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History of Technology Volume 21 1st Edition Graham Hollister-Short (Editor)

History of Technology Volume 21 1st Edition Graham Hollister-Short (Editor) History of Technology Volume 21 1st Edition Graham Hollister-Short (Editor) History of Technology Volume 21 1st Edition Graham Hollister-Short (Editor)

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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY
HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY Editor Dr Graham Hollister-Short INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, University of London, London WCIE 7HU EDITORIAL BOARD Professor Hans-Joachim Braun, Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Holstenhofweg 85, 22039 Hamburg, Germany Professor R.A. Buchanan, School of Social Sciences, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, England Professor Andre Guillerme, LTnstitut Francais d'Urbanisme, Cite Descartes, 47 rue Albert Einstein, 77463 Champ-sur-Marne, France Professor A. Rupert Hall, FBA, 14 Ball Lane, Tackley, Oxfordshire OX5 3AG, England Professor Alexandre Herlea, Directeur du Departement Humanites, Institut Polytechnique de Sevenans, 90010 Belfort, France Professor Ian Inkster, International Studies, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS, England Dr A.G. Keller, Department of History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LEI 7RH, England Professor David Lewis, Department of History, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849, USA Professor Carlo Poni, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Strada Maggiore 45, 40125 Bologna, Italy Professor Hugh Torrens, Department of Geology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, England Professor R.D. Vergani, Dipartimento di Storia, Universita degli Studi di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padua, Italy
History of Technology Volume 21, 1999 Edited by Graham Hollister-Short LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2000 by Mansell Publishing Ltd Copyright © Graham Hollister-Short and Contributors, 2000 The electronic edition published 2016 Graham Hollister-Short and Contributor have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. History of technology. 21st annual volume: 2000 1. Technology – History – Periodicals ISBN: HB: 978-0-8264-4961-0 ePDF: 978-1-3500-1890-7 ePub: 978-1-3500-1891-4 Series: History of Technology, volume 21 Typeset by BookEns Limited, Royston, Herts.
C o n t e n t s Editorial vii The Contributors viii Notes for Contributors ix ANDREW D. LAMBERT Responding to the Nineteenth Century: The Royal Navy and the Introduction of the Screw Propeller 1 PETER J. GOLAS The Emergence of Technical Drawing in China: The Xin Ti Xiang Fa Tao and Its Antecedents 29 CARLO PONI The Circular Silk Mill: A Factory Before the Industrial Revolution in Early Modern Europe 65 IAN INKSTER Technology Transfer in the Great Climacteric: Machinofacture and International Patenting in World Development circa 1850-1914 87 WALTER KAISER What Drives Innovation in Technology? 107 TATSUYA KOBAYASHI The Industrialization of Chair and Table Manufacture in Japan: Subtle Interactions at the Confluence of Indigenous Culture and Western Technology 125 RAFFAELLO VERGANI Metals and Metallurgical Processes in North Italy in Biringuccio's Work 141
VI Contents PHILIPPE BRAUNSTEIN Maitrise et Transmission des Connaissances Techniques au Moyen Age 155 (English Summary by Graham Hollister-Short) HANS-JOACHIM BRAUN Current Research in the History of Technology in Europe 167 BERT L. FRANDSEN AND W. DAVID LEWIS Nieuports and Spads: French Pursuit Planes and American Airpower in World War I 189 BRUCE SINCLAIR The Power of Ceremony: Creating an International Engineering Community 203 Contents of Former Volumes 213
E d i t o r i a l With the appearance of the twenty-first volume of this journal, a backward glance may not be out of place. Until History of Technology began to appear in 1976 there were relatively few outlets for papers in the subject. It was precisely to try to relieve this situation and reduce the time it was taking to get articles into print that Rupert Hall, then Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Imperial College, assisted by Dr Norman Smith, took the decision to establish a new journal. To reverse Canning's aphorism, it was almost a question of calling in the old world to redress the balance of the new. Since that time other journals have entered the field, good evidence that the decision was a timely one and that the discipline was on the point of achieving the more broadly based existence it has today, although it has to be said that this statement would be truer of the United States and Germany than of this country. From the beginning previous editors, like the present editor, have sought to cast the net widely to avoid, as far as possible, a Europocentric approach and, equally important in our view, any undue concentration on the more recent aspects of the history of technology. Also important has been the recognition of, and the attempt to redress, an undeniable tendency among Anglophone historians of technology to overlook the very different technological experience of mainland Europe before its absorp- tion into the Anglo-Saxon technological ecumene in the mid-nineteenth century: what, to use Mumfordian shorthand, might be called the coming of carboniferous capitalism. Or, as Josef Rosowsky has remarked so amusingly, 'And then there was England and discontent entered the world.' In the present volume I have sought to bring together as wide an international group of scholars as possible, and I hope it will be specially welcome by reason of the variety of aspects of history of technology that are covered not only across the centuries but across the globe as well. Graham Hollister-Short London
T h e C o n t r i b u t o r s Professor Hans-Joachim Braun Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg Holstenhofweg 85 D-22039 Hamburg, Germany Professor Philippe Braunstein Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales 54, Blvd. Raspail 75270 Paris, Cedex 06 France Bert L. Frandsen Department of History 310 Thach Hall Auburn University, AL 36849-5207 USA Professor Peter J. Golas Department of History 2199 S. University of Denver Colorado, USA Professor Ian Inkster Faculty of Humanities Nottingham Trent University Nottingham NG11 8NS England Professor Walter Kaiser Technische Hochschule Rheinisch-Westfalische D-52056 Aachen Germany Professor Tatsuya Kobayashi 3-147 Hachimandai Seto City, Aichi Pref. 489 Japan Professor Andrew David Lambert Department of War Studies Kings College London Strand London WC2R 2LS England Professor W. David Lewis Department of History 310 Thach Hall Auburn University, AL 36849-5207 USA Professor Carlo Poni Dipartimento di Scienze Economichi Universita degli Studi di Bologna Strada Maggiore 45 40125 Bologna, Italy Professor Bruce Sinclair 404 High Street Bethlehem, PA 18018 USA Professor Raffaello Vergani Dipartimento di Storia Universita degli Studi di Padova Piazza Capitaniato 3 35139 Padua, Italy
N o t e s f o r C o n t r i b u t o r s Contributions are welcome and should be sent to the editor. They are considered on the understanding that they are previously unpublished in English and are not on offer to another journal. Papers in French and German will be considered for publication, but an English summary will be required. The editor will also consider publishing English translations of papers already published in languages other than English. Include an abstract of 150-200 words. Authors who have passages originally in Cyrillic or oriental scripts should indicate the system of transliteration they have used. Be clear and consistent. All papers should be rigorously documented, with references to primary and secondary sources typed separately from the text, double-line spaced and numbered consecutively. Cite as follows for: BOOKS 1. David Gooding, Experiment and the Making of Meaning: Human Agency in Scientific Observation and Experiment (Dordrecht, 1990), 54-5. Only name the publisher for good reason. Reference to a previous note: 3. Gooding, op. cit. (1), 43. Titles of standard works may be cited by abbreviation: DJVB, DBB, etc. THESES Cite University Microfilm order number or at least Dissertation Abstract number. ARTICLES 13. Andrew Nahum, 'The Rotary Aero Engine', Hist. Tech., 1986, 11: 125-66, esp. 139. Please note the following guidelines for the submission and presentation of all contributions:
x Notesfor Contributors 1. Type your manuscript on good quality paper, on one side only and double-line spaced throughout. The text, including all endnotes, references and indented block quotes, should be in one typesize (if possible 12 pt). 2. In the first instance submit two copies only. Once the text has been agreed, then you need to submit three copies of the final version, one for the editor and two for the publishers. You should, of course, retain a copy for yourself. 3. Number the pages consecutively throughout (including endnotes and any figures/tables). 4. Spelling should conform to the latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. 5. Quoted material of more than three lines should be indented, without quotation marks, and double-line spaced. 6. Use single quotes for shorter, non-indented, quotations. For quotes within quotes use double quotation marks. 7. The source of all extracts, illustrations, etc., should be cited and/or acknowledged. 8. Italic type should be indicated by underlining. Italics (i.e. under- lining) should be used for foreign words and titles of books and journals. Articles in journals are not italicized but placed within single quotation marks. 9. Figures. Line drawings should be drawn boldly in black ink on stout white paper, feint-ruled paper or tracing paper. Photographs should be glossy prints of good contrast and well matched for tonal range. Each illustration must be numbered and have a caption. Xerox copies may be sent when the article is first submitted for consideration. Please do not send originals of photographs or transparencies but if possible have a good quality copy made. While every care will be taken, the publishers cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage. Photographs or other illustrative material should be kept separate from the text. They should be keyed to your typescript with a note in the margin to indicate where they should appear. Provide a separate list of captions for the figures. 10. Notes should come at the end of the text as endnotes, double-line spaced. 11. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain copyright clearance for the use of previously published material and for photographs.
R e s p o n d i n g t o t h e N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y T h e R o y a l N a v y a n d t h e I n t r o d u c t i o n o f t h e S c r e w P r o p e l l e r A N D R E W D. L A M B E R T ABSTRACT This paper will reconsider the old view that navies in general, and the Royal Navy in particular, were opposed to the introduction of new technology in the nineteenth century. Through a case study of one critical technology, the screw propeller, it is possible to see how the play of politics, strategy, economics, technology and patent law influenced the process. This analysis will provide a sharp contrast with the narrow, self-serving or adulatory polemics produced by contemporary engineers and their hagiographers. It does not diminish Brunei, Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericsson, to name but three, to discover that their motivations were fame and money, rather than the 'benefit of civilization' so often claimed. Their naval contemporaries were more astute. Charged with professional responsibility for the security of a global empire they could not afford to reject progress. Instead they harnessed the intellectual and engineering resources of the private sector to bring new technologies to production readiness. In the process they were more likely to defraud the engineers than ignore them. * * * There is an enduring myth that the directors of the world's navies were reactionary, or at best unduly conservative, in their handling of technical change in the nineteenth century. This, it has been argued, was symptomatic of large hierarchically structured bureaucracies which were opposed to change in any area, from uniform regulations to weapons procurement. This view is reflected in the work of historians of the liberal progressive school for whom conservatism in technology, as in politics, is the mark of the unthinking and bigoted reactionary. They contend that had the world's navies been more adventurous, technical progress would have been History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
2 Responding to the Nineteenth Century more rapid, and more economical. As the largest, and among the best documented of navies, the Royal Navy has often been criticized for technological conservatism throughout the long nineteenth century (1815-1914). This line has been adopted in studies of the introduction of steam power, iron ships, the screw propeller, armour plate, turrets and a number of other important new systems. The case against the Admiralty has been supported by the contention that France, the United States and even Russia were, at various times, more far-seeing and technologically astute. However, examining these issues in a different context, that of British international policy, provides completely different results. Between 1815 and 1914 Britain worked for a peaceful and stable European balance as the most effective means of securing her unique global trading empire from hostile competition. The power behind British policy was naval deterrence. If the Admiralty was slow in responding to new technology how did Britain win major arms races with France and Imperial Germany, defeat Russia and deter all four of her Great Power rivals at various times between 1840 and 1911? The British Empire could not have been secured by an obsolescent fleet based on yesterday's technology. This would suggest that the case needs to be re-examined. This paper offers a new analytical model of the way in which large bureaucratic organizations handle major technical developments. By reconsidering one of the most famous case studies of alleged inertia, hostility and conservatism, the introduction of the screw propeller, it will demonstrate that the existing historiography is weak and profoundly flawed, both as to underlying assumptions and research methods. Existing accounts treat the introduction of the screw propeller as a purely technical issue, isolated from politics, finance, strategy, tactics, and even the inner workings of naval administration. For too long the underlying assumptions about the propeller, and the engineers who worked on it, have been based on self-serving contemporary pamphlet literature, the latter day complaints of disappointed speculators and the anti-establishment outpourings of advanced liberals of the mid-century, who really believed the millennium was at hand. By failing to question the underlying assumptions of this literature subsequent generations have done a grave disservice to the memories of several hard-working, professional men. The essential argument is that a 'conservative' bureaucracy either misunderstood or deliberately opposed each new manifestation of progress. This line of attack can be traced back through contemporary pamphlets, which were little more than glorified sales brochures, into the more durable biographies and general histories. Perhaps the first and most influential rendition of this 'critical' version was provided by Isambard Kingdom Brunei junior's biography of his father in 1870. Brunei junior largely created the genre, by linking his father with other engineers and inventors of the era. He based his case on Brunei's favourite anecdote about the 'adverse influence which had been exerted in some departments History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 3 of the Admiralty to prevent the successful issue of these experiments'.1 This version was perpetuated in the standard modern life.2 The source for the anecdote was 'Captain' Christopher Claxton, Brunei's close friend. Claxton's naval connections had provided critical input for the form and structure of the steamship Great Western, while he proved to be a major influence on the Great Western Steamship Company and various other shipbuilding and railways projects around Bristol. However, Claxton was only a half-pay lieutenant, he was not promoted commander until 1842, and finally became a captain in 1860. Clearly Claxton had a grudge against the Admiralty, elaborating the most extreme version of an anecdote that his friend had told so often that it became a parody of truth. Not everyone connected with Brunei believed Claxton's version. His younger son Henry never believed the stories, and was disappointed to find his brother retailing them in the biography.3 They were good stories, but they do not stand up to close scrutiny. When John Ericsson received his valedictory biography his brief relationship with the Admiralty was portrayed in equally bleak terms.4 Even before this version appeared the liberal progressivist version, in which the Admiralty was the source of all obstruction, had been adopted by the standard history of the Royal Navy.5 It would be followed in the standard account of the development of marine engineering.6 These accounts all assume that anyone but a fool, and a peculiarly conservative fool at that, could have seen the merits of the propeller from the beginning, and pressed for its immediate adoption. They ignore the key questions that surrounded the process. These were financial, technical, political, tactical and strategic. When they have been addressed it is possible to see the propeller in a wider context, thus providing an altogether more complex chain of events. The Admiralty was not dragged, reluctantly, into the propeller. It was well aware of what was happening from the beginning, maintained a careful watching brief, intervened in particular experiments to great effect, forced the private sector to conduct almost all the fundamental research and early practical trials, without adequate recompense, and then intervened in the process at a decisive moment, just as the technology matured, to clear up all the patent rights and build the world's first all- steam fleet. Far from the reactionary image created by the engineers and their hagiographers, the most common complaint of contemporaries was that they had been 'defrauded', and that the Admiralty would only deal with people it could 'bully or defraud'.7 Such problems as there were reflected the impact of political change and internal friction on a semi- reformed naval administration. STEAM, STRATEGY AND TACTICS By the mid-1830s intelligent naval officers were well informed about steam technology, and capable of thinking through the implications of each new development without any prompting from the host of inventors, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
4 Responding to the Nineteenth Century speculators and cranks who pestered the Admiralty. In consequence the latter's response to new technology was not one of unthinking animosity and blind worship of the past. They were well informed because the development of naval strategy and tactics between 1805 and 1840 made steam increasingly important. After the crushing victory of Trafalgar the whole thrust of naval operations had shifted from fleet combat to the projection of power from the sea against the shore. Such operations were only practical for large vessels with their own power, independent of the wind. Consequently steam propulsion was critical to the maintenance of naval mastery under the new circumstances, and was the occasion for the first two naval arms races of the nineteenth century. The earliest naval steamers were paddle-wheel packet boats, for strategic communications, and tugs, to get large sailing warships out of harbour. As they became larger and more powerful paddle-wheel warships were able to mount a small number of heavy guns, making them useful auxiliary warships, and capable of tactical towing. By 1850 the best paddle-wheel frigates, such as HMS Terrible, were capable of strategic towing, mounted 24 heavy guns, and cost as much as a small battleship. However, they were not capable of taking their place in the line of battle, because their large wheels blocked much of the broadside, and the machinery, wheels, shafts, cranks and even, most dangerously, boilers, were exposed to gunfire damage. Consequently paddle warships tended to carry an upper-deck battery of extra heavy guns, for long-range fire. They were also poor performers under sail, which limited their strategic utility. Their real value was in amphibious and power projection operations, where their mobility and large paddle-box boats made them ideal for amphibious assault and inshore bombardment.8 Because there were no regular fleet actions between 1805 and 1866 the paddle-wheel steamer achieved a misleadingly high profile as a naval weapons system. The problems of the paddle-wheel warship, however, were well known by the mid-1830s, and intelligent officers were already looking for solutions.9 Ultimately the screw propeller would answer all of their requirements, enabling the standard wooden sailing warship to be fitted for steam power without the loss of its broadside battery, or efficient sailing rig. The screw transformed steam from an auxiliary power installed in auxiliary warships to an auxiliary power installed in front-line warships. Before examining how the new system was introduced it is essential to consider the administrative structure that had to manage the change. THE ADMIRALTY AND THE STEAM WARSHIP There has been much criticism of the role of the Admiralty in the introduction of the steam warship, and of the screw propeller. However, the real problem was one of administrative structure, rather than decision- making. In 1832 British naval administration had been subjected to a comprehensive overhaul, the first root-and-branch reorganization in four hundred years. The age-old distinction between the Board of Admiralty, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 5 the body charged with executing the duties of the Lord High Admiral, essentially the military direction of the Navy, and the Navy and Victualling Boards, which administered the civil aspect, maintaining the fleet, running the dockyards, and feeding the men, was ended. Day-to-day superintendence of all aspects of naval administration was turned over to the Board of Admiralty, the other Boards being abolished. At one level this saved a small amount of money, in accordance with the political programme of the new Whig Government. More fundamentally the Whigs had long wanted to abolish the Navy Board, which they believed was dominated by conservative nominees. The 1832 reform was a triumph of ideology and political revenge over common sense.10 Hitherto the Navy Board had developed the annual construction programme, organized the work of the dockyards and advised the Admiralty on all matters relating to shipbuilding and steam engineering. Led by an experienced naval officer and a leading ship designer, the Navy Board also had its own engineer. In the two decades that followed, when the need for sound advice on technology and long-term policy was greater than ever before, the Navy Board would be sadly missed. Under the new system the Admiralty would be advised on these issues by the Surveyor of the Navy, under the supervision of the First Naval Lord. Hitherto the Surveyor had been a dockyard-trained shipbuilder and designer with a seat on the Navy Board, but the new incumbent, Captain William Symonds, was a naval officer with some intuitive design ideas. The central tenet of Symonds's work was the primacy of speed in naval warfare, both under sail and steam. He was convinced that the problem would be to catch the enemy. Although tasked with developing construction policy Symonds was more interested in promoting his own designs, and lacked the funds to maintain the fleet at an adequate level. In addition he had been appointed by the Whig ministers, and his term in office would be dominated by party politics.11 Furthermore the Surveyor's Office, like every other department of the new Admiralty, was short of staff and money. The Admiralty simply did not have the manpower to conduct fundamental research, and, as this paper will demonstrate, found it hard to exploit, or even retain the results of such research as it had already conducted.12 It was against this background, starved of funds, short- handed and lacking any coherent long-term policy, that the Royal Navy had to respond to the screw propeller. Despite these problems the naval response was successful, demonstrating the underlying professionalism of the Admiralty To add to the confusion a new Steam Department, under a Controller of Steam, was created on 19 April 1837. This was an official recognition that steam was now critical to naval operations. The first Controller, the Arctic explorer Captain Sir Edward Parry, was no expert. His claims to office had more to do with the fact that his brother-in-law, Lord Stanley of Alderley, was Patronage Secretary to the Whig Ministry than to any expertise.13 The expertise of the new department was provided by Peter Ewart, a conservative Boulton & Watt-trained engineer. As the relationship History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
6 Responding to the Nineteenth Century between the two departments was never formally settled Symonds, by far the stronger character, effectively ignored Parry and left the Steam Department to fit engines into his ships, rather than develop steam warship designs as a coherent entity.14 This was particularly problematic as the Symonds hull form, which combined a broad beam with sharply rising floors, was peculiarly ill-suited to the installation of machinery. Symonds's deputy, the senior constructor John Edye, was a cautious man. He was responsible for the structure of warships, and was well aware that paddle- wheel propulsion, that applied the drive above the upper deck, made less fundamental demands on the structure of the ship than a submerged propeller. His concerns had been focused by recent problems with the stern frames of large sailing warships.15 Only in March 1850 was the relationship between steam engines and the warships placed on a proper basis, when the Steam Department was subsumed into the Surveyor's Office. This reform recognized that an all- steam Navy was only months away.16 For the preceding twenty years the fractures and divisions within the Admiralty, lack of manpower and money, the clash of individuals, and the failure to prepare long-term programmes had all influenced the handling of the new technology. Fortunately the private sector had been prepared to carry out the fundamental research, and compete for the rewards. THE SHIP PROPELLER COMPANY AND THE PROMOTION OF THE SCREW PROPELLER, 1836-1852 In examining how the Admiralty responded to the screw propeller it has to be stressed that finance and politics were far more important than technological innovation. One of the perennial, irritating features of so much comment on the supposed 'failure' of the Royal Navy and the mercantile community to adopt steam and the various improvements in power and propulsion at the proper time is the conceit that Ericsson, Pettit Smith and others were attempting to 'interest' their fellow men in the new technology for the good of mankind.17 In truth the engineering community wanted to sell these new ideas for significant financial reward. Ericsson's disgust at the failure to sell his designs in Britain should be viewed in purely commercial terms. It is incredible to argue that commercial success was not his prime motive. His sense of outrage reflected his failure to secure financial support from the Admiralty, and the brief confinement in the debtors' prison that followed, rather than concern for his fellow men. The prison term was particularly revealing. It demonstrated that Ericsson simply did not have access to the capital required to develop the screw. His system, whatever its merits, needed Admiralty support, and was in consequence doomed to fail. Similarly Smith, and the backers of the Ship Propeller Company (SPC), were not interested in science and experiment, but in the royalties and financial success they anticipated from the patent of 1836. While the Admiralty demonstrated remarkable skill, or an incredible degree of luck, both in avoiding such entanglements and in History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 1 securing proven technology for the country at a reasonable price, the mercantile community made relatively little use of the patented system. In fact, the screw was of only limited value to the mercantile community before the development of compound engines and iron hulls. Only the world's navies could afford the cost of large wooden screw-propelled ships: both the capital outlay and the alarming frequency of major repairs made them uneconomic.18 It should be recalled that any number of speculators and cranks were also trying to lighten both private owners and the Government of funds, making caution essential. One of the main reasons for creating the post of Controller of Steam had been to filter out the 'cranks' before they troubled the Board.19 The Admiralty, like the Navy Board before it, preferred to work with a small number of large and reliable contractors. For the screw propeller this role would be filled by the SPC. The SPC will serve as an example of the relationship between industry, commerce and Government in the transitional era. While it proved vital to the success of the screw in the period 1840-45, it failed utterly in its main object, to make money, and consequently split apart and collapsed. The marine screw propeller was not 'invented' by Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericsson. Marine screw propellers had been demonstrated thirty years before these two men took out their patents. Furthermore when Smith refined his original general patent of 31 May 1836 on 30 April 1839 he restricted his claim to the position of screw in the deadwood.20 Similarly Ericsson's patent of 13 January 1837 was for 'an improved propeller applicable to steam navigation'. There had been at least five worthwhile 'inventions' of the screw propeller, for use with steam engines, before 1836.21 Instead Smith and Ericsson's deserved primacy in the field reflects their ability to secure the funds required to develop and exploit the new technology, and not to any leap in design or technology. In Ericsson's case the funds were provided by a private individual, who anticipated sales to the American Government and profitable employment on his Canal system. Smith's ideas were taken up on an altogether larger scale. The SPC was incorporated by an Act of Parliament on 29 July 1839. However, before examining the work of the company it is necessary to reconsider the origins of the patent that it was formed to exploit. Francis Pettit Smith, although normally referred to as a 'sheep farmer', was an educated man. His father had been tutor to Lord Sligo, and ended his days as Postmaster at Hythe, close to Sligo's country seat. He had not neglected his son's education. Smith wrote lucid explanations for his ideas and developed rational, if not necessarily accurate, arguments to support his work. After a decade of close contact the Admiralty engineer Thomas Lloyd declared that Smith was 'a man of very excellent and sound judgement'.22 It was no coincidence that he referred to the 'Archimedean' screw in his patent; this at once revealed his classical education, and placed his idea in a context with which all educated men of the age would be familiar. Through his leading apologist, John Bourne, Smith initially claimed to have hit upon the concept of the screw placed in the deadwood History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
8 Responding to the Nineteenth Century in 1835. Following a particularly vicious pamphlet attack in the late 1850s, which implied a degree of industrial espionage, or conspiracy, Bourne found it necessary to extend Smith's propeller experiments back to 1834, and to add a lifetime of interest in marine propulsion in the second edition of his A Treatise on the Screw Propeller.23 Despite the close relationship between Pettit Smith and Bourne the second edition of Bourne's book is not a defence against these claims, and does nothing to dispel the possibility of conspiracy.24 The pamphlets suggest or imply that Smith was merely a front for improper conduct by named and unnamed individuals. It requires more specific rebuttal than Smith was ever willing or able to provide. However, the continued employment of Smith by the Admiralty, ever anxious to save money, after the collapse of the SPC, his work with John Penn on stern gland bearings and the massive success of his testimonial in 1856 should dispel the 'front' element of the conspiracy theory. Whatever the source of his design, Smith alone secured the vital element that his less fortunate predecessors lacked, financial support. From the spring of 1836, before the patent had been issued, the banker John Wright was acting as Smith's backer. This support was secured within a year of the first experiments. It allowed Smith to engage an engineer to assist with mechanical development, and to secure a patent, which was then an expensive business. At this time the English patent system was just entering a new phase, one in which intellectual property rights were becoming defensible in court. Before 1830 protection had been limited, and was rarely accorded to intangibles. Thereafter the argument of public utility had seen the courts adopt a more favourable view, upholding nearly twice as many patents as hitherto. The development of specialist patent agents ensured that the specifications were more accurate, and helped to link the innovators with the capitalists. Only if a patent was defensible at law, and the patentee could afford to defend it, was there any value in the invention.25 The introduction of the screw propeller into the Royal and United States's navies would be dominated by the legal implications of patents.26 On the day Smith's patent was proved the six-ton boat F.P. Smith was tried on the Limehouse Canal. In February 1837 its full-turn screw broke, creating a marked improvement in performance and demonstrating an empirical approach to development. This is significant. Further trials at Dover in September 1837, in the presence of Wright, led to an approach to the Admiralty in March 1838. Smith and his backers, Wright and the Rennie brothers, then leading lights in the London engineering commu- nity and the earliest advocates of the screw, secured a favourable response from SirJohn Barrow, the influential Second (Permanent) Secretary to the Admiralty. In marked contrast to the dismissive treatment accorded to Ericsson, the Smith Consortium was advised that a 200-ton vessel would be required to demonstrate their system. In effect the Admiralty was asking if the projectors had the necessary capital to develop the system to the point at which it would be immediately useful. They had never been interested in clever devices, only finished products, ready for service. The History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 9 Admiralty's response persuaded the projectors that a quick response would prove financially beneficial, and in consequence they concentrated on the Royal Navy as the preferred customer. The support of the Rennies, in particular that of Sir John Rennie, was critical. He had followed his father as the Admiralty's preferred consultant on all civil and mechanical engineering matters.27 The 200-ton Archimedes was laid down in March 1838 by Henry Wimshurst and engined by George Rennie; both were consortium members, and both would have a major input into the prospectus of the SPC. The ship was launched a year later and completed just as the SPC was incorporated as a joint stock company, whose objects were to purchase Smith's patents, transfer the financial interest to the company and sell licences to use the patented location for the propeller, not the propeller itself. The business was begun on the largest possible scale, with a capital of £100,000 in 10,000 £10 shares. The SPC was only the fifth such company formed to exploit a patent, and only 21 were formed between 1837 and 1852.28 All existing sources suggest that Wright and the Rennies were the major backers, the Rennies to the tune of £1,000 each, with a number of lesser speculators. Howe Peter Browne (1788-1845), second Lord Sligo, often named in this role, was a very useful front, being a leading Whig politician, a prominent yachtsman and a grandson of Earl Howe. He had also served as Governor of Jamaica between 1833 and 1836, where he came to appreciate the services of Commander George Evans. The first commissioned officer to command a steamship, Evans had commanded HMS Rhadamanthus, the first Royal Navy steamship to operate in the New World between 1832 and 1835, which played a significant role in suppressing a slave revolt in Jamaica. In May 1836 Smith approached Sligo, whom he would have known very well, and Sligo brought Evans along to advise him. Evans, employed to investigate the Post Office Packet Service, suggested that it would be a good investment to build a larger version of the F.P. Smith.29 However, Sligo's will would suggest that he lacked the disposable capital to take a major financial stake in the company. Despite this, his friendship with Lord Holland, and close ties to other ministers made him particularly useful.30 The company began with the widest parameters, including building, fitting or running screw ships, erecting workshops and selling licences. The prospectus emphasized the auxiliary role of the screw propeller, placing the machinery abaft the mainmast in merchant steamers, using Rennie's high-pressure machinery to save weight and space, with the ultimate possibility of employing Earl Dundonald's rotary engine, to save three- quarters of the cost. However, the commercial sector was not the primary target. Only the Royal Navy could be expected to provide a major source of funds in the short term, the 14 years in which the patent would remain in force. The early trials of the Archimedes were attended by a large number of naval officers, both on active duty and on half pay. Earl Dundonald visited the ship while she lay at Portsmouth, while Admiral Sir Robert Otway, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
