James Nasmyth This article is about the Scottish engineer.

For the inventor of ba

sketball, see James Naismith. For the Member of Parliament for Peeblesshire, see
Sir James Nasmyth, 2nd Baronet.
James Nasmyth
James Nasmyth, c. 1877.png
Woodburytype print, c.1877
Born 19 August 1808
Edinburgh, Scotland
Died 7 May 1890 (aged 81)
Residence England (1829)
Citizenship British
Nationality Scottish
Fields Mechanical engineer
Artist
Inventor
Institutions Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company,(183650)
James Nasmyth and Company (185056)
Alma mater Heriot-Watt University
Known for Steam hammer
Machine tools
Locomotives
Astronomy
Photography
James Hall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) (19 August
1808 7 May 1890) was a Scottish engineer, artist and inventor famous for his dev
elopment of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Comp
any manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Pe
nshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 The steam hammer
2.2 Other inventions
2.3 Later life
3 Recognition
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Early life[edit]
47 York Place, Edinburgh, Plaque commemorating James Nasmyth's birth
James Nasmyth was born at 47 York Place, Edinburgh where his father Alexander Na
smyth was a landscape and portrait painter. One of Alexander's hobbies was mecha
nics and he employed nearly all his spare time in his workshop where he encourag
ed his youngest son to work with him in all sorts of materials. James was sent t
o the Royal High School where he had as a friend, Jimmy Patterson, the son of a
local iron founder. Being already interested in mechanics he spent much of his t
ime at the foundry and there he gradually learned to work and turn in wood, bras
s, iron, and steel. In 1820 he left the High School and again made great use of
his father's workshop where at the age of 17, he made his first steam engine.
From 1821 to 1826, Nasmyth regularly attended the Edinburgh School of Arts (toda
y Heriot-Watt University, making him one of the first students of the institutio
n).[1] In 1828 he made a complete steam carriage that was capable of running a m
ile carrying 8 passengers. This accomplishment increased his desire to become a
mechanical engineer. He had heard of the fame of Henry Maudslay's workshop and r
esolved to get employment there; unfortunately his father could not afford to pl
ace him as an apprentice at Maudslay's works. Nasmyth therefore decided instead
to show Maudslay examples of his skills and produced a complete working model of
 a high-pressure steam engine, creating the working drawings and constructing th
e components himself.
Career[edit]
In May 1829 Nasmyth visited Maudslay in London, and after showing him his work w
as engaged as an assistant workman at 10 shillings a week. Unfortunately, Maudsl
ay died two years later, whereupon Nasmyth was taken on by Maudslay's partner as
a draughtsman.
When Nasmyth was 23 years old, having saved the sum of 69, he decided to set up i
n business on his own. He rented a factory flat 130 feet long by 27 feet wide at
an old Cotton Mill on Dale Street, Manchester.[2]

James Nasmyth circa 1844 by Hill & Adamson.

