Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

At the age of eighteen he came to London, "knowing no one," he says, "and myself unknown,—a mere cipher in a vast sea of human enterprise." Here he worked as a modeller and designer with encouraging success. He engraved a large number of elegant and original designs on steel, with a diamond point, for patent-medicine labels. He got plenty of this sort of work to do, and was well paid for it. In his boyhood his favorite amusement was the modelling of objects in clay; and even in this primitive school of genius he worked with so much success that at the age of nineteen he exhibited one of his beautiful models at the Royal Academy, then held at Somerset House.

STAMPED PAPER.

Thus he soon began to make his way in the metropolis; and in the course of the following year he was maturing some plans in connection with the production of stamps which he sanguinely hoped would lead him on to fortune. At that time the old forms of stamps were in use that had been employed since the days of Queen Anne; and as they were easily transferred from old deeds to new ones, the Government lost a large amount annually by this surreptitious use of old stamps instead of new ones. The ordinary impressed or embossed stamps, such as are now employed on bills of exchange, or impressed directly on skins or parchment, were liable to be entirely obliterated if exposed for some months to a damp atmosphere. A deed so exposed would at last appear as if unstamped, and would therefore become invalid. Special precautions were therefore observed in order to prevent this occurrence. It was the practice to gum small pieces of blue paper on the parchment; and, to render it still more secure, a strip of metal foil was passed through it, and another small piece of paper with the printed initials of the sovereign was gummed over the loose end of the foil at the back. The stamp was then impressed on the blue paper, which, unlike parchment, is incapable of losing the impression by exposure to a damp atmosphere. Experience showed, however, that by placing a little piece of moistened blotting-paper for a few hours over the paper, the gum became so softened that the two pieces of paper and the slip of foil could be easily removed from an old deed and then used for a new one. In this way stamps could be used a second and third time; and by thus utilizing the expensive stamps on old deeds of partnerships that were dissolved, or leases that were expired, the public revenue lost thousands of pounds every year. Sir Charles Persley, of the Stamp Office, told Sir Henry Bessemer that the Government were probably defrauded of £100,000 per annum in that way. The young inventor at once set to work, for the express purpose of devising a stamp that could not be used twice. His first discovery was a mode by which he could have reproduced easily and cheaply thousands of stamps of any pattern. "The facility," he says, "with which I could make a permanent die from a thin paper original, capable of producing a thousand copies, would have opened a wide door for successful frauds if my process had been known to unscrupulous persons; for there is not a government stamp or a paper seal of a corporate body that every common office clerk could not forge in a few minutes at the office of his employer or at his own home. The production of such a die from a common paper stamp is a work of only ten minutes; the materials cost less than one penny; no sort of technical skill is necessary, and a common copying-press or a letter stamp yields most successful copies." To this day a successful forger has to employ a skilful die-sinker to make a good imitation in steel of the document he wishes to forge; but if such a method as that discovered and described by Sir Henry Bessemer were known, what a prospect it would open up! Appalled at the effect which the communication of such a process would have had upon the business of the Stamp Office, he carefully kept the knowledge of it to himself; and to this day it remains a profound secret.

