[HE STORY OF THE INVENTION AND MANUFACTURE FEEL PENS O C\J WSON.BLAKEMAN 5k CCt NEV YORK -CHICAGO CM 03 LI BR ARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received Accessions No. . THE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF STEEL PENS WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES BY WHICH THEY ARE PRODUCED BY HENRY BORE NEW YORK IVISON, BLAKEMAN & COMPANY NOS. 753-755 BROADWAY 1890 THE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF STEEL PENS [N these days of Public Schools and extended fa- cilities 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 in- quirer after knowledge would scarcely find a dozen per- sons 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 passed 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 to- ward solving the question, Who was the first manu- facturer of steel pens by mechanical appliances ? In the absence of any definite information, the balance of testi- mony 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 associated with their manufacture were John Mitchell, THE STOR Y OF THE 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, ist Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalm xlv. i, Isaiah viii. i, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. i. But these chiefly refer to the iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah taken in reference to the mention of a penknife, xxxvi. 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 brass 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 commence- ment of the present era. The following are a few not- able instances : ' ' The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1 540, had a silver pen be- stowed 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. INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. 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 Mu- seum at Naples. It is described in the quarto volume ' Les Monu- ments 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 126 (v) Plume en bronze, taillee parfaitement a la faon de nos plumes 0.13 cent. " ' Plate 126 (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 accus- tomed 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? Inter medlar e : "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 fictitious pieces (documents) fabricated by Robert d'Artois, that a clerk of Jeanne wrote the deeds, and made use of a bronze pen to enable THE STORY OF THE 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) l les preuves de jjoo.'" L? Intermediare. " In the Vieux-Neuf of M. Ed. Fournier (vol. ii., p. 22, note) there is mentioned according to the documents 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 ' Intermddiare ', ist 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 Trin- ity College, Cambridge, is a manuscript illustration 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'lnternittdiare ; 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 God, 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. I7th, 1465, A. D.' Here, then, we have a document proving the existence of metallic pens in the Middle INVENTION OF STEEL PENS, Ages. But has any such pen come down to us ? If so, could a de- tailed 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 cent- ury in the manufacture of pens, or whether it is necessary to attribute a peculiar meaning to the ' platinum pen ' in the following passage 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 men- tions the endless pen, which ' would certainly be the best.' " J. CAMUS, L' Interm^diare . ' ' 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 manuscript, entitled '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 boast- ing, claim the honour of having invented a new pen. It is, perhaps, not an accident that God should have inspired me at the present time with the idea of making steel pens, for all the envoys here assembled have bought the first that have been made ; therewith, as may be hoped, to sign a treaty of peace, which, with God's blessing, shall be as per- manent 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 THE STORY OF THE into every corner of the world as a rare thing to Spain, France, Eng- land 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 is. 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 ipth 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 be- came 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 in- ventor of steel pens ; and William Gadsby, a mathemat- ical 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 INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. 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 plum- bago, mounted like a crayon, and the othera 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 pass 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 title 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 men- tioned by Horace Walpole, in his letter to George Montague, May i8th, 1749, which letter is printed in his Correspondence. THE STORY OF THE In No. 503 of the Spectator, bearing the date of Octo- ber 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 complain'd. "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 noble 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 sup- position, 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 w r as made in the year 1819, at this village, by the Shakers. Two or three years previously to the use of silver pens, our people used