In almost no case is the crediting of invention more difficult than in that of the planer. Not only was this tool the product of many men but no single man stands out clearly as Maudslay, for instance, does in the development of the lathe. The invention of the metal planer has been claimed in England on behalf of Spring of Aberdeen, James Fox, George Rennie, Matthew Murray, Joseph Clement and Richard Roberts. The planer was in use in the United States so early that it may also have been invented independently in this country, though, without doubt, later than in England.

With the planer as with the lathe, the French were the pioneers. Plumier, a French writer on mechanical subjects, published in 1754 a description of a machine which had been used for some years, consisting of two parallel bars of wood or iron connected at their extremities. The article to be planed was fixed between them, and a frame guided between the same bars was moved lengthwise by a long screw and carried a tool which took a planing cut from the work. The machine was intended for ornamenting the handles of knives and was said by Plumier to have been an English invention. A planing machine invented in 1751 by Nicholas Forq, a French clock maker, for the purpose of planing the pump barrels used in the Marly water works to supply the fountains at Versailles, is shown in Fig. 17. These pump barrels were made up of wrought iron staves bound together by hoops. There were quite a number of these barrels from 10 inches to 4 feet in diameter and from 7 feet to 10 feet long. The illustration, taken from Buchanan’s “Mill Work,” published in 1841,[48] is not complete, as it lacks the carriage carrying the planing tool which was not shown on the original drawing. The general construction of the machine however is quite clear. The built-up barrel is shown in place. The cutter was carried backward and forward between two parallel iron bars set horizontally through the cylinder. Either the tool or the pump barrel must have been given a rotative feed. Its action was therefore equivalent to planing on centers, and it is said to have done this fairly large work in a satisfactory manner.

Bentham described a planer in his well-known patent of 1793 and Bramah in his patent of 1802. Matthew Murray is said to have built one in 1814 to machine the faces of D-slide valves, which were originally invented by Murdock in 1786 but improved by Murray in 1802. Richard Roberts built a planer in 1817 which is, without doubt, the earliest planer now in existence. It is in the South Kensington Museum in London and a picture of it is given in Fig. 20.[49] It will be seen that the modern planer design was already beginning to take shape. The chisel and file marks on the bed and ways indicate that it was itself made without the use of a planer. It had vertical and horizontal feeds, an angular adjustment and separate tool-feed for the head, and a hinged clamp for the tool to allow it to lift on the return stroke. The table, which was hand-operated through a chain drive, was 52 inches long by 11 inches wide.

George Rennie built a planer in 1820 with a movable bed operated by a screw and furnished with a revolving cutting tool.[50] James Fox built one in 1821, capable of planing work 10 feet, 6 inches long, 22 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, to plane the bars of lace machines. Joseph Clement made his first planer in 1820 to plane the triangular bars of lathes and the sides of weaving looms. Some years later he built his “great planer,” a remarkable machine from both a mechanical and a financial standpoint. A very full description of it was given by Mr. Varley in the “Transactions of the Society of Arts” in London in 1832,[51] illustrated by a set of copper plates made from Clement’s own drawings. Clement’s reputation of being the most expert draftsman of his day is well borne out by these drawings. In this planer two cutting tools were used, one for the forward and one for the return stroke. The bed ran on rollers, mounted on a concrete foundation, which were said to have been so true that “if you put a piece of paper under one of the rollers it would stop all the rest.” It was fitted with centers and was used for planing circular, spiral and conical work as well as flat work. It took in work 6 feet square and was hand-driven. The cutting speed must have been low, for “the power of one man was sufficient to keep it in motion for ordinary work, though two were employed to make long and full cuts both ways.” For more than ten years it was the only one of its size and it ran for many years night and day on jobbing work, its earnings forming Clement’s principal income. Smiles says that his charge for planing was 18 shillings, or $4.32, per square foot, which amounted to about £10 per day of twelve hours, or, with two shifts, to about $100 a day.[52] On this basis he must have machined an average of about 11 square feet in twelve hours.

By 1840 the design of the planer had become fairly well settled and its use general. In America, planers were built by Gay, Silver & Company of North Chelmsford, Mass., as early as 1831. Pedrick & Ayer of Philadelphia are also said to have built a planer at about the same time. The early American tool builders will be taken up in a later chapter.

Little is known of the personalities and histories of some of these men, such as Spring of Aberdeen. Spring’s name is mentioned by Smiles in his “Industrial Biography”[53] as one of the inventors of the planer, but no further reference is made to him.