More than ever impressed with the necessity for an improved form of stamp, and conscious of his own capability to produce it, he labored for some months to accomplish his object, feeling sure that, if successful, he would be amply rewarded by the Government. To insure the secrecy of his experiments, he worked at them during the night, after his ordinary business of the day was over. He succeeded at last in making a stamp which obviated the great objection to the then existing form, inasmuch as it would be impossible to transfer it from one deed to another, to obliterate it by moisture, or to take an impression from it capable of producing a duplicate. Flushed with success and confident of the reward of his labors, he waited upon Sir Charles Persley at Somerset House, and showed him, by numerous proofs, how easily all the then existing stamps could be forged, and his new invention to prevent forgery. Sir Charles, who was much astonished at the one invention and pleased with the other, asked Bessemer to call again in a few days. At the second interview Sir Charles asked him to work out the principle of the new stamping invention more fully. Accordingly Bessemer devoted five or six weeks' more labor to the perfecting of his stamp, with which the Stamp Office authorities were now well pleased. The design, as described by the inventor, was circular, about two and a half inches in diameter, and consisted of a garter with a motto in capital letters, surmounted by a crown. Within the garter was a shield, and the garter was filled with network in imitation of lace. The die was executed in steel, which pierced the parchment with more than four hundred holes; and these holes formed the stamp. It is by a similar process that valentine makers have since learned to make the perforated paper used in their trade. Such a stamp removed all the objections to the old one. So pleased was Sir Charles with it that he recommended it to Lord Althorp, and it was soon adopted by the Stamp Office. At the same time Sir Henry was asked whether he would be satisfied with the position of Superintendent of Stamps with £500 or £600 per annum, as compensation for his invention, instead of a sum of money from the treasury. This appointment he gladly agreed to accept; for, being engaged to be married at the time, he thought his future position in life was settled. Shortly afterwards he called on the young lady to whom he was engaged, and communicated the glad tidings to her, at the same time showing her the design of his new stamp. On explaining to her that its chief virtue was that the new stamps thus produced could not, like the old ones, be fraudulently used twice or thrice, she instantly suggested that if all stamps had a date put upon them they could not be used at a future time without detection. The idea was new to him; and, impressed with its practical character, he at once conceived a plan for the insertion of movable dates in the die of his stamp. The method by which this is now done is too well known to require description here; but in 1833 it was a new invention. Having worked out the details of a stamp with movable dates, he saw that it was more simple and more easily worked than his elaborate die for perforating stamps; but he also saw that if he disclosed his latest invention it might interfere with his settled prospects in connection with the carrying out of his first one. It was not without regret, too, that he saw the results of many months of toil and the experiments of many lonely nights at once superseded; but his conviction of the superiority of his latest design was so strong, and his own sense of honor and his confidence in that of the Government was so unsuspecting, that he boldly went and placed the whole matter before Sir Charles Persley. Of course the new design was preferred. Sir Charles truly observed that with this new plan all the old dies, old presses, and old workmen could be employed. Among the other advantages it presented to the Government, it did not fail to strike Sir Charles that no Superintendent of Stamps would now be necessary,—a recommendation which the perforated die did not possess. The Stamp Office therefore abandoned the ingenuous and ingenious inventor. The old stamps were called in, and the new ones issued in a few weeks; the revenue from stamps grew enormously, and forged or feloniously used stamps are now almost unheard of. The Stamp Office reaped a benefit which it is scarcely possible to estimate fully, while Bessemer did not receive a farthing. Shortly after the new stamp was adopted by Act of Parliament, Lord Althorp resigned, and his successors disclaimed all liability. When the disappointed inventor pressed his claim, he was met by all sorts of half-promises and excuses, which ended in nothing. The disappointment was all the more galling because, if Bessemer had stuck to his first-adopted plan, his services would have been indispensable to its execution; and it was therefore through his putting a better and more easily worked plan before them that his services were coolly ignored. "I had no patent to fall back upon," he says, in describing the incident afterward. "I could not go to law, even if I wished to do so; for I was reminded, when pressing for mere money out of pocket, that I had done all the work voluntarily and of my own accord. Wearied and disgusted, I at last ceased to waste time in calling at the Stamp Office,—for time was precious to me in those days,—and I felt that nothing but increased exertions could make up for the loss of some nine months of toil and expenditure. Thus sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings, I went my way from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favor that which was indubitably my right."

GOLD PAINT.

