Chapter XII: Henry Maudslay (2)

Another of Mr. Maudslay's inventions was his machine for punching boiler-plates, by which the production of ironwork of many kinds was greatly facilitated. This improvement originated in the contract which he held for some years for supplying the Royal Navy with iron plates for ships' tanks. The operations of shearing and punching had before been very imperfectly done by hand, with great expenditure of labour. To improve the style of the work and lessen the labour, Maudslay invented the machine now in general use, by which the holes punched in the iron plate are exactly equidistant, and the subsequent operation of riveting is greatly facilitated. One of the results of the improved method was the great saving which was at once effected in the cost of preparing the plates to receive the rivets, the price of which was reduced from seven shillings per tank to ninepence. He continued to devote himself to the last to the improvement of the lathe,--in his opinion the master-machine, the life and soul of engine-turning, of which the planing, screw-cutting, and other machines in common use, are but modifications. In one of the early lathes which he contrived and made, the mandrill was nine inches in diameter; it was driven by wheel-gearing like a crane motion, and adapted to different speeds. Some of his friends, on first looking at it, said he was going "too fast;" but he lived to see work projected on so large a scale as to prove that his conceptions were just, and that he had merely anticipated by a few years the mechanical progress of his time. His large removable bar-lathe was a highly important tool of the same kind. It was used to turn surfaces many feet in diameter. While it could be used for boring wheels, or the side-rods of marine engines, it could turn a roller or cylinder twice or three times the diameter of its own centres from the ground-level, and indeed could drive round work of any diameter that would clear the roof of the shop. This was therefore an almost universal tool, capable of very extensive uses. Indeed much of the work now executed by means of special tools, such as the planing or slotting machine, was then done in the lathe, which was used as a cutter-shaping machine, fitted with various appliances according to the work.

Maudslay's love of accuracy also led him from an early period to study the subject of improved screw-cutting. The importance of this department of mechanism can scarcely be overrated, the solidity and permanency of most mechanical structures mainly depending on the employment of the screw, at the same time that the parts can be readily separated for renewal or repair. Any one can form an idea of the importance of the screw as an element in mechanical construction by examining say a steam-engine, and counting the number of screws employed in holding it together. Previous to the time at which the subject occupied the attention of our mechanic, the tools used for making screws were of the most rude and inexact kind. The screws were for the most part cut by hand: the small by filing, the larger by chipping and filing. In consequence of the great difficulty of making them, as few were used as possible; and cotters, cotterils, or forelocks, were employed instead. Screws, however, were to a certain extent indispensable; and each manufacturing establishment made them after their own fashion. There was an utter want of uniformity. No system was observed as to "pitch," i.e. the number of threads to the inch, nor was any rule followed as to the form of those threads. Every bolt and nut was sort of specialty in itself, and neither owed nor admitted of any community with its neighbours. To such an extent was this irregularity carried, that all bolts and their corresponding nuts had to be marked as belonging to each other; and any mixing of them together led to endless trouble, hopeless confusion, and enormous expense. Indeed none but those who lived in the comparatively early days of machine-manufacture can form an adequate idea of the annoyance occasioned by the want of system in this branch of detail, or duly appreciate the services rendered by Maudslay to mechanical engineering by the practical measures which he was among the first to introduce for its remedy. In his system of screw-cutting machinery, his taps and dies, and screw-tackle generally, he laid the foundations of all that has since been done in this essential branch of machine-construction, in which he was so ably followed up by several of the eminent mechanics brought up in his school, and more especially by Joseph Clement and Joseph Whitworth. One of his earliest self-acting screw lathes, moved by a guide-screw and wheels after the plan followed by the latter engineer, cut screws of large diameter and of any required pitch. As an illustration of its completeness and accuracy, we may mention that by its means a screw five feet in length, and two inches in diameter, was cut with fifty threads to the inch; the nut to fit on to it being twelve inches long, and containing six hundred threads. This screw was principally used for dividing scales for astronomical purposes; and by its means divisions were produced so minute that they could not be detected without the aid of a magnifier. The screw, which was sent for exhibition to the Society of Arts, is still carefully preserved amongst the specimens of Maudslay's handicraft at the Lambeth Works, and is a piece of delicate work which every skilled mechanic will thoroughly appreciate. Yet the tool by which this fine piece of turning was produced was not an exceptional tool, but was daily employed in the ordinary work of the manufactory.

