第 22 页

CHAPTER 10. Begin Business at Manchester

Mr. Maudslay arrived from Berlin two days after my return to London. He, too, had enjoyed his holiday. During his stay in Berlin he had made the friendship of the distinguished Humboldt. Shenkel, the architect, had been very kind to him, and presented him with a set of drawings and engravings of his great architectural works, which Mr. Maudslay exhibited to me with much delight. What he most admired in Shenkel was the great range of his talent in all matters of design, his minute attention to detail, and his fine artistic feeling.

Soon after Mr. Maudslay's return, a very interesting job was brought to him, in which he took even more than his usual interest. It was a machine which his friend Mr. Barton, of the Royal Mint, had obtained from France. It was intended to cut or engrave the steel dies used for stamping coin. It was a remarkable and interesting specimen of inventive ingenuity. It copied any object in relief which had been cast in plaster of Paris or brass from the artist's original wax model. The minutest detail was transferred to soft steel dies with absolute accuracy. This remarkable machine could copy and cut steel dies either in intaglio or in cameo of any size, and, in short, enabled the mechanic who managed it to transfer the most minute and characteristic touches of the original model to the steel dies for any variety of size of coin. Nevertheless, the execution of some of the details of the machine were so defective, that after giving the most tempting proof of its capabilities at the Royal Mint, Mr. Barton found it absolutely necessary to place it in Maudslay's hands, in order to have its details thoroughly overhauled, and made as mechanically perfect as its design and intention merited.

This interesting machine was accordingly brought to the private workshop, and placed in the hands of the leading mechanic, whom I had the pleasure of being associated with, James Sherriff, one of our most skilled workmen. We were both put to our mettle. It was a job quite to my taste, and being associated with so skilled a workman as Sherriff, and in constant communication with Mr. Maudslay, I had every opportunity of bringing my best manipulative ability into action and use while perfecting this beautiful machine. It is sufficient to say that by our united efforts, by the technical details suggested by Mr. Maudslay and carried out by us, and by the practical trials made under the superintendence of Mr. Wyon of the Mint, the apparatus was at length made perfect and performed its duty to the satisfaction of every one concerned.

Mr. Maudslay had next a pair of 200 horse-power marine engines put in hand. His sons and partners were rather opposed to so expensive a piece of work being undertaken without an order. At that time such a power as 200 horse nominal was scarcely thought of; and the Admiralty Board were very cautious in ordering marine engines of any sort. Nevertheless, the engines were proceeded with and perfected. They formed a noble object in the great erecting shop. They embodied in every detail all Mr. Maudslay's latest improvements. In fact the work was the sum total of the great master's inventions and adaptations in marine engines. The Admiralty at last secured them for the purpose of being placed in a very fine vessel, the Dee, then in course of construction. Mr. Maudslay was so much pleased with the result that he had a very beautiful model made of the engines; and finding that I had some artistic skill as a draughtsman, he set me to work to make a complete perspective drawing of their great engines as they stood all perfect in the erecting-shop. This was a work entirely to my taste. In due time I completed a graphic portrait of these noble engines, treated, I hope, in an artistic spirit. Indeed, such a class of drawing was rarely to be had from any engineering draughtsman. Mere geometrical drawing could not give a proper idea, as a whole, of so grand a piece of mechanism. It required something of the artistic spirit to fairly represent it. At all events my performance won the entire approval of my master.

Mr. Maudslay was a man of a wide range of mechanical abilities. He was always ready to enter upon any new work requiring the exercise of special skill. It did not matter whether it was machine tools, engraving dies, block machinery, or astronomical instruments. While at Berlin he went to see the Royal Observatory. He was naturally much interested by the fine instruments there--the works of Repsoldt and Hertz, the pioneers of improved astronomical workmanship. The continental instrument makers were then far in advance of those of England. Mr. Maudslay was greatly impressed with the sight of the fine instruments in the Berlin Observatory. He was permitted to observe some of the most striking and remarkable of the heavenly bodies-- Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon. It was almost a new revelation to him; for the subject was entirely novel. To be able to make such instruments seemed to him to be a glorious achievement of refined mechanism and manipulative skill. He returned home full of the wonderful sights he had seen. It was a constant source of pleasure to him to dwell upon the splendour and magnificence of the heavenly bodies.

