The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens Part 2

Mr. James c.o.c.ker, writing in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph,_ in 1869, says: "That he rolled steel wire for James Perry for penmaking in 1829."

The death of Mr. Gillott seems to have revived the discussion of the origin of steel pens, and a correspondent in the Sheffield _Daily Telegraph,_ in the issue of January 11, 1872, in the following letter, puts forth a claim on behalf of a Sheffield man:

"The well-written and well-merited memoir of the late Mr. Gillott, the Birmingham steel pen maker, which has just appeared in the newspapers, affords a curious and instructive ill.u.s.tration of the success which not seldom attends the combined action of ingenuity, industry, shrewdness, and integrity among our labouring cla.s.ses. Born in the humblest rank of our local workmen, a steady scholar in our Boys'

Lancasterian School, and apprenticed to a scissors grinder, the deceased worked his way upwards into a position of influence and opulence as a manufacturer, which ent.i.tled him to take social rank with the merchant princes of the land. And if his name has long since ceased to be familiar among his once contemporary workmen in Sheffield, and is not even mentioned in the Directory, it has for several years past been recognized and respected by the visitors at the annual exhibitions of our School of Art, in connection with the many rare and valuable pictures lent by him on those occasions. The printed _fac-simile_ of the autograph appeared in the 'advertising columns' of almost every newspaper in the world, and perhaps, as an expert might have said, was characteristic. In the admirable account of his life above referred to stress is laid upon one prominent and praiseworthy feature of his character, viz., his readiness to acknowledge the obscurity of his origin and the steps of his industrial success. In those details no mention is made of his Sheffield master and predecessor in the ingenious art of steel pen making. And as the notice alluded to is without dates, it is difficult to furnish information on the material point of priority, though the fact of supremacy in the trade is clear enough. In one of the columns of Lardner's Cyclopedia, published in 1833, the names of Perry, Heeley, and Skinner are mentioned as steel pen makers. With the latter, who if he did not make wealth, certainly earned a wide reputation for the low price and excellent temper of his 'steel nibs,' Mr. Gillett was a workman, in Nursery Street, Sheffield, having gone with his master from the scissors grinding stone to the making of polished steel ornaments for ladies' work, then fashionable.

How much, in what way, or whether at all, he was indebted to his experience in Mr. Skinner's establishment may be questionable, but that he learnt and first saw practised in Sheffield the art that ultimately enriched him in Birmingham, he would probably be the last to deny. It is well remembered by a worthy dealer in almost every useful article, from a mouse-trap to a railroad wagon, that Gillott, soon after his establishment in Birmingham, came into our townsman's shop, and seeing on the counter a model steam engine of half-horse power, at once purchased and carried it off to give motion to some part of his pen machinery. Bra.s.s pens were made in Sheffield before the close of the last century. They mostly accompanied an 'inkpot,'

called from its users an 'exciseman.' The writer of this paragraph himself made hundreds of dozens of them, which, however, be never used, nor steel ones either, as long as he could get a 'goose quill,'

good, bad or indifferent. The matter of slitting the nib was kept secret by Skinner, and the double slit of Gillott more than doubled the value of his old master's invention; but a 'four-slit' pen, _i.e., with five points,_ if possible to make, would be useless. The earliest experimenter in form and material was Perry, flexibility being the great desideratum; but it is curious to see how world-wide a currency Gillott's name and trade have given to the simplest shape; and still more curious to note how the makers of writing ink and paper have conformed these articles to the requirements of the uses of the steel pen. It is always gratifying, and not unprofitable, to contrast the small and feeble beginnings of any manufacturing enterprise with a large and well-merited success."

This communication appears to have caused a Mr. William Levesley to call upon the writer of the preceding epistle, and the following which appeared in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph,_ January 30, 1872, was written:

"I have to thank you for the insertion of my queries as to the early connection of Sheffield with steel pen making. In consequence of the appearance of my letter in the _Telegraph,_ a cutlery manufacturer of the name of William Levesley, called upon me, and informed me that he was not only an early a.s.sociate with the late Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, but the first person who made a steel pen out of London.

