The story of the invention of steel pens

by Henry Bore

“I wrote with one when a boy (1822 to 1826), having found several in a stock of old steel waste in the warehouse of a relative, a retired ornamental steel worker, at Wolverhampton. These pens were made (so I was told) for the London market, late in the last or early in the present century. Certainly they were made fifteen or, perhaps, twenty years, when I found them, as the manufactory in which they had been produced had been closed the former number of years. They consisted of a holder of steel, with flutings and facets. One was solid and tapered to lighten it; the other had a barrel with an internal screw. The pen had two screws; one was used to screw the pen into the barrel for use, and the other to secure it when turned inwards as a protection when not in use, or to carry in the pocket.”

The following letter from Mr. Alderman Manton to Mr. Sam: Timmins makes us acquainted with another manufacturer of steel pens:

“THE METAL PENS OF 1823.—In a badly-constructed and unsanitary manufactory (Mr. James Collins's), at the back of 119 Suffolk Street, (Birm.), I witnessed the process of making silver and steel pens. As both metals were manufactured in the same manner, one description will serve. It will be remembered by a few that at that time there was a patent silver pencil case somewhat extensively manufactured, which in addition to the pencil, had a penknife, pen and toothpick provided. The penknife was supplied by two brothers—Joseph and William Gillott—who at that time rented a small shop in a corner of the yard belonging to the rolling mill of George and P.F. Muntz, Water Street, and from whose engine they obtained the small amount of steam power needed. The process of making the pens was as follows: Two narrow strips were cut from a sheet of silver or steel; they were then, by the help of the hammer and a lead cake, or piece of hard wood, curved. Afterwards the two strips were placed opposite to each other on a well-polished steel wire, and drawn through a draw-plate, the wire and plate being supplied by Wm. Billings, a celebrated tool manufacturer, occupying premises near the top of Snow Hill (Birm.). By the aid of a press, a small hole was made at a distance of half an inch or five-eighths from the end, the slit was then made by a fine saw made of watch springs. A bent pair of shears was used for cutting the end of strip into the shape of a pen; and a half-round file or smooth was used for finishing the pen. The pen was then sawn off the strip by the same saw which was used for slitting the pen. The only hardening process was the friction of the draw-plate and steel wire. I not only witnessed the process, but was a manipulator. The cost of making at that time, by a journeyman, was 2d. each; by an apprentice, about one-third of that amount. Within less than thirty years of that time, in a manufactory adjoining my own, pens were made and sold (wholesale) at 2d. per gross, and a box containing them into the bargain.” (Signed) Henry Manton, September 15, 1886.

Mr. T. Vary writes that James Perry began making steel pens in Manchester, and quotes the Saturday Magazine to show that metallic pens were given by him as rewards of merit in schools as far back as 1819.

Mr. James Cocker, writing in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, in 1869, says: “That he rolled steel wire for James Perry for penmaking in 1829.”

The death of Mr. Gillott seems to have revived the discussion of the origin of steel pens, and a correspondent in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, in the issue of January 11, 1872, in the following letter, puts forth a claim on behalf of a Sheffield man:

“The well-written and well-merited memoir of the late Mr. Gillott, the Birmingham steel pen maker, which has just appeared in the newspapers, affords a curious and instructive illustration of the success which not seldom attends the combined action of ingenuity, industry, shrewdness, and integrity among our labouring classes. Born in the humblest rank of our local workmen, a steady scholar in our Boys' Lancasterian School, and apprenticed to a scissors grinder, the deceased worked his way upwards into a position of influence and opulence as a manufacturer, which entitled him to take social rank with the merchant princes of the land. And if his name has long since ceased to be familiar among his once contemporary workmen in Sheffield, and is not even mentioned in the Directory, it has for several years past been recognized and respected by the visitors at the annual exhibitions of our School of Art, in connection with the many rare and valuable pictures lent by him on those occasions. The printed fac-simile of the autograph appeared in the 'advertising columns' of almost every newspaper in the world, and perhaps, as an expert might have said, was characteristic. In the admirable account of his life above referred to stress is laid upon one prominent and praiseworthy feature of his character, viz., his readiness to acknowledge the obscurity of his origin and the steps of his industrial success. In those details no mention is made of his Sheffield master and predecessor in the ingenious art of steel pen making. And as the notice alluded to is without dates, it is difficult to furnish information on the material point of priority, though the fact of supremacy in the trade is clear enough. In one of the columns of Lardner's Cyclopedia, published in 1833, the names of Perry, Heeley, and Skinner are mentioned as steel pen makers. With the latter, who if he did not make wealth, certainly earned a wide reputation for the low price and excellent temper of his 'steel nibs,' Mr. Gillett was a workman, in Nursery Street, Sheffield, having gone with his master from the scissors grinding stone to the making of polished steel ornaments for ladies' work, then fashionable. How much, in what way, or whether at all, he was indebted to his experience in Mr. Skinner's establishment may be questionable, but that he learnt and first saw practised in Sheffield the art that ultimately enriched him in Birmingham, he would probably be the last to deny. It is well remembered by a worthy dealer in almost every useful article, from a mouse-trap to a railroad wagon, that Gillott, soon after his establishment in Birmingham, came into our townsman's shop, and seeing on the counter a model steam engine of half-horse power, at once purchased and carried it off to give motion to some part of his pen machinery. Brass pens were made in Sheffield before the close of the last century. They mostly accompanied an 'inkpot,' called from its users an 'exciseman.' The writer of this paragraph himself made hundreds of dozens of them, which, however, be never used, nor steel ones either, as long as he could get a 'goose quill,' good, bad or indifferent. The matter of slitting the nib was kept secret by Skinner, and the double slit of Gillott more than doubled the value of his old master's invention; but a 'four-slit' pen, i.e., with five points, if possible to make, would be useless. The earliest experimenter in form and material was Perry, flexibility being the great desideratum; but it is curious to see how world-wide a currency Gillott's name and trade have given to the simplest shape; and still more curious to note how the makers of writing ink and paper have conformed these articles to the requirements of the uses of the steel pen. It is always gratifying, and not unprofitable, to contrast the small and feeble beginnings of any manufacturing enterprise with a large and well-merited success.”

