THE GOLDEN AGE OF INDUSTRY ENGINEERS, MANUFACTURERS AND THEIR PRODUCTS IN VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN BRITAIN, 1837–1914 JOHN WALTER DATING EPHERMERA BY PRINTING TECHNIQUES AND TYPE DESIGN First published in 2013 by INTRODUCTION NEVILL PUBLISHING www.archivingindustry.com/nevillpublishing with the assistance of This attempt to list the principal manufacturing and distributing businesses The Canadian Museum of Making involved in British industry prior to the First World War centres (currently!) on the many facets of the ‘Golden Age of Engineering’. copyright © John Walter, 2008, 2013 The use of this phrase is highly subjective, of course, as each student of the development of technology will take a particular viewpoint. Many would The right of John Walter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by champion the era of the Industrial Revolution—misleading term though it him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. is—and the advent of the steam engine, the first reliable source of motive power to work independently of wind or water. Others, myself included, All rights reserved see the primary catalyst for growth as an improvement in the health of the No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a nation in general (and England in particular) in the middle of the eighteenth retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, century; this not only increased prosperity, but also renewed confidence in photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the future. It created an environment in which technological progress could the author and the publisher. begin, and, indeed, in which fortunes could be made—and lost—with ease. The eighteenth century gave engineering its first great heroes, though the reputations of some of them have been established largely with hindsight. Frontispiece: Thomas Newcomen was soon lost in the shadow of James Watt, though Watt himself may not have found success without the ability of Mathew Boulton to transform his engine into a practicable proposition for large- scale production. Richard Trevithick, that great maverick, is eclipsed by the Stephensons; William Murdock and Matthew Murray are long-forgotten, yet each made immense contributions to indistrial progress. There can be no doubt that, by the middle of the nineteenth century (and the Great Exhibition of 1851), the ready availability of power had greatly increased confidence in technology. However, huge tracts of the world remained untouched by such progress. Even Germany, still a disparate collection of states and principalities, was backward; and the huge distances involved in travel across the U.S.A., where the transcontinental railroad was not completed until 1865, had restricted the growth of manufacturing industry in all but the easternmost states. A major turning-point in the development of industry (and, by extension, PRODUCED IN GREAT BRITAIN of world trade) was the growth of precision engineering, particularly in the PAGE 5 MARKS OF THE PRINTER DATING EPHERMERA BY PRINTING TECHNIQUES AND TYPE DESIGN way in which replication was facilitated. During the nineteenth century, production techniques moved from reliance on man-power to an acceptance— by no means universal—that machines could undertake repetitive jobs faster, more efficiently and more accurately than any man. Yet this transition, which was still incomplete in some countries by 1945, depended on many interrelated influences. Not least were the advent of inexpensive self-contained power generators and belated recognition that extra-accurate measurement was essential to large-scale production. Accuracy of measurement, where engineering was concerned, was a nineteenth-century innovation. Henry Maudslay (1771–1831) had built a micrometer-like measuring tool capable of measuring to 1/10,000th of an inch and, by 1856, Joseph Whitworth could demonstrate his ‘Millionth Measuring Machine’. Whitworth also implacably championed the standardisation of screw threads; and the commercial availability of vernier-gauge tools spread knowledge rapidly. Much of the progress is ascribed to the arms industry—in particular, to the American gunmaker Eli Whitney—but other people had already taken considerable strides towards the development of efficient machine-tools, even though commercial success had been limited. An efficient screw- cutting lathe had been made in the eighteenth century only to be met with Above: by the time this advertisement was placed in Cassier’s Magazine, in August 1903, indifference, and even the desirability of standardised screw threads was the lathe had achieved a form that was still readily recognisable fifty years afterwards. deprecated for many years. