enormous dimensions, was only in a tentative condition. Josiah Mason,
in conjunction with Perry, of _The Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, was
experimenting, and two brothers, named respectively John and William
Mitchell, were actually making, by a tedious method, a fairly good
article. They were assisted in their work by a sister. By some
fortunate accident, Gillott and Miss Mitchell met, and after a brief
courtship they entered into an engagement to marry. She spoke to her
intended husband of the nature of her occupation, and Gillott at once
conceived the idea that the _press_, the useful implement then used
principally in the button trade, might, if proper tools could be made
to suit, produce pens in large numbers very rapidly. With his own
hands, in a garret of his house, he secretly worked until he had
succeeded in making pens of a far better quality than had yet been
seen. His process was one in which, unassisted, he could produce as
many pens as twenty pairs of hands, working under the old system,
could turn out. There was an enormous demand for his goods, and as he
wanted help, and secrecy seemed needful, the young people married, and
Mr. Gillott used to tell how, on the very morning of his marriage, he,
before going to the church, made with his own hands a gross of pens,
and sold them at 1s. each, realising thereby a sum of L7 4s.
Continuing to live in the little house in Bread Street, the young
couple worked in the garret, no one else assisting. As an illustration
of the primitive condition of the steel pen trade then, it may be
mentioned that at this period the pens were "blued" and varnished in
a common frying-pan, over a kitchen fire. Orders flowed in so rapidly,
and the goods were produced in such quantities, that the young couple
made money faster than they knew what to do with it. They were afraid
to invest it, as they did not wish it to ooze out that the business
was so profitable. It has been stated that Mr. Gillott had several
banking accounts open at this time, being afraid that, if he paid all
his profits into one bank, it might excite cupidity, and so engender
competition. It is also said that he actually buried money in the
cellar of his house, lest his marvellously rapid accumulation of
wealth should become known.
At length the demand for his pens became so great that it was
impossible to resist the urgent necessity for larger premises and
increased labour. Mr. Gillott, accordingly, removed to Church Street,
and subsequently took other premises, up the yard by Mr. Mappin's shop
in Newhall Street. About the same time, he removed his family to the
house at the corner of Great Charles Street, where the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers had its offices until its recent removal
to London. After a few years, he commenced to build the premises in
Graham Street, where the business has, ever since, been carried on.
At the time the building was erected, there were few "factories,"
properly so called, in the town, and most of the work of the place
was conducted in the low, narrow ranges of latticed-windowed buildings
known as "shopping." Mr. Gillott's was, I think, the first Birmingham
building in the modern factory style. It was admirably planned, and
expensively built. Even, now, when hundreds of factories have arisen,
its solid and substantial appearance externally, and the arrangements
inside, for order, and for the organisation of labour, are not
surpassed by any of its rivals.
As soon as Mr. Gillott's appliances were of sufficient extent to
supply very large quantities, he commenced to advertise extensively,
a practice which he continued during the remainder of his life, and
which his son and successor still follows up in a modified form. I
perfectly remember, more than forty years ago, his advertisements
in tine magazines, and on the cover of the "Penny Cyclopaedia." Like
everything that Mr. Gillott did, they bore the impress of original
thought. After giving his name and address, and a few other
particulars as to his wares, the advertisements went on to say
something like this:
"The number of pens produced in this factory in the year ending
December 31st, 1836, was
250,000 grosses,
or 3,000,000 dozens,
or 36,000,000 pens."
The advertisements invariably had the fac-simile of Mr. Gillott's
signature, as now; a signature better known, perhaps, than any other
in the world, and one with which almost every human being who can
write is perfectly familiar. Of course it will be understood that the
quantities given above are altogether imaginary. It is impossible to
remember the exact figures after so many years, but they are inserted
to show the form the advertisements then took.