10 Responding to the Nineteenth Century Commander-in-Chief at Sheerness, contended that she was the 'best steam vessel ever' being without paddle boxes and carrying her engines below the water line, something which 'must lead to the introduction of the screw into Her Majesty's service'. He was also aware of the superior sailing properties of the screw steamer. Such testimony was particularly valuable when it could be reproduced, as Otway's was, in a sales brochure.31 Otway's comments, and those of other officers, closely reflected the sales pitch being employed by the company. Of particular interest was the idea that a small steam engine, placed in the orlop, could provide a battleship with sufficient tactical mobility to manoeuvre in battle for a favourable firing position. The London engineers Seaward brothers had hit upon the same concept, but their effort was still linked to the paddle wheel, and as such was of limited interest, despite sea trials in two Indiamen in the late 1830s.32 The first report to members of the Board of Admiralty, by Captain George Evans, was little more than a repetition of the company's claims. Evans was not a new convert to the system, having inspected the six-ton F.P. Smith in London in May 1836. At this stage it should be emphasized that the politics of innovation had a major influence on the propeller. Sligo, Evans and the Admiralty Board were all members of the Whig/ Liberal Party. The most prominent public advocate of the system, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth 1839-42, was on the advanced or radical wing of the party. Codrington's support was particularly useful, since he was the acknowledged master of naval tactics, the sphere in which the screw had most to offer.33 This degree of success in their chosen market encouraged the SPC to pursue their preferred customer. Over the next six years the company provided the Admiralty, or senior members of the Board, with details of all new ships fitted with the Smith screw, with log entries and claims of speed and engineering improvements.34 Not one of these approaches had the desired effect. The Admiralty Board took a long-term view, and was well aware of the objects of the SPC. They waited for the company to complete the development of the screw, and built just one experimental screw warship, HMS Rattler, ordered in 1840. Although only a secondary target the mercantile community proved more receptive. By the end of her round-Britain promotional tour the Archimedes had garnered plaudits from every port visited. However, these did little to reward the backers of the project, and nothing to improve the cohesion of the company. Furthermore, many of the early screw steamers were designed with little or no understanding of the system, and built in haste. Although the screw propeller worked, the related technologies required for machinery, stern bearings and water-tight glands were insufficiently advanced before 1850 to be employed by cost-conscious shipowners. Before this date only visionary men with access to other men's pockets would have taken the risk of adopting the new system. The promoters of the SPC petitioned to bring a Bill into the House of Commons to form a limited company on 20 February 1839, eleven months History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 11 after the Archimedes had been laid down. Despite the opposition of the Manchester inventor and patent agent Bennet Woodcroft, and his backer Robert Gardner, the Bill received Royal Assent on 29 July.35 Woodcroft and his backer did not have the capital to fight the SPC at this stage. As a commercial venture the SPC proved to be an unmitigated disaster. The leading members, Wright, Currie, Lord Sligo, Caldwell, Smith, Wimshurst and the Rennie brothers, were unable to co-operate. Eventually the company became moribund, leaving Smith to sell his services direct to the Admiralty, and finally to surrender his patent and the right to royalties for a one-third share in the £20,000 once-and-for-all payment offered by the Admiralty. Even as the company was formed the seeds of disaster were evident. The Archimedes (briefly the SS Propeller), its only physical asset, had been built as a mobile test bed and demonstration model. She cost £10,500, a large sum for a 200-ton steamship, largely on account of her novel machinery and drive arrangement. Her design cruelly exposed the limited nature of previous experimental work. It soon became clear that the success of the F.P. Smith had been relative, for many details of the new ship were fatally flawed. Early trials demonstrated that the final drive arrangement, which attempted to avoid using a shaft passing directly through the deadwood - by passing through two sets of bevels and emerging from above the waterline just ahead of the screw - was unnecessarily complex and wasted power and space, while the wooden spur-wheel gearing to increase the shaft speed generated enough noise to render the ship unsuitable for naval service or passenger traffic. In addition the propeller aperture, intended for a screw with a full turn, was far longer than required, weakening the ship, and wasting space in the hold. In essence the ship had been designed without conducting adequate experimental work. She was, therefore, too much of an experiment herself to do justice to the system she was supposed to promote. To make matters worse George Rennie had, with the full concurrence of the company, adopted his own experimental high-pressure boiler, break- ing the cardinal rule of sound experimentation, that only one novelty should be tried at a time. Rennie's intention was sound, to employ the smallest power plant for 'occasional use', the auxiliary role for which the SPC held out great hope. Unfortunately the boiler exploded before the first public trial, and, on the order of the Coroner's Court, was replaced by a conventional item designed by a William Miller. This did not generate enough steam to work the 80 hp engine up to the design speed. Until the screw was changed, and the boiler uprated, Archimedes would be capable of no more than 8 knots, depriving her of even bare equality with paddle steamers of similar size. The SPC admitted the lack of speed in the prospectus, and stressed that the failure lay in the power plant, and not the propeller. Fortunately the ship had been designed to sail as well as steam, with a good contemporary hull form. This combination of steam and sail was the real point of interest for the Admiralty. It is important to note that the Archimedes was demonstrated to the Admiralty before the mercantile community. In October 1839 the Master History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
12 Responding to the Nineteenth Century of the William and Mary, a yacht employed as the flagship at Woolwich, was ordered to take a log line on board the Archimedes at London Bridge for the trial.36 The officers and engineers who were present at the first demonstration to the Navy on 16 October 1839, including Edward Parry, William Symonds, Peter Ewart, and George Evans, were impressed. They recognized the experimental nature of the vessel, and the auxiliary nature of the propeller. They could also see that the ship was fatally flawed by the limited amount of experience available before her design was fixed. The extremely long screw aperture was unnecessary, as were the convoluted bevel drive to the propeller and the cog-wheel geared drive, while the inability of the company to settle on the purpose of the experiment, as an auxiliary steamship or a full-powered competitor for the paddle wheel, limited her performance. Having proved the big point she was of no further use as a trials platform, being restricted to the role of commercial demonstrator. Almost immediately the Board instructed Captain Chap- pell, the Superintendent of the Packet Service, and the engineer Thomas Lloyd to report on the ship and the system. They stressed the auxiliary role, and the clear broadside.37 On the basis of their reports the Admiralty hired the ship for further trials.38 After her round-Britain cruise, which was a critical rather than a commercial success, and her experimental work on the Dover-Calais run, the Archimedes was offered for sale to the Admiralty.39 Although the company was only asking for £3,500 the Admiralty had no intention of buying the ship. Her work as a test bed had been effectively complete within months of going to sea, and with their own screw ship the Rattler on order, engineered by Brunei for effective trials, there would be no point purchasing the Archimedes. Her last service to the cause of the propeller, after some years laid up in a London dock, was to tow the Rattler from Sheerness to the East India Dock to receive her machinery in April 1843.40 Instead the Board purchased George Rennie's purpose-built iron-screw steamer the Mermaid in July 1843. Renamed the Dwarf this sleek little yacht was the principal experimental vessel for propeller trials once the Rattler had entered regular service.41 She had become available at a low cost following the failure ofJohn Wright's bank in 1842. Wright had been the principal backer of the SPC and of George Rennie.42 By this stage the question had long ceased to be whether the screw propeller worked, but which of the many designs was the most efficient. The sale of Rennie's yacht, along with the offer for sale of Henry Wimshurst's auxiliary screw steamer the Novelty, symbolized the collapse of the SPC. Having failed to sell a worthwhile number of licences, and exhausted much of its funds in litigation to protect its only asset, Smith's patent, the company had been pulled apart by the very different ambitions of Rennie, who hoped to sell ships and engines to the Admiralty, Wimshurt, who hoped to build ships, Smith, who wanted to make his fortune, and Wright, who wanted a good return. As a result a very large amount of money had been invested without success. By 1845 the company was little more than a business address for Smith, and had failed to maintain its primacy in the field. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 13 It has to be stressed that the SPC was attempting to sell the right to exploit intellectual property; it had no other source of revenue. This was a relatively novel way of doing business, which did nothing to smooth the path of the company. The Admiralty was most unwilling to enter into any such arrangement, and spent years avoiding the financial implications of Smith's patent. There was never any doubt that the Archimedes had proved the point: the propeller was the future. However, the Admiralty was not willing to place itself in the hands of the SPC. Fortunately they were able to call on an entirely different source of advice, a man who did not have a financial stake in the success of the propeller. During her round-Britain tour the Archimedes had visited Bristol in May 1840, where she had been hired by the Great Western Steamship Company for a series of trials. By October 1840 these had led their engineering adviser, Isambard Kingdom Brunei, to recommend that the new iron Atlantic steamer should be adapted for the propeller. Although Brunei, who inspected the ship after her trip to Holland and the subsequent repairs to the broken crank, considered her an inefficient compromise, he had the vision to modify his new iron transatlantic steamer into a screw vessel. Alone of all those who first saw the ship he had recognized the fundamental advantages of the screw for full-powered ships of the largest size, and was prepared to make a complete commitment to its success as the principal drive for a massive ocean-going vessel.43 During the trials Brunei kept the SPC fully informed of the work he was doing, and provided important suggestions on how to transmit power from the crankshaft to the propeller. He recognized that the Admiralty was already involved in the process, and would provide support for more ambitious trials.44 The decision of the Great Western Company was made that much easier by the SPC, which offered one or two free licences to use the patented location of the propeller in their vessel.45 The Steam Department at the Admiralty had been receiving reports on the voyages of the Great Western for several years, but Captain Parry was more interested in 'the large iron ship, including the Screw'.46 At this stage the process of adopting the screw for the Navy, and for the Great Western Company, was going ahead smoothly, Brunei having Captain Chappell and Pettit Smith to dine.47 Within a month Brunei had submitted a copy of his report to the Directors of the Great Western Steamship Company to the Admiralty, unofficially, through Chappell, with a suggestion that Lord Minto, the First Lord of the Admiralty, might like to read it.48 The following day Ewart, Chappell and the engine-builder Seaward were directed to attend a Committee on the Screw at the Office of the Controller of Steam.49 The relationship between the Great Western Steamship Company and the Admiralty was complicated by the negotiations for the Atlantic mail contract. The Company had responded to an Admiralty advertisement by tendering for the service in December 1839, only to be curtly rejected the following month.50 As the final contract, awarded to Samuel Cunard, was almost identical to the Great Western offer, the rejection left a bitter legacy of mistrust between the Great Western and the Admiralty, which influenced Brunei's subsequent work. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
14 Responding to the Nineteenth Century Even before he had solicited Brunei's report, which he would have been advised of by the SPC, Parry, head of the Steam Department, had recommended that a new vessel be built. Chappell, who was closely involved with the SPC, had advised using a replica of an existing 200 nominal hp paddle-wheel steam packet. Although a conversion was proposed Parry and the SPC were anxious to build a new vessel.51 Symonds agreed, although he was concerned that the new system would not be as fast as the old, and had always emphasized the value of speed. His report was adopted by Lord Minto.52 Parry advised that an experimental ship, based on the 200 nhp packet Polyphemus, should be built with her stern configured for testing various screws.53 More immediately the Board sanctioned the construction of a 42-ton instructional steamer, the Bee, for the Gunnery Training Ship Excellent. This little ship was fitted for a screw and paddle wheels, and was the first Royal Navy vessel to be completed with a screw. Captain Chappell and Pettit Smith were involved in the design.54 To advance the larger project a model of the stern of Polyphemus was sent to the SPC for their advice on how it should be modified. Their reply alarmed Symonds; he very properly considered that an aperture 8 feet long and 9 feet 3 inches deep would 'weaken the ship ... particularly if she strikes the ground'.55 This early clash of priorities between the Surveyor and the Steam Department was, in all probability, instrumental in bringing Brunei into the equation. In mid-March he was called to the Admiralty by Parry and invited to direct the project to build the 200 nhp vessel, working with Symonds and Ewart, but being in sole charge of the mechanical arrangements and the experimental testing of the ship. After the previous experience of the Great Western Company this was 'gratifying'.56 Having settled the matter at the Admiralty, in a meeting attended by Minto on 27 April, Brunei's first concern was to produce accurate and reliable trials data from the Polyphemus, to form the basis of his calculations. Symonds made the ship available very quickly, and attended the trials. Brunei was very appreciative of the trouble he had taken and, once he had finished the experiments, wrote to the Surveyor in the most flattering terms about the excellent form of the ship, which had created less resistance in proportion to the midship area than any ship for which Brunei had seen data.57 He then secured drawings and estimates for three different sets of 200 nhp engines from different builders, and reported to Parry. He also advised Caldwell, the Secretary of the SPC, to see if he could exert any influence on Minto to hasten the project. The report to Parry advised an aperture 10 feet 6 inches long and 11 feet 6 inches deep. As a structural engineer and designer of the Great Western Brunei recognized that such a vast opening would be fatal to the adoption of the system, but stressed that 'the construction of the vessel should, in the first instance, be made entirely subservient to the single object of making a full and complete experiment upon this system of propelling'. Once this was complete the screw aperture could be modified to suit the needs of the ship. He stressed that one of the major advantages of the new system would, 'undoubtedly be the facility it affords of carrying sail, either with or History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 15 without the steam'.58 Deputy Surveyor John Edye, writing in Symonds's absence, rehearsed all the Surveyor's arguments with a vehemence that revealed their source. He was the shipbuilder in the Surveyor's Office. Symonds was an intuitive designer, Edye the experienced constructor. He objected to the elongated stern and sharp lines as lacking in buoyancy, and preventing the installation of a pivot gun at the stern.59 The stern remained a very sensitive area for Edye and Symonds after the partial collapse of the Warspite's stern in 1839.60 There was a minor crisis of confidence at this point, when Brunei believed that the engineering staff were reporting on his work. Parry hastened to assure him that this was not the case, and that Ewart was particularly anxious that Brunei should direct the whole project.61 Whether this was out of admiration for his genius, or an unwillingness to enter into any more quarrels with Symonds remains an open question. In order to place the process on a regular footing the main participants - First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Charles Adam, Symonds, Parry, Chappell, Ewart, Brunei and Pettit Smith - assembled in Minto's room at the Admiralty in late September. Parry recommended that Brunei should be admitted to the 'conference' on the propeller, in view of the work he had already carried out for the Admiralty and the Great Western Company, and the fact that he had no financial stake in the project.62 Although he agreed, Symonds objected that Brunei's proposed aperture was even greater than the one Smith had suggested. He considered this a serious objection to the propeller.63 Smith was, understandably, far from pleased by this turn of events.64 A year later he was still arguing that Brunei had no right to interfere. The Admiralty informed Smith that he could not be given the overall direction of a project, and that he must work with Brunei, who would be responsible for installing the machinery and propeller. He was to confine himself to the design, location and aperture of the screw.65 In late September 1841 the whole process was thrown into confusion by the fall of Lord Melbourne's Whig Ministry, which was replaced by the Conservative regime of Sir Robert Peel. As Brunei's relationship with the Board had been essentially a gentleman's agreement, based on mutual trust and a degree of political friendship, the change came at a particularly unfortunate time. Just as the whole process was beginning to take shape, and the personal relationships that were essential to the smooth functioning of nineteenth-century administration had been established, he would have to create a whole new series of links with men of whom he had no experience. While Parry and Symonds would survive, their influence would be greatly reduced by reason of their well-known Whig sympathies: both were political appointees, intimately linked to the outgoing ministers. The resulting period of confusion would have been an ideal opportunity for Symonds, who had been an outright opponent of the project, to have stifled or redirected the effort. Both Brunei junior and Rolt have suggested that he was the villain of the piece, creating a wholly erroneous model of how the propeller would be applied, which reduced the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Cockburn, to apoplexy.66 In fact the problems History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
16 Responding to the Nineteenth Century arose in a different quarter, and their solution required Brunei to take Symonds's advice, not engage the Surveyor in open warfare. Throughout the second half of 1841 the Great Western's experimental work with the Archimedes was continued by Thomas Guppy, and Brunei fed the results into his work on the new ship.67 He hoped these would 'enable me to obviate some of the objections which I understand have been felt regards the construction of the vessel'.68 When he was called to a new conference at the Admiralty late in 1841 he was 'most anxious' to have the latest Bristol results.69 These turned out to be necessary, because on 5 January 1842 Cockburn called Brunei, Parry, Symonds and Ewart to a conference, where he decided that an existing vessel should be converted, and ordered Symonds to report on the suitability of the Acheron.1 ® Symonds decided that an aperture five feet long should suffice, and although he recognized that the conversion would make all the comparative results unreliable, he did not think it was necessary to do more than inform Brunei of the change.71 Brunei had been too surprised by this sudden shift of direction to make an effective response, but he was convinced that it would be a wrong step. He reminded Sir George, in a letter of 17 January 1842, that private individuals (the SPC) had already demonstrated that the screw would do the same work as the paddle wheel, which remained the system of choice for the Navy. What remained to be settled was whether all the advantages claimed by the promoters of the invention anticipate, of the vessel being capable of being constructed with perfect sailing qualities - and of a press of sail being advantageously carried, either with or without the working of the engines and without stopping to connect or disconnect, and of the efficient working of the screw in the heaviest sea, and whether when working against a very strong head wind which reduces the speed of the vessel to two or three knots - the screw does or does not enable you to keep the vessel's head to the wind and to prevent her falling off, which I think will be found to be the case.72 In order to determine these questions, and to reach reliable conclusions about the relative efficiency of the screw and paddle wheels it was essential to build a vessel with a form suitable for the screw, and for good sailing. If a compromise were adopted now it would all have to be done again. Brunei's concerns increased when he discovered that Symonds had reported that the Acheron was suitable for conversion. He obtained a copy of her draft, and compared it with that of the Archimedes, before writing to ask Symonds how he could best represent to the Admiralty that the conversion of the Acheron would be a waste of time and money.73 He then sent a letter to the Board, repeating much of what he had written to Cockburn, and adding a list of the Acheron's faults. She was too full in the after body for an efficient use of the screw, and had built-in sponsons that would interfere with her sailing. He was adamant that only a new vessel would answer the needs of the Board.74 The letter had an immediate impact: the Board directed that Symonds and Parry should be consulted.75 History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 17 Three weeks later Brunei exploited the fact that he would be away for several weeks to encourage Parry to have the matter settled. Ts there any possibility of inducing their Lordships to do the thing properly and quickly?'76 In fact things were going his way, for Symonds reported that the steamers then building were all too large for the 200 nhp engines that had already been ordered, and that it would be best to return to the plan of December 1840 to build a replica of the Polyphemus, at Sheerness in place of the projected paddle-wheel steamer Rattler. This ship had been suspended before any construction work had been started, but the seasoned timber required had been collected. This was approved by the Board on 24 February, and a sheer draft was submitted on 6 April.77 To hasten the construction Symonds was instructed to communicate with Smith, and send the remaining drawings and scantlings to Sheerness as soon as they could be prepared.78 This reflected urgency, not delay, and was largely driven by Symonds. It should be stressed that the Rattler was a wholly new design, built with seasoned timber already collected for the larger 280 nhp paddle-wheel vessel of the Styx class. The decision to build at Sheerness reflected the importance of seasoned timber to the post-1815 Royal Navy - it was the only dockyard with the materials to hand in a state for immediate use.79 Brunei's biographers contended that Sheerness was chosen to hide the ship, but this is incredible.80 Brunei was not immediately informed because he was by then in Italy on railway business. On his return he discovered that the work was already in hand, with Smith advising the Shipwright officers on the screw aperture, the screw, and the gearing. The latter point was one of the key areas where Brunei's superior general engineering background proved to be vital. Smith provided for a cog-wheel drive, similar to the noisy, bulky system used aboard the Archimedes?1 (Brunei had long argued that ropes operating on flat drums would be the most efficient drive, and his system was ultimately adopted.) Brunei realized he was being ignored, and complained to the Board. The fault here lay with the Board: it had simply forgotten to mention him in the order of 6 April 1842 to proceed with the Rattler, leaving Symonds to surmise that he was no longer involved. After a meeting with Cockburn on 22 July Brunei was able to report to Claxton that the matter was put straight, and would get straighter. Cockburn was 'evidently surprised to find that nobody had communicated with me and was rather angry when he was told by a clerk that the hole was making for Smith's long thread instead of the short one as he had supposed'.82 This is the origin of the apoplectic Admiral of Claxton's account. The villain of the piece, as far as there is one, is simple bureaucratic weakness. The Board ratified Cockburn's declaration that Brunei was to be involved early the following month. He was now back where he had been during Minto's regime. He was to liaise with Maudslay's and the Captain Superintendent at Sheerness to ensure the successful installation of the machinery.83 However, when Brunei invited Smith to come and discuss the vessel it History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
18 Responding to the Nineteenth Century became clear that their relationship had still to be settled by the Board (this was only done by a minute of 3 March 1843). Smith was under the distinct impression that he was responsible for the aperture, the engines and other aspects which were in Brunei's domain. Brunei offered to give up his role, as he could not act to the benefit of the Board, or his own credit, in such confusion.84 The lines of authority being defined, Brunei agreed that Smith should advise on the form of the propeller, and left it to him to decide if the screw should be fitted for unshipping without going into dock.85 Far from wishing to delay the ship Symonds was annoyed to find, on a visit to Sheerness, that work was suspended 'on account of the indecision of the Engineers who are to provide a screw propeller for her'.86 Brunei, stung by the complaint, hastened to excuse himself on grounds of ill health, claiming that 'no avoidable delay has occurred on my part', and stressed that Maudslay's should prepare all the structural ironwork connected with the screw, to ensure an accurate fit. Cockburn endorsed the letter for Symonds's 'information and guidance'.87 From this point the correspondence reveals a fundamental conflict of ambition between Brunei, who was anxious to finish the Rattler and try her afloat to make comparisons with Polyphemus, and the Admiralty, especially the Surveyor's Department, which was anxious to build the ship properly, which meant taking time to season the structure at various stages. Brunei's anxiety was not unconnected with the imminent completion of his own project, the Great Britain, for which Rattler would provide important experimental data for the design of propellers.88 When the trials of the Rattler began, in October 1843, they quickly revealed that the propeller would need to be far shorter, and of rather greater diameter. Subsequent fine tuning, under Brunei's direction, led to the very successful form devised for the Great Britain in 1844. In that year the Admiralty made it clear that they would not confine their interest to Smith's patent, but would entertain any propeller designs. In consequence there was no interest in the offer of exclusive rights to the use of the patent. This was hardly surprising when the Smith patent did not protect the propeller, only the location. However, the SPC found this a bitter pill, particularly when the most prominent designers were Woodcroft and Steinman, both of whom the company was threatening to prosecute. That the company was reduced to making the offer suggests that the commercial sector had been little more forthcoming than the Admiralty. The SPG was in financial trouble.89 The Board considered further trials would be necessary before reaching a decision. At this stage the trials were still running in the company's favour, with the Smith and Rennie forms proving superior to that of Steinman.90 However, Brunei was still submitting valuable advice for the cost of his expenses. This only served to point out how much better qualified Brunei was than Smith.91 The first trial of The Great Britain gave the SPC a welcome opportunity to recoup some credit from Brunei.92 However, the report of The Times indicated that the political world was still opposed to the SPC, and to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 19 Smith, making an inaccurate assault on Smith's propeller. This is significant for two reasons: clearly the leading London newspaper was ignorant of the Smith patent, and more significantly, was a sounding board for the opinions of the Government. On 23 April 1845 The Great Britain, then at Blackwall, was visited by the Queen, Prince Albert and the Board of Admiralty aboard the Dwarf. Smith presented the Queen with a gold model of the propeller of the new Royal Yacht Fairy, then fitting out at Ditchburn & Mare's Yard. This, however, availed the SPC very little.93 Two months after this show of Royal and political support the SPC met a significant rebuff. Their request for a royalty on the use of screws in the Arctic Discovery vessels Erebus and Terror was ignored. The screw used was of the Ericsson type, and the installation, designed by Master Shipwright Oliver Lang at Woolwich, appears to have been a deliberate attempt to evade the patent. If so it was a qualified success, but the loss of both vessels and their crews, along with the change of Ministry, ensured that nothing further was attempted along those lines.94 A letter of 11 June 1845 is the last reference to the SPC in the Admiralty files. It appears that the company simply disappeared. Unable to make any money from the patent, the collapse of Wright's bank in 1842 had been a major blow. The royalties paid on all screw steamers built down to 1845, many of which, like The Great Britain, had been granted a free licence, would hardly have kept the Archimedes in coal, which would explain why she had dropped out of class and, apparently, out of repair. The office at Fish Street Hill had been closed in 1844, leaving Smith to resuscitate the company at Beaufort Buildings on the Strand in 1847-48. Litigation both failed to establish the dominance of the company vis-a-vis other propeller projectors and made inroads into the share capital. Other projectors, notably Woodcroft, were also selling licences.95 In consequence the SPC was essentially moribund after mid-1845, although it, or perhaps Smith acting alone under the company name, contested the extension of Woodcroft's patent in 1846, without success. The SPC had failed to secure real financial reward from the Admiralty, and did little better with shipowners. Only Brunei built a merchant ship that the SPC could look upon as an unqualified success, yet there was a marked reluctance to make too much of Brunei's work, for fear he might take further interest in the subject, at the company's expense. Furthermore the Great Western Company had been granted a free licence. Before 1848 the commercial use of the screw propeller was dominated by Liverpool and Dublin. Even here the Great Northern and the efforts of John Laird to sell iron-screw steamers to the Admiralty were of only limited value. Liverpool steam tonnage had only reached 11,000 by 1851; the real growth came far too late to help the SPC. Only in the more favourable economic conditions of the mid-1850s did Liverpool move into iron-screw steamships.96 However, the General Screw Steam Shipping Company's (GSSC) successful auxiliary voyages quickly reduced the insurance premium on screw ships from 4 to 1.25 per cent. Until the mercantile community had brought this work to a successful conclusion the Admiralty was reluctant to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
