Engineering reminiscences contributed to "Power" and "American machinist"

by Charles T. Porter

I knew also that Mr. Whitworth’s name was a tower of strength. His influence with the public at large respecting everything mechanical seemed really that of a magician. I felt that the fact that the manufacture of my engine and governor had been taken up by Mr. Whitworth placed them on an eminence at once.

I was conscious also that I was quite prepared to improve this opportunity, grand as it seemed to be. The engine had been abundantly proved. The success of the condenser I felt sure of, a confidence that was found to have been fully justified. Everything on my part was in readiness. The drawings and patterns for several sizes of the engines were complete. I was certainly excusable for anticipating that I should enter at once upon a rapidly growing and prosperous business.

With my rude awakening from this “dream of bliss” the reader has already been made acquainted. The causes which had brought these works, so far as their machine-tool department was concerned, down from such a height of excellence as they must for a long time have occupied, to such a depth of ignorance and helplessness as existed on my entrance into them, I never fully knew. I heard that some years before there had been an extensive strike in the works, and that Mr. Whitworth had discharged a large body of skilled workmen and had filled their places with laborers. They had a pretty large drawing-office—empty. I was told that until a short time before my coming they had kept one draftsman employed, but no one paid any attention to his drawings. Mr. Widdowson regarded them merely as suggestions, and he and the foreman pattern-maker altered them as they liked, and finally the farce of having drawings made at all was abandoned. It was not found difficult to run these closely shut works for a long time on their reputation.

The state of affairs was distressing enough. The few engines that we could manage to finish we could only build, in many of their parts, on new lathes, which were used by them as long as they dared to, before sending them to their owners. But I kept up a brave heart. At any rate the personal influence of Mr. Whitworth remained. Indeed I already saw its value in many ways. Then the pattern-shop, foundry and smith-shop were equal to our requirements, and I felt confident that Mr. Hoyle could induce Mr. Whitworth to have the improvements and changes made, especially in the lathes and boring-machines, which would make it possible for us to do the work. Mr. Hoyle had become famous in the shop as the only man who had ever been able to influence Mr. Whitworth. He had lately given a striking example of his power. Mr. Whitworth was, years before, the designer of the box frame, which gave to many machine tools a rigidity incomparably superior to that which could be got by any method of ribbing. This box system was then established in universal use, both in England and on the Continent. Not long before my coming Mr. Whitworth had been looking into the cost of the cores that these box forms required, and concluded that he could not allow such an expense any longer, and ordered a return to the method of ribbing. The superintendent and foremen, to whom this order was communicated, were amazed at so ruinous and indeed insane a step. No one else dared to open his mouth; but Mr. Hoyle undertook the task of dissuading him from it, and after a long struggle finally succeeded in inducing him to rescind his order. So I confidently looked to him for the salvation of the engine.

Then suddenly a new trouble arose. After a delay of some months, the agreement between Mr. Whitworth and myself, reduced to writing by his solicitor, was put into my hands for signature. I found that it corresponded with our verbal agreement, except that Mr. Whitworth reserved to himself the right to make alterations in the engine, in any respect whatever, in his discretion. To say that I hesitated about signing such an abandonment would not be true; I never thought of such a thing as signing it. Mr. Whitworth was probably the only man in the world who would have thought of making such a demand, and was certainly the last man in the world to whom it should be granted.

The first thing he would probably have done would have been to make the crank and cross-head pins run in solid bearings. I had regarded his talk about “the perfect steam-engine” at our first interview as idle words; but here was the provision for giving these words effect. Indeed, he now assured me that the opening to his scheme afforded by my engine formed his inducement for taking it up, and that he expected me to understand that from what he then said. Here was a situation! I knew that in the multifarious excursions of his restless mind the steam-engine had never been included. These excursions seemed to have led in all directions except that. About the steam-engine and its “fundamental principles,” except those constructive principles that it had in common with all machines, I was sure he had not the least idea. The scheme was childish. I could only think of the little boy who wanted a penny to go down-town. “What are you going to buy?” said his amused father. “I don’t know; shall see something I want when I get there.” This seemed to me, and correctly as I afterwards became satisfied, to represent Mr. Whitworth’s “open-mindedness” on this subject.

Now, Mr. Whitworth was the most dangerous man possible to be entrusted with such a power. He could not work with anybody else. His disposition was despotic. He looked only for servile obedience to his orders. Besides this, he had no conception of the law of growth. In his own mind he had anchored both tool construction and gunnery where they were to remain forever, and he purposed to do the same thing with the steam-engine, as soon as he should have time to attend to it.

So our agreement never was executed. I confidently expected him to yield on this point, which I was settled that I would never do, and I found in the end that he as confidently expected me to yield, which he was settled that he would never do. Meanwhile we got along on a modus vivendi plan, which could only last through an emergency, and during which, of course, nothing could be done towards settling the business on a substantial foundation. The emergency in this case was getting through the Paris Exposition. Before coming to that, however, I have something else to relate.

We received an order from Pooley & Son, proprietors of the India Mills, Manchester, for a horizontal condensing engine to drive the machinery of their blowing-room, that in which the cotton is opened and cleaned and receives its first carding operations. The growth of their business had made it necessary for them to increase their power, which they planned to do by driving this portion of their machinery separately. This engine was interesting for two reasons. It was the first engine ordered in England to which my horizontal condenser was applied, and it was the first mill engine in England from which the power was transmitted by a belt.

My business was transacted entirely with the younger Mr. Pooley, who seemed to be the practical head of the concern. Our first meeting has remained vivid in my recollection, as illustrating the English brusqueness of manner.