The combination of massive castings and a wooden floor was not an ideal one, and
after an accident involving one end of an engine beam crashing through the floo
r into a glass cutters flat below he soon relocated. He moved to Patricroft, an
area of the town of Eccles, Lancashire, where in August 1836, he and his busines
s partner Holbrook Gaskell opened the Bridgewater Foundry, where they traded as
Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company. The premises were constructed adjacent to the (the
n new) Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bridgewater Canal.
In March 1838 James was making a journey by coach from Sheffield to York in a sn
owstorm, when he spied some ironwork furnaces in the distance. The coachman info
rmed him that they were managed by a Mr. Hartop who was one of his customers. He
immediately got off the coach and headed for the furnaces through the deep snow
. He found Mr. Hartop at his house, and was invited to stay the night and visit
the works the next day. That evening he met Hartop's family and was immediately
smitten by his 21-year-old daughter, Anne. A decisive man, the next day he told
her of his feelings and intentions, which was received "in the best spirit that
I could desire." He then communicated the same to her parents, and told them his
prospects, and so became betrothed in the same day. They were married two years
later, on 16 June 1840 in Wentworth.
Up to 1843, Nasmyth, Gaskell & Co. concentrated on producing a wide range of mac
hine tools in large numbers. By 1856, Nasmyth had built 236 shaping machines.
In 1840 he began to receive orders from the newly opened railways which were beg
inning to cover the country, for locomotives. His connection with the Great West
ern Railway whose famous steamship SS Great Western had been so successful in vo
yages between Bristol and New York, led to him being asked to make some machine
tools of unusual size and power which were required for the construction of the
engines of their next and bigger ship SS Great Britain.
The steam hammer[edit]
In 1837 the Great Western Steam Company was experiencing many problems forging t
he paddle shaft of the SS Great Britain; when even the largest hammer was tilted
to its full height its range was so small that if a really large piece of work
were placed on the anvil, the hammer had no room to fall, and in 1838 the compan
y's engineer wrote to Nasmyth: "I find there is not a forge-hammer in England or
Scotland powerful enough to forge the paddle-shaft of the engine for the Great
Britain! What am I to do? (Francis Humphries, 1838)
Nasmyth thought the matter over and seeing the obvious defects of the tilt-hamme
r (it delivered every blow with the same force) sketched out his idea for the fi
rst steam hammer. He kept his ideas for new devices, mostly in drawings, in a "S
cheme Book" which he freely showed to his foreign customers. Nasmyth made a sket
ch of his steam hammer design dated 24 November 1839, but the immediate need dis
appeared when the practicality of screw propellers was demonstrated and the Grea
t Britain was converted to that design.[3]
The French engineer Franois Bourdon came up with the similar idea of what he call
ed a "Pilon" in 1839 and made detailed drawings of his design, which he also sho
wed to all engineers who visited the works at Le Creusot owned by the brothers A
dolphe and Eugne Schneider.[3] However, the Schneiders hesitated to build Bourdon
's radical new machine. Bourdon and Eugne Schneider visited the Nasmyth works in
England in the middle of 1840, where they were shown Nasmyth's sketch. This conf
irmed the feasibility of the concept to Schneider.[4] In 1840 Bourdon built the
first steam hammer in the world at the Schneider & Cie works at Le Creusot. It w
eighed 2,500 kilograms (5,500 lb) and lifted to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in). The Schnei
ders patented the design in 1841.[5]
In April 1842 Nasmyth visited France with a view to supplying the French arsenal
s and dockyards with tools and while he was there took the opportunity to visit
the Le Creusot works. On going round the works, he found the steam-hammer at wor
k. By his account, Bourdon took him to the forge department so he might, as he s
aid, "see his own child". Nasmyth said "there it was, in trutha thumping child of
my brain!"[3] Nasmyth patented his design in June 1842, and built his first ste
am hammer later that year in his Patricroft foundry in Manchester, England, adja
cent to the (then new) Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bridgewater Cana
l.[6] In 1843 a dispute broke out between the two engineers over priority of inv
ention of the steam hammer.[7]

James Nasmyth's patent steam hammer as illustrated in Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of

