Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
THE STORY
OF THE INVENTION
OF STEEL PENS
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF
THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS BY
WHICH THEY ARE PRODUCED
BY HENRY BORE
LONDON
1890
In these days of Public Schools and extended facilities for popular
education it would be difficult to find many people unaccustomed to
the use of steel pens, but although the manufacture of this article by
presses and tools must have been introduced during the first quarter
of the present century, the inquirer after knowledge would scarcely
find a dozen persons who could give any definite information as to
when, where, and by whom this invention was made. Less than two
decades ago there were three men living who could have answered this
question, but two of them passed away without making any sign, and the
third--Sir Josiah Mason--has left on record that his friend and
patron--Mr. Samuel Harrison--about the year 1780, made a steel pen
for Dr. Priestley.
This interesting fact does not contribute anything toward solving the
question, Who was the first manufacturer of steel pens by mechanical
appliances? In the absence of any definite information, the balance
of testimony tends to prove that steel pens were first made by tools,
worked by a screw press, about the beginning of the third decade of
the present century, and the names associated with their manufacture
were John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott, and Josiah Mason, each, in his own
way, doing something toward perfecting the manufacture by mechanical
means.
The earliest references to pens are probably those in the Bible, and
are to be found in Judges v. 14, 1st Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalm
xlv. 1., Isaiah viii. 1, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. 1. But these
chiefly refer to the iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah--taken
in reference to the mention of a penknife, xxxvi. 23--would seem to
imply that a reed was in use at that period.
There is a reference to "pen and ink" in the 3d Epistle of John xiii.
5, which was written about A.D. 85, and as pens made in brass and
silver were used in the Greek and Roman Empires at that time, it is
probable that a metallic pen or reed was alluded to.
Pens and reeds made in the precious metals and bronze appear to have
been in use at the commencement of the present era. The following are
a few notable instances:
"The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1540, had a silver pen bestowed
upon her, which had this inscription upon it: _'Publii Ovidii
Calamus,'_ found under the ruins of some monument in that country, as
Mr. Sands, in the Life of Ovid (prefixed to his Metamorphosis)
relates. --_"Humane Industry; or, a History of Mechanical Arts," by
Thos. Powell, D.D.: London, 1661, page 61._"
This was probably a silver reed, and, from the locality in which it
was found, was once the property of the poet Ovid. Publius Ovidius
Naso was born in the year 43 B.C., and died 18 A.D. He was exiled at
the age of 30 to Tomi, a town south of the delta of the Danube. This
at present is in modern Bulgaria, but at the period mentioned was in
the ancient kingdom of Hungary.
From "Notes and Queries," in Birmingham _Weekly Post_, we take the
following:
"EARLY METALLIC PENS.---Metallic pens are generally supposed to have
been unknown before the early part of the last century, when gold and
silver pens are occasionally referred to as novel luxuries. I have,
however, recently found a description and an engraving of one found in
excavating Pompeii, and which is now preserved in the Museum at
Naples. It is described in the quarto volume 'Les Monuments du Musee
National de Naples, graves sur cuivre par les meillures artistes
Italienes. Texte par Domenico Monaco, Conservateur du meme Musee,
Naples, 1882,' and is in the Catalogue:
"' Plate I26 (v) Plume en bronze, taillee parfaitement a la facon de
nos plumes 0.13 cent.
"' Plate I26 (y) Plume en roseau [reed] trouvee pres d'un papyrus a
Herculaneum.'
"The former (v) is engraved to look like an ordinary reed pen, as now
used universally in the East; and the other (y) has a spear shape, or
almond shape (like many modern metallic pens), but with a sort of
fillet or ring on the stem, which indicates that the 'y' example is
not a reed, but a metallic stylus, or pen, while the 'v' example is
shown clearly as a 'reed.' The two are, however, certainly older than
A.D. 79, when Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by the eruption of
Vesuvius."
According to Father Montfaucon, the patriarchs of Constantinople,
under the Greek Empire, were accustomed to sign their allocutions with
tubular pens of silver, similar in shape to the reed pens which are
still used by Oriental nations.
The following are translated from the French "Notes and Queries "--
L'Intermediare:_
"A METALLIC PEN IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--M. Reni de Bellwal, in a
very learned volume which he has published recently, on the first
campaign of Edward III. in France, says (p. 95) with respect to the
fictitious pieces (documents) fabricated by Robert d'Artois, that a
clerk of Jeanne wrote the deeds, and made use of a bronze pen to
enable him the better to disguise his writing. This plainly refers to
a pen, and not to a stylus. Is there any record of the use of
metallic pens at any period anterior to the fourteenth century? It is
very satisfactory, however, to establish (as the French used to say)
_'les preuves de 1300.'"--L'Intermediare.
In the _Vieux-Neuf_ of M. Ed. Fournier (vol. ii., p. 22, note) there
is mentioned--according to the documents used in the prosecution of
Robert d'Artois, which are in the Archives--'the bronze pen' with
which the forgers in the pay of the count wrote the false papers which
he required. M. Fournier also quotes from 'Montfaucon' 'the silver
reeds' with which the Constantinople patriarchs used to write their
letters."--CUTHBERT, _L'Intermediare,_ 1st June, 1864.
