Henry Maudslay

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British mechanical engineer Henry Maudslay (1771-1831), known as the father of the machine-tool industry, laid an important foundation for the Industrial Revolution by improving interchangeability andprecision in tool-making. Maudslay also made many other advancements in engine design.

Maudslay was born in Woolwich, Kent, in the southeastern part of England, on August 22, 1771. His father was a mechanic at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, and by the age of 12 Maudslay was also working at the arsenal as a "powder monkey." His task was to fill cartridges with gunpowder. In just two years, he was promoted to the joiner's shop and then apprenticed as blacksmith in the metalworking shop.

At the age of 18, Maudslay, who had developed extraordinary skills, left the arsenal to work with Joseph Bramah, a pioneer in hydraulics and locksmith work. Bramah, the inventor of the first unpickable lock, soon noted Maudslay's talent and within a short time promoted him to foreman. Maudslay worked with Bramah from 1789 to 1798, then left after a dispute over wages to form his own business.

Building Blocks

At 27, Maudslay opened his first engineering shop off Oxford Street in London, relocating four years later to a facility on Margaret Street. His first big job was a commission from Marc Isambard Brunel and Samuel Bentham for the production of 43 machines that could manufacture wooden blocks, or pulleys, for the British Admiralty to use at the Royal Dockyards in Portsmouth. The block-making machinery consisted of metal tooling machines that cut wood and were organized in an assembly line fashion. Reciprocating saws, circular saws, boring tools, milling machines, and lathes, run on power from a 30-horsepower steam engine, were used to build blocks in three sizes.

Built at Portsmouth over almost six years, the machine factory produced more than 130,000 new blocks every year. Ten unskilled workers could operate the machinery and accomplish the work done by 110 skilled workers prior to mechanization. Some of the blocks produced by the machinery invented by Maudslay were used in Portsmouth until the 1940s.

Developed Screw-Cutting Lathe

Maudslay's most influential invention came early in his career. In 1799 and 1800, he developed a screw-cutting lathe. The machine, which created uniformity in screws, was a revolutionary development necessary for the Industrial Revolution. Although others, including Jesse Ramsden and David Wilkinson, had constructed lathes prior to Maudslay, Maudslay's instrument offered improvements in durability, functionality, and precision by including a slide-rest, lead-screw, changeable gears, and an all-metal design. According to Great Engineers and Pioneers in Technology, "Maudslay's screw-cutting lathe consisted of a spindle, on which the work was mounted, connected by a series of gears to the lead screw, which propelled the sliding tool carriage." A knife-edged steel instrument that could be set at any angle determined the pitch of the screw or the angle at which the grooves were cut. A softer metal bar was revolved while being cut by the sliding tool bar that held the cutting tool. Because the lathe operated on a spindle, it could advance at a constant rate, thus creating grooves that were uniform in depth, angle, and spacing.

Before the development of Maudslay's lathe, which became the first to be used widely in manufacturing, each screw or bolt was a unique item that had to be matched with a unique nut. Every bolt and every nut had to be marked as a matching pair. The process of matching bolts and nuts in the construction of complicated machinery proved to be time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive. Any machine that needed repair and thus required disassembly could easily become a nightmare of mismatched screws and nuts. In his autobiography, James Nasmyth, a talented engineer who worked from 1828 to 1830 as an assistant in Maudslay's shop, noted: "None but those who lived in the comparatively early days of machine manufacture can form an adequate idea of the annoyance, delay, and cost of this utter want of system, or can appreciate the vast services rendered to mechanical engineering by Mr. Maudslay, who was the first to introduce the practical measures necessary for its remedy. In his system of screw-cutting machinery, and in his taps and dies, and screw-tackle generally, he set the example, and in fact laid the foundation, of all that has since been done in this most essential branch of machine construction."

To prove the perfection of his device, Maudslay used his screw-cutting lathe to create a screw that was five feet in length and two inches in diameter, with 50 thread cuts per inch. The accompanying nut was 12 inches long and contained 600 thread cuts. Although Maudslay's early version of his lathe required a machinist to take the lathe apart to change settings, later he added design improvements that allowed the operator to alter settings by simply switching removable gears. Maudslay's original lathe is housed at the Science Museum in London.

The lathe is one of the oldest machine tools, and its use went back many centuries. Early lathes were all used to cut and form wood. Maudslay's mechanical advances were important because he developed a machine that could be used to build other machines. Because his lathe could cut and form tool steel, engineers who later improved upon his work were able to supply greatly needed consistency and precision in a wide array of industrial machine parts. Those who specialized in precision were also aided by Maudslay's advancements, including clockmakers, builders of scientific instruments such as telescopes and navigational equipment, and gunmakers.

