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101 Robinson, George J.
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 1712 Scotlandd. 1798 England[br]Scottish manufacturer who installed the first Boulton \& Watt rotative steam-engine in a textile mill.[br]George Robinson is said to have been a Scots migrant who settled at Burwell, near Nottingham, in 1737, but there is no record of his occupation until 1771, when he was noticed as a bleacher. By 1783 he and his son were describing themselves as "merchants and thread manufacturers" as well as bleachers. For their thread, they were using the system of spinning on the waterframe, but it is not known whether they held a licence from Arkwright. Between 1776 and 1791, the firm G.J. \& J.Robinson built a series of six cotton mills with a complex of dams and aqueducts to supply them in the relatively flat land of the Leen valley, near Papplewick, to the north of Nottingham. By careful conservation they were able to obtain considerable power from a very small stream. Castle mill was not only the highest one owned by the Robinsons, but it was also the highest mill on the stream and was fed from a reservoir. The Robinsons might therefore have expected to have enjoyed uninterrupted use of the water, but above them lived Lord Byron in his estate of Newstead Priory. The fifth Lord Byron loved making ornamental ponds on his property so that he could have mock naval battles with his servants, and this tampered with the water supplies so much that the Robinsons found they were unable to work their mills.In 1785 they decided to order a rotative steam engine from the firm of Boulton \& Watt. It was erected by John Rennie; however, misfortune seemed to dog this engine, for parts went astray to Manchester and when the engine was finally running at the end of February 1786 it was found to be out of alignment so may not have been very successful. At about the same time, the lawsuit against Lord Byron was found in favour of the Robinsons, but the engine continued in use for at least twelve years and was the first of the type which was to power virtually all steamdriven mills until the 1850s to be installed in a textile mill. It was a low-pressure double-acting condensing beam engine, with a vertical cylinder, parallel motion connecting the piston toone end of a rocking beam, and a connecting rod at the other end of the beam turning the flywheel. In this case Watt's sun and planet motion was used in place of a crank.[br]Further ReadingR.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (for an account of the installation of this engine).D.M.Smith, 1965, Industrial Archaeology of the East Midlands, Newton Abbot (describes the problems which the Robinsons had with the water supplies to power their mills).S.D.Chapman, 1967, The Early Factory Masters, Newton Abbot (provides details of the business activities of the Robinsons).J.D.Marshall, 1959, "Early application of steam power: the cotton mills of the Upper Leen", Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 60 (mentions the introduction of this steam-engine).RLH -
102 Savery, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. c. 1650 probably Shilston, near Modbury, Devonshire, Englandd. c. 15 May 1715 London, England[br]English inventor of a partially successful steam-driven pump for raising water.[br]Little is known of the early years of Savery's life and no trace has been found that he served in the Army, so the title "Captain" is thought to refer to some mining appointment, probably in the West of England. He may have been involved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, for later he was well known to William of Orange. From 1705 to 1714 he was Treasurer for Sick and Wounded Seamen, and in 1714 he was appointed Surveyor of the Water Works at Hampton Court, a post he held until his death the following year. He was interested in mechanical devices; amongst his early contrivances was a clock.He was the most prolific inventor of his day, applying for seven patents, including one in 1649, for polishing plate glass which may have been used. His idea for 1697 for propelling ships with paddle-wheels driven by a capstan was a failure, although regarded highly by the King, and was published in his first book, Navigation Improved (1698). He tried to patent a new type of floating mill in 1707, and an idea in 1710 for baking sea coal or other fuel in an oven to make it clean and pure.His most famous invention, however, was the one patented in 1698 "for raising water by the impellent force of fire" that Savery said would drain mines or low-lying land, raise water to supply towns or houses, and provide a source of water for turning mills through a water-wheel. Basically it consisted of a receiver which was first filled with steam and then cooled to create a vacuum by having water poured over the outside. The water to be pumped was drawn into the receiver from a lower sump, and then high-pressure steam was readmitted to force the water up a pipe to a higher level. It was demonstrated to the King and the Royal Society and achieved some success, for a few were installed in the London area and a manufactory set up at Salisbury Court in London. He published a book, The Miner's Friend, about his engine in 1702, but although he made considerable improvements, due to excessive fuel consumption and materials which could not withstand the steam pressures involved, no engines were installed in mines as Savery had hoped. His patent was extended in 1699 until 1733 so that it covered the atmospheric engine of Thomas Newcomen who was forced to join Savery and his other partners to construct this much more practical engine.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1706.Bibliography1698, Navigation Improved.1702, The Miner's Friend.Further ReadingThe entry in the Dictionary of National Biography (1897, Vol. L, London: Smith Elder \& Co.) has been partially superseded by more recent research. The Transactions of the Newcomen Society contain various papers; for example, Rhys Jenkins, 1922–3, "Savery, Newcomen and the early history of the steam engine", Vol. 3; A.Stowers, 1961–2, "Thomas Newcomen's first steam engine 250 years ago and the initial development of steam power", Vol. 34; A.Smith, 1977–8, "Steam and the city: the committee of proprietors of the invention for raising water by fire", 1715–1735, Vol. 49; and J.S.P.Buckland, 1977–8, "Thomas Savery, his steam engine workshop of 1702", Vol. 49. Brief accounts may be found in H.W. Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press, and R.L. Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press. There is another biography in T.I. Williams (ed.), 1969, A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, London: A. \& C.Black.RLH -
