of employment. A long-continued strike of this sort took place in
1824, when the idea occurred to the masters that it might be possible
to make the spinning-mules run out and in at the proper speed by
means of self-acting machinery, and thus render them in some measure
independent of the more refractory class of their workmen. It seemed,
however, to be so very difficult a problem, that they were by no
means sanguine of success in its solution. Some time passed before
they could find any mechanic willing so much as to consider the
subject. Mr. Ashton of Staley-bridge made every effort with this
object, but the answer he got was uniformly the same. The thing was
declared to be impracticable and impossible. Mr. Ashton, accompanied
by two other leading spinners, called on Sharp, Roberts, and Co., to
seek an interview with Mr. Roberts. They introduced the subject to
him, but he would scarcely listen to their explanations, cutting them
short with the remark that he knew nothing whatever about
cotton-spinning. They insisted, nevertheless, on explaining to him
what they required, but they went away without being able to obtain
from him any promise of assistance in bringing out the required
machine.

The strike continued, and the manufacturers again called upon Mr.
Roberts, but with no better result. A third time they called and
appealed to Mr. Sharp, the capitalist of the firm, who promised to
use his best endeavours to induce his mechanical partner to take the
matter in hand. But Mr. Roberts, notwithstanding his reticence, had
been occupied in carefully pondering the subject since Mr. Ashton's
first interview with him. The very difficulty of the problem to be
solved had tempted him boldly to grapple with it, though he would not
hold out the slightest expectation to the cotton-spinners of his
being able to help them in their emergency until he saw his way
perfectly clear. That time had now come; and when Mr. Sharp
introduced the subject, he said he had turned the matter over and
thought he could construct the required self-acting machinery. It was
arranged that he should proceed with it at once, and after a close
study of four months he brought out the machine now so extensively
known as the self-acting mule. The invention was patented in 1825,
and was perfected by subsequent additions, which were also patented.

Like so many other inventions, the idea of the self-acting mule was
not new. Thus Mr. William Strutt of Derby, the father of Lord Belper,
invented a machine of this sort at an early period; Mr. William
Belly, of the New Lanark Mills, invented a second; and various other
projectors tried their skill in the same direction; but none of these
inventions came into practical use. In such cases it has become
generally admitted that the real inventor is not the person who
suggests the idea of the invention, but he who first works it out
into a practicable process, and so makes it of practical and
commercial value. This was accomplished by Mr. Roberts, who, working
out the idea after his own independent methods, succeeded in making
the first self-acting mule that would really act as such; and he is
therefore fairly entitled to be regarded as its inventor.

By means of this beautiful contrivance, spindle-carriages; bearing
hundreds of spindles, run themselves out and in by means of automatic
machinery, at the proper speed, without a hand touching them; the
only labour required being that of a few boys and girls to watch them
and mend the broken threads when the carriage recedes from the roller
beam, and to stop it when the cop is completely formed, as is
indicated by the bell of the counter attached to the working gear.
Mr. Baines describes the self-acting mule while at work as "drawing
out, twisting, and winding up many thousand threads, with unfailing
precision and indefatigable patience and strength--a scene as magical
to the eye which is not familiarized with it, as the effects have
been marvellous in augmenting the wealth and population of the
country."*
[footnote...
EDWARD BAINES, Esq., M.P., History of the Cotton Manufacture, 212.
...]

Mr. Roberts's great success with the self-acting mule led to his
being often appealed to for help in the mechanics of manufacturing.
In 1826, the year after his patent was taken out, he was sent for to
Mulhouse, in Alsace, to design and arrange the machine establishment
of Andre Koechlin and Co.; and in that and the two subsequent years
he fairly set the works a-going, instructing the workmen in the
manufacture of spinning-machinery, and thus contributing largely to
the success of the French cotton manufacture. In 1832 he patented his
invention of the Radial Arm for "winding on" in the self-acting mule,
now in general use; and in future years he took out sundry patents
for roving, slubbing, spinning, and doubling cotton and other fibrous
materials; and for weaving, beetling, and mangling fabrics of various
sorts.