Like every good workman who takes pride in his craft, he kept his tools in first-rate order, clean, and tidily arranged, so that he could lay his hand upon the thing he wanted at once, without loss of time. They are still preserved in the state in which he left them, and strikingly illustrate his love of order, "nattiness," and dexterity. Mr. Nasmyth says of him that you could see the man's character in whatever work he turned out; and as the connoisseur in art will exclaim at sight of a picture, "That is Turner," or "That is Stansfield," detecting the hand of the master in it, so the experienced mechanician, at sight of one of his machines or engines, will be equally ready to exclaim, "That is Maudslay;" for the characteristic style of the master-mind is as clear to the experienced eye in the case of the finished machine as the touches of the artist's pencil are in the case of the finished picture. Every mechanical contrivance that became the subject of his study came forth from his hand and mind rearranged, simplified, and made new, with the impress of his individuality stamped upon it. He at once stripped the subject of all unnecessary complications; for he possessed a wonderful faculty of KNOWING WHAT TO DO WITHOUT--the result of his clearness of insight into mechanical adaptations, and the accurate and well-defined notions he had formed of the precise object to be accomplished. "Every member or separate machine in the system of block-machinery," says Mr. Nasmyth, "is full of Maudslay's presence; and in that machinery, as constructed by him, is to be found the parent of every engineering tool by the aid of which we are now achieving such great things in mechanical construction. To the tools of which Maudslay furnished the prototypes are we mainly indebted for the perfection of our textile machinery, our locomotives, our marine engines, and the various implements of art, of agriculture, and of war. If any one who can enter into the details of this subject will be at the pains to analyse, if I may so term it, the machinery of our modern engineering workshops, he will find in all of them the strongly-marked features of Maudslay's parent machine, the slide rest and slide system--whether it be a planing machine, a slotting machine, a slide-lathe, or any other of the wonderful tools which are now enabling us to accomplish so much in mechanism."

One of the things in which Mr. Maudslay took just pride was in the excellence of his work. In designing and executing it, his main object was to do it in the best possible style and finish, altogether irrespective of the probable pecuniary results. This he regarded in the light of a duty he could not and would not evade, independent of its being a good investment for securing a future reputation; and the character which he thus obtained, although at times purchased at great cost, eventually justified the soundness of his views. As the eminent Mr. Penn, the head of the great engineering firm, is accustomed to say, "I cannot afford to turn out second-rate work," so Mr. Maudslay found both character and profit in striving after the highest excellence in his productions. He was particular even in the minutest details. Thus one of the points on which he insisted--apparently a trivial matter, but in reality of considerable importance in mechanical construction--was the avoidance of sharp interior angles in ironwork, whether wrought or cast; for he found that in such interior angles cracks were apt to originate; and when the article was a tool, the sharp angle was less pleasant to the hand as well as to the eye. In the application of his favourite round or hollow corner system--as, for instance, in the case of the points of junction of the arms of a wheel with its centre and rim--he used to illustrate its superiority by holding up his hand and pointing out the nice rounded hollow at the junction of the fingers, or by referring to the junction of the branches to the stem of a tree. Hence he made a point of having all the angles of his machine framework nicely rounded off on their exterior, and carefully hollowed in their interior angles. In forging such articles he would so shape his metal before bending that the result should be the right hollow or rounded corner when bent; the anticipated external angle falling into its proper place when the bar so shaped was brought to its ultimate form. In all such matters of detail he was greatly assisted by his early dexterity as a blacksmith; and he used to say that to be a good smith you must be able to SEE in the bar of iron the object proposed to be got out of it by the hammer or the tool, just as the sculptor is supposed to see in the block of stone the statue which he proposes to bring forth from it by his mind and his chisel.

