This week's episode was made possible thanks to the recent Kickstarter campaign. As you may remember, one of the perks available to donors in that effort was to get me to tell listeners about a charity close to their heart. This week I want to tell you about NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Since 1979, NAMI has worked to educate the public about mental illnesses and get help to those in need, as well as to their family members and others.
In addition to the personal tolls they take, mental illnesses also put a tremendous strain on our economy, our healthcare system, and our prison system. Approximately one in five Americans experiences mental illness in a given year, including someone you probably know quite well. To support NAMI's mission, please visit nami.org to donate today, or for help in a crisis, text NAMI-2741741. If you were to ask me what the most important machine for industrialization was, you might expect me to say the steam engine, or the spinning genie, or the seed drill, and don't get me wrong, all of them were very important.
But I'd say the most important machine was something that came earlier, the mechanical clock. As I mentioned in chapter 2, mechanical clocks were first put in monasteries in the 14th century. Smaller spring-based clocks began appearing in the 16th century, and Galileo came up with a pendulum clock concept in the 17th century. Also in the 17th century, clocks started triggering bells that could alert the whole town to the new time.
These various kinds of clocks had three major impacts on the development of industrialization. First of all, they greatly improved our systems of transportation and communication. At first, this was in the form of navigation, allowing Europeans to build their global empires and invest in war capitalism. But it was time for rest, it was also applied to the railroads and telegraph infrastructure going up.
And yeah, we're going to get into the myriad of implications that had down the road. Second, clocks created a new sense of urgency in the new factory system. In the old days, time management was task-oriented. You milked to your cows or tended to your fire according to the position of the sun in the sky.
You didn't have to rush because, well, who did you have to answer to? Yourself. Farmers and cottage industry workers didn't have to worry too much about their time management simply because their time was largely their own. Before the industrial revolution, workers tended to work hard for about 6-12 hours at a time, Wednesday through Saturday.
Sunday they take off for the Sabbath in the morning, followed by drinking in the evening. Monday they referred to as Saint Monday, a day they took off from work to drink. Those towns that really enjoyed Saint Monday often went ahead and celebrated Saint Tuesday too, and I think you can guess what happened on Saint Tuesday. That all changed when folks stopped working for themselves and started working in the factory of a capitalist.
Now it was the capitalist's time, and he got to decide how you spent it. And that meant he was going to get as much of your labor out of that time as he could. During the capitalist who made this the norm was our friend from last week, Josiah Wedgwood. At Aturia, he started a new tactic that would soon become commonplace throughout the working world, making employees clock in to the job.
Those who showed up late for their shift would be docked pay. The hourly wage was born. In fact, it was the world view about time that was changing. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin published a note in his poor Richard Zulmanak about a woman with a shoemaker husband who liked to spend his time in the local ale house.
Quote, in vain did she inculcate to him that time is money. The story was recounted to Franklin by a lunar society member named John Whitehurst. And Whitehurst was behind the third reason, why the clock was so important to the development of industrialization. He was a clockmaker.
And as a clockmaker, he had to learn a great deal about mechanical engineering. It sent him down a personal path of practical scientific growth. He advanced knowledge in physics, mineralogy, pneumatics, hydraulics, waste and measurements, and geology. In the process, not only did he make clocks, but thermometers, barometers, and navigational instruments, including a precision compass.
James Watt was a similar sort who applied his clockmaking skills to building the first useful steam engine. And so began a new legacy in Great Britain, that of men who built the machines and the tools of the future. This is the Industrial Revolutions, Chapter 14, The Machine Makers. A few administrative notes before we begin.
The website, www.industrialrevolutionspod.com has been updated in some significant ways. First of all, you may know that I have a blog role for all the episodes that get published. On it, I include the audio file, some episode notes, and my sources for the episode. Well, now you can also get the transcript for each episode.
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But the differences between what I read in the episodes and what I write beforehand are pretty few and far between. Second of all, there's a new sponsors page of the website. This will be a place you can go to shop online with vendors who provide a commission to the Industrial Revolutions. Use the links on that page, and when you make a purchase, the podcast will get a small percentage that keeps it up and running.
Thank you. Shortly after the end of the first Industrial Revolution, Great Britain hosted a Great Exhibition. Organized by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, it was called the Great Exhibition of the works of industry of all nations. The world was recognizing the technological and commercial advancements that had just taken place over the previous 80s and years.
And as I write this, I realize we should devote a whole episode to the Great Exhibition at some point. Anyway, one of the attendees was a guy by the name of Alfred Charles Hobbes. An American locksmith, Hobbes had made a name for himself back in Boston by showing bank managers that their locks weren't all that difficult to pick, and they should really just buy one of his. At the Exhibition was a lock that had gone unpicked by this point for 67 years.
