The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens

THE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF STEEL PENS
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS
BY WHICH THEY ARE PRODUCED
BY HENRY BORE
LONDON 1890
In these days of Public Schools and extended facilities for popular
education it would be difficult to find many people unaccustomed to
the use of steel pens, but although the manufacture of this article by
presses and tools must have been introduced during the first quarter of
the present century, the inquirer after knowledge would scarcely find a
dozen persons who could give any definite information as to when,
where, and by whom this invention was made. Less than two decades
ago there were three men living who could have answered this question,
but two of them 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 toward solving the
question, Who was the first manufacturer of steel pens by mechanical
appliances? In the absence of any definite information, the balance of
testimony tends to prove that steel pens were first made by tools,
worked by a screw press, about the beginning of the third decade of the
present century, and the names associated with their manufacture were
John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott, and Josiah Mason, each, in his own way,
doing something toward perfecting the manufacture by mechanical
means.
The earliest references to pens are probably those in the Bible, and are
to be found in Judges v. 14, 1st Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalm xlv. 1.,
Isaiah viii. 1, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. 1. But these chiefly refer to the

iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah--taken in reference to the
mention of a penknife, 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 commencement of the present era. The following are
a few notable instances:
"The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1540, had a silver pen bestowed
upon her, which had this inscription upon it: _'Publii Ovidii Calamus,'_
found under the ruins of some monument in that country, as Mr. Sands,
in the Life of Ovid (prefixed to his Metamorphosis) relates.
--_"Humane Industry; or, a History of Mechanical Arts," by Thos.
Powell, D.D.: London, 1661, page 61._"
This was probably a silver reed, and, from the locality in which it was
found, was once the property of the poet Ovid. Publius Ovidius Naso
was born in the year 43 B.C., and died 18 A.D. He was exiled at the age
of 30 to Tomi, a town south of the delta of the Danube. This at present
is in modern Bulgaria, but at the period mentioned was in the ancient
kingdom of Hungary.
From "Notes and Queries," in Birmingham Weekly Post, we take the
following:
"EARLY METALLIC PENS.---Metallic pens are generally supposed
to have been unknown before the early part of the last century, when
gold and silver pens are occasionally referred to as novel luxuries. I
have, however, recently found a description and an engraving of one
found in excavating Pompeii, and which is now preserved in the
Museum at Naples. It is described in the quarto volume 'Les
Monuments du Musee National de Naples, graves sur cuivre par les
meillures artistes Italienes. Texte par Domenico Monaco, Conservateur

du meme Musee, Naples, 1882,' and is in the Catalogue:
"' Plate I26 (v) Plume en bronze, taillee parfaitement a la facon de nos
plumes 0.13 cent.
"' Plate I26 (y) Plume en roseau [reed] trouvee pres d'un papyrus a
Herculaneum.'
"The former (v) is engraved to look like an ordinary reed pen, as now
used universally in the East; and the other (y) has a spear shape, or
almond shape (like many modern metallic pens), but with a sort of fillet
or ring on the stem, which indicates that the 'y' example is not a reed,
but a metallic stylus, or pen, while the 'v' example is shown clearly as a
'reed.' The two are, however, certainly older than A.D. 79, when
Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by the eruption of Vesuvius."
According to Father Montfaucon, the patriarchs of Constantinople,
under the Greek Empire, were accustomed to sign their allocutions with
tubular pens of silver, similar in shape to the reed pens which are still
used by Oriental