20 Responding to the Nineteenth Century act. The GSSC made the auxiliary work for short sea service, and their experience influenced the design of the early screw sloops. For oceanic voyages, other than those on the subsidized mail services, steamships were simply uneconomic, be they paddle wheel or screw propeller. While the Royal Navy did not have to worry about economy in the same way, it was forced to rely on known coal supplies for service outside home waters. Few steamships were deployed further afield than the Mediterranean. The slow take up of the auxiliary concept in the mercantile community, allied to the caution of the Admiralty, ensured that the SPC would always have problems securing the rewards that had been anticipated back in 1837-38. In this respect their failure to complete anything more than the most basic trials before launching the company, as indicated by the problems of the Archimedes, proved critical. The product did not reach commercial maturity in the lifetime of the SPC. However, if the SPC failed they were not alone. The propeller attracted much interest, and it was largely to forestall other patentees that the SPC moved, and once they began to promote the screw the process could not be stopped. Most accounts cite the loss to the projectors as approximately £50,000, half the share capital. Much of this went into building and running the Archimedes, while further sums were used to improve Smith's standard of living, notably in moving from his Hendon sheep farm to a large house in central London. SMITH AFTER THE FAILURE OF THE COMPANY After the effective collapse of the SPC Smith, who had no funds of his own, required some means of support. In mid-1846 he offered to superintend the installation of the screw for the Royal Navy. The Controller of Steam offered two guineas a day, with expenses. In addition the Surveyor of the Navy recommended that Smith be employed as the 'supervisor of screws'.97 That this change in fortune for Smith was concurrent with the return of a Whig Ministry may have been entirely coincidental, but that would appear unlikely. The major problem for naval architects was the form of the stern run. Brunei had made it clear in February 1842 that a fine stern run was vital for the efficient use of the propeller.98 However, this advice had either been forgotten or ignored in the Board's enthusiasm for auxiliary, low-powered ships, and had to be relearnt after much wasted effort with the first group of large-screw steamships. Apparently unaware of Brunei's advice and the fraught events of 1842 Thomas Lloyd declared that the fine stern run of the Rattler had been accidental, occasioned by the long-screw aperture. Lloyd had objected to the use of a square stern from a sense that it was wrong, and pressed for the critical trials with the Dwarf, which proved his case. At the time everyone, he believed, had adopted the square form, and he believed Smith was largely responsible for the popularity of this view.99 However, he considered Smith 'a man of very excellent and sound judgement'.100 Symonds had been quick to use Lloyd's Report, of History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 21 3 November 1846, to reinforce his own view that the bluff stern was wrong, and press for the suspension of the ship's building or converting.101 Once again the shift in the balance of political power in naval design circles had a major impact on the resolution of this problem. The 'Tory' designers, those favoured by, and supporters of, the Tory Ministry, had adopted very bluff stern lines for their screw ships. That their ambitions were limited to local defence and auxiliary service at sea needs to be recalled. In 1845 a major programme of new and converted screw steamers was ordered to meet the challenge of France, not from any conviction that the system was the way of the future, merely to meet a pressing current need. Returning to office in 1846 the Whigs inherited a large, if ill-structured, screw-warship programme. The First Lord, Lord Auckland, 1846-48, needed little convincing. In 1848 he declared: I am satisfied that the whole theory of ship building will be directed from the old notions of sailing ships to the manner in which the screw auxiliary may be best combined with good sailing qualities.102 This required the Admiralty to abandon Symonds's controversial wide- beamed and sharp-floored form. Symonds had been manoeuvred out of office in mid-1847, not because he opposed the screw, which he did not, but because he was 'a very difficult man to deal with' on all matters relating to his department. The occasion for his retirement had been the Board's sanctioning of modifications to the form of two new 91-gun sailing ships.103 The additional length of the screw ships, and their fine stern runs, sacrificed manoeuvrability and speed to windward for effective use of the screw, but as a bonus the new hulls also provided improved performance off the wind, leaving the engine to solve the age-old problem of windward sailing. This solution, of classic simplicity, made the screw steam auxiliary a far more effective warship than any that had gone before. In June 1848 the Board directed that when designing ships and converting timber for their construction consideration should be given to the possibility that ships would be converted into screw steamers.104 The Select Committee on Naval Estimates that sat throughout the first six months of 1848 produced a wealth of evidence on the state of the steam Navy. Only one member of the Committee, the Peelite Sir James Graham, author of the 1832 reforms, and responsible for the appointment of Symonds, was unconvinced. The majority of naval officers, engineers and politicians considered the screw would be adopted for all ships in the future, although they disagreed about how soon that would be. The screw had yet to displace the paddle wheel as the drive of choice for full-powered steamers. John Edye, the Deputy Surveyor, was the lone voice of restraint. He still argued for slow and steady progress, one ship at a time, and objected to the ordering of four blockship conversions. He was soon proved correct: the first ships being converted with square sterns proved slow and inefficient. He believed the screw was more vulnerable than the paddle wheel: one hit on the stern frame would disable the whole apparatus, while paddle wheels could take a lot of damage.105 However, he was not reflecting on History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
22 Responding to the Nineteenth Century the strategic and diplomatic pressures that led to the steam-warship programmes of 1844-45, just the technology. After successful trials off Lisbon, involving the pioneer screw frigate Arrogant, the Board had accepted that auxiliary screw propulsion would be extended to all classes of warship.106 The pioneer steam battleship Agamemnon had been ordered the previous year. Already under pressure to reduce costs the Board baulked at the cost of Smith's services, as the experimental phase had come to an end, but the Controller of Steam, Captain Alexander Ellice, was quick to defend the use of his expertise. The 'inconsiderable expense' contrasted sharply with the 'injury to the service' that might result from an early termination of his contract.107 Ellice left office in February 1850, his post being amalgamated with that of Captain Sir Baldwin Walker, Surveyor of the Navy since 1848. Smith's patent had just been granted a five-year extension and this, with the opportune retirement of Ellice, prompted a sharpening of the Board's methods.108 Smith was informed that the Board would not continue his position, but would only call upon him as occasion required. The 'salary' was discontinued and a gratuity of £400 provided in final settlement.109 This softened up Smith quite effectively, to judge from the haste with which John Wright, Smith's major backer in the formation of the SPC, wrote to claim the merit of having started the Archimedes and assisted Mr Smith by his money, and patronage, and complains of having been defrauded of his shares in the Archimedes by a wilful depreciation of their value.110 The Board had exploited the opportunity created by the legion of screw projectors and the failure of the SPC to establish a dominant position in the field. From 1843 the Admiralty had studied the legal value of the various propeller patents, looking for an economical solution (in view of their limited requirements this was almost certainly the cheapest patent), holding off claims for payment for as long as practicable and ignoring the offer of'exclusive rights'. In 1844 they requested all patentees to send in details of their charges for the use of their patents.111 By 1847 it was clear that the rights of Smith and the moribund SPC could be bought up for a reasonable sum; but still the Board waited.112 The reason for the delay would appear to have been the timing of the patent. If the patent were to lapse, or could not be upheld against the numerous counterclaims and objectors, there would be no need to make any payment. In the event the patent was extended for five years on 11 February 1850. This reflected the failure of the SPC to secure any significant economic advantage from their invention.113 Negotiations for the purchase of all rights were opened immediately, by withdrawing Smith's 'salary'.114 The Board concluded their manoeuvre by purchasing the patent rights of all patentees in 1851. They forced all interested parties to act together by the simple expedient of making a once-and-for-all offer of £20,000. The patentees were represented by Henry Currie, MP for Guildford 1847-52, a partner in Wright's bank and one of the original History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 23 promoters of the SPC. Smith, Woodcroft and Lowe received one-third of the money each.115 Smith exhibited a series of models illustrating the development of the system at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and received a medal for his efforts. This would appear to be the origin of the important collection now held by the Science Museum in London. Having carefully watched the development of the screw, providing a degree of assistance in 1845, which was in itself more a product of international tension than technical commitment or financial relaxation, the Admiralty finally moved to secure the patent rights in 1850. By this stage the twelve-year period of experiment was at an and. The private sector had funded the proving stage of screw propeller development, albeit unwillingly, having been outmanoeuvred all along the line by Admiralty Boards well aware of the financial savings. There was a widespread belief within the naval and engineering community that Smith had not received a proper reward for his efforts. When he was planning the Great Eastern Brunei wrote to consult 'my friend Mr F.P. Smith, to whom the public are indebted for the success of the screw'.116 In 1854 the 'Smith Testimonial Fund' was set up, with a committee that included almost every shipbuilder, marine engineer, naval architect and naval officer connected with the introduction, development and adoption of the propeller. After soliciting testimonials from Lord Minto and Lord Haddington they opened a subscription. The first impact of this widespread agitation came when Smith was awarded a Civil List pension of £200 on 21 January 1855. This was one of the first acts of the Palmerston Government, coming into office in the middle of a major war. In addition he received £3,000 from the Testimonial.117 Reflecting on his own experience of trying to work with the Admiralty during the Russian War Brunei reflected that 'they' had a penchant for bullying and defrauding inventors. The fact that he had just put £50 into the Testimonial for his friend Smith may well have been at the front of his mind as he wrote.118 Subsequently Smith worked with John Penn on the critical issue of stern bearings, helping to develop the lignum vitae gland that was as important to the commercial success of the screw as the position of the propeller. Yet his own business acumen seems to have been limited. His farm on Guernsey failed and in 1860 he was given a post in the Patent Office Museum, under Bennet Woodcroft, one of his rivals in the early days of the propeller. He was knighted in 1871, and died at South Kensington in the same year. CONCLUSION This study of the Admiralty's handling of the introduction of the screw propeller provides a sharp lesson in respect of the dangers facing private capital when engaged in a commercial speculation with the Government as one of the major potential customers. The problems were doubled by the fact that what was on offer was intellectual property, rather than History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
24 Responding to the Nineteenth Century tangible product. There was a marked resistance to the idea of paying for the use of intellectual property. This has implications far wider than the history of the Screw Propeller Company. The Admiralty refused to be made use of in the manner the SPC had hoped, that is, as a conduit to channel Government funds into a commercial venture, the exploitation of Smith's patent. It is possible that the change of Ministry in 1841 had a major influence on the situation, for the SPC had many supporters among the Whig elite, but found very few in Tory ranks. The Admiralty's handling of the screw propeller demonstrated the value of caution, or rather something approaching sharp practice. By holding back, experi- menting and employing Brunei rather than Smith to install the screw in the Rattler the Admiralty paid very little for the use of the patent, and even then moved sufficiently slowly to deny the SPC any tangible reward in the time frame anticipated at Fish Street Hill. By mid-1845, when the technical success of the screw could no longer be denied, the company had fallen apart, leaving Smith to act alone. Without his backers Smith was forced to accept a modest daily rate for the benefit of his experience. When the patents were renewed, and well aware that the Navy would soon be shifting to an all-screw steam force, the Admiralty secured the undisputed right to all and any screw and placement for the sum of £20,000, only two- fifths of the sum expended over the previous fifteen years by the SPC alone. It would appear that the Admiralty, well aware of the value of Smith's patent, and of the intentions of the SPC, used their position, as the target customer, to break down the commercial value of the patent, and then to snap up the remains at a bargain price. That Smith received only one- third of the final settlement, the same share as Woodcroft and Lowe, is both revealing and startling. Smith and his backers built the Archimedes, which was the practical proof of the propeller. That they received no benefit for this supports the Victorian convention that they were indeed merely attempting to interest the Admiralty in the invention for the benefit of the nation; for this was indeed all that they actually achieved. Having failed with their target audience the SPC could draw little benefit from the few merchant vessels that used the patent. Failure in both markets reflected the lack of development of the system before taking out the patent, and the limited value of the Archimedes as a practical steamship. It is possible that the projectors acted in haste from a fear that other patentees might reap the anticipated benefits. Without the SPC the screw would not have been adopted so quickly, and similarly without Stockton as his backer Ericsson would have abandoned his screw project, turning his fertile mind to other areas just as he had abandoned the field of locomotives after the failure at Rainhill. Financial support was critical to the success of nineteenth-century innovation and invention. Backers were vital to cover the cost of basic development and early trials, and in return men like Wright and Stockton hoped to make money. Both were disappointed. The self-serving, politically naive and technologically determinist accounts left by nineteenth-century engineers, who wished to portray History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 25 themselves as high-minded servants of humanity, have been taken at face value for too long. By contrast the Admiralty was technologically dynamic, and adopted a professional approach to the management of change, which it handled with great skill between 1815 and 1914. There were a few spectacular examples of failure, notably the loss of HMS Captain in 1870, but this was caused by the politicians overriding or ignoring their professional advisers. Significantly for the mythology of the liberal engineer as hero it was Brunei who gave Cowper Coles the railway turntable as the base for his revolving turret, and free access to his drawing office for the production of his specifications and publicity. Far from being backward or unduly conservative the Royal Navy exploited the dynamic engineering sector of the Victorian economy with great skill. It could mobilize resources on an unrivalled scale for such disparate projects as the screw propeller and the 'Great Armament' of 1856. By contrast France started four technology-based arms races, and lost every one within five years. Because the Royal Navy was central to British strategy the Admiralty had to be certain that it could meet its commitments; it could not afford to take any risks with the core capability, the battlefleet. Britain won the naval races because it had long-term finance, a superior industrial base and greater political commitment. The role of the Admiralty was to ensure that the fleet remained modern and effective on a reasonable budget. It was remarkably successful. Notes and References This paper was given at the XXth International Congress of the History of Science, Technology and Industry at Liege on 25 July 1997. My thanks go to the organizers of the Conference, and especially to Professor David Zimmerman who chaired the session in which it was delivered. 1. I.K. Brunei, Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunei (London, 1870), Vol. I, 285-6. 2. L.T.C. Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunei (London, 1957), 282-5. 3. Henry Brunei, Private Journal, 12.2.1863 (Brunei Collection, Bristol University Library). Courtesy of D.K. Brown, who notes that Rolt would not have had access to this source. 4. W.C. Church, Life ofEricsson (New York, 1907), Vol. I, 87. 5. Sir W.L. Clowes, The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1901), Vol. VI, 196-8. 6. E.C. Smith, A Short History of Marine Engineering (Cambridge, 1937), 68. 7. Wright to Admiralty, 2.4.1850; ADM 12/528. Brunei to Burgoyne, 29.8.1856, in G. Wrottesley, Life and Correspondence ofField Marshal Sir John Burgoyne (London, 1873), Vol. II, 357-9. 8. Paddle-box boats were large pontoons mounted upturned over the top of the paddle wheel sponsons. They were used to land heavy, bulky loads and horses. 9. D.K. Brown, Before the Ironclad: The Development ofShip Design, Propulsion and Armam the Royal Navy, 1815-1860 (London, 1990), 99. 10. A.D. Lambert, The Last Sailing Battlefleet: Maintaining Naval Mastery 1815-1850 (London, 1991), 27-38. 11. Ibid., 27-38, 67-87. 12. Ibid., 116. 13. A. Parry, Parry of the Arctic, 1790-1855 (London, 1963), 197-209, esp. 203. 14. Thomas Lloyd, evidence to the 1848 Select Committee PP. 1848, 430. 15. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 159 re HMS Warspite. 16. Ibid., 90. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
26 Responding to the Nineteenth Century 17. J. Hewish, The Indefatigable Mr. Woodcroft: The Legacy ofInvention (London, 1979). 18. Edye Evidence PP. 1848, 186; see A.D. Lambert, Battleships in Transition (London, 1984), 55 etseq. 19. J. Barrow, An Autobiographical Memoir ofSir John Barrow Bt (London, 1847). 20. The deadwood is the triangular area ofsolid timber where the stern and the keel meet. It is critical to the structural strength of any seagoing wooden ship. 21. W.M. Petty, 'The Introduction of the Screw Propeller' (Unpublished University of London MA thesis, 1969). The work ofStevens, Owen and Ressel failed from the inadequacy ofcontemporary engine and boiler technology. Ressel's effort, as might have been expected in the Austria of Metternich, was brought to a premature end by the secret police. Wilson's valuable work (op. cit. (24)) with hand-cranked screws, which anticipated the correct position for the propeller, was never linked to an engine, while Marc Brunei did not realize the idea was sufficiently novel to be worth patenting. 22. Ibid., 435. 23. J. Bourne, A Treatise on the Screw Propeller, 2nd edn (London, 1867), 188-9. 24. J. Nicol, Who Invented the Screw Propeller? (London, 1858); R. Wilson, The Screw Propeller: Who Invented It? (Glasgow, 1860). 25. H.I. Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity in the Industrial Revolution 1750- (Manchester 1984), esp. 69, 72, 78-80, 86, 93-4. 26. D.L. Canney, The Old Steam Navy (Annapolis, 1990), Vol. I, 21-30 on the USS Princeton and the Hunter Wheel experiments. 27. Sir J. Rennie, An Autobiography (London, 1882). 28. Dutton, op. cit. (25), 163-4. 29. Evans to Rear Admiral Sir W. Parker (Second Sea Lord) 28.10.1839 in G.H. Guest, A Record of the Services ofAdmiral George Evans (London, 1876), 11-14. 30. A.D. Kriegel, The Holland House Diaries: 1831-1840 (London, 1977), 335, 409. 31. Otway to C.A. Caldwell, 12.5.1839; Ship Propeller Company Prospectus 1840. 32. Surveyor of the Navy to Seaward Brothers, 9.10.1839; ADM 91/9. 33. Codrington to the Admiralty, 28.5.1840; ADM12/375 A502; Codrington to Sidney Herbert First Secretary to the Admiralty, 6.10.1841 & 4.8.1843; National Maritime Museum, Codrington papers, COD/172 & 20.2. 34. Caldwell to Lord Minto, 3.6.1841 re New Brighton; Minto MSS National Library of Scotland; SPC to Admiralty, 11.6.1842 (geared cranks); ADM 87/14. Smith to Admiralty, 31.12.1843; ADM 83/26. 35. Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. 94, 1839. 36. Admiralty to Woolwich Dockyard 14.10.1839; ADM 12/361. 37. Reports of Lloyd and Chappell, 2.5.1840; reprinted in Brown, op. cit. (9), 104-7. 38. Request SPC to detail terms for hire, 23.5.1840; ADM 12/361. 39. SPC to Admiralty, 6.7.1842; ADM 12/402 ProS 480. 40. SPC to Admiralty, 20.4.1843, accepted 22.4.1843; ADM12/417 ProS 217. 41. Admiralty to Woolwich Dockyard, 19.7.1843; ADM12/417. 42. Rennie, op.cit. (27). 43. Brunei, 'Report to the Directors of the Great Western Steamship Company on Screw Propellers, 17.10.1840' in Brunei, op. cit. (1). 44. Brunei to Caldwell, 8.7.1840; Brunei Letter Book (LB), 2B, 77. 45. Brunei to Captain Chappell, 8.10.1840; LB, 2B, 94. 46. Parry to Claxton, 6.11.1840; ADM 92/4 S420-1. 47. Brunei to Guppy, 23.11.1840; LB, 2B, 117. 48. Brunei to Chappell, 18.12.1840; ibid., 130. 49. Controller of Steam, 19.12.1840; ADM 12/375. 50. D. Griffiths, Brunei's Great Western (Wellingborough, 1985), 53-4. 51. Admiralty to Surveyor, 4.11.1840; ADM83/25 S5055. 52. Surveyor to Admiralty, 16.11.1840 & 16.1.1841; ADM92/9 S340 & 413. Minto endorsed the latter. Admiral Sir Charles Adam (First Naval Lord) to Minto, 18.11.1840; L: NMM ELL/228. 53. Parry to Admiralty, 14.12.1840; ADM 92/4 S423-4. 54. Surveyor to Admiralty, 26.2.1841; ADM 92/9 S442. 55. Surveyor to Admiralty, 16.1. & 12.2.1841; ADM 92/9 S413, 432. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Andrew D. Lambert 27 56. Brunei to Claxton, 19.3.1841; Brunei DM800. Brunei's letter to Chappell of the following day in LB 2B, 166 is very non-committal, but his relationship with Claxton suggests that the letter to his friend was more explicit than that to a recent acquaintance. 57. Brunei to Symonds, 30.4. & 6.5.1841; LB 2B 175 & 177. 58. Brunei to Caldwell, 3.7.1841 and Brunei to Parry, 3.7.1841; LB 2B, 190 & 192. 59. Edye Minute, 26.7.1841; Report on the Naval and Ordnance Estimates 1848 PP., 1031. 60. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 159. 61. Parry to Brunei, 31.7.1841; ADM 92/4 S446-7. 62. Parry Minute sent to Symonds, 28.9.1841; ADM 92/4 S453-4. 63. Surveyor to Admiralty, 26.10.1841; ADM 92/10 S165. 64. Smith to Admiralty, 1.7.1841; ADM 12/388. 65. Board Minute, 3.3.1843; ADM 12/417. 66. Brunei, op. cit. (1); Rolt, op. cit. (2), 284-5. 67. Brunei to Guppy, 21.9.1841; LB 2B, 214. 68. Brunei to Captain W.A.B. Hamilton, PS to Lord Haddington, 25.8.1841; LB 2B, 215. 69. Brunei to Guppy, 20.12.1841; LB 2B, 241. 70. Admiralty to Surveyor, 1.1.1842; ADM 83/25 SI928. 71. Admiralty to Surveyor, 10.1.1842, with notes by Symonds and Parry of 13.1.1842; ADM 1/5522 S2018. 72. Brunei to Cockburn, 17.1.1842; LB 2B, 253. 73. Brunei to Parry, 28.1.42, to Symonds, 7.2.1842 (twice), to Smith, 7.2.1842; LB 2B, 259-67. 74. Brunei to Admiralty, 16.2.1842; LB 2B, 271. 75. Endorsement on above, 18.2.1842 signed Sidney Herbert (Political Secretary). 76. Brunei to Parry, 7.3.1842; LB 2B, 280. 77. Admiralty to Surveyor, 19.2.1842, endorsed in Symonds's hand, 22.2.1842; ADM 1/5522 S2407. Admiralty to Surveyor, 24.2.1842, endorsed 6.4.1842; ADM 83/25 S2458. 78. Surveyor to Captain Fisher (Captain Superintendent of Sheerness Dockyard), various April-July 1842; ADM 83/25. 79. Lambert, op. cit. (10). 80. Surveyor to Admiralty, 17.1.1842; ADM 92/10 S2156, Rolt, op. cit. (2) 286, quoting a letter from Claxton to Henry Brunei. 81. Smith to Surveyor, 4.6.1842; ADM 87/12 S3361. 82. Brunei to Claxton, 22.7.1842; LB 2C, 16. 83. Admiralty to Brunei, 9.8.1842; ADM 83/26 S3942. 84. Brunei to Admiralty Clerk, Waller Clifton (to whom he was directed to refer all requests for material relating to this project), 1.8.1842; LB 2C, 33. 85. Brunei to Smith, 10.8.1842; LB 2C, 38. 86. Surveyor to Admiralty, 3.9.1842; ADM 83/27 S4354. 87. Brunei to Admiralty, 17.9.1842, endorsed by Cockburn, 28.9.1842; ADM 83/27. 88. Brunei to Guppy, 23.11.1843, 27.11.1843 and to Harmer (Chief Engineer at Bristol) 6.2.1844, 12.2.1844 on propeller design and pitch; LB 2C 264, 283, 294, 303. 89. Admiralty to Controller of Steam, 23.10.1844, SPC to Admiralty, asserting sole rights to the screw, 4.11.1844, SPG to Admiralty, 17.12. and Steinman to Admiralty, 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 90. Controller of Steam to Admiralty, 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 91. Admiralty to Controller of Steam, 7.5.1844; ADM 12/432. 92. Crispin and Lloyd to Admiralty, 29.1.1845; ADM 12/449. 93. Corlett, The Iron Ship (Bradford on Avon, 1975), 97. 94. M.J.T. Lewis, 'Erebus and Terror', Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society, October 1971, 65-8. Lang was a favourite of the Tory Board, 1841-6, but on the change of Ministry his star waned; Lambert, op. cit. (10), 79-90. 95. Hewish, op. cit. (17), 11. 96. Smith to Laird, 22.1.1842; Laird MSS. P.L. Cottrell, 'The Steamship on the Mersey, 1815-80: Investment and Ownership' in P. Davis and D. Aldcroft, Shipping and Trade (Leicester, 1981), 137-63. 97. Controller of Steam to Smith, 30.6, 20 & 30.7.1846; ADM 12/465. Surveyor to Admiralty, 10.7.1846; ibid. History of Technology), Volume Twenty-one, 1999
28 Responding to the Nineteenth Century 98. Brunei to Admiralty, 10.2.1842; ADM 83/25. 99. Thomas Lloyd, testimony before the Select Committee, 9.5.1848 PP, 430-5. 100. Ibid., 435. 101. Symonds to Admiralty, 6.11.1846; PP 1848, 1032. 102. Auckland to Admiral Sir Charles Napier, 7.9.1848; B.M. Add. MSS. 40, 023 f278. 103. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 86, 155-6. 104. Admiralty to Surveyor, 12.6.1848; ADM12/497. 105. PP 1848 John Edye, 10.4.1848, 186-90. 106. Board Minute, 6.12.1850; ADM 87/35. Lambert, op. cit. (18), 30-32. 107. Ellice to Admiralty, 22.1.1848 in Anon, On the Introduction ofthe Screw Propeller into H.M. Service (London, 1856), 24. 108. Solicitor to Admiralty, 11.2.1850; ADM 12/528. 109. Board Minute, 8.3.1850. Controller of Steam to Board, 11.3.1850, reply 27.3.1850; ADM 12/528. 110. Wright to Admiralty, 2.4.1850; ADM 12/528 ProW 705. 111. Solicitor to Admiralty, 26.1.1843 re Ericsson & Blaxland's Patents; Rennie to Admiralty, 21.8.1843; ADM 12/417; Board Minute, 5.9.1843, Controller of Steam to Admiralty 23 & 24.10.1843; SPC to Admiralty, 4.11 & 17 & 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 112. Lloyd, Report for Solicitor, 14.5.1847; ADM 12/481. Law Officer on Patent Rights, 23.8.1848; ADM 12/497. Controller of Steam, 30.11.1849; ADM 12/512. 113. Dutton, op. cit. (25), 155-6. 114. Solicitor to Admiralty, 11.2.1850; ADM 12/528. 115. Solicitor, 13, 20 & 22.9.1851; ADM 12/544. Currie to Admiralty; ADM 1/5641. 116. Brunei to Scott Russell, 21.7.1852 in G.S. Emmerson, John Scott Russell (London, 1977), 66. 117. Palmerston to Smith, 21.1.1855; Anon, op. cit. (107), 61. 118. Brunei to General Sir John Burgoyne, 29.8.1856; Wrottesley, op. cit. (7). History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
T h e E m e r g e n c e o f T e c h n i c a l D r a w i n g i n C h i n a : T h e X i n Y i X i a n g F a Y a o a n d I t s A n t e c e d e n t s P E T E R J . G O L A S By the second half of the tenth century at the latest, Chinese technical illustration had reached a major milestone: the production of a large set of sophisticated drawings to illustrate in detail the workings of a complicated mechanism. This mechanism was an astronomical clock- tower built by Zhang Sixun ^5Sfl| with the support of emperor Taizong ^ 7 ^ (r. 976-997) some time in the years 976-8. The clocktower itself represented a significant advance over astronomical instruments that preceded it: in rotating a demonstrational armillary sphere for the first time by means of a chain-drive power transmission, it made possible a working model of the heavens that would parallel their movement with a minimum of human intervention.1 It appears that copies of many of the drawings produced to illustrate the workings of that clocktower as well as further drawings from another clocktower built by Zhou Riyan M B M in the 1078-1085 period have survived in the account of a later astronomical clocktower, built by Su Song g£gi and Han Gonglian ^|£>JS in the late 1080s and early 1090s.2 Many of the earlier drawings were apparently brought into Su's account without alteration, even when they did not coincide very well with the workings of the more advanced mechanism of Su and Han.3 Probably about 38 of the 47 illustrations we have today in Su Song's account derive originally from Zhang Sixun's work, which has not survived.4 The account of Su Song's astronomical clocktower with its illustrations, the Xinyi xiangfa yao 0riH^8c|? o r 'New Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe System Essentials',5 has been brilliantly studied by Joseph Needham, Wang Ling, DerekJ. de Solla Price and John H. Combridge, but always with a main focus on trying to explain how this very complex mechanism actually functioned.6 No study to my knowledge has taken as its main purpose an examination of these illustrations in order to place them in the overall context of the early development of technical illustration in History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
30 The Emergence of Technical Drawing in China China. That is what I shall attempt here, beginning with a review of what had preceded them. EARLIEST REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN CHINA Portrayals by Chinese artists and craftsmen of scenes that at least touch on technology go back very far in Chinese history, easily pre-dating the Han dynasty (BCE 206-220 CE). For example, battle and hunting scenes engraved on 'pictorial bronzes' of the Warring States period (403-221 BCE) can give us an idea of the weaponry and vehicles in use at that time.7 The 'technology' here, however, is purely decorative, an accidental appendage to what more often than not were wild flights of artistic imagination. In the centuries before the Han, however, a revolutionary intellectual and aesthetic transition was occurring in which the Chinese increasingly left behind the fantastical, magical world view that had dominated their consciousness and their arts from earliest times in favour of what we might call a more realistic and objective view.8 A reflection of this change is seen in the increasing emphasis in the visual arts on subjects having to do with daily life, including scenes of people at work. The richest surviving evidence is found in the archaeological discoveries of funereal art from the Han dynasty and the centuries immediately following, in which three forms dominate: (1) Bas-relief carvings on stone ('tomb reliefs') that have been discovered in almost every part of China.9 These portray a variety of production processes, mainly agricultural (digging10 and plough- ing,11 sowing,12 hoeing,13 weeding,14 harvesting,15 hulling,16 winnowing17 ) and, much less often, sericultural (weaving),18 but also including scenes relating to salt production,19 the iron industry,20 the making of wheels,21 fishing,22 winemaking23 and cooking techniques.24 Pictures of well-sweeps,25 vehicles (usually, horse-drawn) such as carriages,26 chariots,27 wagons and baggage carts,28 boats,29 and wheelbarrows,30 as well as weapons used in hunting31 and warfare32 also provide clues about the technology employed in their construction and about how they were used. Portrayals of buildings often tell us much about their architectural details.33 (2) Models of objects in bronze or wood or clay placed in graves for the use of the dead in the afterlife.34 Technological representations include pulley assemblies,35 trip-hammers and pestles;36 querns;37 stoves, braziers and cooking vessels;38 ploughs and harrows;39 water-flow control devices for irrigation;40 carriages,41 boats42 and buildings.43 (3) Paintings on tiles and on the walls of tombs or on funeral banners, dealing especially with rural activities. Especially well-known here are the tomb-tile paintings from Jiayuguan in the present day northwestern province of Gansu (Figure l).44 History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
Peter J. Golas 31 Figure 1 A tomb-tile illustration of ploughing from Jiayuguan in Gansu province, either from later Han or shortly thereafter. Anon., Han Tang Bi Hua (Murals from the Han to the Tang Dynasty) (Beijing, 1974), Fig. 49. Various explanations have been proposed to account for the prominence of scenes of daily life in early Chinese art. In the case of funereal art, the motivation was above all practical or functional. The scenes that decorated the graves or tombs would remind their occupants what their life had been like in this world. The models of actual objects with which the occupant had been surrounded in this life made those objects available for use in the afterlife.45 But there were at least two other reasons of a more 'ideological' character that seem to have encouraged such portrayals. They are especially important in that they were to remain important stimulators of illustrations of technology for the succeeding two millennia. We can perhaps approach them best by looking at their influence on Chinese painting. TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATION AND EARLY CHINESE PAINTING Most of the evidence for early Chinese painting not connected with funereal practices survives unfortunately only in literary references. For example, we are told of great cycles of painting that decorated the halls and palaces of the Han, but whatever indications of the technology they might have contained have long since disappeared, along with the paintings themselves.46 That at least some of them included productive activities is suggested not only by the Han tomb scenes but also by slightly later evidence that the emperor Ming Di of the Jin dynasty (r. 323-325) himself painted a series to illustrate a famous early Chinese poem dealing with the yearly round of rural activities, including agriculture and sericulture.47 However, even without the paintings themselves, the surviving references suggest some of the motivations that guided early painters. We mentioned above the transition in Chinese thinking in the middle of the first millennium BCE away from a fabulous toward a more realistic History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
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195 Harry would have liked to add more protests about leaving their young leader alone on the River Swallow with the men, who, as they all knew, had deep cause to hate the railroad man’s son. But there was no choice in the matter for him, for, as they all knew, when Ralph’s mind was made up to anything, he could not be swerved from his determination. In due time the River Swallow lay to off the lights of the Piquetville Yacht Club. The place was brightly illuminated and so was the town that lay behind it. Piquetville was a bustling, busy place. It maintained plenty of business and was very up-to-date in every way. Down rattled the anchor. “I wonder what Malvin thinks is in the wind,” said Harry, as he slipped into a shore-going coat and Percy appeared on deck by his side all ready to board the tender as soon as it should be lowered. “You can depend upon it that he is sharp enough to know that something is up, but you can also bet that he will be too sharp to show it,” was Ralph’s rejoinder. “Lower away the tender!” he hailed as Malvin reported the anchor down. “Aye, aye, sir,” came in cheerful, willing tones. If they had not known Malvin to be such a rascal, they would have found it hard to believe that the owner of such a cheerful voice could be the schemer they knew him to be, and the criminal that they suspected more than strongly he was.
