LEADERS OF INDUSTRY—INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS.
“Le travail et la Science sont désormais les maîtres du monde.”—_De
Salvandy_.
“Deduct all that men of the humbler classes have done for England in
the way of inventions only, and see where she would have been but for
them.”—_Arthur Helps_.
ONE of the most strongly-marked features of the English people is their
spirit of industry, standing out prominent and distinct in their past
history, and as strikingly characteristic of them now as at any former
period. It is this spirit, displayed by the commons of England, which
has laid the foundations and built up the industrial greatness of the
empire. This vigorous growth of the nation has been mainly the result of
the free energy of individuals, and it has been contingent upon the
number of hands and minds from time to time actively employed within it,
whether as cultivators of the soil, producers of articles of utility,
contrivers of tools and machines, writers of books, or creators of works
of art. And while this spirit of active industry has been the vital
principle of the nation, it has also been its saving and remedial one,
counteracting from time to time the effects of errors in our laws and
imperfections in our constitution.
The career of industry which the nation has pursued, has also proved its
best education. As steady application to work is the healthiest training
for every individual, so is it the best discipline of a state.
Honourable industry travels the same road with duty; and Providence has
closely linked both with happiness. The gods, says the poet, have placed
labour and toil on the way leading to the Elysian fields. Certain it is
that no bread eaten by man is so sweet as that earned by his own labour,
whether bodily or mental. By labour the earth has been subdued, and man
redeemed from barbarism; nor has a single step in civilization been made
without it. Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing:
only the idler feels it to be a curse. The duty of work is written on
the thews and muscles of the limbs, the mechanism of the hand, the nerves
and lobes of the brain—the sum of whose healthy action is satisfaction
and enjoyment. In the school of labour is taught the best practical
wisdom; nor is a life of manual employment, as we shall hereafter find,
incompatible with high mental culture.
Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the weakness
belonging to the lot of labour, stated the result of his experience to
be, that Work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure and materials for
self-improvement. He held honest labour to be the best of teachers, and
that the school of toil is the noblest of schools—save only the Christian
one,—that it is a school in which the ability of being useful is
imparted, the spirit of independence learnt, and the habit of persevering
effort acquired. He was even of opinion that the training of the
mechanic,—by the exercise which it gives to his observant faculties, from
his daily dealing with things actual and practical, and the close
experience of life which he acquires,—better fits him for picking his way
along the journey of life, and is more favourable to his growth as a Man,
emphatically speaking, than the training afforded by any other condition.
The array of great names which we have already cursorily cited, of men
springing from the ranks of the industrial classes, who have achieved
distinction in various walks of life—in science, commerce, literature,
and art—shows that at all events the difficulties interposed by poverty
and labour are not insurmountable. As respects the great contrivances
and inventions which have conferred so much power and wealth upon the
nation, it is unquestionable that for the greater part of them we have
been indebted to men of the humblest rank. Deduct what they have done in
this particular line of action, and it will be found that very little
indeed remains for other men to have accomplished.
Inventors have set in motion some of the greatest industries of the
world. To them society owes many of its chief necessaries, comforts, and
luxuries; and by their genius and labour daily life has been rendered in
all respects more easy as well as enjoyable. Our food, our clothing, the
furniture of our homes, the glass which admits the light to our dwellings
at the same time that it excludes the cold, the gas which illuminates our
streets, our means of locomotion by land and by sea, the tools by which
our various articles of necessity and luxury are fabricated, have been
the result of the labour and ingenuity of many men and many minds.
Mankind at large are all the happier for such inventions, and are every
day reaping the benefit of them in an increase of individual well-being
as well as of public enjoyment.
Though the invention of the working steam-engine—the king of
machines—belongs, comparatively speaking, to our own epoch, the idea of
it was born many centuries ago. Like other contrivances and discoveries,
it was effected step by step—one man transmitting the result of his
labours, at the time apparently useless, to his successors, who took it
up and carried it forward another stage,—the prosecution of the inquiry
extending over many generations. Thus the idea promulgated by Hero of
Alexandria was never altogether lost; but, like the grain of wheat hid in
the hand of the Egyptian mummy, it sprouted and again grew vigorously
when brought into the full light of modern science. The steam-engine was
nothing, however, until it emerged from the state of theory, and was
taken in hand by practical mechanics; and what a noble story of patient,
laborious investigation, of difficulties encountered and overcome by
heroic industry, does not that marvellous machine tell of! It is indeed,
in itself, a monument of the power of self-help in man. Grouped around
it we find Savary, the military engineer; Newcomen, the Dartmouth
blacksmith; Cawley, the glazier; Potter, the engine-boy; Smeaton, the
civil engineer; and, towering above all, the laborious, patient,
never-tiring James Watt, the mathematical-instrument maker.
Watt was one of the most industrious of men; and the story of his life
proves, what all experience confirms, that it is not the man of the
greatest natural vigour and capacity who achieves the highest results,
but he who employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most
carefully disciplined skill—the skill that comes by labour, application,
and experience. Many men in his time knew far more than Watt, but none
laboured so assiduously as he did to turn all that he did know to useful
practical purposes. He was, above all things, most persevering in the
pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully that habit of active attention
on which all the higher working qualities of the mind mainly depend.
Indeed, Mr. Edgeworth entertained the opinion, that the difference of
intellect in men depends more upon the early cultivation of this _habit
of attention_, than upon any great disparity between the powers of one
individual and another.
Even when a boy, Watt found science in his toys. The quadrants lying
about his father’s carpenter’s shop led him to the study of optics and
astronomy; his ill health induced him to pry into the secrets of
physiology; and his solitary walks through the country attracted him to
the study of botany and history. While carrying on the business of a
mathematical-instrument maker, he received an order to build an organ;
and, though without an ear for music, he undertook the study of
harmonics, and successfully constructed the instrument. And, in like
manner, when the little model of Newcomen’s steam-engine, belonging to
the University of Glasgow, was placed in his hands to repair, he
forthwith set himself to learn all that was then known about heat,
evaporation, and condensation,—at the same time plodding his way in
mechanics and the science of construction,—the results of which he at
length embodied in his condensing steam-engine.
For ten years he went on contriving and inventing—with little hope to
cheer him, and with few friends to encourage him. He went on, meanwhile,
earning bread for his family by making and selling quadrants, making and
mending fiddles, flutes, and musical instruments; measuring mason-work,
surveying roads, superintending the construction of canals, or doing
anything that turned up, and offered a prospect of honest gain. At
length, Watt found a fit partner in another eminent leader of
industry—Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham; a skilful, energetic, and
far-seeing man, who vigorously undertook the enterprise of introducing
the condensing-engine into general use as a working power; and the
success of both is now matter of history. {31}
Many skilful inventors have from time to time added new power to the
steam-engine; and, by numerous modifications, rendered it capable of
being applied to nearly all the purposes of manufacture—driving
machinery, impelling ships, grinding corn, printing books, stamping
money, hammering, planing, and turning iron; in short, of performing
every description of mechanical labour where power is required. One of
the most useful modifications in the engine was that devised by
Trevithick, and eventually perfected by George Stephenson and his son, in
the form of the railway locomotive, by which social changes of immense
importance have been brought about, of even greater consequence,
considered in their results on human progress and civilization, than the
condensing-engine of Watt.
