Phrenologists tell us that the size of a man's head is indicative of his mental power, and these hats certainly bore out the theory, for their owners were mostly self-made men, and were, without exception, men of mark. I will not mention the name of any of those now living, but two of the largest hats there belonged respectively to Walter Lyndon and Joseph Gillott.

Mr. Gillott, we are told, in a newspaper published soon after his death, was "born of poor but honest parents." I should like very much to inquire here, how it is that novel writers, magazine contributors, and newspaper reporters always write "poor but honest." Is there really anything antithetic or antagonistic in poverty and honesty? To my mind the phrase always seems offensive, and it will be well if it is discontinued in the future. It is one of those little bits of clap-trap so common among reporters, who use phrases of this kind continually, without a thought as to their appropriateness.

However, Joseph Gillott was born in Sheffield about three months before the present century commenced. His parents were poor, but they managed to give him a good plain education, and they taught him self-reliance. They taught him, too, to train and cultivate the fine faculty of observation with which he was naturally endowed. In very early life, we are told, he, by forging and grinding the blades of pen-knives, contributed greatly to the income of the parental household. It is said that even at a very early age, his quick perception and his acute nervous organisation enabled him to produce much finer work than others of far greater experience in the same trade, whose obtuseness had kept them in a state of comparative drudgery all their lives.

When he became of age, and was "out of his time," the cutlery trade in Sheffield was very much depressed, and he came to Birmingham, hoping to obtain employment in a trade which, owing to a caprice of fashion, was just then in an inflated condition. This was the business of making steel buckles, and other articles of polished steel for personal adornment. In this he was very successful, and soon after his arrival in the town, he took a small house in Bread Street, a little way down on the right from Newhall Street, and here he started business for himself. He had no capital, but he had great skill. Mr. S.A. Goddard, who used to buy from him, tells me that he made very excellent goods, and "came for his money every week." He was a very excellent workman, and possessing as he did the native perception of fitness which we call "taste," he soon obtained abundance of orders, and became prosperous.

At this time the steel pen trade, which has since grown to such enormous dimensions, was only in a tentative condition. Josiah Mason, in conjunction with Perry, of The Morning Chronicle newspaper, was experimenting, and two brothers, named respectively John and William Mitchell, were actually making, by a tedious method, a fairly good article. They were assisted in their work by a sister. By some fortunate accident, Gillott and Miss Mitchell met, and after a brief courtship they entered into an engagement to marry. She spoke to her intended husband of the nature of her occupation, and Gillott at once conceived the idea that the press, the useful implement then used principally in the button trade, might, if proper tools could be made to suit, produce pens in large numbers very rapidly. With his own hands, in a garret of his house, he secretly worked until he had succeeded in making pens of a far better quality than had yet been seen. His process was one in which, unassisted, he could produce as many pens as twenty pairs of hands, working under the old system, could turn out. There was an enormous demand for his goods, and as he wanted help, and secrecy seemed needful, the young people married, and Mr. Gillott used to tell how, on the very morning of his marriage, he, before going to the church, made with his own hands a gross of pens, and sold them at 1s. each, realising thereby a sum of £7 4s.

Continuing to live in the little house in Bread Street, the young couple worked in the garret, no one else assisting. As an illustration of the primitive condition of the steel pen trade then, it may be mentioned that at this period the pens were "blued" and varnished in a common frying-pan, over a kitchen fire. Orders flowed in so rapidly, and the goods were produced in such quantities, that the young couple made money faster than they knew what to do with it. They were afraid to invest it, as they did not wish it to ooze out that the business was so profitable. It has been stated that Mr. Gillott had several banking accounts open at this time, being afraid that, if he paid all his profits into one bank, it might excite cupidity, and so engender competition. It is also said that he actually buried money in the cellar of his house, lest his marvellously rapid accumulation of wealth should become known.

At length the demand for his pens became so great that it was impossible to resist the urgent necessity for larger premises and increased labour. Mr. Gillott, accordingly, removed to Church Street, and subsequently took other premises, up the yard by Mr. Mappin's shop in Newhall Street. About the same time, he removed his family to the house at the corner of Great Charles Street, where the Institution of Mechanical Engineers had its offices until its recent removal to London. After a few years, he commenced to build the premises in Graham Street, where the business has, ever since, been carried on. At the time the building was erected, there were few "factories," properly so called, in the town, and most of the work of the place was conducted in the low, narrow ranges of latticed-windowed buildings known as "shopping." Mr. Gillott's was, I think, the first Birmingham building in the modern factory style. It was admirably planned, and expensively built. Even, now, when hundreds of factories have arisen, its solid and substantial appearance externally, and the arrangements inside, for order, and for the organisation of labour, are not surpassed by any of its rivals.

As soon as Mr. Gillott's appliances were of sufficient extent to supply very large quantities, he commenced to advertise extensively, a practice which he continued during the remainder of his life, and which his son and successor still follows up in a modified form. I perfectly remember, more than forty years ago, his advertisements in tine magazines, and on the cover of the "Penny Cyclopædia." Like everything that Mr. Gillott did, they bore the impress of original thought. After giving his name and address, and a few other particulars as to his wares, the advertisements went on to say something like this:

"The number of pens produced in this factory in the year ending December 31st, 1836, was

250,000 grosses,
or 3,000,000 dozens,
or 36,000,000 pens."