brass 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." INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. n ^^_____ The writer further says the metal was made from sil- ver 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 fol- lowing 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. Pere- grine 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 addi- tional 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 kno.w how much reliance may be placed upon this statement, but, if the last assertion "that those who first engaged in the business realized immense fort- unes " may be taken as a test, the whole must be re- ceived 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. (sth 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 12 THE STORY OF THE 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.) Mr. Ralph N. James, writing to Notes and Queries, gives the following extract from the very amusing "Jour- ney to Paris," by Dr. Martin Lister, 1698 : " There was one thing very curious, and that was a Writing Instru- ment of thick and strong silver wire, bound up like a hollow button or screw, with both ends pointing one way, and at a distance, so that a man might easily put his forefinger betwixt the two points, and the point divided in two, just like our steel pens" London Notes and Queries, vol. iii., page 346. This note caused another writer, Mr. C. A. Ward, to send the following : "STEEL PENS. The extract given from Dr. M. Lister's, by Mr. Ralph N. James, is very interesting. The doctor there speaks of ' our steel pens? as if they were not at all uncommon. When the poet Churchill's effects were sold up, after his death, Nov. 10, 1764, they fetched extravagant prices ; ' a common steel pen ' brought 5." Lon- don Notes and Queries, vol iii., page 474. The following extract from London Notes and Queries gives very plausible reasons against placing confidence in the preceding and other notices of ancient steel pens : " STEEL PENS, (sth S., vol. iii. , pp. 346, 474.) May I ask whether, in giving the interesting references to the use of steel pens before the time of Priestley (one reference even going so far back as the seventeenth century) your correspondents have carefully considered what is meant by the terms. For my own part (of course I may be quite wrong) I should naturally have anticipated steel pens in these references to mean not the modern steel nib for ordinary penmanship, but the ancient steel pen for drawing lines or ruling circles, such as is contained in every box of mathematical instruments. This would explain (to some extent) the INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. 13 great price fetched for a good one of Churchill's ; a mere old steel nib would scarcely enter into a sale at all. It would explain, too, why a special process of hardening should be applied to a quill, in order to make it do duty for the steel instrument. One would scarcely think of hardening a quill in order to enable it to compete with a steel nib in some of the least desirable qualities, though one often wishes one could accomplish the reverse process, and soften or supple a steel 1 stick frog,' so as to give it the elasticity of the grey goose quill." V. H. I. L. L. C. IV. (iv., 37, 5th S., London Notes and Queries.} Mr. R. Prosser, author of " Birmingham Inventors and Inventions," in writing to the compiler of this work, says : " It has often occurred to me that some of the very early references to metallic pens may perhaps mean the draughtsman's ' ruling pen,' and not an instrument made after the fashion of a quill pen with a slit in it. That it is possible to write with such an instrument this paragraph will show, but I must admit that it is not equal to one of Perry's J's." From an entry in " Pepy's Diary," October 24, 1660, drawing pens appear to have been in use in London, at the time of the Restoration : "To Mr. Lilly's, where, not finding Mr. Spong, I went to Mr. Greatorex, where I met him, and where I bought a draining pen" In London Notes and Queries (4th S., xi., 440), the Rev. E. Smedley, editor of the Encyclopaedia Metropoli- tana, writing to his friend, Mr. H. Hawkins, April 10, 1833, says: " The process of nibbing and shaving is one which I always abomi- nated, and for years past I have taken refuge under the Perryian pens. The one with which I now write has been in use daily, and all day long, for more than a fortnight, and I consider that it still owes me quite as much worth as it has already furnished. Every packet con- tains nine pens, and on an average two out of that number fail to suit my hand, but the remaining seven are faithful servants, and their price is 2s." 14 THE STORY OF THE In London Notes and Queries (4th S., xii , 57) a writer says : " I bought my first steel pen from Bramah, Piccadilly, in 1825. The price was is. 6d. It was very thick and hard, with very little elasticity. In 1829 I read advertised in the Times, steel pens, with holder, 33. per dozen, at Kendal's, in Holborn. They were hand made, and much easier to write with than Bramah's. Soon after the price fell, and steel pens became common." In London Notes and Queries (4th S., x., 309), October 19, 1872, Mr. William Bates, speaking of a visit he paid to an old lady, at Studley (Worcestershire) about 1825, says that he saw an exquisitely-finished inkstand of pure gold, the gift of one of the Earls of Plymouth to her father, 100 years before. The inkstand was provided with a jointed