This communication appears to have caused a Mr. William Levesley to call upon the writer of the preceding epistle, and the following which appeared in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, January 30, 1872, was written:

“I have to thank you for the insertion of my queries as to the early connection of Sheffield with steel pen making. In consequence of the appearance of my letter in the Telegraph, a cutlery manufacturer of the name of William Levesley, called upon me, and informed me that he was not only an early associate with the late Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, but the first person who made a steel pen out of London. Stress has been laid upon Gillott's ability 'to forge and grind a knifeblade.' It is not likely he ever used the hammer on hot steel, but he was when young, and working with father, accounted an excellent penknife grinder; Skinner being a scissors grinder, and Levesley a workboard hand for the same master. A man of the name of Mitchell having married Gillott's mother, went to Birmingham, and began the cutlery business, the latter removing thither to grind for his father- in-law. His brother had also gone thither, and commenced making an article that had some run, and may be said to have united the ingenious handicrafts of Birmingham, viz., the insertion of a penknife blade at the end of a silver pencil case. Meanwhile, about the year 1825, Levesley saw a steel pen, made by Perry, of London, in Ridge's shop window, in High Street. He bought it for one shilling, and immediately set about making tools to imitate and improve upon it. He spent, he said, L.30 in not unsuccessful, though unremunerative, experiments. The flypress was at least as well known in Sheffield as in Birmingham, and its power was at once brought into requisition to work the tools for shaping, bending, and slitting the pens which were made out of sheet steel, Perry's being made out of thick wire, rolled flat, by Cocker, in Nursery Street. In 1829, Levesley was making pens for sale, and that year is said to be the earliest date of actual sales in Skinner's ledger. In 1831 he was doing a considerable business in Sheffield, and making experiments upon the article, as appears from specimens before me bearing his name. Stress has been laid upon the improvement of the double slit, introduced by Gillott, but if Levesley's statement is to be taken literally, he was the inventor of a specialty upon which, even more than on excellence of material, the merit of a steel pen is found to depend, viz., the grinding of a small hollow at the back of the nib, and about the eighth of an inch from the point. My informant described not only the beneficial action of this thinning of the metal, as well in yielding the gradual flow of the ink as in flexibility of writing, but the pleasure with which he took a specimen to Birmingham to show Gillott, and the surprise of the latter at so great and so beneficial an effect, provided by so small a cause. He at once adopted an improvement of which every pen made by him bears evidence; and when his friend visited him he told him he had fifty women employed in grinding pen points. It is pleasant to add that Gillott never visited Sheffield without calling to see his old friend Levesley, while the latter spoke of his early and later life with respect and commendation, especially in his domestic relations. It is pleasing to review a life of such humble beginnings, culminating in opulence and usefulness like that of the late Joseph Gillott, of Birmingham; nor is it less to name in connection therewith, as an early experimenter in steel pen making, our worthy townsman, William Levesley, to whose ingenious improvement every writer is so much indebted, and of whose verbal communication to me the foregoing is an imperfect sketch.”

Now, in this statement, there are some dales given, but others are omitted, and that is a very unfortunate circumstance. Levesley told the writer of the article in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph that he made use of the fly press for working tools for shaping, bending, and slitting pens. If the writer had only given the date of this it would have been a valuable contribution toward a history of the invention. The claim of Levesley to having invented the process of grinding pens and teaching Gillott seems, to say the least, curious, because the latter was a Sheffield grinder, and the idea would certainly be quite as likely to occur to Gillott as Levesley. Besides, why did Levesley communicate the idea to Gillott in preference to Skinner, with whom he had business relations? The statement that Gillott had fifty girls employed when Levesley* called upon him on his next visit to Birmingham looks like a mistake. Fifty girls would grind on an average seven thousand gross of pens in a week, and as this correspondence appears to refer to the early part of Gillott's career, it is scarcely possible that such a number of pens were produced weekly at that period. Besides, as a matter of fact, boys were, in the first instance, employed to grind pens.