Shortly after he had taken out his first patent for his improvement in type-founding, his attention was accidentally turned to the manufacture of bronze powder, which is used in gold-work, japanning, gold-printing, and similar operations. While engaged in ornamenting a vignette in his sister's album, he had to purchase a small quantity of this bronze, and was struck with the great difference between the price of the raw material and that of the manufactured article. The latter sold for 112s. a pound, while the raw material only cost 11d. a pound. He concluded that the difference was caused by the process of manufacture, and made inquiries with the view of learning the nature of the process. He found, however, that this manufacture was hardly known in England. The article was supplied to English dealers from Nuremberg and other towns in Germany. He did not succeed, therefore, in finding any one who could tell him how it was produced. In these circumstances he determined to try to make it himself, and worked for a year and a half at the solution of this task. Other men had tried it and failed, and he was on the point of failing too. After eighteen months of fruitless labor he came to the conclusion that he could not make it, and gave it up. But it is the highest attribute of genius to succeed where others fail, and, impelled by this instinct, he resumed his investigations after six months' repose. At last success crowned his efforts. The profits of his previous inventions now supplied him with funds sufficient to provide the mechanical appliances he had designed.

Knowing very little of the patent law, and considering it so insecure that the safest way to reap the full benefit of his new invention was to keep it to himself, he determined to work his process of bronze-making in strict secrecy; and every precaution was therefore adopted for this purpose. He first put up a small apparatus with his own hands, and worked it entirely himself. By this means he produced the required article at 4s. a pound. He then sent out a traveller with samples of it, and the first order he got was at 80s. a pound. Being thus fully assured of success, he communicated his plans to a friend, who agreed to put £10,000 into the business, as a sleeping partner, in order to work the new manufacture on a larger scale. The entire working of the concern was left in the hands of Sir Henry, who accordingly proceeded to enlarge his means of production. To insure secrecy, he made plans of all the machinery required, and then divided them into sections. He next sent these sectional drawings to different engineering works, in order to get his machinery made piecemeal in different parts of England. This done, he collected the various pieces, and fitted them up himself,—a work that occupied him nine months. Finding everything at last in perfect working order, he engaged four or five assistants in whom he had confidence, and paid them very high wages on condition that they kept everything in the strictest secrecy. Bronze powder was now produced in large quantities by means of five self-acting machines, which not only superseded hand labor entirely, but were capable of producing as much daily as sixty skilled operatives could do by the old hand system.

To this day the mechanical means by which his famous gold paint is produced remains a secret. The machinery is driven by a steam-engine in an adjoining room; and into the room where the automatic machinery is at work none but the inventor and his assistants have ever entered. When a sufficient quantity of work is done, a bell is rung to give notice to the engine-man to stop the engine; and in this way the machinery has been in constant use for over forty years without having been either patented or pirated. Its profit was as great as its success. At first he made 1,000 per cent profit; and though there are other products that now compete with this bronze, it still yields 300 per cent profit. "All this time," says the successful inventor thirty years afterward, "I have been afraid to improve the machinery, or to introduce other engineers into the works to improve them. Strange to say, we have thus among us a manufacture wholly unimproved for thirty years. I do not believe there is another instance of such a thing in the kingdom. I believe that if I had patented it, the fourteen years would not have run out without other people making improvements in the manufacture. Of the five machines I use, three are applicable to other processes, one to color-making especially; so much so that notwithstanding the very excellent income which I derive from the manufacture, I had once nearly made up my mind to throw it open and make it public, for the purpose of using part of my invention for the manufacture of colors. Three out of my five assistants have died; and if the other two were to die and myself too, no one would know what the invention is." Since this was said (in 1871), Sir Henry has rewarded the faithfulness of his two surviving assistants by handing over to them the business and the factory.

BESSEMER STEEL.

Sir Henry Bessemer was first led to turn his attention to the improvement of the manufacture of iron by a remark of Commander Minie, who was superintending certain trials of the results of Sir Henry's experiments in obtaining rotation of shot fired from a smooth-bore gun. "The shots," said Minie, "rotate properly; but if you cannot get stronger metal for your guns, such heavy projectiles will be of little use."