Read Ebook: The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens With a Description of the Manufacturing Process by Which They Are Produced by Bore Henry

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Herr Ignaz Nagel, in his "Report on Writing, Drawing, and Painters' Requisites," at the Vienna Exhibition, 1873, says:

"From careful inquiries that we made in Birmingham, we learned that a knife cutler, of Sheffield, was the first man who had the idea of making pens of steel, and that a tinman of the name of Skipper , of Sheffield, afterwards manufactured the pens in great quantities. His son developed the idea still further. This, according to our informant, was fifty years ago. A steel pen artisan, working in Birmingham, remembers perfectly well reading the announcement in a window of the High Street, in Sheffield, 1816: 'Steel pens are repaired here at sixpence apiece.' There was a man named Spittle, in Birmingham, who used to make steel pens by hand. He was succeeded by the brothers John and William Mitchell, who were manufacturers of steel pens, wholesale and by machinery, about forty- five years ago. Perry came afterwards, and took out a patent for the first steel pens, and after him Gillott, who had learnt the business with the Mitchells."

"The first decided attempt to introduce metallic pens to general use was made by Mr. Wise, whose perpetual pens will doubtless be remembered by many of our readers. The name of Wise was rendered conspicuous in most of our stationers' shops some twenty-five or thirty years since, as the original inventor and general manufacturer of the steel pens."

We stated at the beginning of this article that of three men-- Mitchell, Gillott, and Mason--who might have done something toward fixing the date of the invention of manufacturing pens by the adaptation of tools worked by the screw press, only one--Mason--made a statement:

"The first making of steel pens that I know of was about the year 1780, by my late friend Mr. Harrison, for Dr. Priestley. He took sheet steel, made a tube of it, and the part joined formed the slit of the pen. He then filed away the barrel and formed the pen. I found some of the identical pens amongst other articles and used them for a long time.

"The second mode of making pens was by punching a rough blank out of thin sheet steel. This blank formed the well-known barrel pen. It was brought into the barrel shape by rounding, but before rounding it had to be filed into a better form about the nib, and when rounded in the soft state, a sharp chisel was used to mark the inside of the pen which became the slit, after hardening. Before tempering, this mark was 'tabbered' with a small hammer, and it would crack where the inside mark was made. Then it was tempered and underwent grinding, and shaping the nib until a point suitable for fine or broad, as required.

"I made steel barrel pens some time before I made 'slip' pens for Perry.

"The first stick pen holders I made for Perry in 1832, and for Gillott in 1835, and sold sticks to Gillott in 1840--L.293 18s. 7d."

Mason claimed to have made barrel pens for Perry, of London, in 1828, and "slip or nibbed" pens in 1829; but he does not appear to have made any claim to priority of invention over Mitchell and Gillott.

"The remarks which have appeared in a local paper upon the death of Mr. J. Gillott, that the steel pen owes its existence to him, and that the adaptation of machinery to the manufacture of metallic pens was his invention, lead the public to wrong conclusions. It is due to the memory of my late father--John Mitchell--that I should state that he not only made steel pens, but used machinery in their production, for some time before Mr. Gillott commenced in that branch of business." --HENRY MITCHELL, January 12, 1872.

"You review, in your impression of the 23d inst., a work entitled 'British Manufacturing Industries--the Birmingham Trades,' in which the history of steel pens forms a prominent chapter. I beg to point out that my late father's name--John Mitchell--is certainly mentioned in a list of the manufacturers of the article, and, to my great surprise, simply so. In a part of the work the author states that 'The early history of steel pens is involved in obscurity.' My object in writing to you is to remove that obscurity, as I am satisfied you will be equally desirous of giving honor to whom honor is due. I claim that honor for my late father--John Mitchell--who was the first to introduce the making of steel pens by means of tools, which were purely his own invention, and I will leave it to an enlightened public to judge if it is not one of the greatest benefits conferred on any civilized community. Whatever others may have done does not remove the fact that the inventor I have named was my father; and it is only due to him that posterity should know who originated the means whereby millions of human beings of the present time, and generations yet unborn are, and will be, enabled to communicate their thoughts to each other with a facility they otherwise would not have had. For, unless the steel pen had been manufactured by tools and machinery, that useful article would virtually be at a prohibitory price. The date of the invention I believe to be 1822 or thereabouts."

