Mr. Marshall was at that time engaged in improving the method of manufacture,[2] and the young blacksmith was so fortunate or rather so dexterous as to be able to suggest several improvements in the machinery which secured the approval of his employer, who made him a present of 20L., and very shortly promoted him to be the first mechanic in the workshop. On this stroke of good fortune Murray took a house at the neighbouring village of Beeston, sent to Stockton for his wife, who speedily joined him, and he now felt himself fairly started in the world. He remained with Mr. Marshall for about twelve years, during which he introduced numerous improvements in the machinery for spinning flax, and obtained the reputation of being a first-rate mechanic. This induced Mr. James Fenton and Mr. David Wood to offer to join him in the establishment of an engineering and machine-making factory at Leeds; which he agreed to, and operations were commenced at Holbeck in the year 1795.
As Mr. Murray had obtained considerable practical knowledge of the steam-engine while working at Mr. Marshall's, he took principal charge of the engine-building department, while his partner Wood directed the machine-making. In the branch of engine-building Mr. Murray very shortly established a high reputation, treading close upon the heels of Boulton and Watt—so close, indeed, that that firm became very jealous of him, and purchased a large piece of ground close to his works with the object of preventing their extension.[3] His additions to the steam-engine were of great practical value, one of which, the self-acting apparatus attached to the boiler for the purpose of regulating the intensity of fire under it, and consequently the production of steam, is still in general use. This was invented by him as early as 1799. He also subsequently invented the D slide valve, or at least greatly improved it, while he added to the power of the air-pump, and gave a new arrangement to the other parts, with a view to the simplification of the powers of the engine. To make the D valve work efficiently, it was found necessary to form two perfectly plane surfaces, to produce which he invented his planing machine. He was also the first to adopt the practice of placing the piston in a horizontal position in the common condensing engine. Among his other modifications in the steam-engine, was his improvement of the locomotive as invented by Trevithick; and it ought to be remembered to his honour that he made the first locomotive that regularly worked upon any railway.
This was the engine erected by him for Blenkinsop, to work the Middleton colliery railway near Leeds, on which it began to run in 1812, and continued in regular use for many years. In this engine he introduced the double cylinder—Trevithick's engine being provided with only one cylinder, the defects of which were supplemented by the addition of a fly-wheel to carry the crank over the dead points.
But Matthew Murray's most important inventions, considered in their effects on manufacturing industry, were those connected with the machinery for heckling and spinning flax, which he very greatly improved. His heckling machine obtained for him the prize of the gold medal of the Society of Arts; and this as well as his machine for wet flax-spinning by means of sponge weights proved of the greatest practical value. At the time when these inventions were made the flax trade was on the point of expiring, the spinners being unable to produce yarn to a profit; and their almost immediate effect was to reduce the cost of production, to improve immensely the quality of the manufacture, and to establish the British linen trade on a solid foundation. The production of flax-machinery became an important branch of manufacture at Leeds, large quantities being made for use at home as well as for exportation, giving employment to an increasing number of highly skilled mechanics.[4] Mr. Murray's faculty for organising work, perfected by experience, enabled him also to introduce many valuable improvements in the mechanics of manufacturing. His pre-eminent skill in mill-gearing became generally acknowledged, and the effects of his labours are felt to this day in the extensive and still thriving branches of industry which his ingenuity and ability mainly contributed to establish. All the machine tools used in his establishment were designed by himself, and he was most careful in the personal superintendence of all the details of their construction. Mr. Murray died at Leeds in 1826, in his sixty-third year.
We have not yet exhausted the list of claimants to the invention of the Planing Machine, for we find still another in the person of Richard Roberts of Manchester, one of the most prolific of modern inventors. Mr. Roberts has indeed achieved so many undisputed inventions, that he can readily afford to divide the honour in this case with others. He has contrived things so various as the self-acting mule and the best electro-magnet, wet gas-meters and dry planing machines, iron billard-tables and turret-clocks, the centrifugal railway and the drill slotting-machine, an apparatus for making cigars and machinery for the propulsion and equipment of steamships; so that he may almost be regarded as the Admirable Crichton of modern mechanics.