One of the first grand results of Watt’s invention,—which placed an
almost unlimited power at the command of the producing classes,—was the
establishment of the cotton-manufacture. The person most closely
identified with the foundation of this great branch of industry was
unquestionably Sir Richard Arkwright, whose practical energy and sagacity
were perhaps even more remarkable than his mechanical inventiveness. His
originality as an inventor has indeed been called in question, like that
of Watt and Stephenson. Arkwright probably stood in the same relation to
the spinning-machine that Watt did to the steam-engine and Stephenson to
the locomotive. He gathered together the scattered threads of ingenuity
which already existed, and wove them, after his own design, into a new
and original fabric. Though Lewis Paul, of Birmingham, patented the
invention of spinning by rollers thirty years before Arkwright, the
machines constructed by him were so imperfect in their details, that they
could not be profitably worked, and the invention was practically a
failure. Another obscure mechanic, a reed-maker of Leigh, named Thomas
Highs, is also said to have invented the water-frame and spinning-jenny;
but they, too, proved unsuccessful.
When the demands of industry are found to press upon the resources of
inventors, the same idea is usually found floating about in many
minds;—such has been the case with the steam-engine, the safety-lamp, the
electric telegraph, and other inventions. Many ingenious minds are found
labouring in the throes of invention, until at length the master mind,
the strong practical man, steps forward, and straightway delivers them of
their idea, applies the principle successfully, and the thing is done.
Then there is a loud outcry among all the smaller contrivers, who see
themselves distanced in the race; and hence men such as Watt, Stephenson,
and Arkwright, have usually to defend their reputation and their rights
as practical and successful inventors.
Richard Arkwright, like most of our great mechanicians, sprang from the
ranks. He was born in Preston in 1732. His parents were very poor, and
he was the youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school: the
only education he received he gave to himself; and to the last he was
only able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he was apprenticed to a
barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in Bolton,
where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign,
“Come to the subterraneous barber—he shaves for a penny.” The other
barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced their prices to
his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his trade, announced his
determination to give “A clean shave for a halfpenny.” After a few years
he quitted his cellar, and became an itinerant dealer in hair. At that
time wigs were worn, and wig-making formed an important branch of the
barbering business. Arkwright went about buying hair for the wigs. He
was accustomed to attend the hiring fairs throughout Lancashire resorted
to by young women, for the purpose of securing their long tresses; and it
is said that in negotiations of this sort he was very successful. He
also dealt in a chemical hair dye, which he used adroitly, and thereby
secured a considerable trade. But he does not seem, notwithstanding his
pushing character, to have done more than earn a bare living.
The fashion of wig-wearing having undergone a change, distress fell upon
the wig-makers; and Arkwright, being of a mechanical turn, was
consequently induced to turn machine inventor or “conjurer,” as the
pursuit was then popularly termed. Many attempts were made about that
time to invent a spinning-machine, and our barber determined to launch
his little bark on the sea of invention with the rest. Like other
self-taught men of the same bias, he had already been devoting his spare
time to the invention of a perpetual-motion machine; and from that the
transition to a spinning-machine was easy. He followed his experiments
so assiduously that he neglected his business, lost the little money he
had saved, and was reduced to great poverty. His wife—for he had by this
time married—was impatient at what she conceived to be a wanton waste of
time and money, and in a moment of sudden wrath she seized upon and
destroyed his models, hoping thus to remove the cause of the family
privations. Arkwright was a stubborn and enthusiastic man, and he was
provoked beyond measure by this conduct of his wife, from whom he
immediately separated.
In travelling about the country, Arkwright had become acquainted with a
person named Kay, a clockmaker at Warrington, who assisted him in
constructing some of the parts of his perpetual-motion machinery. It is
supposed that he was informed by Kay of the principle of spinning by
rollers; but it is also said that the idea was first suggested to him by
accidentally observing a red-hot piece of iron become elongated by
passing between iron rollers. However this may be, the idea at once took
firm possession of his mind, and he proceeded to devise the process by
which it was to be accomplished, Kay being able to tell him nothing on
this point. Arkwright now abandoned his business of hair collecting, and
devoted himself to the perfecting of his machine, a model of which,
constructed by Kay under his directions, he set up in the parlour of the
Free Grammar School at Preston. Being a burgess of the town, he voted at
the contested election at which General Burgoyne was returned; but such
was his poverty, and such the tattered state of his dress, that a number
of persons subscribed a sum sufficient to have him put in a state fit to
appear in the poll-room. The exhibition of his machine in a town where
so many workpeople lived by the exercise of manual labour proved a
dangerous experiment; ominous growlings were heard outside the
school-room from time to time, and Arkwright,—remembering the fate of
Kay, who was mobbed and compelled to fly from Lancashire because of his
invention of the fly-shuttle, and of poor Hargreaves, whose
spinning-jenny had been pulled to pieces only a short time before by a
Blackburn mob,—wisely determined on packing up his model and removing to
a less dangerous locality. He went accordingly to Nottingham, where he
applied to some of the local bankers for pecuniary assistance; and the
Messrs. Wright consented to advance him a sum of money on condition of
sharing in the profits of the invention. The machine, however, not being
perfected so soon as they had anticipated, the bankers recommended
Arkwright to apply to Messrs. Strutt and Need, the former of whom was the
ingenious inventor and patentee of the stocking-frame. Mr. Strutt at
once appreciated the merits of the invention, and a partnership was
entered into with Arkwright, whose road to fortune was now clear. The
patent was secured in the name of “Richard Arkwright, of Nottingham,
clockmaker,” and it is a circumstance worthy of note, that it was taken
out in 1769, the same year in which Watt secured the patent for his
steam-engine. A cotton-mill was first erected at Nottingham, driven by
horses; and another was shortly after built, on a much larger scale, at
Cromford, in Derbyshire, turned by a water-wheel, from which circumstance
the spinning-machine came to be called the water-frame.
Arkwright’s labours, however, were, comparatively speaking, only begun.
He had still to perfect all the working details of his machine. It was
in his hands the subject of constant modification and improvement, until
eventually it was rendered practicable and profitable in an eminent
degree. But success was only secured by long and patient labour: for
some years, indeed, the speculation was disheartening and unprofitable,
swallowing up a very large amount of capital without any result. When
success began to appear more certain, then the Lancashire manufacturers
fell upon Arkwright’s patent to pull it in pieces, as the Cornish miners
fell upon Boulton and Watt to rob them of the profits of their
steam-engine. Arkwright was even denounced as the enemy of the working
people; and a mill which he built near Chorley was destroyed by a mob in
the presence of a strong force of police and military. The Lancashire
men refused to buy his materials, though they were confessedly the best
in the market. Then they refused to pay patent-right for the use of his
machines, and combined to crush him in the courts of law. To the disgust
of right-minded people, Arkwright’s patent was upset. After the trial,
when passing the hotel at which his opponents were staying, one of them
said, loud enough to be heard by him, “Well, we’ve done the old shaver at
last;” to which he coolly replied, “Never mind, I’ve a razor left that
will shave you all.” He established new mills in Lancashire, Derbyshire,
and at New Lanark, in Scotland. The mills at Cromford also came into his
hands at the expiry of his partnership with Strutt, and the amount and
the excellence of his products were such, that in a short time he
obtained so complete a control of the trade, that the prices were fixed
by him, and he governed the main operations of the other cotton-spinners.
Arkwright was a man of great force of character, indomitable courage,
much worldly shrewdness, with a business faculty almost amounting to
genius. At one period his time was engrossed by severe and continuous
labour, occasioned by the organising and conducting of his numerous
manufactories, sometimes from four in the morning till nine at night. At
fifty years of age he set to work to learn English grammar, and improve
himself in writing and orthography. After overcoming every obstacle, he
had the satisfaction of reaping the reward of his enterprise. Eighteen
years after he had constructed his first machine, he rose to such
estimation in Derbyshire that he was appointed High Sheriff of the
county, and shortly after George III. conferred upon him the honour of
knighthood. He died in 1792. Be it for good or for evil, Arkwright was
the founder in England of the modern factory system, a branch of industry
which has unquestionably proved a source of immense wealth to individuals
and to the nation.