196 197 “Good-bye.” “Take care of yourself.” These were the leave takings between the boys accompanied by a warm pressure of hands that meant more than words. A few moments later the tender was chugging off ashore and Ralph was left alone on board the River Swallow. He would have given a good deal to know what Malvin thought of the night’s proceedings. He knew the fellow was far too shrewd not to guess that something was about due to break. But if Malvin really had such ideas, he kept them to himself with admirable coolness. After the tender had departed, he came aft to where Ralph was sitting in a deck chair and inquired if there was anything more to be done. “No; if all is snug, you may take a nap, Malvin, or amuse yourself as you see fit.” “Thank you, sir. I reckon I’ll turn in and get forty winks, sir,” rejoined Malvin. He touched his cap and hurried off forward. “Now who would suspect that that man is the central figure in a big smuggling scheme of some sort?” thought Ralph as the man departed. “He is certainly an admirable actor.” Ralph leaned back in his chair and watched the twinkling lights ashore. It was a beautiful night, calm, peaceful and starlit. The water shimmered like a sheet of silver. Hardly a ripple disturbed the mirror-like surface of the St. Lawrence, which, at this point, was fully two
198 and a half miles wide, a mighty lake of swift flowing water. It was delightful to be seated there in the River Swallow’s comfortable cockpit. But somehow Ralph did not think much of the scene about him. His mind was busy with the dilemma of which his father’s despatch had informed him. What an odd turn of fate it seemed, that, while he and his chums were on the trail of a gang of miscreants who had been using Dexter Island as a rendezvous, his father should be arrested in Montreal for the very crime which they were trying to lay at the door of Malvin and Co.! “I wonder how long this sort of thing has been going on,” mused Ralph; “probably for some time, perhaps ever since Malvin, two years ago, entered my father’s service. I remember Dad congratulated himself on obtaining a man of such education and refinement to handle the River Swallow. He was rather astonished, too, that a fellow who was so intelligent and apparently well educated should be willing to take such a post. It’s all clear enough now. “The job Dad gave him afforded Malvin just the opportunity he wanted to carry on his smuggling schemes without being suspected of a connection with any such dealings. No wonder he had it in for us when we came and deposed him from his position of boss of the River Swallow! It meant that he could no longer have things all his own way. That henceforth he would be liable to be watched, and that the visits of the Artful Dodger to Dexter Island would be likely to be observed and suspicion aroused.”
199 200 He had been watching the lights of the tender as the speedy little craft sped toward the shore. Now he saw them pause alongside the yacht club dock and come to a standstill. “The boys have got ashore,” he thought, “in a few minutes they will be in consultation with the customs authorities. Then we shall see what the next step in this little drama is going to be. I rather think that, by this time to-morrow, Messrs. Malvin and Co. will have seen a great light.” In the meantime, Harry Ware and Percy Simmons had made their boat fast and clambered up on the dock. A man in a uniform that they recognized as that of a U. S. Customs Inspector stepped up to them the instant they set foot on shore. “Off the River Swallow?” he asked. “Yes,” rejoined Percy, “we——” “That is all, be good enough to come with me.” “Why—what——” began the boys, but the official sternly cut them off. “No questions now, the chief inspector wants to see you at once. I guess, too, I’ll be sending somebody out to watch the River Swallow.” “What have we done? What’s the matter?” demanded Harry. “Never mind. You’ll know soon enough,” was the brusque reply, as the official bade them come with him
201 and “make no trouble.”
202 CHAPTER XXII. “NOT JUST YET, STETSON!” Ralph was interrupted in his reverie by the sound of a swift, cat-like footfall behind him. He was conscious of a sudden thrill that was not exactly fear but rather apprehension, as whoever was pussy-footing through the dark cock-pit drew closer. No man on an honest errand, as he well knew, would have adopted that stealthy method of approach. For an instant Ralph regretted that he was not armed. But it was only a momentary thought. He turned his eyes, till out of their corners he could see a dark form drawing close to his chair. Ralph gave no sign that he had heard anything unusual. He kept his gaze apparently riveted on the shore and sat motionless, without the quiver of a muscle. But for all his seeming calmness, he sensed that a crisis of some kind had arrived. Then out of the darkness emerged the figure of Malvin. The man was a very different being from the obsequious creature he had hitherto appeared to be. His voice rang harsh and stridently and in his hand Ralph could catch the glint of a pistol.
203 The weapon was aimed at the boy’s head. “See here, Stetson,” the fellow grated, “you’re alone on this boat and in my power. Are you going to do what I say without making trouble?” Ralph did not turn. There was not the flicker of an eyelid to show the great bound his heart had given as he realized his situation. That Malvin was a desperate man, the boy knew well enough; but just the same, he had not believed that the man would ever dream of adopting the tactics he had now assumed. “Well?” Malvin’s grating voice, a very different one from the honeyed accents he had hitherto used to address the young commander, came again in tones of impatient interrogation. “Supposing, as commander of this boat, I don’t choose to take orders from you?” questioned Ralph. “In that case, jig is up for you, young fellow.” “Going to kill me?” asked Ralph without a quiver in his voice, although a very unpleasant feeling had taken possession of him. He felt that Malvin meant what he said. And he was in the fellow’s power absolutely. “Yes,” spoke Malvin. “I mean to use this little piece of hardware unless——” He paused as if uncertain of his next words.
204 205 “He’s nervous,” thought Ralph, “he doesn’t like this job. He’s doing it at the orders of somebody else, probably Hawke, who appears to exercise an influence over him.” “Well, unless?” asked the boy aloud. “Unless you obey orders absolutely. Just as I have had to obey your orders since you sneaked your way into command of this craft.” “You forget that this is my father’s boat,” reminded Ralph. “Yes, your father,” sneered Malvin. “Your father, who is in jail in Montreal!” “So you know that?” cried Ralph, startled out of his assumed calm. “Know it? Why, yes. Men with whom I am associated engineered his arrest. Cleverly done, wasn’t it?” “You contemptible sneak!” burst out Ralph. “So it was your gang that did this?” “I don’t see any reason to deny it. We wanted him out of the way and sent that message summoning him to Montreal. Once there, our agents saw to it that he was put where he wouldn’t trouble us for a while.” Words failed Ralph utterly. He saw red for a minute. But almost simultaneously he steadied his nerves to meet the crisis. “I may as well tell you, Malvin,” he said, “that it will pay you better in the long run to desert these men with whom you are associated and array yourself upon the
206 side of law and order. Do this and I’ll promise you that, when the authorities descend upon you, I will do what I can to make things easier for you.” It was a forlorn hope and—it failed. Malvin hesitated for one instant, and Ralph’s mind swung pendulum-wise between hope and apprehension. But the man’s next words showed him that Malvin was irrevocably tied to the diamond smugglers. “As if I’d be fool enough to listen to such stuff!” he sneered. “Come now, youngster; no more nonsense. We know what your two chums went ashore for. To get the authorities, didn’t they?” “Since you must have it, they did,” shot out Ralph. “I thought so. We know every move you have made. Now you’re going to learn that it doesn’t pay to butt in where you are not wanted.” “What are you going to do?” demanded Ralph. “Get right out of here with this boat. You’ll work her out. Do you understand?” “Your words don’t admit of any misconstruction,” was the calm reply. “Mosey up on the bridge, then. Look sharp! Do you hear?” “I hear. Suppose I don’t choose to obey?” “In that case——”
207 208 Malvin emphasized this with a poke in the ribs from the revolver. “See here, Malvin,” asked Ralph, eying the fellow without flinching, “have you been drinking to-night, or are you simply ill-advised by bad companions?” “No more trifling,” warned Malvin sullenly. “You’ve robbed me of my job as commander of this boat. Not content with that, you’ve tried to interfere with my business. Do what I say at once, or let me give you a straight warning. You’re playing with your life.” Ralph tried another tack. “Well,” he said, “of course I don’t want to get shot. Let’s get down to cases. What do you want me to do?” “Navigate this boat out of here. Hansen and—and— somebody else will attend to the engines.” “The somebody else being the man who put the sand in our carburetors—Hawke.” Malvin was perceptibly startled. “Hawke! What do you know about him?” he demanded. “Oh, quite a good deal. You’re a fool to travel with such a man, Malvin. We met him on Windmill Island. We know that you picked him up there and have kept him concealed on the River Swallow. I more than suspect, moreover, that he is a certain notorious diamond smuggler for whom the authorities on both sides of the border have their nets spread. Is that enough?”
209 “Yes, it’s more than enough. You’re too flip. Now get up on that bridge or take the consequences.” “All right. Tell your men to get the anchor up.” Malvin uttered a peculiar whistle. It must have been a signal, for the clank of the windlass was heard almost immediately. The River Swallow began to swing her bow as the current turned her down river. Again came a whistle from Malvin and the engines began to rumble and shake the craft with their revolutions. They were running “free.” That is, the clutch that caused them to engage the shafts had not yet been “thrown.” Ralph had a plan in his mind. It was a desperate chance to take, but his seemingly ready agreement with Malvin’s orders had proceeded from this same wild plan he had suddenly formed. “Get up on that bridge. Remember, I’m behind you. One false move and——” Malvin did not finish the sentence. He did not need to. His tone was sufficiently eloquent. The boy ascended the few steps that led to the bridge. Malvin was right behind him. Ralph could see in his mind’s eye that menacing pistol held close to the small of his back. They reached the bridge. The moment for Ralph’s plan to be put into execution had arrived. He turned swiftly.
210 211 “Look!” he cried. “There comes a boat—a customs house boat!” Malvin, startled, off his guard, turned his head for an instant toward the shore. With a loud cry, Ralph leaped for the man. He seized his pistol wrist and wrenched it backward. Then he threw himself on the fellow with the whole force of his vigorous young strength. As Malvin crashed backward down the steps, Ralph leaped for the pneumatic whistle. It was operated by a lever. “Now for a police call!” he exclaimed pantingly as he grasped it. In another moment a cry for aid would have gone shrieking out from the River Swallow’s siren. Ralph’s fingers trembled on the lever and he had just given it the first move toward him when something happened. He felt himself seized from behind in a powerful grasp and his arms pinioned to his side. “Thought you’d get the police, eh?” snarled a voice in his ear. “Not just yet, Stetson.”
212 CHAPTER XXIII. THE MISSING BOAT. “So these boys are off the River Swallow?” asked Chief Inspector Barrett of the U. S. Customs service as he gazed at Harry Ware and Percy Simmons. They stood before him in his private office, whither they had been escorted by the official who had met them on the wharf. Both boys were indignant. The manner in which they had been treated had not served to soothe their feelings. They had, in fact, been looked upon as malefactors, when, in reality, they had come ashore for the purpose of exposing a gang of rascals. It was a strange trick that Fate had played upon them. “What have we done?” demanded Harry Ware angrily. “Yes, you’d think we were criminals from the way we’ve been treated,” seconded Percy Simmons. “Now, now, keep cool,” conciliated the inspector. “We’ve had our eye on the River Swallow for some time. To- night we heard from Canada that she was to touch in here to-night with gem smugglers on board. We’ve been on the lookout for the gang that is suspected for some time.”
213 “And you mean to say you think that we have anything to do with it?” gasped Harry angrily. “I didn’t say so. But I’d like you to explain a few things.” “Very well. But please hurry. We have left a friend on board the River Swallow with three desperate men. We want to hurry back. We had counted on your assistance.” “Well and good, and you shall have it. I think it only fair to inform you that Dexter Island has been shadowed for some time. A motor craft has been seen visiting there at night. We suspect the boat to be one used by the diamond smugglers. The River Swallow has been used to convey the gems to this side. Doubtless you young men are not aware of the extensive range of gem smuggling operations on the Canadian border. In that case, let me inform you that the duty on cut gems brought into America is sixty per cent. ad valorem. You can see, therefore, what a fortune these gem smugglers can make by evading the lawful duty.” “And in the meantime,” said Harry sarcastically, “the men you want,—or at least a part of the gang,—are on board the River Swallow.” “What’s that? What do you mean?” demanded the inspector quickly. “I’d have explained sooner, if you’d let me,” said Harry dryly. He proceeded at the inspector’s direction to give him a hasty sketch of the events that had led up to the present night. The inspector listened with interest at first and then with absorption.
214 215 “Give me a description of this man Hawke,” he said. Harry described the man as well as he could. “Jennings,” exclaimed the chief inspector, “this Hawke is La Rue, the head and front with Rawson of the whole gem smuggling gang! I’m sure of it from the description. You will accompany these young men to their boat. Take Adams and Prescott with you. Arrest all three of the men. So far, I know nothing of Malvin or Hansen; I suspect they are mere understrappers. Bring them here at once. Hurry now.” “Yes, sir. Come along, young men,” said Jennings, preparing briskly to execute his chief’s orders. “And Jennings.” “Yes, sir.” “You had better be armed. Tell the other men to take weapons, too. La Rue is a desperate man and the others may give you trouble, also.” Jennings and the two boys hurried off. Harry Ware and Percy Simmons were delighted at the turn affairs had taken. The arrest of Hawke,—or to give him his real name, La Rue,—was at hand. Before long, by their instrumentality, the gem smugglers would be safely in the hands of the customs officials. Only one doubt assailed them as Jennings hastily summoned his two aides. Would they be in time? The knowledge that Ralph had been left alone on the River Swallow, without weapons to defend himself, and in the company of three men who had good reason to fear the
216 worst from the boys’ visit ashore, had a disquieting effect upon them. As they hurried through the streets, they wished that Jennings would make even more haste. When they reached the main custom house, where Adams and Prescott, who were on night duty, were to be picked up, a low, rumbling sound came from the northern sky. Jennings glanced up quickly. To the north the stars had been blotted out. Heavy clouds had rolled up obscuring them. As the boys followed the direction of Jennings’s gaze, they saw a sudden lambent flash, as yet far off, flare up and vanish on the cloud bank. “Lightning!” exclaimed Harry. “Yes, we’re in for a storm, I guess,” said Jennings. “We get them pretty bad up this way when they do come, too.” “Regular hummers, eh?” asked Harry. “I guess that’s the word for it. The old timers say that they follow the river. I don’t know how that may be, but I do know that I never saw worse electric storms than we get right along the St. Lawrence.” Adams and Prescott, who had received directions by telephone from the inspector’s office, were ready and waiting for them when they arrived at the custom house. They were placed in possession of the facts of the case by Jennings, as they and the boys hastened to the yacht club dock.
217 218 Both were warm in their praises of the way the boys had handled the situation, and waxed humorous over their practical arrest as suspects. Percy and Harry, however, failed to see anything screamingly comical about it. The dock was reached and then and there the party received a big surprise. The lights of the River Swallow were not in sight! So far as could be observed, no boat lay at anchor where the boys had left the speedy craft. A search conducted from the motor tender only confirmed their worst fears. The River Swallow had vanished, and on board her was Ralph, alone and in the power of the gem smugglers.
219 CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM. Ziz-z-z-z-z-z! A ragged, flaming bolt of lightning ripped across the black sky. It showed the broad reach of the St. Lawrence in the vicinity of Piquetville lashed into a fury of white-capped waves and turbulent waters. Through the furious electric storm the River Swallow was wallowing along, rolling and plunging terrifically. Owing to her narrow beam, the craft was far more “cranky” than an ordinary boat, and to anyone not used to her actions in rough water, the experience would have been an alarming one. Besides being familiar with the craft he was guiding, however, Ralph had other things to worry him beside the storm. For one thing, La Rue,—or Hawke, as Ralph still knew him,—was standing beside him, pistol in hand, and from what Ralph knew of the man, there was little doubt that he would hesitate to use the weapon if the need arose. The boy had another cause for worry in the fact that he did not know what his companions, who had gone ashore, would think of the disappearance of the River Swallow. He knew that they would be worrying over his
220 situation on board her, and the thought of their anxiety disquieted him to the full as much as his own predicament. But, with it all, Ralph had a certain grim satisfaction in one factor of his problem. Below decks in a bunk, with a badly damaged head, incurred in his fall down the steps leading from the bridge, lay Malvin. The man was incapacitated for duty and was, in fact, only half conscious. As he had fallen from the bridge, it was La Rue who had seized Ralph’s arms before the boy could sound the alarm, and who had ordered Ralph, upon the pain of being shot down, to steer the River Swallow out of the harbor. The young skipper had no recourse but to obey, and so the River Swallow was struggling with the storm, with an inexperienced man—Hansen—in the engine room and on the bridge a boy who was menaced with a pistol in the hands of the diamond smuggler. With the storm had arisen a wind that screeched and howled like a witches’ carnival about the River Swallow. The craft was rather high out of the water and of light draught, like most of the St. Lawrence River craft. She pitched and rolled awesomely under the blast. There was no real danger, as Ralph well knew, but, as has been said, to anyone unused to her violent motions in a storm, the wild behavior of the River Swallow was, to say the least, alarming. To complicate matters, it was pitchy dark, the frequent flashes of lightning alone illumining the gloom. The wind was blowing the same way as the current, and below them lay a labyrinth of rapids, shoals and islands that required an experienced skipper to thread, even by daylight.
221 222 “This is a fine fix,” thought Ralph to himself, as the wind tore about him, the waters rolled high and the lightning flashed and zigzagged across the thunder-ridden sky. “If I ever get the River Swallow through this without piling her up on a shoal or getting the bottom ripped out of her in some rapids, I’m entitled to a gold medal.” “Will this get worse?” asked La Rue. The boy noted with glee that there was a note of apprehension in the fellow’s voice. “I hope not,” Ralph rejoined, shaking his head fearsomely. “Why?” La Rue was scared. It was plain enough in his voice, which was nervous and jerky. “Are—are we in any danger?” he demanded tremblingly. “The—the very g-g-g-greatest,” exclaimed Ralph, cleverly acting the part of a seriously alarmed young skipper. “You mean that if the storm does not die down we may be wrecked?” “The storm will get a lot worse before it gets any better,” rejoined Ralph. “This is one of the worst nights I have ever seen on the river.” The River Swallow gave a fearful roll, almost burying her lee gunwale in flying spume. An exclamation that was almost a shriek burst from La Rue’s lips. The man was ashen pale. He was terrified, and, moreover, he was becoming conscious of another feeling. What this was, we shall see before long.
223 224 “Gracious! I thought we were gone that time!” cried Ralph, appearing to be on the verge of panic. “Then there is a pup-pup-possibility that the boat may capsize?” “I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ralph gravely. A groan escaped La Rue. “You really think that, ker-ker-captain?” Ralph couldn’t help smiling at the title La Rue had conferred on him in his fawning, miserable fright. “Of course I do,” replied Ralph. “Why, her timbers are very thin. She was only built for a racing machine, not for such work as this.” Bang! Who-o-o-o-f! A big sea, which Ralph had purposely met quartering, smote the River Swallow a terrific buffet on the port bow. The spray and spume flew high in the air, drenching the occupants of the bridge. “A few more of those and we’re goners, sure,” said Ralph with a grin, which he had to turn away his face to conceal, as La Rue broke into a whimper. “Isn’t there anything you can do, captain?” “Nothing, except trust to Providence that we don’t go to the bottom within the next half hour,” rejoined Ralph. Another huge wave hit the craft. A tremor ran through her but it was nothing to the anguish that convulsed the terrified La Rue as the sea struck.

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  • 7.
  • 8.
    HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY Editor DrGraham Hollister-Short INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, University of London, London WCIE 7HU EDITORIAL BOARD Professor Hans-Joachim Braun, Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Holstenhofweg 85, 22039 Hamburg, Germany Professor R.A. Buchanan, School of Social Sciences, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, England Professor Andre Guillerme, LTnstitut Francais d'Urbanisme, Cite Descartes, 47 rue Albert Einstein, 77463 Champ-sur-Marne, France Professor A. Rupert Hall, FBA, 14 Ball Lane, Tackley, Oxfordshire OX5 3AG, England Professor Alexandre Herlea, Directeur du Departement Humanites, Institut Polytechnique de Sevenans, 90010 Belfort, France Professor Ian Inkster, International Studies, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS, England Dr A.G. Keller, Department of History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LEI 7RH, England Professor David Lewis, Department of History, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849, USA Professor Carlo Poni, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Strada Maggiore 45, 40125 Bologna, Italy Professor Hugh Torrens, Department of Geology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, England Professor R.D. Vergani, Dipartimento di Storia, Universita degli Studi di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padua, Italy
  • 9.
    History of Technology Volume 21,1999 Edited by Graham Hollister-Short LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
  • 10.
    Bloomsbury Academic An imprintof Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2000 by Mansell Publishing Ltd Copyright © Graham Hollister-Short and Contributors, 2000 The electronic edition published 2016 Graham Hollister-Short and Contributor have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. History of technology. 21st annual volume: 2000 1. Technology – History – Periodicals ISBN: HB: 978-0-8264-4961-0 ePDF: 978-1-3500-1890-7 ePub: 978-1-3500-1891-4 Series: History of Technology, volume 21 Typeset by BookEns Limited, Royston, Herts.
  • 11.
    C o nt e n t s Editorial vii The Contributors viii Notes for Contributors ix ANDREW D. LAMBERT Responding to the Nineteenth Century: The Royal Navy and the Introduction of the Screw Propeller 1 PETER J. GOLAS The Emergence of Technical Drawing in China: The Xin Ti Xiang Fa Tao and Its Antecedents 29 CARLO PONI The Circular Silk Mill: A Factory Before the Industrial Revolution in Early Modern Europe 65 IAN INKSTER Technology Transfer in the Great Climacteric: Machinofacture and International Patenting in World Development circa 1850-1914 87 WALTER KAISER What Drives Innovation in Technology? 107 TATSUYA KOBAYASHI The Industrialization of Chair and Table Manufacture in Japan: Subtle Interactions at the Confluence of Indigenous Culture and Western Technology 125 RAFFAELLO VERGANI Metals and Metallurgical Processes in North Italy in Biringuccio's Work 141
  • 12.
    VI Contents PHILIPPE BRAUNSTEIN Maitriseet Transmission des Connaissances Techniques au Moyen Age 155 (English Summary by Graham Hollister-Short) HANS-JOACHIM BRAUN Current Research in the History of Technology in Europe 167 BERT L. FRANDSEN AND W. DAVID LEWIS Nieuports and Spads: French Pursuit Planes and American Airpower in World War I 189 BRUCE SINCLAIR The Power of Ceremony: Creating an International Engineering Community 203 Contents of Former Volumes 213
  • 13.
    E d it o r i a l With the appearance of the twenty-first volume of this journal, a backward glance may not be out of place. Until History of Technology began to appear in 1976 there were relatively few outlets for papers in the subject. It was precisely to try to relieve this situation and reduce the time it was taking to get articles into print that Rupert Hall, then Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Imperial College, assisted by Dr Norman Smith, took the decision to establish a new journal. To reverse Canning's aphorism, it was almost a question of calling in the old world to redress the balance of the new. Since that time other journals have entered the field, good evidence that the decision was a timely one and that the discipline was on the point of achieving the more broadly based existence it has today, although it has to be said that this statement would be truer of the United States and Germany than of this country. From the beginning previous editors, like the present editor, have sought to cast the net widely to avoid, as far as possible, a Europocentric approach and, equally important in our view, any undue concentration on the more recent aspects of the history of technology. Also important has been the recognition of, and the attempt to redress, an undeniable tendency among Anglophone historians of technology to overlook the very different technological experience of mainland Europe before its absorp- tion into the Anglo-Saxon technological ecumene in the mid-nineteenth century: what, to use Mumfordian shorthand, might be called the coming of carboniferous capitalism. Or, as Josef Rosowsky has remarked so amusingly, 'And then there was England and discontent entered the world.' In the present volume I have sought to bring together as wide an international group of scholars as possible, and I hope it will be specially welcome by reason of the variety of aspects of history of technology that are covered not only across the centuries but across the globe as well. Graham Hollister-Short London
  • 14.
    T h eC o n t r i b u t o r s Professor Hans-Joachim Braun Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg Holstenhofweg 85 D-22039 Hamburg, Germany Professor Philippe Braunstein Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales 54, Blvd. Raspail 75270 Paris, Cedex 06 France Bert L. Frandsen Department of History 310 Thach Hall Auburn University, AL 36849-5207 USA Professor Peter J. Golas Department of History 2199 S. University of Denver Colorado, USA Professor Ian Inkster Faculty of Humanities Nottingham Trent University Nottingham NG11 8NS England Professor Walter Kaiser Technische Hochschule Rheinisch-Westfalische D-52056 Aachen Germany Professor Tatsuya Kobayashi 3-147 Hachimandai Seto City, Aichi Pref. 489 Japan Professor Andrew David Lambert Department of War Studies Kings College London Strand London WC2R 2LS England Professor W. David Lewis Department of History 310 Thach Hall Auburn University, AL 36849-5207 USA Professor Carlo Poni Dipartimento di Scienze Economichi Universita degli Studi di Bologna Strada Maggiore 45 40125 Bologna, Italy Professor Bruce Sinclair 404 High Street Bethlehem, PA 18018 USA Professor Raffaello Vergani Dipartimento di Storia Universita degli Studi di Padova Piazza Capitaniato 3 35139 Padua, Italy
  • 15.
    N o te s f o r C o n t r i b u t o r s Contributions are welcome and should be sent to the editor. They are considered on the understanding that they are previously unpublished in English and are not on offer to another journal. Papers in French and German will be considered for publication, but an English summary will be required. The editor will also consider publishing English translations of papers already published in languages other than English. Include an abstract of 150-200 words. Authors who have passages originally in Cyrillic or oriental scripts should indicate the system of transliteration they have used. Be clear and consistent. All papers should be rigorously documented, with references to primary and secondary sources typed separately from the text, double-line spaced and numbered consecutively. Cite as follows for: BOOKS 1. David Gooding, Experiment and the Making of Meaning: Human Agency in Scientific Observation and Experiment (Dordrecht, 1990), 54-5. Only name the publisher for good reason. Reference to a previous note: 3. Gooding, op. cit. (1), 43. Titles of standard works may be cited by abbreviation: DJVB, DBB, etc. THESES Cite University Microfilm order number or at least Dissertation Abstract number. ARTICLES 13. Andrew Nahum, 'The Rotary Aero Engine', Hist. Tech., 1986, 11: 125-66, esp. 139. Please note the following guidelines for the submission and presentation of all contributions:
  • 16.
    x Notesfor Contributors 1.Type your manuscript on good quality paper, on one side only and double-line spaced throughout. The text, including all endnotes, references and indented block quotes, should be in one typesize (if possible 12 pt). 2. In the first instance submit two copies only. Once the text has been agreed, then you need to submit three copies of the final version, one for the editor and two for the publishers. You should, of course, retain a copy for yourself. 3. Number the pages consecutively throughout (including endnotes and any figures/tables). 4. Spelling should conform to the latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. 5. Quoted material of more than three lines should be indented, without quotation marks, and double-line spaced. 6. Use single quotes for shorter, non-indented, quotations. For quotes within quotes use double quotation marks. 7. The source of all extracts, illustrations, etc., should be cited and/or acknowledged. 8. Italic type should be indicated by underlining. Italics (i.e. under- lining) should be used for foreign words and titles of books and journals. Articles in journals are not italicized but placed within single quotation marks. 9. Figures. Line drawings should be drawn boldly in black ink on stout white paper, feint-ruled paper or tracing paper. Photographs should be glossy prints of good contrast and well matched for tonal range. Each illustration must be numbered and have a caption. Xerox copies may be sent when the article is first submitted for consideration. Please do not send originals of photographs or transparencies but if possible have a good quality copy made. While every care will be taken, the publishers cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage. Photographs or other illustrative material should be kept separate from the text. They should be keyed to your typescript with a note in the margin to indicate where they should appear. Provide a separate list of captions for the figures. 10. Notes should come at the end of the text as endnotes, double-line spaced. 11. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain copyright clearance for the use of previously published material and for photographs.
  • 19.
    R e sp o n d i n g t o t h e N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y T h e R o y a l N a v y a n d t h e I n t r o d u c t i o n o f t h e S c r e w P r o p e l l e r A N D R E W D. L A M B E R T ABSTRACT This paper will reconsider the old view that navies in general, and the Royal Navy in particular, were opposed to the introduction of new technology in the nineteenth century. Through a case study of one critical technology, the screw propeller, it is possible to see how the play of politics, strategy, economics, technology and patent law influenced the process. This analysis will provide a sharp contrast with the narrow, self-serving or adulatory polemics produced by contemporary engineers and their hagiographers. It does not diminish Brunei, Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericsson, to name but three, to discover that their motivations were fame and money, rather than the 'benefit of civilization' so often claimed. Their naval contemporaries were more astute. Charged with professional responsibility for the security of a global empire they could not afford to reject progress. Instead they harnessed the intellectual and engineering resources of the private sector to bring new technologies to production readiness. In the process they were more likely to defraud the engineers than ignore them. * * * There is an enduring myth that the directors of the world's navies were reactionary, or at best unduly conservative, in their handling of technical change in the nineteenth century. This, it has been argued, was symptomatic of large hierarchically structured bureaucracies which were opposed to change in any area, from uniform regulations to weapons procurement. This view is reflected in the work of historians of the liberal progressive school for whom conservatism in technology, as in politics, is the mark of the unthinking and bigoted reactionary. They contend that had the world's navies been more adventurous, technical progress would have been History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 20.
    2 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century more rapid, and more economical. As the largest, and among the best documented of navies, the Royal Navy has often been criticized for technological conservatism throughout the long nineteenth century (1815-1914). This line has been adopted in studies of the introduction of steam power, iron ships, the screw propeller, armour plate, turrets and a number of other important new systems. The case against the Admiralty has been supported by the contention that France, the United States and even Russia were, at various times, more far-seeing and technologically astute. However, examining these issues in a different context, that of British international policy, provides completely different results. Between 1815 and 1914 Britain worked for a peaceful and stable European balance as the most effective means of securing her unique global trading empire from hostile competition. The power behind British policy was naval deterrence. If the Admiralty was slow in responding to new technology how did Britain win major arms races with France and Imperial Germany, defeat Russia and deter all four of her Great Power rivals at various times between 1840 and 1911? The British Empire could not have been secured by an obsolescent fleet based on yesterday's technology. This would suggest that the case needs to be re-examined. This paper offers a new analytical model of the way in which large bureaucratic organizations handle major technical developments. By reconsidering one of the most famous case studies of alleged inertia, hostility and conservatism, the introduction of the screw propeller, it will demonstrate that the existing historiography is weak and profoundly flawed, both as to underlying assumptions and research methods. Existing accounts treat the introduction of the screw propeller as a purely technical issue, isolated from politics, finance, strategy, tactics, and even the inner workings of naval administration. For too long the underlying assumptions about the propeller, and the engineers who worked on it, have been based on self-serving contemporary pamphlet literature, the latter day complaints of disappointed speculators and the anti-establishment outpourings of advanced liberals of the mid-century, who really believed the millennium was at hand. By failing to question the underlying assumptions of this literature subsequent generations have done a grave disservice to the memories of several hard-working, professional men. The essential argument is that a 'conservative' bureaucracy either misunderstood or deliberately opposed each new manifestation of progress. This line of attack can be traced back through contemporary pamphlets, which were little more than glorified sales brochures, into the more durable biographies and general histories. Perhaps the first and most influential rendition of this 'critical' version was provided by Isambard Kingdom Brunei junior's biography of his father in 1870. Brunei junior largely created the genre, by linking his father with other engineers and inventors of the era. He based his case on Brunei's favourite anecdote about the 'adverse influence which had been exerted in some departments History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 21.
    Andrew D. Lambert3 of the Admiralty to prevent the successful issue of these experiments'.1 This version was perpetuated in the standard modern life.2 The source for the anecdote was 'Captain' Christopher Claxton, Brunei's close friend. Claxton's naval connections had provided critical input for the form and structure of the steamship Great Western, while he proved to be a major influence on the Great Western Steamship Company and various other shipbuilding and railways projects around Bristol. However, Claxton was only a half-pay lieutenant, he was not promoted commander until 1842, and finally became a captain in 1860. Clearly Claxton had a grudge against the Admiralty, elaborating the most extreme version of an anecdote that his friend had told so often that it became a parody of truth. Not everyone connected with Brunei believed Claxton's version. His younger son Henry never believed the stories, and was disappointed to find his brother retailing them in the biography.3 They were good stories, but they do not stand up to close scrutiny. When John Ericsson received his valedictory biography his brief relationship with the Admiralty was portrayed in equally bleak terms.4 Even before this version appeared the liberal progressivist version, in which the Admiralty was the source of all obstruction, had been adopted by the standard history of the Royal Navy.5 It would be followed in the standard account of the development of marine engineering.6 These accounts all assume that anyone but a fool, and a peculiarly conservative fool at that, could have seen the merits of the propeller from the beginning, and pressed for its immediate adoption. They ignore the key questions that surrounded the process. These were financial, technical, political, tactical and strategic. When they have been addressed it is possible to see the propeller in a wider context, thus providing an altogether more complex chain of events. The Admiralty was not dragged, reluctantly, into the propeller. It was well aware of what was happening from the beginning, maintained a careful watching brief, intervened in particular experiments to great effect, forced the private sector to conduct almost all the fundamental research and early practical trials, without adequate recompense, and then intervened in the process at a decisive moment, just as the technology matured, to clear up all the patent rights and build the world's first all- steam fleet. Far from the reactionary image created by the engineers and their hagiographers, the most common complaint of contemporaries was that they had been 'defrauded', and that the Admiralty would only deal with people it could 'bully or defraud'.7 Such problems as there were reflected the impact of political change and internal friction on a semi- reformed naval administration. STEAM, STRATEGY AND TACTICS By the mid-1830s intelligent naval officers were well informed about steam technology, and capable of thinking through the implications of each new development without any prompting from the host of inventors, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 22.
    4 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century speculators and cranks who pestered the Admiralty. In consequence the latter's response to new technology was not one of unthinking animosity and blind worship of the past. They were well informed because the development of naval strategy and tactics between 1805 and 1840 made steam increasingly important. After the crushing victory of Trafalgar the whole thrust of naval operations had shifted from fleet combat to the projection of power from the sea against the shore. Such operations were only practical for large vessels with their own power, independent of the wind. Consequently steam propulsion was critical to the maintenance of naval mastery under the new circumstances, and was the occasion for the first two naval arms races of the nineteenth century. The earliest naval steamers were paddle-wheel packet boats, for strategic communications, and tugs, to get large sailing warships out of harbour. As they became larger and more powerful paddle-wheel warships were able to mount a small number of heavy guns, making them useful auxiliary warships, and capable of tactical towing. By 1850 the best paddle-wheel frigates, such as HMS Terrible, were capable of strategic towing, mounted 24 heavy guns, and cost as much as a small battleship. However, they were not capable of taking their place in the line of battle, because their large wheels blocked much of the broadside, and the machinery, wheels, shafts, cranks and even, most dangerously, boilers, were exposed to gunfire damage. Consequently paddle warships tended to carry an upper-deck battery of extra heavy guns, for long-range fire. They were also poor performers under sail, which limited their strategic utility. Their real value was in amphibious and power projection operations, where their mobility and large paddle-box boats made them ideal for amphibious assault and inshore bombardment.8 Because there were no regular fleet actions between 1805 and 1866 the paddle-wheel steamer achieved a misleadingly high profile as a naval weapons system. The problems of the paddle-wheel warship, however, were well known by the mid-1830s, and intelligent officers were already looking for solutions.9 Ultimately the screw propeller would answer all of their requirements, enabling the standard wooden sailing warship to be fitted for steam power without the loss of its broadside battery, or efficient sailing rig. The screw transformed steam from an auxiliary power installed in auxiliary warships to an auxiliary power installed in front-line warships. Before examining how the new system was introduced it is essential to consider the administrative structure that had to manage the change. THE ADMIRALTY AND THE STEAM WARSHIP There has been much criticism of the role of the Admiralty in the introduction of the steam warship, and of the screw propeller. However, the real problem was one of administrative structure, rather than decision- making. In 1832 British naval administration had been subjected to a comprehensive overhaul, the first root-and-branch reorganization in four hundred years. The age-old distinction between the Board of Admiralty, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
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    Andrew D. Lambert5 the body charged with executing the duties of the Lord High Admiral, essentially the military direction of the Navy, and the Navy and Victualling Boards, which administered the civil aspect, maintaining the fleet, running the dockyards, and feeding the men, was ended. Day-to-day superintendence of all aspects of naval administration was turned over to the Board of Admiralty, the other Boards being abolished. At one level this saved a small amount of money, in accordance with the political programme of the new Whig Government. More fundamentally the Whigs had long wanted to abolish the Navy Board, which they believed was dominated by conservative nominees. The 1832 reform was a triumph of ideology and political revenge over common sense.10 Hitherto the Navy Board had developed the annual construction programme, organized the work of the dockyards and advised the Admiralty on all matters relating to shipbuilding and steam engineering. Led by an experienced naval officer and a leading ship designer, the Navy Board also had its own engineer. In the two decades that followed, when the need for sound advice on technology and long-term policy was greater than ever before, the Navy Board would be sadly missed. Under the new system the Admiralty would be advised on these issues by the Surveyor of the Navy, under the supervision of the First Naval Lord. Hitherto the Surveyor had been a dockyard-trained shipbuilder and designer with a seat on the Navy Board, but the new incumbent, Captain William Symonds, was a naval officer with some intuitive design ideas. The central tenet of Symonds's work was the primacy of speed in naval warfare, both under sail and steam. He was convinced that the problem would be to catch the enemy. Although tasked with developing construction policy Symonds was more interested in promoting his own designs, and lacked the funds to maintain the fleet at an adequate level. In addition he had been appointed by the Whig ministers, and his term in office would be dominated by party politics.11 Furthermore the Surveyor's Office, like every other department of the new Admiralty, was short of staff and money. The Admiralty simply did not have the manpower to conduct fundamental research, and, as this paper will demonstrate, found it hard to exploit, or even retain the results of such research as it had already conducted.12 It was against this background, starved of funds, short- handed and lacking any coherent long-term policy, that the Royal Navy had to respond to the screw propeller. Despite these problems the naval response was successful, demonstrating the underlying professionalism of the Admiralty To add to the confusion a new Steam Department, under a Controller of Steam, was created on 19 April 1837. This was an official recognition that steam was now critical to naval operations. The first Controller, the Arctic explorer Captain Sir Edward Parry, was no expert. His claims to office had more to do with the fact that his brother-in-law, Lord Stanley of Alderley, was Patronage Secretary to the Whig Ministry than to any expertise.13 The expertise of the new department was provided by Peter Ewart, a conservative Boulton & Watt-trained engineer. As the relationship History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 24.
    6 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century between the two departments was never formally settled Symonds, by far the stronger character, effectively ignored Parry and left the Steam Department to fit engines into his ships, rather than develop steam warship designs as a coherent entity.14 This was particularly problematic as the Symonds hull form, which combined a broad beam with sharply rising floors, was peculiarly ill-suited to the installation of machinery. Symonds's deputy, the senior constructor John Edye, was a cautious man. He was responsible for the structure of warships, and was well aware that paddle- wheel propulsion, that applied the drive above the upper deck, made less fundamental demands on the structure of the ship than a submerged propeller. His concerns had been focused by recent problems with the stern frames of large sailing warships.15 Only in March 1850 was the relationship between steam engines and the warships placed on a proper basis, when the Steam Department was subsumed into the Surveyor's Office. This reform recognized that an all- steam Navy was only months away.16 For the preceding twenty years the fractures and divisions within the Admiralty, lack of manpower and money, the clash of individuals, and the failure to prepare long-term programmes had all influenced the handling of the new technology. Fortunately the private sector had been prepared to carry out the fundamental research, and compete for the rewards. THE SHIP PROPELLER COMPANY AND THE PROMOTION OF THE SCREW PROPELLER, 1836-1852 In examining how the Admiralty responded to the screw propeller it has to be stressed that finance and politics were far more important than technological innovation. One of the perennial, irritating features of so much comment on the supposed 'failure' of the Royal Navy and the mercantile community to adopt steam and the various improvements in power and propulsion at the proper time is the conceit that Ericsson, Pettit Smith and others were attempting to 'interest' their fellow men in the new technology for the good of mankind.17 In truth the engineering community wanted to sell these new ideas for significant financial reward. Ericsson's disgust at the failure to sell his designs in Britain should be viewed in purely commercial terms. It is incredible to argue that commercial success was not his prime motive. His sense of outrage reflected his failure to secure financial support from the Admiralty, and the brief confinement in the debtors' prison that followed, rather than concern for his fellow men. The prison term was particularly revealing. It demonstrated that Ericsson simply did not have access to the capital required to develop the screw. His system, whatever its merits, needed Admiralty support, and was in consequence doomed to fail. Similarly Smith, and the backers of the Ship Propeller Company (SPC), were not interested in science and experiment, but in the royalties and financial success they anticipated from the patent of 1836. While the Admiralty demonstrated remarkable skill, or an incredible degree of luck, both in avoiding such entanglements and in History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 25.
    Andrew D. Lambert1 securing proven technology for the country at a reasonable price, the mercantile community made relatively little use of the patented system. In fact, the screw was of only limited value to the mercantile community before the development of compound engines and iron hulls. Only the world's navies could afford the cost of large wooden screw-propelled ships: both the capital outlay and the alarming frequency of major repairs made them uneconomic.18 It should be recalled that any number of speculators and cranks were also trying to lighten both private owners and the Government of funds, making caution essential. One of the main reasons for creating the post of Controller of Steam had been to filter out the 'cranks' before they troubled the Board.19 The Admiralty, like the Navy Board before it, preferred to work with a small number of large and reliable contractors. For the screw propeller this role would be filled by the SPC. The SPC will serve as an example of the relationship between industry, commerce and Government in the transitional era. While it proved vital to the success of the screw in the period 1840-45, it failed utterly in its main object, to make money, and consequently split apart and collapsed. The marine screw propeller was not 'invented' by Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericsson. Marine screw propellers had been demonstrated thirty years before these two men took out their patents. Furthermore when Smith refined his original general patent of 31 May 1836 on 30 April 1839 he restricted his claim to the position of screw in the deadwood.20 Similarly Ericsson's patent of 13 January 1837 was for 'an improved propeller applicable to steam navigation'. There had been at least five worthwhile 'inventions' of the screw propeller, for use with steam engines, before 1836.21 Instead Smith and Ericsson's deserved primacy in the field reflects their ability to secure the funds required to develop and exploit the new technology, and not to any leap in design or technology. In Ericsson's case the funds were provided by a private individual, who anticipated sales to the American Government and profitable employment on his Canal system. Smith's ideas were taken up on an altogether larger scale. The SPC was incorporated by an Act of Parliament on 29 July 1839. However, before examining the work of the company it is necessary to reconsider the origins of the patent that it was formed to exploit. Francis Pettit Smith, although normally referred to as a 'sheep farmer', was an educated man. His father had been tutor to Lord Sligo, and ended his days as Postmaster at Hythe, close to Sligo's country seat. He had not neglected his son's education. Smith wrote lucid explanations for his ideas and developed rational, if not necessarily accurate, arguments to support his work. After a decade of close contact the Admiralty engineer Thomas Lloyd declared that Smith was 'a man of very excellent and sound judgement'.22 It was no coincidence that he referred to the 'Archimedean' screw in his patent; this at once revealed his classical education, and placed his idea in a context with which all educated men of the age would be familiar. Through his leading apologist, John Bourne, Smith initially claimed to have hit upon the concept of the screw placed in the deadwood History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 26.
    8 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century in 1835. Following a particularly vicious pamphlet attack in the late 1850s, which implied a degree of industrial espionage, or conspiracy, Bourne found it necessary to extend Smith's propeller experiments back to 1834, and to add a lifetime of interest in marine propulsion in the second edition of his A Treatise on the Screw Propeller.23 Despite the close relationship between Pettit Smith and Bourne the second edition of Bourne's book is not a defence against these claims, and does nothing to dispel the possibility of conspiracy.24 The pamphlets suggest or imply that Smith was merely a front for improper conduct by named and unnamed individuals. It requires more specific rebuttal than Smith was ever willing or able to provide. However, the continued employment of Smith by the Admiralty, ever anxious to save money, after the collapse of the SPC, his work with John Penn on stern gland bearings and the massive success of his testimonial in 1856 should dispel the 'front' element of the conspiracy theory. Whatever the source of his design, Smith alone secured the vital element that his less fortunate predecessors lacked, financial support. From the spring of 1836, before the patent had been issued, the banker John Wright was acting as Smith's backer. This support was secured within a year of the first experiments. It allowed Smith to engage an engineer to assist with mechanical development, and to secure a patent, which was then an expensive business. At this time the English patent system was just entering a new phase, one in which intellectual property rights were becoming defensible in court. Before 1830 protection had been limited, and was rarely accorded to intangibles. Thereafter the argument of public utility had seen the courts adopt a more favourable view, upholding nearly twice as many patents as hitherto. The development of specialist patent agents ensured that the specifications were more accurate, and helped to link the innovators with the capitalists. Only if a patent was defensible at law, and the patentee could afford to defend it, was there any value in the invention.25 The introduction of the screw propeller into the Royal and United States's navies would be dominated by the legal implications of patents.26 On the day Smith's patent was proved the six-ton boat F.P. Smith was tried on the Limehouse Canal. In February 1837 its full-turn screw broke, creating a marked improvement in performance and demonstrating an empirical approach to development. This is significant. Further trials at Dover in September 1837, in the presence of Wright, led to an approach to the Admiralty in March 1838. Smith and his backers, Wright and the Rennie brothers, then leading lights in the London engineering commu- nity and the earliest advocates of the screw, secured a favourable response from SirJohn Barrow, the influential Second (Permanent) Secretary to the Admiralty. In marked contrast to the dismissive treatment accorded to Ericsson, the Smith Consortium was advised that a 200-ton vessel would be required to demonstrate their system. In effect the Admiralty was asking if the projectors had the necessary capital to develop the system to the point at which it would be immediately useful. They had never been interested in clever devices, only finished products, ready for service. The History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 27.
