The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens Part 1

The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens.

by Henry Bore.

1890

In these days of Public Schools and extended facilities for popular education it would be difficult to find many people unaccustomed to the use of steel pens, but although the manufacture of this article by presses and tools must have been introduced during the first quarter of the present century, the inquirer after knowledge would scarcely find a dozen persons who could give any definite information as to when, where, and by whom this invention was made. Less than two decades ago there were three men living who could have answered this question, but two of them pa.s.sed away without making any sign, and the third--Sir Josiah Mason--has left on record that his friend and patron--Mr. Samuel Harrison--about the year 1780, made a steel pen for Dr. Priestley.

This interesting fact does not contribute anything toward solving the question, Who was the first manufacturer of steel pens by mechanical appliances? In the absence of any definite information, the balance of testimony tends to prove that steel pens were first made by tools, worked by a screw press, about the beginning of the third decade of the present century, and the names a.s.sociated with their manufacture were John Mitch.e.l.l, Joseph Gillott, and Josiah Mason, each, in his own way, doing something toward perfecting the manufacture by mechanical means.

The earliest references to pens are probably those in the Bible, and are to be found in Judges v. 14, 1st Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalm xlv. 1., Isaiah viii. 1, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. 1. But these chiefly refer to the iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah--taken in reference to the mention of a penknife, x.x.xvi. 23--would seem to imply that a reed was in use at that period.

There is a reference to "pen and ink" in the 3d Epistle of John xiii.

5, which was written about A.D. 85, and as pens made in bra.s.s and silver were used in the Greek and Roman Empires at that time, it is probable that a metallic pen or reed was alluded to.

Pens and reeds made in the precious metals and bronze appear to have been in use at the commencement of the present era. The following are a few notable instances:

"The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1540, had a silver pen bestowed upon her, which had this inscription upon it: _'Publii Ovidii Calamus,'_ found under the ruins of some monument in that country, as Mr. Sands, in the Life of Ovid (prefixed to his Metamorphosis) relates. --_"Humane Industry; or, a History of Mechanical Arts," by Thos. Powell, D.D.: London, 1661, page 61._"

This was probably a silver reed, and, from the locality in which it was found, was once the property of the poet Ovid. Publius Ovidius Naso was born in the year 43 B.C., and died 18 A.D. He was exiled at the age of 30 to Tomi, a town south of the delta of the Danube. This at present is in modern Bulgaria, but at the period mentioned was in the ancient kingdom of Hungary.

From "Notes and Queries," in Birmingham _Weekly Post_, we take the following:

"EARLY METALLIC PENS.---Metallic pens are generally supposed to have been unknown before the early part of the last century, when gold and silver pens are occasionally referred to as novel luxuries. I have, however, recently found a description and an engraving of one found in excavating Pompeii, and which is now preserved in the Museum at Naples. It is described in the quarto volume 'Les Monuments du Musee National de Naples, graves sur cuivre par les meillures artistes Italienes. Texte par Domenico Monaco, Conservateur du meme Musee, Naples, 1882,' and is in the Catalogue:

"' Plate I26 (v) Plume en bronze, taillee parfaitement a la facon de nos plumes 0.13 cent.

"' Plate I26 (y) Plume en roseau [reed] trouvee pres d'un papyrus a Herculaneum.'

"The former (v) is engraved to look like an ordinary reed pen, as now used universally in the East; and the other (y) has a spear shape, or almond shape (like many modern metallic pens), but with a sort of fillet or ring on the stem, which indicates that the 'y' example is not a reed, but a metallic stylus, or pen, while the 'v' example is shown clearly as a 'reed.' The two are, however, certainly older than A.D. 79, when Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by the eruption of Vesuvius."

According to Father Montfaucon, the patriarchs of Constantinople, under the Greek Empire, were accustomed to sign their allocutions with tubular pens of silver, similar in shape to the reed pens which are still used by Oriental nations.

The following are translated from the French "Notes and Queries "-- L'Intermediare:_

"A METALLIC PEN IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--M. Reni de Bellwal, in a very learned volume which he has published recently, on the first campaign of Edward III. in France, says (p. 95) with respect to the fict.i.tious pieces (doc.u.ments) fabricated by Robert d'Artois, that a clerk of Jeanne wrote the deeds, and made use of a bronze pen to enable him the better to disguise his writing. This plainly refers to a pen, and not to a stylus. Is there any record of the use of metallic pens at any period anterior to the fourteenth century? It is very satisfactory, however, to establish (as the French used to say) _'les preuves de 1300.'"--L'Intermediare.

In the _Vieux-Neuf_ of M. Ed. Fournier (vol. ii., p. 22, note) there is mentioned--according to the doc.u.ments used in the prosecution of Robert d'Artois, which are in the Archives--'the bronze pen' with which the forgers in the pay of the count wrote the false papers which he required. M. Fournier also quotes from 'Montfaucon' 'the silver reeds' with which the Constantinople patriarchs used to write their letters."--CUTHBERT, _L'Intermediare,_ 1st June, 1864.