A considerable branch of business carried on by the firm of Sharp,
Roberts, and Co. was the manufacture of iron billiard-tables, which
were constructed with almost perfect truth by means of Mr. Roberts's
planing-machine, and became a large article of export. But a much
more important and remunerative department was the manufacture of
locomotives, which was begun by the firm shortly after the opening of
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had marked this as one of the
chief branches of future mechanical engineering. Mr. Roberts adroitly
seized the opportunity presented by this new field of invention and
enterprise, and devoted himself for a time to the careful study of
the locomotive and its powers. As early as the year 1829 we find him
presenting to the Manchester Mechanics' Institute a machine
exhibiting the nature of friction upon railroads, in solution of the
problem then under discussion in the scientific journals. In the
following year he patented an arrangement for communicating power to
both driving-wheels of the locomotive, at all times in the exact
proportions required when turning to the right or left,--an
arrangement which has since been adopted in many road locomotives and
agricultural engines. In the same patent will be found embodied his
invention of the steam-brake, which was also a favourite idea of
George Stephenson, since elaborated by Mr. MacConnell of the London
and North-Western Railway. In 1834, Sharp, Roberts, and Co. began the
manufacture of locomotives on a large scale; and the compactness of
their engines, the excellence of their workmanship, and the numerous
original improvements introduced in them, speedily secured for the
engines of the Atlas firm a high reputation and a very large demand.
Among Mr. Roberts's improvements may be mentioned his method of
manufacturing the crank axle, of welding the rim and tyres of the
wheels, and his arrangement and form of the wrought-iron framing and
axle-guards. His system of templets and gauges, by means of which
every part of an engine or tender corresponded with that of every
other engine or tender of the same class, was as great an improvement
as Maudslay's system of uniformity of parts in other descriptions of
machinery.

In connection with the subject of railways, we may allude in passing
to Mr. Roberts's invention of the Jacquard punching machine--a
self-acting tool of great power, used for punching any required
number of holes, of any pitch and to any pattern, with mathematical
accuracy, in bridge or boiler plates. The origin of this invention
was somewhat similar to that of the self-acting mule. The contractors
for the Conway Tubular Bridge while under construction, in 1848, were
greatly hampered by combinations amongst the workmen, and they
despaired of being able to finish the girders within the time
specified in the contract. The punching of the iron plates by hand
was a tedious and expensive as well as an inaccurate process; and the
work was proceeding so slowly that the contractors found it
absolutely necessary to adopt some new method of punching if they
were to finish the work in time. In their emergency they appealed to
Mr. Roberts, and endeavoured to persuade him to take the matter up.
He at length consented to do so, and evolved the machine in question
during his evening's leisure--for the most part while quietly sipping
his tea. The machine was produced, the contractors were enabled to
proceed with the punching of the plates independent of the refractory
men, and the work was executed with a despatch, accuracy, and
excellence that would not otherwise have been possible. Only a few
years since Mr. Roberts added a useful companion to the Jacquard
punching machine, in his combined self-acting machine for shearing
iron and punching both webs of angle or T iron simultaneously to any
required pitch; though this machine, like others which have proceeded
from his fertile brain, is ahead even of this fast-manufacturing age,
and has not yet come into general use, but is certain to do so before
many years have elapsed.