gold penholder, terminating in a barrel (one slit) pen, resembling the metallic pen of the present day, ex- cept that he found that it would not write. In " Local Notes and Queries," published in the Bir- mingham Journal and Weekly Post, there have appeared a number of contributions relating to the early manufact- ure of steel pens. We reproduce them here. A corre- spondent writing on June 22, 1869, says: "Daniel Fel- lows, of Sedgley, made steel pens about 1800." Another writer, on the same date, says, "The first makers of steel pens were John Edwards, Hill Street, and Francis Heeley, Mount Street, Birmingham." Respecting the former of these, in Wrightsons Bir- mingham Directory, 1823, the following advertisement appears : " John Edwards, manufacturer of improved gold, silver, and elastic steel pens, mounted in all kinds of cases, and desk handles, No. 40 Hill Street. N. B. The pens are warranted to write exceedingly fine and free." INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. 15 This advertisement contained engravings of a barrel and " nibbed " or " slip " pen. J. Sargent, writing from Tettenhall, June 28, 1869, says : " A journeyman blacksmith, named Fellows, of Sedgley, was the first originator of steel pens. I resided at Sedgley in 1822, when Sheldon, Fellows's apprentice, made some of these pens. He made two for me. I wrote very well with them. Sheldon himself told me that Mr. Gillott commenced making the pen from seeing some of his (Sheldon's) make." Some one writing under the nom de plu Sait," says : "I distinctly recollect, about the year 1806, being in Sedgley, and there seeing Thomas Sheldon, his apj steel pens. He knew of an entry in his books of pens Fellows in 1807. He paid Sheldon 100 in 1822. He believed lows made pens in 1793. Beilby and Knott (Birmingham stationers) sold these pens in considerable quantities from 1818 to 1828. Sheldon continued the trade until it was destroyed through inability to compete with the machine-made pens of Mitchell and Gillott." Another writer, "T. S.," says : " In 1815, an uncle of mine used to purchase these pens from Shel- don, of Sedgley. The price was eighteen shillings per dozen, ten per cent, for cash. They were barrel shape. B. Smith and Co. had in their pattern book of engravings of steel toys a drawing of one of these pens, which were sold at thirty shillings per dozen ; also one in a bone handle, the top of which screwed off, for carrying in the pocket, at thirty-six shillings per dozen." Another correspondent, writing on July 24, 1869, men- tions (on authority of the late Mr. Alderman Yates) that an old man named Spittle made steel pens before any of the present makers. 1 6 THE STORY OF THE In note 319 this man Spittle is mentioned by another writer, who says : "A man named Spittle, one of the earliest makers of steel pens, lived in Chequers' Walk, Bath Row, Birmingham. He made steel pens for sale, and charged one shilling each for them. They were made with a tube to fit on a quill. I bought one from him forty-five years ago (1824)." " E. W.," writing in 1869, says : "In 1821 there was a B. Smith, steel toy maker, St. Paul's [Mary's] Square, Birmingham. He had a book of engravings of steel toys, among which were steel pens, made to screw on and off. This pat- tern book might have been one hundred years old. I sold his pens in 1823." The Editor of "Notes and Queries" says "Smith's pattern book was probably fifty years old," and further remarks that steel pens must have been a regular article of manufacture before they appeared in a steel toy maker's pattern book. "C. J.," in note 372, says: " The pattern book of John Barnes, Eagle Works, Wolverhampton, contains engravings of early steel pens." Mr. Robert Griffin says : " In 1824 I wrote very much with a steel pen made under the direc- tion of James Perry a pen that lasted about eight or nine weeks, writ- ing eight hours a day." In note 344, " Anon " says he remembered his father (who had premises in Water Street, Birmingham), in the summer of 1823, bringing a tall, quiet, respectable man to the manufactory. He had a piece of iron, or steel, which he required to be cut up into strips of about two inches wide. The man said he was going to get the INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. I? strips rolled to make into steel pens. He gave the writer of the note sixpence and a barrel pen for his trouble. In answer to inquiries the writer put to his father, the latter stated he did not know the man's name nor where he lived, but " that he met with him in a smoke room, where he (the father) sometimes spent his evenings." The writer further remarks : " Where the man had got his ideas from which induced him to try his hand at mak- ing steel pens I do not know, but I have an impression that there were several experimenters in existence at that time ; and very soon afterward Mr. William (Joseph) Gillott, with whom my father was on terms of intimacy, came into notice as a maker of steel pens." This is a very important statement, as it fixes a date respecting pens being made from sheet steel. One of the oldest toolmakers in the trade has informed us that, about the year 1823 or 1824, he was frequently taken by his father to visit an uncle named Clulee, who rented power at the Water Street mill. On these occasions his father and uncle would talk about 'the visits of Gillott to the latter, and the hopeful manner in which he spoke of the experiments he was then making. Gillott rented power at the Water Street mill, and was engaged in grinding and finishing penknife blades, which were inserted in one end of a silver pencil case, which his relative Mitchell was then making. Now, who was this " tall, quiet, respectable man ? " It could not have been Gillott, as he was not tall and the father of " Anon " knew him ; and Mitchell was also a short man. We have failed to trace him, and his identity is lost among the " sowers " who failed to reap the har- vest of their inventions. 