In fact, it had a challenge written on it. The artist who can make an instrument that will pick or open this lock shall receive 200 guineas the moment it is produced. Hobbes accepted the challenge. The lock had 470 million possible combinations.
It took him a total of 52 hours over the course of 14 days, but eventually he got it open. It proved both his brilliance, and at the same time, the security of that lock. Because no burglar, even a master lock picker, could reasonably get in if it takes two weeks to pick it. Hobbes received his reward of 200 guineas, paid out by the brothers running the shop that held the lock.
It had been designed way back in 1777 by their father, Joseph Brahma. Born in 1748, Brahma was the son of a farmer up in Yorkshire. He was a parentist to a cabinet maker and then moved to London to set up his own shop. As it turned out, Brahma was something of a prolific inventor.
Among his inventions was an engine for pumping beer out of barrels into taps, a planing machine, a machine for making paper, a machine for printing bank notes with sequential serial numbers, and a fountain pen. He also came up with an improved version of a flushing toilet, something a Scottish watchmaker named Alexander Cummingham made possible a few years earlier, but was still prone to freezing in cold temperatures. Brahma finagled a solution to that problem. Not only did thousands of such toilets go into use across the country, it's also still more or less the design of the toilets we use today.
Okay, a quick time out to appreciate the importance of this achievement. Up until this point, humans have relied on medieval-style privies and outhouses. These new water closets could get rid of the foul smells and prevent a buildup of human waste in the streets, and as industrialization created urbanization, the spread of the flushing toilet would only get more and more important. But perhaps Brahma's most significant invention was the hydraulic press, which uses a pair of cylinders with pistons to create a huge amount of pressure.
Today, it allows us to flatten sheet metal, make powders, thin glass, and just generally smash stuff, like cars. If you're not familiar with the hydraulic press, pause this episode and go over to the hydraulic press channel on YouTube. It's an amazing channel, with videos of a hydraulic press smashing everything you can imagine. Anvils, bowling balls, dynamite, just don't try it at home.
Now, the hydraulic press is an excellent example of the new machines coming out of this era, machines with totally industrial purposes. But it was Brahma's work as a locksmith that would really help rein in this era. Brahma was awarded a patent for his nearly unpickable lock in 1784, and that same year started his new company, Brahma Locks, setting up shop at 124 Piccadilly in the heart of London. In an age of increasing wealth among the upper classes, including the new growing bourgeoisie, but an age of increasing destitution among the working classes, theft wasn't ever increasing problem.
As a result, it was a good time to be a locksmith, and Brahma made a fortune. Over the next five years, his Brahma Locks would become among the most sought after. But the lock had a super complicated design, requiring about 100 separate small metal pieces. To meet the demand for his locks, Brahma would need to find a way to mass produce them with absolute precision.
Then, in 1789, the 40-year-old Brahma made an 18-year-old, middle-working prodigy who would forever change Brahma's business, and really, the world. His name was Henry Modsley. Yes, you probably remember Henry Modsley from last week's episode. He was the guy Samuel Bentham brought into the Portsmouth Black Mills Project to build a machine's envisioned by Mark Isambard Runell.
Born in Woolridge, Modsley had grown up on the docks. His father was a munitions laborer for the Royal Navy's arsenal there. And when Henry was 12 years old, his father got him a job as a powder monkey, loading gunpowder into shells. But then, Modsley became a parentist to a blacksmith, and he was so good at his work that he became something of a local legend.
Among the men who heard the legend of young Henry Modsley was a German-born blacksmith named William Moody, who Brahma had recently brought in to advise on how to mass-produce the Brahma lock. So, Moody recommended Modsley to Brahma. And what Modsley came up with for him was game-changing, a new kind of lathe. Now that might not sound too game-changing at first, lathes have been around since antiquity.
It's a machine in which a tool, like a drill or a sanding surface, is connected and turned on an axis of rotation. As a result, there is symmetry to the drilling or the cutting or the sanding of the object. The problem was, the old lathes were made of wood, and so they would shake while in use and they'd wear out pretty fast. They were also usually operated by a foot pedal, which could be a problem if the lathe operator wasn't consistent in his pedaling.
Modsley introduced two major changes to the lathe. One, his lathe would be made entirely of iron. It would operate steadily, and it was much more durable. Two, his lathe would be powered not by foot or hand, but by a steam engine.
That meant there would be nearly perfect consistency in the work. It was able to get an exact number of revolutions per minute, time after time. With the new lathe, came a previously unimaginable degree of precision. It allowed Brahma's company to cut precise screws for his locks.