Perfection and Precision

Maudslay, not surprisingly, was a perfectionist. He maintained careful order in his manufacturing shop, with tools, prototypes, and inventions neatly arranged. With his business growing and gaining notice, he eventually employed several hundred workers at his factory in Lambeth. Each craftsperson was supplied with standard plane surfaces, taps, and dies so that all work could be checked for accuracy and consistency. In his desire to measure his perfection, Maudslay made another advancement in mechanical science by inventing a bench micrometer with an accuracy range to 0.0001 inches, or 0.0025 millimeters.

Considered a brilliant and kind man, Maudslay took note of those with particular talent who entered his work-force. Several important mechanical engineers apprenticed under and worked with Maudslay, including Richard Roberts, Joseph Clement, James Nasmyth, and Sir Joseph Whitworth. Joshua Field, a noted designer of marine steam engines, eventually became a partner in the business. Along with Maudslay's two sons, Thomas Henry and Joseph, the business became known as Maudslay, Sons, and Field.

Engine Work

Deeply interested in engines himself, Maudslay worked closely with Field in engine design. In 1807 he was awarded a patent on the first table engine, which became a main source for compact power for years. The table engine replaced the traditional walking beam and became widely used in machine shops and aboard ships.

With the assistance of Field, Maudslay manufactured marine steam engines. The initial engines were small, with only 17-horsepower capacity, but later Maudslay's factory produced engines as large as 56 horsepower. Late in his life, Maudslay directed his craftsmen to construct two 200-horsepower engines. Both his sons and Field were quite skeptical of the directive, considering the endeavor too expensive when no customer was at hand to buy them. Nonetheless, the engines were built, and the Royal Admiralty was pursued to purchase them for the steamship, the Dee, then under construction. Maudslay was so pleased with the outcome that he commissioned Nasmyth, who had the skills of an artist, to draft a memorial portrait drawing. Seven years after Maudslay's death, his firm, which was continued for over a quarter of a century by his sons, built a 750-horse-power steam engine to power the transatlantic ship, the Great Western.

Continuous Curiosity

Besides machine tooling and steam engines, Maudslay had a vast creative interest spanning many other areas. According to Nasmyth, "Mr. Maudslay was a man of a wide range of mechanical abilities. He was always ready to enter upon any new work requiring the exercise of special skill. It did not matter whether it was machine tools, engraving dies, block machinery, or astronomical instruments." He held patents on numerous inventions, including a method of printing calico, a process of differential motion for raising weights and turning lathes (with Bryan Donkin), a process for water purification (with Robert Dickinson), and methods of removing the salt and regulating the water flow of marine boilers (with Fields).

During the final part of his life, Maudslay developed a strong interest in designing a powerful telescope after a trip to Germany offered him the chance to visit the Berlin Observatory and see powerful images of Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon. At Lambeth, he began to study the problems and difficulties in distortion associated with glass telescopes. His desire was to build a grand telescope no less than 24 inches in diameter. However, in January 1831, after visiting a sick friend in Boulogne, France, he caught a severe cold during the trip back across the English Channel. Upon arriving home, he remained bedridden for almost a month and never recovered his health. He died on February 14, 1831. Following his written instructions, he was buried in a cast iron tomb of his own design in a Woolwich churchyard. In memory of his great contributions, a statue was erected near the ferry dock in Woolwich.

Along with the many toolmaking contributions Maudslay offered to the development of mechanical science, he also influenced his generation and those that followed with his unrelenting expectations of precision and accuracy. Clearly he benefited from the work of those before him, but in many ways Maudslay's genius marked a new direction in the industrial world that opened the doors to innumerable possibilities.

Books

The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, edited by David Crystal, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 6th edition, edited by Melanie Parry, Chambers, 1997.

Daintith, John; Sarah Mitchell; and Elizabeth Tootill, A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, Volume 2, Facts on File, 1981.

Great Engineers and Pioneers in Technology, Volume 1, edited by Roland Turner and Steven L. Goulden, St. Martin's Press, 1981.

Williams, Trevor I., A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, 3rd edition, Adam and Charles Black, 1982.

Online

"Henry Maudslay," Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary,http://www.galenet.com (February 7, 2001).

"Henry Maudslay," World of Invention,http://www.galenet.com (February 7, 2001).

Nasmyth, James, The Autobiography of James Nasmyth,http://www.naesmyth.com/bio (February 7, 2001).

Not to be confused with Henry Maudsley.

"Maudslay" redirects here. For other uses, see Maudslay (disambiguation).