Stress has been laid upon Gillott's ability 'to forge and grind a knifeblade.' It is not likely he ever used the hammer on hot steel, but he was when young, and working with father, accounted an excellent penknife grinder; Skinner being a scissors grinder, and Levesley a workboard hand for the same master. A man of the name of Mitch.e.l.l having married Gillott's mother, went to Birmingham, and began the cutlery business, the latter removing thither to grind for his father- in-law. His brother had also gone thither, and commenced making an article that had some run, and may be said to have united the ingenious handicrafts of Birmingham, viz., the insertion of a penknife blade at the end of a silver pencil case. Meanwhile, about the year 1825, Levesley saw a steel pen, made by Perry, of London, in Ridge's shop window, in High Street. He bought it for one shilling, and immediately set about making tools to imitate and improve upon it. He spent, he said, L.30 in not unsuccessful, though unremunerative, experiments. The flypress was at least as well known in Sheffield as in Birmingham, and its power was at once brought into requisition to work the tools for shaping, bending, and slitting the pens which were made out of sheet steel, Perry's being made out of thick wire, rolled flat, by c.o.c.ker, in Nursery Street. In 1829, Levesley was making pens for sale, and that year is said to be the earliest date of actual sales in Skinner's ledger. In 1831 he was doing a considerable business in Sheffield, and making experiments upon the article, as appears from specimens before me bearing his name. Stress has been laid upon the improvement of the double slit, introduced by Gillott, but if Levesley's statement is to be taken literally, he was the inventor of a specialty upon which, even more than on excellence of material, the merit of a steel pen is found to depend, viz., the grinding of a small hollow at the back of the nib, and about the eighth of an inch from the point. My informant described not only the beneficial action of this thinning of the metal, as well in yielding the gradual flow of the ink as in flexibility of writing, but the pleasure with which he took a specimen to Birmingham to show Gillott, and the surprise of the latter at so great and so beneficial an effect, provided by so small a cause. He at once adopted an improvement of which every pen made by him bears evidence; and when his friend visited him he told him he had fifty women employed in grinding pen points. It is pleasant to add that Gillott never visited Sheffield without calling to see his old friend Levesley, while the latter spoke of his early and later life with respect and commendation, especially in his domestic relations. It is pleasing to review a life of such humble beginnings, culminating in opulence and usefulness like that of the late Joseph Gillott, of Birmingham; nor is it less to name in connection therewith, as an early experimenter in steel pen making, our worthy townsman, William Levesley, to whose ingenious improvement every writer is so much indebted, and of whose verbal communication to me the foregoing is an imperfect sketch."

Now, in this statement, there are some dales given, but others are omitted, and that is a very unfortunate circ.u.mstance. Levesley told the writer of the article in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ that he made use of the fly press for working tools for shaping, bending, and slitting pens. If the writer had only given the date of this it would have been a valuable contribution toward a history of the invention.

The claim of Levesley to having invented the process of grinding pens and teaching Gillott seems, to say the least, curious, because the latter was a Sheffield grinder, and the idea would certainly be quite as likely to occur to Gillott as Levesley. Besides, why did Levesley communicate the idea to Gillott in preference to Skinner, with whom he had business relations? The statement that Gillott had fifty girls employed when Levesley* called upon him on his next visit to Birmingham looks like a mistake. Fifty girls would grind on an average seven thousand gross of pens in a week, and as this correspondence appears to refer to the early part of Gillott's career, it is scarcely possible that such a number of pens were produced weekly at that period. Besides, as a matter of fact, boys were, in the first instance, employed to grind pens.

* Mr. Sam: Timmins says, "that Levesley told him that Gillott started in Birmingham as a jobbing cutler; that Mitch.e.l.l had the secret of pen making; that Mitch.e.l.l sent for Gillott to come to Birmingham, and that he (J.G.) first lived at the top of Water Street; that Gillott began to make pens in Bread Street; that Perry made pens from flattened steel wire, the breadth of the pen (the steel was 3s. 6d. per lb., and drawn at Old Ford); that he had seen cross grinding (at Gillott's) in Newhall Street, and fifty women at work; and that pens had double slits and cut holes. Levesley certainly knew all the Gillott family, personally, in Sheffield, and he (S. T.) had a long interview with him shortly before his death, when he mentioned all the facts given here."

