8 The Dutch secret turned out to be Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.
9 “a new way of casting iron bellied pots” Samuel Smiles, Industrial Biography: Iron-Workers and Tool-Makers (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864).
10 “to make iron, steel, or lead” List and Index Society, Calendar of Patent Rolls 30, Eliz. I, p. 57 (Kew, UK: National Archives, 2008).
11 “sole priviledge to make iron” “Simon Sturtevant” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
12 “the mystery, art, way, and means” Thomas Webster, Reports and Notes of Cases on Letters Patent for Inventions (1607–1855) (London: Blenkarn, 1844).
13 In the event, the younger Dudley Gerald Newman and Leslie Ellen Brown, Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714–1837: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1997).
14 His partners, Sir George Horsey William Hyde Price, The English Patents of Monopoly (Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2006).
15 “work for remelting and casting” Peter W. King, “Sir Clement Clerke and the Adoption of Coal in Metallurgy,” Transactions of the Newcomen Society 73, no. 1, 2001–2002.
16 Luckily for Darby Eugene S. Ferguson, “Metallurgical and Machine-Tool Developments,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
17 His greatest contribution to metallurgical history Cyril Stanley Smith, “Metallurgy in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
18 After nearly ten years of secret experiments “Benjamin Huntsman” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
19 His furnaces could be made Smith, “Metallurgy in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
20 He departed from the norm Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
21 in 1750, when Britain consumed Pacey, Maze of Ingenuity.
22 “the father of the iron trade” The Times, editorial, July 29, 1856.
23 a relatively pure form of wrought iron From Dr. Joseph Gross’s description of Wood’s process in Puddling in the Iron Works of Merthyr Tydfil, quoted at http://www.henrycort.net.
24 “The puddlers were the artistocracy” Postan and Habakkuk, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
25 “a peculiar method of preparing” R. A. Mott and Peter Singer, Henry Cort, The Great Finer: Creator of Puddled Iron (London: Metals Society, 1983).
26 The source of the funds Newman and Brown, Britain in the Hanoverian Age.
27 Not only had grooved rollers Jennifer Tann, “Richard Arkwright and Technology,” History: The Journal of the Historical Association 58, no. 192, February 1973.
28 “cleansed of sulphurous matter” R. A. Mott and P. Singer, Henry Cort, the Great Finer: Creator of Puddled Iron (London: Metals Society, 1983), quoted at http://www.henrycort.net.
CHAPTER EIGHT: A FIELD THAT IS ENDLESS
1 Steam engine components were a promising enough source Raistrick, Dynasty of Iron Founders.
2 by way of comparison, Watt’s 1770 salary Muirhead, Life of James Watt.
3 In 1772, Glasgow’s recently established Bank of Ayr John Lord, Capital and Steam-Power (London: Frank Cass, 1966).
4 Roebuck testified Scherer, “Invention and Innovation in the Watt-Boulton Steam Engine Venture.”
5 “value the engine at a farthing” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series one: The Boulton and Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library.
6 He persuaded the other claimants Marshall, James Watt.
7 “The business I am here about” Ibid.
8 “we might give up the present patent” Scherer, “Invention and Innovation in the Watt-Boulton Steam Engine Venture.”
9 “the most important single event” Eric Robinson, “Matthew Boulton and the Art of Parliamentary Lobbying,” The Historical Journal 7, no. 2, 1964.
10 “and whereas, in order to manufacture” Scherer, “Invention and Innovation in the Watt-Boulton Steam Engine Venture.”
11 The British Society of Arts Joel Mokyr, “Mercantilism, The Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution,” Conference in Honor of Eli Heckscher, Stockholm, May 2003.
12 “a Number of Scientific Gentlemen” Marshall, James Watt.
13 “I rejoice at the well doing of Willey Engine” Boulton to Watt, March 1776, in Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution.
14 “engines of mortality of all descriptions” Wallace, Social Context of Innovation.
15 “a cylinder attached to a spindle” Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.
16 In 1800, boring a 64-inch cylinder Eugene S. Ferguson, “Metallurgical and Machine-Tool Developments,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
17 “unsound, and totally useless” Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution.
18 “I wish to do all in the best manner” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.
19 If the new design caught on David L. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998).
20 “With hardly room to move their bodies” E. D. Clarke, Tour Through the South of England, quoted in Howard Jones, Steam Engines.