"METALLIC PENS (XV., 68).-Writing was done in the Middle Ages
sometimes with a metal _stylus,_ or perhaps with a metal pen; with the
former on wax, and with the pen on parchment or vellum. 'At Trinity
College, Cambridge, is a manuscript illustration of Eadwine, a monk of
Canterbury, and at the end the writer is represented with a metal pen
in his hand.' (See Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, p. 103). I have
in my possession a metal pen of Dutch manufacture, dating certainly
from the year 1717, mounted on the same pencilholder, with a piece of
solid plumbago, in a memorandum book of the same year."--SAM: TIMMINS.
"Mr. Le Chauvine Gal, Prior of the collegiate of St. Peter and St.
Bars at Aosta, had in his collection of Roman antiquities a bronze
pen, slit, found in a tomb, among a number of lamps and lachrymatory
vases. M. Aubert has given a drawing and description of it in a work
on Aosta. It was subsequently stolen from him by a collector."---
CHAMBERY, Un Savoyard, _L'Intermediare,_ 25th May, 1868.
"METALLIC PENS,--In a precious volume (an account of the books of the
Decretalia) preserved in the library of Saint Antoine, of Padua, the
following notice is to be found at the bottom of the last page: 'This
work is fashioned and by diligence finished for the service of God,
not with ink of quill nor with brazen reed, but with a certain
invention of printing or reproducing by John Fust, citizen of Mayence,
and Peter Schoeiffer, of Gernsheim, Dec. 17th, 1465, A.D.' Here,
then, we have a document proving the existence of metallic pens in the
Middle Ages. But has any such pen come down to us? If so, could a
detailed description of it be obtained? On the other hand, I am
curious to know if it is possible that platinum was used in the
eighteenth century in the manufacture of pens, or whether it is
necessary to attribute a peculiar meaning to the 'platinum pen' in the
following passage of the system of shorthand by Bertin (edit. of the
year iv., p. 93) (1793). 'Those of steel and platinum are most
convenient; these latter have the advantage of all others, in that
they hold the ink a long time, and run over the paper easily, and are
not liable to corrosion by any simple acid.' I am ignorant of what
the same author means when he mentions the endless pen, which would
certainly be the best. "'--J. CAMUS, _L'Intermediare._
"Metallic pens were used before the fifteenth century; they were in
use at the court of Augustus." See _L'Intermed._ (I. 69, 94, 141; II.
319.) Consult also _Le Vieux-Neuf_ Ed. Fournier.--A.D.
The following extracts show there have been several claimants, on the
Continent, who profess to have invented metallic pens, made from
steel, in the early part of the eighteenth century; but the reader had
better suspend his judgment until he has read the notes that follow
them:
"A manuscript, entitled 'Historical Chronicle of Aix-la-Chapelle,
second book, 1748,' places on record the claims of Johann Janssen, a
magistrate of that place, as the inventor of steel pens. 'Just at the
meeting of the congress [after the Austrian war] I may without boasting,
claim the honour of having invented a new pen. It is, perhaps,
not an accident that God should have inspired me at the present time
with the idea of making steel pens, for all the envoys here assembled
have bought the first that have been made; therewith, as may be hoped,
to sign a treaty of peace, which, with God's blessing, shall be as
permanent as the hard steel with which it is written. Of these pens,
as I have invented them, no man hath before seen or heard. If kept
clean and free from rust and ink, they will continue fit for use for
many years. Indeed, a man may write twenty reams of paper with one,
and the last line would be written as well as the first. They are now
sent into every corner of the world as a rare thing--to Spain, France,
England and Holland. Others will no doubt make imitations of my pens,
but I am the man who first invented and made them. I have sold a
great number of them at home and abroad at 1s. each, and I dispose of
them as quickly as I can make them."'
In an article on Writing Instruments, which appeared in the Berlin
_Paper Zeitung,_ on the 19th of May, 1887, the author says:
"A school teacher of Koningberg, named Burger, in the year 1808, made
pens from metal, but he got poor by his trials. After this time, and
probably imitating the pens of Burger, the English began to take in
hand the manufacture of pens; _especially Perry,_ he having perfected
the pens, as he did not restrict himself to the simple straight slit,
but he made cuts in the sides of different kinds."
In a pamphlet upon the manufacture of steel pens, published in Paris,
in 1884, the writer says:
"The invention of the metallic pen is due to a French mechanic--
Arnoux--who lived in the eighteenth century, who made as far back as
1750 a number of metallic pens as a curiosity. This invention did not
have any immediate result in France but spread to England, and became
in Birmingham, about 1830, a very prosperous industry. A very curious
fact about this trade is that, in England, it does not exist out of
Birmingham, where there are about ten manufactories. In France it has
become localized in Boulogne."
There is also the "nameless Sheffield Artisan," who so frequently
figures in newspaper paragraphs as the inventor of steel pens; and
William Gadsby, a mathematical instrument maker, who for his own use
constructed a clumsy article from the mainspring of a watch; but it is
not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that we get anything
authentic respecting the making of metallic pens. "Este," writing in
"Local Notes and Queries" _(Birmingham Weekly Post)_ mentions a
remarkable little volume supplied to the members of the States General
of Holland, in the possession of Mr. W. Bragge, of Sheffield, dated
1717. It contained a silver pencil case, in two parts, one holding a
piece of plumbago, mounted like a crayon, and the other a _metallic
pen._ We have seen this unique book (now the property of Mr. Sam:
Timmins). The pen is of the barrel shape, apparently silver, and it
must be regarded as the earliest authentic metallic pen. Of the date
there can be no doubt, as the pen is made to pass through loops in the
cover of the volume to keep it closed, after the manner of pocket
books, and the book bears the date, printed on the title page, 1717.
