Men of Invention and Industry
Samuel Smiles, 1884
An iron boat that nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand did not believe in. A farmer with a screw propeller, a seller of prints who ran carts across all of Ireland, a carpenter who taught sailors to find their place on the ocean. Smiles shows who really turns an idea into a business, and why the reward for it does not always come.
Who it is for
For people who have an idea or a business that others laugh at, and who want to know how to take it to a working result.
Keep ahead of the wheels, young man, or they will run over you: always keep ahead of the wheels!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine unbelievers
In the summer of 1787 the industrialist John Wilkinson launched a boat made of iron. Everyone knew that iron sinks and that only wood can float. A week later he wrote in a letter that the boat had exceeded every expectation and had convinced the unbelievers, who numbered nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand. The boat would be a wonder for nine days, he added, and then it would become like Columbus's egg: the thing that seemed impossible until someone showed how simple it was. And yet for more than twenty years nobody dared to repeat his experiment.
A hundred years later, in 1884, Samuel Smiles gathered in this book the lives of people who brought to completion what others did not believe in. Almost all of them started modestly: a farmer, a seller of prints, a printer's apprentice, a carpenter's son. Smiles's main point is simple. The credit belongs not to the one who first thought of the machine, but to the one who made it work and saw to it that people used it.
This is a book of its time. It has pride in the empire, dislike of workers who joined trade unions, and reflections on whole peoples that no one would repeat today, which is why they are left out here. But Smiles is honest in another way: he also records those who were never paid for their success.
If you have an idea people laugh at, or a business that will not move, six stories about what happens next follow.
The screw that broke at the right time
Francis Pettit Smith was a farmer, and from childhood he built models of boats. The screw propeller was not his discovery: dozens of inventors had described this method before him, and the idea, as Smiles writes, was floating in many heads. In 1836 Smith obtained a patent and launched a small steamboat with a wooden screw of two turns.
One day on the Thames the screw struck an obstacle, and half of it broke off. The boat suddenly went faster than before. Smith did not regret the breakage: he set the screw at one turn, and the vessel went even better. The boat was shown to the public on a quiet canal, but a year later Smith took his little craft out to open sea, in bad weather, and ran along the coast at more than seven miles an hour.
The navy's chief shipbuilder, meanwhile, explained that a vessel pushed from the stern could never be turned. Smith did not argue in words. With partners who believed in the screw, he built the Archimedes, of 237 tons. It was expected to make four or five knots, and it made nine and a half. Later a screw warship of the navy overtook a paddle steamer in a straight race.
This is the main idea of the book. According to Smiles, the credit belongs not to the one who first voiced the idea, but to the one who insists on an honest test and does not accept refusal. The dispute over the screw was settled not by arguments but by the miles sailed on the water. For any idea this means one thing: do not persuade the sceptics, but let them see it at work, in real conditions, not on a quiet canal.
But the story ends bitterly. Smith's company lost about fifty thousand pounds, the patent expired, and by then the screw was already fitted to 327 ships of the navy. Friends collected money for the inventor by subscription, and the queen granted him a pension. Smiles states plainly that Smith was not a great inventor. He simply did not let go of his idea until it had won.
About the author
Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) was a Scottish physician, journalist and author of books about people who made their way through their own labour. The best known, “Self-Help”, came out in 1859, and this book carries on that work a quarter of a century later.
All books by this author: Samuel Smiles
Terms from the book
- Cook
- Smith
- shilling
- patent
- Archimedes
- feet
- The Times
- chronometer
- Wilkinson: John Wilkinson (1728–1808) was an English ironmaster. In 1787 he launched one of the first boats made of iron.
- Columbus's egg: A phrase from the legend of Columbus, who challenged people to stand an egg on its end and did it by lightly denting the shell. It is said of a solution that seemed impossible until it was shown, and then looks obvious.
- trade unions: Associations of workers that defended their interests against employers. Smiles was hostile to them, and this is the view of his time.
- screw: The screw propeller: blades on a shaft that turns under the water at the stern and pushes the ship forward. It replaced the paddle wheels at the sides of a steamer.
- Thames: The Thames is the main river of London. Sailing on it means travelling along it.
- knots: A knot is a measure of a ship's speed: one nautical mile an hour, about 1.85 kilometres an hour.
- Bianconi: Charles Bianconi (1786–1875) was an Italian who built a network of passenger carts in Ireland that linked hundreds of towns. Later he was mayor of the town of Clonmel.
- Como: A town in northern Italy on the lake of the same name. Many people from these parts left to work abroad.
- pence: The penny, a small British coin. There were twelve pence in a shilling.
- Clonmel: A town in southern Ireland, in County Tipperary. Bianconi's network of carts began there.
- cart: A light two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a horse. In Ireland, passengers in such carts sat sideways, back to back.
- Cahir: A small town in southern Ireland, about twelve miles from Clonmel.
- Clowes: William Clowes (1779–1847) was an English printer who began with one press and built one of the largest printing works of his time.
- Chichester: A small town in southern England, in the county of Sussex.
- Type: Metal letters from which a compositor set lines of text by hand for printing.
- Harland: Edward Harland (1831–1895) was an English engineer and shipbuilder, founder of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. He wrote one chapter of this book himself.
- Stephenson: The works of Robert Stephenson and Company in Newcastle, founded by George Stephenson and his son Robert, builders of the first steam locomotives.
- Belfast: Belfast is a large port city in northern Ireland.
- Wolff: Gustav Wolff (1834–1913) was an engineer, Harland's assistant and then his partner in the firm Harland and Wolff.
- Bibby: A family of shipowners from Liverpool who ran a steamship company. They ordered two dozen ships from Harland.
- Koenig: Friedrich Koenig (1774–1833) was a German printer and inventor of the first steam-powered printing press.
- Bensley: Thomas Bensley was a London printer, Koenig's partner in the patents for the printing machine.
- Walter: John Walter (1776–1847) was the owner and manager of The Times, the first to print the newspaper on a steam press.
- Bauer: Andreas Bauer was a mechanic from Stuttgart, Koenig's friend and lifelong partner.
- Oberzell: A former monastery on the river Main near Würzburg in Bavaria, where Koenig and Bauer opened a printing machine factory.
- longitude: The distance east or west from a chosen starting meridian. At sea it is found by comparing local time with the time at the port of departure, so very accurate clocks are needed.
- Harrison: John Harrison (1693–1776) was an English self-taught carpenter and clockmaker, maker of the marine chronometer.
- Admiralty: The department that ran the British Navy.
- Jamaica: An island in the Caribbean Sea, at that time a British colony.
All terms
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