He became anxious to possess a powerful telescope of his own. His principal difficulty was in procuring a lens of considerable diameter, possessed of high perfection of defining power. I suggested to him the employment of a reflecting telescope, by means of which the difficulties connected with the employment of glass could be avoided. This suggestion was based upon some knowledge I had acquired respecting this department of refined mechanical art. I knew that the elder Herschel had by this means vastly advanced our knowledge of the heavenly bodies, indeed to an extent far beyond what had been achieved by the most perfect of glass lens instruments. Mr. Maudslay was interested in the idea I suggested; and he requested me to show him what I knew of the art of compounding the alloy called speculum metal. He wished to know how so brittle a material could be cast and ground and polished, and kept free from flaws or defects of every kind.

I accordingly cast for him a speculum of 8 inches diameter. I ground and polished it, and had it fitted up in a temporary manner to exhibit its optical capabilities, which were really of no mean order. But, as his ambition was to have a grand and powerful instrument of not less than 24 inches diameter, the preparation for such a speculum became a subject to him of the highest interest. He began to look out for a proper position for his projected observatory. He made inquiry about a residence at Norwood, where he thought his instrument might have fair play. It would there be free from the smoke and disturbing elements of such a place as Lambeth. His mind was full of this idea when he was called away by the claims of affection to visit a dear old friend at Boulogne. He remained there for more than a week, until assured of his friend's convalescence. But on his return voyage across the Channel he caught a severe cold. On reaching London he took to his bed and never left it alive. After three or four weeks' suffering he died on the 14th of February 1831.

It was a very sad thing for me to lose my dear old master. He was so good and so kind to me in all ways. He treated me like a friend and companion. He was always generous, manly, and upright in his dealings with everybody. How his workmen loved him; how his friends lamented him! He directed, before his death, that he should be buried in Woolwich 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 began his life as a mechanic there, and worked his way steadily upwards until he reached the highest point of his profession. He often returned to Woolwich after he had left it; sometimes to pay a share of his week's wages to his mother, while she lived; sometimes to revisit the scenery of his youth. He liked the green common, with the soldiers about it; Shooter's Hill, with its wide look-out over Kent and down the valley of the Thames; the river busy with shipping; the Dockyard wharf, with the royal craft loading and unloading their armaments. 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 so proud of his early connection with Woolwich he should wish his remains to be laid there; and Woolwich, on its part, has equal reason to be proud of Henry Maudslay.

After the death of my master I passed over to the service of his worthy partner, Joshua Field. I had an equal pleasure in working under him. His kindness in some degree mitigated the sad loss I had sustained by the death of my lamented friend and employer. The first work I had to perform for Mr. Field was to assist him in making the working drawings of a 200 horse-power condensing steam-engine, ordered by the Lambeth Waterworks Company. The practical acquaintance which I had by this time acquired of the mechanism of steam-engines enabled me to serve Mr. Field in a satisfactory manner. I drew out in full practical detail the rough but excellent hand sketches with which he supplied me. They were handed out for execution in the various parts of the factory; and I communicated with the foremen as to the details and workmanship.

While I was occupied beside Mr. Field in making these working drawings, he gave me many most valuable hints as to the designing of machinery in general. In after years I had many opportunities of making good use of them. One point he often impressed upon me. It was, he said, most important to bear in mind the get-at-ability of parts--that is, when any part of a machine was out of repair, it was requisite to get at it easily without taking the machine to pieces. This may appear a very simple remark, but the neglect of such an arrangement occasions a vast amount of trouble, delay, and expense. None but those who have had to do with the repair of worn-out or damaged parts of machinery can adequately value the importance of this subject.

