Handbook of Birmingham / Prepared for the Members of the British Association, 1886

by British Association for the Advancement of Science

In one of the drawers there are preserved several of the old fashioned tools, formerly, and still used in rule making by hand, and also carefully wrapped up in paper by Watt himself, is a “brass sector with a French joint,” which, unlike his compasses and other mathematical instruments, has undergone no wear, and is as faultlessly clear and perfect as it was on the day it left the maker’s hands. The only assumption that can be made respecting it is that it is the identical “brass sector with a French joint,” of which young Watt so glowingly wrote to his father, now a hundred and thirty years ago; and if that be so, it is the only known specimen of the great engineer’s work as a rule maker.

Prior to the last meeting of the British Association in Birmingham, in 1865, machinery had been brought into the trade to but a small extent compared with what has since been the case in the making and marking of all kinds of rules. Accurately engine-divided, 2-feet folding steel rules, retailed at a shilling each, are a new feature of the trade, which is a boon to mechanics they never before had. The employment of automatic machinery has quite revolutionised the trade, by bringing larger capital into it, and increasing the number of workpeople sixfold, at the same time enabling employers to pay higher wages than they could possibly do when all depended upon unaided hand labour. The trade has always been in comparatively few hands, three-fourths of the names appearing in one directory as makers, being merely dealers, or journeymen; in one case fifteen of the men so described being merely journeymen of one employer. The bulk of the trade is now in the hands of as few makers as might be counted on the fingers of one hand, but competition is not rendered thereby less severe, but is rather more excessive. During the past twenty years a great change has taken place in many countries by the adoption of the metre as a standard measure. Since 1870 all the numberless measures of little German towns, many with both decimal and duo-decimal divisions, have been abolished, and the use of the metre alone legalised. Other nations have followed the example of Germany. Many of the rules made for export to such countries as Russia, which have not legalised the metre, are marked with it in addition to the local measures, thus preparing the way for its future adoption. Its use has been legalised in Great Britain, though not made compulsory, and many of the measures made for export to foreign countries where English customs prevail are marked with both English and metrical divisions.

Military Arms Trade.—[J. D. Goodman.]—(B. 381.) At the date of the notice of the gun trade, published in the transactions of the meeting of the British Association held in Birmingham in 1865, the British forces were armed with muzzle-loading guns. The arm of the service was that known as the “Enfield Rifle.” It was adopted by a committee of military officers, appointed by Lord Hardinge, Master General of the Ordnance, in 1853.

In 1865 the breech-loading system was receiving much attention. The Wesley Richards’ Breech-loader had been for some time in use in the service on an experimental scale, and had been tested in the field, both in China and New Zealand. So far back as 1861, a thousand breech-loaders, on Terry’s principle, had been issued to the troops, but did not prove successful. Trial was also made of Sharp’s American Breech-loading Rifle. The successful use of the Needlegun Breech-loader, by the Prussians, in the Danish war of 1864, gave great urgency to the enquiry.

In August, 1864, the English Government invited proposals for the conversion of the Enfield rifle into a breechloader. Fifty different systems were sent in, of which five only were ultimately selected for trial. Four of these were capping and one was a non-capping arm—that is, one in which the cartridge carries its own ignition. On 14th March, 1865, the Woolwich Committee issued their Report on the various systems which had been submitted, in which after speaking of the obvious disadvantages which a breechloader requiring a cap presents, when contrasted with one adapted for a cartridge carrying its own ignition, proceeds to say:—

“The Committee have now respectfully to submit their observations on the whole question.

“The ultimate armament of the infantry with breech-loading weapons is determined upon. It would be done at a comparatively small cost by conversion, but it is now well known that the calibre, twist, and form of rifling of the ‘Enfield’ is not the most favourable for fine shooting, and it is quite certain that no converted arms can possess the precision which will be easily attained in a new breechloader of smaller gauge and quicker twist. Nor will the soldier be able to carry that increased quantity of ammunition, which is so desirable, without a reduction of calibre.

“There are certain circumstances in which, notwithstanding all the inconveniences which will attend the co-existence of unaltered arms, converted arms, and new arms, with their different ammunitions, it may still be desirable to proceed with the conversion on the ground of its small cost, and of the less time in which the arms can be turned out; but the Committee do not feel in a position at present to recommend such a measure.”

In the end, the economical view prevailed, and it was determined to convert the Enfield rifles to the Snider system. The effect of this decision was to postpone to 1871, when the Martini rifle was adopted, the advantages recognised in the Woolwich Report, which would be obtained by a smaller bore, quicker twist, and a different form of rifling.