I AM not used to writing for print. What working-man, that never labours
less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than
twelve or fourteen hours a day, is? But I have been asked to put down,
plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to
the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse.
I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham (what you
would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever since I was out of
my time. I served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born,
and I am a smith by trade. My name is John. I have been called ‘Old
John’ ever since I was nineteen year of age, on account of not having
much hair. I am fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t
find myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at
nineteen year of age aforesaid.
I have been married five and thirty year, come next April. I was married
on All Fools’ Day. Let them laugh that will. I won a good wife that
day, and it was as sensible a day to me as ever I had.
We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living. My eldest
son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet ‘Mezzo Giorno, plying between
Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita
Vecchia.’ He was a good workman. He invented a many useful little
things that brought him in—nothing. I have two sons doing well at
Sydney, New South Wales—single, when last heard from. One of my sons
(James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living
six weeks in hospital with a musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade,
which he wrote with his own hand. He was the best looking. One of my
two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on
the chest. The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the
basest manner, and she and her three children live with us. The
youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics.
I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean to say but what I see
a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think that’s the
way to set them right. If I did think so, I should be a Chartist. But I
don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read the paper, and hear
discussion, at what we call ‘a parlour,’ in Birmingham, and I know many
good men and workmen who are Chartists. Note. Not Physical force.
It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can’t put
down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any
further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got
twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I have been twenty year,
off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it. I perfected of
it, last Christmas Eve at ten o’clock at night. Me and my wife stood and
let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in
to take a look at it.
A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist.
Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is very animated. I have often
heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of us
working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the course of
time, to provide for people that never ought to have been provided for;
and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places
when we shouldn’t ought. ‘True,’ (delivers William Butcher), ‘all the
public has to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working-man, because
he has least to spare; and likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put
in his way, when he wants redress of wrong or furtherance of right.’
Note. I have wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth.
W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose.
Now, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, on Christmas Eve,
gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night. All the money I could spare I
had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad, or my daughter
Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a
spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again with
improvements, I don’t know how often. There it stood, at last, a
perfected Model as aforesaid.
William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting of the
Model. William is very sensible. But sometimes cranky. William said,
‘What will you do with it, John?’ I said, ‘Patent it.’ William said,
‘How patent it, John?’ I said, ‘By taking out a Patent.’ William then
delivered that the law of Patent was a cruel wrong. William said, ‘John,
if you make your invention public, before you get a Patent, any one may
rob you of the fruits of your hard work. You are put in a cleft stick,
John. Either you must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by
getting a party to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the
Patent; or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many
parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your
invention, that your invention will be took from you over your head.’ I
said, ‘William Butcher, are you cranky? You are sometimes cranky.’
William said, ‘No, John, I tell you the truth;’ which he then delivered
more at length. I said to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself.
My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife unfortunately
took to drinking, made away with everything, and seventeen times
committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release in every point of
view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a legacy of one hundred
and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England Stocks. Me and my wife never
broke into that money yet. Note. We might come to be old and past our
work. We now agreed to Patent the invention. We said we would make a
hole in it—I mean in the aforesaid money—and Patent the invention.
William Butcher wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London. T. J. is a
carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays quoits well. He lives in
Chelsea, London, by the church. I got leave from the shop, to be took on
again when I come back. I am a good workman. Not a Teetotaller; but
never drunk. When the Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London
by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas
Joy. He is married. He has one son gone to sea.
Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be took,
in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto Queen
Victoria. William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn it up. Note.
William is a ready writer. A declaration before a Master in Chancery was
to be added to it. That, we likewise drew up. After a deal of trouble I
found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple
Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteen-pence. I was told
to take the declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall,
where I left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the
office out), and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence. In six days
he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-General’s
chambers, and leave it there for a report. I did so, and paid four
pound, four. Note. Nobody all through, ever thankful for their money,
but all uncivil.