This is very emphatic; but how far may it be taken as an unprejudiced statement of facts? Well, it has never been contradicted; and Gillott never made a claim on his own behalf, as having made pens before Mitchell. Mason gave the year 1828 as the date when he commenced making pens, so that the evidence is in favor of Mitchell.

Leaving the honor of having originated the application of labor-saving machinery for the manufacture of steel pens to Mitchell, it would appear that the merit of having popularized the article is due to Perry. In 1830, Mr. James Perry issued a circular containing a series of engravings of metallic pens, showing the improvements he had patented in their manufacture. In this circular it is stated: "Till about six months ago the public had heard little of metallic pens. At present, it would seem that comparatively few of any other kind are in the hands of any class of the community. This sudden transition may clearly be traced to the announcement of the Patent Perryian Pens in various periodicals, about six months ago, and to the general demand which ensued for that pen in every part of the empire,"

Mr. Sam: Timmins, in 1866, writes:

"No skill in manufacture, however, could conquer the prejudice against any metallic pen, and to Mr. James Perry the world is much indebted for persevering advocacy of the steel pen, and for one of the most important improvements in its form. Mr. Perry, with his characteristic energy, almost forced the steel pen into use, and was supplied with pens of a first-class quality by Mr. Josiah Mason, of this town."

To the writers of the present generation, who can purchase fairly-good pens at one shilling or one shilling and sixpence per gross, it seems hard to realize that people once gave one shilling each for substitutes for quills. It is true that quills could then be bought for a halfpenny and penny each, but how difficult it was to acquire the art of successfully manipulating the same into a pen the following anecdote from "Edwards' Life of Rowland Hill" will testify:

"Mrs. Sinkinson, of Jamaica Row, Birmingham, tells me she went to a school in Hurst Street, and that she remembered that old Mr. Hill came one day a week to teach arithmetic, and Rowland on another to teach writing. In those days there were no steel pens, and Rowland couldn't mend a pen, so that whenever he came he was accompanied by his brother, Matthew Davenport, whose office it was to mend the pens used by the pupils the preceding week."

Sir Josiah Mason used to relate a similar circumstance in his own life, when at Kidderminster, that he accompanied his brother Richard, who was a Sunday-school teacher, to mend the pens.

Tom Hood, in his "Whims and Oddities," gives some idea of the pre-steel-pen era:

"In times begone, when each man cut his quill, With little Perryian skill; What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade Appeared the writing instruments, home made! What pens were sliced, hewed, hacked, and haggled out, Slit or unslit, with many a various snout, Aquiline, Roman, crooked, square, and snubby, Humpy and stubby; Some capable of ladye-billets neat, Some only fit for ledger-keeping clerk, And some to grub down, Peter Stubbs, his mark, Or smudge through some illegible receipt, Others in florid caligraphic plans, Equal to ships, and wiggy heads, and swans! To try in any common inkstands then, With all their miscellaneous stocks, To find a decent pen, Was like a dip into a lucky-box; You drew, and got one very curly, And split like endive in some hurly-burly; The next unslit, a square at end, a spade; The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made; The fourth a broom; the fifth of no avail, Turned upwards, like a rabbit's tail; And last, not least, by way of a relief, A stump that Master Richard, James, or John Had tried his candle cookery upon, Making 'roast beef!'"

Looking back at the early operations of the trade, and considering that steel pens were made by hand at the beginning of the present century, we can scarcely understand why the idea of cheapening the production by the application of labor-saving contrivances did not occur to those inventive geniuses, the proprietors of Soho. Boulton had expended some time in perfecting the manufacture of steel buttons. That local Admirable Crichton, Humphrey Jefferies, does not appear to have ever directed his attention to the manufacture of this article, which has now become a prime necessity of civilization. Yet we hear of his success in the improvement of buttons, and button-makers must have used the screw press and tools for cutting out the blank and shaping it into form; and the process of slitting had been anticipated, for printers had a brass rule-cutting machine in use, the cutters of which bore a strong resemblance to those now used for slitting steel pens. Like most of the pioneers in the path of invention, the majority of the early makers of pens were men whose business pursuits gave them no special facilities for entering upon the manufacture of steel pens. The progress of the trade from 1829 had been gradual, but satisfactory. In one of Gillott's early advertisements, he stated that he made 490,361 gross in 1842, and 730,031 in 1843. This was an advance by leaps and bounds which has not since been maintained. Although Mason commenced making pens for Perry in the year 1828, yet it was not till 1861 that his name became known in England as a steel-pen maker. Many merchants in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, who purchased steel rings from him, had no idea that he was a maker of pens; yet on the Continent of Europe pens bearing his name were eagerly sought after. Subsequent to 1861 he was associated with Perry, until, in 1876, the trade-marks, patents, etc., were purchased by a limited liability company, who now, under the name of "Perry & Co.," have become the largest manufacturers of pens in the world.