James Fox was the founder of a well-known firm of machine-tool builders in Derby. He was originally a butler, but his mechanical skill turned him toward the design and building of lace machinery. The gentleman in whose employ he had served furnished him with the means of beginning business on his own account, and he soon obtained work from the great firms of Arkwright and Strutt, the founders of modern cotton manufacture. His planer, built about 1814, was used in the manufacture of this machinery. It is described by Samuel Hall, a former workman under Fox, as follows: “It was essentially the same in principle as the planing machine now in general use, although differing in detail. It had a self-acting ratchet motion for moving the slides of a compound slide-rest, and a self-acting reversing tackle, consisting of three bevel wheels, one a stud, one loose on the driving shaft, and another on a socket, with a pinion on the opposite end of the driving shaft running on the socket. The other end was the place for the driving pulley. A clutch-box was placed between the two opposite wheels, which was made to slide on a feather, so that by means of another shaft containing levers and a tumbling ball, the box on reversing was carried from one bevel-wheel to the opposite one.”[54] This planer was in regular use as late as 1859. The driving and reversing mechanism described above is almost exactly that used on Clement’s great planer, built a dozen years later. Fox is said to have also invented a screw-cutting machine, an automatic gear cutter and a self-acting lathe, but the evidence in regard to their dates is uncertain.

George Rennie was the brother of Sir John Rennie. They succeeded to the business founded by their father, the elder John Rennie, one of Watt’s best-known workmen and next to Murdock the most important of his assistants, who built the Albion Flour Mills in Black Friars, where one of the first rotative engines was installed about 1788. The mill was a great success until it burned down a few years later. John Rennie’s connection with it established his reputation and he shortly after started out for himself as a millwright and founded the business which his two sons carried on for many years and which had a great influence throughout all England. Sir William Fairbairn was one of those who worked for George Rennie and furnishes another example of the cumulative influence of a succession of strong mechanics.

Matthew Murray was born at Stockton about 1765. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith and soon became an expert mechanic. He married before his term of apprenticeship expired and as it was difficult to find sufficient work near Stockton, he left his wife behind him as soon as he was free and set out for Leeds with his bundle on his back. He obtained employment with a John Marshall who had begun the manufacture of flax machinery near Adel. Murray suggested improvements which brought him a present of £20 and rapid promotion until he soon became the first mechanic in the shop. He sent for his wife and settled down in Leeds, remaining with Mr. Marshall for about twelve years. He formed a partnership with James Fenton and David Wood and started an engineering and machine-building factory at Leeds in 1795. Here he began the manufacture of steam engines and soon established a high reputation, pushing Boulton & Watt hard. Murdock was sent down to Leeds, called on Murray, was received cordially, and was shown freely over the entire work. On visiting the Soho works a short time afterward Murray was received cordially by Murdock, and was invited to dinner but was told that there was a rule against admitting anyone in the trade to the works. Under the circumstances Murray was indignant and declining the invitation to dinner left without further delay. A little later Boulton & Watt attempted to “plug him up” by buying the property adjoining his factory, and this tract of land remained vacant for over 50 years. He improved the D-slide valve and did much work toward simplifying the design of the steam engine. The flat surfaces required in this type of valve led to the building of his planer. Mr. March, a well-known tool manufacturer of the next generation, went to work for Murray in 1814. Mr. March said the planer was in use at that time. “I recollect it very distinctly,” he continues, “and even the sort of framing on which it stood. The machine was not patented, and like many inventions in those days it was kept as much a secret as possible, being locked up in a small room by itself, to which the ordinary workmen could not obtain access. The year in which I remember it being in use was, so far as I am aware, long before any planing machine of a similar kind had been invented.”[55]