"METALLIC PENS (XV., 68).-Writing was done in the Middle Ages sometimes with a metal _stylus,_ or perhaps with a metal pen; with the former on wax, and with the pen on parchment or vellum. 'At Trinity College, Cambridge, is a ma.n.u.script ill.u.s.tration of Eadwine, a monk of Canterbury, and at the end the writer is represented with a metal pen in his hand.' (See Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, p. 103). I have in my possession a metal pen of Dutch manufacture, dating certainly from the year 1717, mounted on the same pencilholder, with a piece of solid plumbago, in a memorandum book of the same year."--SAM: TIMMINS.

"Mr. Le Chauvine Gal, Prior of the collegiate of St. Peter and St.

Bars at Aosta, had in his collection of Roman antiquities a bronze pen, slit, found in a tomb, among a number of lamps and lachrymatory vases. M. Aubert has given a drawing and description of it in a work on Aosta. It was subsequently stolen from him by a collector."--- CHAMBERY, Un Savoyard, _L'Intermediare,_ 25th May, 1868.

"METALLIC PENS,--In a precious volume (an account of the books of the Decretalia) preserved in the library of Saint Antoine, of Padua, the following notice is to be found at the bottom of the last page: 'This work is fashioned and by diligence finished for the service of G.o.d, not with ink of quill nor with brazen reed, but with a certain invention of printing or reproducing by John Fust, citizen of Mayence, and Peter Schoeiffer, of Gernsheim, Dec. 17th, 1465, A.D.' Here, then, we have a doc.u.ment proving the existence of metallic pens in the Middle Ages. But has any such pen come down to us? If so, could a detailed description of it be obtained? On the other hand, I am curious to know if it is possible that platinum was used in the eighteenth century in the manufacture of pens, or whether it is necessary to attribute a peculiar meaning to the 'platinum pen' in the following pa.s.sage of the system of shorthand by Bertin (edit. of the year iv., p. 93) (1793). 'Those of steel and platinum are most convenient; these latter have the advantage of all others, in that they hold the ink a long time, and run over the paper easily, and are not liable to corrosion by any simple acid.' I am ignorant of what the same author means when he mentions the endless pen, which would certainly be the best. "'--J. CAMUS, _L'Intermediare._

"Metallic pens were used before the fifteenth century; they were in use at the court of Augustus." See _L'Intermed._ (I. 69, 94, 141; II.

319.) Consult also _Le Vieux-Neuf_ Ed. Fournier.--A.D.

The following extracts show there have been several claimants, on the Continent, who profess to have invented metallic pens, made from steel, in the early part of the eighteenth century; but the reader had better suspend his judgment until he has read the notes that follow them:

"A ma.n.u.script, ent.i.tled 'Historical Chronicle of Aix-la-Chapelle, second book, 1748,' places on record the claims of Johann Janssen, a magistrate of that place, as the inventor of steel pens. 'Just at the meeting of the congress [after the Austrian war] I may without boasting, claim the honour of having invented a new pen. It is, perhaps, not an accident that G.o.d should have inspired me at the present time with the idea of making steel pens, for all the envoys here a.s.sembled have bought the first that have been made; therewith, as may be hoped, to sign a treaty of peace, which, with G.o.d's blessing, shall be as permanent as the hard steel with which it is written. Of these pens, as I have invented them, no man hath before seen or heard. If kept clean and free from rust and ink, they will continue fit for use for many years. Indeed, a man may write twenty reams of paper with one, and the last line would be written as well as the first. They are now sent into every corner of the world as a rare thing--to Spain, France, England and Holland. Others will no doubt make imitations of my pens, but I am the man who first invented and made them. I have sold a great number of them at home and abroad at 1s. each, and I dispose of them as quickly as I can make them."'

In an article on Writing Instruments, which appeared in the Berlin _Paper Zeitung,_ on the 19th of May, 1887, the author says:

"A school teacher of Koningberg, named Burger, in the year 1808, made pens from metal, but he got poor by his trials. After this time, and probably imitating the pens of Burger, the English began to take in hand the manufacture of pens; _especially Perry,_ he having perfected the pens, as he did not restrict himself to the simple straight slit, but he made cuts in the sides of different kinds."

In a pamphlet upon the manufacture of steel pens, published in Paris, in 1884, the writer says:

"The invention of the metallic pen is due to a French mechanic-- Arnoux--who lived in the eighteenth century, who made as far back as 1750 a number of metallic pens as a curiosity. This invention did not have any immediate result in France but spread to England, and became in Birmingham, about 1830, a very prosperous industry. A very curious fact about this trade is that, in England, it does not exist out of Birmingham, where there are about ten manufactories. In France it has become localized in Boulogne."

