32 Facts About James Nasmyth

James Hall Nasmyth was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer.

James Nasmyth was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools.

James Nasmyth retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.

Nasmyth was born at 47 York Place, Edinburgh where his father Alexander Nasmyth was a landscape and portrait painter.

James Nasmyth was sent to the Royal High School where he had as a friend, Jimmy Patterson, the son of a local iron founder.

From 1821 to 1826, James Nasmyth regularly attended the Edinburgh School of Arts.

James Nasmyth had heard of the fame of Henry Maudslay's workshop and resolved to get employment there; unfortunately his father could not afford to place him as an apprentice at Maudslay's works.

James 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 the components himself.

In May 1829, James Nasmyth visited Maudslay in London, and after showing him his work was engaged as an assistant workman at 10 shillings a week.

Unfortunately, Maudslay died two years later, whereupon James Nasmyth was taken on by Maudslay's partner as a draughtsman.

James Nasmyth rented a factory flat 130 feet long by 27 feet wide at an old cotton mill on Dale Street, Manchester.

James Nasmyth moved to Patricroft, an area of the town of Eccles, Lancashire, where in August 1836, he and his business partner Holbrook Gaskell opened the Bridgewater Foundry, where they traded as Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

In March 1838 James Nasmyth was making a journey by coach from Sheffield to York in a snowstorm, when he spied some ironwork furnaces in the distance.

James Nasmyth immediately got off the coach and headed for the furnaces through the deep snow.

James Nasmyth found Mr Hartop at his house, and was invited to stay the night and visit the works the next day.

James Nasmyth thought the matter over and seeing the obvious defects of the tilt-hammer sketched out his idea for the first steam hammer.

James Nasmyth kept his ideas for new devices, mostly in drawings, in a "Scheme Book" which he freely showed to his foreign customers.

James Nasmyth made a sketch of his steam hammer design dated 24 November 1839, but the immediate need disappeared when the practicality of screw propellers was demonstrated and the Great Britain was converted to that design.

James Nasmyth built his first steam hammer later that year in his Patricroft foundry.

James Nasmyth enjoyed showing 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.

James Nasmyth subsequently applied the principle of his steam hammer to a pile-driving machine which he invented in 1843.

Apart from the steam hammer, James Nasmyth created several other important machine tools, including the shaper, an adaptation of the planer which is still used in tool and die making.

James Nasmyth was one of the first toolmakers to offer a standardised range of machine tools; before this, manufacturers constructed tools according to individual clients' specifications with little regard to standardisation, which caused compatibility problems.

James Nasmyth was arguably the last of the early pioneers of the machine tool industry.

James Nasmyth worked on a project for the conversion of iron which was not dis-similar to that which was eventually patented by Henry Bessemer.

Bessemer acknowledged the efforts of James Nasmyth by offering him a one-third share of the value of his patent for the eponymous Bessemer process.

James Nasmyth turned it down as he had decided to retire.

James Nasmyth retired from business in 1856 when he was 48 years old, as he said "I have now enough of this world's goods: let younger men have their chance".

James Nasmyth settled down near Penshurst, Kent, where he renamed his retirement home "Hammerfield" and happily pursued his various hobbies including astronomy.

James Nasmyth built his own 20-inch reflecting telescope, in the process inventing the Nasmyth focus, and made detailed observations of the Moon.

James Nasmyth co-wrote The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite with James Carpenter.

James Nasmyth was happily married to his wife Anne, from Woodburn, Yorkshire, for 50 years, until his death.