Henry Maudslay
Henry Maudslay
Personal information
Nationality	British
Birth date	22 August 1771
Date of death	14 February 1831
Work
Significant advance	machine tool technology

Henry Maudslay (22 August 1771 – 14 February 1831) was a British machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Bramah lock 3 Hydraulic press 4 Slide-rest lathe 5 Promotion and marriage 6 His own business 7 Screw cutting 8 Lathe design 9 Marine engines 10 Thames Tunnel 11 Later life 12 See also 13 References 14 Bibliography 15 External links

Early life

His father, also named Henry, served as a wheelwright in the Royal Engineers, but was wounded in action so he became a storekeeper at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London. There he married a young widow, Margaret Laundy. They had seven children and young Henry was the fifth. Henry’s father died in 1780. Henry began filling cartridges at the Arsenal, when he was twelve. After two years, he was transferred to a carpenter’s shop followed by a blacksmith’s forge, where at the age of fifteen he began training as a blacksmith. He seems to have specialised in the lighter, more complex kind of forge work. ^[1]

Bramah lock

Maudslay got such a good reputation for his skill that Joseph Bramah (the inventor of the hydraulic press) called for his services. Bramah had recently designed and patented an improved type of lock based on the tumbler principle. He was having difficulty in manufacturing the complex lock at an economic price. One of Bramah’s employees recommended Maudslay to him, and so he sent for him. He was surprised to discover that Maudslay was only eighteen, but the latter demonstrated his ability and was employed. He started work at Bramah’s workshop in Denmark Street, St Giles. It was Maudslay who built the lock that was displayed in Bramah’s shop window with a notice offering a reward of £200 to anyone who could pick it. It resisted all efforts for forty-seven years. Maudslay designed and made a set of special tools and machines that allowed the lock to be made at an economic price. ^[1]

Hydraulic press

Bramah had designed a hydraulic press, but was having problems sealing both the piston and the piston rod where it fitted into the cylinder. The usual method was hemp packing but the pressures were too high for this to work. Maudslay came up with the idea of a leather cup washer, which gave a perfect seal but which offered no resistance to movement when the pressure was released. The new hydraulic press henceforth worked perfectly. Maudslay had made a major contribution to the success of Bramah’s hydraulic press, but received little credit for it. ^[1]

Slide-rest lathe

At the time when Maudslay began working for Bramah, the typical lathe was worked by a treadle and the workman held the cutting tool against the part being worked on. This did not allow for precision, especially when cutting iron. Maudslay designed a tool-holder into which the cutting tool would be clamped, and which would slide on accurately planed surfaces to allow the cutting tool to move in either direction. This meant that machine components could be turned out over and over so as to match the required measurements to an accuracy never before achieved. Maudslay’s slide-rest lathe revolutionised the production of machine components. ^[1]

Promotion and marriage

Maudslay had shown himself to be so talented that he was soon made manager of Bramah’s workshop. In 1791 he married Bramah’s housemaid, Sarah Tindel. The couple were to have four sons together. Thomas Henry, the eldest, and Joseph, the youngest, subsequently joined their father in business. William, the second, became a civil engineer, being one of the founders of the Institute of Civil Engineers.

In 1797, after having worked for Bramah for eight years, Maudslay asked for an increase in his wage of only 30s a week. Bramah refused his request. This refusal determined Maudslay to set up business on his own account. ^[1]

His own business

Maudslay obtained a small shop and smithy in Wells Street, off Oxford Street. In 1800, Maudslay moved to larger premises in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square.

Following earlier work by Samuel Bentham, his first major commission was to build a series of 42 woodworking machines to produce wooden rigging blocks (each ship required thousands) for the Navy under Sir Marc Isambard Brunel. The machines were installed in the purpose-built Portsmouth Block Mills, which still survive, including some of the original machinery. The machines were capable of making 160,000 ships’ blocks a year, needing only ten men to operate them compared with 110 needed previously. This was the first well-known example of specialized machinery in an assembly line type factory. ^[1]

Screw cutting

He also developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800, allowing standardisation of screw thread sizes for the first time. This allowed the concept of interchangeability (a idea that was already taking hold) to be practically applied to nuts and bolts. Before this, all nuts and bolts had to be made as matching pairs only. This meant that when machines were disassembled, careful account had to be kept of the matching nuts and bolts ready for when reassembly took place. Maudslay standardized the screw threads used in his workshop and produced sets of taps and dies that would make nuts and bolts consistently to those standards, so that any bolt of the appropriate size would fit any nut of the same size. This was a major advance in workshop technology. ^[1]

Lathe design

Although Maudslay was not the first person to invent a slide-rest (as many writers have claimed),^[2] and may not have been the first inventor to combine a leadscrew, slide-rest, and set of change gears all on one lathe (Jesse Ramsden may have done that in 1775; evidence is scant),^[3] he is certainly the person who introduced to the rest of the world the winning three-part combination of leadscrew, slide-rest, and change gears, sparking great advancement in machine tools and in the engineering use of screw threads.

