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Joseph Whitworth was born in
Stockport in 1803. His most important innovation was to devised a machine
capable of measuring to an accuracy of one hundredth-thousandth of an inch. This
invention made mass production possible. Before this time, machines were
individually made because there was no known method of standardising machined
parts.
At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a Derbyshire cotton-spinner.
Whitworth studied the machinery in the factory and was critical of the poor
standards of workmanship and this inspired him to become an engineer.
In 1821 Whitworth moved to Manchester where he found work as a mechanic. Four
years later he moved to London where he trained under Henry Maudslay. After
returning to Manchester in 1833 he set up his own machine shop. Over the next
few years he built a successful knitting machine and a horse-drawn mechanical
roadsweeper.
By the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 Whitworth had acquired a world-wide
reputation of producing machines of unrivaled precision. The Crimean War
(1854-56) showed that the Enfield Rifle, the main gun used by the British Army,
was unreliable. Whitworth produced a far better rifle, and although rejected by
the War Office, it was adopted by the French Army, and also by America.
Whitworth also developed a field gun capable of firing a shell up to six miles.
By 1860 Whitworth's specifications for sizes of screw threads was generally
accepted throughout Britain, and is still in use today.
Whitworth was deeply concerned with working class poverty and donating large
sums of money to educational organisations. Sir Joseph Whitworth died in 1887.
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