It's possible that Modsley also created a new rotary file along these lines, which could shape some of the small metal parts. Over the years, Modsley proved to be an ingenious and devoted employee to Brahma, helping him with all kinds of other inventions, including the planning machine and the hydraulic press. But by 1797, Modsley was still only earning 30 shillings a week, and after marrying one of the servant girls in the Brahma shop and building a family with her, he needed a raise. In a moment, Brahma would later regret, he refused, and so, Modsley quit.
Ultimately, Brahma was in the business of selling locks, and Modsley had discovered a higher column, building the industrial tools of the future. He set up shop near Oxford Street before moving into a larger location at Kevin-Dish Square. Among other things, his company joined the efforts of Mark and Bentham, building new woodworking machines for the Portsmouth blocknails. He would also go on to work with Mark on an underground tunnel that would go beneath the river Thames.
Modsley and his company made the tunnel in shields and pumps, although Modsley wouldn't live to see the tunnel completed. Still used by the London Underground today, the Thames tunnel is just on the river from Tower Bridge. Modsley's bread and butter, though, came from building marine steam engines for the new shifts of the Royal Navy, starting in 1815. Inspired by Robert Fulton's work in America, the Brits were finally ready to apply this technology to their own water vessels.
But perhaps his most significant invention was an improved micrometer. First invented back in the 1630s, and then improved by James Watt in the 1760s, the micrometer measures short distances, like really short distances. Modsley invented the first bench micrometer that could accurately measure objects to the nearest one-thousandth of an inch. He called it the Lord Chancellor, because in the British legal system, the Lord Chancellor is the highest authority.
Therefore, if you needed to know exactly how long the threads of your screw were, you were best off consulting Modsley's Lord Chancellor, because there was no higher authority. As a result of his inventions, Modsley just about perfected the manufacturing of machine parts, including bolts, nuts, and screws. But Modsley was not the last of the great tool makers of the age. In fact, over the years, he trained several engineers whose accomplishments would rival his own.
It's hard to say how many industrial engineers Henry Modsley trained, but one of the earliest notable ones was David Napier. Born in a town on the 4th of Clyde, northwest of Glasgow, Napier was from an Iron Smithing family. It's not known exactly when, but at some point in his late teens or early twenties, he moved south to London, where Modsley hired him. After working for Modsley, he started his own precision engineering company, where he produced machines for sugar manufacturing, printing, and the manufacturing of guns and bullets.
He also made a coin weighing machine for the Bank of England. In 1848, his son joined him and the company was named the Napier and son. Later on, that company would be one of the first, making motors and aircraft engines. Another mudslide trainee was Joseph Clement, the son of a hand-loom weaver from Westmoreland.
Initially, Clement followed his father in weaving, but outside of the new mills going up, it was a dying industry. So instead, he went into metalwork and eventually moved south to London. There, he was initially hired by Brahma as a draftsman. But when Brahma died in 1814, he got picked up by Modsley.
With Modsley, Clement helped design some of the first marine steam engines. He eventually left to make lathes and other woodworking machines. At one point, he was actually hired by Charles Babbage to help design and build the difference engine, a mechanical calculator and a precursor to Babbage's later analytical engine, the world's first mechanical computer. Then, there was the Welshman, Richard Roberts.
The son of a shoemaker, Roberts had received his basic education from a local priest and some draftsman training from a road surveyor for Thomas Telford. Before moving to London, Roberts had worked as a boatman on Telford's Elsmere Canal, as well as in a quarry and as a pattern maker at an ironworks. But as the Napoleonic Wars were raging, he was drafted for the local militia, a draft he dodged. He first went to Liverpool, then Manchester, before finally getting as far from the authorities as he could to London.
Modsley hired him there as a fitter and turner, and Roberts soaked up Muncley's philosophy about accuracy in mechanization. After leaving Muncley's shop, Roberts became a prolific mechanical engineer. He made huge advancements in machine tools, including rotary cutters, planers, and a tool for punching rivet holes in iron plates. He also went into textile manufacturing, inventing a new power loom for weaving and a self-acting spinning mule.
He also developed a partnership with Thomas and John Sharp, called Sharp Roberts & Company, which went on to make locomotives, iron ships, iron bridges, and turret clocks. Perhaps the most famous of Modsley's assistance was Joseph Whitworth. The son of a non-conformist minister, Whitworth had served as an apprentice to his uncle, who ran a cotton-spinning mill in Derbyshire. Whitworth was fascinated by the machinery in the mill, and he set his mind to learning about mechanics as a result.
