SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH WHIT WORTH. 551 



Whitworth foresaw that if industrial enterprise would prosper it must 

 be systematized, and workmen must install harmony in their designs, 

 and must aim at minute exactness in their forms and measurements. His 

 attention was particularly directed to the inconveniences which were 

 produced by the variations in the pitch and thread of the screws used 

 in the construction of machinery — variations so considerable, if we 

 may quote the words of an English sketch of his work, " that every 

 maker had screws of his own special sizes, and that the failure of a 

 single one might cripple a machine in a distant country until the 

 original maker could be communicated with and could send out another 

 of the same proportions. Mr. Whitworth not only saw the immense 

 advantages which would arise from rendering the pitch and thread of 

 screws uniform, but also the difficulty which might be experienced in 

 inducing any maker to adopt the proj^ortions used by any other. With 

 rare sagacity, he obtained specimens of all the screws used by leading 

 manufacturers, and then designed one which was the average of them 

 all, and a copy of none. By this expedient he evaded opposition, and 

 worked a revolution in the construction of machinery. The new screw 

 was universally adopted ; and, in the present day, every screw of the 

 same diameter has a thread of the same pitch and of the same number 

 of turns to the inch, and all screws of the same size, from whatever 

 maker obtained, are interchangeable." 



Mr. Whitworth next took up appliances for accurate measurements, 

 and constructed an instrument capable of measuring the millionth part 

 of an inch, and which, worked by touch, "was so delicate as instantly 

 to communicate the expansion of a steel bar thi'ee feet in length when 

 this was warmed by momentary contact with a finger-nail." With 

 these and his other inventions, " Whitworth's standard gauges, his taps 

 and dies, his uniform system of screw-threads, his great refinements in 

 the manufacture of lathes, planing-machines, drills, etc., all became 

 available at the moment when they had become indispensable, ... if 

 the imperative demands for mechanical appliances in every direction 

 were to be worthily met." 



In 1853 Mr. Whitworth was appointed a commissioner to the great 

 exhibition in New York, and in that capacity wrote a report on American 

 manufacturing industries which attracted much attention at the time, 

 and still has interest. In the next year he was requested by the British 

 Government to design and produce machinery for the manufacture of 

 rifles for the army. He found it with the rifles as it was with nearly all 

 mechanical appliances before he touched them to improve them — no two 

 of them were alike. He imposed as a condition of his accepting the 

 commission that he should be permitted to determine what form and 

 dimensions of guns and bullets would produce the best results. Besides 

 consenting to this condition, the Government erected a shooting-gal- 

 lery five hundred yards long on Mr. Whitworth's grounds at Rusholme, 

 where he was able to devote himself to most careful and thorough ex- 