All the other great branches of industry in Britain furnish like examples
of energetic men of business, the source of much benefit to the
neighbourhoods in which they have laboured, and of increased power and
wealth to the community at large. Amongst such might be cited the
Strutts of Belper; the Tennants of Glasgow; the Marshalls and Gotts of
Leeds; the Peels, Ashworths, Birleys, Fieldens, Ashtons, Heywoods, and
Ainsworths of South Lancashire, some of whose descendants have since
become distinguished in connection with the political history of England.
Such pre-eminently were the Peels of South Lancashire.
The founder of the Peel family, about the middle of last century, was a
small yeoman, occupying the Hole House Farm, near Blackburn, from which
he afterwards removed to a house situated in Fish Lane in that town.
Robert Peel, as he advanced in life, saw a large family of sons and
daughters growing up about him; but the land about Blackburn being
somewhat barren, it did not appear to him that agricultural pursuits
offered a very encouraging prospect for their industry. The place had,
however, long been the seat of a domestic manufacture—the fabric called
“Blackburn greys,” consisting of linen weft and cotton warp, being
chiefly made in that town and its neighbourhood. It was then
customary—previous to the introduction of the factory system—for
industrious yeomen with families to employ the time not occupied in the
fields in weaving at home; and Robert Peel accordingly began the domestic
trade of calico-making. He was honest, and made an honest article;
thrifty and hardworking, and his trade prospered. He was also
enterprising, and was one of the first to adopt the carding cylinder,
then recently invented.
But Robert Peel’s attention was principally directed to the _printing_ of
calico—then a comparatively unknown art—and for some time he carried on a
series of experiments with the object of printing by machinery. The
experiments were secretly conducted in his own house, the cloth being
ironed for the purpose by one of the women of the family. It was then
customary, in such houses as the Peels, to use pewter plates at dinner.
Having sketched a figure or pattern on one of the plates, the thought
struck him that an impression might be got from it in reverse, and
printed on calico with colour. In a cottage at the end of the farm-house
lived a woman who kept a calendering machine, and going into her cottage,
he put the plate with colour rubbed into the figured part and some calico
over it, through the machine, when it was found to leave a satisfactory
impression. Such is said to have been the origin of roller printing on
calico. Robert Peel shortly perfected his process, and the first pattern
he brought out was a parsley leaf; hence he is spoken of in the
neighbourhood of Blackburn to this day as “Parsley Peel.” The process of
calico printing by what is called the mule machine—that is, by means of a
wooden cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder—was
afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm
of Messrs. Peel and Co., of Church. Stimulated by his success, Robert
Peel shortly gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about
two miles from Blackburn, he devoted himself exclusively to the printing
business. There, with the aid of his sons, who were as energetic as
himself, he successfully carried on the trade for several years; and as
the young men grew up towards manhood, the concern branched out into
various firms of Peels, each of which became a centre of industrial
activity and a source of remunerative employment to large numbers of
people.
From what can now be learnt of the character of the original and untitled
Robert Peel, he must have been a remarkable man—shrewd, sagacious, and
far-seeing. But little is known of him excepting from traditions and the
sons of those who knew him are fast passing away. His son, Sir Robert,
thus modestly spoke of him:—“My father may be truly said to have been the
founder of our family; and he so accurately appreciated the importance of
commercial wealth in a national point of view, that he was often heard to
say that the gains to individuals were small compared with the national
gains arising from trade.”
Sir Robert Peel, the first baronet and the second manufacturer of the
name, inherited all his father’s enterprise, ability, and industry. His
position, at starting in life, was little above that of an ordinary
working man; for his father, though laying the foundations of future
prosperity, was still struggling with the difficulties arising from
insufficient capital. When Robert was only twenty years of age, he
determined to begin the business of cotton-printing, which he had by this
time learnt from his father, on his own account. His uncle, James
Haworth, and William Yates of Blackburn, joined him in his enterprise;
the whole capital which they could raise amongst them amounting to only
about 500_l._, the principal part of which was supplied by William Yates.
The father of the latter was a householder in Blackburn, where he was
well known and much respected; and having saved money by his business, he
was willing to advance sufficient to give his son a start in the
lucrative trade of cotton-printing, then in its infancy. Robert Peel,
though comparatively a mere youth, supplied the practical knowledge of
the business; but it was said of him, and proved true, that he “carried
an old head on young shoulders.” A ruined corn-mill, with its adjoining
fields, was purchased for a comparatively small sum, near the then
insignificant town of Bury, where the works long after continued to be
known as “The Ground;” and a few wooden sheds having been run up, the
firm commenced their cotton-printing business in a very humble way in the
year 1770, adding to it that of cotton-spinning a few years later. The
frugal style in which the partners lived may be inferred from the
following incident in their early career. William Yates, being a married
man with a family, commenced housekeeping on a small scale, and, to
oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The sum
which the latter first paid for board and lodging was only 8_s._ a week;
but Yates, considering this too little, insisted on the weekly payment
being increased a shilling, to which Peel at first demurred, and a
difference between the partners took place, which was eventually
compromised by the lodger paying an advance of sixpence a week. William
Yates’s eldest child was a girl named Ellen, and she very soon became an
especial favourite with the young lodger. On returning from his hard
day’s work at “The Ground,” he would take the little girl upon his knee,
and say to her, “Nelly, thou bonny little dear, wilt be my wife?” to
which the child would readily answer “Yes,” as any child would do. “Then
I’ll wait for thee, Nelly; I’ll wed thee, and none else.” And Robert
Peel did wait. As the girl grew in beauty towards womanhood, his
determination to wait for her was strengthened; and after the lapse of
ten years—years of close application to business and rapidly increasing
prosperity—Robert Peel married Ellen Yates when she had completed her
seventeenth year; and the pretty child, whom her mother’s lodger and
father’s partner had nursed upon his knee, became Mrs. Peel, and
eventually Lady Peel, the mother of the future Prime Minister of England.
Lady Peel was a noble and beautiful woman, fitted to grace any station in
life. She possessed rare powers of mind, and was, on every emergency,
the high-souled and faithful counsellor of her husband. For many years
after their marriage, she acted as his amanuensis, conducting the
principal part of his business correspondence, for Mr. Peel himself was
an indifferent and almost unintelligible writer. She died in 1803, only
three years after the Baronetcy had been conferred upon her husband. It
is said that London fashionable life—so unlike what she had been
accustomed to at home—proved injurious to her health; and old Mr. Yates
afterwards used to say, “if Robert hadn’t made our Nelly a ‘Lady,’ she
might ha’ been living yet.”
The career of Yates, Peel, & Co., was throughout one of great and
uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert Peel himself was the soul of the
firm; to great energy and application uniting much practical sagacity,
and first-rate mercantile abilities—qualities in which many of the early
cotton-spinners were exceedingly deficient. He was a man of iron mind
and frame, and toiled unceasingly. In short, he was to cotton printing
what Arkwright was to cotton-spinning, and his success was equally great.
The excellence of the articles produced by the firm secured the command
of the market, and the character of the firm stood pre-eminent in
Lancashire. Besides greatly benefiting Bury, the partnership planted
similar extensive works in the neighbourhood, on the Irwell and the Roch;
and it was cited to their honour, that, while they sought to raise to the
highest perfection the quality of their manufactures, they also
endeavoured, in all ways, to promote the well-being and comfort of their
workpeople; for whom they contrived to provide remunerative employment
even in the least prosperous times.