It was hoped he would become a partner in the mill, but Whitworth had grander ambitions. He eventually moved to London where Modsley hired him. In Modsley's shop, Whitworth shined as a mechanic. Not only did he help with the development of several precision tools, he also created a new way to cast the iron parts for Modsley's machines that made them lighter but sturdier.
After leaving Modsley's firm, Whitworth continued making new lathes, and he helped Clement with his work on the difference engine. His developments with plane technology were perhaps the most impressive. He was able to flatten metal parts about as much as they could be flattens before the development of micro-technology in the 20th century. One of the most significant things he did was introduce a new kind of rifle, the Whitworth rifle, to replace the muskets of the past.
Not only was this 451-caliber rifle smaller and lighter, but the barrel included a 1-20-inch twist inside. As a result, the bullet would spin as a left to the barrel, creating a more stable flight. Rifles could now fire with significantly greater accuracy. The concept of sharpshooting and sniping was born.
And in the coming Crimean and American Civil Wars, the body counts would be alarming, to say the least. But what Whitworth was most famous for was something called British Standard Whitworth, BSW. Up until this point, different machine tool makers used different designs for their tools. For the end-users, really anyone involved with industry at this point, it was maddening.
If you had a steam engine made by company X, for example, and one of the screws was damaged, it could only be replaced with a screw provided by company X, or the vendor for company X. Otherwise, the screw wouldn't fit. Along with Clement, Roberts, and other muskly alumni, Whitworth was a strong proponent for standardizing such parts, nuts, bolts, and screws. So in 1841, he sat down and wrote up what he thought should be the standards.
Screw threads he decided should be set at a 55-degree angle, with very specific depths and radii. By the 1870s, as the railroads were becoming increasingly frustrated with the different systems being used, they said, yeah, Whitworth was right, and by the 1890s, everyone was using BSW. In the years since, it's been replaced by a new standard based on the metric system, British Standard Pipe, except in the US and Canada, because, come on, we're American, we refuse to use any and all metric systems. But even though it's not metric, we too use a standardized system, and these systems have created a world where mass production of standard, interchangeable parts have allowed us to build an array of complex machines, from airplanes and industrial equipment to cars and household appliances.
For Whitworth's contributions to science and industry, as well as his charity and his support of education, he was knighted, awarded the Elbert Medal, and eventually elevated to a baronage. Then, there's one of the last of Mosley's proteges. Remember Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, the banker who first worked with William Cimington to build steamboats up in Scotland? Well, before he met Cimington, he'd arranged a loan for a painter named Alexander Naismeth to travel to Italy to learn from the great artists there.
When he returned, Naismeth was a great portraitist, and his career saw him put Scotland's incredible landscapes to canvas. He also painted a few portraits of his friend, the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. In all, Naismeth had six daughters and two sons. His eldest son and his six daughters all followed their father and became notable artists, but his youngest son, James, was more geared toward mechanics.
As a child, James loved tinkering and building models. He even went so far as to set up a mini foundry in his bedroom, casting small metal parts. And yeah, I'm guessing that probably drove the family crazy. By the time he was 17, James had heard tales of Mosley's innovative workshop in London, and he begged his father to send him there for an apprenticeship.
But it was an apprenticeship his father was unable to afford. So instead, the young Naismeth built his own high-pressure steam engine and took it down to London to show Mosley, hoping it would land him a job. Mosley did hire him as an assistant workman, earning ten shillings a week. Even though Mosley died just two years later, Naismeth would continue to work for his firm and continue learning.
In the 1830s, he moved to Manchester and started his own firm with a clerk named Holbrooke Gaskell. Together, Naismeth Gaskell and Company built one of the premier factories of the first industrial revolution, the Bridgewater Foundry. No name to because it was situated off the Bridgewater Canal. The Foundry made huge machine tools, including hydraulic presses, shapers, planers, and Naismeth's most important inventions, the steam hammer, and the pile driver.
Naismeth loved machines. He once wrote of them that machines, quote, never got drunk, their hands never shook from excess, they were never absent from work, they did not strike for wages, they were unfailing in their accuracy and regularity. This is going to become a theme we return to regularly throughout this podcast. The age of the machine was underway, and it would produce story after story of machines not just supplementing human beings in their labour, but replacing them, and we'll see these stories in work stoppages, and in romantic ballads, and in science fiction.
But before we go there, I want to stay on the trunk of the tree, and I want to focus on one more area of scientific advancement that was driving new developments in industrialization. Chemistry. Next week on the Industrial Revolutions. A quick reminder to sign up for the email newsletter at www.industrialrevolutionspod.com, and to follow the podcast on social media at www.inderevpod.com, that's at i-n-v-r-e-v-o-d on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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