Sir Joseph Whitworth

Sir Joseph Whitworth, Baronet (December 21, 1803 - January 22, 1887) was an English engineer and entrepreneur. Image File history File links An engraving from a photograph made by Elliott and Fry, London in 1882. ... Image File history File links An engraving from a photograph made by Elliott and Fry, London in 1882. ... December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1803 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1887 is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar). ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: England Inter. ... Look up engineer on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Entrepreneur in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Entrepreneur is a loanword from the French language that refers to a person who undertakes and operates a new venture, and assumes some accountability for the inherent risks. ...

Early Life & Career

Whitworth was born in Stockport and at a young age developed an interest in machinery. He worked as a mechanic in Manchester and then in London for Henry Maudslay, Holtzapfel and Joseph Clement. At Clement's workshop he helped with the manufacture of Charles Babbage's calculating machine. He returned to Openshaw, near Manchester, in 1833 to start his own business manufacturing lathes and other machine tools, which were renowned for their high standard of workmanship. Stockports Town Hall Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, in North West England. ... A machine is any mechanical or electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of tasks. ... Manchester is a city in the North West of England. ... Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7,421,328 and a metropolitan area population of between 12 and 14 million. ... Henry Maudslay. ... Joseph Clement was a British engineer and industrialist. ... Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (December 26, 1791 – October 18, 1871) was an English mathematician, analytical philosopher and (proto-) computer scientist who originated the idea of a programmable computer. ... Openshaw Citadel was the third Salvation Army corps opened in Manchester from August 7, 1879 to the 1970s. ... Manchester is a city in the North West of England. ... 1833 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about a lathe as a tool. ...

Inventions

He popularized a method of producing accurate flat surfaces during the 1830s, using engineer's blue and scraping techniques on three trial surfaces. Up until his introduction of the scraping technique, the same three plate method was employed using polishing techniques, giving less accurate results. This led to an explosion of development of precision instruments using these flat surface generation techniques as a basis for further construction of precise shapes. The intuitive idea of flatness is important in several fields. ... 1830 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

His next innovation, in 1840, was a measuring technique called "end measurements" that used a precision flat plane and measuring screw, both of his own invention. The system, with an accuracy of one millionth of an inch, was demonstrated at the Great Exhibition of 1851. 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Mid-19th century tool for converting between different standards of the inch An inch is an Imperial and U.S. customary unit of length. ... The Great Exhibition: Paxtons Crystal Palace enclosed full-grown trees in Hyde Park. ... 1851 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

In 1841 Whitworth devised the first standardized system for screw threads. Its adoption by the railway companies, who until then had all used different screw threads, led to its widespread acceptance. It later became a British Standard, "British Standard Whitworth", abbreviated to BSW and governed by BS 84:1956. take you to calendar). ... Screws come in a variety of shapes and sizes for different purposes. ... British Standards is the new name of the British Standards Institute and is part of BSI Group which also includes a testing organisation. ...

Whitworth was commissioned by the War Department of the British government to design a replacement for the Pattern 1853 calibre .577-inch Enfield Rifle, whose shortcomings had been revealed during the recent Crimean War. The Whitworth rifle had a smaller bore of 0.45 inch (11 mm) which was hexagonal, a longer bullet and tighter rifling than the Enfield, and its performance during tests in 1859 was superior to the Enfield's in every way. The test was reported in The Times on April 23 as a great success. However, the new bore design was found to be prone to fouling, so it was rejected by the British government, only to be adopted by the French Army. Some of the rifles found their way to the Confederate states in the American Civil War, where they were called "Whitworth Sharpshooters". The Enfield Rifle was coverted to SNIDER-ENFIELD Rifle by Jacob Snider, a Dutch-American wine merchant from Philadelphia. By converting existing Enfield rifles this way, the cost of a "new" breech-loading Snider-Enfield rifle was only 12 shillings. War Department may refer to the military establishments of several different countries: British War Department Confederate War Department United States Department of War, under the leadership of the United States Secretary of War (until 1947) See also: defense minister This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other... The RSAF at Enfield was closed in 1987 and the majority of the site is now covered by a large housing development. ... A rifle is a firearm that uses a spiral groove cut into the barrel to spin a projectile (usually a bullet), thus improving accuracy and range of the projectile. ... The Crimean War lasted from 28 March 1854 until 1856 and was fought between Russia and an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, the Ottoman Empire (to some extent), and Piedmont-Sardinia. ... 1859 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... French soldiers of the IFOR in Mostar, 1995. ... Motto: Deo Vindice (Latin: God Vindicates) Anthem: God Save the South (unofficial) Dixie (popular) Capital Montgomery, Alabama February 4, 1861–May 29, 1861 Richmond, Virginia May 29, 1861–April 9, 1865 Danville, Virginia April 3–April 10, 1865 Largest city New Orleans February 4, 1861 until captured May 1, 1862... The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-three mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right of secession from the... Jacob Snider (???? - 1866) was an American mechanical genius. ...