I found Mr. Field to be a most systematic man in all business affairs. I may specially name one of his arrangements which I was quick to take up and appreciate. I carried it out with great advantage in my after life. It was, to record subjects of conversation by means of "graphic" memoranda. Almost daily, persons of note came to consult with him about machinery. On these occasions the consultations took place either with reference to proposed new work, or as to the progress of orders then in hand. Occasionally some novel scheme of applying power was under discussion, or some new method of employing mechanism: On ordinary occasions rough and rapid sketches are made on any stray pieces of waste paper that were about, and after the conversation is over the papers are swept away into the waste basket and destroyed. And yet some of these rapid drawings involve matters of great interest and importance for after consultations.

To avoid such losses, Mr. Field had always placed upon his table a "talking book" or "graphic diary." When his visitors called and entered into conversation with him about mechanical matters, he made rapid sketches on the successive pages of the book, and entered the brief particulars and date of the conversation, together with the name and address of the visitor. So that a conversation, once begun, might again be referred to, and, when the visitor called, the graphic memoranda might be recalled without loss of time, and the consultation again proceeded. The pages of Mr. Field's "talking books" were in many ways most interesting. They contained data that, in future years, supplied valuable evidence in respect to first suggestions of mechanical contrivances, and which sometimes were developed into very important results. I may add that Mr. Field kept these "talking books" on a shelf in front of his drawing table. The back of each volume was marked with the year to which the entries referred, and an index was appended to each. A general index book was also placed at the end of the goodly range of these graphic records of his professional life.

The completion of the working drawings of the Lambeth pumping engines occupied me until August 1831. I had then arrived at my twenty-third year. I had no intention of proceeding further as an assistant or a journeyman. I intended to begin business for my self. Of course I could only begin in a very small way. I informed Mr. Field of my intention, and he was gratified with my decision. Not only so; but he kindly permitted me to obtain castings of one of the best turning-lathes in the workshops. I knew th at when I had fitted it up it would become the parent of a vast progeny of descendants--not only in the direct line, but in planing machines, screw-cutting lathes, and many other minor tools.

At the end of the month, after taking a grateful farewell of Mr. Field and his partners, I set sail for Leith with my stock of castings, and reached Edinburgh in due time. In order to proceed with the construction of my machine tools, I rented a small piece of land at Old Broughton. It was at the rear of my worthy friend George Douglass's small foundry, and was only about five minutes' walk from my father's house. I erected a temporary workshop 24 feet long by 16 feet wide.

I removed thither my father's foot-lathe, to which I had previously added an excellent slide-rest of my own making. I also added a "slow motion," which enabled me to turn cast-iron and cast-steel portions of my great Maudslay lathe. I soon had the latter complete and in action. Its first child was a planing machine capable of executing surfaces in the most perfect style--of 3 feet long by 1 foot 8 inches wide. Armed with these two most important and generally useful tools, and by some special additions, such as boring machines and drilling machines, I soon had a progeny of legitimate descendants crowded about my little workshop, so that I often did not know which way to turn.

[Image] My temporary workshop at Edinburgh

I had one labourer to drive the wheel which gave motion to my big lathe; but I was very much in want of some one else to help me. One day a young hearty fellow called upon me. He had come from the Shotts Iron Company's Works in Edinburgh. Having heard of what I was about, he offered his services. When he told me that he had been bred as a millwright, and that he could handle the plane and the saw as well as the chisel and the file, I closed with him at once. He was to have fifteen shillings a week. I liked the young man very much--he was so hearty and cheerful. His name was Archibald Torry, or " Archie," as he was generally called during the twenty years that he remained in my service I obtained another assistant in the person of a young man whose father wished him to get an insight into practical engineering. I was offered a premium of #50 for twelve months' experience in my workshop. I arranged to take the young man, and to initiate him in the general principles and practice of engineering. The #50 premium was a very useful help to me, especially as I had engaged the millwright. It enabled me to pay Torry's wages during the time that he remained with me in Edinburgh. I found it necessary, however, to take in some work in the regular way of business, in order to supply me with the means of completing my proper supply of tools.