Richard Roberts

Richard Roberts (22 April 1789 – 11 March 1864) was a British engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production. April 22 is the 112th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (113th in leap years). ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 11 March is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71st in Leap year). ... 1864 (MDCCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A machine tool is a powered mechanical device, typically used to fabricate metal components of machines by the selective removal of metal. ... Industrial engineering is the engineering discipline that concerns the design, development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, knowledge, equipment, energy, and material. ... Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardised products on production lines. ...

Early life

Roberts was born at Llanymynech, on the border between England and Wales. He was the son of William Roberts, a shoemaker, who also kept the New Bridge tollgate. Roberts was educated by the parish priest, and early found employment with a boatman on the Ellesmere Canal and later at the local limestone quarries. He received some instruction is drawing from Robert Bough, a road surveyor, who was working under Thomas Telford. A town in Powys, Wales about 9 miles (14 kilometres) north of Welshpool. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... For an explanation of often confusing terms such as Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom and England, see British Isles (terminology). ... The Llangollen Canal we see today was previously called the Ellesmere Canal, but the Ellesmere Canal as originally envisaged was very different from what was eventually constructed. ...

Roberts then found employment as a pattern-maker at Bradley Iron works, Staffordshire, and, probably in 1813, moved to a supervisory position in the pattern shop of the Horsely Iron works, Tipton. He had gained skills in turning, wheel-wrighting and the repair of mill work. He was drawn for the militia and to avoid this made for Liverpool, but finding no work there shifted to Manchester, where he found work as a turner for a cabinet-maker. He then moved to Salford working at lathe- and tool-making. Because the militia was still seeking him, he walked to London, where he found employment with Henry Maudslay as a fitter and turner. Staffordshire (abbreviated Staffs) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. ... Map sources for Tipton at grid reference SO9592 Tipton is a town in the Sandwell borough of the West Midlands, England, with a population of around 47,000. ... Turning, CNC turning, or manual turning is the process used to produce cylindrical components in a lathe. ... Henry Maudslay. ...

At Maudslays he absorbed his master's philosophy of 'the importance of accurate machine tools where hand work was replaced by mechanisms.' [Ref to Hills, below]

By 1816, when defeat of Napoleon had removed the threat of the militia, it was safe for him to return north, he had set up at Manchester as a 'turner of plain and eccentric work at No 15 Deans Gate.' The lathe was upstairs in a bedroom driven by a big wheel in the basement turned by his wife. Nothing is known of her origins or even name. Roberts soon moved into New Market Buildings at Pool Fold, and was described as a 'Lathe and Tool Maker'. 1816 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ... Manchester is a city in the North West of England. ...

Roberts's machine tools

Roberts built a range of machine tools, some to his own design, the first being a gear-cutting machine. For accurately checking the dimensions of the gears he adapted the sector, which he developed for sale to other engineers. Roberts adopted rotary cutters, which he had seen used at Maudslays. This is one of the earliest records of a milling cutter used in engineering. In 1817 he made a lathe able to turn work 6ft long. This had a back gear to give an increased range of speeds, and a sliding saddle to move the tool along the work. The saddle was driven by a screw through gearing which could be disengaged when the end of the cut was reached. Also in 1817 he built a planing machine to allow the machining of flat surfaces. Previous to this flat surfaces were labouriously made by hand with the fitter using hammers and chisels, files and scrapers to get a true surface. Following the success of his power loom (see below), in 1825 he invented a slotting machine to cut keyways in gears and pulleys to fasten them to their shafts. Previously this was done by hand chipping and filing. The tool was reciprocated vertically, and by adopting Maudslay's slide rest principle, he made the work table with a universal movement, both straight line and rotary so that the sides of complex pieces could be machined. Later he developed the shaping machine, where the cutting tool was reciprocated horizontally over the work, which could be moved in all directions by means of screw-driven slides. Examples of his machine tools are in the collections of the National Museum of Science and Industry, London. A sector is a part of a whole. ... Milling cutters are cutting tools used in milling machines or machining centres. ... 1817 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... LOOM is a graphical adventure game, originally released in 1990, published by LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games). ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Roberts also manufactured and sold sets of stocks and dies to his range of pitches, so other engineers could cut threads on nuts and bolts and other machine parts.

Roberts's inventions had a seminal influence on other machine-tool engineers, including Joseph Whitworth, when he came to Manchester, a decade later. His efforts have been largely overlooked by later writers until now. Sir Joseph Whitworth Sir Joseph Whitworth, Baronet (December 21, 1803 - January 22, 1887) was an English engineer and entrepreneur. ...

Roberts's textile machines

Roberts moved his business in 1821, to the Globe Works in Faulkner Street. Whilst there he improved a reed-making machine, originally invented by the American Jeptha Avery Wilkinson, and in 1822 he patented a power loom. This was made entirely of iron and being precision-made was able to operate at high speed. They were turned out at the rate of 4000 per year by 1825. In 1824 he invented his most famous machine, the self-acting spinning mule, and patented it in March 1825. These were made in hundreds, and Roberts made extensive use of templates and gauges to standardise production. 1822 (MDCCCXXII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1824 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Sharp, Roberts & Co.

When developing his textiles machines, Roberts took as partners Thomas Sharp, an iron merchant, and his brother Robert Chapman, Thomas Jones Wilkinson and James Hill. They formed two firms, Sharp Hill & Co and Roberts, Hills & Co, and in May 1826 these were amalgamated to form Sharp, Roberts & Co. The firm later became well-known for making locomotives. In 1834 Charles Beyer joined the firm. The oldest surviving photograph, Nicéphore Niépce, circa 1826 1826 (MDCCCXXVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Charles Frederick Beyer (an anglicised form of his original German name Carl Frederick Beyer) (14 May 1814 — 1876) was a German-British locomotive engineer, co-founder of the firm Beyer-Peacock. ...

Roberts was a prolific inventor and manufacturer, ranging over turret clock-making, to road vehicles, to iron ship building, to a punching machine, operating on the same system as the Jacquered Loom, for punching the rivet holes in the iron plates making up the railway bridge over the river Conwy in North Wales.

He was not a particularly successful businessman, and Sharp,Roberts & Co. closed in June 1852. His continued as a consulting engineer and inventor until his death, taking out 18 patents. In 1860,aged 71 he moved to London, where be became financially distressed. Various friends, almost all engineers, raised a fund to help him, but he died in his daughter's arms in London 11 March, 1864 aged 75. He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London. His daughter later received a Civil List pension in recognition of her father's achievements. 1852 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which is new, inventive, and... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery, located in Kensal Green, London, England, was incorporated in 1832, and is the oldest of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries still in operation. ... A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government. ...

Roberts's achievements

He has been described as the most important British mechanical engineer of the nineteenth century. According to Hills (chapter XIII, p 228,) his main contribution was the introduction of improved machine tools without which high standards of accuracy could not be achieved. This laid the foundation of production engineering as we know it today, leading to the interchangeability of standard parts and so mass production. Industrial engineering is the engineering discipline that concerns the design, development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, knowledge, equipment, energy, and material. ... For centuries, guns and other devices were made one at a time by gunsmiths, and each gun was unique. ... Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardised products on production lines. ...

Reference

Rev. Dr. Richard L Hills, Life and Inventions of Richard Roberts, 1789-1864. Landmark Publishing Ltd, 2002, 255 pp, many illustrations, (ISBN 1-84306-027-2)