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 [Skinner], of Sheffield, afterwards manufactured the pens in great quant.i.ties. 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 Mitch.e.l.l, 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 Mitch.e.l.ls."

A writer in _Herbert's Encyclopoedia_ published in 1837, says

"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-- Mitch.e.l.l, 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 barrel pens in 1828, and 'slip' pens for Perry in 1829, and the first lot of 100 at _one time_ was sent November 20, 1830.

Frequently, lots of 20 or 30 gross were sent between 1829 and 1830, and in 1831 I sent pens to Perry amounting to L.1421, 1s. 3d.

"Perry certainly never made a pen as they are now made, viz., the _slit cut _with press tools; all he made were _cracked_ slit.

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

"It is doubtful when metal pens were made. The first I know of were made by Mr. Harrison, for Dr. Priestley. Perry was certainly not the first maker of steel pens, but I have no doubt that he was the first steel _slip pen_ maker, and no doubt the first to use a _goose quill_ for a pen holder, hence the slip pen.

"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 Mitch.e.l.l and Gillott.

Now, although Mitch.e.l.l made no claim himself, on the death of Mr.

Gillott the following letter appeared in the _Daily Post:_

"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 Mitch.e.l.l--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 MITCh.e.l.l, January 12, 1872.

In October, 1876, Mr. Henry Mitch.e.l.l writes to _Aris's Gazette,_ and says:

"You review, in your impression of the 23d inst., a work ent.i.tled '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 Mitch.e.l.l--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 Mitch.e.l.l--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 Mitch.e.l.l. Mason gave the year 1828 as the date when he commenced making pens, so that the evidence is in favor of Mitch.e.l.l.

We have heard this statement of Henry Mitch.e.l.l confirmed by a man who worked for Mitch.e.l.l, as a boy, and who remembered pens being made for Sheldon by Mitch.e.l.l. It is probable at this early period the pens were made for a few dealers, and the general public was unacquainted with the names of the manufacturers. This circ.u.mstance has no doubt contributed to involve in obscurity the early operations of Mitch.e.l.l and Gillott. In a notice in _Lardner's Cyclopoedia_ (written by Mr.

John Holland, of Sheffield), published in 1833, the names of three penmakers only are given--Perry, Heeley, and Skinner. From this it might be supposed that there were no other penmakers at this date; but Gillott had taken out a patent in 1831, and the names of both Mitch.e.l.l and Gillott appeared as penmakers in _Wrightson's Birmingham Directory_ for 1830. It cannot be supposed that Mr. Holland wilfully omitted to mention the names of Mitch.e.l.l and Gillott, for this writer was an impartial and painstaking collector of facts, but it is probable the notice was written some time before it was published; and, like many little masters, Mitch.e.l.l and Gillot were only known as penmakers to the wholesale dealers in Birmingham, upon whom they depended for orders, consequently Mr. Holland would be ignorant of their existence.

In speaking of the demand for steel pens, the writer in Lardner's says: "The rage originated chiefly, if not altogether, in the successful speculations of Mr. James Perry, of London, whose pens, however short their merits may fall of the praise of the inventor, are certainly superior to most others composed of a like material. Perry began to make steel pens, in Manchester, in 1819, and in London in 1824." The press and tools with which these pens were made are still in the possession of Perry and Co., at their warehouse in the Holburn Viaduct. This fact tends to confirm the statement that Mr. James Perry was one of the earliest experimenters in the manufacture of the article. Levesley says he bought one of Perry's pens, which he saw in a shop window in Sheffield, in 1825, and he took it to his workshop and improved upon it. This is somewhat similar to the account given by Mason of his first experiment in pen making. Mason saw a pen of Perry's in the window of a bookseller named Peart, in Bull Street, Birmingham, in 1828, which he purchased and took home. Finding he could produce a better article, which could be sold at a cheaper rate, he made some and sent them to Mr. James Perry, in, London, and that gentleman shortly after waited upon Josiah Mason, at his place of business in Lancaster Street, and the interview resulted in Mason beginning to make pens for Perry. It will be remembered that the writer in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ stated that the earliest experimenter in form and material was Perry.