103 Shipman, M.D.
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. c. 1886 USA[br]American patentee of a stud fastener in 1886.[br]From the late nineteenth century, a variety of press fasteners began to appear. In 1885 H. Bauer patented a spring-and-stud fastener, and the following year M.D.Shipman patented a similar design in the United States.[br]Further ReadingI.McNeil (ed.), 1990, An Encyclopaedia, of the History of Technology, London: Routledge, pp. 852–3 (for a brief account of fastenings).See also: Hannart, LouisRLH -
104 Sickels, Frederick Ellsworth
[br]b. 20 September 1819 Gloucester County, New Jersey, USAd. 8 March 1895 Kansas City, Missouri, USA[br]American inventor of a steam-inlet cut-off valve mechanism for engines and steam steering apparatus for ships.[br]Sickels was educated in New York City, where his father was a practising physician. As he showed mechanical aptitude, at the age of 16 he joined the Harlem Railroad as a rod man, and a year later became a machinist in the Allaire Works in New York, studying physics and mechanics in his spare time. He perfected his cut-off mechanism for drop valves in 1841 and patented it the following year. The liberating mechanism allowed the valve to fall quickly onto its seat and so eliminated "wire-drawing" of the steam, and Sickels arranged a dashpot to prevent the valve hitting the seat violently. Through further improvements patented in 1843 and 1845, he gained a considerable fortune, but he subsequently lost it through fighting patent infringements because his valve gear was copied extensively.In 1846 he turned his attention to using a steam engine to assist the steering in ships. He filed a patent application in 1849 and completed a machine in 1854, but he could not find any ship owner willing to try it until 1858, when it was fitted to the August. A patent was granted in 1860, but as no American ship owners showed interest Sickels went to England, where he obtained three British patents; once again, however, he found no interest. He returned to the United States in 1867 and continued his fruitless efforts until he was financially ruined. He patented improved compound engines in 1875 and also contributed improvements in sinking pneumatic piles. He turned to civil engineering and engaged in railway and bridge construction in the west. In about 1890 he was made Consulting Engineer to the National Water Works Company of New York and in 1891 became Chief Engineer of its operations at Kansas City.[br]Further ReadingDictionary of American Biography, 1935, Vol. XVII, New York: C.Scribner's Sons. C.T.Porter, 1908, Engineering Reminiscences, reprinted 1985, Bradley, Ill.: Lindsay Publications (comments on his cut-off valve gear).H.G.Conway, 1955–6, "Some notes on the origins of mechanical servo systems", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 29 (comments on his steam steering apparatus).RLHBiographical history of technology > Sickels, Frederick Ellsworth
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105 Singer, Isaac Merritt
[br]b. 27 October 1811 Pittstown, New York, USAd. 23 July 1875 Torquay, Devonshire, England[br]American inventor of a sewing machine, and pioneer of mass production.[br]The son of a millwright, Singer was employed as an unskilled labourer at the age of 12, but later gained wide experience as a travelling machinist. He also found employment as an actor. On 16 May 1839, while living at Lockport, Illinois, he obtained his first patent for a rock-drilling machine, but he soon squandered the money he made. Then in 1849, while at Pittsburgh, he secured a patent for a wood-and metal-carving machine that he had begun five years previously; however, a boiler explosion in the factory destroyed his machine and left him penniless.Near the end of 1850 Singer was engaged to redesign the Lerow \& Blodgett sewing machine at the Boston shop of Orson C.Phelps, where the machine was being repaired. He built an improved version in eleven days that was sufficiently different for him to patent on 12 August 1851. He formed a partnership with Phelps and G.B. Zieber and they began to market the invention. Singer soon purchased Phelps's interest, although Phelps continued to manufacture the machines. Then Edward Clark acquired a one-third interest and with Singer bought out Zieber. These two, with dark's flair for promotion and marketing, began to create a company which eventually would become the largest manufacturer of sewing machines exported worldwide, with subsidiary factories in England.However, first Singer had to defend his patent, which was challenged by an earlier Boston inventor, Elias Howe. Although after a long lawsuit Singer had to pay royalties, it was the Singer machine which eventually captured the market because it could do continuous stitching. In 1856 the Great Sewing Machine Combination, the first important pooling arrangement in American history, was formed to share the various patents so that machines could be built without infringements and manufacture could be expanded without fear of litigation. Singer contributed his monopoly on the needle-bar cam with his 1851 patent. He secured twenty additional patents, so that his original straight-needle vertical design for lock-stitching eventually included such refinements as a continuous wheel-feed, yielding presser-foot, and improved cam for moving the needle-bar. A new model, introduced in 1856, was the first to be intended solely for use in the home.Initially Phelps made all the machines for Singer. Then a works was established in New York where the parts were assembled by skilled workers through filing and fitting. Each machine was therefore a "one-off" but Singer machines were always advertised as the best on the market and sold at correspondingly high prices. Gradually, more specialized machine tools were acquired, but it was not until long after Singer had retired to Europe in 1863 that Clark made the change to mass production. Sales of machines numbered 810 in 1853 and 21,000 ten years later.