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 (MDCCCLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 967 AD  Area  -  Total 130,395 km²  50,346 sq mi  Population  -  2007 estimate... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the computer game previously called Entrepreneur, see The Corporate Machine. ...

Early life and 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. Stockport is a large town in the north west of England. ... A machine is any mechanical or electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of tasks. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Henry Maudslay. ... Joseph Clement was a British engineer and industrialist. ... Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English mathematician, philosopher, mechanical engineer 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. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... Conventional metalworking lathe In woodturning, metalworking, metal spinning, and glassworking, a lathe is a machine tool which spins a block of material so that when abrasive, cutting, or deformation tools are applied to the block, it can be shaped to produce an object which has rotational symmetry about an axis...

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. A surface plate is a solid, flat table that can be confidently used as a datum for marking out, measuring workpieces, or setting up tooling. ... Prussian blue is a blue pigment used in paints and formerly in blueprints. ... Three different engineering hand scrapers A hand scraper is a single-edged tool used to scrape metal from a surface. ...

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. An inch (plural: inches; symbol or abbreviation: in or, sometimes, ″ - a double prime) is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... The Great Exhibition: Paxtons Crystal Palace enclosed full-grown trees in Hyde Park. ...

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. 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. ... British Standard Whitworth (BSW) is one of three imperial unit based screw thread standards which use the same bolt heads and nut hexagonal sizes, the other two being British Standard Fine (BSF) and Cycle Engineers Institute (CEI). ...

Whitworth was commissioned by the War Department of the British government to design a replacement for the calibre .577-inch Pattern 1853 Enfield, 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 these rifles found their way to the Confederate states in the American Civil War, where they were called "Whitworth Sharpshooters". The War Department was the United Kingdom government department responsible for the supply of equipment to the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the pursuance of military activity. ... The Enfield 1853 Rifled Musket (also known as the Pattern 1853 Enfield, P53 Enfield, and Enfield Rifled Musket) was a . ... Combatants Allies: Second French Empire United Kingdom Ottoman Empire Kingdom of Sardinia Russian Empire Bulgarian volunteers Casualties 90,000 French 35,000 Turkish 17,500 British 2,194 Sardinian killed, wounded and died of disease ~134,000 killed, wounded and died of disease The Crimean War (1854–1856) was fought... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (114th in leap years). ... The French Army (French: Armée de Terre) is the land-based component of the French Armed Forces. ... Motto Deo Vindice (Latin: Under God, Our Vindicator) Anthem God Save the South (unofficial) Dixie (traditional) The Bonnie Blue Flag (popular) Capital Montgomery, Alabama (until May 29, 1861) Richmond, Virginia (May 29, 1861–April 2, 1865) Danville, Virginia (from April 3, 1865) Language(s) English (de facto) Government Republic President... This article is becoming very long. ...

The Enfield rifle was converted 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. SNIDER-ENFIELD BREECH LOADING RIFLE. The British . ... 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 (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India from 1 May 1876, until her death on 22 January 1901. ... The National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom (NRA) is the governing body of full bore rifle and pistol shooting in the United Kingdom. ... For other uses see Wimbledon (disambiguation) Wimbledon is an area in the London Borough of Merton, south-west London. ...

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. ... Year 1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Block quote Sir William George Armstrong William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong (November 26, 1810 – December 27, 1900) was an English industrialist, the effective founder of the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing empire. ...

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 steel cable of a colliery winding tower. ...

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. The premises of The Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ... 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. ... Darley Dale, also known simply as Darley, is a town in Derbyshire, England, with a population of around 6,000 people. ... Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. ...

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. In recognition of his achievements and contributions to education in Manchester, the Whitworth Building of the University of Manchester's Main Campus is named in his honour. Historically, Mechanics Institutes were educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men. ... UMIST Main Building 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 (, ). It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for research. ... The University of Manchester is a university located in Manchester, England. ...

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.

Reference

• Sir Joseph Whitworth by Norman Atkinson, Sutton Publishing Limited 1996 ISBN 0-7509-1211-1 (hc), ISBN 0-7509-1648-6 (pb)
• "Wild One" by Bill Althaus, http://examiner.net/stories/121606/spo_121606049.shtml