Sir Robert Peel readily appreciated the value of all new processes and
inventions; in illustration of which we may allude to his adoption of the
process for producing what is called _resist work_ in calico printing.
This is accomplished by the use of a paste, or resist, on such parts of
the cloth as were intended to remain white. The person who discovered
the paste was a traveller for a London house, who sold it to Mr. Peel for
an inconsiderable sum. It required the experience of a year or two to
perfect the system and make it practically useful; but the beauty of its
effect, and the extreme precision of outline in the pattern produced, at
once placed the Bury establishment at the head of all the factories for
calico printing in the country. Other firms, conducted with like spirit,
were established by members of the same family at Burnley, Foxhill bank,
and Altham, in Lancashire; Salley Abbey, in Yorkshire; and afterwards at
Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire; these various establishments, whilst
they brought wealth to their proprietors, setting an example to the whole
cotton trade, and training up many of the most successful printers and
manufacturers in Lancashire.
Among other distinguished founders of industry, the Rev. William Lee,
inventor of the Stocking Frame, and John Heathcoat, inventor of the
Bobbin-net Machine, are worthy of notice, as men of great mechanical
skill and perseverance, through whose labours a vast amount of
remunerative employment has been provided for the labouring population of
Nottingham and the adjacent districts. The accounts which have been
preserved of the circumstances connected with the invention of the
Stocking Frame are very confused, and in many respects contradictory,
though there is no doubt as to the name of the inventor. This was
William Lee, born at Woodborough, a village some seven miles from
Nottingham, about the year 1563. According to some accounts, he was the
heir to a small freehold, while according to others he was a poor
scholar, {43a} and had to struggle with poverty from his earliest years.
He entered as a sizar at Christ College, Cambridge, in May, 1579, and
subsequently removed to St. John’s, taking his degree of B.A. in 1582–3.
It is believed that he commenced M.A. in 1586; but on this point there
appears to be some confusion in the records of the University. The
statement usually made that he was expelled for marrying contrary to the
statutes, is incorrect, as he was never a Fellow of the University, and
therefore could not be prejudiced by taking such a step.
At the time when Lee invented the Stocking Frame he was officiating as
curate of Calverton, near Nottingham; and it is alleged by some writers
that the invention had its origin in disappointed affection. The curate
is said to have fallen deeply in love with a young lady of the village,
who failed to reciprocate his affections; and when he visited her, she
was accustomed to pay much more attention to the process of knitting
stockings and instructing her pupils in the art, than to the addresses of
her admirer. This slight is said to have created in his mind such an
aversion to knitting by hand, that he formed the determination to invent
a machine that should supersede it and render it a gainless employment.
For three years he devoted himself to the prosecution of the invention,
sacrificing everything to his new idea. At the prospect of success
opened before him, he abandoned his curacy, and devoted himself to the
art of stocking making by machinery. This is the version of the story
given by Henson {43b} on the authority of an old stocking-maker, who died
in Collins’s Hospital, Nottingham, aged ninety-two, and was apprenticed
in the town during the reign of Queen Anne. It is also given by Deering
and Blackner as the traditional account in the neighbourhood, and it is
in some measure borne out by the arms of the London Company of Frame-Work
Knitters, which consists of a stocking frame without the wood-work, with
a clergyman on one side and a woman on the other as supporters. {44}
Whatever may have been the actual facts as to the origin of the invention
of the Stocking Loom, there can be no doubt as to the extraordinary
mechanical genius displayed by its inventor. That a clergyman living in
a remote village, whose life had for the most part been spent with books,
should contrive a machine of such delicate and complicated movements, and
at once advance the art of knitting from the tedious process of linking
threads in a chain of loops by three skewers in the fingers of a woman,
to the beautiful and rapid process of weaving by the stocking frame, was
indeed an astonishing achievement, which may be pronounced almost
unequalled in the history of mechanical invention. Lee’s merit was all
the greater, as the handicraft arts were then in their infancy, and
little attention had as yet been given to the contrivance of machinery
for the purposes of manufacture. He was under the necessity of
extemporising the parts of his machine as he best could, and adopting
various expedients to overcome difficulties as they arose. His tools
were imperfect, and his materials imperfect; and he had no skilled
workmen to assist him. According to tradition, the first frame he made
was a twelve gauge, without lead sinkers, and it was almost wholly of
wood; the needles being also stuck in bits of wood. One of Lee’s
principal difficulties consisted in the formation of the stitch, for want
of needle eyes; but this he eventually overcame by forming eyes to the
needles with a three-square file. {45} At length, one difficulty after
another was successfully overcome, and after three years’ labour the
machine was sufficiently complete to be fit for use. The quondam curate,
full of enthusiasm for his art, now began stocking weaving in the village
of Calverton, and he continued to work there for several years,
instructing his brother James and several of his relations in the
practice of the art.
Having brought his frame to a considerable degree of perfection, and
being desirous of securing the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, whose
partiality for knitted silk stockings was well known, Lee proceeded to
London to exhibit the loom before her Majesty. He first showed it to
several members of the court, among others to Sir William (afterwards
Lord) Hunsdon, whom he taught to work it with success; and Lee was,
through their instrumentality, at length admitted to an interview with
the Queen, and worked the machine in her presence. Elizabeth, however,
did not give him the encouragement that he had expected; and she is said
to have opposed the invention on the ground that it was calculated to
deprive a large number of poor people of their employment of hand
knitting. Lee was no more successful in finding other patrons, and
considering himself and his invention treated with contempt, he embraced
the offer made to him by Sully, the sagacious minister of Henry IV., to
proceed to Rouen and instruct the operatives of that town—then one of the
most important manufacturing centres of France—in the construction and
use of the stocking-frame. Lee accordingly transferred himself and his
machines to France, in 1605, taking with him his brother and seven
workmen. He met with a cordial reception at Rouen, and was proceeding
with the manufacture of stockings on a large scale—having nine of his
frames in full work,—when unhappily ill fortune again overtook him.
Henry IV., his protector, on whom he had relied for the rewards, honours,
and promised grant of privileges, which had induced Lee to settle in
France, was murdered by the fanatic Ravaillac; and the encouragement and
protection which had heretofore been extended to him were at once
withdrawn. To press his claims at court, Lee proceeded to Paris; but
being a protestant as well as a foreigner, his representations were
treated with neglect; and worn out with vexation and grief, this
distinguished inventor shortly after died at Paris, in a state of extreme
poverty and distress.
Lee’s brother, with seven of the workmen, succeeded in escaping from
France with their frames, leaving two behind. On James Lee’s return to
Nottinghamshire, he was joined by one Ashton, a miller of Thoroton, who
had been instructed in the art of frame-work knitting by the inventor
himself before he left England. These two, with the workmen and their
frames, began the stocking manufacture at Thoroton, and carried it on
with considerable success. The place was favourably situated for the
purpose, as the sheep pastured in the neighbouring district of Sherwood
yielded a kind of wool of the longest staple. Ashton is said to have
introduced the method of making the frames with lead sinkers, which was a
great improvement. The number of looms employed in different parts of
England gradually increased; and the machine manufacture of stockings
eventually became an important branch of the national industry.
One of the most important modifications in the Stocking-Frame was that
which enabled it to be applied to the manufacture of lace on a large
scale. In 1777, two workmen, Frost and Holmes, were both engaged in
making point-net by means of the modifications they had introduced in the
stocking-frame; and in the course of about thirty years, so rapid was the
growth of this branch of production that 1500 point-net frames were at
work, giving employment to upwards of 15,000 people. Owing, however, to
the war, to change of fashion, and to other circumstances, the Nottingham
lace manufacture rapidly fell off; and it continued in a decaying state
until the invention of the Bobbin-net Machine by John Heathcoat, late
M.P. for Tiverton, which had the effect of at once re-establishing the
manufacture on solid foundations.