These inventions were surely enough for one man to have accomplished;
but we have not yet done. The mere enumeration of his other
inventions would occupy several pages. We shall merely allude to a
few of them. One was his Turret Clock, for which he obtained the
medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Another was his Prize
Electro-Magnet of 1845. When this subject was first mentioned to him,
he said he did not know anything of the theory or practice of
electro-magnetism, but he would try and find out. The result of his
trying was that he won the prize for the most powerful
electro-magnet: one is placed in the museum at Peel Park, Manchester,
and another with the Scottish Society of Arts, Edinburgh. In 1846 he
perfected an American invention for making cigars by machinery;
enabling a boy, working one of his cigar-engines, to make as many as
5000 in a day. In 1852 he patented improvements in the construction,
propelling, and equipment of steamships, which have, we believe, been
adopted to a certain extent by the Admiralty; and a few years later,
in 1855, we find him presenting the Secretary of War with plans of
elongated rifle projectiles to be used in smooth-bore ordnance with a
view to utilize the old-pattern gun. His head, like many inventors of
the time, being full of the mechanics of war, he went so far as to
wait upon Louis Napoleon, and laid before him a plan by which
Sebastopol was to be blown down. In short, upon whatever subject he
turned his mind, he left the impress of his inventive faculty. If it
was imperfect, he improved it; if incapable of improvement, and
impracticable, he invented something entirely new, superseding it
altogether. But with all his inventive genius, in the exercise of
which Mr. Roberts has so largely added to the productive power of the
country, we regret to say that he is not gifted with the commercial
faculty. He has helped others in their difficulties, but forgotten
himself. Many have profited by his inventions, without even
acknowledging the obligations which they owed to him. They have used
his brains and copied his tools, and the "sucked orange" is all but
forgotten. There may have been a want of worldly wisdom on his part,
but it is lamentable to think that one of the most prolific and
useful inventors of his time should in his old age be left to fight
with poverty.

Mr. Whitworth is another of the first-class tool-makers of Manchester
who has turned to excellent account his training in the workshops of
Maudslay and Clement. He has carried fully out the system of
uniformity in Screw Threads which they initiated; and he has still
further improved the mechanism of the planing machine, enabling it to
work both backwards and forwards by means of a screw and roller
motion. His "Jim Crow Machine," so called from its peculiar motion in
reversing itself and working both ways, is an extremely beautiful
tool, adapted alike for horizontal, vertical, or angular motions. The
minute accuracy of Mr. Whitworth's machines is not the least of their
merits; and nothing will satisfy him short of perfect truth. At the
meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Glasgow in 1856
he read a paper on the essential importance of possessing a true
plane as a standard of reference in mechanical constructions, and he
described elaborately the true method of securing it,--namely, by
scraping, instead of by the ordinary process of grinding. At the same
meeting he exhibited a machine of his invention by which he stated
that a difference of the millionth part of an inch in length could at
once be detected. He also there urged his favourite idea of
uniformity, and proper gradations of size of parts, in all the
various branches of the mechanical arts, as a chief means towards
economy of production--a principle, as he showed, capable of very
extensive application. To show the progress of tools and machinery in
his own time, Mr. Whitworth cited the fact that thirty years since
the cost of labour for making a surface of cast-iron true--one of the
most important operations in mechanics--by chipping and filing by the
hand, was 12s. a square foot; whereas it is now done by the planing
machine at a cost for labour of less than a penny. Then in machinery,
pieces of 74 reed printing-cotton cloth of 29 yards each could not be
produced at less cost than 30s. 6d. per piece; whereas the same
description is now sold for 3s. 9d. Mr. Whitworth has been among the
most effective workers in this field of improvement, his tools taking
the first place in point of speed, accuracy, and finish of work, in
which respects they challenge competition with the world. Mr.
Whitworth has of late years been applying himself with his accustomed
ardour to the development of the powers of rifled guns and
projectiles,--a branch of mechanical science in which he confessedly
holds a foremost place, and in perfecting which he is still occupied.

CHAPTER XV.

JAMES NASMYTH.

"By Hammer and Hand
All Arts doth stand."
Hammermen's Motto.