1 8 THE STORY OF THE Mr. George Wallis, speaking of steel pens, remarks : " I wrote with one when a boy (1822 to 1826), having found several in a stock of old steel waste in the warehouse of a relative, a retired ornamental steel worker, at Wolverhampton. These pens were made (so I was told) for the London market, late in the last or early in the present century. Certainly they were made fifteen or, perhaps, twenty years, when I found them, as the manufactory in which they had been produced had been closed the former number of years. They con- sisted of a holder of steel, with flutings and facets. One was solid and tapered to lighten it ; the other had a barrel with an internal screw. The pen had two screws ; one was used to screw the pen into the bar- rel for use, and the other to secure it when turned inwards as a protec- tion when not in use, or to carry in the pocket." The following letter from Mr. Alderman Manton to Mr. Sam: Timmins makes us acquainted with another manufacturer of steel pens : " THE METAL PENS OF 1823. In a badly-constructed and unsani- tary manufactory (Mr. James Collins's), at the back of 119 Suffolk Street, (Birm.), I witnessed the process of making silver and steel pens. As both metals were manufactured in the same manner, one description will serve. It will be remembered by a few that at that time there was a patent silver pencil case somewhat extensively manufactured, which in addition to the pencil, had a penknife, pen and toothpick provided. The penknife was supplied by two brothers Joseph and William Gillott who at that time rented a small shop in a corner of the yard belonging to the rolling mill of George and P. F. Muntz, Water Street, and from whose engine they obtained the small amount of steam power needed. The process of making the pens was as follows : Two nar- row strips were cut from a sheet of silver or steel ; they were then, by the help of the hammer and a lead cake, or piece of hard wood, curved. Afterwards the two strips were placed opposite to each other on a well- polished steel wire, and drawn through a draw-plate, the wire and plate being supplied by Wm. Billings, a celebrated tool manufacturer, occupying premises near the top of Snow Hill (Birm.). By the aid of a press, a small hole was made at a distance of half an inch or five- eighths from the end, the slit was then made by a fine saw made of INVENTION OF STEEL PENS. 19 watch springs. A bent pair of shears was used for cutting the end of strip into the shape of a pen ; and a half-round file or smooth was used for finishing the pen. The pen was then sawn off the strip by the same saw which was used for slitting the pen. The only hardening process was the friction of the draw-plate and steel wire. I not only witnessed the process, but was a manipulator. The cost of making at that time, by a journeyman, was 2d. each ; by an apprentice, about one-third of that amount. Within less than thirty years of that time, in a manufactory adjoining my own, pens were made and sold (whole- sale) at 2d. per gross, and a box containing them into the bargain." (Signed] Henry Manton, September 15, 1886. Mr. T. Vary writes that James Perry began making steel pens in Manchester, and quotes the Saturday Maga- zine to show that metallic pens were given by him as re- wards of merit in schools as far back as 1819. Mr. James Cocker, writing in the Sheffield Daily Tele- graph, 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 dis- cussion of the origin of steel pens, and a correspondent in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, in the issue of January n, 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 news- papers, affords a curious and instructive illustration of the success which not seldom attends the combined action of ingenuity, industry, shrewd- ness, and integrity among our labouring classes. 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 entitled 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 20 THE STOR Y OF THE recognized and respected by the visitors at the annual exhibitions of our School of Art, in connection with the many rare and valuable pict- ures lent by him on those occasions. The printed fac-simile of the autograph appeared in the ' advertising columns ' of almost every news- paper 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 char- acter, 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. Gillott was a workman, in Nursery Street, Sheffield, having gone with his master from the scissors grinding stone to the making of polished steel orna- ments 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 Birming- ham, 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 Bir- mingham, came into our townsman's shop, and seeing on the counter a model steam engine of half-horse power, at once purchased and car- ried it off to give motion to some part of his pen machinery. Brass 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, he 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.