John Heathcoat was the youngest son of a respectable small farmer at
Duffield, Derbyshire, where he was born in 1783. When at school he made
steady and rapid progress, but was early removed from it to be
apprenticed to a frame-smith near Loughborough. The boy soon learnt to
handle tools with dexterity, and he acquired a minute knowledge of the
parts of which the stocking-frame was composed, as well as of the more
intricate warp-machine. At his leisure he studied how to introduce
improvements in them, and his friend, Mr. Bazley, M.P., states that as
early as the age of sixteen, he conceived the idea of inventing a machine
by which lace might be made similar to Buckingham or French lace, then
all made by hand. The first practical improvement he succeeded in
introducing was in the warp-frame, when, by means of an ingenious
apparatus, he succeeded in producing “mitts” of a lacy appearance, and it
was this success which determined him to pursue the study of mechanical
lace-making. The stocking-frame had already, in a modified form, been
applied to the manufacture of point-net lace, in which the mesh was
_looped_ as in a stocking, but the work was slight and frail, and
therefore unsatisfactory. Many ingenious Nottingham mechanics had,
during a long succession of years, been labouring at the problem of
inventing a machine by which the mesh of threads should be _twisted_
round each other on the formation of the net. Some of these men died in
poverty, some were driven insane, and all alike failed in the object of
their search. The old warp-machine held its ground.
When a little over twenty-one years of age, Heathcoat went to Nottingham,
where he readily found employment, for which he soon received the highest
remuneration, as a setter-up of hosiery and warp-frames, and was much
respected for his talent for invention, general intelligence, and the
sound and sober principles that governed his conduct. He also continued
to pursue the subject on which his mind had before been occupied, and
laboured to compass the contrivance of a twist traverse-net machine. He
first studied the art of making the Buckingham or pillow-lace by hand,
with the object of effecting the same motions by mechanical means. It
was a long and laborious task, requiring the exercise of great
perseverance and ingenuity. His master, Elliot, described him at that
time as inventive, patient, self-denying, and taciturn, undaunted by
failures and mistakes, full of resources and expedients, and entertaining
the most perfect confidence that his application of mechanical principles
would eventually be crowned with success.
It is difficult to describe in words an invention so complicated as the
bobbin-net machine. It was, indeed, a mechanical pillow for making lace,
imitating in an ingenious manner the motions of the lace-maker’s fingers
in intersecting or tying the meshes of the lace upon her pillow. On
analysing the component parts of a piece of hand-made lace, Heathcoat was
enabled to classify the threads into longitudinal and diagonal. He began
his experiments by fixing common pack-threads lengthwise on a sort of
frame for the warp, and then passing the weft threads between them by
common plyers, delivering them to other plyers on the opposite side;
then, after giving them a sideways motion and twist, the threads were
repassed back between the next adjoining cords, the meshes being thus
tied in the same way as upon pillows by hand. He had then to contrive a
mechanism that should accomplish all these nice and delicate movements,
and to do this cost him no small amount of mental toil. Long after he
said, “The single difficulty of getting the diagonal threads to twist in
the allotted space was so great that if it had now to be done, I should
probably not attempt its accomplishment.” His next step was to provide
thin metallic discs, to be used as bobbins for conducting the threads
backwards and forwards through the warp. These discs, being arranged in
carrier-frames placed on each side of the warp, were moved by suitable
machinery so as to conduct the threads from side to side in forming the
lace. He eventually succeeded in working out his principle with
extraordinary skill and success; and, at the age of twenty-four, he was
enabled to secure his invention by a patent.
During this time his wife was kept in almost as great anxiety as himself,
for she well knew of his trials and difficulties while he was striving to
perfect his invention. Many years after they had been successfully
overcome, the conversation which took place one eventful evening was
vividly remembered. “Well,” said the anxious wife, “will it work?”
“No,” was the sad answer; “I have had to take it all to pieces again.”
Though he could still speak hopefully and cheerfully, his poor wife could
restrain her feelings no longer, but sat down and cried bitterly. She
had, however, only a few more weeks to wait, for success long laboured
for and richly deserved, came at last, and a proud and happy man was John
Heathcoat when he brought home the first narrow strip of bobbin-net made
by his machine, and placed it in the hands of his wife.
As in the case of nearly all inventions which have proved productive,
Heathcoat’s rights as a patentee were disputed, and his claims as an
inventor called in question. On the supposed invalidity of the patent,
the lace-makers boldly adopted the bobbin-net machine, and set the
inventor at defiance. But other patents were taken out for alleged
improvements and adaptations; and it was only when these new patentees
fell out and went to law with each other that Heathcoat’s rights became
established. One lace-manufacturer having brought an action against
another for an alleged infringement of his patent, the jury brought in a
verdict for the defendant, in which the judge concurred, on the ground
that _both_ the machines in question were infringements of Heathcoat’s
patent. It was on the occasion of this trial, “Boville v. Moore,” that
Sir John Copley (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst), who was retained for the
defence in the interest of Mr. Heathcoat, learnt to work the bobbin-net
machine in order that he might master the details of the invention. On
reading over his brief, he confessed that he did not quite understand the
merits of the case; but as it seemed to him to be one of great
importance, he offered to go down into the country forthwith and study
the machine until he understood it; “and then,” said he, “I will defend
you to the best of my ability.” He accordingly put himself into that
night’s mail, and went down to Nottingham to get up his case as perhaps
counsel never got it up before. Next morning the learned sergeant placed
himself in a lace-loom, and he did not leave it until he could deftly
make a piece of bobbin-net with his own hands, and thoroughly understood
the principle as well as the details of the machine. When the case came
on for trial, the learned sergeant was enabled to work the model on the
table with such case and skill, and to explain the precise nature of the
invention with such felicitous clearness, as to astonish alike judge,
jury, and spectators; and the thorough conscientiousness and mastery with
which he handled the case had no doubt its influence upon the decision of
the court.
After the trial was over, Mr. Heathcoat, on inquiry, found about six
hundred machines at work after his patent, and he proceeded to levy
royalty upon the owners of them, which amounted to a large sum. But the
profits realised by the manufacturers of lace were very great, and the
use of the machines rapidly extended; while the price of the article was
reduced from five pounds the square yard to about five pence in the
course of twenty-five years. During the same period the average annual
returns of the lace-trade have been at least four millions sterling, and
it gives remunerative employment to about 150,000 workpeople.
To return to the personal history of Mr. Heathcoat. In 1809 we find him
established as a lace-manufacturer at Loughborough, in Leicestershire.
There he carried on a prosperous business for several years, giving
employment to a large number of operatives, at wages varying from 5_l._
to 10_l._ a week. Notwithstanding the great increase in the number of
hands employed in lace-making through the introduction of the new
machines, it began to be whispered about among the workpeople that they
were superseding labour, and an extensive conspiracy was formed for the
purpose of destroying them wherever found. As early as the year 1811
disputes arose between the masters and men engaged in the stocking and
lace trades in the south-western parts of Nottinghamshire and the
adjacent parts of Derbyshire and Leicestershire, the result of which was
the assembly of a mob at Sutton, in Ashfield, who proceeded in open day
to break the stocking and lace-frames of the manufacturers. Some of the
ringleaders having been seized and punished, the disaffected learnt
caution; but the destruction of the machines was nevertheless carried on
secretly wherever a safe opportunity presented itself. As the machines
were of so delicate a construction that a single blow of a hammer
rendered them useless, and as the manufacture was carried on for the most
part in detached buildings, often in private dwellings remote from towns,
the opportunities of destroying them were unusually easy. In the
neighbourhood of Nottingham, which was the focus of turbulence, the
machine-breakers organized themselves in regular bodies, and held
nocturnal meetings at which their plans were arranged. Probably with the
view of inspiring confidence, they gave out that they were under the
command of a leader named Ned Ludd, or General Ludd, and hence their
designation of Luddites. Under this organization machine-breaking was
carried on with great vigour during the winter of 1811, occasioning great
distress, and throwing large numbers of workpeople out of employment.