[Picture: A poor man’s tale of a patent]
My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for another week, whereof five
days were gone. The Attorney-General made what they called a
Report-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered
before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it to the Home
Office. They made a Copy of it, which was called a Warrant. For this
warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six. It was sent to the
Queen, to sign. The Queen sent it back, signed. The Home Secretary
signed it again. The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and said,
‘Now take it to the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn.’ I was then in my
third week at Thomas Joy’s living very sparing, on account of fees. I
found myself losing heart.
At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made ‘a draft of the Queen’s
bill,’ of my invention, and a ‘docket of the bill.’ I paid five pound,
ten, and six, for this. They ‘engrossed two copies of the bill; one for
the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.’ I paid one pound,
seven, and six, for this. Stamp duty over and above, three pound. The
Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen’s bill for
signature. I paid him one pound, one. Stamp-duty, again, one pound,
ten. I was next to take the Queen’s bill to the Attorney-General again,
and get it signed again. I took it, and paid five pound more. I fetched
it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again. He sent it to the
Queen again. She signed it again. I paid seven pound, thirteen, and
six, more, for this. I had been over a month at Thomas Joy’s. I was
quite wore out, patience and pocket.
Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher.
William Butcher delivered it again to three Birmingham Parlours, from
which it got to all the other Parlours, and was took, as I have been told
since, right through all the shops in the North of England. Note.
William Butcher delivered, at his Parlour, in a speech, that it was a
Patent way of making Chartists.
But I hadn’t nigh done yet. The Queen’s bill was to be took to the
Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand—where the stamp shop is. The
Clerk of the Signet made ‘a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy
Seal.’ I paid him four pound, seven. The Clerk of the Lord Keeper of
the Privy Seal made ‘a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord Chancellor.’ I paid
him, four pound, two. The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk
of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid him five pound,
seventeen, and eight; at the same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent,
in one lump, thirty pound. I next paid for ‘boxes for the Patent,’ nine
and sixpence. Note. Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit for
eighteen-pence. I next paid ‘fees to the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s
Purse-bearer,’ two pound, two. I next paid ‘fees to the Clerk of the
Hanapar,’ seven pound, thirteen. I next paid ‘fees to the Deputy Clerk
of the Hanaper,’ ten shillings. I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor
again, one pound, eleven, and six. Last of all, I paid ‘fees to the
Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-wax,’ ten shillings and sixpence. I had
lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my
invention, for England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and
eightpence. If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have
cost me more than three hundred pound.
Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young. So much
the worse for me you’ll say. I say the same. William Butcher is twenty
year younger than me. He knows a hundred year more. If William Butcher
had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper than myself
when hustled backwards and forwards among all those offices, though I
doubt if so patient. Note. William being sometimes cranky, and consider
porters, messengers, and clerks.
Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was Patenting
my invention. But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if,
in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done
something wrong? How else can a man feel, when he is met by such
difficulties at every turn? All inventors taking out a Patent MUST feel
so. And look at the expense. How hard on me, and how hard on the
country if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I am
thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that expense before I
can move a finger! Make the addition yourself, and it’ll come to
ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. No more, and no less.
What can I say against William Butcher, about places? Look at the Home
Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk,
the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord
Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of
the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax. No man in
England could get a Patent for an Indian-rubber band, or an iron-hoop,
without feeing all of them. Some of them, over and over again. I went
through thirty-five stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I
ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax. Note. I should like to see the Deputy
Chaff-wax. Is it a man, or what is it?
What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. I hope it’s
plain. Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to boast of
there), as in the sense of it. I will now conclude with Thomas Joy.
Thomas said to me, when we parted, ‘John, if the laws of this country
were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come to
London—registered an exact description and drawing of your invention—paid
half-a-crown or so for doing of it—and therein and thereby have got your
Patent.’
My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In William Butcher’s
delivering ‘that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaff-waxes must be done
away with, and that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,’ I
agree.