Useful Arts, 1854
By using the hammer production costs could be reduced by over 50 percent, while
at the same time improving the quality of the forgings produced. The first hamme
rs were of the free-fall type but they were later modified, given power-assisted
fall. Up until then, the invention of Nasmyth's steam-hammer, large forging, su
ch as ships' anchors, had to be made by the "bit-by-bit" process, that is, small
pieces were forged separately and finally welded together. A key feature of his
machine was that the operator controlled the force of each blow. He enjoyed sho
wing off its capability by demonstrating how it could first break an egg placed
in a wine glass, without breaking the glass, which was followed by a full-force
blow which shook the building. Its advantages soon became so obvious that before
long Nasmyth hammers were to be found in all the large workshops all over the c
ountry.
An original Nasmyth hammer now stands facing Nasmyth's Patricroft foundry buildi
ngs (now a 'business park'). A larger Nasmyth & Wilson steam hammer stands in th
e campus of the University of Bolton.
Nasmyth subsequently applied the principle of his steam hammer to a pile-driving
machine which he invented in 1843. His first full scale machine used a four-ton
hammer-block, and a rate of eighty blows per minute. The pile driver was first
demonstrated in a contest with a team using the conventional method at Devonport
on 3 July 1845. He drove a pile 70 feet long and 18 inches squared in four and
a half minutes, while the conventional method required twelve hours. This was a
great success, and many orders for his pile driver resulted. It was used for man
y large scale constructions all over the world in the next few years, such as th
e High Level Bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne and the Nile barrage at Aswan, Egypt
(Aswan Low Dam).
By 1856 a total of 490 hammers had been produced which were sold across Europe t
o Russia, India and even Australia, and accounted for 40% of James Nasmyth and C
ompany's revenues.
Other inventions[edit]
The milling machine built by James Nasmyth between 1829 and 1831, with indexing
fixture.
Apart from the steam hammer Nasmyth created several other important machine tool
s, including the shaper, an adaptation of the planer which is still used in tool
and die making. Another innovation was a hydraulic press which used water press
ure to force tight-fitting machine parts together. All of these machines became
popular in manufacturing, and all are still in use in modified form.
Nasmyth was also one of the first toolmakers to offer a standardised range of ma
chine tools; before this, manufacturers constructed tools according to individua
l clients' specifications with little regard to standardisation, which caused co
mpatibility problems. Nasmyth was arguably the last of the early pioneers of the
machine tool industry.
Among Nasmyth's other inventions, most of which he never patented, were a means
of transmitting rotary motion by means of a flexible shaft made of coiled wire,
a machine for cutting key grooves, self-adjusting bearings, and the screw ladle
for moving molten metal which could safely and efficiently be handled by two men
instead of the six previously required. Nasmyth's idea of a steam ram for naval
warfare was never put into production.
Although milling machines were no longer novel by 1830, an example built by Nasm
yth around that time stands out for its prescience. It was tooled to mill the si
x sides of a hex nut that was mounted in a six-way indexing fixture.[8]
He also worked on a project for the conversion of iron which was not dis-similar
to that which was eventually patented by Henry Bessemer. A reluctant patentor,
and in this instance still working through some problems in his method, Nasmyth
abandoned the project after hearing of Bessemer's ideas in 1856. Bessemer, howev
er, acknowledged the efforts of Nasmyth by offering him a one-third share of the
value of his patent for the eponymous Bessemer process. Nasmyth turned it down
as he had decided to retire.[9]
Later life[edit]
Drawing of a crater on the surface of the moon by Nasmyth
Nasmyth retired from business in 1856 when he was 48 years old, as he said "I ha
ve now enough of this world's goods: let younger men have their chance". He sett
led down near Penshurst, Kent, where he renamed his retirement home "Hammerfield
" and happily pursued his various hobbies including astronomy. He built his own
20-inch reflecting telescope, in the process inventing the Nasmyth focus, and ma
de detailed observations of the Moon. He co-wrote The Moon : Considered as a Pla
net, a World, and a Satellite with James Carpenter (18401899). This book contains
an interesting series of "lunar" photographs: because photography was not yet a
dvanced enough to take actual pictures of the Moon, Nasmyth built plaster models
based on his visual observations of the Moon and then photographed the models.
A crater on the Moon is named after him.
He was happily married to his wife Jamie Foubister, from Woodburn, Yorkshire, fo
r 50 years, until his death. They had many children of many ethnicities. **This
is curious, as he married Anne Elizabeth Hartop in 1840, & in August 1890 Anne E
lizabeth (Nasmyth)of Hammersfield, widow, the relict, is the first-named of his
executors. James & Anne Elizabeth had no children living with them in the 1851 -
1881 censuses. Ann Elizabeth Nasmyth died in Scarborough, 11 October 1893**.
They are buried in the north section of the Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh.
The huge memorial stands at the east end of the main east-west path, with the pa
th dividing around it. The monument holds a well-carved model of his steam hamme
r. James' mother, Barbara Foulis (1765-1848) is buried with them. The monument a
lso stands as a memorial to his brother, Patrick Nasmyth (1787-1831)
Recognition[edit]
In memory of his renowned contribution to the discipline of mechanical engineeri
ng, the Department of Mechanical Engineering building at Heriot-Watt University,
in his birthplace of Edinburgh, is called the James Nasmyth Building.
See also[edit]
Benjamin Hick
John Hick
References[edit]
The grave of James Nasmyth and family, Dean Cemetery
Citations
Jump up ^ Nasmyth & Smiles 1883.
Jump up ^ Musson 1969, p. 491.
^ Jump up to: a b c Boutany 1885, p. 59.
Jump up ^ Chomienne 1888, p. 254.
Jump up ^ Franois BOURDON: Archives Cte dOr.
Jump up ^ Nasmyth & Smiles 1883, p. 259.
Jump up ^ Nasmyth steam hammer.
Jump up ^ Woodbury 1972, p. 24-26.
Jump up ^ Lord 1945, p. 164.
Sources