Pope, about the same time, received from Lady Frances Shirley a
present of a standish, containing a STEEL and a gold pen. In
acknowledging the receipt of this present, the poet wrote an ode, in
which the following lines occur:
"Take at this hand celestial arms;
Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This _golden_ lance shall guard desert,
And, if a vice dares keep the field,
This _steel_ shall stab it to the heart.
Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Received the weapons of the sky,
And dipped them in the sable well--
The fount of fame or infamy.
What well? What weapon? Flavia cries,
A standish, _steel and golden pen!_
It came from _Bertrand's,_* not the skies,
I gave it you to write again."
*_Bertrand_ kept a fancy shop in Bath. He died in 1755. His wife is
mentioned by Horace Walpole, in his letter to George Montague, May
18th, 1749, which letter is printed in his Correspondence.
In No. 503 of the _Spectator,_ bearing the date of October 7, 1712,
Steele, mentioning the conspicuous manner in which a certain lady
conducted herself in church, says:
"For she fixed her eyes upon the preacher, and as he said anything she
approved, with one of Charles Mather's fine tablets, she set down the
sentence, at once showing her fine hand, the _gold pen,_ her readiness
in writing, and her judgments in choosing what to write."
Edmund Waller, about the middle of the seventeenth century,
acknowledged the receipt of a _silver pen_ from a lady, in the
following verses:
"Madam! intending to have try'd,
The silver favour which you gave,
In ink the shining point I dy'd,
And drench'd it in the sable wave
When, grieved to be so foully stained,
On you it thus to me complained.
So I, the wronged pen to please,
Made it my humble thanks express
Unto your Ladyship, in these,
And now 'tis forced to confess
That your great self did ne'er indite
Nor that to me more noble write."
Mr. G. A. Lomas, writing to the _Scientific American,_ November 23,
1878, says:
"I write to inquire if you can give me information concerning the
manufacture of metal pens in this country. I may be vain in the
supposition, but I am persuaded that my people--the Shakers--were the
originators of metal pens. I write this to you with a silver pen, one
slit, that was made in the vear 1819, at this village, by the Shakers.
Two or three years previously to the use of silver pens, our people
used brass plates for their manufacture, but soon found silver
preferable. Some people sold these pens in the year 1819, at this
village, for twenty-five cents, and disposed of all that could be
made."
The writer further says the metal was made from silver coins.
This communication called forth the following from another
correspondent:
"The letter in the _Scientific American,_ November 23, 1878, with
regard to the early manufacture of steel pens, reminds me of the
following note which appeared in the _Boston Mechanic,_ for August, 1835.
'The inventor of steel pens,' says the _Journal of Commerce,_ was an
American and a well-known resident of our city (New York), Mr. Peregrine
Williamson. In the year 1800, Mr.W., then a working jeweler, at
Baltimore, while attending an evening school, finding some difficulty
in making a quill pen to suit him, made one of steel. It would not
write well, however, for want of flexibility. After a while he made
an additional slit on each side of the main one, and the pens were so
much improved that Mr. W. was called to make them in such numbers as
to eventually occupy his whole time, and that of a journeyman. At
first the business was very profitable and enabled Mr. W. to realize
for the labor of himself and journeyman a clear profit of six hundred
dollars per month. The English soon borrowed the invention, and some
who first engaged in the business realized immense fortunes."'
We do not know how much reliance may be placed upon this statement,
but, if the last assertion "that those who first engaged in the
business realized immense fortunes" may be taken as a test, the whole
must be received with a grain of salt. The letter appeared in the
_Boston Mechanic,_ in 1835, and at that date there were penmakers who
had made a modest competence, but in no case were they possessed of
immense fortunes.
In London _Notes and Queries,_ the following appears respecting early
steel pens:
"THE FIRST STEEL PEN.--(5th S., iii., 395.) Ten years before Dr.
Priestley was born steel pens were in use. There are references to
them in the Diary of John Byrom, who required them when writing
short-hand. In a letter to his sister Phoebe, dated August, 1723, he
mentions them as follows: 'Alas! alas! I cannot meet with a steel pen,
no manner of where I believe I have asked at 375 places, but that
which I have is at your service, as the owner himself always is."'
(Remains, Vol. i., 39.)
Mr. Ralph N. James, writing to _Notes and Queries,_ gives the
following extract from the very amusing "journey to Paris," by Dr.
Martin Lister, 1698:
"There was one thing very curious, and that was a _Writing lnstrument_
of thick and strong silver wire, bound up like a hollow button or
screw, with both ends pointing one way, and at a distance, so that a
man might easily put his forefinger betwixt the two points, and the
point divided in two, just like _our steel pens."_--_London Notes and
Queries,_ vol. iii., page 346.
This note caused another writer, Mr. C.A. Ward, to send the following:
"STEEL PENS.--The extract given from Dr. M. Lister's, by Mr. Ralph N.