    Andrew D. Lambert9 Admiralty's response persuaded the projectors that a quick response would prove financially beneficial, and in consequence they concentrated on the Royal Navy as the preferred customer. The support of the Rennies, in particular that of Sir John Rennie, was critical. He had followed his father as the Admiralty's preferred consultant on all civil and mechanical engineering matters.27 The 200-ton Archimedes was laid down in March 1838 by Henry Wimshurst and engined by George Rennie; both were consortium members, and both would have a major input into the prospectus of the SPC. The ship was launched a year later and completed just as the SPC was incorporated as a joint stock company, whose objects were to purchase Smith's patents, transfer the financial interest to the company and sell licences to use the patented location for the propeller, not the propeller itself. The business was begun on the largest possible scale, with a capital of £100,000 in 10,000 £10 shares. The SPC was only the fifth such company formed to exploit a patent, and only 21 were formed between 1837 and 1852.28 All existing sources suggest that Wright and the Rennies were the major backers, the Rennies to the tune of £1,000 each, with a number of lesser speculators. Howe Peter Browne (1788-1845), second Lord Sligo, often named in this role, was a very useful front, being a leading Whig politician, a prominent yachtsman and a grandson of Earl Howe. He had also served as Governor of Jamaica between 1833 and 1836, where he came to appreciate the services of Commander George Evans. The first commissioned officer to command a steamship, Evans had commanded HMS Rhadamanthus, the first Royal Navy steamship to operate in the New World between 1832 and 1835, which played a significant role in suppressing a slave revolt in Jamaica. In May 1836 Smith approached Sligo, whom he would have known very well, and Sligo brought Evans along to advise him. Evans, employed to investigate the Post Office Packet Service, suggested that it would be a good investment to build a larger version of the F.P. Smith.29 However, Sligo's will would suggest that he lacked the disposable capital to take a major financial stake in the company. Despite this, his friendship with Lord Holland, and close ties to other ministers made him particularly useful.30 The company began with the widest parameters, including building, fitting or running screw ships, erecting workshops and selling licences. The prospectus emphasized the auxiliary role of the screw propeller, placing the machinery abaft the mainmast in merchant steamers, using Rennie's high-pressure machinery to save weight and space, with the ultimate possibility of employing Earl Dundonald's rotary engine, to save three- quarters of the cost. However, the commercial sector was not the primary target. Only the Royal Navy could be expected to provide a major source of funds in the short term, the 14 years in which the patent would remain in force. The early trials of the Archimedes were attended by a large number of naval officers, both on active duty and on half pay. Earl Dundonald visited the ship while she lay at Portsmouth, while Admiral Sir Robert Otway, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 28.
    10 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century Commander-in-Chief at Sheerness, contended that she was the 'best steam vessel ever' being without paddle boxes and carrying her engines below the water line, something which 'must lead to the introduction of the screw into Her Majesty's service'. He was also aware of the superior sailing properties of the screw steamer. Such testimony was particularly valuable when it could be reproduced, as Otway's was, in a sales brochure.31 Otway's comments, and those of other officers, closely reflected the sales pitch being employed by the company. Of particular interest was the idea that a small steam engine, placed in the orlop, could provide a battleship with sufficient tactical mobility to manoeuvre in battle for a favourable firing position. The London engineers Seaward brothers had hit upon the same concept, but their effort was still linked to the paddle wheel, and as such was of limited interest, despite sea trials in two Indiamen in the late 1830s.32 The first report to members of the Board of Admiralty, by Captain George Evans, was little more than a repetition of the company's claims. Evans was not a new convert to the system, having inspected the six-ton F.P. Smith in London in May 1836. At this stage it should be emphasized that the politics of innovation had a major influence on the propeller. Sligo, Evans and the Admiralty Board were all members of the Whig/ Liberal Party. The most prominent public advocate of the system, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth 1839-42, was on the advanced or radical wing of the party. Codrington's support was particularly useful, since he was the acknowledged master of naval tactics, the sphere in which the screw had most to offer.33 This degree of success in their chosen market encouraged the SPC to pursue their preferred customer. Over the next six years the company provided the Admiralty, or senior members of the Board, with details of all new ships fitted with the Smith screw, with log entries and claims of speed and engineering improvements.34 Not one of these approaches had the desired effect. The Admiralty Board took a long-term view, and was well aware of the objects of the SPC. They waited for the company to complete the development of the screw, and built just one experimental screw warship, HMS Rattler, ordered in 1840. Although only a secondary target the mercantile community proved more receptive. By the end of her round-Britain promotional tour the Archimedes had garnered plaudits from every port visited. However, these did little to reward the backers of the project, and nothing to improve the cohesion of the company. Furthermore, many of the early screw steamers were designed with little or no understanding of the system, and built in haste. Although the screw propeller worked, the related technologies required for machinery, stern bearings and water-tight glands were insufficiently advanced before 1850 to be employed by cost-conscious shipowners. Before this date only visionary men with access to other men's pockets would have taken the risk of adopting the new system. The promoters of the SPC petitioned to bring a Bill into the House of Commons to form a limited company on 20 February 1839, eleven months History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 29.
    Andrew D. Lambert11 after the Archimedes had been laid down. Despite the opposition of the Manchester inventor and patent agent Bennet Woodcroft, and his backer Robert Gardner, the Bill received Royal Assent on 29 July.35 Woodcroft and his backer did not have the capital to fight the SPC at this stage. As a commercial venture the SPC proved to be an unmitigated disaster. The leading members, Wright, Currie, Lord Sligo, Caldwell, Smith, Wimshurst and the Rennie brothers, were unable to co-operate. Eventually the company became moribund, leaving Smith to sell his services direct to the Admiralty, and finally to surrender his patent and the right to royalties for a one-third share in the £20,000 once-and-for-all payment offered by the Admiralty. Even as the company was formed the seeds of disaster were evident. The Archimedes (briefly the SS Propeller), its only physical asset, had been built as a mobile test bed and demonstration model. She cost £10,500, a large sum for a 200-ton steamship, largely on account of her novel machinery and drive arrangement. Her design cruelly exposed the limited nature of previous experimental work. It soon became clear that the success of the F.P. Smith had been relative, for many details of the new ship were fatally flawed. Early trials demonstrated that the final drive arrangement, which attempted to avoid using a shaft passing directly through the deadwood - by passing through two sets of bevels and emerging from above the waterline just ahead of the screw - was unnecessarily complex and wasted power and space, while the wooden spur-wheel gearing to increase the shaft speed generated enough noise to render the ship unsuitable for naval service or passenger traffic. In addition the propeller aperture, intended for a screw with a full turn, was far longer than required, weakening the ship, and wasting space in the hold. In essence the ship had been designed without conducting adequate experimental work. She was, therefore, too much of an experiment herself to do justice to the system she was supposed to promote. To make matters worse George Rennie had, with the full concurrence of the company, adopted his own experimental high-pressure boiler, break- ing the cardinal rule of sound experimentation, that only one novelty should be tried at a time. Rennie's intention was sound, to employ the smallest power plant for 'occasional use', the auxiliary role for which the SPC held out great hope. Unfortunately the boiler exploded before the first public trial, and, on the order of the Coroner's Court, was replaced by a conventional item designed by a William Miller. This did not generate enough steam to work the 80 hp engine up to the design speed. Until the screw was changed, and the boiler uprated, Archimedes would be capable of no more than 8 knots, depriving her of even bare equality with paddle steamers of similar size. The SPC admitted the lack of speed in the prospectus, and stressed that the failure lay in the power plant, and not the propeller. Fortunately the ship had been designed to sail as well as steam, with a good contemporary hull form. This combination of steam and sail was the real point of interest for the Admiralty. It is important to note that the Archimedes was demonstrated to the Admiralty before the mercantile community. In October 1839 the Master History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 30.
    12 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century of the William and Mary, a yacht employed as the flagship at Woolwich, was ordered to take a log line on board the Archimedes at London Bridge for the trial.36 The officers and engineers who were present at the first demonstration to the Navy on 16 October 1839, including Edward Parry, William Symonds, Peter Ewart, and George Evans, were impressed. They recognized the experimental nature of the vessel, and the auxiliary nature of the propeller. They could also see that the ship was fatally flawed by the limited amount of experience available before her design was fixed. The extremely long screw aperture was unnecessary, as were the convoluted bevel drive to the propeller and the cog-wheel geared drive, while the inability of the company to settle on the purpose of the experiment, as an auxiliary steamship or a full-powered competitor for the paddle wheel, limited her performance. Having proved the big point she was of no further use as a trials platform, being restricted to the role of commercial demonstrator. Almost immediately the Board instructed Captain Chap- pell, the Superintendent of the Packet Service, and the engineer Thomas Lloyd to report on the ship and the system. They stressed the auxiliary role, and the clear broadside.37 On the basis of their reports the Admiralty hired the ship for further trials.38 After her round-Britain cruise, which was a critical rather than a commercial success, and her experimental work on the Dover-Calais run, the Archimedes was offered for sale to the Admiralty.39 Although the company was only asking for £3,500 the Admiralty had no intention of buying the ship. Her work as a test bed had been effectively complete within months of going to sea, and with their own screw ship the Rattler on order, engineered by Brunei for effective trials, there would be no point purchasing the Archimedes. Her last service to the cause of the propeller, after some years laid up in a London dock, was to tow the Rattler from Sheerness to the East India Dock to receive her machinery in April 1843.40 Instead the Board purchased George Rennie's purpose-built iron-screw steamer the Mermaid in July 1843. Renamed the Dwarf this sleek little yacht was the principal experimental vessel for propeller trials once the Rattler had entered regular service.41 She had become available at a low cost following the failure ofJohn Wright's bank in 1842. Wright had been the principal backer of the SPC and of George Rennie.42 By this stage the question had long ceased to be whether the screw propeller worked, but which of the many designs was the most efficient. The sale of Rennie's yacht, along with the offer for sale of Henry Wimshurst's auxiliary screw steamer the Novelty, symbolized the collapse of the SPC. Having failed to sell a worthwhile number of licences, and exhausted much of its funds in litigation to protect its only asset, Smith's patent, the company had been pulled apart by the very different ambitions of Rennie, who hoped to sell ships and engines to the Admiralty, Wimshurt, who hoped to build ships, Smith, who wanted to make his fortune, and Wright, who wanted a good return. As a result a very large amount of money had been invested without success. By 1845 the company was little more than a business address for Smith, and had failed to maintain its primacy in the field. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 31.
    Andrew D. Lambert13 It has to be stressed that the SPC was attempting to sell the right to exploit intellectual property; it had no other source of revenue. This was a relatively novel way of doing business, which did nothing to smooth the path of the company. The Admiralty was most unwilling to enter into any such arrangement, and spent years avoiding the financial implications of Smith's patent. There was never any doubt that the Archimedes had proved the point: the propeller was the future. However, the Admiralty was not willing to place itself in the hands of the SPC. Fortunately they were able to call on an entirely different source of advice, a man who did not have a financial stake in the success of the propeller. During her round-Britain tour the Archimedes had visited Bristol in May 1840, where she had been hired by the Great Western Steamship Company for a series of trials. By October 1840 these had led their engineering adviser, Isambard Kingdom Brunei, to recommend that the new iron Atlantic steamer should be adapted for the propeller. Although Brunei, who inspected the ship after her trip to Holland and the subsequent repairs to the broken crank, considered her an inefficient compromise, he had the vision to modify his new iron transatlantic steamer into a screw vessel. Alone of all those who first saw the ship he had recognized the fundamental advantages of the screw for full-powered ships of the largest size, and was prepared to make a complete commitment to its success as the principal drive for a massive ocean-going vessel.43 During the trials Brunei kept the SPC fully informed of the work he was doing, and provided important suggestions on how to transmit power from the crankshaft to the propeller. He recognized that the Admiralty was already involved in the process, and would provide support for more ambitious trials.44 The decision of the Great Western Company was made that much easier by the SPC, which offered one or two free licences to use the patented location of the propeller in their vessel.45 The Steam Department at the Admiralty had been receiving reports on the voyages of the Great Western for several years, but Captain Parry was more interested in 'the large iron ship, including the Screw'.46 At this stage the process of adopting the screw for the Navy, and for the Great Western Company, was going ahead smoothly, Brunei having Captain Chappell and Pettit Smith to dine.47 Within a month Brunei had submitted a copy of his report to the Directors of the Great Western Steamship Company to the Admiralty, unofficially, through Chappell, with a suggestion that Lord Minto, the First Lord of the Admiralty, might like to read it.48 The following day Ewart, Chappell and the engine-builder Seaward were directed to attend a Committee on the Screw at the Office of the Controller of Steam.49 The relationship between the Great Western Steamship Company and the Admiralty was complicated by the negotiations for the Atlantic mail contract. The Company had responded to an Admiralty advertisement by tendering for the service in December 1839, only to be curtly rejected the following month.50 As the final contract, awarded to Samuel Cunard, was almost identical to the Great Western offer, the rejection left a bitter legacy of mistrust between the Great Western and the Admiralty, which influenced Brunei's subsequent work. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 32.
    14 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century Even before he had solicited Brunei's report, which he would have been advised of by the SPC, Parry, head of the Steam Department, had recommended that a new vessel be built. Chappell, who was closely involved with the SPC, had advised using a replica of an existing 200 nominal hp paddle-wheel steam packet. Although a conversion was proposed Parry and the SPC were anxious to build a new vessel.51 Symonds agreed, although he was concerned that the new system would not be as fast as the old, and had always emphasized the value of speed. His report was adopted by Lord Minto.52 Parry advised that an experimental ship, based on the 200 nhp packet Polyphemus, should be built with her stern configured for testing various screws.53 More immediately the Board sanctioned the construction of a 42-ton instructional steamer, the Bee, for the Gunnery Training Ship Excellent. This little ship was fitted for a screw and paddle wheels, and was the first Royal Navy vessel to be completed with a screw. Captain Chappell and Pettit Smith were involved in the design.54 To advance the larger project a model of the stern of Polyphemus was sent to the SPC for their advice on how it should be modified. Their reply alarmed Symonds; he very properly considered that an aperture 8 feet long and 9 feet 3 inches deep would 'weaken the ship ... particularly if she strikes the ground'.55 This early clash of priorities between the Surveyor and the Steam Department was, in all probability, instrumental in bringing Brunei into the equation. In mid-March he was called to the Admiralty by Parry and invited to direct the project to build the 200 nhp vessel, working with Symonds and Ewart, but being in sole charge of the mechanical arrangements and the experimental testing of the ship. After the previous experience of the Great Western Company this was 'gratifying'.56 Having settled the matter at the Admiralty, in a meeting attended by Minto on 27 April, Brunei's first concern was to produce accurate and reliable trials data from the Polyphemus, to form the basis of his calculations. Symonds made the ship available very quickly, and attended the trials. Brunei was very appreciative of the trouble he had taken and, once he had finished the experiments, wrote to the Surveyor in the most flattering terms about the excellent form of the ship, which had created less resistance in proportion to the midship area than any ship for which Brunei had seen data.57 He then secured drawings and estimates for three different sets of 200 nhp engines from different builders, and reported to Parry. He also advised Caldwell, the Secretary of the SPC, to see if he could exert any influence on Minto to hasten the project. The report to Parry advised an aperture 10 feet 6 inches long and 11 feet 6 inches deep. As a structural engineer and designer of the Great Western Brunei recognized that such a vast opening would be fatal to the adoption of the system, but stressed that 'the construction of the vessel should, in the first instance, be made entirely subservient to the single object of making a full and complete experiment upon this system of propelling'. Once this was complete the screw aperture could be modified to suit the needs of the ship. He stressed that one of the major advantages of the new system would, 'undoubtedly be the facility it affords of carrying sail, either with or History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 33.
    Andrew D. Lambert15 without the steam'.58 Deputy Surveyor John Edye, writing in Symonds's absence, rehearsed all the Surveyor's arguments with a vehemence that revealed their source. He was the shipbuilder in the Surveyor's Office. Symonds was an intuitive designer, Edye the experienced constructor. He objected to the elongated stern and sharp lines as lacking in buoyancy, and preventing the installation of a pivot gun at the stern.59 The stern remained a very sensitive area for Edye and Symonds after the partial collapse of the Warspite's stern in 1839.60 There was a minor crisis of confidence at this point, when Brunei believed that the engineering staff were reporting on his work. Parry hastened to assure him that this was not the case, and that Ewart was particularly anxious that Brunei should direct the whole project.61 Whether this was out of admiration for his genius, or an unwillingness to enter into any more quarrels with Symonds remains an open question. In order to place the process on a regular footing the main participants - First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Charles Adam, Symonds, Parry, Chappell, Ewart, Brunei and Pettit Smith - assembled in Minto's room at the Admiralty in late September. Parry recommended that Brunei should be admitted to the 'conference' on the propeller, in view of the work he had already carried out for the Admiralty and the Great Western Company, and the fact that he had no financial stake in the project.62 Although he agreed, Symonds objected that Brunei's proposed aperture was even greater than the one Smith had suggested. He considered this a serious objection to the propeller.63 Smith was, understandably, far from pleased by this turn of events.64 A year later he was still arguing that Brunei had no right to interfere. The Admiralty informed Smith that he could not be given the overall direction of a project, and that he must work with Brunei, who would be responsible for installing the machinery and propeller. He was to confine himself to the design, location and aperture of the screw.65 In late September 1841 the whole process was thrown into confusion by the fall of Lord Melbourne's Whig Ministry, which was replaced by the Conservative regime of Sir Robert Peel. As Brunei's relationship with the Board had been essentially a gentleman's agreement, based on mutual trust and a degree of political friendship, the change came at a particularly unfortunate time. Just as the whole process was beginning to take shape, and the personal relationships that were essential to the smooth functioning of nineteenth-century administration had been established, he would have to create a whole new series of links with men of whom he had no experience. While Parry and Symonds would survive, their influence would be greatly reduced by reason of their well-known Whig sympathies: both were political appointees, intimately linked to the outgoing ministers. The resulting period of confusion would have been an ideal opportunity for Symonds, who had been an outright opponent of the project, to have stifled or redirected the effort. Both Brunei junior and Rolt have suggested that he was the villain of the piece, creating a wholly erroneous model of how the propeller would be applied, which reduced the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Cockburn, to apoplexy.66 In fact the problems History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 34.
    16 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century arose in a different quarter, and their solution required Brunei to take Symonds's advice, not engage the Surveyor in open warfare. Throughout the second half of 1841 the Great Western's experimental work with the Archimedes was continued by Thomas Guppy, and Brunei fed the results into his work on the new ship.67 He hoped these would 'enable me to obviate some of the objections which I understand have been felt regards the construction of the vessel'.68 When he was called to a new conference at the Admiralty late in 1841 he was 'most anxious' to have the latest Bristol results.69 These turned out to be necessary, because on 5 January 1842 Cockburn called Brunei, Parry, Symonds and Ewart to a conference, where he decided that an existing vessel should be converted, and ordered Symonds to report on the suitability of the Acheron.1 ® Symonds decided that an aperture five feet long should suffice, and although he recognized that the conversion would make all the comparative results unreliable, he did not think it was necessary to do more than inform Brunei of the change.71 Brunei had been too surprised by this sudden shift of direction to make an effective response, but he was convinced that it would be a wrong step. He reminded Sir George, in a letter of 17 January 1842, that private individuals (the SPC) had already demonstrated that the screw would do the same work as the paddle wheel, which remained the system of choice for the Navy. What remained to be settled was whether all the advantages claimed by the promoters of the invention anticipate, of the vessel being capable of being constructed with perfect sailing qualities - and of a press of sail being advantageously carried, either with or without the working of the engines and without stopping to connect or disconnect, and of the efficient working of the screw in the heaviest sea, and whether when working against a very strong head wind which reduces the speed of the vessel to two or three knots - the screw does or does not enable you to keep the vessel's head to the wind and to prevent her falling off, which I think will be found to be the case.72 In order to determine these questions, and to reach reliable conclusions about the relative efficiency of the screw and paddle wheels it was essential to build a vessel with a form suitable for the screw, and for good sailing. If a compromise were adopted now it would all have to be done again. Brunei's concerns increased when he discovered that Symonds had reported that the Acheron was suitable for conversion. He obtained a copy of her draft, and compared it with that of the Archimedes, before writing to ask Symonds how he could best represent to the Admiralty that the conversion of the Acheron would be a waste of time and money.73 He then sent a letter to the Board, repeating much of what he had written to Cockburn, and adding a list of the Acheron's faults. She was too full in the after body for an efficient use of the screw, and had built-in sponsons that would interfere with her sailing. He was adamant that only a new vessel would answer the needs of the Board.74 The letter had an immediate impact: the Board directed that Symonds and Parry should be consulted.75 History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 35.
    Andrew D. Lambert17 Three weeks later Brunei exploited the fact that he would be away for several weeks to encourage Parry to have the matter settled. Ts there any possibility of inducing their Lordships to do the thing properly and quickly?'76 In fact things were going his way, for Symonds reported that the steamers then building were all too large for the 200 nhp engines that had already been ordered, and that it would be best to return to the plan of December 1840 to build a replica of the Polyphemus, at Sheerness in place of the projected paddle-wheel steamer Rattler. This ship had been suspended before any construction work had been started, but the seasoned timber required had been collected. This was approved by the Board on 24 February, and a sheer draft was submitted on 6 April.77 To hasten the construction Symonds was instructed to communicate with Smith, and send the remaining drawings and scantlings to Sheerness as soon as they could be prepared.78 This reflected urgency, not delay, and was largely driven by Symonds. It should be stressed that the Rattler was a wholly new design, built with seasoned timber already collected for the larger 280 nhp paddle-wheel vessel of the Styx class. The decision to build at Sheerness reflected the importance of seasoned timber to the post-1815 Royal Navy - it was the only dockyard with the materials to hand in a state for immediate use.79 Brunei's biographers contended that Sheerness was chosen to hide the ship, but this is incredible.80 Brunei was not immediately informed because he was by then in Italy on railway business. On his return he discovered that the work was already in hand, with Smith advising the Shipwright officers on the screw aperture, the screw, and the gearing. The latter point was one of the key areas where Brunei's superior general engineering background proved to be vital. Smith provided for a cog-wheel drive, similar to the noisy, bulky system used aboard the Archimedes?1 (Brunei had long argued that ropes operating on flat drums would be the most efficient drive, and his system was ultimately adopted.) Brunei realized he was being ignored, and complained to the Board. The fault here lay with the Board: it had simply forgotten to mention him in the order of 6 April 1842 to proceed with the Rattler, leaving Symonds to surmise that he was no longer involved. After a meeting with Cockburn on 22 July Brunei was able to report to Claxton that the matter was put straight, and would get straighter. Cockburn was 'evidently surprised to find that nobody had communicated with me and was rather angry when he was told by a clerk that the hole was making for Smith's long thread instead of the short one as he had supposed'.82 This is the origin of the apoplectic Admiral of Claxton's account. The villain of the piece, as far as there is one, is simple bureaucratic weakness. The Board ratified Cockburn's declaration that Brunei was to be involved early the following month. He was now back where he had been during Minto's regime. He was to liaise with Maudslay's and the Captain Superintendent at Sheerness to ensure the successful installation of the machinery.83 However, when Brunei invited Smith to come and discuss the vessel it History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 36.
    18 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century became clear that their relationship had still to be settled by the Board (this was only done by a minute of 3 March 1843). Smith was under the distinct impression that he was responsible for the aperture, the engines and other aspects which were in Brunei's domain. Brunei offered to give up his role, as he could not act to the benefit of the Board, or his own credit, in such confusion.84 The lines of authority being defined, Brunei agreed that Smith should advise on the form of the propeller, and left it to him to decide if the screw should be fitted for unshipping without going into dock.85 Far from wishing to delay the ship Symonds was annoyed to find, on a visit to Sheerness, that work was suspended 'on account of the indecision of the Engineers who are to provide a screw propeller for her'.86 Brunei, stung by the complaint, hastened to excuse himself on grounds of ill health, claiming that 'no avoidable delay has occurred on my part', and stressed that Maudslay's should prepare all the structural ironwork connected with the screw, to ensure an accurate fit. Cockburn endorsed the letter for Symonds's 'information and guidance'.87 From this point the correspondence reveals a fundamental conflict of ambition between Brunei, who was anxious to finish the Rattler and try her afloat to make comparisons with Polyphemus, and the Admiralty, especially the Surveyor's Department, which was anxious to build the ship properly, which meant taking time to season the structure at various stages. Brunei's anxiety was not unconnected with the imminent completion of his own project, the Great Britain, for which Rattler would provide important experimental data for the design of propellers.88 When the trials of the Rattler began, in October 1843, they quickly revealed that the propeller would need to be far shorter, and of rather greater diameter. Subsequent fine tuning, under Brunei's direction, led to the very successful form devised for the Great Britain in 1844. In that year the Admiralty made it clear that they would not confine their interest to Smith's patent, but would entertain any propeller designs. In consequence there was no interest in the offer of exclusive rights to the use of the patent. This was hardly surprising when the Smith patent did not protect the propeller, only the location. However, the SPC found this a bitter pill, particularly when the most prominent designers were Woodcroft and Steinman, both of whom the company was threatening to prosecute. That the company was reduced to making the offer suggests that the commercial sector had been little more forthcoming than the Admiralty. The SPG was in financial trouble.89 The Board considered further trials would be necessary before reaching a decision. At this stage the trials were still running in the company's favour, with the Smith and Rennie forms proving superior to that of Steinman.90 However, Brunei was still submitting valuable advice for the cost of his expenses. This only served to point out how much better qualified Brunei was than Smith.91 The first trial of The Great Britain gave the SPC a welcome opportunity to recoup some credit from Brunei.92 However, the report of The Times indicated that the political world was still opposed to the SPC, and to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 37.
    Andrew D. Lambert19 Smith, making an inaccurate assault on Smith's propeller. This is significant for two reasons: clearly the leading London newspaper was ignorant of the Smith patent, and more significantly, was a sounding board for the opinions of the Government. On 23 April 1845 The Great Britain, then at Blackwall, was visited by the Queen, Prince Albert and the Board of Admiralty aboard the Dwarf. Smith presented the Queen with a gold model of the propeller of the new Royal Yacht Fairy, then fitting out at Ditchburn & Mare's Yard. This, however, availed the SPC very little.93 Two months after this show of Royal and political support the SPC met a significant rebuff. Their request for a royalty on the use of screws in the Arctic Discovery vessels Erebus and Terror was ignored. The screw used was of the Ericsson type, and the installation, designed by Master Shipwright Oliver Lang at Woolwich, appears to have been a deliberate attempt to evade the patent. If so it was a qualified success, but the loss of both vessels and their crews, along with the change of Ministry, ensured that nothing further was attempted along those lines.94 A letter of 11 June 1845 is the last reference to the SPC in the Admiralty files. It appears that the company simply disappeared. Unable to make any money from the patent, the collapse of Wright's bank in 1842 had been a major blow. The royalties paid on all screw steamers built down to 1845, many of which, like The Great Britain, had been granted a free licence, would hardly have kept the Archimedes in coal, which would explain why she had dropped out of class and, apparently, out of repair. The office at Fish Street Hill had been closed in 1844, leaving Smith to resuscitate the company at Beaufort Buildings on the Strand in 1847-48. Litigation both failed to establish the dominance of the company vis-a-vis other propeller projectors and made inroads into the share capital. Other projectors, notably Woodcroft, were also selling licences.95 In consequence the SPC was essentially moribund after mid-1845, although it, or perhaps Smith acting alone under the company name, contested the extension of Woodcroft's patent in 1846, without success. The SPC had failed to secure real financial reward from the Admiralty, and did little better with shipowners. Only Brunei built a merchant ship that the SPC could look upon as an unqualified success, yet there was a marked reluctance to make too much of Brunei's work, for fear he might take further interest in the subject, at the company's expense. Furthermore the Great Western Company had been granted a free licence. Before 1848 the commercial use of the screw propeller was dominated by Liverpool and Dublin. Even here the Great Northern and the efforts of John Laird to sell iron-screw steamers to the Admiralty were of only limited value. Liverpool steam tonnage had only reached 11,000 by 1851; the real growth came far too late to help the SPC. Only in the more favourable economic conditions of the mid-1850s did Liverpool move into iron-screw steamships.96 However, the General Screw Steam Shipping Company's (GSSC) successful auxiliary voyages quickly reduced the insurance premium on screw ships from 4 to 1.25 per cent. Until the mercantile community had brought this work to a successful conclusion the Admiralty was reluctant to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 38.