Leaving the honor of having originated the application of labor-saving machinery for the manufacture of steel pens to Mitch.e.l.l, 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 cla.s.s 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,"

Although this might be regarded as an _ex-parte_ statement, it is confirmed by independent testimony that Perry popularized the article.

The _Sat.u.r.day Magazine,_ 1838, says:

"About twelve years ago (1825), the celebrated Perryian pens first appeared. Mr. Perry may be regarded in the light of a great improver; many of his pens are ingenious and original in construction. He arranges his pens into _genera_ and _species._ Mr. Perry first overcame the rigidity complained of in steel pens by introducing apertures between the shoulder and point of the pen, thus transferring the elasticity of the pen to a position below instead of above the shoulder. This was the subject of his patent in 1830."

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-cla.s.s quality by Mr. Josiah Mason, of this town."

Furthermore, it is certain that about this time, steel pens began rapidly to supersede the use of quills,* and the trade was recognized as a rising industry. It is true that it still retained the secretive character with which its operations were conducted in its earlier days, which indeed in some respects distinguish it at the present time. Its activity or dullness seldom troubles the writers of the "Trade Reports" in the local press, although they sometimes inform their readers about good orders having been placed for mousetraps, stove screws, snuffer trays, candle extinguishers, and sad irons.

*In a humorous article, "The Web-footed Interests," which appeared in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. iii., page 280 (1833), there is a pet.i.tion to the House of Commons, from Ganders, Geese & Goslings, setting forth the evils likely to ensue from the use of metallic pens.

It prognosticates depression in agriculture and manufactures consequent upon a diminution in the amount of grain consumed, and a falling off in the demand for penknives; and draws an alarming picture of the possible failure of the supply of iron ware, and the total extinction of literature, likely to ensue through a stoppage in the supply of steel pens,--the web-footed interest being supposed to have ceased to exist. The pet.i.tion concludes with a prayer that the manufacture of metallic pens be prohibited.

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 subst.i.tutes 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 [Sir Rowland Hill] 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 circ.u.mstance in his own life, when at Kidderminster, that he accompanied his brother Richard, who was a Sunday-school teacher, to mend the pens.

Comparing the crude specimens of early steel pens with the finished productions of the present day, we may be inclined to think that some praise was due to the people who persevered in the use of them; but that the purchasers of these early productions did appreciate them we have the testimony of Mr. Robert Griffin, who says that he wrote for eight weeks, eight hours a day, with a pen made by Perry, in 1824.

Now, the old _"scribes,"_ as the law stationers' writers were called, were generally allowed one quill a day, and as the work of the day usually wore out the longest quill, a considerable amount of time must have been occupied in the renovation of the article.* This would be a serious inconvenience to those who could manufacture a quill into a pen, but as this was by no means an universal accomplishment, we can form an idea how even these clumsy subst.i.tutes found purchasers at such high prices.

*The writer recollects the tedious waiting for the patient usher, who from desk to desk with his penknife, mending pens, and paying very little attention to anything else; also the wonder felt and expressed at the first sight of steel nibs, and how they dug into the paper.

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!'"

These early pens were at first made from a piece of steel formed into a tube, and filed into the shape of a pen by hand, the joint of the two edges forming the slit. Afterward a blank was roughly punched out, filed into shape, and the slit marked out with a chisel while the blank was in a soft state. It was then shaped, hardened, tempered, ground, and the slit cracked through by means of a hammer and tool at the place where the mark had been made. The engravings of the pens by Edwards, which appeared in _Wrightson's Directory,_ 1823, seem to indicate that the piercing, side cutting and slitting were executed by mechanical appliances. Possibly, Edwards was not a manufacturer himself, but had his pens made for him by Mitch.e.l.l.