James, is very interesting. The doctor there speaks of _'our steel
pens,'_ as if they were not at all uncommon. When the poet
Churchill's effects were sold up, after his death, Nov. 10, 1764, they
fetched extravagant prices; 'a common steel pen' brought L.5."
--_London Notes and Queries,_ vol iii., page 474.
The following extract from _London Notes and Queries_ gives very
plausible reasons against placing confidence in the preceding and
other notices of ancient steel pens:
"STEEL PENS. (5th S., vol. iii., pp. 346, 474.) May I ask whether, in
giving the interesting references to the use of _steel pens_ before
the time of Priestley (one reference even going so far back as the
seventeenth century) your correspondents have carefully considered
what is meant by the terms. For my own part (of course I maybe quite
wrong) I should naturally have anticipated _steel pens_ in these
references to mean not the modern steel nib for ordinary penmanship,
but the ancient steel pen for drawing lines or ruling circles, such as
is contained in every box of mathematical instruments. This would
explain (to some extent) the great price fetched for a good one of
Churchill's; a mere old steel nib would scarcely enter into a sale at
all. It would explain, too, why a special process of hardening should
be applied to a quill, in order to make it do duty for the steel
instrument. One would scarcely think of hardening a quill in order to
enable it to compete with a steel nib in some of the least desirable
qualities, though one often wishes one could accomplish the reverse
process, and soften or supple a steel 'stick frog,' so as to give it
the elasticity of the grey goose quill. "--V. H. I. L. L. C. IV. (iv.,
37, 5th S., _London Notes and Queries._)
Mr. R. Prosser, author of "Birmingham Inventors and Inventions," in
writing to the compiler of this work, says:
"It has often occurred to me that some of the very early references to
metallic pens may perhaps mean the draughtsman's 'ruling pen,' and not
an instrument made after the fashion of a quill pen with a slit in it.
That it is possible to write with such an instrument this paragraph
will show, but I must admit that it is not equal to one of Perry's
J's."
From an entry in "Pepys' Diary," October 24, 1660, _drawing pens_
appear to have been in use in London, at the time of the Restoration:
"To Mr. Lilly's, where, not finding Mr. Spong, I went to Mr.
Greatorex, where I met him, and where I bought a _drawing pen._"
In London _Notes and Queries_ (4th S., xi., 440), the Rev. E.
Smedley, editor of the _Encyclopoedia Metropolitana,_ writing to his
friend, Mr. H. Hawkins, April 10, 1833, says:
"The process of nibbing and shaving is one which I always abominated,
and for years past I have taken refuge under the _Perryian_ pens. The
one with which I now write has been in use daily, and all day long,
for more than a fortnight, and I consider that it still owes me quite
as much worth as it has already furnished. Every packet contains nine
pens, and on an average two out of that number fail to suit my hand,
but the remaining seven are faithful servants, and their price is 2s."
In _London Notes and Queries_ (4th S., xii., 57) a writer says:
"I bought my first steel pen from Bramah, Piccadilly, in 1825. The
price was 1s. 6d. It was very thick and hard, with very little
elasticity. In 1829 I read advertised in the _Times,_ steel pens,
with holder, 3s. per dozen, at Kendal's, in Holborn. They were hand
made, and much easier to write with than Bramah's. Soon after the
price fell, and steel pens became common."
In _London Notes and Queries (4th S., x., 309), October 19, 1872, Mr.
William Bates, speaking of a visit he paid to an old lady, at Studley
(Worcestershire) about 1825, says that he saw an exquisitely-finished
inkstand of pure gold, the gift of one of the Earls of Plymouth to her
father, 100 years before. The inkstand was provided with a jointed
gold penholder, terminating in a barrel (one slit) pen, resembling the
metallic pen of the present day, except that he found that it would
not write.
In "Local Notes and Queries," published in the _Birmingham Journal and
Weekly Post,_ there have appeared a number of contributions relating
to the early manufacture of steel pens. We reproduce them here. A
correspondent writing on June 22, 1869, says: "Daniel Fellows, of
Sedgley, made steel pens about 1800."
Another writer, on the same date, says, "The first makers of steel
pens were John Edwards, Hill Street, and Francis Heeley, Mount Street,
Birmingham."
Respecting, the former of these, in _Wrightson's Birmingham Directory,
1823, the following advertisement appears: "John Edwards, manufacturer
of improved gold, silver, and _elastic sleel pens,_ mounted in all
kinds of cases, and desk handles, No. 40 Hill Street. N.B.--The pens
are warranted to write exceedingly fine and free."
This advertisement contained engravings of a barrel and "nibbed" or
"slip" pen.
J. Sargent, writing from Tettenhall, June 28, 1869, says:
"A journeyman blacksmith, named Fellows, of Sedgley, was the first
originator of steel pens. I resided at Sedgley in 1822, when Sheldon,
Fellows's apprentice, made some of these pens. He made two for me. I
wrote very well with them. Sheldon himself told me that Mr. Gillott
commenced making the pen from seeing some of his (Sheldon's) make."