    20 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century act. The GSSC made the auxiliary work for short sea service, and their experience influenced the design of the early screw sloops. For oceanic voyages, other than those on the subsidized mail services, steamships were simply uneconomic, be they paddle wheel or screw propeller. While the Royal Navy did not have to worry about economy in the same way, it was forced to rely on known coal supplies for service outside home waters. Few steamships were deployed further afield than the Mediterranean. The slow take up of the auxiliary concept in the mercantile community, allied to the caution of the Admiralty, ensured that the SPC would always have problems securing the rewards that had been anticipated back in 1837-38. In this respect their failure to complete anything more than the most basic trials before launching the company, as indicated by the problems of the Archimedes, proved critical. The product did not reach commercial maturity in the lifetime of the SPC. However, if the SPC failed they were not alone. The propeller attracted much interest, and it was largely to forestall other patentees that the SPC moved, and once they began to promote the screw the process could not be stopped. Most accounts cite the loss to the projectors as approximately £50,000, half the share capital. Much of this went into building and running the Archimedes, while further sums were used to improve Smith's standard of living, notably in moving from his Hendon sheep farm to a large house in central London. SMITH AFTER THE FAILURE OF THE COMPANY After the effective collapse of the SPC Smith, who had no funds of his own, required some means of support. In mid-1846 he offered to superintend the installation of the screw for the Royal Navy. The Controller of Steam offered two guineas a day, with expenses. In addition the Surveyor of the Navy recommended that Smith be employed as the 'supervisor of screws'.97 That this change in fortune for Smith was concurrent with the return of a Whig Ministry may have been entirely coincidental, but that would appear unlikely. The major problem for naval architects was the form of the stern run. Brunei had made it clear in February 1842 that a fine stern run was vital for the efficient use of the propeller.98 However, this advice had either been forgotten or ignored in the Board's enthusiasm for auxiliary, low-powered ships, and had to be relearnt after much wasted effort with the first group of large-screw steamships. Apparently unaware of Brunei's advice and the fraught events of 1842 Thomas Lloyd declared that the fine stern run of the Rattler had been accidental, occasioned by the long-screw aperture. Lloyd had objected to the use of a square stern from a sense that it was wrong, and pressed for the critical trials with the Dwarf, which proved his case. At the time everyone, he believed, had adopted the square form, and he believed Smith was largely responsible for the popularity of this view.99 However, he considered Smith 'a man of very excellent and sound judgement'.100 Symonds had been quick to use Lloyd's Report, of History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 39.
    Andrew D. Lambert21 3 November 1846, to reinforce his own view that the bluff stern was wrong, and press for the suspension of the ship's building or converting.101 Once again the shift in the balance of political power in naval design circles had a major impact on the resolution of this problem. The 'Tory' designers, those favoured by, and supporters of, the Tory Ministry, had adopted very bluff stern lines for their screw ships. That their ambitions were limited to local defence and auxiliary service at sea needs to be recalled. In 1845 a major programme of new and converted screw steamers was ordered to meet the challenge of France, not from any conviction that the system was the way of the future, merely to meet a pressing current need. Returning to office in 1846 the Whigs inherited a large, if ill-structured, screw-warship programme. The First Lord, Lord Auckland, 1846-48, needed little convincing. In 1848 he declared: I am satisfied that the whole theory of ship building will be directed from the old notions of sailing ships to the manner in which the screw auxiliary may be best combined with good sailing qualities.102 This required the Admiralty to abandon Symonds's controversial wide- beamed and sharp-floored form. Symonds had been manoeuvred out of office in mid-1847, not because he opposed the screw, which he did not, but because he was 'a very difficult man to deal with' on all matters relating to his department. The occasion for his retirement had been the Board's sanctioning of modifications to the form of two new 91-gun sailing ships.103 The additional length of the screw ships, and their fine stern runs, sacrificed manoeuvrability and speed to windward for effective use of the screw, but as a bonus the new hulls also provided improved performance off the wind, leaving the engine to solve the age-old problem of windward sailing. This solution, of classic simplicity, made the screw steam auxiliary a far more effective warship than any that had gone before. In June 1848 the Board directed that when designing ships and converting timber for their construction consideration should be given to the possibility that ships would be converted into screw steamers.104 The Select Committee on Naval Estimates that sat throughout the first six months of 1848 produced a wealth of evidence on the state of the steam Navy. Only one member of the Committee, the Peelite Sir James Graham, author of the 1832 reforms, and responsible for the appointment of Symonds, was unconvinced. The majority of naval officers, engineers and politicians considered the screw would be adopted for all ships in the future, although they disagreed about how soon that would be. The screw had yet to displace the paddle wheel as the drive of choice for full-powered steamers. John Edye, the Deputy Surveyor, was the lone voice of restraint. He still argued for slow and steady progress, one ship at a time, and objected to the ordering of four blockship conversions. He was soon proved correct: the first ships being converted with square sterns proved slow and inefficient. He believed the screw was more vulnerable than the paddle wheel: one hit on the stern frame would disable the whole apparatus, while paddle wheels could take a lot of damage.105 However, he was not reflecting on History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 40.
    22 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century the strategic and diplomatic pressures that led to the steam-warship programmes of 1844-45, just the technology. After successful trials off Lisbon, involving the pioneer screw frigate Arrogant, the Board had accepted that auxiliary screw propulsion would be extended to all classes of warship.106 The pioneer steam battleship Agamemnon had been ordered the previous year. Already under pressure to reduce costs the Board baulked at the cost of Smith's services, as the experimental phase had come to an end, but the Controller of Steam, Captain Alexander Ellice, was quick to defend the use of his expertise. The 'inconsiderable expense' contrasted sharply with the 'injury to the service' that might result from an early termination of his contract.107 Ellice left office in February 1850, his post being amalgamated with that of Captain Sir Baldwin Walker, Surveyor of the Navy since 1848. Smith's patent had just been granted a five-year extension and this, with the opportune retirement of Ellice, prompted a sharpening of the Board's methods.108 Smith was informed that the Board would not continue his position, but would only call upon him as occasion required. The 'salary' was discontinued and a gratuity of £400 provided in final settlement.109 This softened up Smith quite effectively, to judge from the haste with which John Wright, Smith's major backer in the formation of the SPC, wrote to claim the merit of having started the Archimedes and assisted Mr Smith by his money, and patronage, and complains of having been defrauded of his shares in the Archimedes by a wilful depreciation of their value.110 The Board had exploited the opportunity created by the legion of screw projectors and the failure of the SPC to establish a dominant position in the field. From 1843 the Admiralty had studied the legal value of the various propeller patents, looking for an economical solution (in view of their limited requirements this was almost certainly the cheapest patent), holding off claims for payment for as long as practicable and ignoring the offer of'exclusive rights'. In 1844 they requested all patentees to send in details of their charges for the use of their patents.111 By 1847 it was clear that the rights of Smith and the moribund SPC could be bought up for a reasonable sum; but still the Board waited.112 The reason for the delay would appear to have been the timing of the patent. If the patent were to lapse, or could not be upheld against the numerous counterclaims and objectors, there would be no need to make any payment. In the event the patent was extended for five years on 11 February 1850. This reflected the failure of the SPC to secure any significant economic advantage from their invention.113 Negotiations for the purchase of all rights were opened immediately, by withdrawing Smith's 'salary'.114 The Board concluded their manoeuvre by purchasing the patent rights of all patentees in 1851. They forced all interested parties to act together by the simple expedient of making a once-and-for-all offer of £20,000. The patentees were represented by Henry Currie, MP for Guildford 1847-52, a partner in Wright's bank and one of the original History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 41.
    Andrew D. Lambert23 promoters of the SPC. Smith, Woodcroft and Lowe received one-third of the money each.115 Smith exhibited a series of models illustrating the development of the system at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and received a medal for his efforts. This would appear to be the origin of the important collection now held by the Science Museum in London. Having carefully watched the development of the screw, providing a degree of assistance in 1845, which was in itself more a product of international tension than technical commitment or financial relaxation, the Admiralty finally moved to secure the patent rights in 1850. By this stage the twelve-year period of experiment was at an and. The private sector had funded the proving stage of screw propeller development, albeit unwillingly, having been outmanoeuvred all along the line by Admiralty Boards well aware of the financial savings. There was a widespread belief within the naval and engineering community that Smith had not received a proper reward for his efforts. When he was planning the Great Eastern Brunei wrote to consult 'my friend Mr F.P. Smith, to whom the public are indebted for the success of the screw'.116 In 1854 the 'Smith Testimonial Fund' was set up, with a committee that included almost every shipbuilder, marine engineer, naval architect and naval officer connected with the introduction, development and adoption of the propeller. After soliciting testimonials from Lord Minto and Lord Haddington they opened a subscription. The first impact of this widespread agitation came when Smith was awarded a Civil List pension of £200 on 21 January 1855. This was one of the first acts of the Palmerston Government, coming into office in the middle of a major war. In addition he received £3,000 from the Testimonial.117 Reflecting on his own experience of trying to work with the Admiralty during the Russian War Brunei reflected that 'they' had a penchant for bullying and defrauding inventors. The fact that he had just put £50 into the Testimonial for his friend Smith may well have been at the front of his mind as he wrote.118 Subsequently Smith worked with John Penn on the critical issue of stern bearings, helping to develop the lignum vitae gland that was as important to the commercial success of the screw as the position of the propeller. Yet his own business acumen seems to have been limited. His farm on Guernsey failed and in 1860 he was given a post in the Patent Office Museum, under Bennet Woodcroft, one of his rivals in the early days of the propeller. He was knighted in 1871, and died at South Kensington in the same year. CONCLUSION This study of the Admiralty's handling of the introduction of the screw propeller provides a sharp lesson in respect of the dangers facing private capital when engaged in a commercial speculation with the Government as one of the major potential customers. The problems were doubled by the fact that what was on offer was intellectual property, rather than History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 42.
    24 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century tangible product. There was a marked resistance to the idea of paying for the use of intellectual property. This has implications far wider than the history of the Screw Propeller Company. The Admiralty refused to be made use of in the manner the SPC had hoped, that is, as a conduit to channel Government funds into a commercial venture, the exploitation of Smith's patent. It is possible that the change of Ministry in 1841 had a major influence on the situation, for the SPC had many supporters among the Whig elite, but found very few in Tory ranks. The Admiralty's handling of the screw propeller demonstrated the value of caution, or rather something approaching sharp practice. By holding back, experi- menting and employing Brunei rather than Smith to install the screw in the Rattler the Admiralty paid very little for the use of the patent, and even then moved sufficiently slowly to deny the SPC any tangible reward in the time frame anticipated at Fish Street Hill. By mid-1845, when the technical success of the screw could no longer be denied, the company had fallen apart, leaving Smith to act alone. Without his backers Smith was forced to accept a modest daily rate for the benefit of his experience. When the patents were renewed, and well aware that the Navy would soon be shifting to an all-screw steam force, the Admiralty secured the undisputed right to all and any screw and placement for the sum of £20,000, only two- fifths of the sum expended over the previous fifteen years by the SPC alone. It would appear that the Admiralty, well aware of the value of Smith's patent, and of the intentions of the SPC, used their position, as the target customer, to break down the commercial value of the patent, and then to snap up the remains at a bargain price. That Smith received only one- third of the final settlement, the same share as Woodcroft and Lowe, is both revealing and startling. Smith and his backers built the Archimedes, which was the practical proof of the propeller. That they received no benefit for this supports the Victorian convention that they were indeed merely attempting to interest the Admiralty in the invention for the benefit of the nation; for this was indeed all that they actually achieved. Having failed with their target audience the SPC could draw little benefit from the few merchant vessels that used the patent. Failure in both markets reflected the lack of development of the system before taking out the patent, and the limited value of the Archimedes as a practical steamship. It is possible that the projectors acted in haste from a fear that other patentees might reap the anticipated benefits. Without the SPC the screw would not have been adopted so quickly, and similarly without Stockton as his backer Ericsson would have abandoned his screw project, turning his fertile mind to other areas just as he had abandoned the field of locomotives after the failure at Rainhill. Financial support was critical to the success of nineteenth-century innovation and invention. Backers were vital to cover the cost of basic development and early trials, and in return men like Wright and Stockton hoped to make money. Both were disappointed. The self-serving, politically naive and technologically determinist accounts left by nineteenth-century engineers, who wished to portray History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
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    Andrew D. Lambert25 themselves as high-minded servants of humanity, have been taken at face value for too long. By contrast the Admiralty was technologically dynamic, and adopted a professional approach to the management of change, which it handled with great skill between 1815 and 1914. There were a few spectacular examples of failure, notably the loss of HMS Captain in 1870, but this was caused by the politicians overriding or ignoring their professional advisers. Significantly for the mythology of the liberal engineer as hero it was Brunei who gave Cowper Coles the railway turntable as the base for his revolving turret, and free access to his drawing office for the production of his specifications and publicity. Far from being backward or unduly conservative the Royal Navy exploited the dynamic engineering sector of the Victorian economy with great skill. It could mobilize resources on an unrivalled scale for such disparate projects as the screw propeller and the 'Great Armament' of 1856. By contrast France started four technology-based arms races, and lost every one within five years. Because the Royal Navy was central to British strategy the Admiralty had to be certain that it could meet its commitments; it could not afford to take any risks with the core capability, the battlefleet. Britain won the naval races because it had long-term finance, a superior industrial base and greater political commitment. The role of the Admiralty was to ensure that the fleet remained modern and effective on a reasonable budget. It was remarkably successful. Notes and References This paper was given at the XXth International Congress of the History of Science, Technology and Industry at Liege on 25 July 1997. My thanks go to the organizers of the Conference, and especially to Professor David Zimmerman who chaired the session in which it was delivered. 1. I.K. Brunei, Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunei (London, 1870), Vol. I, 285-6. 2. L.T.C. Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunei (London, 1957), 282-5. 3. Henry Brunei, Private Journal, 12.2.1863 (Brunei Collection, Bristol University Library). Courtesy of D.K. Brown, who notes that Rolt would not have had access to this source. 4. W.C. Church, Life ofEricsson (New York, 1907), Vol. I, 87. 5. Sir W.L. Clowes, The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1901), Vol. VI, 196-8. 6. E.C. Smith, A Short History of Marine Engineering (Cambridge, 1937), 68. 7. Wright to Admiralty, 2.4.1850; ADM 12/528. Brunei to Burgoyne, 29.8.1856, in G. Wrottesley, Life and Correspondence ofField Marshal Sir John Burgoyne (London, 1873), Vol. II, 357-9. 8. Paddle-box boats were large pontoons mounted upturned over the top of the paddle wheel sponsons. They were used to land heavy, bulky loads and horses. 9. D.K. Brown, Before the Ironclad: The Development ofShip Design, Propulsion and Armam the Royal Navy, 1815-1860 (London, 1990), 99. 10. A.D. Lambert, The Last Sailing Battlefleet: Maintaining Naval Mastery 1815-1850 (London, 1991), 27-38. 11. Ibid., 27-38, 67-87. 12. Ibid., 116. 13. A. Parry, Parry of the Arctic, 1790-1855 (London, 1963), 197-209, esp. 203. 14. Thomas Lloyd, evidence to the 1848 Select Committee PP. 1848, 430. 15. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 159 re HMS Warspite. 16. Ibid., 90. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 44.
    26 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century 17. J. Hewish, The Indefatigable Mr. Woodcroft: The Legacy ofInvention (London, 1979). 18. Edye Evidence PP. 1848, 186; see A.D. Lambert, Battleships in Transition (London, 1984), 55 etseq. 19. J. Barrow, An Autobiographical Memoir ofSir John Barrow Bt (London, 1847). 20. The deadwood is the triangular area ofsolid timber where the stern and the keel meet. It is critical to the structural strength of any seagoing wooden ship. 21. W.M. Petty, 'The Introduction of the Screw Propeller' (Unpublished University of London MA thesis, 1969). The work ofStevens, Owen and Ressel failed from the inadequacy ofcontemporary engine and boiler technology. Ressel's effort, as might have been expected in the Austria of Metternich, was brought to a premature end by the secret police. Wilson's valuable work (op. cit. (24)) with hand-cranked screws, which anticipated the correct position for the propeller, was never linked to an engine, while Marc Brunei did not realize the idea was sufficiently novel to be worth patenting. 22. Ibid., 435. 23. J. Bourne, A Treatise on the Screw Propeller, 2nd edn (London, 1867), 188-9. 24. J. Nicol, Who Invented the Screw Propeller? (London, 1858); R. Wilson, The Screw Propeller: Who Invented It? (Glasgow, 1860). 25. H.I. Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity in the Industrial Revolution 1750- (Manchester 1984), esp. 69, 72, 78-80, 86, 93-4. 26. D.L. Canney, The Old Steam Navy (Annapolis, 1990), Vol. I, 21-30 on the USS Princeton and the Hunter Wheel experiments. 27. Sir J. Rennie, An Autobiography (London, 1882). 28. Dutton, op. cit. (25), 163-4. 29. Evans to Rear Admiral Sir W. Parker (Second Sea Lord) 28.10.1839 in G.H. Guest, A Record of the Services ofAdmiral George Evans (London, 1876), 11-14. 30. A.D. Kriegel, The Holland House Diaries: 1831-1840 (London, 1977), 335, 409. 31. Otway to C.A. Caldwell, 12.5.1839; Ship Propeller Company Prospectus 1840. 32. Surveyor of the Navy to Seaward Brothers, 9.10.1839; ADM 91/9. 33. Codrington to the Admiralty, 28.5.1840; ADM12/375 A502; Codrington to Sidney Herbert First Secretary to the Admiralty, 6.10.1841 & 4.8.1843; National Maritime Museum, Codrington papers, COD/172 & 20.2. 34. Caldwell to Lord Minto, 3.6.1841 re New Brighton; Minto MSS National Library of Scotland; SPC to Admiralty, 11.6.1842 (geared cranks); ADM 87/14. Smith to Admiralty, 31.12.1843; ADM 83/26. 35. Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. 94, 1839. 36. Admiralty to Woolwich Dockyard 14.10.1839; ADM 12/361. 37. Reports of Lloyd and Chappell, 2.5.1840; reprinted in Brown, op. cit. (9), 104-7. 38. Request SPC to detail terms for hire, 23.5.1840; ADM 12/361. 39. SPC to Admiralty, 6.7.1842; ADM 12/402 ProS 480. 40. SPC to Admiralty, 20.4.1843, accepted 22.4.1843; ADM12/417 ProS 217. 41. Admiralty to Woolwich Dockyard, 19.7.1843; ADM12/417. 42. Rennie, op.cit. (27). 43. Brunei, 'Report to the Directors of the Great Western Steamship Company on Screw Propellers, 17.10.1840' in Brunei, op. cit. (1). 44. Brunei to Caldwell, 8.7.1840; Brunei Letter Book (LB), 2B, 77. 45. Brunei to Captain Chappell, 8.10.1840; LB, 2B, 94. 46. Parry to Claxton, 6.11.1840; ADM 92/4 S420-1. 47. Brunei to Guppy, 23.11.1840; LB, 2B, 117. 48. Brunei to Chappell, 18.12.1840; ibid., 130. 49. Controller of Steam, 19.12.1840; ADM 12/375. 50. D. Griffiths, Brunei's Great Western (Wellingborough, 1985), 53-4. 51. Admiralty to Surveyor, 4.11.1840; ADM83/25 S5055. 52. Surveyor to Admiralty, 16.11.1840 & 16.1.1841; ADM92/9 S340 & 413. Minto endorsed the latter. Admiral Sir Charles Adam (First Naval Lord) to Minto, 18.11.1840; L: NMM ELL/228. 53. Parry to Admiralty, 14.12.1840; ADM 92/4 S423-4. 54. Surveyor to Admiralty, 26.2.1841; ADM 92/9 S442. 55. Surveyor to Admiralty, 16.1. & 12.2.1841; ADM 92/9 S413, 432. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 45.
    Andrew D. Lambert27 56. Brunei to Claxton, 19.3.1841; Brunei DM800. Brunei's letter to Chappell of the following day in LB 2B, 166 is very non-committal, but his relationship with Claxton suggests that the letter to his friend was more explicit than that to a recent acquaintance. 57. Brunei to Symonds, 30.4. & 6.5.1841; LB 2B 175 & 177. 58. Brunei to Caldwell, 3.7.1841 and Brunei to Parry, 3.7.1841; LB 2B, 190 & 192. 59. Edye Minute, 26.7.1841; Report on the Naval and Ordnance Estimates 1848 PP., 1031. 60. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 159. 61. Parry to Brunei, 31.7.1841; ADM 92/4 S446-7. 62. Parry Minute sent to Symonds, 28.9.1841; ADM 92/4 S453-4. 63. Surveyor to Admiralty, 26.10.1841; ADM 92/10 S165. 64. Smith to Admiralty, 1.7.1841; ADM 12/388. 65. Board Minute, 3.3.1843; ADM 12/417. 66. Brunei, op. cit. (1); Rolt, op. cit. (2), 284-5. 67. Brunei to Guppy, 21.9.1841; LB 2B, 214. 68. Brunei to Captain W.A.B. Hamilton, PS to Lord Haddington, 25.8.1841; LB 2B, 215. 69. Brunei to Guppy, 20.12.1841; LB 2B, 241. 70. Admiralty to Surveyor, 1.1.1842; ADM 83/25 SI928. 71. Admiralty to Surveyor, 10.1.1842, with notes by Symonds and Parry of 13.1.1842; ADM 1/5522 S2018. 72. Brunei to Cockburn, 17.1.1842; LB 2B, 253. 73. Brunei to Parry, 28.1.42, to Symonds, 7.2.1842 (twice), to Smith, 7.2.1842; LB 2B, 259-67. 74. Brunei to Admiralty, 16.2.1842; LB 2B, 271. 75. Endorsement on above, 18.2.1842 signed Sidney Herbert (Political Secretary). 76. Brunei to Parry, 7.3.1842; LB 2B, 280. 77. Admiralty to Surveyor, 19.2.1842, endorsed in Symonds's hand, 22.2.1842; ADM 1/5522 S2407. Admiralty to Surveyor, 24.2.1842, endorsed 6.4.1842; ADM 83/25 S2458. 78. Surveyor to Captain Fisher (Captain Superintendent of Sheerness Dockyard), various April-July 1842; ADM 83/25. 79. Lambert, op. cit. (10). 80. Surveyor to Admiralty, 17.1.1842; ADM 92/10 S2156, Rolt, op. cit. (2) 286, quoting a letter from Claxton to Henry Brunei. 81. Smith to Surveyor, 4.6.1842; ADM 87/12 S3361. 82. Brunei to Claxton, 22.7.1842; LB 2C, 16. 83. Admiralty to Brunei, 9.8.1842; ADM 83/26 S3942. 84. Brunei to Admiralty Clerk, Waller Clifton (to whom he was directed to refer all requests for material relating to this project), 1.8.1842; LB 2C, 33. 85. Brunei to Smith, 10.8.1842; LB 2C, 38. 86. Surveyor to Admiralty, 3.9.1842; ADM 83/27 S4354. 87. Brunei to Admiralty, 17.9.1842, endorsed by Cockburn, 28.9.1842; ADM 83/27. 88. Brunei to Guppy, 23.11.1843, 27.11.1843 and to Harmer (Chief Engineer at Bristol) 6.2.1844, 12.2.1844 on propeller design and pitch; LB 2C 264, 283, 294, 303. 89. Admiralty to Controller of Steam, 23.10.1844, SPC to Admiralty, asserting sole rights to the screw, 4.11.1844, SPG to Admiralty, 17.12. and Steinman to Admiralty, 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 90. Controller of Steam to Admiralty, 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 91. Admiralty to Controller of Steam, 7.5.1844; ADM 12/432. 92. Crispin and Lloyd to Admiralty, 29.1.1845; ADM 12/449. 93. Corlett, The Iron Ship (Bradford on Avon, 1975), 97. 94. M.J.T. Lewis, 'Erebus and Terror', Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society, October 1971, 65-8. Lang was a favourite of the Tory Board, 1841-6, but on the change of Ministry his star waned; Lambert, op. cit. (10), 79-90. 95. Hewish, op. cit. (17), 11. 96. Smith to Laird, 22.1.1842; Laird MSS. P.L. Cottrell, 'The Steamship on the Mersey, 1815-80: Investment and Ownership' in P. Davis and D. Aldcroft, Shipping and Trade (Leicester, 1981), 137-63. 97. Controller of Steam to Smith, 30.6, 20 & 30.7.1846; ADM 12/465. Surveyor to Admiralty, 10.7.1846; ibid. History of Technology), Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 46.
    28 Responding tothe Nineteenth Century 98. Brunei to Admiralty, 10.2.1842; ADM 83/25. 99. Thomas Lloyd, testimony before the Select Committee, 9.5.1848 PP, 430-5. 100. Ibid., 435. 101. Symonds to Admiralty, 6.11.1846; PP 1848, 1032. 102. Auckland to Admiral Sir Charles Napier, 7.9.1848; B.M. Add. MSS. 40, 023 f278. 103. Lambert, op. cit. (10), 86, 155-6. 104. Admiralty to Surveyor, 12.6.1848; ADM12/497. 105. PP 1848 John Edye, 10.4.1848, 186-90. 106. Board Minute, 6.12.1850; ADM 87/35. Lambert, op. cit. (18), 30-32. 107. Ellice to Admiralty, 22.1.1848 in Anon, On the Introduction ofthe Screw Propeller into H.M. Service (London, 1856), 24. 108. Solicitor to Admiralty, 11.2.1850; ADM 12/528. 109. Board Minute, 8.3.1850. Controller of Steam to Board, 11.3.1850, reply 27.3.1850; ADM 12/528. 110. Wright to Admiralty, 2.4.1850; ADM 12/528 ProW 705. 111. Solicitor to Admiralty, 26.1.1843 re Ericsson & Blaxland's Patents; Rennie to Admiralty, 21.8.1843; ADM 12/417; Board Minute, 5.9.1843, Controller of Steam to Admiralty 23 & 24.10.1843; SPC to Admiralty, 4.11 & 17 & 21.12.1844; ADM 12/432. 112. Lloyd, Report for Solicitor, 14.5.1847; ADM 12/481. Law Officer on Patent Rights, 23.8.1848; ADM 12/497. Controller of Steam, 30.11.1849; ADM 12/512. 113. Dutton, op. cit. (25), 155-6. 114. Solicitor to Admiralty, 11.2.1850; ADM 12/528. 115. Solicitor, 13, 20 & 22.9.1851; ADM 12/544. Currie to Admiralty; ADM 1/5641. 116. Brunei to Scott Russell, 21.7.1852 in G.S. Emmerson, John Scott Russell (London, 1977), 66. 117. Palmerston to Smith, 21.1.1855; Anon, op. cit. (107), 61. 118. Brunei to General Sir John Burgoyne, 29.8.1856; Wrottesley, op. cit. (7). History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 47.