Meanwhile, the owners of the frames proceeded to remove them from the
villages and lone dwellings in the country, and brought them into
warehouses in the towns for their better protection.
The Luddites seem to have been encouraged by the lenity of the sentences
pronounced on such of their confederates as had been apprehended and
tried; and, shortly after, the mania broke out afresh, and rapidly
extended over the northern and midland manufacturing districts. The
organization became more secret; an oath was administered to the members
binding them to obedience to the orders issued by the heads of the
confederacy; and the betrayal of their designs was decreed to be death.
All machines were doomed by them to destruction, whether employed in the
manufacture of cloth, calico, or lace; and a reign of terror began which
lasted for years. In Yorkshire and Lancashire mills were boldly attacked
by armed rioters, and in many cases they were wrecked or burnt; so that
it became necessary to guard them by soldiers and yeomanry. The masters
themselves were doomed to death; many of them were assaulted, and some
were murdered. At length the law was vigorously set in motion; numbers
of the misguided Luddites were apprehended; some were executed; and after
several years’ violent commotion from this cause, the machine-breaking
riots were at length quelled.
Among the numerous manufacturers whose works were attacked by the
Luddites, was the inventor of the bobbin-net machine himself. One bright
sunny day, in the summer of 1816, a body of rioters entered his factory
at Loughborough with torches, and set fire to it, destroying thirty-seven
lace-machines, and above 10,000_l._ worth of property. Ten of the men
were apprehended for the felony, and eight of them were executed. Mr.
Heathcoat made a claim upon the county for compensation, and it was
resisted; but the Court of Queen’s Bench decided in his favour, and
decreed that the county must make good his loss of 10,000_l._ The
magistrates sought to couple with the payment of the damage the condition
that Mr. Heathcoat should expend the money in the county of Leicester;
but to this he would not assent, having already resolved on removing his
manufacture elsewhere. At Tiverton, in Devonshire, he found a large
building which had been formerly used as a woollen manufactory; but the
Tiverton cloth trade having fallen into decay, the building remained
unoccupied, and the town itself was generally in a very poverty-stricken
condition. Mr. Heathcoat bought the old mill, renovated and enlarged it,
and there recommenced the manufacture of lace upon a larger scale than
before; keeping in full work as many as three hundred machines, and
employing a large number of artisans at good wages. Not only did he
carry on the manufacture of lace, but the various branches of business
connected with it—yarn-doubling, silk-spinning, net-making, and
finishing. He also established at Tiverton an iron-foundry and works for
the manufacture of agricultural implements, which proved of great
convenience to the district. It was a favourite idea of his that steam
power was capable of being applied to perform all the heavy drudgery of
life, and he laboured for a long time at the invention of a steam-plough.
In 1832 he so far completed his invention as to be enabled to take out a
patent for it; and Heathcoat’s steam-plough, though it has since been
superseded by Fowler’s, was considered the best machine of the kind that
had up to that time been invented.
Mr. Heathcoat was a man of great natural gifts. He possessed a sound
understanding, quick perception, and a genius for business of the highest
order. With these he combined uprightness, honesty, and
integrity—qualities which are the true glory of human character. Himself
a diligent self-educator, he gave ready encouragement to deserving youths
in his employment, stimulating their talents and fostering their
energies. During his own busy life, he contrived to save time to master
French and Italian, of which he acquired an accurate and grammatical
knowledge. His mind was largely stored with the results of a careful
study of the best literature, and there were few subjects on which he had
not formed for himself shrewd and accurate views. The two thousand
workpeople in his employment regarded him almost as a father, and he
carefully provided for their comfort and improvement. Prosperity did not
spoil him, as it does so many; nor close his heart against the claims of
the poor and struggling, who were always sure of his sympathy and help.
To provide for the education of the children of his workpeople, he built
schools for them at a cost of about 6000_l._ He was also a man of
singularly cheerful and buoyant disposition, a favourite with men of all
classes and most admired and beloved by those who knew him best.
In 1831 the electors of Tiverton, of which town Mr. Heathcoat had proved
himself so genuine a benefactor, returned him to represent them in
Parliament, and he continued their member for nearly thirty years.
During a great part of that time he had Lord Palmerston for his
colleague, and the noble lord, on more than one public occasion,
expressed the high regard which he entertained for his venerable friend.
On retiring from the representation in 1859, owing to advancing age and
increasing infirmities, thirteen hundred of his workmen presented him
with a silver inkstand and gold pen, in token of their esteem. He
enjoyed his leisure for only two more years, dying in January, 1861, at
the age of seventy-seven, and leaving behind him a character for probity,
virtue, manliness, and mechanical genius, of which his descendants may
well be proud.
We next turn to a career of a very different kind, that of the
illustrious but unfortunate Jacquard, whose life also illustrates in a
remarkable manner the influence which ingenious men, even of the humblest
rank, may exercise upon the industry of a nation. Jacquard was the son
of a hard-working couple of Lyons, his father being a weaver, and his
mother a pattern reader. They were too poor to give him any but the most
meagre education. When he was of age to learn a trade, his father placed
him with a book-binder. An old clerk, who made up the master’s accounts,
gave Jacquard some lessons in mathematics. He very shortly began to
display a remarkable turn for mechanics, and some of his contrivances
quite astonished the old clerk, who advised Jacquard’s father to put him
to some other trade, in which his peculiar abilities might have better
scope than in bookbinding. He was accordingly put apprentice to a
cutler; but was so badly treated by his master, that he shortly
afterwards left his employment, on which he was placed with a
type-founder.
His parents dying, Jacquard found himself in a measure compelled to take
to his father’s two looms, and carry on the trade of a weaver. He
immediately proceeded to improve the looms, and became so engrossed with
his inventions that he forgot his work, and very soon found himself at
the end of his means. He then sold the looms to pay his debts, at the
same time that he took upon himself the burden of supporting a wife. He
became still poorer, and to satisfy his creditors, he next sold his
cottage. He tried to find employment, but in vain, people believing him
to be an idler, occupied with mere dreams about his inventions. At
length he obtained employment with a line-maker of Bresse, whither he
went, his wife remaining at Lyons, earning a precarious living by making
straw bonnets.