Some one writing under the _nom de plume_ of "Un Qui Sait," says:
"I distinctly recollect, about the year 1806, being at Fellows's home
in Sedgley, and there seeing Thomas Sheldon, his apprentice, making
steel pens. He knew of an entry in his books of pens bought from
Fellows in 1807. He paid Sheldon L.100 in 1822. He believed Fellows
made pens in 1793. Beilby and Knott (Birmingham stationers) sold
these pens in considerable quantities from 1818 to 1828. Sheldon
continued the trade until it was destroyed through inability to
compete with the machine-made pens of Mitchell and Gillott."
Another writer, "T. S.," says:
"In 1815, an uncle of mine used to purchase these pens from Sheldon,
of Sedgley. The price was eighteen shillings per dozen, ten per cent.
for cash. They were barrel shape. B. Smith and Co. had in their
pattern book of engravings of steel toys a drawing of one of these
pens, which were sold at thirty shillings per dozen; also one in a
bone handle, the top of which screwed off, for carrying in the pocket,
at thirty-six shillings per dozen."
Another correspondent, writing on July 24, 1869, mentions (on
authority of the late Mr. Alderman Yates) that an old man named
Spittle made steel pens before any of the present makers.
In note 319 this man Spittle is mentioned by another writer, who says:
"A man named Spittle, one of the earliest makers of steel pens, lived
in Chequers' Walk, Bath Row, Birmingham. He made steel pens for sale,
and charged one shilling each for them. They were made with a tube to
fit on a quill. I bought one from him forty-five years ago (1824)."
"E.W.," writing in 1869, says:
"In 1821 there was a B. Smith, steel toy maker, St. Paul's [Mary's]
Square, Birmingham. He had a book of engravings of steel toys, among
which were steel pens, made to screw on and off. This pattern book
might have been one hundred years old. I sold his pens in 1823."
The Editor of "Notes and Queries" says "Smith's pattern book was
probably fifty years old," and further remarks that steel pens must
have been a regular article of manufacture before they appeared in a
steel toy maker's pattern book.
"C.J.," in note 372, says:
"The pattern book of John Barnes, Eagle Works, Wolverhampton, contains
engravings of early steel pens."
Mr. Robert Griffin says:
"In 1824 I wrote very much with a steel pen made under the direction
of James Perry--a pen that lasted about eight or nine weeks, writing
eight hours a day."
In note 344, "Anon" says he remembered his father (who had premises in
Water Street, Birmingham), in the summer of 1823, bringing a tall,
quiet, respectable man to the manufactory. He had a piece of iron, or
steel, which he required to be cut up into strips of about two inches
wide. The man said he was going to get the strips rolled to make into
steel pens. He gave the writer of the note sixpence and a barrel pen
for his trouble. In answer to inquiries the writer put to his father,
the latter stated he did not know the man's name nor where he lived,
but "that he met with him in a smoke room, where he (the father)
sometimes spent his evenings." The writer further remarks: "Where the
man had got his ideas from which induced him to try his hand at making
steel pens I do not know, but I have an impression that there were
several experimenters in existence at that time; and very soon
afterward Mr. William (Joseph) Gillott, with whom my father was on
terms of intimacy, came into notice as a maker of steel pens." This
is a very important statement, as it fixes a date respecting pens
being made from sheet steel.
One of the oldest toolmakers in the trade has informed us that, about
the year 1823 or 1824, he was frequently taken by his father to visit
an uncle named Clulee, who rented power at the Water Street mill. On
these occasions his father and uncle would talk about the visits of
Gillott to the latter, and the hopeful manner in which he spoke of the
experiments he was then making. Gillott rented power at the Water
Street mill, and was engaged in grinding and finishing penknife
blades, which were inserted in one end of a silver pencil case, which
his relative--Mitchell--was then making.
Now, who was this "tall, quiet, respectable man?" It could not have
been Gillott, as he was not tall and the father of "Anon" knew him;
and Mitchell was also a short man. We have failed to trace him, and
his identity is lost among the "sowers" who failed to reap the harvest
of their inventions.
Mr. George Wallis, speaking of steel pens, remarks:
"I wrote with one when a boy (1822 to 1826), having found several in a
stock of old steel waste in the warehouse of a relative, a retired
ornamental steel worker, at Wolverhampton. These pens were made (so I
was told) for the London market, late in the last or early in the
present century. Certainly they were made fifteen or, perhaps, twenty
years, when I found them, as the manufactory in which they had been
produced had been closed the former number of years. They consisted
of a holder of steel, with flutings and facets. One was solid and
tapered to lighten it; the other had a barrel with an internal screw.
The pen had two screws; one was used to screw the pen into the barrel
for use, and the other to secure it when turned inwards as a protection
when not in use, or to carry in the pocket."
The following letter from Mr. Alderman Manton to Mr. Sam: Timmins
makes us acquainted with another manufacturer of steel pens:
"THE METAL PENS OF 1823.--In a badly-constructed and unsanitary
manufactory (Mr. James Collins's), at the back of 119 Suffolk Street,
(Birm.), I witnessed the process of making silver and _steel_ pens.