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, turret lathes and effectual universal milling tools were just two of by the zeal with which James Watt tried to keep the existence of his engine the many labour-saving devices that could be obtained. indicator from rival engineers, but in others the brake of progress was simply In Britain, the efforts of Henry Maudslay and his many contemporaries— that the machines had been developed only to answer problems encountered Joseph Clement, James Fox, James Nasmyth, Richards Roberts and Joseph in one particular workshop. Whitworth, for example—helped to advance the design of mechanically- This was soon to change. The Great Exhibition included Sharps rifles and driven tools.[1] Maudslay associated with Samuel Bentham and Marc Brunel Colt revolvers, which were made in the U.S.A. largely by machine, alongside in the design of an automated block-making system for the Royal Navy, the more typical products of the British gunmaking industry—often little which successfully commenced work in Portsmouth Dockyard in 1803. more than craft-based, and greatly reliant on handwork. The exhibits of The younger men, Nasmyth and Whitworth, attained the greatest Robbins & Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont, were particularly interesting to commercial success: the former with his steam-powered hammer, and the the British government, which worried about the perceived inability of British latter with precision measurement and standardised screw-threads. But gunmakers to supply weapons in the quantities being demanded by the their stories were comparatively unusual prior to 1850, as Britons often kept Board of Ordnance: a fear that was wholly justified when war in the Crimea their designs to themselves. In some cases this was a deliberate ploy, typified commenced at the end of 1853. A Royal Commission, including Nasmyth and 1. Joseph Clement (1779–1844), best known for his facing late of 1827, had worked for Maudslay, Sons & Field; James Whitworth, was sent to the U.S.A. to investigate the large-scale manufacture Nasmyth (1808–90) had been Maudslay’s personal assistant, responsible for the development of a nut-milling ma- of military weapons with fully interchangeable parts. A visit to Springfield chine in 1829 and a shaping machine in 1836; Richard Roberts (1789–1864), credited with the introduction of back- gearing on a lathe, had also worked for Maudslay, Sons, & Field; Joseph Whitworth (1803–87) had also worked for Armory, where ‘by the use of machine tools specially designed to execute Maudslay before striking out on his own. Only James Fox (1789–1859) had had no direct connection. with the most unerring precision all the details of muskets and rifles, they PAGE 6 PAGE 7 MARKS OF THE PRINTER DATING EPHERMERA BY PRINTING TECHNIQUES AND TYPE DESIGN were enabled to dispense with mere manual dexterity, and produce Arms to and fittings took much longer than had been allowed, and completion of the any amount’, convinced the commissioners that similar facilities should be contract was delayed many times. However, the muskets were all ultimately erected in Britain. The Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield Lock, completed delivered and the idea of series production had taken hold. in 1855, was equipped with a large number of U.S.-made machine-tools. Whitney had been helped by many men, including John Hall and Simeon British commentators, who had written scathingly about machine-made North, and others soon followed his lead. Among those who had been trained guns in general (and Colt in particular), were scandalised. Yet, in truth, the in Whitney’s New Haven Armoury were Horace Smith (of Smith & Wesson) imported machine tools were not only more efficient than anything available and Ira Gray, who, together with his brother Ziba, formed Gray, Silver & in Britain at the time, but were also being sold commercially. One immediate Company in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in the early 1830s. The Gray effect of this epiphany was the creation in 1861 of the first large-scale brothers had soon introduced the first milling-machine design to support the mechanised gunmaking business (the Birmingham Small Arms Company), outer end of the spindle. Improved first by employee Frederick Howe (1822– but only a handful of comparable facilities were operating in Britain in 1914. 91) and then by Howe and Elisha Root, later manufacturing superintendent of The rise of the North American machine-tool industry is widely credited Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Mfg Co., the ‘Index Milling Machine’ was to be made to Eli Whitney, who accepted a commission to make large numbers of in quantity by Robbins & Lawrence. When the Robbins & Lawrence business muskets in 1799. The need to make a huge variety of tools, gauges, fixtures failed in 1856, the machine was re-introduced as the ‘Lincoln Miller’ by the George S. Lincoln Company of Hartford, Connecticut. A slightly modified Below: another August 1903 Cassier’s Magazine advertisement, this was comparatively version subsequently laid the foundations for the success of Pratt & Whitney. unusual for its day: a half-tone photograph replaced the more typical line engraving of the In much the same era, just as the American Civil War began in 1861, type shown on the preceding page.