We hear nothing further of Jacquard for some years, but in the interval
he seems to have prosecuted his improvement in the drawloom for the
better manufacture of figured fabrics; for, in 1790, he brought out his
contrivance for selecting the warp threads, which, when added to the
loom, superseded the services of a draw-boy. The adoption of this
machine was slow but steady, and in ten years after its introduction,
4000 of them were found at work in Lyons. Jacquard’s pursuits were
rudely interrupted by the Revolution, and, in 1792, we find him fighting
in the ranks of the Lyonnaise Volunteers against the Army of the
Convention under the command of Dubois Crancé. The city was taken;
Jacquard fled and joined the Army of the Rhine, where he rose to the rank
of sergeant. He might have remained a soldier, but that, his only son
having been shot dead at his side, he deserted and returned to Lyons to
recover his wife. He found her in a garret still employed at her old
trade of straw-bonnet making. While living in concealment with her, his
mind reverted to the inventions over which he had so long brooded in
former years; but he had no means wherewith to prosecute them. Jacquard
found it necessary, however, to emerge from his hiding-place and try to
find some employment. He succeeded in obtaining it with an intelligent
manufacturer, and while working by day he went on inventing by night. It
had occurred to him that great improvements might still be introduced in
looms for figured goods, and he incidentally mentioned the subject one
day to his master, regretting at the same time that his limited means
prevented him from carrying out his ideas. Happily his master
appreciated the value of the suggestions, and with laudable generosity
placed a sum of money at his disposal, that he might prosecute the
proposed improvements at his leisure.
In three months Jacquard had invented a loom to substitute mechanical
action for the irksome and toilsome labour of the workman. The loom was
exhibited at the Exposition of National Industry at Paris in 1801, and
obtained a bronze medal. Jacquard was further honoured by a visit at
Lyons from the Minister Carnot, who desired to congratulate him in person
on the success of his invention. In the following year the Society of
Arts in London offered a prize for the invention of a machine for
manufacturing fishing-nets and boarding-netting for ships. Jacquard
heard of this, and while walking one day in the fields according to his
custom, he turned the subject over in his mind, and contrived the plan of
a machine for the purpose. His friend, the manufacturer, again furnished
him with the means of carrying out his idea, and in three weeks Jacquard
had completed his invention.
Jacquard’s achievement having come to the knowledge of the Prefect of the
Department, he was summoned before that functionary, and, on his
explanation of the working of the machine, a report on the subject was
forwarded to the Emperor. The inventor was forthwith summoned to Paris
with his machine, and brought into the presence of the Emperor, who
received him with the consideration due to his genius. The interview
lasted two hours, during which Jacquard, placed at his ease by the
Emperor’s affability, explained to him the improvements which he proposed
to make in the looms for weaving figured goods. The result was, that he
was provided with apartments in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers,
where he had the use of the workshop during his stay, and was provided
with a suitable allowance for his maintenance.
Installed in the Conservatoire, Jacquard proceeded to complete the
details of his improved loom. He had the advantage of minutely
inspecting the various exquisite pieces of mechanism contained in that
great treasury of human ingenuity. Among the machines which more
particularly attracted his attention, and eventually set him upon the
track of his discovery, was a loom for weaving flowered silk, made by
Vaucanson the celebrated automaton-maker.
Vaucanson was a man of the highest order of constructive genius. The
inventive faculty was so strong in him that it may almost be said to have
amounted to a passion, and could not be restrained. The saying that the
poet is born, not made, applies with equal force to the inventor, who,
though indebted, like the other, to culture and improved opportunities,
nevertheless contrives and constructs new combinations of machinery
mainly to gratify his own instinct. This was peculiarly the case with
Vaucanson; for his most elaborate works were not so much distinguished
for their utility as for the curious ingenuity which they displayed.
While a mere boy attending Sunday conversations with his mother, he
amused himself by watching, through the chinks of a partition wall, part
of the movements of a clock in the adjoining apartment. He endeavoured
to understand them, and by brooding over the subject, after several
months he discovered the principle of the escapement.
From that time the subject of mechanical invention took complete
possession of him. With some rude tools which he contrived, he made a
wooden clock that marked the hours with remarkable exactness; while he
made for a miniature chapel the figures of some angels which waved their
wings, and some priests that made several ecclesiastical movements. With
the view of executing some other automata he had designed, he proceeded
to study anatomy, music, and mechanics, which occupied him for several
years. The sight of the Flute-player in the Gardens of the Tuileries
inspired him with the resolution to invent a similar figure that should
_play_; and after several years’ study and labour, though struggling with
illness, he succeeded in accomplishing his object. He next produced a
Flageolet-player, which was succeeded by a Duck—the most ingenious of his
contrivances,—which swam, dabbled, drank, and quacked like a real duck.
He next invented an asp, employed in the tragedy of ‘Cléopâtre,’ which
hissed and darted at the bosom of the actress.
Vaucanson, however, did not confine himself merely to the making of
automata. By reason of his ingenuity, Cardinal de Fleury appointed him
inspector of the silk manufactories of France; and he was no sooner in
office, than with his usual irrepressible instinct to invent, he
proceeded to introduce improvements in silk machinery. One of these was
his mill for thrown silk, which so excited the anger of the Lyons
operatives, who feared the loss of employment through its means, that
they pelted him with stones and had nearly killed him. He nevertheless
went on inventing, and next produced a machine for weaving flowered
silks, with a contrivance for giving a dressing to the thread, so as to
render that of each bobbin or skein of an equal thickness.
When Vaucanson died in 1782, after a long illness, he bequeathed his
collection of machines to the Queen, who seems to have set but small
value on them, and they were shortly after dispersed. But his machine
for weaving flowered silks was happily preserved in the Conservatoire des
Arts et Métiers, and there Jacquard found it among the many curious and
interesting articles in the collection. It proved of the utmost value to
him, for it immediately set him on the track of the principal
modification which he introduced in his improved loom.
One of the chief features of Vaucanson’s machine was a pierced cylinder
which, according to the holes it presented when revolved, regulated the
movement of certain needles, and caused the threads of the warp to
deviate in such a manner as to produce a given design, though only of a
simple character. Jacquard seized upon the suggestion with avidity, and,
with the genius of the true inventor, at once proceeded to improve upon
it. At the end of a month his weaving-machine was completed. To the
cylinder of Vancanson, he added an endless piece of pasteboard pierced
with a number of holes, through which the threads of the warp were
presented to the weaver; while another piece of mechanism indicated to
the workman the colour of the shuttle which he ought to throw. Thus the
drawboy and the reader of designs were both at once superseded. The
first use Jacquard made of his new loom was to weave with it several
yards of rich stuff which he presented to the Empress Josephine.
Napoleon was highly gratified with the result of the inventor’s labours,
and ordered a number of the looms to be constructed by the best workmen,
after Jacquard’s model, and presented to him; after which he returned to
Lyons.
There he experienced the frequent fate of inventors. He was regarded by
his townsmen as an enemy, and treated by them as Kay, Hargreaves, and
Arkwright had been in Lancashire. The workmen looked upon the new loom
as fatal to their trade, and feared lest it should at once take the bread
from their mouths. A tumultuous meeting was held on the Place des
Terreaux, when it was determined to destroy the machines. This was
however prevented by the military. But Jacquard was denounced and hanged
in effigy. The ‘Conseil des prud’hommes’ in vain endeavoured to allay
the excitement, and they were themselves denounced. At length, carried
away by the popular impulse, the prud’hommes, most of whom had been
workmen and sympathized with the class, had one of Jacquard’s looms
carried off and publicly broken in pieces. Riots followed, in one of
which Jacquard was dragged along the quay by an infuriated mob intending
to drown him, but he was rescued.
The great value of the Jacquard loom, however, could not be denied, and
its success was only a question of time. Jacquard was urged by some
English silk manufacturers to pass over into England and settle there.
But notwithstanding the harsh and cruel treatment he had received at the
hands of his townspeople, his patriotism was too strong to permit him to
accept their offer. The English manufacturers, however, adopted his
loom. Then it was, and only then, that Lyons, threatened to be beaten
out of the field, adopted it with eagerness; and before long the Jacquard
machine was employed in nearly all kinds of weaving. The result proved
that the fears of the workpeople had been entirely unfounded. Instead of
diminishing employment, the Jacquard loom increased it at least tenfold.