Faster than the improved facilities at his command enabled him to
produce, came the demand for his pens. To meet this, he brought from
time to time into use many mechanical appliances, the product of his
fertile and ingenious brain, until at length every one of the old
processes was superseded, and labour-saving machinery substituted. The
price of the pens fell from a shilling each to less than that sum per
gross, and the steel pen came into universal use. The enormous number
of yens produced in Mr. Gillott's works can scarcely be set down in
figures, but may be estimated roughly, from the statement made at
the time of his death that the average weight of the weekly make of
finished pens exceeded five tons. I have tried, by experiment, to
arrive at an approximate estimate of the _number_ of pens this weight
represents. I have taken a "scratch" dozen of pens, of all sorts and
sizes, and ascertaining their weight, have calculated therefrom, and I
find that the result is something like sixty thousand grosses, or the
enormous number of nearly nine millions of separate pens, sent out
from this manufactory every week.
In the course of the forty or fifty years during which Mr. Gillott was
in business, many other manufactories of steel pens were established,
at some of which, probably, greater _numbers_ of pens were produced
than at his own, but the _amount of business_ transacted was in no
case, probably, so great. Mr. Gillott did not compete in the direction
others took--lowness of price. Like his brother-in-law, Mr. William
Mitchell, he preferred to continue to improve the quality. It is
somewhat remarkable that, after long years of active and severe
competition, these two houses--the oldest in the trade, I
believe--have still the highest reputation for excellence.
It has often occurred to me that the invention of steel pens came most
opportunely. Had they not been invented, Rowland Hill's penny postage
scheme would probably have failed. There would not have been, in the
whole world, geese enough to supply quills to make the required number
of pens. Had Byron lived a little later on, his celebrated couplet
would not have apostrophised the "gray goose quill," but would
probably have run something like this:
"My Gillott pen! thou noblest work of skill,
Slave of my thought, obedient to my will."
My purpose, however, in this sketch is not to write a history of the
trade by which Mr. Gillott raised himself to fame and fortune,
but rather to describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and
unobtrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics,
it has always struck me, was his intense love of _excellence_ in
everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark
of his that "the best of everything was good enough for him." In
this--perhaps unknowingly--he followed Lord Bacon's advice, "Jest in
earnest," for he, certainly, earnestly carried out in life the desire
to do, and to possess, the "best" that could be attained. Of this
peculiarity, some very pleasant stories can be told.
Soon after he had purchased the beautiful estate at Stanmore, near
Harrow-on-the-Hill, which he loved so much, and where, in company
with his old friend, Pettitt, the artist, he spent so much time in
his latter years, he resolved to adorn the grounds with the rarest
and most beautiful shrubs and trees obtainable. The trustees of the
Jephson Gardens, at Leamington, about the same time, advertised for
sale some surplus plants of rare kinds, and Mr. Gillott paid the
gardens a visit. He had selected a number of costly specimens, when
his eye fell on a tree of surpassing beauty. He inquired its price,
and was told that it was not for sale. He was not a man to be easily
baffled, and he still tried to make a bargain. He was at length told
that an offer of L50 had already been made for the tree, and refused.
His reply was characteristic: "Well, I've made up my mind to have that
tree, and I'll give L100 for it. This offer, with the amount of those
I have selected, will make my morning's purchases come to three or
four hundred pounds. If I don't have this tree, I won't have any." He
had it, and it still adorns the magnificent lawn at Stanmore.
