PEN 



21 



curiosities (Walpole's), which was sold in London 

 in 1842. In the early part of the century various 

 plans were tried to produce pens more lasting than 

 ordinary quills. The quills were pointed with 

 metal, and pens constructed of horn and tortoise- 

 shell had small pieces of diamond and other hard 

 gems embedded in them by pressure. Another plan 

 was to attach gold to their points. Such pens were 

 of course too costly for general use. Barrel pens of 

 steel made by Mr Wise were on sale in London in 

 1803, but these, too, were high in price, and did 

 not take the market. The first English patent for 

 the manufacture of steel pens is that of Bryan 

 Donkin in 1803. A patent, the first of its kind in 

 America, was granted in 1810 to Peregrine William- 

 son of Baltimore for the manufacture of metallic 

 pens. Steel pens of the barrel type were being made 

 in 1815 by Sneldon of Sedgley, the price being 18s. 

 per dozen. By 18*20 the number of manufacturers 

 had increased. To Mr James Perry Itelnngs the 

 credit of bringing steel pens into general use. He 

 began pen-making at Manchester in 1819, using the 

 best Sheffield steel (from Swedish charcoal iron) 

 for the purpose. Perry removed to Red Lion 

 Square, London, and had developed the pen trade 

 with remarkable energy before the prominent 

 Birmingham makers, Mitchell, Gillott, and Mason, 

 caused a revolution in the trade by machine-made 

 pens. He took out a patent for a new method of 

 making pens in is.'io. from hard, thin, elastic metal, 

 and a 'length of slitted or cleft space' scarcely 

 exceeding that of quill-pens ; and he made other 

 improvements in 1832. The greatest improve- 

 ment in the manufacture was the adoption of the 

 screw handpress for the cutting out of pens, 

 enabling the manufacturer to supply them cheaply 

 and in quantities. At first the method of slitting 

 pens by means of a press was kept a profound 

 secret by Gillott and Mason. To Mr John Mitchell, 

 Birmingham, has been assigned priority in this 

 invention. Sir Joctiah Mason made liarrel pens in 

 1828, and 'slip' pens for Perry in 1829. At the 

 end of 1875, when Sir Josiah Mason retired from 

 his business, his output exceeded 32,000 gross 

 weekly. To Mitchell, Gillott (whose patent is 

 dated 1831), and Sir .Josiah Mason chiefly belongs 

 the credit of first making steel pens by machinery, 

 thus enabling them to lie sold cheaply and to 

 become articles of common use. 



An ordinary pen looks a simple enough instru- 

 ment, but before it assumes it - present appearance 

 it has to go through some sixteen different pro- 

 cesses. Birmingham is the great seat of the steel- 

 ;pen trade. The steel of which the pens are made 

 comes from Sheffield, and is in sheets 6 feet long 

 and 1 foot 5 inches wide. It is first cut into strips 

 of convenient width ; next it is annealed, and 

 rolled to the requisite thickness, when it is found 

 to have trel>l<*l its original length and to have 

 acquired a bright surface from the action of the 

 rollers. The ' blanks ' or first shape of the pen 

 are now cut out by means of a press ; next conies 

 the operation of marking or stamping the name on 

 the pen, then piercing; but before they can be 

 formed into the shape of a pen they require to Vie 

 softened by <///<(/. They are freed from dust 

 and grease, placed in round pots, which are again 

 enclosed in larger ones, are covered with charcoal 

 dnst, put into a muffle or iron box, heated to a 

 dull red, and then allowed to cool. The pens are 

 next rained or formed into the required shape by a 

 blow from a screw-press fitted with a punch and a 

 die. Then they are hardened. This is done by 

 arranging them in thin layers in covered iron pans 

 of a round shape, which are heated to a bright 

 redness in a muffle. The contents of the pans are 

 next emptied into a bucket, immersed in a tank 

 of oil, and transferred to a perforated cylinder, 



which, being quickly rotated, drains off the oil. 

 The pens are still greasy and as brittle as glass, 

 and in order to cleanse them they are again placed 

 in perforated buckets and plunged into a tank of 

 boiling soda-water. They are next tempered, or 

 softened, by enclosure in an iron cylinder which is 

 kept revolving over a charcoal fire until the 

 requisite degree of softness is attained. The pens 

 have been blackened by this operation ; they are 

 next scoured by being dipped into a tub of diluted 

 sulphuric acid, and then put into iron barrels con- 

 taining water and material made from broken and 

 finely -ground annealing pots. The barrels are kept 

 revolving for five, or sometimes eight, hours ; then 

 the pens are subjected to a second process of 

 scouring in barrels filled with dry material of the 

 same kind ; and then to a third process in which 

 dry sawdust is the scouring or cleaning agent. 

 The pens have now acquired a bright, silver tone, 

 and the points have oeen rounded. They have 

 then to be ground between the pierced portion and 

 the point ; this is done on a small revolving solid 

 wheel or 'bob ' made of wood, covered with leather, 

 and coated with emery-powder. Next comes the 

 operation of slitting, which is cleverly accomplished 

 by a cutting-press, hut, the edges of the slit being 

 sharp, the pens are again polished in revolving 

 barrels. They are now coloured and varnished ; 

 the colouring is done in a copper or iron cylinder 

 over a coke fire ; if to be lacquered they are placed 

 in a solution of shellac. Afterwards the spirit is 

 drained off, the pens are placed in wire cylinders, 

 and kept revolving until the lacquer is dry. Next 

 the pens are spread on iron trays and put into an 

 oven, the heat of which spreads the lacquer evenly 

 over the surface. Girls now look over the pens, 

 throw aside the faulty ones, and the good ones are 

 packed into boxes ready for sale. 



How the trade has grown may be seen from the 

 fact that in 1839 steel pens were almost unknown ; 

 in 1849 the trade was a leading industry in Bir- 

 mingham ; there were twelve factories employing 

 about 2000 men, women, and girls, the weekly 

 output of pens being stated at 65,000 gross. The 

 output in 1866 had increased to 98,000 gross 

 weelvly ; and alxmt 4000 people were employed in 

 all departments. In 1886 the weekly average of 

 pens manufactured was about 160,000 gross, or 

 twenty-two million pens. There were four pen- 

 works in the United States at the same date, only 

 one of which was of importance ; three in France ; 

 and one in Germany. The most successful recent 

 patents in connection with pens have been those 

 dealing with points which are turned up or turned 

 down, thickened or ' planished,' for smooth writing. 

 A lending pen-maker has a catalogue containing 

 5000 varieties of pens, while it has been estimated 

 that no fewer than 100,000 different shapes and 

 sizes are in the market. All the pen-makers now 

 make pen-holders, and Josiah Mason has related 

 that he made the first stick pen-holders for Perry 

 in 1832, and for Gillott in 1835. 



Pens are also made of silver, platinum, and alum- 

 inium bronze. They have also l>een made of 

 vulcanite. The gold pen, which is incorrodible 

 with ink, was also made in Birmingham for Mordan 

 and others. Made in the United States as early as 

 1836, it has become a speciality there : one Ameri- 

 can firm manufactures 100,000 every year. The 

 gold pen goes through no less than forty-five 

 different processes, from the gold-bar, purchased 

 from the United States Assay Office, which is 

 alloyed, to the highly-finished article of commerce. 

 To give firmness to the point of the pen it is pointed 

 with indium. The United States imports over 

 half a million gross of steel pens annually, and 

 manufactures one and n half million gross, at Cam- 

 den, Meriden, and Philadelphia. The steel used U 