Maudslay invented the first bench micrometer that was capable of measuring to one ten-thousandth of an inch (0.0001 in ≈ 3 µm). He called it the "Lord Chancellor", as it was used to settle any questions regarding accuracy of workmanship.

By 1810 Maudslay was employing eighty workers and was running out of room at his current premises, so he moved to larger premises in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Maudslay also recruited a promising young Admiralty draughtsman, Joshua Field, who proved to be so talented that Maudslay took him into partnership. The company later became Maudslay, Sons & Field, when Maudslay’s sons became partners. ^[1]

Marine engines

Maudslay’s Lambeth works began to specialize in the production of marine steam engines. The type of engine he used for ships was a side-lever design, in which a beam was mounted alongside the cylinder. This saved on height in the cramped engine rooms of steamers. His first marine engine was built in 1815, of 17 h.p., and fitted to a Thames steamer called Richmond. In 1823 a Maudslay engine powered the Lightning, the first steam-powered vessel to be commissioned by the Royal Navy. In 1829 a side-lever engine of 400 h.p. was completed for H.M.S. Dee, and was the largest marine engine existing at that time. In 1838, after Maudslay’s death, the Lambeth works supplied a 750 h.p. engine for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s famous SS Great Western, the first transatlantic steamship. By 1850 the firm had supplied more than two hundred vessels with steam engines. ^[1]

Thames Tunnel

In 1825 Marc Isambard Brunel began work on the Thames Tunnel, intended to link Rotherhithe with Wapping. After many difficulties this was successfully completed in 1842, and was the first tunnel under the Thames. The tunnel would not have been possible without the innovative tunneling shield, designed by Marc Brunel and built by Maudslay Sons & Field at their Lambeth works. Maudslay also supplied the steam-driven pumps that were so important in keeping the tunnel workings dry. ^[4]

Later life

At the end of his life Maudslay developed an interest in astronomy and began to construct a telescope. He intended to buy a house in Norwood and build a private observatory there, but he died before he was able to accomplish his plan. In January 1831 he caught a chill while crossing the English Channel. He was ill for four weeks and died on 15 February. He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen Woolwich, and his memorial in its Lady Chapel was designed by himself. ^[1]

Many outstanding engineers trained in his workshop including Richard Roberts, David Napier, Joseph Clement, Sir Joseph Whitworth, James Nasmyth (inventor of the steam hammer), Joshua Field and William Muir.

Henry Maudslay played his part in the development of mechanical engineering, when it was in its infancy, but he was especially pioneering in the development of machine tools to be used in engineering workshops across the world.

Maudslay’s company was one of the most important British engineering manufactories of the nineteenth century, finally closing in 1904.

See also

• Henry Maudsley, another 19th-century Englishman, who was a notable psychiatrist
• Maudslay Motor Company, founded by Walter H. Maudslay, great grandson of Henry Maudslay.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Rolt, L.T.C., “Great Engineers”, 1962, G. Bell and Sons Ltd, ISBN
2. ^ Roe 1916:36-40.
3. ^ Roe 1916:38.
4. ^ Bagust, Harold, “The Greater Genius?”, 2006, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 0711031754

Bibliography

• John Cantrell and Gillian Cookson, eds., Henry Maudslay and the Pioneers of the Machine Age, 2002, Tempus Publishing, Ltd, pb., (ISBN 0-7524-2766-0) This is a collection of essays by various specialists, and comprises biographies of Maudslay, Roberts, Napier, Clement, Whitworth, Nasmyth and Muir, as well as an account of the London Engineering Scene at the time of Maudslay, and an account of the firm from the death of Maudslay in 1831 until its demise in 1904.
• Coad, Jonathan, The Portsmouth Block Mills: Bentham, Brunel and the start of the Royal Navy's Industrial Revolution, 2005, ISBN 1-873592-87-6.
• Roe, Joseph Wickham (1916), English and American Tool Builders, New Haven, Connecticut, USA: Yale University Press, LCCN 16-011753, http://books.google.com/books?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage . Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (LCCN 27-024075); and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, IL, USA (ISBN 978-0-917914-73-7).

External links

• Pioneers of the Machine Tool Industry information

Persondata
NAME	Henry Maudslay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DATE OF BIRTH	August 22, 1771
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	February 14, 1831
PLACE OF DEATH

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