Few people know that he had a fancy for collecting precious stones,
simply as rarities. Poor George Lawson (whose tall, erect, and
soldier-like figure was well known in the streets of Birmingham and
at picture sales, and whose thoroughly good-natured, genial, hearty
manner, and singular wealth of humour, made him the favourite "of
all circles, and the idol of his own") told me a capital story
illustrative of this. One of Mr. Lawson's daughters complained to
him of tooth-ache, and he advised her to have it extracted. The young
lady, who had inherited a large share of her father's rare humour,
went immediately to the dentist and had the objectionable tooth
removed. There had been a calf's head on the dinner-table that day,
and the young lady, on her return, obtained from the cook one of the
large molars from the jaw of the calf, which, having been carefully
wrapped in paper, was presented to her father as her own. He saw
through the trick in an instant, and affecting great astonishment at
its enormous size, he put it in his waistcoat pocket, as a curiosity,
forming in his own mind a little plot for the following day, when he
had an engagement to dine out. The dinner party was at Walter Lyndon's
house at Moseley, and here he met Gillott. Lawson, at table, was
seated next to a gentleman from London, who wore on his forefinger a
ring containing a very magnificent diamond; so large, indeed, as to
excite Lawson's attention so much that at length he spoke, "You must
really excuse me, but I cannot help admiring the splendid diamond in
your ring." "Yes, it's a pretty good one," said the gentleman, handing
it to Lawson for inspection. It was passed round the table until it
reached Gillott, who carefully inspected it and said, "It's a very
good one; but I think I have one that'll 'lick' it." Putting his
hand into the breast pocket of his coat, he brought out two or three
shabby-looking screwed-up bits of paper. Selecting one of these, he
opened it, and produced therefrom an unmounted diamond, far surpassing
in size and purity the one in the ring. Precious stones generally
became at once the topic of conversation, and it was wondered whether
an emerald of equal size would be of equal or, as one contended, even
greater value. One gentleman present said that an emerald so large had
never yet been seen. Gillott's eye twinkled with a merry humour, as,
from another bit of paper, he produced an emerald larger than the
diamond, and a minute afterwards trumped both these with a splendid
ruby. It was now Lawson's turn. Assuming a serious look, he said that
Mr. Gillott's specimens were certainly very remarkable, but he could
"beat them hollow." Then, with an air of great mystery and care,
he produced from his pocket the carefully-enveloped tooth, which he
exhibited to his astonished friends as the identical tooth taken from
his daughter's jaw the day before.
It is well known that Mr. Gillott had accumulated a very large and
fine collection of violins and other stringed musical instruments.
These, when sold by auction after his death, fetched, under the
hammer, upwards of L4,000. About twenty years ago an old friend of
mine in Leicestershire, who had met with some heavy losses, desired
to sell a fine Stradivarius violin, which had been in his family more
than a century, and he sent it to me that I might offer it to Mr.
Gillott. I called upon him to ask permission to bring it to him for
inspection. I can recall now the frank, honest, homely Yorkshire tone
with which he said, "Nay, lad! I shan't buy any more fiddles; I've got
a boat-load already." He wouldn't look at it, and I sent it back to
its owner, who is long since dead.
World-wide as was his reputation as a manufacturer, he was almost
equally renowned as one of the most munificent and discriminating
patrons of Art. Possessing, naturally, a most refined taste, and
having very acute perceptive powers, he instinctively recognised the
_true_ in the work of young artists; and when he saw tokens of more
than common ability, he fostered the budding talent in a very generous
spirit. So much was thought of his judgment, that the fact of his
having bought a picture by an unknown man was quite sufficient to give
the artist a position. I heard a story from a Liverpool artist the
other day, very characteristic of Mr. Gillott's firm and determined,
yet kind and generous, nature. It is well known that he very early
recognised the genius of the gifted Mueller, and became his warm
supporter. One result of his patronage was that others sought the
artist, and by offers of large prices and extensive commissions,
induced him to let them have some of his pictures, which Gillott was
to have bought. Mueller appears to have become inflated by his great
success, and he, in this or some other way, managed to annoy his early
friend and patron in a very serious manner. His punishment was swift,
severe, and sure. Gillott immediately packed off every Mueller picture
he possessed to an auction room in London, with directions that they
should be extensively advertised as his property, and sold without
the slightest reserve. This step so frightened the Art-world that
"Muellers" became a drug in the market, and poor Mueller found himself
neglected by his quondam friends. He soon came in penitence to
Gillott, who again took him by the hand, and befriended him until his
untimely death in 1845, at the age of 33. At the sale of Mr. Gillott's
pictures after his decease, Mueller's celebrated picture, "The Chess
Players," fetched the enormous sum of L3,950.
The story of Mr. Gillott's introduction to the great landscape
painter, Turner, has been variously told, but the basis of all the
stories is pretty much the same. It seems that Gillott, long before
Ruskin had dubbed Turner "the modern Claude," had detected the rare
excellence of his works, and longed to possess some. He went to the
dingy house in Queen Anne Street, and Turner himself opened the door.
In reply to Gillott's questions, he said he had "nothing to sell that
_he_ could afford to buy." Gillott, by great perseverance, obtained
admission, and tried at first to bargain for a single picture. Turner
looked disdainfully at his visitor, and refused to quote a price.