21 Adventurers, in turn, appointed “captains” Anthony Burton, Richard Trevithick, Giant of Steam (London: Aurum Press, 2000).
22 “shareholders might grumble” Ibid.
23 One of them, the Great County Adit Ibid.
24 88 lb. in London Hills, Power from Steam.
25 “raise as much water as two Horses” Ibid.
26 As a result of the hostility Ibid.
27 “all the cast iron” Ibid.
28 at least one Boulton & Watt engine was too large Ibid.
29 It was in response to these demands Ibid.
30 “All the world are agape” Marshall, James Watt.
31 “I think that these mills represent” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series One: The Boulton and Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library.
32 “The technical advance which characterizes” Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, 1934).
33 “continuous rotary motion” Lynn White, “The Act of Invention: Causes, Contexts, Continuities, and Consequences,” Technology and Culture 3, no. 4, March 1962.
34 Arabs were using them White, Medieval Technology and Social Change.
35 The earliest visual evidence of a crankshaft Ibid.
36 “to render the motion more regular and uniform” Hills, Power from Steam.
37 Watt had not believed George Selgin and John Turner, “James Watt as Intellectual Monopolist: Comment on Boldrin and Levine,” International Economic Review 47, no. 4, November 2006.
38 “I know the contrivance is my own” Watt to Boulton, April 28, 1781, in Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution.
39 “timmer [timber]… turned on my little lathey [lathe]” “William Murdock” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
40 “I wish William could be brought to do” Ibid.
41 “the most active man and best engine erector I ever saw” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.
42 “gave the additional advantage” Hills, Power from Steam.
43 “for certain new methods” Ibid.
44 “I wish you could supply me with a draughtsman” Samuel Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt. Principally
from the original Soho mss. Comprising also a history of the invention and introduction of the steam engine (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1865).
45 “the neatest drawing I had ever made” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series One: The Boulton and Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library.
46 One consequence was that Pacey, Maze of Ingenuity.
47 “upon making Engines cheap, as well as good” Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution.
48 “scarce heard in the building where they are erected” Hills, Power from Steam.
49 “one of the most ingenious” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series One: The Boulton and Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library.
50 “I am more proud” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.
51 “the millers are determined to be masters of us” Lord, Capital and Steam-Power.
CHAPTER NINE: QUITE SPLENDID WITH A FILE
1 “The Artist who can make an Instrument” Jeffrey Kastner, “National Insecurity,” Cabinet Magazine 22, Summer 2006.
2 “a LOCK, constructed on a new and infallible Principle” J. A. Bramah, Dissertation on the Construction of Locks (Goldsmiths-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 13077.3, Research Publications: New Haven, CT, 1976).
3 Even when Bramah promoted Maudslay Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
4 Unable to persuade Bramah A. W. Skempton, Civil Engineers and Engineering in Britain, 1600–1830 (Aldershot, Hampshire, UK, and Brookfield, VT, USA: Variorum, 1996).
5 “the indefatigable care which he took” “Henry Maudslay” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. British Academy: from the earliest times to the year 2000.
6 “it was a pleasure to see him handle a tool” “Henry Maudslay” in Ibid.
7 “a ‘critical mass’ of inventive activity” Carolyn C. Cooper, “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture,” Technology and Culture 25, no. 2, April 1984, quoting William Parker.
8 A single ship of the line Ibid.
9 “Set of engines, tools, instruments” Ibid.
10 More significant was Samuel Bentham John Richards, A Treatise on the Construction and Operation of Wood-working Machines: Including a History of the Origin and Progress of the Manufacture of Wood-working Machinery (London, New York: E. & F.N. Spon, 1872).
11 “a perfect treatise on the subject” Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
12 In 1786, while in Russia Ibid.
13 “a Propos of my brother’s inventions” Cooper, “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture.”
14 “roaming on the esplanade of Fort Montgomery” Richard Beamish and Gerald C. Levy, Memoir of the Life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, Civil Engineer, Vice-President of the Royal Society, Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, &c. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862).
15 “two or three at a time” Cooper, “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture.”
16 The design, however, specified Ibid.
17 His machines… included power saws Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
18 Maudslay’s fee for constructing the machines Cooper, “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture.”
19 That agreement guaranteed “Marc Isambard Brunel” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
20 He didn’t come close to recouping Beamish and Levy, Memoir of the Life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel.
21 “an output greater” Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
22 “set fire to the dockyards” Cooper, “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture.”
23 “new combined steam engines” Hills, Power from Steam.
