Elihu Burritt

“ In ten thousand school-houses scattered over the American continent between the two oceans, a million children are as familiarly acquainted with Joseph Gillott as with Noah Webster. The primer of the one and the pen of the other—twin pioneers of civilization—are making the tour of the western hemisphere together, and leaving behind them a wave and wake of light. ”

“ Although Gillott's Pen Factory is the great lion of Birmingham manufacturers to Americans visiting the town from their childhood associations with his pens, there is another which excites their special admiration when they visit it. This is the famous Electro-Plate establishment of Elkington and Co., which, with its affiliations or branch dépôts, is the most extensive in Great Britain. They may be considered the very fathers or founders of this splendid ware, which cheapens, to the means and use of middle-class men, articles of elegance and luxury which great wealth alone could once command. ”

“ In 1836 they first invented or developed the process by which metals could be coated with a solution of silver or gold. For this very important and remarkable invention they obtained a patent both in England and France; and in the latter country it was considered a great contribution to science as well as to artistic and useful industry. The establishment is, in itself, a school of art, in which genius is trained to the finest conceptions of taste and beauty. No one can estimate the force and extent of influence it puts forth for the culture of a nation. ”

“ It is doubtful if a pound's weight of all the tons which the manufactory has solved and deposited has been saved to be used over again for any purpose whatever. The silver or gold coating is worn away and disappears in the course of years. The same is the case with all the gold-beaters of the world. The acres of gold-leaf they hammer out for gilt work are all lost, as much as the sunshine of a past year.
About 1,000 persons are employed in the establishment, who probably represent as much highly-trained genius and skill as was ever brought together under the same roofage. ”

“ Not that luxury or wealth has in itself the mental power to originate these tasteful designs, but the mind to appreciate and means to enjoy them when produced by that high art which would have starved in the sackcloth of mediocrity in all ages, had it not been for the favoured few who could reward the divinest conceptions and the finest touches of the painter or sculptor. ”

“ Any American, or other foreign-born visiter in Birmingham, will find the establishment of Messrs. Chance one of the great lions of English manufacturing enterprise.
The highest arts, or those which command the most enthusiastic and reverential admiration, are painting, sculpture, and music. And the triad had, beyond all other arts, the inspiration of religious sentiment and enthusiasm. The adoration of the Virgin and all the Roman Catholic saints, gave infinite scope and impetus to the genius of the great masters. ”

“ Lloyd and Summerfield, at Birmingham Heath, have also distinguished themselves for the splendid specimens of glass-painting which they have produced.
But of all the manufactures of Birmingham none has such a wide reputation abroad, in America especially, as Gillott's steel pens. Happily there are a hundred "young ideas taught to shoot" with a pen where one is taught to shoot with a gun Pens are the knitting needles of civilization, and ply in all its webs of social life and literature. ”

“ The Birmingham pen-makers are beginning to encounter considerable competition in the foreign market from manufactories recently established in the United States, in France, and Germany. But there is room for all, and there will be plenty of business for them when the paternal authorities of states, towns, and villages shall make the necessary provision, and then insist that every child shall learn to write before it goes to field or factory. If any men have a large and direct interest in compulsory education and world-wide civilization they are the makers of metallic pens. ”

“ It is not the object of this volume, nor would half-a-dozen of the same size be sufficient, to describe those numerous trades which it carries on in common with other large towns in the kingdom. I have sought to impress especially upon the American reader the importance of the place which Birmingham has occupied as a normal school for the artistic, scientific, and skilled industries of the world; as a generating centre of mechanical genius to which no foreign country is so much indebted as the United States. ”

“ After all that the town has done in the production of pens, pins, buttons, thimbles, hoes, shovels, and other useful tools, it is widest if not best known to the outside world for these varied and ingenious weapons of death. For naturally the largest portion of the great human family are unable to use pens, but are trained to the handling of these shooting and stabbing irons used in great and small wars, and in manly recreations in cruelty to animals. The musket, sporting gun, and rifle have come to their present character by an inverse process and development. ”

“ It is said one of his workmen earned three pounds ten shillings per week by painting them at a farthing each. If this were true, that single hand must have turned out over 160,000 boxes in the year.
The artistic skill which John Taylor's wares had developed and diffused among the mechanics of Birmingham, as it were, lit the candle of a new industry, which again, in its turn, fed and transmitted the light to other departments of trade. This inventive skill, originating in finely-trained perceptions of beauty, is not only the minister but the founder of fashion. ”

“ They are the metallic points from which flash the electric thoughts that thrill the world, and conduct the first that children write into visible words. The schoolmasters of two hemispheres owe Gillott a debt of gratitude which they do not realize for what he has done for them. ”

“ To an American it presents not only interesting features but facts in mechanical history. He will see there in operation the genius of his own country, and recognize an instalment of his country's debt paid back to Birmingham for all our skilled mechanics and manufacturers have derived from the establishments of Boulton and Watt, and other generating centres of ingenious industry. The American system has not only been introduced here, but the factory was launched into operation under American direction. ”

“ Their show-room on Broad Street is a veritable museum in itself, and no one can visit it without being struck with admiration at the infinite variety as well as beauty of their productions.
The Chances have the largest establishment in Great Britain for the manufacture of plate and window glass, lighthouse lenses, and optical glasses. Their works constitute a village in itself, a few miles out of Birmingham, at Spon Lane. No manufacture in England has shown more elasticity than glass on being released from the heavy duty once imposed upon it. ”