Mr. Maudslay did not allow himself to forget his skill in the use of the hammer, and to the last he took pleasure in handling it, sometimes in the way of business, and often through sheer love of his art. Mr Nasmyth says, "It was one of my duties, while acting as assistant in his beautiful little workshop, to keep up a stock of handy bars of lead which he had placed on a shelf under his work-bench, which was of thick slate for the more ready making of his usual illustrative sketches of machinery in chalk. His love of iron-forging led him to take delight in forging the models of work to be ultimately done in iron; and cold lead being of about the same malleability as red-hot iron, furnished a convenient material for illustrating the method to be adopted with the large work. I well remember the smile of satisfaction that lit up his honest face when he met with a good excuse for 'having a go at' one of the bars of lead with hammer and anvil as if it were a bar of iron; and how, with a few dexterous strokes, punchings of holes, and rounded notches, he would give the rough bar or block its desired form. He always aimed at working it out of the solid as much as possible, so as to avoid the risk of any concealed defect, to which ironwork built up of welded parts is so liable; and when he had thus cleverly finished his model, he used forthwith to send for the foreman of smiths, and show him how he was to instruct his men as to the proper forging of the desired object." One of Mr. Maudslay's old workmen, when informing us of the skilful manner in which he handled the file, said, "It was a pleasure to see him handle a tool of any kind, but he was QUITE SPLENDID with an eighteen-inch file!" The vice at which he worked was constructed by himself, and it was perfect of its kind. It could be turned round to any position on the bench; the jaws would turn from the horizontal to the perpendicular or any other position--upside-down if necessary--and they would open twelve inches parallel.

Mr. Nasmyth furnishes the following further recollections of Mr. Maudslay, which will serve in some measure to illustrate his personal character. "Henry Maudslay," he says, "lived in the days of snuff-taking, which unhappily, as I think, has given way to the cigar-smoking system. He enjoyed his occasional pinch very much. It generally preceded the giving out of a new notion or suggestion for an improvement or alteration of some job in hand. As with most of those who enjoy their pinch, about three times as much was taken between the fingers as was utilized by the nose, and the consequence was that a large unconsumed surplus collected in the folds of the master's waistcoat as he sat working at his bench. Sometimes a file, or a tool, or some small piece of work would drop, and then it was my duty to go down on my knees and fetch it up. On such occasions, while waiting for the article, he would take the opportunity of pulling down his waistcoat front, which had become disarranged by his energetic working at the bench; and many a time have I come up with the dropped article, half-blinded by the snuff jerked into my eyes from off his waistcoat front.

"All the while he was at work he would be narrating some incident in his past life, or describing the progress of some new and important undertaking, in illustrating which he would use the bit of chalk ready to his hand upon the slate bench before him, which was thus in almost constant use. One of the pleasures he indulged in while he sat at work was Music, of which he was very fond,--more particularly of melodies and airs which took a lasting hold on his mind. Hence he was never without an assortment of musical boxes, some of which were of a large size. One of these he would set agoing on his library table, which was next to his workshop, and with the door kept open, he was thus enabled to enjoy the music while he sat working at his bench. Intimate friends would frequently call upon him and sit by the hour, but though talking all the while he never dropped his work, but continued employed on it with as much zeal as if he were only beginning life. His old friend Sir Samuel Bentham was a frequent caller in this way, as well as Sir Isambard Brunel while occupied with his Thames Tunnel works[15] and Mr. Chantrey, who was accustomed to consult him about the casting of his bronze statuary. Mr. Barton of the Royal Mint, and Mr. Donkin the engineer, with whom Mr. Barton was associated in ascertaining and devising a correct system of dividing the Standard Yard, and many others, had like audience of Mr. Maudslay in his little workshop, for friendly converse, for advice, or on affairs of business.

"It was a special and constant practice with him on a workman's holiday, or on a Sunday morning, to take a walk through his workshops when all was quiet, and then and there examine the various jobs in hand. On such occasions he carried with him a piece of chalk, with which, in a neat and very legible hand, he would record his remarks in the most pithy and sometimes caustic terms. Any evidence of want of correctness in setting things square, or in 'flat filing,' which he held in high esteem, or untidiness in not sweeping down the bench and laying the tools in order, was sure to have a record in chalk made on the spot. If it was a mild case, the reproof was recorded in gentle terms, simply to show that the master's eye was on the workman; but where the case deserved hearty approbation or required equally hearty reproof, the words employed were few, but went straight to the mark. These chalk jottings on the bench were held in the highest respect by the workmen themselves, whether they conveyed praise or blame, as they were sure to be deserved; and when the men next assembled, it soon became known all over the shop who had received the honour or otherwise of one of the master's bench memoranda in chalk."