24 the planned expansion “Matthew Murray” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
25 It wasn’t until 1788 Selgin and Turner, “James Watt as Intellectual Monopolist: Comment on Boldrin and Levine.”
26 “the ungrateful, idle, insolent Hornblowers” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.
27 “if patentees are to be regarded” Stirk, “Intellectual Property and the Role of Manufacturers.”
28 “Our cause is good” Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt.
29 “monstrous stupidity” Roe, English and American Tool Builders.
30 “I think we should confine our contentions” Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.
31 “a sufficient action against the piston” Hills, Power from Steam.
32 Maudslay, on the other hand Skempton, Civil Engineers and Engineering in Britain, 1600–1830.
33 “A zealous promoter of the arts and sciences” Ibid.
CHAPTER TEN: TO GIVE ENGLAND THE POWER OF COTTON
1 Lombe was the son of a woolen weaver Anthony Calladine, “Lombe’s Mill: An Exercise in Reconstruction,” Industrial Archaeology 16, no. 1, Autumn 1993.
2 A single cocoon of B. mori Yong-woo Lee, Silk Reeling and Testing Manual, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin no. 136, United Nations, Rome, 1999.
3 Silk from Chinese looms John Ferguson, “China and Rome” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 9.2 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978).
4 The Turkish city of Bursa Robert Sabatino Lopez, “Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum XX, January 1945.
5 In 1665, five Dutch ships Rudolf P. Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
6 It was Zonca’s machine Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.
7 “three sorts of engines never before made” “Thomas Lombe” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
8 The mill, which employed more than two hundred men Ibid.
9 “he has not hitherto received the intended benefit” Smiles, Men of Invention and Industry.
10 The case of the manufacturers of woolen “Thomas Lombe” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
11 Only one silk spinning factory Abbott Payson Usher, “The Textile Industry, 1750–1830,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
12 Even before the Company chose the village of Calcutta Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations.
13 Even then, it made for a very rough weave Woodruff D. Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600–1800 (New York: Routledge, 2002).
14 Between 1700 and 1750 T. Ivan Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
15 The market for cotton This is a highly abbreviated version of the argument made by the historian Eric Hobsbawm. E. J. Hobsbawm and Chris Wrigley, Industry and Empire from 1750 to the Present Day (New York: New Press, 1999).
16 Those overseas consumers were needed Angus Maddison, ed., The World Economy: Historical Statistics (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003). Between 1700 and 1820, British per capita GDP grew by 37%, while the rest of Western Europe grew by less than 19% and the Netherlands declined by 14%.
17 They were the ones who were able to attract the attention Jan De Vries, “The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution,” The Journal of Economic History 54, no. 2, June 1994.
18 By 2000 BCE Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.
19 He never patented “John Kay” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
20
Inventors in good odor at the Bourbon court B. Zorina Khan, “An Economic History of Patent Institutions,” EH.Net Encyclopedia, March 16, 2008, at http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.patents.
21 The significance of this fact for industrialization Abbott Payson Usher, “The Textile Industry 1750–1830,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization. The presumed asymmetry between the productivity of weaving and spinning in eighteenth-century England has recently been questioned and is no longer regarded as unassailable. However, it seems that the weight of the evidence still supports it.
22 “This is second only to the printing press” Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions, citing Theodore Beck.
23 The first wheels used to mechanize Ibid. Lynn White, citing ambiguous illustrations in the windows of the cathedral at Chartres and an earlier regulation in the town of Speyer, gives the date of 1280.
24 “put [it] between a pair of rollers” Usher, “The Textile Industry, 1750–1830,” in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.
25 In a flash, Hargreaves imagined “James Hargreaves” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
26 “almost wholly with a pocket knife” Ibid.
27 “came to our house and burnt” Ibid.
28 “much application and many trials” Ibid.
29 “Weavers typically rested and played long” Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations.
30 “When in due course, SAINT MONDAY” Douglas A. Reid, “The Decline of Saint Monday 1766–1876,” Past and Present no. 71, 1976.
31 “I was a barber” “Richard Arkwright” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
32 As both men later recalled Ibid.
33 (Highs’s daughter, Jane) Edward Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain (London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, 1835).
34 “… wee [sic ] shall not want” “Richard Arkwright” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
35 He was, partly because of his success with waterpower Tann, “Richard Arkwright and Technology.”
The Most Powerful Idea in the World Page 39