[br]Bibliography12 August 1851, US patent no. 8,294 (sewing machine)Further ReadingBiographies and obituaries have appeared in Appleton's Cyclopedia of America, Vol. V; Dictionary of American Biography, Vol XVII; New York Times 25 July 1875; Scientific American (1875) 33; and National Cyclopaedia of American Biography.D.A.Hounshell, 1984, From the American System to Mass Production 1800–1932. TheDevelopment of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore (provides a thorough account of the development of the Singer sewing machine, the competition it faced from other manufacturers and production methods).RLH -
106 Skinner, Halcyon
[br]b. 6 March 1824 Mantua, Ohio, USAd. 28 November 1900 USA[br]American inventor of a machine for making Royal Axminster and other carpets.[br]Halcyon was the son of Joseph and Susan Skinner. When he was 8 years old, his parents moved to Stockbridge in Massachusetts, where he obtained education locally and worked on farms. In 1838 his father moved to West Farms, New York, where Halcyon helped his father make violins and guitars for seven years. He then worked as a general carpenter for eight years until he was hired in 1849 by Alexander Smith, a carpet manufacturer. Skinner designed and constructed a hand loom that could weave figured instead of striped carpets, and by 1851 Smith had one hundred of these at work. Skinner was retained by Smith for forty years as a mechanical expert and adviser.Weaving carpets by power started in the 1850s on enormous and complex machines. Axminster carpets had traditionally been produced in a similar way to those made by hand in Persia, with the tufts of woollen yarn being knotted around vertical warp threads. To mechanize this process proved very difficult, but Skinner patented a loom in 1856 to weave Axminster carpets although, it was not working successfully until 1860. Then in 1864 he developed a loom for weaving ingrain carpets, and c. 1870 he altered some imported English looms for weaving tapestry carpets to double their output.His most important invention was conceived in 1876 and patented on 16 January 1877. This was the Moquette or Royal Axminster loom, which marked yet another important step forward and enabled the use of an unlimited number of colours in carpet designs. This type of loom became known as the Spool Axminster because of the endless chain of spools carrying lengths of coloured yarns, wound in a predetermined order, from which short pieces could be cut and inserted as the tufts. It put Smith's company, Alexander Smith \& Sons, Yonkers, New York, in the lead among American carpet manufacturers. This type of loom was introduced to Britain in 1878 by Tomkinson \& Adam and spread rapidly. Skinner virtually retired in 1889 but continued to live in Yonkers.[br]Further ReadingBiography, American Machinist 23.Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVII.G.Robinson, 1966, Carpets, London (for the history and techniques of carpet weaving).A.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (includes a section on pile weaving which covers some types of carpets).RLH -
107 Skola
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. c. 1819 France[br]French improver of the Jacquard mechanism for pattern weaving.[br]Jacquard hand looms surviving from the 1830s show a mechanism similar to those still used in the 1990s, with all the operations being carried out by the weaver: the flying shuttle, invented by John Kay, is driven across with the right hand, while the left hand rests on the sley and beats in the weft and also selects the appropriate shuttle from Robert Kay's drop box. The right foot presses down on a pedal which operates the Jacquard mechanism. The single downwards movement of the foot has to be translated into two different motions to operate the Jacquard. First, the correct card has to be moved horizontally against the needles to select the desired pattern, then the appropriate needles have to be lifted vertically. Jacquard's invention failed in the way it pressed the card against the needles, but Skola was able to improve this in 1819, probably with the addition of a part called the "swan neck". It was Skola's Jacquard machine which truly rendered the process of weaving more economical and productive because the weaver now could operate the Jacquard mechanism with no help, so dispensing with the drawboy. The speed of selecting the pattern with this mechanism also meant that the weaver could use the flying shuttle, with an additional increment in weaving speeds.[br]Further ReadingR.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (includes a description of the development of the Jacquard mechanism).A.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (for illustrations of the perfected mechanism).RLH -
108 Slater, Samuel