As both metals were manufactured in the same manner, one description
will serve. It will be remembered by a few that at that time there
was a patent silver pencil case somewhat extensively manufactured,
which in addition to the pencil, had a penknife, _pen_ and toothpick
provided. The penknife was supplied by two brothers--_Joseph and
William Gillott_--who at that time rented a small shop in a corner of
the yard belonging to the rolling mill of George and P.F. Muntz, Water
Street, and from whose engine they obtained the small amount of steam
power needed. The process of making the pens was as follows: Two
narrow strips were cut from a sheet of silver or steel; they were then,
by the help of the hammer and a lead cake, or piece of hard wood,
curved. Afterwards the two strips were placed opposite to each other
on a well-polished steel wire, and drawn through a draw-plate, the
wire and plate being supplied by Wm. Billings, a celebrated tool
manufacturer, occupying premises near the top of Snow Hill (Birm.).
By the aid of a press, a small hole was made at a distance of half an
inch or five-eighths from the end, the slit was then made by a fine
saw made of watch springs. A bent pair of shears was used for cutting
the end of strip into the shape of a pen; and a half-round file or
smooth was used for finishing the pen. The pen was then sawn off the
strip by the same saw which was used for slitting the pen. The only
hardening process was the friction of the draw-plate and steel wire.
I not only witnessed the process, but was a manipulator. The cost of
making at that time, by a journeyman, was 2d. each; by an apprentice,
about one-third of that amount. Within less than thirty years of that
time, in a manufactory adjoining my own, pens were made and sold
(wholesale) at 2d. per gross, and a box containing them into the
bargain." _(Signed)_ Henry Manton, September 15, 1886.
Mr. T. Vary writes that James Perry began making steel pens in
Manchester, and quotes the _Saturday Magazine_ to show that metallic
pens were given by him as rewards of merit in schools as far back as
1819.
Mr. James Cocker, writing in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph,_ in 1869,
says: "That he rolled steel wire for James Perry for penmaking in
1829."
The death of Mr. Gillott seems to have revived the discussion of the
origin of steel pens, and a correspondent in the Sheffield _Daily
Telegraph,_ in the issue of January 11, 1872, in the following letter,
puts forth a claim on behalf of a Sheffield man:
"The well-written and well-merited memoir of the late Mr. Gillott, the
Birmingham steel pen maker, which has just appeared in the newspapers,
affords a curious and instructive illustration of the success which
not seldom attends the combined action of ingenuity, industry,
shrewdness, and integrity among our labouring classes. Born in the
humblest rank of our local workmen, a steady scholar in our Boys'
Lancasterian School, and apprenticed to a scissors grinder, the deceased
worked his way upwards into a position of influence and opulence as a
manufacturer, which entitled him to take social rank with the merchant
princes of the land. And if his name has long since ceased to be
familiar among his once contemporary workmen in Sheffield, and is not
even mentioned in the Directory, it has for several years past been
recognized and respected by the visitors at the annual exhibitions of
our School of Art, in connection with the many rare and valuable pictures
lent by him on those occasions. The printed _fac-simile_ of the
autograph appeared in the 'advertising columns' of almost every newspaper
in the world, and perhaps, as an expert might have said, was
characteristic. In the admirable account of his life above referred
to stress is laid upon one prominent and praiseworthy feature of his
character, viz., his readiness to acknowledge the obscurity of his
origin and the steps of his industrial success. In those details no
mention is made of his Sheffield master and predecessor in the
ingenious art of steel pen making. And as the notice alluded to is
without dates, it is difficult to furnish information on the material
point of priority, though the fact of supremacy in the trade is clear
enough. In one of the columns of Lardner's Cyclopedia, published in
1833, the names of Perry, Heeley, and Skinner are mentioned as steel
pen makers. With the latter, who if he did not make wealth, certainly
earned a wide reputation for the low price and excellent temper of his
'steel nibs,' Mr. Gillett was a workman, in Nursery Street, Sheffield,
having gone with his master from the scissors grinding stone to the
making of polished steel ornaments for ladies' work, then fashionable.
How much, in what way, or whether at all, he was indebted to his
experience in Mr. Skinner's establishment may be questionable, but
that he learnt and first saw practised in Sheffield the art that
ultimately enriched him in Birmingham, he would probably be the last
to deny. It is well remembered by a worthy dealer in almost every
useful article, from a mouse-trap to a railroad wagon, that Gillott,
soon after his establishment in Birmingham, came into our townsman's
shop, and seeing on the counter a model steam engine of half-horse
power, at once purchased and carried it off to give motion to some
part of his pen machinery. Brass pens were made in Sheffield before
the close of the last century. They mostly accompanied an 'inkpot,'
called from its users an 'exciseman.' The writer of this paragraph
himself made hundreds of dozens of them, which, however, be never
used, nor steel ones either, as long as he could get a 'goose quill,'
good, bad or indifferent. The matter of slitting the nib was kept
secret by Skinner, and the double slit of Gillott more than doubled
the value of his old master's invention; but a 'four-slit' pen, _i.e.,
with five points,_ if possible to make, would be useless. The
earliest experimenter in form and material was Perry, flexibility
being the great desideratum; but it is curious to see how world-wide a
currency Gillott's name and trade have given to the simplest shape;
and still more curious to note how the makers of writing ink and paper
have conformed these articles to the requirements of the uses of the
steel pen. It is always gratifying, and not unprofitable, to contrast
the small and feeble beginnings of any manufacturing enterprise with a
large and well-merited success."