Like many of the owners of that time Murray lived directly opposite his works and he installed in his house a steam heating apparatus which excited much wonder and which must have been one of the first in use. He built the first locomotive which was put to successful commercial use. Trevithick had invented a steam road-engine with a single steam cylinder and a large flywheel, which had attracted considerable attention, but was wholly impracticable. It was important, however, as it had one of the first high-pressure engines, working above atmospheric pressure. In 1811 Blenkinsop of Leeds, taking his idea from Trevithick, had a number of locomotives built to operate a railway from the Middletown collieries to Leeds, a distance of 3¹⁄₂ miles. Blenkinsop was not a mechanic and the work was designed and executed by Matthew Murray. Murray used two steam cylinders instead of one, driving onto the same shaft with cranks set at right angles, and therefore introduced one of the most important features of modern locomotive design. These engines were in daily use for many years and were inspected by George Stephenson when he began his development of the locomotive. Murray’s design formed the basis from which he started. The engines, however, were operated by a cog-wheel driving onto a continuous rack laid along the road bed. It was not until a number of years later that Hedley and Stephenson established the fact that the wheel friction of smooth drivers would furnish adequate tractive power. The old Blenkinsop engines, as they were called, hauled about thirty coal wagons at a speed of 3¹⁄₄ miles an hour.

Murray’s most important inventions were connected with the flax industry and for these he obtained a gold medal from the Society of Arts. At the time they were developed, the flax trade was dying. Their effect was to establish the British linen trade on a permanent and secure foundation. All the machine tools used in his establishment were designed and built by himself and among these was the planer which was unquestionably one of the earliest built. He made similar articles for other firms and started a branch of engineering for which Leeds became famous. He was a frank, open-hearted man, and one who contributed greatly to the industrial supremacy of England.

Joseph Clement was born in Westmoreland in 1779.[56] His father was a weaver, a man of little education but of mental ability, a great lover of nature and something of a mechanic. Joseph Clement himself had only the merest elements of reading and writing. He started in life as a thatcher and slater, but picked up the rudiments of mechanics at the village blacksmith shop. Being grateful to the blacksmith, he repaid him by making for him a lathe which was a pretty creditable machine. On this he himself made flutes and fifes for sale and also a microscope for his father to use in his nature studies. As early as 1804 he began to work on screw cutting and made a set of die-stocks, although he had never seen any. He worked in several small country shops, then in Carlisle and in Glasgow, where he took lessons in drawing from a Peter Nicholson and became one of the most skillful draftsmen in England. Later he went to Aberdeen and was earning three guineas ($15) a week designing and fitting up power looms. By the end of 1813 he had saved £100. With this he went to London, meaning sooner or later to set up for himself. He first worked for an Alexander Galloway, a ward politician and tradesman who owned a small shop. Galloway was a slovenly manager and left things to run themselves. When Clement started in he found the tools so poor that he could not do good work with them, and immediately set to work truing them up, to the surprise of his shopmates who had settled down to the slipshod standards of the shop. Seeing that Clement was capable of the highest grade work, one of his shopmates told him to go to Bramah’s where such workmanship would be appreciated.

He saw Bramah and engaged to work for him for a month on trial. The result was so satisfactory that he signed an agreement for five years, dated April 1, 1814, under which he became chief draftsman and superintendent of the Pimlico works. Clement threw himself eagerly into the new work and took great satisfaction in the high quality of work which was the standard in Bramah’s establishment. Bramah was greatly pleased with him and told him, “If I had secured your services five years since I would now have been a richer man by many thousands of pounds.” Bramah died, however, within a year and his two sons returning from college took charge of the business. They soon became jealous of Clement’s influence and by mutual consent the agreement signed with their father was terminated. Clement immediately went to Maudslay & Field’s as chief draftsman and assisted in the development of the early marine engines which they were building at that time. In 1817 he started in for himself in a small shop in Newington, with a capital of £500 and his work there until his death in 1844 is of great importance.

As already pointed out, he had been working for many years on the problem of screw cutting. Maudslay had carried this to a more refined point than any other mechanic. Profiting by Maudslay’s experience, Clement began the regular manufacture of taps and dies in 1828, using the thread standards developed by Maudslay as his basis. He introduced the tap with a small squared shank which would fall through the threaded hole and save the time of backing out. He is said to have been one of the first in England to employ revolving cutters, using them to flute his taps. While he may have used such cutters, he was certainly not the first to do so, as they were in use in France at least thirty years earlier. He did important work in developing the screw-cutting lathe, again improving upon Maudslay’s work and increasing the accuracy of the device. He was given a number of gold medals for various improvements in it, as well as for his work on the planer. We have already referred to his “great planer” and will only say here that of those who contributed to the early development of this machine none have had a greater influence. He executed the work on Charles Babbage’s famous calculating machine, which attracted so much attention eighty years ago and was probably the most refined and intricate piece of mechanism constructed up to that time.