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 9 June 1768 Belper, Derbyshire, Englandd. 21 April 1835 USA[br]Anglo-American manufacturer who established the first American mill to use Arkwright's spinning system.[br]Samuel's father, William, was a respected independent farmer who died when his son was aged 14; the young Slater was apprenticed to his father's friend, Jedediah Strutt for six and a half years at the beginning of 1783. He showed mathematical ability and quickly acquainted himself thoroughly with cotton-spinning machinery made by Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton. After completing his apprenticeship, he remained for a time with the Strutts to act as Supervisor for a new mill.At that time it was forbidden to export any textile machinery or even drawings or data from England. The emigration of textile workers was forbidden too, but in September 1789 Slater left for the United States in disguise, having committed the details of the construction of the cotton-spinning machinery to memory. He reached New York and was employed by the New York Manufacturing Company.In January 1790 he met Moses Brown in Providence, Rhode Island, and on 5 April 1790 he signed a contract to construct Arkwright's spinning machinery for Almy \& Brown. It took Slater more than a year to get the machinery operational because of the lack of skilled mechanics and tools, but by 1793 the mill was running under the name of Almy, Brown \& Slater. In October 1791 Slater had married Hannah Wilkinson, and in 1798 he set up his own mill in partnership with his father-in-law, Orziel Wilkinson. This mill was built in Pawtucket, near the first mill, but other mills soon followed in Smithville, Rhode Island, and elsewhere. Slater was the Incorporator, and for the first fifteen years was also President of the Manufacturer's Bank in Pawtucket. It was in his business role and as New England's first industrial capitalist that Slater made his most important contributions to the emergence of the American textile industry.[br]Further ReadingG.S.White, 1836, Memoirs of Samuel Philadelphia (theearliestaccountofhislife). Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVII. Scientific American 63. P.E.Rivard, 1974, Samuel Slater, Father of American Manufactures, Slater Mill. D.J.Jeremy, 1981, Transatlantic Industrial Revolution. The Diffusion of TextileTechnologies Between Britain and America, 1790–1830s, Oxford (covers Slater's activities in the USA very fully).RLH -
109 Smalley, John
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. c. 1729 Englandd. 28 January 1782 Holywell, Wales.[br]English helped Arkwright to build and finance the waterframe.[br]John Smalley of Preston was the second son of John, a chapman of Blackburn. He was a distant relative of Richard Arkwright through marrying, in 1751, Elizabeth Baxter, whose mother Ellen was the widow of Arkwright's uncle, Richard. In the Preston Guild Rolls of 1762 he was described as a grocer and painter, and he was also Landlord of the Bull Inn. The following year he became a bailiff of Preston and in 1765 he became a Corporation steward. On 14 May 1768 Arkwright, Smalley and David Thornley became partners in a cotton-spinning venture in Nottingham. They agreed to apply for a patent for Arkwright's invention of spinning by rollers, and Smalley signed as a witness. It is said that Smalley provided much of the capital for this new venture as he sold his business at Preston for about £1,600, but this was soon found to be insufficient and the partnership had to be enlarged to include Samuel Need and Jedediah Strutt.Smalley may have helped to establish the spinning mill at Nottingham, but by 28 February 1771 he was back in Preston, for on that day he was chosen a "Councilman in the room of Mr. Thomas Jackson deceased" (Fitton 1989:38). He attended meetings for over a year, but either in 1772 or the following year he sold the Bull Inn, and certainly by August 1774 the Smalleys were living in Cromford, where he became Manager of the mill. He soon found himself at logger-heads with Arkwright; however, Strutt was able to smooth the dispute over for a while. Things came to a head in January 1777 when Arkwright was determined to get rid of Smalley, and the three remaining partners agreed to buy out Smalley's share for the sum of £10,751.Although he had agreed not to set up any textile machinery, Smalley moved to Holywell in North Wales, where in the spring of 1777 he built a cotton-spinning mill in the Greenfield valley. He prospered there and his son was later to build two more mills in the same valley. Smalley used to go to Wrexham to sell his yarn, and there met John Peers, a leather merchant, who was able to provide a better quality leather for covering the drawing rollers which came to be used in Lancashire. Smalley died in 1782, shortly before Arkwright could sue him for infringement of his patents.[br]Further ReadingR.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester (draws together the fullest details of John Smalley).R.L.Hills, 1969, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (includes details of the agreement with Arkwright).A.H.Dodd, 1971, The Industrial Revolution in North Wales, Cardiff; E.J.Foulkes, 1964, "The cotton spinning factories of Flintshire, 1777–1866", Flintshire Historical SocietyJournal 21 (provide more information about his cotton mill at Holywell).RLH -