    T h eE m e r g e n c e o f T e c h n i c a l D r a w i n g i n C h i n a : T h e X i n Y i X i a n g F a Y a o a n d I t s A n t e c e d e n t s P E T E R J . G O L A S By the second half of the tenth century at the latest, Chinese technical illustration had reached a major milestone: the production of a large set of sophisticated drawings to illustrate in detail the workings of a complicated mechanism. This mechanism was an astronomical clock- tower built by Zhang Sixun ^5Sfl| with the support of emperor Taizong ^ 7 ^ (r. 976-997) some time in the years 976-8. The clocktower itself represented a significant advance over astronomical instruments that preceded it: in rotating a demonstrational armillary sphere for the first time by means of a chain-drive power transmission, it made possible a working model of the heavens that would parallel their movement with a minimum of human intervention.1 It appears that copies of many of the drawings produced to illustrate the workings of that clocktower as well as further drawings from another clocktower built by Zhou Riyan M B M in the 1078-1085 period have survived in the account of a later astronomical clocktower, built by Su Song g£gi and Han Gonglian ^|£>JS in the late 1080s and early 1090s.2 Many of the earlier drawings were apparently brought into Su's account without alteration, even when they did not coincide very well with the workings of the more advanced mechanism of Su and Han.3 Probably about 38 of the 47 illustrations we have today in Su Song's account derive originally from Zhang Sixun's work, which has not survived.4 The account of Su Song's astronomical clocktower with its illustrations, the Xinyi xiangfa yao 0riH^8c|? o r 'New Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe System Essentials',5 has been brilliantly studied by Joseph Needham, Wang Ling, DerekJ. de Solla Price and John H. Combridge, but always with a main focus on trying to explain how this very complex mechanism actually functioned.6 No study to my knowledge has taken as its main purpose an examination of these illustrations in order to place them in the overall context of the early development of technical illustration in History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 48.
    30 The Emergenceof Technical Drawing in China China. That is what I shall attempt here, beginning with a review of what had preceded them. EARLIEST REPRESENTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY IN CHINA Portrayals by Chinese artists and craftsmen of scenes that at least touch on technology go back very far in Chinese history, easily pre-dating the Han dynasty (BCE 206-220 CE). For example, battle and hunting scenes engraved on 'pictorial bronzes' of the Warring States period (403-221 BCE) can give us an idea of the weaponry and vehicles in use at that time.7 The 'technology' here, however, is purely decorative, an accidental appendage to what more often than not were wild flights of artistic imagination. In the centuries before the Han, however, a revolutionary intellectual and aesthetic transition was occurring in which the Chinese increasingly left behind the fantastical, magical world view that had dominated their consciousness and their arts from earliest times in favour of what we might call a more realistic and objective view.8 A reflection of this change is seen in the increasing emphasis in the visual arts on subjects having to do with daily life, including scenes of people at work. The richest surviving evidence is found in the archaeological discoveries of funereal art from the Han dynasty and the centuries immediately following, in which three forms dominate: (1) Bas-relief carvings on stone ('tomb reliefs') that have been discovered in almost every part of China.9 These portray a variety of production processes, mainly agricultural (digging10 and plough- ing,11 sowing,12 hoeing,13 weeding,14 harvesting,15 hulling,16 winnowing17 ) and, much less often, sericultural (weaving),18 but also including scenes relating to salt production,19 the iron industry,20 the making of wheels,21 fishing,22 winemaking23 and cooking techniques.24 Pictures of well-sweeps,25 vehicles (usually, horse-drawn) such as carriages,26 chariots,27 wagons and baggage carts,28 boats,29 and wheelbarrows,30 as well as weapons used in hunting31 and warfare32 also provide clues about the technology employed in their construction and about how they were used. Portrayals of buildings often tell us much about their architectural details.33 (2) Models of objects in bronze or wood or clay placed in graves for the use of the dead in the afterlife.34 Technological representations include pulley assemblies,35 trip-hammers and pestles;36 querns;37 stoves, braziers and cooking vessels;38 ploughs and harrows;39 water-flow control devices for irrigation;40 carriages,41 boats42 and buildings.43 (3) Paintings on tiles and on the walls of tombs or on funeral banners, dealing especially with rural activities. Especially well-known here are the tomb-tile paintings from Jiayuguan in the present day northwestern province of Gansu (Figure l).44 History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 49.
    Peter J. Golas31 Figure 1 A tomb-tile illustration of ploughing from Jiayuguan in Gansu province, either from later Han or shortly thereafter. Anon., Han Tang Bi Hua (Murals from the Han to the Tang Dynasty) (Beijing, 1974), Fig. 49. Various explanations have been proposed to account for the prominence of scenes of daily life in early Chinese art. In the case of funereal art, the motivation was above all practical or functional. The scenes that decorated the graves or tombs would remind their occupants what their life had been like in this world. The models of actual objects with which the occupant had been surrounded in this life made those objects available for use in the afterlife.45 But there were at least two other reasons of a more 'ideological' character that seem to have encouraged such portrayals. They are especially important in that they were to remain important stimulators of illustrations of technology for the succeeding two millennia. We can perhaps approach them best by looking at their influence on Chinese painting. TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATION AND EARLY CHINESE PAINTING Most of the evidence for early Chinese painting not connected with funereal practices survives unfortunately only in literary references. For example, we are told of great cycles of painting that decorated the halls and palaces of the Han, but whatever indications of the technology they might have contained have long since disappeared, along with the paintings themselves.46 That at least some of them included productive activities is suggested not only by the Han tomb scenes but also by slightly later evidence that the emperor Ming Di of the Jin dynasty (r. 323-325) himself painted a series to illustrate a famous early Chinese poem dealing with the yearly round of rural activities, including agriculture and sericulture.47 However, even without the paintings themselves, the surviving references suggest some of the motivations that guided early painters. We mentioned above the transition in Chinese thinking in the middle of the first millennium BCE away from a fabulous toward a more realistic History of Technology, Volume Twenty-one, 1999
  • 50.
    Another Random ScribdDocument with Unrelated Content
  • 51.
    195 Harry would haveliked to add more protests about leaving their young leader alone on the River Swallow with the men, who, as they all knew, had deep cause to hate the railroad man’s son. But there was no choice in the matter for him, for, as they all knew, when Ralph’s mind was made up to anything, he could not be swerved from his determination. In due time the River Swallow lay to off the lights of the Piquetville Yacht Club. The place was brightly illuminated and so was the town that lay behind it. Piquetville was a bustling, busy place. It maintained plenty of business and was very up-to-date in every way. Down rattled the anchor. “I wonder what Malvin thinks is in the wind,” said Harry, as he slipped into a shore-going coat and Percy appeared on deck by his side all ready to board the tender as soon as it should be lowered. “You can depend upon it that he is sharp enough to know that something is up, but you can also bet that he will be too sharp to show it,” was Ralph’s rejoinder. “Lower away the tender!” he hailed as Malvin reported the anchor down. “Aye, aye, sir,” came in cheerful, willing tones. If they had not known Malvin to be such a rascal, they would have found it hard to believe that the owner of such a cheerful voice could be the schemer they knew him to be, and the criminal that they suspected more than strongly he was.
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    196 197 “Good-bye.” “Take care ofyourself.” These were the leave takings between the boys accompanied by a warm pressure of hands that meant more than words. A few moments later the tender was chugging off ashore and Ralph was left alone on board the River Swallow. He would have given a good deal to know what Malvin thought of the night’s proceedings. He knew the fellow was far too shrewd not to guess that something was about due to break. But if Malvin really had such ideas, he kept them to himself with admirable coolness. After the tender had departed, he came aft to where Ralph was sitting in a deck chair and inquired if there was anything more to be done. “No; if all is snug, you may take a nap, Malvin, or amuse yourself as you see fit.” “Thank you, sir. I reckon I’ll turn in and get forty winks, sir,” rejoined Malvin. He touched his cap and hurried off forward. “Now who would suspect that that man is the central figure in a big smuggling scheme of some sort?” thought Ralph as the man departed. “He is certainly an admirable actor.” Ralph leaned back in his chair and watched the twinkling lights ashore. It was a beautiful night, calm, peaceful and starlit. The water shimmered like a sheet of silver. Hardly a ripple disturbed the mirror-like surface of the St. Lawrence, which, at this point, was fully two
  • 53.
    198 and a halfmiles wide, a mighty lake of swift flowing water. It was delightful to be seated there in the River Swallow’s comfortable cockpit. But somehow Ralph did not think much of the scene about him. His mind was busy with the dilemma of which his father’s despatch had informed him. What an odd turn of fate it seemed, that, while he and his chums were on the trail of a gang of miscreants who had been using Dexter Island as a rendezvous, his father should be arrested in Montreal for the very crime which they were trying to lay at the door of Malvin and Co.! “I wonder how long this sort of thing has been going on,” mused Ralph; “probably for some time, perhaps ever since Malvin, two years ago, entered my father’s service. I remember Dad congratulated himself on obtaining a man of such education and refinement to handle the River Swallow. He was rather astonished, too, that a fellow who was so intelligent and apparently well educated should be willing to take such a post. It’s all clear enough now. “The job Dad gave him afforded Malvin just the opportunity he wanted to carry on his smuggling schemes without being suspected of a connection with any such dealings. No wonder he had it in for us when we came and deposed him from his position of boss of the River Swallow! It meant that he could no longer have things all his own way. That henceforth he would be liable to be watched, and that the visits of the Artful Dodger to Dexter Island would be likely to be observed and suspicion aroused.”
  • 54.
    199 200 He had beenwatching the lights of the tender as the speedy little craft sped toward the shore. Now he saw them pause alongside the yacht club dock and come to a standstill. “The boys have got ashore,” he thought, “in a few minutes they will be in consultation with the customs authorities. Then we shall see what the next step in this little drama is going to be. I rather think that, by this time to-morrow, Messrs. Malvin and Co. will have seen a great light.” In the meantime, Harry Ware and Percy Simmons had made their boat fast and clambered up on the dock. A man in a uniform that they recognized as that of a U. S. Customs Inspector stepped up to them the instant they set foot on shore. “Off the River Swallow?” he asked. “Yes,” rejoined Percy, “we——” “That is all, be good enough to come with me.” “Why—what——” began the boys, but the official sternly cut them off. “No questions now, the chief inspector wants to see you at once. I guess, too, I’ll be sending somebody out to watch the River Swallow.” “What have we done? What’s the matter?” demanded Harry. “Never mind. You’ll know soon enough,” was the brusque reply, as the official bade them come with him
  • 55.
    201 and “make notrouble.”
  • 56.
    202 CHAPTER XXII. “NOT JUSTYET, STETSON!” Ralph was interrupted in his reverie by the sound of a swift, cat-like footfall behind him. He was conscious of a sudden thrill that was not exactly fear but rather apprehension, as whoever was pussy-footing through the dark cock-pit drew closer. No man on an honest errand, as he well knew, would have adopted that stealthy method of approach. For an instant Ralph regretted that he was not armed. But it was only a momentary thought. He turned his eyes, till out of their corners he could see a dark form drawing close to his chair. Ralph gave no sign that he had heard anything unusual. He kept his gaze apparently riveted on the shore and sat motionless, without the quiver of a muscle. But for all his seeming calmness, he sensed that a crisis of some kind had arrived. Then out of the darkness emerged the figure of Malvin. The man was a very different being from the obsequious creature he had hitherto appeared to be. His voice rang harsh and stridently and in his hand Ralph could catch the glint of a pistol.
  • 57.
    203 The weapon wasaimed at the boy’s head. “See here, Stetson,” the fellow grated, “you’re alone on this boat and in my power. Are you going to do what I say without making trouble?” Ralph did not turn. There was not the flicker of an eyelid to show the great bound his heart had given as he realized his situation. That Malvin was a desperate man, the boy knew well enough; but just the same, he had not believed that the man would ever dream of adopting the tactics he had now assumed. “Well?” Malvin’s grating voice, a very different one from the honeyed accents he had hitherto used to address the young commander, came again in tones of impatient interrogation. “Supposing, as commander of this boat, I don’t choose to take orders from you?” questioned Ralph. “In that case, jig is up for you, young fellow.” “Going to kill me?” asked Ralph without a quiver in his voice, although a very unpleasant feeling had taken possession of him. He felt that Malvin meant what he said. And he was in the fellow’s power absolutely. “Yes,” spoke Malvin. “I mean to use this little piece of hardware unless——” He paused as if uncertain of his next words.
  • 58.
    204 205 “He’s nervous,” thoughtRalph, “he doesn’t like this job. He’s doing it at the orders of somebody else, probably Hawke, who appears to exercise an influence over him.” “Well, unless?” asked the boy aloud. “Unless you obey orders absolutely. Just as I have had to obey your orders since you sneaked your way into command of this craft.” “You forget that this is my father’s boat,” reminded Ralph. “Yes, your father,” sneered Malvin. “Your father, who is in jail in Montreal!” “So you know that?” cried Ralph, startled out of his assumed calm. “Know it? Why, yes. Men with whom I am associated engineered his arrest. Cleverly done, wasn’t it?” “You contemptible sneak!” burst out Ralph. “So it was your gang that did this?” “I don’t see any reason to deny it. We wanted him out of the way and sent that message summoning him to Montreal. Once there, our agents saw to it that he was put where he wouldn’t trouble us for a while.” Words failed Ralph utterly. He saw red for a minute. But almost simultaneously he steadied his nerves to meet the crisis. “I may as well tell you, Malvin,” he said, “that it will pay you better in the long run to desert these men with whom you are associated and array yourself upon the
  • 59.
    206 side of lawand order. Do this and I’ll promise you that, when the authorities descend upon you, I will do what I can to make things easier for you.” It was a forlorn hope and—it failed. Malvin hesitated for one instant, and Ralph’s mind swung pendulum-wise between hope and apprehension. But the man’s next words showed him that Malvin was irrevocably tied to the diamond smugglers. “As if I’d be fool enough to listen to such stuff!” he sneered. “Come now, youngster; no more nonsense. We know what your two chums went ashore for. To get the authorities, didn’t they?” “Since you must have it, they did,” shot out Ralph. “I thought so. We know every move you have made. Now you’re going to learn that it doesn’t pay to butt in where you are not wanted.” “What are you going to do?” demanded Ralph. “Get right out of here with this boat. You’ll work her out. Do you understand?” “Your words don’t admit of any misconstruction,” was the calm reply. “Mosey up on the bridge, then. Look sharp! Do you hear?” “I hear. Suppose I don’t choose to obey?” “In that case——”
  • 60.
    207 208 Malvin emphasized thiswith a poke in the ribs from the revolver. “See here, Malvin,” asked Ralph, eying the fellow without flinching, “have you been drinking to-night, or are you simply ill-advised by bad companions?” “No more trifling,” warned Malvin sullenly. “You’ve robbed me of my job as commander of this boat. Not content with that, you’ve tried to interfere with my business. Do what I say at once, or let me give you a straight warning. You’re playing with your life.” Ralph tried another tack. “Well,” he said, “of course I don’t want to get shot. Let’s get down to cases. What do you want me to do?” “Navigate this boat out of here. Hansen and—and— somebody else will attend to the engines.” “The somebody else being the man who put the sand in our carburetors—Hawke.” Malvin was perceptibly startled. “Hawke! What do you know about him?” he demanded. “Oh, quite a good deal. You’re a fool to travel with such a man, Malvin. We met him on Windmill Island. We know that you picked him up there and have kept him concealed on the River Swallow. I more than suspect, moreover, that he is a certain notorious diamond smuggler for whom the authorities on both sides of the border have their nets spread. Is that enough?”
  • 61.
    209 “Yes, it’s morethan enough. You’re too flip. Now get up on that bridge or take the consequences.” “All right. Tell your men to get the anchor up.” Malvin uttered a peculiar whistle. It must have been a signal, for the clank of the windlass was heard almost immediately. The River Swallow began to swing her bow as the current turned her down river. Again came a whistle from Malvin and the engines began to rumble and shake the craft with their revolutions. They were running “free.” That is, the clutch that caused them to engage the shafts had not yet been “thrown.” Ralph had a plan in his mind. It was a desperate chance to take, but his seemingly ready agreement with Malvin’s orders had proceeded from this same wild plan he had suddenly formed. “Get up on that bridge. Remember, I’m behind you. One false move and——” Malvin did not finish the sentence. He did not need to. His tone was sufficiently eloquent. The boy ascended the few steps that led to the bridge. Malvin was right behind him. Ralph could see in his mind’s eye that menacing pistol held close to the small of his back. They reached the bridge. The moment for Ralph’s plan to be put into execution had arrived. He turned swiftly.
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    210 211 “Look!” he cried.“There comes a boat—a customs house boat!” Malvin, startled, off his guard, turned his head for an instant toward the shore. With a loud cry, Ralph leaped for the man. He seized his pistol wrist and wrenched it backward. Then he threw himself on the fellow with the whole force of his vigorous young strength. As Malvin crashed backward down the steps, Ralph leaped for the pneumatic whistle. It was operated by a lever. “Now for a police call!” he exclaimed pantingly as he grasped it. In another moment a cry for aid would have gone shrieking out from the River Swallow’s siren. Ralph’s fingers trembled on the lever and he had just given it the first move toward him when something happened. He felt himself seized from behind in a powerful grasp and his arms pinioned to his side. “Thought you’d get the police, eh?” snarled a voice in his ear. “Not just yet, Stetson.”
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    212 CHAPTER XXIII. THE MISSINGBOAT. “So these boys are off the River Swallow?” asked Chief Inspector Barrett of the U. S. Customs service as he gazed at Harry Ware and Percy Simmons. They stood before him in his private office, whither they had been escorted by the official who had met them on the wharf. Both boys were indignant. The manner in which they had been treated had not served to soothe their feelings. They had, in fact, been looked upon as malefactors, when, in reality, they had come ashore for the purpose of exposing a gang of rascals. It was a strange trick that Fate had played upon them. “What have we done?” demanded Harry Ware angrily. “Yes, you’d think we were criminals from the way we’ve been treated,” seconded Percy Simmons. “Now, now, keep cool,” conciliated the inspector. “We’ve had our eye on the River Swallow for some time. To- night we heard from Canada that she was to touch in here to-night with gem smugglers on board. We’ve been on the lookout for the gang that is suspected for some time.”
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    213 “And you meanto say you think that we have anything to do with it?” gasped Harry angrily. “I didn’t say so. But I’d like you to explain a few things.” “Very well. But please hurry. We have left a friend on board the River Swallow with three desperate men. We want to hurry back. We had counted on your assistance.” “Well and good, and you shall have it. I think it only fair to inform you that Dexter Island has been shadowed for some time. A motor craft has been seen visiting there at night. We suspect the boat to be one used by the diamond smugglers. The River Swallow has been used to convey the gems to this side. Doubtless you young men are not aware of the extensive range of gem smuggling operations on the Canadian border. In that case, let me inform you that the duty on cut gems brought into America is sixty per cent. ad valorem. You can see, therefore, what a fortune these gem smugglers can make by evading the lawful duty.” “And in the meantime,” said Harry sarcastically, “the men you want,—or at least a part of the gang,—are on board the River Swallow.” “What’s that? What do you mean?” demanded the inspector quickly. “I’d have explained sooner, if you’d let me,” said Harry dryly. He proceeded at the inspector’s direction to give him a hasty sketch of the events that had led up to the present night. The inspector listened with interest at first and then with absorption.
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    214 215 “Give me adescription of this man Hawke,” he said. Harry described the man as well as he could. “Jennings,” exclaimed the chief inspector, “this Hawke is La Rue, the head and front with Rawson of the whole gem smuggling gang! I’m sure of it from the description. You will accompany these young men to their boat. Take Adams and Prescott with you. Arrest all three of the men. So far, I know nothing of Malvin or Hansen; I suspect they are mere understrappers. Bring them here at once. Hurry now.” “Yes, sir. Come along, young men,” said Jennings, preparing briskly to execute his chief’s orders. “And Jennings.” “Yes, sir.” “You had better be armed. Tell the other men to take weapons, too. La Rue is a desperate man and the others may give you trouble, also.” Jennings and the two boys hurried off. Harry Ware and Percy Simmons were delighted at the turn affairs had taken. The arrest of Hawke,—or to give him his real name, La Rue,—was at hand. Before long, by their instrumentality, the gem smugglers would be safely in the hands of the customs officials. Only one doubt assailed them as Jennings hastily summoned his two aides. Would they be in time? The knowledge that Ralph had been left alone on the River Swallow, without weapons to defend himself, and in the company of three men who had good reason to fear the
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    216 worst from theboys’ visit ashore, had a disquieting effect upon them. As they hurried through the streets, they wished that Jennings would make even more haste. When they reached the main custom house, where Adams and Prescott, who were on night duty, were to be picked up, a low, rumbling sound came from the northern sky. Jennings glanced up quickly. To the north the stars had been blotted out. Heavy clouds had rolled up obscuring them. As the boys followed the direction of Jennings’s gaze, they saw a sudden lambent flash, as yet far off, flare up and vanish on the cloud bank. “Lightning!” exclaimed Harry. “Yes, we’re in for a storm, I guess,” said Jennings. “We get them pretty bad up this way when they do come, too.” “Regular hummers, eh?” asked Harry. “I guess that’s the word for it. The old timers say that they follow the river. I don’t know how that may be, but I do know that I never saw worse electric storms than we get right along the St. Lawrence.” Adams and Prescott, who had received directions by telephone from the inspector’s office, were ready and waiting for them when they arrived at the custom house. They were placed in possession of the facts of the case by Jennings, as they and the boys hastened to the yacht club dock.
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    217 218 Both were warmin their praises of the way the boys had handled the situation, and waxed humorous over their practical arrest as suspects. Percy and Harry, however, failed to see anything screamingly comical about it. The dock was reached and then and there the party received a big surprise. The lights of the River Swallow were not in sight! So far as could be observed, no boat lay at anchor where the boys had left the speedy craft. A search conducted from the motor tender only confirmed their worst fears. The River Swallow had vanished, and on board her was Ralph, alone and in the power of the gem smugglers.
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    219 CHAPTER XXIV. IN THEGRIP OF THE STORM. Ziz-z-z-z-z-z! A ragged, flaming bolt of lightning ripped across the black sky. It showed the broad reach of the St. Lawrence in the vicinity of Piquetville lashed into a fury of white-capped waves and turbulent waters. Through the furious electric storm the River Swallow was wallowing along, rolling and plunging terrifically. Owing to her narrow beam, the craft was far more “cranky” than an ordinary boat, and to anyone not used to her actions in rough water, the experience would have been an alarming one. Besides being familiar with the craft he was guiding, however, Ralph had other things to worry him beside the storm. For one thing, La Rue,—or Hawke, as Ralph still knew him,—was standing beside him, pistol in hand, and from what Ralph knew of the man, there was little doubt that he would hesitate to use the weapon if the need arose. The boy had another cause for worry in the fact that he did not know what his companions, who had gone ashore, would think of the disappearance of the River Swallow. He knew that they would be worrying over his
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    220 situation on boardher, and the thought of their anxiety disquieted him to the full as much as his own predicament. But, with it all, Ralph had a certain grim satisfaction in one factor of his problem. Below decks in a bunk, with a badly damaged head, incurred in his fall down the steps leading from the bridge, lay Malvin. The man was incapacitated for duty and was, in fact, only half conscious. As he had fallen from the bridge, it was La Rue who had seized Ralph’s arms before the boy could sound the alarm, and who had ordered Ralph, upon the pain of being shot down, to steer the River Swallow out of the harbor. The young skipper had no recourse but to obey, and so the River Swallow was struggling with the storm, with an inexperienced man—Hansen—in the engine room and on the bridge a boy who was menaced with a pistol in the hands of the diamond smuggler. With the storm had arisen a wind that screeched and howled like a witches’ carnival about the River Swallow. The craft was rather high out of the water and of light draught, like most of the St. Lawrence River craft. She pitched and rolled awesomely under the blast. There was no real danger, as Ralph well knew, but, as has been said, to anyone unused to her violent motions in a storm, the wild behavior of the River Swallow was, to say the least, alarming. To complicate matters, it was pitchy dark, the frequent flashes of lightning alone illumining the gloom. The wind was blowing the same way as the current, and below them lay a labyrinth of rapids, shoals and islands that required an experienced skipper to thread, even by daylight.
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    221 222 “This is afine fix,” thought Ralph to himself, as the wind tore about him, the waters rolled high and the lightning flashed and zigzagged across the thunder-ridden sky. “If I ever get the River Swallow through this without piling her up on a shoal or getting the bottom ripped out of her in some rapids, I’m entitled to a gold medal.” “Will this get worse?” asked La Rue. The boy noted with glee that there was a note of apprehension in the fellow’s voice. “I hope not,” Ralph rejoined, shaking his head fearsomely. “Why?” La Rue was scared. It was plain enough in his voice, which was nervous and jerky. “Are—are we in any danger?” he demanded tremblingly. “The—the very g-g-g-greatest,” exclaimed Ralph, cleverly acting the part of a seriously alarmed young skipper. “You mean that if the storm does not die down we may be wrecked?” “The storm will get a lot worse before it gets any better,” rejoined Ralph. “This is one of the worst nights I have ever seen on the river.” The River Swallow gave a fearful roll, almost burying her lee gunwale in flying spume. An exclamation that was almost a shriek burst from La Rue’s lips. The man was ashen pale. He was terrified, and, moreover, he was becoming conscious of another feeling. What this was, we shall see before long.
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    223 224 “Gracious! I thoughtwe were gone that time!” cried Ralph, appearing to be on the verge of panic. “Then there is a pup-pup-possibility that the boat may capsize?” “I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ralph gravely. A groan escaped La Rue. “You really think that, ker-ker-captain?” Ralph couldn’t help smiling at the title La Rue had conferred on him in his fawning, miserable fright. “Of course I do,” replied Ralph. “Why, her timbers are very thin. She was only built for a racing machine, not for such work as this.” Bang! Who-o-o-o-f! A big sea, which Ralph had purposely met quartering, smote the River Swallow a terrific buffet on the port bow. The spray and spume flew high in the air, drenching the occupants of the bridge. “A few more of those and we’re goners, sure,” said Ralph with a grin, which he had to turn away his face to conceal, as La Rue broke into a whimper. “Isn’t there anything you can do, captain?” “Nothing, except trust to Providence that we don’t go to the bottom within the next half hour,” rejoined Ralph. Another huge wave hit the craft. A tremor ran through her but it was nothing to the anguish that convulsed the terrified La Rue as the sea struck.