The founder Of the Scotch family of Naesmyth is said to have derived
his name from the following circumstance. In the course of the feuds
which raged for some time between the Scotch kings and their powerful
subjects the Earls of Douglas, a rencontre took place one day on the
outskirts of a Border village, when the king's adherents were
worsted. One of them took refuge in the village smithy, where,
hastily disguising himself, and donning a spare leathern apron, he
pretended to be engaged in assisting the smith with his work, when a
party of the Douglas followers rushed in. They glanced at the
pretended workman at the anvil, and observed him deliver a blow upon
it so unskilfully that the hammer-shaft broke in his hand. On this
one of the Douglas men rushed at him, calling out, "Ye're nae smyth!"
The assailed man seized his sword, which lay conveniently at hand,
and defended himself so vigorously that he shortly killed his
assailant, while the smith brained another with his hammer; and, a
party of the king's men having come to their help, the rest were
speedily overpowered. The royal forces then rallied, and their
temporary defeat was converted into a victory. The king bestowed a
grant of land on his follower "Nae Smyth," who assumed for his arms a
sword between two hammers with broken shafts, and the motto "Non arte
sed Marte," as if to disclaim the art of the Smith, in which he had
failed, and to emphasize the superiority of the warrior. Such is said
to be the traditional origin of the family of Naesmyth of Posso in
Peeblesshire, who continue to bear the same name and arms.

It is remarkable that the inventor of the steam-hammer should have so
effectually contradicted the name he bears and reversed the motto of
his family; for so far from being "Nae Smyth," he may not
inappropriately be designated the very Vulcan of the nineteenth
century. His hammer is a tool of immense power and pliancy, but for
which we must have stopped short in many of those gigantic
engineering works which are among the marvels of the age we live in.
It possesses so much precision and delicacy that it will chip the end
of an egg resting in a glass on the anvil without breaking it, while
it delivers a blow of ten tons with such a force as to be felt
shaking the parish. It is therefore with a high degree of
appropriateness that Mr. Nasmyth has discarded the feckless hammer
with the broken shaft, and assumed for his emblem his own magnificent
steam-hammer, at the same time reversing the family motto, which he
has converted into "Non Marte sed Arte."

James Nasmyth belongs to a family whose genius in art has long been
recognised. His father, Alexander Nasmyth of Edinburgh, was a
landscape-painter of great eminence, whose works are sometimes
confounded with those of his son Patrick, called the English Hobbema,
though his own merits are peculiar and distinctive. The elder Nasmyth
was also an admirable portrait painter, as his head of Burns--the
best ever painted of the poet--bears ample witness. His daughters,
the Misses Nasmyth, were highly skilled painters of landscape, and
their works are well known and much prized. James, the youngest of
the family, inherits the same love of art, though his name is more
extensively known as a worker and inventor in iron. He was born at
Edinburgh, on the 19th of August, 1808; and his attention was early
directed to mechanics by the circumstance of this being one of his
father's hobbies. Besides being an excellent painter, Mr. Nasmyth had
a good general knowledge of architecture and civil engineering, and
could work at the lathe and handle tools with the dexterity of a
mechanic. He employed nearly the whole of his spare time in a little
workshop which adjoined his studio, where he encouraged his youngest
son to work with him in all sorts of materials. Among his visitors at
the studio were Professor Leslie, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, and
other men of distinction. He assisted Mr. Miller in his early
experiments with paddle-boats, which eventually led to the invention
of the steamboat. It was a great advantage for the boy to be trained
by a father who so loved excellence in all its forms, and could
minister to his love of mechanics by his own instruction and
practice. James used to drink in with pleasure and profit the
conversation which passed between his father and his visitors on
scientific and mechanical subjects; and as he became older, the
resolve grew stronger in him every day that he would be a mechanical
engineer, and nothing else. At a proper age, he was sent to the High
School, then as now celebrated for the excellence of its instruction,
and there he laid the foundations of a sound and liberal education.
But he has himself told the simple story of his early life in such
graphic terms that we feel we cannot do better than quote his own
words: -*
[footnote...
Originally prepared for John Hick, Esq., C.E., of Bolton, and
embodied by him in his lectures on "Self Help," delivered before the
Holy Trinity Working Men's Association of that town, on the 18th and
20th March, 1862; the account having been kindly corrected by Mr.
Nasmyth for the present publication.
...]

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