110 Smith, J.
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1830s Scotland[br]Scottish inventor of the first endless chain of flats for carding.[br]Carding by hand required a pair of hand cards. The lump of tangled fibres was teased out by pulling one card across the other to even out the fibres and transfer them onto one of the cards from which they could be rolled up into a rollag or slubbing. When Arkwright began to use cylinder cards, the fibres were teased out as they passed from one cylinder to the next. In order to obtain a greater carding area, he soon introduced smaller cylinders and placed strips of flat card above the periphery of the main cylinder. These became clogged with short fibres and dirt, so they had to be lifted off and cleaned or "stripped" at intervals. The first to invent a self-stripping card was Archibald Buchanan, at the Catrine mills in Ayrshire, with his patent in 1823. In his arrangement each flat was turned upside down and stripped by a rotary brush. This was improved by Smith in 1834 and patented in the same year. Smith fixed the flats on an endless chain so that they travelled around the periphery of the top of the main cylinder. Just after the point where they left the cylinder, Smith placed a rotary brush and a comb to clear the brush. In this way each flat in turn was properly and regularly cleaned.Smith was an able mechanic and Managing Partner of the Deanston mills in Scotland. He visited Manchester, where he was warmly received on the introduction of his machine there at about the same time as he patented it in Scotland. The carding engine he designed was complex, for he arranged a double feed to obtain greater production. While this part of his patent was not developed, his chain or endless flats became the basis used in later cotton carding engines. He took out at least half a dozen other patents for textile machinery. These included two in 1834, the first for a self-acting mule and the second with J.C. Dyer for improvements to winding on to spools. There were further spinning patents in 1839 and 1844 and more for preparatory machinery including carding in 1841 and 1842. He was also interested in agriculture and invented a subsoil plough and other useful things.[br]Bibliography1834, British patent no. 6,560 (self-stripping card). 1834, British patent no. 656 (self-acting mule). 1839, British patent no. 8,054.1841, British patent no. 8,796 (carding machine). 1842, British patent no. 9,313 (carding machine).1844, British patent no. 10,080.Further ReadingE.Leigh, 1875, The Science of Modern Cotton Spinning Manchester (provides a good account of Smith's carding engine).W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (covers the development of the carding engine).RLH -
111 Snodgrass, Neil
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. late 1790s Scotland[br]Scottish inventor of the scutcher for opening and cleaning raw cotton.[br]Raw cotton arrived in Britain in tightly packed bales. Before spinning, the fibres had to be opened out, and dirt, seeds and bits of plant had to be removed. This was an unpleasant and fatiguing job usually carried out by women and children. By 1800 it could be done by two machines. The first stage in opening was the "willow" and then the cotton was passed through the "scutcher" to open it further and give it a more effective cleaning. These machines reduced the labour of the operation to about one-twentieth of what it had been. The scutching machine was constructed by Snodgrass and first used at Houston's mill in Johnstone, near Paisley, in 1797. It was derived from the threshing machine invented by Andrew Meikle of Phantassie in 1786. In the scutcher, revolving bars beat the cotton to separate the fibres from the trash. As the dirt fell out, the cotton was blown forward by a fan and was rolled up into a lap at the end of the machine. Scutchers were not introduced to Manchester until 1808 or 1809 and further improvements were soon made to them.[br]Further ReadingR.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (covers the development of the scutcher).W.English, 1970, The Textile Industry, London (provides a brief account).RLH -
112 Somerset, Edward, 2nd Marquis of Worcester
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 1601d. 3 April 1667 Lambeth (?), London, England[br]English inventor of a steam-operated pump for raising water, described in his work A Century of…Inventions.[br]Edward Somerset became 6th Earl and 2nd Marquis of Worcester and Titular Earl of Glamorgan. He was educated privately and then abroad, visiting Germany, Italy and France. He was made Councillor of Wales in 1633 and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire in 1635. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned to levy forces against the Scots in 1640. He garrisoned Raglan Castle for the King and was employed by Charles I to bring troops in from Ireland. He was declared an enemy of the realm by Parliament and was banished, remaining in France for some years. On the Restoration, he recovered most of his estates, principally in South Wales, and was able to devote most of his time to mechanical studies and experiments.Soon after 1626, he had employed the services of a skilled Dutch or German mechanic, Caspar Kaltoff, to make small-scale models for display to interested people. In 1638 he showed Charles I a 14 ft (4.3m) diameter wheel carrying forty weights that was claimed to have solved the problem of perpetual motion. He wrote his Century of the Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to have Tried and Perfected in 1655, but it was not published until 1663: no. 68 describes "An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire", which has been claimed as an early steam-engine. Before the Civil War he made experiments at Raglan Castle, and after the war he built one of his engines at Vauxhall, London, where it raised water to a height of 40 ft (12 m). An Act of Parliament enabling Worcester to receive the benefit and profits of his water-commanding engine for ninety-nine years did not restore his fortunes. Descriptions of this invention are so vague that it cannot be reconstructed.[br]Bibliography1655, Century of the Names and Scantlings of Such Inventions as at Present I Can Call to Mind to have Tried and Perfected.Further ReadingH.Dircks, 1865, The Life, Times and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester.Dictionary of National Biography, 1898, Vol. L, London: Smith Elder \& Co. (mainly covers his political career).H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (discusses his steam engine invention).W.H.Thorpe, 1932–3, "The Marquis of Worcester and Vauxhall", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 13.RLHBiographical history of technology > Somerset, Edward, 2nd Marquis of Worcester
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113 Strutt, Jedediah