Queen Victoria opened the first meeting of the British Rifle Association at Wimbledon, in 1860 by firing a Whitworth Sharpshooter from a mechanical rest. The rifle scored a bull's eye at a range of 400 yards (366 m). Victoria Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria) (24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and Empress of India from 1 January 1877 until her death. ... For other uses see Wimbledon (disambiguation) Wimbledon is an area in the London Borough of Merton, south-west London. ... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ...

Whitworth also designed a large Rifled Breech Loading gun with a 2.75 inch (70 mm) bore, a 12 pound 11 ounce (5.75 kg) projectile and a range of about six miles (10 km). The spirally-grooved projectile was patented in 1855. This was also rejected by the British army, who preferred the guns from Armstrong, but was also used in the American Civil War. Armstrong cannon at the Chulachomklao fort, Samut Prakan, Thailand A Rifled Breech Loader (RBL) is a large artillery piece which unlike the cannon and Rifled Muzzle Loader (RML) which preceded it, has rifling in the barrel and is loaded from the breech at the rear of the gun. ... 1855 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-three mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right of secession from the...

While trying to increase the bursting strength of his gun barrels, Whitworth patented a process called "fluid-compressed steel" for casting steel under pressure, and built a new steel works near Manchester. Some of his castings were shown at the Great Exhibition in Paris ca. 1883. The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... 1883 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

Whitworth received many awards for the excellence of his designs, and was financially very successful. In 1850, then a Fellow of the Royal Society and President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, he built a house called The Firs in Fallowfield, south of Manchester. In 1854 he bought Stancliffe Hall in Darley Dale, Derbyshire. In 1872 he moved there with his second wife. 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The premises of the Royal Society in London. ... Logo The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is the British engineering society concerned with mechanical engineering. ... Fallowfield is an area of the City of Manchester, England. ... 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Location within the British Isles. ... Derbyshire (pronounced Dar-bee-shur) is a county in the East Midlands of England, which boasts some of Englands most attractive scenery. ... 1872 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

A strong believer in the value of technical education, Whitworth backed the new Mechanics' Institute in Manchester, which was to become UMIST, and helped found the Manchester School of Design. In 1868, he founded a scholarship for the advancement of mechanical engineering. Historically, Mechanics Institutes were educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working people. ... UMIST Main Bulding on Whitworth Street The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. ... 1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Death

Whitworth died at Monte Carlo, where he had travelled in the hope of improving his health. He was buried at the church of Darley (or Darley Dale) St Helen in Derbyshire. A detailed obituary was published in the American magazine The Manufacturer and Builder (Volume 19, Issue 6, June 1887). He directed his trustees to spend his fortune on philanthropic projects, which they still do to this day. Monte Carlo is a very wealthy section of the city-state of Monaco known for its casino, gambling, beaches, glamour, and sightings of famous people. ...

Books

• Guns and Steel (1873) published in London by Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer.

1873 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calaber). ...

Reference

• Sir Joseph Whitworth by Norman Atkinson, Sutton Publishing Limited 1996 ISBN 0-7509-1211-1 (hc), ISBN 0-7509-1648-6 (pb)