The vigilant, the critical, and yet withal the generous eye of the master being over all his workmen, it will readily be understood how Maudslay's works came to be regarded as a first-class school for mechanical engineers. Every one felt that the quality of his workmanship was fully understood; and, if he had the right stuff in him, and was determined to advance, that his progress in skill would be thoroughly appreciated. It is scarcely necessary to point out how this feeling, pervading the establishment, must have operated, not only in maintaining the quality of the work, but in improving the character of the workmen. The results were felt in the increased practical ability of a large number of artisans, some of whom subsequently rose to the highest distinction. Indeed it may be said that what Oxford and Cambridge are in letters, workshops such as Maudslay's and Penn's are in mechanics. Nor can Oxford and Cambridge men be prouder of the connection with their respective colleges than mechanics such as Whitworth, Nasmyth, Roberts, Muir, and Lewis, are of their connection with the school of Maudslay. For all these distinguished engineers at one time or another formed part of his working staff, and were trained to the exercise of their special abilities under his own eye. The result has been a development of mechanical ability the like of which perhaps is not to be found in any age or country.

Although Mr. Maudslay was an unceasing inventor, he troubled himself very little about patenting his inventions. He considered that the superiority of his tools and the excellence of his work were his surest protection. Yet he had sometimes the annoyance of being threatened with actions by persons who had patented the inventions which he himself had made.[16] He was much beset by inventors, sometimes sadly out at elbows, but always with a boundless fortune looming before them. To such as applied to him for advice in a frank and candid spirit, he did not hesitate to speak freely, and communicate the results of his great experience in the most liberal manner; and to poor and deserving men of this class he was often found as ready to help them with his purse as with his still more valuable advice. He had a singular way of estimating the abilities of those who thus called upon him about their projects. The highest order of man was marked in his own mind at 100 degrees; and by this ideal standard he measured others, setting them down at 90 degrees, 80 degrees, and so on. A very first-rate man he would set down at 95 degrees, but men of this rank were exceedingly rare. After an interview with one of the applicants to him for advice, he would say to his pupil Nasmyth, "Jem, I think that man may be set down at 45 degrees, but he might be WORKED UP TO 60 degrees"--a common enough way of speaking of the working of a steam-engine, but a somewhat novel though by no means an inexpressive method of estimating the powers of an individual.

But while he had much toleration for modest and meritorious inventors, he had a great dislike for secret-mongers,--schemers of the close, cunning sort,--and usually made short work of them. He had an almost equal aversion for what he called the "fiddle-faddle inventors," with their omnibus patents, into which they packed every possible thing that their noddles could imagine. "Only once or twice in a century," said he, "does a great inventor appear, and yet here we have a set of fellows each taking out as many patents as would fill a cart,--some of them embodying not a single original idea, but including in their specifications all manner of modifications of well-known processes, as well as anticipating the arrangements which may become practicable in the progress of mechanical improvement." Many of these "patents" he regarded as mere pit-falls to catch the unwary; and he spoke of such "inventors" as the pests of the profession.

The personal appearance of Henry Maudslay was in correspondence with his character. He was of a commanding presence, for he stood full six feet two inches in height, a massive and portly man. His face was round, full, and lit up with good humour. A fine, large, and square forehead, of the grand constructive order, dominated over all, and his bright keen eye gave energy and life to his countenance. He was thoroughly "jolly" and good-natured, yet full of force and character. It was a positive delight to hear his cheerful, ringing laugh. He was cordial in manner, and his frankness set everybody at their ease who had occasion to meet him, even for the first time. No one could be more faithful and consistent in his friendships, nor more firm in the hour of adversity. In fine, Henry Maudslay was, as described by his friend Mr. Nasmyth, the very beau ideal of an honest, upright, straight-forward, hard-working, intelligent Englishman.

A severe cold which he caught on his way home from one of his visits to France, was the cause of his death, which occurred on the 14th of February, 1831. The void which his decease caused was long and deeply felt, not only by his family and his large circle of friends, but by his workmen, who admired him for his industrial skill, and loved him because of his invariably manly, generous, and upright conduct towards them. He directed that he should be buried in Woolwich parish-churchyard, where a cast-iron tomb, made to his own design, was erected over his remains. He had ever a warm heart for Woolwich, where he had been born and brought up. He often returned to it, sometimes to carry his mother a share of his week's wages while she lived, and afterwards to refresh himself with a sight of the neighbourhood with which he had been so familiar when a boy. He liked its green common, with the soldiers about it; Shooter's Hill, with its out-look over Kent and down the valley of the Thames; the river busy with shipping, and the royal craft loading and unloading their armaments at the dockyard wharves. He liked the clangour of the Arsenal smithy where he had first learned his art, and all the busy industry of the place. It was natural, therefore, that, being proud of his early connection with Woolwich, he should wish to lie there; and Woolwich, on its part, let us add, has equal reason to be proud of Henry Maudslay.