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 26 July 1726 South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, Englandd. 7 May 1797 Derby, England[br]English inventor of a machine for making ribbed knitting.[br]Jedediah Strutt was the second of three sons of William, a small farmer and maltster at South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, where the only industry was a little framework knitting. At the age of 14 Jedediah was apprenticed to Ralph Massey, a wheelwright near Derby, and lodged with the Woollats, whose daughter Elizabeth he later married in 1755. He moved to Leicester and in 1754 started farming at Blackwell, where an uncle had died and left him the stock on his farm. It was here that he made his knitting invention.William Lee's knitting machine remained in virtually the same form as he left it until the middle of the eighteenth century. The knitting industry moved away from London into the Midlands and in 1730 a Nottingham workman, using Indian spun yarn, produced the first pair of cotton hose ever made by mechanical means. This industry developed quickly and by 1750 was providing employment for 1,200 frameworkers using both wool and cotton in the Nottingham and Derby areas. It was against this background that Jedediah Strutt obtained patents for his Derby rib machine in 1758 and 1759.The machine was a highly ingenious mechanism, which when placed in front of an ordinary stocking frame enabled the fashionable ribbed stockings to be made by machine instead of by hand. To develop this invention, he formed a partnership first with his brother-in-law, William Woollat, and two leading Derby hosiers, John Bloodworth and Thomas Stamford. This partnership was dissolved in 1762 and another was formed with Woollat and the Nottingham hosier Samuel Need. Strutt's invention was followed by a succession of innovations which enabled framework knitters to produce almost every kind of mesh on their machines. In 1764 the stocking frame was adapted to the making of eyelet holes, and this later lead to the production of lace. In 1767 velvet was made on these frames, and two years later brocade. In this way Strutt's original invention opened up a new era for knitting. Although all these later improvements were not his, he was able to make a fortune from his invention. In 1762 he was made a freeman of Nottingham, but by then he was living in Derby. His business at Derby was concerned mainly with silk hose and he had a silk mill there.It was partly his need for cotton yarn and partly his wealth which led him into partnership with Richard Arkwright, John Smalley and David Thornley to exploit Arkwright's patent for spinning cotton by rollers. Together with Samuel Need, they financed the Arkwright partnership in 1770 to develop the horse-powered mill in Nottingham and then the water-powered mill at Cromford. Strutt gave advice to Arkwright about improving the machinery and helped to hold the partnership together when Arkwright fell out with his first partners. Strutt was also involved, in London, where he had a house, with the parliamentary proceedings over the passing of the Calico Act in 1774, which opened up the trade in British-manufactured all-cotton cloth.In 1776 Strutt financed the construction of his own mill at Helper, about seven miles (11 km) further down the Derwent valley below Cromford. This was followed by another at Milford, a little lower on the river. Strutt was also a partner with Arkwright and others in the mill at Birkacre, near Chorley in Lancashire. The Strutt mills were developed into large complexes for cotton spinning and many experiments were later carried out in them, both in textile machinery and in fireproof construction for the mills themselves. They were also important training schools for engineers.Elizabeth Strutt died in 1774 and Jedediah never married again. The family seem to have lived frugally in spite of their wealth, probably influenced by their Nonconformist background. He had built a house near the mills at Milford, but it was in his Derby house that Jedediah died in 1797. By the time of his death, his son William had long been involved with the business and became a more important cotton spinner than Jedediah.[br]Bibliography1758. British patent no. 722 (Derby rib machine). 1759. British patent no. 734 (Derby rib machine).Further ReadingFor the involvement of Strutt in Arkwright's spinning ventures, there are two books, the earlier of which is R.S.Fitton and A.P.Wadsworth, 1958, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830, Manchester, which has most of the details about Strutt's life. This has been followed by R.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester.R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (for a general background to the textile industry of the period).W.Felkin, 1967, History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures, reprint, Newton Abbot (orig. pub. 1867) (covers Strutt's knitting inventions).RLH -
114 Stumpf, Johann
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c. 1900 Germany[br]German inventor of a successful design of uniflow steam engine.[br]In 1869 Stumpf was commissioned by the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hertford, Connecticut, to set up two triple-expansion, vertical, Corliss pumping engines. He tried to simplify this complicated system and started research with the internal combustion engine and the steam turbine particularly as his models. The construction of steam turbines in several stages where the steam passed through in a unidirectional flow was being pursued at that time, and Stumpf wondered whether it would be possible to raise the efficiency of a reciprocating steam engine to the same thermal level as the turbine by the use of the uniflow principle.Stumpf began to investigate these principles without studying the work of earlier pioneers like L.J. Todd, which he later thought would have led him astray. It was not until 1908, when he was Professor at the Institute of Technology in Berlin- Charlottenburg, that he patented his successful "una-flow" steam engine. In that year he took out six British patents for improvements in details on his original one Stumpf fully realized the thermal advantages of compressing the residual steam and was able to evolve systems of coping with excessive compression when starting. He also placed steam-jackets around the ends of the cylinder. Stumpf's first engine was built in 1908 by the Erste B runner Maschinenfabrik-Gesellschaft, and licences were taken out by many other manufacturers, including those in Britain and the USA. His engine was developed into the most economical type of reciprocating steam engine.[br]Bibliography1912, The Una-Flow Steam Engine, Munich: R. Oldenbourg (his own account of the una-flow engine).Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press; R.L.Hills, 1989, Power from Steam. A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (both discuss Stumpf's engine).H.J.Braun, "The National Association of German-American Technologists and technology transfer between Germany and the United States, 1844–1930", History of Technology 8 (provides details of Stumpf's earlier work).RLH -
115 Sundback, Gideon