There is also the "nameless Sheffield Artisan," who so frequently figures in newspaper paragraphs as the inventor of steel pens; and William Gadsby, a mathematical instrument maker, who for his own use constructed a clumsy article from the mainspring of a watch; but it is not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that we get anything authentic respecting the making of metallic pens. "Este," writing in "Local Notes and Queries" _(Birmingham Weekly Post)_ mentions a remarkable little volume supplied to the members of the States General of Holland, in the possession of Mr. W. Bragge, of Sheffield, dated 1717. It contained a silver pencil case, in two parts, one holding a piece of plumbago, mounted like a crayon, and the other a _metallic pen._ We have seen this unique book (now the property of Mr. Sam: Timmins). The pen is of the barrel shape, apparently silver, and it must be regarded as the earliest authentic metallic pen. Of the date there can be no doubt, as the pen is made to pa.s.s through loops in the cover of the volume to keep it closed, after the manner of pocket books, and the book bears the date, printed on the t.i.tle page, 1717.

Pope, about the same time, received from Lady Frances Shirley a present of a standish, containing a STEEL and a gold pen. In acknowledging the receipt of this present, the poet wrote an ode, in which the following lines occur:

"Take at this hand celestial arms; Secure the radiant weapons wield; This _golden_ lance shall guard desert, And, if a vice dares keep the field, This _steel_ shall stab it to the heart.

Awed, on my bended knees I fell, Received the weapons of the sky, And dipped them in the sable well-- The fount of fame or infamy.

What well? What weapon? Flavia cries, A standish, _steel and golden pen!_ It came from _Bertrand's,_* not the skies, I gave it you to write again."

*_Bertrand_ kept a fancy shop in Bath. He died in 1755. His wife is mentioned by Horace Walpole, in his letter to George Montague, May 18th, 1749, which letter is printed in his Correspondence.

In No. 503 of the _Spectator,_ bearing the date of October 7, 1712, Steele, mentioning the conspicuous manner in which a certain lady conducted herself in church, says:

"For she fixed her eyes upon the preacher, and as he said anything she approved, with one of Charles Mather's fine tablets, she set down the sentence, at once showing her fine hand, the _gold pen,_ her readiness in writing, and her judgments in choosing what to write."

Edmund Waller, about the middle of the seventeenth century, acknowledged the receipt of a _silver pen_ from a lady, in the following verses:

"Madam! intending to have try'd, The silver favour which you gave, In ink the shining point I dy'd, And drench'd it in the sable wave When, grieved to be so foully stained, On you it thus to me complained.

So I, the wronged pen to please, Made it my humble thanks express Unto your Ladyship, in these, And now 'tis forced to confess That your great self did ne'er indite Nor that to me more n.o.ble write."

Mr. G. A. Lomas, writing to the _Scientific American,_ November 23, 1878, says:

"I write to inquire if you can give me information concerning the manufacture of metal pens in this country. I may be vain in the supposition, but I am persuaded that my people--the Shakers--were the originators of metal pens. I write this to you with a silver pen, one slit, that was made in the vear 1819, at this village, by the Shakers.

Two or three years previously to the use of silver pens, our people used bra.s.s plates for their manufacture, but soon found silver preferable. Some people sold these pens in the year 1819, at this village, for twenty-five cents, and disposed of all that could be made."

The writer further says the metal was made from silver coins.

This communication called forth the following from another correspondent:

"The letter in the _Scientific American,_ November 23, 1878, with regard to the early manufacture of steel pens, reminds me of the following note which appeared in the _Boston Mechanic,_ for August, 1835.

'The inventor of steel pens,' says the _Journal of Commerce,_ was an American and a well-known resident of our city (New York), Mr. Peregrine Williamson. In the year 1800, Mr.W., then a working jeweler, at Baltimore, while attending an evening school, finding some difficulty in making a quill pen to suit him, made one of steel. It would not write well, however, for want of flexibility. After a while he made an additional slit on each side of the main one, and the pens were so much improved that Mr. W. was called to make them in such numbers as to eventually occupy his whole time, and that of a journeyman. At first the business was very profitable and enabled Mr. W. to realize for the labor of himself and journeyman a clear profit of six hundred dollars per month. The English soon borrowed the invention, and some who first engaged in the business realized immense fortunes."'

We do not know how much reliance may be placed upon this statement, but, if the last a.s.sertion "that those who first engaged in the business realized immense fortunes" may be taken as a test, the whole must be received with a grain of salt. The letter appeared in the _Boston Mechanic,_ in 1835, and at that date there were penmakers who had made a modest competence, but in no case were they possessed of immense fortunes.

In London _Notes and Queries,_ the following appears respecting early steel pens:

"THE FIRST STEEL PEN.--(5th S., iii., 395.) Ten years before Dr.

Priestley was born steel pens were in use. There are references to them in the Diary of John Byrom, who required them when writing short-hand. In a letter to his sister Phoebe, dated August, 1723, he mentions them as follows: 'Alas! alas! I cannot meet with a steel pen, no manner of where I believe I have asked at 375 places, but that which I have is at your service, as the owner himself always is."'

(Remains, Vol. i., 39.)