“To Mr. Lilly's, where, not finding Mr. Spong, I went to Mr. Greatorex, where I met him, and where I bought a drawing pen.”
In London Notes and Queries (4th S., xi., 440), the Rev. E. Smedley, editor of the Encyclopoedia Metropolitana, writing to his friend, Mr. H. Hawkins, April 10, 1833, says:
“The process of nibbing and shaving is one which I always abominated, and for years past I have taken refuge under the Perryian pens. The one with which I now write has been in use daily, and all day long, for more than a fortnight, and I consider that it still owes me quite as much worth as it has already furnished. Every packet contains nine pens, and on an average two out of that number fail to suit my hand, but the remaining seven are faithful servants, and their price is 2s.”
In London Notes and Queries (4th S., xii., 57) a writer says:
“I bought my first steel pen from Bramah, Piccadilly, in 1825. The price was 1s. 6d. It was very thick and hard, with very little elasticity. In 1829 I read advertised in the Times, steel pens, with holder, 3s. per dozen, at Kendal's, in Holborn. They were hand made, and much easier to write with than Bramah's. Soon after the price fell, and steel pens became common.”
In London Notes and Queries (4th S., x., 309), October 19, 1872, Mr. William Bates, speaking of a visit he paid to an old lady, at Studley (Worcestershire) about 1825, says that he saw an exquisitely-finished inkstand of pure gold, the gift of one of the Earls of Plymouth to her father, 100 years before. The inkstand was provided with a jointed gold penholder, terminating in a barrel (one slit) pen, resembling the metallic pen of the present day, except that he found that it would not write.
In “Local Notes and Queries,” published in the Birmingham Journal and Weekly Post, there have appeared a number of contributions relating to the early manufacture of steel pens. We reproduce them here. A correspondent writing on June 22, 1869, says: “Daniel Fellows, of Sedgley, made steel pens about 1800.”
Another writer, on the same date, says, “The first makers of steel pens were John Edwards, Hill Street, and Francis Heeley, Mount Street, Birmingham.”
Respecting, the former of these, in Wrightson's Birmingham Directory, 1823, the following advertisement appears: “John Edwards, manufacturer of improved gold, silver, and elastic sleel pens, mounted in all kinds of cases, and desk handles, No. 40 Hill Street. N.B.—The pens are warranted to write exceedingly fine and free.”
This advertisement contained engravings of a barrel and “nibbed” or “slip” pen.