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1910 USA[br]American engineer who improved zip fasteners so they became both a practical and a commercial proposition.[br]The zip fastener was originally patented in the USA in 1896 by W.L. Judson of Chicago. At first it was used only in boots and shoes and was not a success because it tended to jam or spring open. It was expensive, for it was made largely by hand. Eventually the Automatic Hook and Eye Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, took on Dr Gideon Sundback, a Swedish electrical engineer who had settled in the United States in 1905. After several years' work Sundback filed a patent application and his model was sold as a novelty item but was still unsatisfactory in use. In 1912 he invented a hookless fastener which looked promising but also was impractical in use. Finally, in 1913, he invented a fastener which in all important essentials was the modern zip fastener and, in addition, he invented the machinery to produce it. However, clothing manufacturers continued to oppose its introduction until in 1918 a contractor making flying suits for the United States Navy placed an order for 10,000 fasteners and in 1923 B.F.Goodrich \& Co. put zips in the galoshes that they manufactured. Success was assured from then on.[br]Further ReadingJ.Jewkes, D.Sawers and R.Stillerman, 1969, The Sources of Invention, 2nd edn, London (discusses the invention).I.McNeil (ed.), 1990, An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology, London: Routledge pp. 852–3 (for an account of the development of fastenings).RLH -
116 Svaty, Vladimir
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1950 Czechoslovakia[br]Czech inventor of a loom across which the weft was projected by a jet of water.[br]Since the 1930s people have been experimenting with ways of inserting the weft during weaving without using a massive shuttle. This would save wasting the energy that a shuttle requires to accelerate it through the warp and which is only to be lost when the shuttle is stopped in its box. Around 1950, the Czech engineer Vladimir Svaty had been working on air-jet looms, in which the weft was wafted across the loom by a jet of air. He then switched his interest to waterjet looms, and in 1955, at the Brussels exhibition, the first water-jet loom was displayed to a surprised world. In 1959 the Czechs had installed 150 of these looms at Semily in Czechoslovakia, weaving cloth 41 in. (104 cm) wide at 350 picks per minute. Water-jet looms are suitable only for certain types of synthetic fibres which are not affected by the wet. They are compact, quiet, mechanically simple and free from weft vibration. They find their most appropriate use in weaving simple fabrics from water-insensitive, continuous-filament yarn, which they can produce economically and with the highest quality.[br]Further ReadingJ.J.Vincent, 1980, Shuttleless Looms, Manchester (written with inside knowledge of the problems; the author tried to develop a shuttleless loom himself).RLH -
117 Thimmonier, Barthélémy
[br]b. 1793 Saint-Etienne, France d. 1857[br]French inventor of the first sewing machine.[br]The sewing machine is probably the most universal and the most important machine in clothing manufacture, being used both industrially and domestically. It was also the first domestic consumer durable and was the first mass-produced machine to appear in the home. The first practical sewing machine was built during 1828 and 1829 by Barthélémy Thimmonier, a working tailor of Saint-Etienne in France. He came from a modest family and had never received any training as a mechanic, so his invention is all the more remarkable. He took out a patent in 1830 in his own name and that of Ferrand, a tutor of the Saint-Etienne School of Mines who had helped him financially. It was a chain-stitch machine made largely of wood and operated by a foot pedal with a large flywheel. The needle moved up and down through the cloth, which was placed on a platform below it. A second, hooked needle under the platform made a loop in the thread, which was caught when the first needle descended again.In 1841, Thimmonier was appointed to a senior position in a large Paris clothing factory engaged in the production of French army uniforms. He soon had eighty machines in use, but a mob of hand-sewers broke in, smashed the machines and nearly killed Thimmonier. In 1845, he had developed his machine so that it could make 200 stitches per minute and formed a partnership with Jean-Marie Magnin to build them commercially. However, the abdication of Louis Philippe on 21 February 1848 ended his hopes, even though patents were taken out in the UK and the USA in that year. The English patent was in Magnin's name, and Thimmonier died impoverished in 1857. His machine was perfected by many later inventors.[br]Bibliography1830, with Ferrand, (chain-stitch machine).Further ReadingA.Matagran, 1931, "Barthélémy Thimmonier (1793–1857), inventeur de la machine à coudre", Bull. Soc. Enc. Industr. nat. 130 (biography in French).J.Meyssin, 1914, Histoire de la machine à coudre: portrait et biographie de l'inventeur B.Thimmonier, 5th edn, Lyons (biography in French).M.Daumas, (ed.), 1968, Histoire générale des techniques, Vol. III: L'Expansion du machinisme, Paris (includes a description of Thimmonier's machine, with a picture).N.Salmon, 1863, History of the Sewing Machine from the Year 1750 (tells the history of the sewing machine).F.B.Jewell, 1975, Veteran Sewing Machines. A Collector's Guide, Newton Abbot (a more modern account).RLH -
118 Thomas, William
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. 1850 London, England[br]English patentee of the lock-stitch sewing machine in Britain.[br]William Thomas, of Cheapside, London, was a manufacturer of shoes, umbrellas and corsets. He paid Elias Howe a sum of £250 to secure the British rights of Howe's 1846 patent for the lock-stitch sewing machine. Thomas persuaded Howe to go from the USA to England and apply his machine to the manufacture of shoes and corsets. Howe was to receive £3 per week, and in addition Thomas was to patent the machine in Britain and pay Howe £3 for every machine sold under the British patent. Patents for sewing machines were taken out in the name of W.Thomas in 1846 and 1848, and again in 1849. Howe did travel to Britain but quarrelled with Thomas after less than a year and returned to the USA. In 1853 Thomas started selling his own lock-stitch machine. There are patents in the name of W.F. Thomas for sewing machines, making button-holes bindings, etc., dating from 1853 through to 1864.[br]Bibliography1846, British patent no. 11,464 (sewing machine). 1848, British patent no. 12,221 (sewing machine). 1849, British patent no. 12,736 (sewing machine). 1853, British patent no. 1,026.1855, British patent no. 2,079.1856, British patent no. 740.1856, British patent no. 2,978.1860, British patent no. 1,631.1864, British patent no. 1,609.Further ReadingF.G.Harrison, 1892–3, Biographical Sketches of Pre-eminent Americans (includes an account of Howe's life).F.B.Jewell, 1975, Veteran Sewing Machines. A Collector's Guide, Newton Abbot (makes brief mention of Thomas).RLH -