At the present time there are thirteen firms engaged in the trade in Birmingham, and they make up about twenty-four tons of steel per week into pens and penholder tips. Making due allowance for the material used in the latter article, this consumption would probably represent a weekly average production of 200,000 grosses of pens. The Birmingham penmakers employ about 3,500 women and girls, and 650 men and boys; and besides these the number of women and girls working at making paper boxes, in which the pens are packed, would probably exceed 300. In addition to this there are several mills where steel is rolled for those firms who have not sufficient power on their own premises, but there is a difficulty in stating the number of hands employed. The wages of the females range from four shillings to fifteen shillings; those of the boys from five shillings to ten shillings. The unskilled workmen earn from twelve shillings to twenty-four shillings; and skilled men, or toolmakers, command wages varying from twenty-five shillings to three pounds. Most of the females work upon the piece-work system, but the men are paid weekly wages.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES OF STEEL PENS.

The steel from which the greater part of the metallic pens are manufactured comes from Sheffield. Notwithstanding the many names given by the venders of steel pens to the material from which they are manufactured there are but two sorts--good and bad--and therefore Peruvian, Damascus, Amalgam, and Silver Steel are but fancy names. As a matter of fact, where a number of prefixes are used to describe the quality of an article it is generally found to have no claim to any of them.

The raw material is received from Sheffield in sheets six feet in length, one foot five inches in width, and 23 or 26 Birmingham wire-gauge in thickness. The first operation is the cutting of these sheets into strips of convenient width. They are then packed in an oblong iron box, placed with the open top downward in another box of the same material, and the interstices are filled up with a composition to exclude the air. The boxes are placed in a muffle, where they remain until they have gradually attained a dull red heat, and the muffle is allowed to gradually cool, or else the boxes are placed in a cooling chamber. When the boxes have been reduced to a temperature which will admit of their being handled, the contents are emptied out. Now, it will be found that the strips of steel are covered with bits of small scale, sticking to them like a loose skin, and if this were not removed before the next process--rolling--the steel, instead of being perfectly smooth, would be marked with a number of indentations, rendering it very unsightly. In order to get rid of this excrescence, the strips are immersed in a bath of diluted sulphuric acid, which loosens the scale, and are then placed in wood barrels to which broken pebbles and water are added. The barrels are kept revolving until the whole of the scaly substance has been removed and the strips have assumed a silver-gray appearance. The steel is now ready for manipulation in the rolling mill, where it is passed between successive pairs of rolls until it has been reduced to the required gauge, and this operation has to be performed with such nicety that a variation of one thousand part of an inch in the thickness of the strip would make such an alteration in the flexibility of the pens made from it as to cause considerable dissatisfaction to the purchasers of the article.

The article has now the shape and appearance of a finished pen, and yet it possesses none of its characteristics, and, if tried, will be found to have no more action than a lead pencil, as it is deficient in that important part of a writing instrument--the slit. Before being slit the pen is ground between the centre pierce and the point. This process is performed by girls, with the aid of what is called a "bob" or "glazer." The "bob" is a circular piece of alder wood about ten and a half inches in diameter and half an inch in width. Round this a piece of leather is stretched and dressed with emery. A spindle is driven through the centre, and the two ends placed in sockets. The "bob" is set in motion by means of a leather band, and the girl holding a pen firmly, with a light touch grinds off a portion of the surface.

Now, although this operation completes the mechanical processes of pen making, the article is by no means finished. If you examine the pen now you will find that the outer edge of each point is smooth, while the inside edges which have just been made by the slit are sharp and scratch. To remove this defect the operation of "barreling" has to be again resorted to. The pens are again placed in the iron barrels with pounded pot, kept revolving from five to six hours, and finally polished in sawdust.