Richard Roberts was born in 1789, at Carreghova in the parish of Llanymynech. His father was by trade a shoemaker, to which he occasionally added the occupation of toll-keeper. The house in which Richard was born stood upon the border line which then divided the counties of Salop and Montgomery; the front door opening in the one county, and the back door in the other. Richard, when a boy, received next to no education, and as soon as he was of fitting age was put to common labouring work. For some time he worked in a quarry near his father's dwelling; but being of an ingenious turn, he occupied his leisure in making various articles of mechanism, partly for amusement and partly for profit. One of his first achievements, while working as a quarryman, was a spinning-wheel, of which he was very proud, for it was considered "a good job." Thus he gradually acquired dexterity in handling tools, and he shortly came to entertain the ambition of becoming a mechanic.
There were several ironworks in the neighbour hood, and thither he went in search of employment. He succeeded in finding work as a pattern-maker at Bradley, near Bilston; under John Wilkinson, the famous ironmaster—a man of great enterprise as well as mechanical skill; for he was the first man, as already stated, that Watt could find capable of boring a cylinder with any approach to truth, for the purposes of his steam-engines. After acquiring some practical knowledge of the art of working in wood as well as iron, Roberts proceeded to Birmingham, where he passed through different shops, gaining further experience in mechanical practice. He tried his hand at many kinds of work, and acquired considerable dexterity in each. He was regarded as a sort of jack-of-all-trades; for he was a good turner, a tolerable wheel-wright, and could repair mill-work at a pinch.
He next moved northward to the Horsley ironworks, Tipton, where he was working as a pattern-maker when he had the misfortune to be drawn in his own county for the militia. He immediately left his work and made his way homeward to Llanymynech, determined not to be a soldier or even a militiaman. But home was not the place for him to rest in, and after bidding a hasty adieu to his father, he crossed the country northward on foot and reached Liverpool, in the hope of finding work there. Failing in that, he set out for Manchester and reached it at dusk, very weary and very miry in consequence of the road being in such a wretched state of mud and ruts. He relates that, not knowing a person in the town, he went up to an apple-stall ostensibly to buy a pennyworth of apples, but really to ask the stall-keeper if he knew of any person in want of a hand. Was there any turner in the neighbourhood? Yes, round the corner. Thither he went at once, found the wood-turner in, and was promised a job on the following morning. He remained with the turner for only a short time, after which he found a job in Salford at lathe and tool-making. But hearing that the militia warrant-officers were still searching for him, he became uneasy and determined to take refuge in London.
He trudged all the way on foot to that great hiding-place, and first tried Holtzapffel's, the famous tool-maker's, but failing in his application he next went to Maudslay's and succeeded in getting employment. He worked there for some time, acquiring much valuable practical knowledge in the use of tools, cultivating his skill by contact with first-class workmen, and benefiting by the spirit of active contrivance which pervaded the Maudslay shops. His manual dexterity greatly increased, and his inventive ingenuity fully stimulated, he determined on making his way back to Manchester, which, even more than London itself, at that time presented abundant openings for men of mechanical skill. Hence we find so many of the best mechanics trained at Maudslay's and Clement's—Nasmyth, Lewis, Muir, Roberts, Whitworth, and others—shortly rising into distinction there as leading mechanicians and tool-makers.
The mere enumeration of the various results of Mr. Roberts's inventive skill during the period of his settlement at Manchester as a mechanical engineer, would occupy more space than we can well spare. But we may briefly mention a few of the more important. In 1816, while carrying on business on his own account in Deansgate, he invented his improved sector for correctly sizing wheels in blank previously to their being cut, which is still extensively used. In the same year he invented his improved screw-lathe; and in the following year, at the request of the boroughreeve and constables of Manchester, he contrived an oscillating and rotating wet gas meter of a new kind, which enabled them to sell gas by measure. This was the first meter in which a water lute was applied to prevent the escape of gas by the index shaft, the want of which, as well as its great complexity, had prevented the only other gas meter then in existence from working satisfactorily. The water lute was immediately adopted by the patentee of that meter. The planing machine, though claimed, as we have seen, by many inventors, was constructed by Mr. Roberts after an original plan of his own in 1817, and became the tool most generally employed in mechanical workshops—acting by means of a chain and rack—though it has since been superseded to some extent by the planing machine of Whitworth, which works both ways upon an endless screw. Improvements followed in the slide-lathe (giving a large range of speed with increased diameters for the same size of headstocks, &c.), in the wheel-cutting engine, in the scale-beam (by which, with a load of 2 oz. on each end, the fifteen-hundredth part of a grain could be indicated), in the broaching-machine, the slotting-machine, and other engines.