The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens | Page 8

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. 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, 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 associate 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 Mitchell 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