Sir Joseph Whitworth

Abstract

ON Saturday night last, Sir Joseph Whitworth died at the English Hotel, Monte Carlo. In the department of mechanical engineering there is, perhaps, no greater name, and his career was one upon which his countrymen may well look back with pride and pleasure. He was born on December 21, 1803, at Stockport, where his father was a schoolmaster. At the age of twelve he was sent from his father's school to Mr. Vint's academy at Idle, near Leeds, where he remained until he was fourteen, when he was placed with his uncle, a cotton-spinner in Derbyshire. Here he made himself familiar with the construction and working of all the machines then used in cotton-spinning. If he had chosen, he might perhaps have inherited his uncle's property, but he was already conscious of the trite bent of his genius, and after six years' service, being unable to emancipate himself in a more regular manner, he ran away to Manchester. At Manchester he remained for four years, working in the shops of Messrs. Crighton and other employers, and obtaining a thorough mastery of the methods of manufacturing cotton-machinery. Recognising the necessity of wide experience, he went to London when he had secured all the practical knowledge that could be obtained in his special line at Manchester, and he was fortunate enough to be employed by Maudslay, who soon learned to appreciate his exceptional gifts, and took him into his own private workroom, and placed him next to Hampson, the best workman in the establishment. From Maudslay's, Mr. Whitworth went to HoltzapfeFs, and afterwards to Clements's, where Babbage's calculating-machine was being constructed. During his residence in London, Mr. Whitworth began the splendid series of inventions which were to secure for him the foremost place among the mechanical engineers of his period. His first important self-imposed task was to construct the true plane, by which tool-makers might be enabled to produce, for all kinds of sliding tools, surfaces on which the resistance arising from friction would be reduced to a minimum. The work to be achieved was one of immense difficulty, and his fellow-workman, Hampson, used to laugh at him for having undertaken an impossible job. Mr. Whitworth, however, was a man of extraordinary tenacity of purpose, and did not allow himself to be discouraged. At last he succeeded, and showed his friend the perfect plane he had produced. “You've done it,” said Hampson, who was astounded by a result which he had always thought to be beyond the reach of human effort.