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| Joseph Whitworth : Lives Which Hung by a Thread* |
| One of a series of articles published in "Reflections" more than two decades ago |
Recently, it was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir Joseph Whitworth of Darley Dale, near Matlock. Most will remember him for his development of the standardised Whitworth thread and for his local philanthropy. What is less known, however, is his work on the development of armaments and, in particular, the rifle implicated in many of the 600,000 lives lost in the American Civil War. It was known as the Whitworth sharpshooter. Lawton Slaney |
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The Whitworth designed cannon which could fire a shell over 6 miles[1]. |
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From industrial knitting machines and horse-drawn combine harvesters to a whole range of armaments, Whitworth's genius, allied to his passion for accuracy and capacity for limitless hard work, paid dividends. The many tools produced at this time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, were, however, to have a far-reaching effect on the very lives and deaths of countless thousands of people. Whitworth and weapons of individual destruction The Whitworth rifle was tested by the National Rifle Association, who rejected it because they judged the bore, at 0.45 calibre, to be too small, compared with the current standard 0.577. This was in spite of the fact that the Whitworth rifle had a barrel length of only 20", whereas the Enfield was 78". Whitworth, incensed at this move in the wrong direction, moved house to Pall Mall so that he could live directly opposite his enemy, the War Office. By 1859 Whitworth was growing rich, and was able to afford extensive testing of his rifle. He conducted a hair-raising and elaborate series of tests in which the muzzle end of a rifle was blocked with an 18"-length of lead, rammed home hard. The gun was then fired to see if the breech end of the gun would burst. This experiment was repeated with increasing loads of gunpowder, with the same result. Not only was the Whitworth rifle more accurate... it had treble the power of penetration. The new technique had fathered yet another of Whitworth's inventions: he invented a process for making a much stronger 'fluid compressed' steel from which to make his rifles, steel which ensured that his guns were unburstable. New rifles changed the way wars were fought The Civil War rifled musket was able to kill at a range of over half a mile, thus making a direct frontal assault a suicidal affair. The accurate fire of these new rifles spelt disaster for troops of both sides. On one occasion 26,000 men died in a day's fighting. The Confederate States found devious ways of evading the blockade imposed by the Unionists, and bought the English rifle in large quantities. It was known here as the Whitworth Sharpshooter. Queen Victoria opened the first meeting of the British Rifle Association in 1860 by firing a Whitworth Sharpshooter and scoring a bullseye at 400 yards. It's worth noting that this was in no way a demonstration of royal prowess on the range: a mechanical rest had been set up for Her Majesty, and tested by expert marksmen before she was allowed to squeeze the trigger. In 1855 Whitworth also designed a large 2.75-inch-bore rifled cannon which hurled a 121b 11oz shell over a distance of six miles. This was also used in the Civil War, but was again rejected by the British Army. A depressing contradiction A century-and-a-half later we can still buy sets of tools known as
'Whitworth' spanners, taps and dies. Looking back, however, over Joseph
Whitworth's non-martial achievements in the earlier part of his life,
together with the extraordinary fruitfulness of his contributions
to making man's life easier and more comfortable, it seems a sad contradiction
that he spent around twenty years perfecting a very efficient means
of slaughtering his fellow human beings. |
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*This is a copy of an article published in "Reflections" in May 2004, Vol. 13 Issue 148, pp.18-21. "Reflections" is Derbyshire's largest-circulation targeted lifestyle magazine, serving Dronfield, Chesterfield, Matlock and Bakewell areas. The article is reproduced here with the very kind permission and written consent of the author, Lawton Slaney, and Bannister Publications Ltd. |
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Sir Joseph Whitworth Whitworth rose from obscurity to become the most revered machine toolmaker and engineer of the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1820s he was an expert on cotton mill machinery, then moved to London in 1825 to work for Maudslay, the Holtzapffels and Joseph Clement, respectively. He returned to Manchester in 1833 where his firm made machine tools, steam engines, textile machinery and road-sweeping machines. Whitworth's major contributions were pioneering precise measurement; establishing a national standard screw thread; manufacturing superior small arms and the 'Whitworth' rifle; and furthering the cause of technical education and the training of engineering students. Upon his death his estate of nearly half a million pounds was distributed to educational and charitable institutions. The Whitworth Rifle In May 1854 Viscount Hardinge, Master General of Ordinance, sought the aid of Whitworth, the pre-eminent mechanical engineer of the day, in perfecting machinery for the production of rifles. Whitworth considered it inconsistent with his reputation to make machinery in order to mass-produce inferior articles. He instead persuaded Hardinge that the design factors influencing accuracy and effectiveness of rifles should first be considered. He offered to conduct experiments to determine these factors at no expense for his time and attention. In order to facilitate these experiments, an enclosed gallery 500 yards long was erected in the grounds attached to Whitworth's residence near Manchester. It was provided with a target on wheels for shooting at different distances, rests for steadying the aim and screens to record the flight of the projectiles. Two constraints were imposed on Whitworth by the military in accordance with their misguided understanding of what was effective and practical for the soldier, a minimum bullet weight and maximum powder charge. Experiments commenced in March 1855 by which time Whitworth had settled on the hexagonal form of rifling. Different bullet forms and rates of rifling twist were tried and a 530 grain mechanically fitting, hardened lead bullet fired from a barrel of approximately .451 inch bore with a rifling twist of one turn in twenty inches was found to be best. In April 1857 when tested against the .577 Enfield Rifle, this being the service rifle of the day, the Whitworth Rifle was found to be three times more accurate at 500 yards and even more accurate at longer distances. Bullets fired from the Whitworth rifle were found to penetrate materials to many times the depth of those fired from the Enfield Rifle. From 1860 the National Rifle Association held annual rifle competitions at which the Whitworth Rifle was dominant for several years. Due to a number of difficulties in mass-producing a serviceable military Whitworth Rifle at a suitably low price it was never adopted for general military issue. It was, however, the rifle of choice for a limited number of sharp shooters during the American Civil War. It was also the rifle of choice of target shooters for many years. |
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[1] Scott Ashton has provided the following: [2] Joseph Whitworth was born in Stockport on 21 Dec 1803 and baptised at Orchard Street or Churchgate Independent on 8 Feb 1804. He was the son of Charles and Sarah Whitworth and his father was a schoolmaster. Charles Whitworth was also a "Dissenter" and became a Congregational Minister. Joseph was taught by his father at first but then became a pupil at William Vint's Academy in Idle, Yorkshire. Census references to Whitworth show him living at 62 Upper Brook Street in Chorlton Upon Medlock in 1841 (HO107/580/9 f12 p17). He was visiting the Penn family in North Row, Lewisham in 1851 (HO107/1591 f371 p26 s113). In 1861 he was at Stancliffe Hall which he had bought in 1856 and in 1871 he was at The Firs, Rusholme, his Manchester home which was also near his works. [3] Sir Joseph Whitworth, who died at Monte Carlo on 22 Jan 1887, was buried at St. Helen's, Darley Dale, Derbyshire on 2 Feb 1887, aged 83. His second wife, Mary Louisa (formerly Orrell), was buried there on 30 May 1896, aged 68. [4] Kilburn, Terence (1987) "Joseph Whitworth, Toolmaker", Scarthin Books, Cromford, ISBN 0 907758 22 3 has a slightly different version of the Whitworth Rifle. Kilburn's book was the first modern popular biography of him. The foreword was written by A. E. Derbyshire, the then Chairman of the Whitworth Trust.
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