[1] The words Bramah uses in describing this part of his patent of 1795 are these--"The piston must be made perfectly watertight by leather or other materials, as used in pump-making." He elsewhere speaks of the piston-rod "working through the stuffing-box." But in practice, as we have above shown, these methods were found to be altogether inefficient.

[2] In this lathe the slide rest and frame were moveable along the traversing-bar, according to the length of the work, and could be placed in any position and secured by a handle and screw underneath. The Rest, however, afterwards underwent many important modifications; but the principle of the whole machine was there.

[3] PLUMIER, L'Art de Tourner, Paris, 1754, p. 155.

[4] Machines approuvees par l' Academie, 1719.

[5] Machines approuvees par l' Academie, 1733.

[6] L'Art de Tourner en perfection, 49.

[7] It consisted of two parallel bars of wood or iron connected together at both extremities by bolts or keys of sufficient width to admit of the article required to be planed. A moveable frame was placed between the two bars, motion being given to it by a long cylindrical thread acting on any tool put into the sliding frame, and, consequently, causing the screw, by means of a handle at each end of it, to push or draw the point or cutting-edge of the tool either way.--Mr. George Rennie's Preface to Buchanan's Practical Essays on Mill Work, 3rd Ed. xli.

[8] Turning was a favourite amusement amongst the French nobles of last century, many of whom acquired great dexterity in the art, which they turned to account when compelled to emigrate at the Revolution. Louis XVI. himself was a very good locksmith, and could have earned a fair living at the trade. Our own George III. was a good turner, and was learned in wheels and treadles, chucks and chisels. Henry Mayhew says, on the authority of an old working turner, that, with average industry, the King might have made from 40s. to 50s. a-week as a hard wood and ivory turner. Lord John Hay, though one-armed, was an adept at the latter, and Lord Gray was another capital turner. Indeed the late Mr. Holtzapffel's elaborately illustrated treatise was written quite as much for amateurs as for working mechanics. Among other noble handicraftsmen we may mention the late Lord Douglas, who cultivated bookbinding. Lord Traquair's fancy was cutlery, and one could not come to him in a more welcome fashion than with a pair of old razors to set up.

[9] Professor WILLIS, Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851, 1st series, p. 306.

[10] Address delivered before the British Association at Manchester in 1861; and Useful Information for Engineers, 1st series, p. 22.

[11] Life of Sir Samuel Bentham, 97-8.

[12] Remarks on the Introduction of the Slide Principle in Tools and Machines employed in the Production of Machinery, in Buchanan's Practical Essays on Mill Work and other Machinery. 3rd ed. p. 397.

[13] So far as words and drawings can serve to describe the block-making machinery, it will be found very ably described by Mr. Farey in his article under this head in Rees's Cyclopaedia, and by Dr. Brewster in the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia. A very good account will also be found in Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of the Useful Arts, Art. "Block."

[14] The remuneration paid to Mr. Brunel for his share in the invention was only one year's savings, which, however, were estimated by Sir Samuel Bentham at 17,663L.; besides which a grant of 5000L. was afterwards made to Brunel when labouring under pecuniary difficulties. But the ANNUAL saving to the nation by the adoption of the block-making machinery was probably more than the entire sum paid to the engineer. Brunel afterwards invented other wood-working machinery, but none to compare in merit and excellence with the above, For further particulars of his career, see BEAMISH'S Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, C.E. London. 1862.

[15] Among the last works executed by the firm during Mr. Maudslay's lifetime was the famous Shield employed by his friend Brunel in carrying forward the excavation of the Thames Tunnel. He also supplied the pumping-engines for the same great work, the completion of which he did not live to see.

[16] His principal patent's were--two, taken out in 1805 and 1808, while in Margaret Street, for printing calicoes (Nos. 2872 and 3117); one taken out in 1806, in conjunction with Mr. Donkin, for lifting heavy weights (2948); one taken out in 1807, while still in Margaret Street, for improvements in the steam-engine, reducing its parts and rendering it more compact and portable (3050); another, taken out in conjunction with Robert Dickinson in 1812, for sweetening water and other liquids (3538); and, lastly, a patent taken out in conjunction with Joshua Field in 1824 for preventing concentration of brine in boilers (5021).