This communication appears to have caused a Mr. William Levesley to
call upon the writer of the preceding epistle, and the following which
appeared in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph,_ January 30, 1872, was
written:
"I have to thank you for the insertion of my queries as to the early
connection of Sheffield with steel pen making. In consequence of the
appearance of my letter in the _Telegraph,_ a cutlery manufacturer of
the name of William Levesley, called upon me, and informed me that he
was not only an early associate with the late Mr. Gillott, of
Birmingham, but the first person who made a steel pen out of London.
Stress has been laid upon Gillott's ability 'to forge and grind a
knifeblade.' It is not likely he ever used the hammer on hot steel,
but he was when young, and working with father, accounted an excellent
penknife grinder; Skinner being a scissors grinder, and Levesley a
workboard hand for the same master. A man of the name of Mitchell
having married Gillott's mother, went to Birmingham, and began the
cutlery business, the latter removing thither to grind for his father-
in-law. His brother had also gone thither, and commenced making an
article that had some run, and may be said to have united the
ingenious handicrafts of Birmingham, viz., the insertion of a penknife
blade at the end of a silver pencil case. Meanwhile, about the year
1825, Levesley saw a steel pen, made by Perry, of London, in Ridge's
shop window, in High Street. He bought it for one shilling, and
immediately set about making tools to imitate and improve upon it. He
spent, he said, L.30 in not unsuccessful, though unremunerative,
experiments. The flypress was at least as well known in Sheffield as
in Birmingham, and its power was at once brought into requisition to
work the tools for shaping, bending, and slitting the pens which were
made out of sheet steel, Perry's being made out of thick wire, rolled
flat, by Cocker, in Nursery Street. In 1829, Levesley was making pens
for sale, and that year is said to be the earliest date of actual
sales in Skinner's ledger. In 1831 he was doing a considerable
business in Sheffield, and making experiments upon the article, as
appears from specimens before me bearing his name. Stress has been
laid upon the improvement of the double slit, introduced by Gillott,
but if Levesley's statement is to be taken literally, he was the
inventor of a specialty upon which, even more than on excellence of
material, the merit of a steel pen is found to depend, viz., the
grinding of a small hollow at the back of the nib, and about the
eighth of an inch from the point. My informant described not only the
beneficial action of this thinning of the metal, as well in yielding
the gradual flow of the ink as in flexibility of writing, but the
pleasure with which he took a specimen to Birmingham to show Gillott,
and the surprise of the latter at so great and so beneficial an
effect, provided by so small a cause. He at once adopted an
improvement of which every pen made by him bears evidence; and when
his friend visited him he told him he had fifty women employed in
grinding pen points. It is pleasant to add that Gillott never visited
Sheffield without calling to see his old friend Levesley, while the
latter spoke of his early and later life with respect and
commendation, especially in his domestic relations. It is pleasing to
review a life of such humble beginnings, culminating in opulence and
usefulness like that of the late Joseph Gillott, of Birmingham; nor is
it less to name in connection therewith, as an early experimenter in
steel pen making, our worthy townsman, William Levesley, to whose
ingenious improvement every writer is so much indebted, and of whose
verbal communication to me the foregoing is an imperfect sketch."
Now, in this statement, there are some dales given, but others are
omitted, and that is a very unfortunate circumstance. Levesley told
the writer of the article in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ that he
made use of the fly press for working tools for shaping, bending, and
slitting pens. If the writer had only given the date of this it would
have been a valuable contribution toward a history of the invention.
The claim of Levesley to having invented the process of grinding pens
and teaching Gillott seems, to say the least, curious, because the
latter was a Sheffield grinder, and the idea would certainly be quite
as likely to occur to Gillott as Levesley. Besides, why did Levesley
communicate the idea to Gillott in preference to Skinner, with whom he
had business relations? The statement that Gillott had fifty girls
employed when Levesley* called upon him on his next visit to
Birmingham looks like a mistake. Fifty girls would grind on an
average seven thousand gross of pens in a week, and as this
correspondence appears to refer to the early part of Gillott's career,
it is scarcely possible that such a number of pens were produced
weekly at that period. Besides, as a matter of fact, boys were, in
the first instance, employed to grind pens.
* Mr. Sam: Timmins says, "that Levesley told him that Gillott started
in Birmingham as a jobbing cutler; that Mitchell had the secret of pen
making; that Mitchell sent for Gillott to come to Birmingham, and that
he (J.G.) first lived at the top of Water Street; that Gillott began
to make pens in Bread Street; that Perry made pens from flattened
steel wire, the breadth of the pen (the steel was 3s. 6d. per lb., and
drawn at Old Ford); that he had seen cross grinding (at Gillott's) in
Newhall Street, and fifty women at work; and that pens had double
slits and cut holes. Levesley certainly knew all the Gillott family,
personally, in Sheffield, and he (S. T.) had a long interview with him
shortly before his death, when he mentioned all the facts given here."
