1803 - Emergence of Steam Machinery at Portsmouth Dockyard

The Block Mills have entered service at Portsmouth dockyard. This is a decisive step for the introduction of steam engines into shipyards. Two centuries after the introduction of wind-powered sawmills into Zaandam works, we are attending the advent of a new era of mechanisation in shipbuilding.

¤ Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest is the inventor of the wind-powered sawmill, which swiftly developed during the first half of the 17th century in the United Provinces. Zaandam became the world centre for wind industry : there, hundred of sawmills have produced timber and paper pulp for two centuries. In Amsterdam the hand sawyers formed a strong guild which opposed windmills for fifty years but progress finally took hold there too. No doubt that Dutch naval success in the 1660s resulted from this blazing industrial advantage. Moreover mechanisation led to standardisation and to serial construction.

¤ The French imitated the Dutch from the 1670s on after Pierre Arnoul's inquiry. They did it at their pace to a limited extent at Toulon, at Arnoul's initiative - shipbuilding has ups and downs in France, which prevents the dockyards from scaling up. Curiously, wind-powered sawmills have remained rare in England despite the huge needs of the first navy. We cannot explain that delay in mechanising shipbuilding before the advent of steam - strength of habit and tradition? For two centuries, mechanisation has been the key factor for the Dutch, organisation for the Britons, design for the French.

Three talented gentlemen have cooperated on this key project. Samuel Bentham has decided and supervised it, Marc Isambard Brunel has designed the machinery, Henry Maudslay has built it.

¤ Bentham, 48, is a naval engineer. Trained at Woolwich and at Chatham dockyards, he was hired at the age of 23 by Prince Grigory Aleksandrovith Potemkin who contempated the construction of ships, of dockyards and of modern works. He was entrusted with various tasks of industrial management by Potemkin and invented in 1786 the panoptikion to supervise workers - an invention credited to his elder brother Jeremy, a philosopher, who has promoted and publicized it in the form of a prison. Back in England, he patented in 1793 a woodworking machinery, considered as noteworthy, before being appointed Inspector General of Naval Works in 1796. Since then, he has introduced mechanisation of many dockyard tasks. Six years ago, he introduced a copper-rolling machinery for the purpose of sheathing ship hulls more efficiently. He installed a first steam engine to drive a pump five years ago, a second two years later for the same purpose, where steam replaced horses. Convinced by his conception, he has chosen Brunel to introduce block-making machinery into the dockyard three years ago.

¤ Brunel, 36, is a mechanical engineer. A naval ensign, he left France in 1793 during the Reign of Terror for the United States of America, where he became Chief Engineer of the city of New York, for which he designed docks, a cannon factory and an arsenal. He had met a lovely young lady, Sophia Kingdom, before leaving, which decided of his fate. Four years ago, he left America for England with plans for mechanising pulley production. That year, he married Sophia, met Maudslay and approached Bentham. Last year, he has been entrusted with the installation of the machinery at the Block Mills.

¤ Mauslay, 34, is another mechanical engineer, outstanding by his ingenuity, which revealed at the early age of 18 with a lock and a hydraulic press, and made him at 19 a foreman in expert mechanics. He established his own business six years ago. Three years ago, he invented a screw-cutting lathe which made him famous and initiated standardisation of nuts and bolts. He also produced models for future Brunel's block mills, before manufacturing the woodworking machines on Bentham's order.

The new machinery requires one tenth of the workforce demanded by hand working for a given quantity of pulleys, with much lower. skills to involve The two first sets of machines are already at work. When the third set will be commissioned, it will form a 45-machine factory of 22 different sorts, driven by two steam engines of 30hp each. Production is expected to rise up to 130,000 blocks a year. The navy needs amount to some 100,000 units of different sizes every year. A single ship of the line carries a thousand pulleys in her rigging, which explains the high numbers aimed at.

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

Note A - on steam-powered machinery in shipyards

The Block Mills are highly successful. They are completed in 1805 and run for over a hundred years. They are still operational in the 1930s.

The next decisive step is the appearance of the first steam-powered sawmill at Chatham dockyard. Marc Isambard Brunel is, once again, entrusted with this mission which he completes in 1814, and replicates at Woolwich dockyard. This is an essential milestone. Robert Seppings, who becomes Surveyor of the Navy the previous year, had already introduced diagonal bracing, which calls for standardisation of timber components, which leads to pre-fabrication. This is a decisive move from craft to assembly at the shipyards. It will take a few tens of years, less than twenty in Britain.

Note B - on Brunel

Brunel is poorly paid, and with a large delay, by the Admiralty. This is the beginning of his problems with money. Added with bad ventures, this leads to his imprisonment for debt in 1821. He considers to exile in Russia but he is liberated thanks to the intervention of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, who considers that he is too precious to be wasted in jail or abroad. He will achieves the construction of a tunnel under the Thames by using his invention of a shield around the tunnel front. Maudslay partners with him, as formerly. A fellow of the Royal Society since 1814, he is also knighted by Queen Victoria in 1841.

Brunel is also the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, born in 1806, famous engineer, designer of Great Western, Great Britain and Great Eastern steamships.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bertrand Gille, André Fel, Jean Parent, Bernard quemada, François Russo - Histoire des Techniques - Paris, 1978