Clement was a rough and heavy-browed man, without polish, who retained until the last his strong Westmoreland dialect. At no time did he employ over thirty workmen in his factory, but they were all of the very highest class. Among them was Sir Joseph Whitworth, who continued his work on screw threads and brought about the general use of what is now known as the Whitworth thread.

Richard Roberts, the last of those mentioned as inventors of the metal planer, was born in Wales in 1789. Like most of the early mechanics he had little or no education, and as soon as he was strong enough he began work as a laborer in a quarry near his home. His mechanical aptitude led him into odd jobs and he soon became known for his dexterity. He finally determined to become a mechanic and worked in several shops in the neighborhood. He was employed for a time as pattern maker at John Wilkinson’s works at Bradley, and is one of the few links between Wilkinson, who made the first modern metal-cutting tool—his boring machine—and the later generation of tool builders.

He drifted about, a jack-of-all-trades—turner, millwright, pattern maker and wheelwright—to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and finally up to London, where, after being with Holtzapffel for a short time, he found work with Maudslay in 1814 and remained with him several years. His experience here was valuable as he came in contact with the best mechanical practice. The memoir of Roberts in the “Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers”[57] states that he worked on the Portsmouth block machinery, but this could hardly have been true, as that machinery was in operation by 1808. He ceased roving and did so well that he determined to return to the North and begin business for himself.

He started at Manchester in 1817 and there he spent the best years of his life. Few inventors have been more prolific or more versatile. Within a year or two he had made one of the first planers, already described; had invented the back-geared headstock, having the cone pulley running loose upon the main spindle,[58] shown in Fig. 21, and made other improvements in the screw-cutting lathe; invented the first successful gas meter and built gear-cutting, broaching and slotting machines and an improved beam-scale. Holtzapffel says: “Probably no individual has originated so many useful varieties of drilling machines as Mr. Richard Roberts.” Throughout his book he frequently illustrates and describes tools and machinery designed by Roberts, crediting him with the invention of the slotter and key-seater, which he thinks was an outgrowth of Brunel’s mortising machine, Fig. 11. Roberts’ punching and shearing machinery was the standard for that time.[59]

By 1825 his reputation had so increased that his firm, Sharp, Roberts & Company, was asked by a committee of the cotton manufacturers of Manchester to undertake the development of an automatic spinning mule. The spinners were the highest paid labor in Lancashire textile industry, but they were difficult to work with and prone to strike on a moment’s notice, closing the mills and throwing other workmen out of employment. The operators asked Roberts repeatedly to help them but he gave them no encouragement, as the problem was conceded to be difficult and he said he was not familiar with textile machinery. He had been thinking over the problem, however, and the third time they called on him he said that he now thought he could construct the required machinery. The result was the invention in 1825 of his delicate and complex automatic spinning mule in which hundreds of spindles “run themselves” with only the attention of a few unskilled helpers to watch for broken threads and mend them. This was one of the great textile inventions and has had an enormous influence on the development of the cotton industry. The next year, 1826, he went to Mülhouse in Alsace and laid the foundation of modern French cotton manufacture. Later he invented and patented a number of other important textile machines.

With the development of the railway his firm began the manufacture of locomotives. They built more than 1500, and established a reputation equal to that of Stephenson & Company in Newcastle. The engines were built interchangeably to templates and gauges, and Roberts’ works were one of the first in England to grasp and use the modern system of interchangeable manufacture.

In addition to all that has been mentioned, he invented the iron billiard table, a successful punching and shearing machine, the most powerful electro-magnet then made, a turret clock, a cigar-making machine and a system of constructing steamships and equipping them with twin screws having independent engines.

With a wonderful mechanical genius, he was lacking in worldly wisdom and was a poor business man. He severed his connection with Sharp, Roberts & Company, became involved financially and finally died at London in 1864 in poverty. At his death a popular subscription, headed by Sir William Fairbairn and many of the nobility, was started to provide for his only daughter as a memorial of the debt which England owed him. The memoir of him in the “Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers” closes with the following words: “The career of Mr. Roberts was remarkable, and it should be carefully written by some one who could investigate impartially the numerous inventions and improvements to which claim could justly be laid for him, and who, at the same time, would, with equal justice, show where his inventions have been pirated.” It is a great pity that this was never done.

He was a rugged, straightforward, kindly man, of great inventive power. He improved nearly everything he touched or superseded it entirely by something better, and neither his name nor his work should be forgotten.