119 Thompson, A.
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]fl. c. 1801 London, England[br]English patentee of one of the first significant machines for heckling flax.[br]The flax plant passes through many stages before its fibres are prepared for spinning. The woody pith surrounding the fibres is first softened by rotting or "retting", and is then removed by beating or "scutching". This leaves the fibres in a tight bunch, as they have grown to form the stem of the plant. Hackling or heckling, the next process, separates the fibres from each other. In hand processes this was done by pulling the fibres across a board of steel spikes, or sometimes a form of comb was pulled through them.In 1795 Sellers and Standage patented a method of heckling in which the flax was pulled by hand through stationary vertical teeth, but much more significant was the patent of 1801 of A.Thompson of London. The length of the fibres in a bundle of flax will vary considerably, therefore the distance between the point where the fibres pass out to be combed and the point where they can be put through another roller or gripper must be greater than the longest fibres, requiring some method of support in between. Thompson used a pair of chain gills for this purpose. These consist of rows of teeth mounted on a continuous chain or belt which moves around while the fibres pass through the teeth in the vertical position. The longer fibres are pulled through the teeth by the drawing rollers at the front, while the shorter ones are held steady by the teeth and presented to the rollers later; thus the teeth both support the fibres and heckle them at the same time. Following this process the fibres can be drawn and spun.[br]Bibliography1801, British patent no. 2,533 (flax-heckling machine).Further ReadingW.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (describes Thompson's machine, with an illustration).L.J.Mills (ed.), 1927, The Textile Educator, London (includes a description of later flax-heckling machines).RLH -
120 Thornley, David
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. c. 1741 Liverpool (?), Englandd. 27 January 1772 Nottingham, England[br]English partner in Arkwright's cotton-spinning venture.[br]On 4 November 1766 David Thornley married Mary, daughter of Joseph Brown, roper, at St Peter's, Liverpool. In Gore's Dictionary for 1767 Thornley is described as "merchant" and his wife as "milliner" of Castle Street, Liverpool. David Thornley was distantly related to Richard Arkwright and certainly by 1768 Thornley had begun his active association with Arkwright when he joined him in Preston, an event recorded in the inquiry into the qualifications of those who had voted in the Burgoyne election. Thornley may have helped Arkwright with the technical development of his spinning machine.On 14 May 1768, Arkwright, Smalley and Thornley became partners in the cotton-spinning venture at Nottingham for a term of fourteen years, or longer if a patent could be obtained. Each partner was to have three one-ninth shares and was to advance such money as might be necessary to apply for a patent as well as to develop the spinning machine. Profits were to be divided equally as often as convenient and the partners were to devote their whole time to the business after a period of two years. How-ever, it seems that in 1769 the partners had difficulty in raising the necessary money to finance the patent, and Thornley had to reduce his stake in the partnership to a one-ninth share. By this time Thornley must have moved to Nottingham, where Arkwright established his first mill. On 19 January 1770, additional finance was provided by two new partners, Samuel Need and Jedediah Strutt, and alterations were made to the mill buildings that the partners had leased to work the spinning machines by horse power. Arkwright and Thornley were to be responsible for the day-to-day management of the mill, receiving £25 per annum for these duties. Thornley appears to have remained at Nottingham to supervise the mill, while the other partners moved to Cromford to establish the much larger enterprise there. It was at Nottingham that David Thornley died in January 1772, and his share in the partnership was bought from his wife, Mary, by Arkwright. Mary returned to her millinery business in Liverpool.[br]Further ReadingUntil copies of the original agreements between Arkwright's partners were presented to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Thornley's existence was unknown. The only account of his life is given in R.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester. The "Articles of Agreement", 19 June 1769, are printed in R.L. Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester. This book also includes part of Arkwright's agreement with his later partners which mentions Thornley's death and covers the technical aspects of the cotton-spinning invention.RLH
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