The pens are now of a bright silver-steel color and perfectly smooth, but as they are required in various tints, they are colored and afterward varnished to prevent rust. To accomplish the first of these results the articles are placed in a copper or iron cylinder and kept revolving over a coke fire until the requisite tint is obtained, the color depending upon the temperature of the cylinder. If the pens are intended to be lacquered they are placed in a solution of shellac dissolved in methylated spirits. The spirit is drained off, and the pens are placed in wire cylinders and kept revolving until the action of the air dries the lacquer. They are then scattered upon iron trays, inserted in an oven, and the heat diffuses the lacquer equally over the surface of the pens, so that when they have cooled down they have a glossy appearance, which gives to them an air of finish and prevents rust.

We have now traced the manufacture of this little article from its beginning as a plain piece of steel through all its stages until it has developed into that indispensable requisite of daily life--a pen.

HISTORY OF THE PERRYIAN PEN WORKS.

On the spot forming the principal entrance to the works, Mr. Samuel Harrison, in the year 1778, founded a manufactory in which he carried on his invention of steel split rings; but Mr. Harrison, who was an ingenious mechanic, also manufactured mathematical instruments, some of which were used by Dr. Priestley in his researches, and on one occasion he made a steel pen for Dr. Priestley, probably the first steel pen ever produced. Mr. Josiah Mason succeeded to the business of Mr. Harrison in 1823, and in 1828 began the manufacture of steel pens. For several years he gave his whole attention to improvements in the manufacture of steel pens, and Mr. Perry took out several most important patents for the improvement of steel pens, many of which have not been surpassed in ingenuity or in utility, and the principal among them, the so-called "double patent," is universally applied by the pen trade to a great number of pens to this very day. In 1842 Mr. Mason's attention was absorbed by the process of electroplating and gilding, at that time invented and carried on by Mr. Elkington, in partnership with whom he founded the great firm of Elkington, Mason & Co. For some years the production of pens flagged, but in 1852 a nephew of Sir Josiah Mason, Mr. Isaac Smith , gave a new stimulus to the manufacture of pens, and from that time the production gradually increased until it assumed its present proportions. The manufactory now covers nearly two acres; it occupies a whole square and fronts four streets. In the building fronting Lancaster Street the offices, warehouses and storerooms of finished goods are distributed. The underground floor forms a huge machine shop, in which all the presses, rolls, and general iron and machine work employed throughout the manufactory are produced by skillful mechanics. Behind the front building there are several courtyards and quadrangles, in the largest of which are placed in a row five double-flue boilers, each 20 feet long by 7 feet diameter, working at a pressure of more than 55 lb. to the square inch, supplying the steam power both for propelling the steam engines and for heating the manufactory. In the rolling mill, measuing 64 by 38 feet, three double-cylinder engines, working up to 293 indicated horsepower, give motion to 18 pairs of rolls, rolling four to six tons of steel per week. The largest workshops are the slitting and grinding rooms, 64 by 38 feet, the latter 24 feet high. In the slitting room 90 girls apply the last mechanical process to the manufacture of steel pens, in slitting them by presses of ingenious construction. In the grinding room more than 160 girls are busily employed cross and straight grinding steel pens on wood cylinders covered with emery. The room in which the finished pens are placed in boxes measures 54 by 30 feet, and in it alone are employed 50 girls boxing and labeling steel pens, or fitting penholder tips on handles of various materials, principally of cedar. In that part of the building having a frontage on Corporation Street there is a dining room 86 feet 6 inches long by 68 feet wide, fitted up with tables to accommodate 600 people. Here the employees are served with a warm dinner at prices varying from 2d. to 6d. At one end of the room there is a stage, where dramatic entertainments and concerts are given in the winter season by the workpeople. At the other end there is a library, in a glazed partition, containing about 2,000 volumes of standard works. These books are issued to the hands employed by the firm free. One of the important features of this manufactory is the employment of muffles heated by gas produced from Siemens's gas generators. These muffles allow the heat to be regulated to a nicety, and enable the company to carry on the process of annealing and hardening to very great perfection.