Still Gillott persevered, and at length startled the artist by asking,
"What'll you take for the lot in this room?" Turner, half-jokingly,
named a very large sum--many thousands--thinking to frighten him off,
but Gillott opened his pocket book, and, to Turner's utter amazement,
paid down the money in crisp Bank of England notes. From this moment
the two men, so utterly unlike in their general character, but so
strangely kindred in their love of Art, became on intimate terms of
friendship, which lasted until Turner's death in 1851. Mr. Gillott's
collection of Turner's works was the largest and finest in private
hands in England, and, when they were sold, realised more than five
times the money he had paid for them.
Mr. Gillott was not, in any sense, a public man, and he took no active
part in politics. He had a great dislike to public companies, and I
believe never held a share in one. He had a very few old friends with
whom he loved to associate. He was very hospitable, but he had a strong
aversion to formal parties, and to every kind of ostentation. His chief
delight was to act as cicerone to an appreciative visitant to his
magnificent gallery. He was a frequent visitor to the snug smoking-room
at the "Hen and Chickens," where poor "Walter" always brought him,
without waiting for an order, what Tony Weller called the "inwariable"
and a choice cigar. He did not talk much, but, when he spoke, he had
always "something to say." He left early, and went from there, almost
nightly, to the Theatre Royal, where he occupied, invariably, a back
seat of a certain box, and here, if the performances were a little dull,
he would often enjoy a comfortable nap.
In private life he was cheerful, easily pleased, and unaffected. He was
greatly beloved by children and young people. I wrote the other day to a
lady, at whose father's house he was a frequent visitor, asking for her
recollections of him; and the reply is so pleasant and graphic, that,
without her permission, I shall quote it verbatim:
"When he dined with papa it was always a 'gentlemen's' party, and
only mamma dined with them. We used to see the visitors at dessert
only. I remember Mr. Gillott as always being very cheery in manner,
with a kind smile; and few words. As children, when we went to
dancing parties at his house, he would come during the evening, with
a few old friends (the fathers of the children assembled), and,
standing in the door of the drawing-room, pat the children on the
head and have a little joke with them as they passed him. He would
stay for about half-an-hour or so, and then return with his friends
down-stairs to smoke. I have heard papa, who, as you know, was no
mean judge, say what a remarkably quick ear Mr. Gillott had for
music. When they had been together to hear a new opera, he, on his
return home, would whistle correctly the greater portion of the
music, having only heard it once."
Personally, Mr. Gillott was rather short, and was of broad and sturdy
build. He had a remarkably firm step, and there was a rhythmic
regularity in his footfall. He was fond of light attire, and generally
wore a white hat. There was an air of freshness in his appearance that
was very pleasant, and he had such a remarkably clean look that I have
often thought that _his_ cleanliness was something _positive_, something
more than the mere absence of dirt. He had a curious way, as he walked,
of looking dreamily upon the ground a few yards in front of him, and
when anyone met him his eye would rise with a kind of jerk; then with a
piercing glance he would intently, for a moment only, "take stock" of
the passer by, and drop his eyes again.
For the last two or three years of his life he was haunted by a fear of
impending blindness. The thought of being shut out from the sight of his
pictures caused him much gloomy apprehension. Happily, his fears were
not realised. He retained his sight and other faculties unimpaired until
his death. On the 26th of December, 1872, he, in accordance with his
annual Christmas custom, assembled all his family to dinner, at his
house in Westbourne Road, and in his kindly, affectionate manner spoke
hopefully of meeting them there on the same day of the following year.
It was not to be. On the next day he felt somewhat unwell; in two or
three days bronchitis and pleurisy supervened; and in the afternoon of
Friday, the 5th of January, 1873, his long, honourable, and useful life
terminated.
[Illustration]
HENRY VAN WART, J.P.