“ Buckles for hat, knee, and shoe became the ruling and raging fashion in the later years of the last century, from the taste and genius bestowed on their manufacture. For a long time they were worn in all civilized countries, and in none more generally among well-to-do people than in republican America. Birmingham and a few towns adjacent monopolized the business and supplied the whole demand for Europe and America. ”

“ While the Soho establishment was working out such marvels of taste, skill, and science in steel, iron, copper, silver, and gold, another pioneer in the trades of Birmingham, Henry Clay, introduced what might be called a paper metal, and created an entirely new business, which may be regarded as the distinguishing speciality of the town. ”

“ The establishment is arranged to turn out 2,000 guns per week. The Birmingham gun-makers were stirred up to somewhat indignant emotion at this Government competition and interference in their trade; but as they could not put down the Enfield factory, they formed a large and powerful joint--stock company, which has not only been able to compete successfully with the Government, but also to perform work which Enfield could not execute for want of productive capacity. ”

“ It attracted and employed the genius of Flaxman, Chantrey, and other eminent artists in designs for the almost infinite variety of articles which it produced. It trained up an army of workers under the tuition of all this science, genius, taste, and skill, and they, in their turn, became teachers of thousands of artisans in shops and factories scattered over the United Kingdom and the United States. Soho, also, as we have already noticed, elaborated a night sun for lighting the factories, shops, towns, and villages of the kingdom. It first gave to the world Gas as an illuminating power. ”

“ But if buckles were obliged to succumb to the dictation of Fashion, a stout resistance was opposed to her rule in the matter of gilt or metal buttons. The protectionists of those times ruled their trades with a rod of iron. The button-makers would not tolerate either competition or rivalry. No shoestring innovators should be allowed to poach on their preserves, as they did in the buckle business. They would push the iron ægis of the law against all the inventors and improvers that sought to insinuate themselves into the pale of their profits. ”

“ There are nearly 600 manufacturers in Birmingham engaged in different departments of the gun trade, which departments are eight in number, and some of these are again subdivided. There are about 10,000 men, women, and children employed in these different branches. Good workmen can earn, on an average, thirty shillings a-week. Gun-making by machinery, after the American process, has been introduced quite lately. ”

“ Massive wardrobes, tables, sofas, &c., of the highest perfection will there be found, showing to what uses and to what brilliant solidities the waste paper, often floating on the wind, may be turned. The Glass Manufacture may also be called a speciality among the manifold productions of Birmingham. ”

“ The pioneer in the introduction of this new art and occupation was John Taylor, who died in 1775, at the age of sixty-four, having acquired a fortune of £200,000 from the business he established, which was the manufacture of metal buttons. Rich-witted, quaint Hutton calls him "the Shakespeare or Newton of his day." He seems to have been a kind of Wedgwood in his line, applying great genius of design to gilt buttons, snuff-boxes, and articles of japanned ware. ”

“ The Greeners also turn out sporting guns of great perfection. The wood stock-forms are brought mostly from countries where wood is more abundant and cheaper than in England. The walnut stocks are imported from Germany and Italy. During the Crimean war, a Birmingham contractor set up saw-mills at Turin, and has converted a whole forest, or nearly 100,000 walnut trees into stocks. ”

“ Perhaps no house has brought more science of its own elaboration to bear upon the construction of instruments for the measurement of wind and rain. These anemometers have been developed to the most delicate issues—even to register, as it were, every counter-puff of air by day and night ”

“ The most liberal and generous rule is adopted in making this show-room and the whole establishment accessible to all who wish to visit it. Such persons are conducted through the gorgeous hall and shown all they wish to see with an affable attention and courtesy which all will remember who have shared them. ”

“ To show what improved machinery has done to cheapen and multiply their production, it may suffice to say, that pens that were sold at wholesale thirty years ago at five shillings a gross are now sold as low as a halfpenny per gross, or two dozen for a single farthing! ”

“ Still this improvement was not introduced into the English military service until 1839.
The rifle comes down with a long history of improvements. The common gun-barrel was grooved towards the last of the fifteenth century; the first specimen being produced at Vienna. In 1620. Koster, of Nuremburg, gave the grooves a twist in order to produce a rotary motion to the ball. During the next century, the grooved musket or rifle came into a somewhat extensive use by several continental powers, but not by the English until the war of the American Revolution. ”

“ His penny weighed just an ounce, and his twopenny piece two ounces. Eight of the latter and sixteen of the former made just a pound. A sovereign's value in them made a comfortable load of fifteen pounds for a pair of saddle-bags. But their inconvenience as currency was compensated in other uses to which they might be turned. They were not only the most exact but the only uniform weights in the kingdom, and could be used more safely for the purchaser than any others in weighing out tea, snuff, tobacco, and even small family purchases of butter and cheese. ”

“ They have grown down and from the monster-mouthed cannon, instead of the cannon growing up from them into its huge dimensions. The cannon is said to have been made first in the middle of the fourteenth century at Liege, a town that armed half of Europe for several centuries with all sorts of weapons and armour against weapons. ”

“ Allowing five working days to the week, then this establishment must work up 17,555 pounds of silver, and an amount of gold of equal value in a year. And, what is a fact of great importance, every ounce of this silver and gold is lost to the world. ”

“ It is stated that, as far back as the middle of the eighteenth century, he manufactured buttons in his shop of the value of £800 weekly, besides other articles. He also introduced or monopolized the production of painted snuff-boxes, of infinite variety of device. ”