The manufacture of steel pens employs in all about 900 workpeople, the weekly production is 45,000 gross, which quantity will shortly be increased to 50,000 gross, per week. Six smaller steam engines are employed independently of those already mentioned in various parts of the works. The manufacture of penholder sticks is carried on in two separate buildings. Penholder sticks were produced by Mr. Mason as far back as 1835, but their manufacture had lapsed; it was only resumed eight years ago, since which time, by new and ingenious machinery, principally the inventions of Mr. W. E. Wiley, the managing director, it has assumed proportions of great magnitude.

The pencil case and solitaire works carried on by Mr. Wiley, first alone, and then in co-partnership with his son in Graham Street, have now been transferred to Lancaster Street.

Pencil cases, first introduced by Messrs. Mordan & Lund, in London, have undergone various changes and improvements, the principal of which was a lead holder passing through the point of the pencil case, which was slit for that purpose. This invention was patented by Mr. Wiley in the year 1857, and created a complete revolution in the pencil-case trade, as it enabled the manufacturers to use a thicker and longer lead, which could be propelled and withdrawn at will and would last in daily use more than six months. This patented mechanism was introduced into cases made from hard wood, bone and ivory, but since the year 1868 a composition called aluminium gold, so resembling gold that it cannot be distinguished from it, and resisting the effects of oxidation, consequently free from tarnish, made a further revolution in the pencil-case trade, enabling the million to possess an elegant and highly-wrought pencil case at a very moderate price. Messrs. Perry & Co., of London, gave to this manufacture publicity in every part of Europe, and the quantities produced and sold are incredible.

In 1874 a new patent was added to the many inventions for which this establishment was famous. Its purpose was to produce a solitaire stud made in two parts, so as to enable its ready application without the trouble of passing a button of large diameter through a small buttonhole. A self-acting steel spring is fixed in the upper part of the stud, and snaps as soon as inserted into the lower part, where a slight pressure on two projections releases the springs and permits the separation of the two parts. These solitaires are manufactured of gold, silver, and a variety of other metals, the principal of which is gold plate. There are now more than five hundred patterns in existence, and this useful manufacture grows daily in extension. Perry & Co.'s paper binders, an article now universally used for fastening together loose papers, cloth patterns, etc., are produced in infinite styles and sizes, principally by self-acting machinery.

The total number of workpeople employed in the company's manufactories exceeds 1,300.

The business of Perry & Co. was carried on for more than forty years at 37 Red Lion Square, London, but the increase of business and the reconstruction of London required that a more central position should be found for the development of the commercial department of the company. Large and handsome warehouses having been constructed on the Holborn Viaduct, the company transferred their London depot to a building five stories high on the side fronting the Holborn Viaduct and eight stories high at the back. In this immense warehouse are stored not only the produce of the manufactories of this company, but also special articles for which this firm has been famous for the last thirty years, principally the elastic or endless bands, patented by Mr. Daft and Mr. Stephen Perry, and originally introduced by Perry & Co. in conjunction with McIntosh & Co., afterward in conjunction with Warne & Co. Perry's Royal Aromatic Bands are now an indispensable article, and may be procured in every city of the world. Every fancy article required by stationers can be found in these vast stores. An illustrated price current which appears monthly, and which numbers more than 120 pages, gives fair idea of the variety of articles of which samples and stock can be found ready for daily delivery. The increase of business has been so rapid that the company found it necessary to lease the adjoining premises, which is stored with some of the two thousand articles forming the staple trade of the London depot, and the principal of which are the following: American Letter Files, Clips , Marking and other Inks, Aromatic Bands, Audascript Pens, Bostonite Goods, Cigar Lighters, Copying Ink and Copying Ink Powder, Copying Ink Pencils, Copying Presses, Corrugated Imperial Bands, Essence of Ink, Grease Extractors, India Rubber for Erasing, Ink and Pencil Erasers, Ink Extractors, Patent and other Inkstands in every variety, Key Rings, Letter Clips, Letter Files, Metallic Books, Paper Binders, Pencil Point Protectors, Pencils and Pencil Cases, Penholders, Pen Knives, Pen Racks, Gold Pens, Portfolios, Presses, Scotch Tartan Fancy Goods, Solitaires or Sleeve Links, etc., etc., etc.

This establishment is under the exclusive management of Mr. Joseph J. Perry, managing director.

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