Many years ago I was one of a small dinner party of gentlemen at a
house in the Hagley Road. I was a comparative stranger, for I only
knew the host and two others who were there. I was a young man,
and all the other guests were men of middle age. The party had been
invited for the purpose of introducing me to "a few old friends," and
I was to be married the next day to a relative of the host. Sitting
opposite to me at table was a gentleman of some fifty or sixty years
of age, whose fine oval face and ample brow struck me as having the
most benevolent and "fatherly" expression I had ever seen. The custom
had not then quite died out of toasting the guests at dinner parties,
and upon a hint from the host this gentleman rose, and in simple and
apparently sincere phrase, proposed to the company to drink my health.
I mention it now, because I remember in what a kindly, genial way
he pointed out to me the course of conduct best calculated to secure
happiness in the state into which I was so soon to enter. I recollect,
too, how his voice faltered as he spoke of his own long and happy
experience as a husband and a father, and mentioned that in one great
trouble of his life it was the loving support of his wife that enabled
him to bear, and eventually to overcome it. The speaker was Henry Van
Wart.
I suppose the impressionable state of my own mind at the time, made
me peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and fixed minute
circumstances more intensely on my memory; so that I now vividly
recall the thought which then occurred to me--that I had never before
seen so much gentleness and calm quiet benignity in a _man_. The
impression then rapidly formed has lasted ever since, for in all the
long years from that day until his death I never had cause to abate
one jot of the reverential feeling with which he then inspired me. I
have had hundreds of business transactions with his house; I have seen
him often in the magistrate's chair; and I have met him publicly and
privately, and he had always the same bland, suave, courteous, and
kindly bearing. Strength of character and gentleness of conduct and
manner were so combined in him that he frequently seemed to me to be
a living proof of the truth of a saying of poor George Dawson: "The
tenderness of a strong man is more gentle than the gentleness of the
most tender woman."
Mr. Van Wart was an American by birth, and a Dutchman by descent. His
ancestors emigrated from Holland about the year 1630 to the colony of
New Netherland, established in North America by the Dutch in the year
1621. The capital of this settlement was named New Amsterdam, and
was built upon the island of Manhattan, the entire area of which, now
completely covered with buildings, and comprising the whole site
of the city of New York, had been bought from an Iroquois chief, in
fee-simple, for twenty-four dollars, being at about the rate of a
penny for twelve acres! In 1652, New Amsterdam, then having about a
thousand inhabitants, was incorporated as a city. Twelve years after,
the entire province was seized by the British, under Colonel Nichols,
and was re-named by him "New York." The Dutch made some unsuccessful
attempts to recover possession, and they held the city for a short
time, but in 1674 the whole colony was ceded by treaty to the English,
who held it until the War of Independence. When they quitted it, on
November 25th, 1783, Henry Van Wart was exactly two months old.
The struggle for the independence of the American states had been
going on with varying success for many years, but the tide at length
turned so decidedly against the British, that an armistice was sought
and agreed upon. Hostilities were suspended, and a conference met in
Paris. Here a treaty, acknowledging the independence of America, was
agreed to by England, and signed on the 3rd of September, 1783. On the
25th of the same month, Henry Van Wart was born at a pretty village on
the banks of the Hudson, called Tarrytown, a place since celebrated
as the "Sleepy Hollow" of Washington Irving's delightful book, but
at that time remarkable as the scene of one of the most distressing
incidents in all the wretched struggle then just over--the capture of
the unfortunate Major Andre.
Mr. Van Wart, feeling little inclination for his father's business of
a farmer, was apprenticed to the mercantile firm of Irving and Smith,
of New York. In accordance with the usage of the times, he became an
inmate of the household of Mr. William Irving, the head of the
firm. Mr. Irving, like his gifted brother, Washington, was a man of
extensive reading and considerable taste, culture, and refinement.
Mr. Van Wart's intercourse with the Irving family, had, no doubt, a
considerable influence in forming his character. He probably learned
from them the courtesy and kindness of manner which distinguished him
through life.
On the termination of his apprenticeship in the year 1804, Mr. Van
Wart married the youngest sister of his employer, and was despatched
by the firm, who had unbounded confidence in his integrity and
judgment, to organise a branch of the house at Liverpool. Here his
eldest son, Henry, was born in 1806, soon after which the Liverpool
concern was abandoned, and Mr. Van Wart returned to America, where he
remained for some considerable period.