The number of persons occupied in the manufacture of figured goods in
Lyons, was stated by M. Leon Faucher to have been 60,000 in 1833; and
that number has since been considerably increased.
As for Jacquard himself, the rest of his life passed peacefully,
excepting that the workpeople who dragged him along the quay to drown him
were shortly after found eager to bear him in triumph along the same
route in celebration of his birthday. But his modesty would not permit
him to take part in such a demonstration. The Municipal Council of Lyons
proposed to him that he should devote himself to improving his machine
for the benefit of the local industry, to which Jacquard agreed in
consideration of a moderate pension, the amount of which was fixed by
himself. After perfecting his invention accordingly, he retired at sixty
to end his days at Oullins, his father’s native place. It was there that
he received, in 1820, the decoration of the Legion of Honour; and it was
there that he died and was buried in 1834. A statue was erected to his
memory, but his relatives remained in poverty; and twenty years after his
death, his two nieces were under the necessity of selling for a few
hundred francs the gold medal bestowed upon their uncle by Louis XVIII.
“Such,” says a French writer, “was the gratitude of the manufacturing
interests of Lyons to the man to whom it owes so large a portion of its
splendour.”
It would be easy to extend the martyrology of inventors, and to cite the
names of other equally distinguished men who have, without any
corresponding advantage to themselves, contributed to the industrial
progress of the age,—for it has too often happened that genius has
planted the tree, of which patient dulness has gathered the fruit; but we
will confine ourselves for the present to a brief account of an inventor
of comparatively recent date, by way of illustration of the difficulties
and privations which it is so frequently the lot of mechanical genius to
surmount. We allude to Joshua Heilmann, the inventor of the Combing
Machine.
Heilmann was born in 1796 at Mulhouse, the principal seat of the Alsace
cotton manufacture. His father was engaged in that business; and Joshua
entered his office at fifteen. He remained there for two years,
employing his spare time in mechanical drawing. He afterwards spent two
years in his uncle’s banking-house in Paris, prosecuting the study of
mathematics in the evenings. Some of his relatives having established a
small cotton-spinning factory at Mulhouse, young Heilmann was placed with
Messrs. Tissot and Rey, at Paris, to learn the practice of that firm. At
the same time he became a student at the Conservatoire des Arts et
Métiers, where he attended the lectures, and studied the machines in the
museum. He also took practical lessons in turning from a toymaker.
After some time, thus diligently occupied, he returned to Alsace, to
superintend the construction of the machinery for the new factory at
Vieux-Thann, which was shortly finished and set to work. The operations
of the manufactory were, however, seriously affected by a commercial
crisis which occurred, and it passed into other hands, on which Heilmann
returned to his family at Mulhouse.
He had in the mean time been occupying much of his leisure with
inventions, more particularly in connection with the weaving of cotton
and the preparation of the staple for spinning. One of his earliest
contrivances was an embroidering-machine, in which twenty needles were
employed, working simultaneously; and he succeeded in accomplishing his
object after about six months’ labour. For this invention, which he
exhibited at the Exposition of 1834, he received a gold medal, and was
decorated with the Legion of Honour. Other inventions quickly
followed—an improved loom, a machine for measuring and folding fabrics,
an improvement of the “bobbin and fly frames” of the English spinners,
and a weft winding-machine, with various improvements in the machinery
for preparing, spinning, and weaving silk and cotton. One of his most
ingenious contrivances was his loom for weaving simultaneously two pieces
of velvet or other piled fabric, united by the pile common to both, with
a knife and traversing apparatus for separating the two fabrics when
woven. But by far the most beautiful and ingenious of his inventions was
the combing-machine, the history of which we now proceed shortly to
describe.
Heilmann had for some years been diligently studying the contrivance of a
machine for combing long-stapled cotton, the ordinary carding-machine
being found ineffective in preparing the raw material for spinning,
especially the finer sorts of yarn, besides causing considerable waste.
To avoid these imperfections, the cotton-spinners of Alsace offered a
prize of 5000 francs for an improved combing-machine, and Heilmann
immediately proceeded to compete for the reward. He was not stimulated
by the desire of gain, for he was comparatively rich, having acquired a
considerable fortune by his wife. It was a saying of his that “one will
never accomplish great things who is constantly asking himself, how much
gain will this bring me?” What mainly impelled him was the irrepressible
instinct of the inventor, who no sooner has a mechanical problem set
before him than he feels impelled to undertake its solution. The problem
in this case was, however, much more difficult than he had anticipated.
The close study of the subject occupied him for several years, and the
expenses in which he became involved in connection with it were so great,
that his wife’s fortune was shortly swallowed up, and he was reduced to
poverty, without being able to bring his machine to perfection. From
that time he was under the necessity of relying mainly on the help of his
friends to enable him to prosecute the invention.
While still struggling with poverty and difficulties, Heilmann’s wife
died, believing her husband ruined; and shortly after he proceeded to
England and settled for a time at Manchester, still labouring at his
machine. He had a model made for him by the eminent machine-makers,
Sharpe, Roberts, and Company; but still he could not make it work
satisfactorily, and he was at length brought almost to the verge of
despair. He returned to France to visit his family, still pursuing his
idea, which had obtained complete possession of his mind. While sitting
by his hearth one evening, meditating upon the hard fate of inventors and
the misfortunes in which their families so often become involved, he
found himself almost unconsciously watching his daughters coming their
long hair and drawing it out at full length between their fingers. The
thought suddenly struck him that if he could successfully imitate in a
machine the process of combing out the longest hair and forcing back the
short by reversing the action of the comb, it might serve to extricate
him from his difficulty. It may be remembered that this incident in the
life of Heilmann has been made the subject of a beautiful picture by Mr.
Elmore, R.A., which was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of
1862.
Upon this idea he proceeded, introduced the apparently simple but really
most intricate process of machine-combing, and after great labour he
succeeded in perfecting the invention. The singular beauty of the
process can only be appreciated by those who have witnessed the machine
at work, when the similarity of its movements to that of combing the
hair, which suggested the invention, is at once apparent. The machine
has been described as “acting with almost the delicacy of touch of the
human fingers.” It combs the lock of cotton _at both ends_, places the
fibres exactly parallel with each other, separates the long from the
short, and unites the long fibres in one sliver and the short ones in
another. In fine, the machine not only acts with the delicate accuracy
of the human fingers, but apparently with the delicate intelligence of
the human mind.
The chief commercial value of the invention consisted in its rendering
the commoner sorts of cotton available for fine spinning. The
manufacturers were thereby enabled to select the most suitable fibres for
high-priced fabrics, and to produce the finer sorts of yarn in much
larger quantities. It became possible by its means to make thread so
fine that a length of 334 miles might be spun from a single pound weight
of the prepared cotton, and, worked up into the finer sorts of lace, the
original shilling’s worth of cotton-wool, before it passed into the hands
of the consumer, might thus be increased to the value of between 300_l._
and 400_l._ sterling.
The beauty and utility of Heilmann’s invention were at once appreciated
by the English cotton-spinners. Six Lancashire firms united and
purchased the patent for cotton-spinning for England for the sum of
30,000_l._; the wool-spinners paid the same sum for the privilege of
applying the process to wool; and the Messrs. Marshall, of Leeds,
20,000_l._ for the privilege of applying it to flax. Thus wealth
suddenly flowed in upon poor Heilmann at last. But he did not live to
enjoy it. Scarcely had his long labours been crowned by success than he
died, and his son, who had shared in his privations, shortly followed
him.
It is at the price of lives such as these that the wonders of
civilisation are achieved.