Herr Ignaz Nagel, in his "Report on Writing, Drawing, and Painters'
Requisites," at the Vienna Exhibition, 1873, says:
"From careful inquiries that we made in Birmingham, we learned that a
knife cutler, of Sheffield, was the first man who had the idea of
making pens of steel, and that a tinman of the name of Skipper
[Skinner], of Sheffield, afterwards manufactured the pens in great
quantities. His son developed the idea still further. This,
according to our informant, was fifty years ago. A steel pen artisan,
working in Birmingham, remembers perfectly well reading the
announcement in a window of the High Street, in Sheffield, 1816:
'Steel pens are repaired here at sixpence apiece.' There was a man
named Spittle, in Birmingham, who used to make steel pens by hand. He
was succeeded by the brothers John and William Mitchell, who were
manufacturers of steel pens, wholesale and by machinery, about forty-
five years ago. Perry came afterwards, and took out a patent for the
first steel pens, and after him Gillott, who had learnt the business
with the Mitchells."
A writer in _Herbert's Encyclopoedia_ published in 1837, says
"The first decided attempt to introduce metallic pens to general use
was made by Mr. Wise, whose perpetual pens will doubtless be
remembered by many of our readers. The name of Wise was rendered
conspicuous in most of our stationers' shops some twenty-five or thirty
years since, as the original inventor and general manufacturer of the
steel pens."
We stated at the beginning of this article that of three men--
Mitchell, Gillott, and Mason--who might have done something toward
fixing the date of the invention of manufacturing pens by the
adaptation of tools worked by the screw press, only one--Mason--made a
statement:
"The first making of steel pens that I know of was about the year
1780, by my late friend Mr. Harrison, for Dr. Priestley. He took
sheet steel, made a tube of it, and the part joined formed the slit of
the pen. He then filed away the barrel and formed the pen. I found
some of the identical pens amongst other articles and used them for a
long time.
"The second mode of making pens was by punching a rough blank out of
thin sheet steel. This blank formed the well-known barrel pen. It
was brought into the barrel shape by rounding, but before rounding it
had to be filed into a better form about the nib, and when rounded in
the soft state, a sharp chisel was used to mark the inside of the pen
which became the slit, after hardening. Before tempering, this mark
was 'tabbered' with a small hammer, and it would crack where the
inside mark was made. Then it was tempered and underwent grinding,
and shaping the nib until a point suitable for fine or broad, as
required.
"I made barrel pens in 1828, and 'slip' pens for Perry in 1829, and
the first lot of 100 at _one time_ was sent November 20, 1830.
Frequently, lots of 20 or 30 gross were sent between 1829 and 1830, and
in 1831 I sent pens to Perry amounting to L.1421, 1s. 3d.
"Perry certainly never made a pen as they are now made, viz., the
_slit cut _with press tools; all he made were _cracked_ slit.
"I made steel barrel pens some time before I made 'slip' pens for
Perry.
"It is doubtful when metal pens were made. The first I know of were
made by Mr. Harrison, for Dr. Priestley. Perry was certainly not the
first maker of steel pens, but I have no doubt that he was the first
steel _slip pen_ maker, and no doubt the first to use a _goose quill_
for a pen holder, hence the slip pen.
"The first stick pen holders I made for Perry in 1832, and for Gillott
in 1835, and sold sticks to Gillott in 1840--L.293 18s. 7d."
Mason claimed to have made barrel pens for Perry, of London, in 1828,
and "slip or nibbed" pens in 1829; but he does not appear to have made
any claim to priority of invention over Mitchell and Gillott.
Now, although Mitchell made no claim himself, on the death of Mr.
Gillott the following letter appeared in the _Daily Post:_
"The remarks which have appeared in a local paper upon the death of
Mr. J. Gillott, that the steel pen owes its existence to him, and that
the adaptation of machinery to the manufacture of metallic pens was
his invention, lead the public to wrong conclusions. It is due to the
memory of my late father--John Mitchell--that I should state that he
not only made steel pens, but used machinery in their production, for
some time before Mr. Gillott commenced in that branch of business."
--HENRY MITCHELL, January 12, 1872.
In October, 1876, Mr. Henry Mitchell writes to _Aris's Gazette,_ and
says:
"You review, in your impression of the 23d inst., a work entitled
'British Manufacturing Industries--the Birmingham Trades,' in which
the history of steel pens forms a prominent chapter. I beg to point
out that my late father's name--John Mitchell--is certainly mentioned
in a list of the manufacturers of the article, and, to my great
surprise, simply so. In a part of the work the author states that
'The early history of steel pens is involved in obscurity.' My object
in writing to you is to remove that obscurity, as I am satisfied you
will be equally desirous of giving honor to whom honor is due. I
claim that honor for my late father--John Mitchell--who was the first
to introduce the making of steel pens by means of tools, which were
purely his own invention, and I will leave it to an enlightened public
to judge if it is not one of the greatest benefits conferred on any
civilized community. Whatever others may have done does not remove
the fact that the inventor I have named was my father; and it is only
due to him that posterity should know who originated the means whereby
millions of human beings of the present time, and generations yet unborn
are, and will be, enabled to communicate their thoughts to each
other with a facility they otherwise would not have had. For, unless
the steel pen had been manufactured by tools and machinery, that useful
article would virtually be at a prohibitory price. The date of
the invention I believe to be 1822 or thereabouts."
This is very emphatic; but how far may it be taken as an unprejudiced
statement of facts? Well, it has never been contradicted; and Gillott
never made a claim on his own behalf, as having made pens before
Mitchell. Mason gave the year 1828 as the date when he commenced
making pens, so that the evidence is in favor of Mitchell.