Inventions that Didn't Change the World Read online

  About the Author

  Julie Halls works in the Advice and Records Knowledge Department at The National Archives, London, and is a specialist in registered designs.

  Other titles of interest published by

  Thames & Hudson include:

  Things Come Apart:

  A Teardown Manual for Modern Living

  Objectivity:

  A Designer’s Book of Curious Tools

  Cyclepedia:

  A Tour of Iconic Bicycle Designs

  The Bicycle Artisans

  Design Since 1945

  See our websites

  www.thamesandhudson.com

  www.thamesandhudsonusa.com

  FOR MY SON, OLIVER

  THANK YOU TO MY FATHER, LAURIE; MY BROTHER, ROBIN; ANN & MY FRIENDS BARBARA & LINDSEY FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT

  Design for a placard holder, 1848

  Design for a Fire Escape, 1846

  Cover binding of a volume of designs BT 45/28, 1874–78

  CONTENTS

  Preliminary Remarks

  I

  HOUSE & GARDEN

  II

  FIELD & FACTORY

  III

  HIS & HERS

  IV

  OUT & ABOUT

  V

  PREVENTATIVES & PANACEAS

  VI

  SPORT & LEISURE

  VII

  SAFETY & SECURITY

  Picture Credits

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  PRELIMINARY REMARKS

  The inventions in this book tell a story of nineteenth-century enterprise, enthusiasm and, above all, optimism. Each gadget, machine or ‘apparatus’, however bizarre it might seem now, was copyrighted by an inventor filled with hope that it would prove popular, useful and – if others shared his vision – profitable. The Victorian era was one of amazing inventiveness, and many inventions of the period were so successful that they changed the way we live – such as the telephone, steam engine, railway and light bulb. However, there were also thousands of inventions that we have long since forgotten or that never saw the light of day.

  Everyone who applied to copyright an invention had to provide two identical drawings of the design to the government’s Designs Registry at Somerset House, London. If successful, one copy of the drawing would be stamped and returned to the copyright holder. The other would be pasted into a huge, leather-bound volume of designs and retained by the Registry, part of the Board of Trade. These volumes are now in the care of The National Archives, which look after more than 1,000 years of UK government records. Most of the inventions, dating back to 1843, have never been seen by any but a few determined researchers. This is partly because of the complex system of numbering adopted by the Registry, which can make it difficult to track down specific designs, and perhaps also because the volumes are large, dusty and extremely heavy. Although the documents are now carefully stored in temperature-controlled conditions, this was not always the case during their long history, as can be seen by the damage to some of the drawings. Although some inventions have now been catalogued and the details of the proprietor (the copyright holder), date of registration and a brief description of the design can be found on The National Archives’s online catalogue, few of the images have been digitized.

  Spine of a single volume of designs, BT 45/14, 1850–51

  The activities of the inventors, many of them amateurs, were part of a wider culture that celebrated as a national triumph the technological achievements and industrial advances made in Britain. By the middle of the nineteenth century it was both the greatest manufacturing nation and the greatest trading nation in the world. The process of industrialization that began in the eighteenth century paved the way for a period of immense industrial productivity based on steam technology. Huge advances were made in the mining of coal, minerals and other raw materials, and in the production of iron, textiles and manufactured goods. These advances allowed Britain to mass-produce goods more efficiently and sell them more cheaply than any other nation.

  This powerful position was further strengthened by improvements in transport and communication technologies. The railways moved freight and passengers around the country at great speed, providing new opportunities for commerce and leisure activities. The Illustrated London News described the railways as ‘the grandest exponent of the enterprise, the wealth and the intelligence of our race’,1 and their rising importance is reflected by a number of railway-related designs. Britain’s steam ships dominated the seas, making international trade faster and the administration of the growing Empire more efficient. The electric telegraph aided the smooth running of the railways, and undersea telegraph cables helped Britain to control a vast empire that provided raw materials for British factories and markets for the goods they produced.2 Men like Richard Arkwright, credited with creating the modern factory system, George Stephenson and Richard Trevithick, pioneers of steam transport, and the visionary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, were all national heroes.

  As the prosperity of the nation increased, a greater proportion of the population than ever before had disposable income to spend on the huge range of goods being produced. The affluent and expanding middle classes, in particular, helped ensure a strong domestic demand for goods, fuelled by an increase in advertising along with lifestyle books and journals.

  The press in general expanded hugely at this time, and the sense of excitement and widespread interest in technological innovations were reflected in the growth of popular magazines and journals aimed at ordinary mechanics and artisans as well as highly qualified engineers. There was an intense interest in how things worked, which crossed the barriers of class. Publications such as The Mechanics’ Magazine, Popular Science Monthly and The Engineer contained highly technical articles about the latest inventions and technological developments and lively letters demonstrating that readers had a sound understanding of the subject.

  A registration stamp. Blue ink was used until mid-1852

  An example of a provisional registration stamp

  Provisional Spiral Grooved Candle*, 1870

  The Victorians tended to imbue every aspect of life with a sense of morality, which included a powerful belief in individualism, self-respect and self-reliance – there was a feeling that people should make their own way in the world. Each issue of the Mechanics Magazine, for example, had on its title page a morally improving quotation designed to inspire its readers.

  This belief in self-reliance was encapsulated in Samuel Smiles’s best-selling book Self-help; with illustrations of character and conduct, published in 1859. There is a strong emphasis on industry – meaning the human quality of industriousness, as well as machine production – and inventors and engineers are described in heroic terms. There are numerous homilies describing the determination of successful inventors to succeed in the face of setbacks. Smiles emphasized that the fruits of labour could be enjoyed by people at any level in society who were prepared to work hard and persevere. Individual effort could enable inventors to rise from the lowest social ranks. In this environment – where technology was a source of fascination and admiration – inventors were seen as heroic and morally superior individuals, and ordinary men were encouraged to work hard in order to achieve success.

  Having come up with an idea, the inventor would want to make sure that it was not immediately copied. Until the Designs Registry was established by the Designs Registration Act of 1839, the only way to protect an invention was by taking out a patent. Registration of designs was established in part to address shortcomings in the patent system, as well as to give copyright protection to (at first) ‘
ornamental’ designs. To this day patents and registered designs remain two separate methods of protecting intellectual property; designs are today registered at the Intellectual Property Office.

  By the first half of the nineteenth century the patent system had become hopelessly expensive and inefficient, giving rise to a vociferous reform movement. Its administrative machinery was labyrinthine and was described in a discussion in the House of Lords in 1851 as ‘calculated…to baffle and paralyse the efforts of a class so essential in maintaining the commercial pre-eminence’ of the country.3

  Before an inventor was granted a patent, his application had to go through as many as ten offices, with a fee payable at each. Petitions, warrants and bills were prepared several times over, signed and countersigned, before a patent was finally approved. At any stage in the process an application could be opposed by a competitor, causing delays of up to six months and increasing the possibility of details of the patent leaking out. The cost of a patent was prohibitively expensive and out of the grasp of many small manufacturers. Between 1750 and 1852 patents could cost up to £400, with separate costs for taking out the patent in England, Scotland and Ireland.4

  Charles Dickens’s short story A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent, published in Household Words in 1850, tells of one man’s efforts to patent his invention. The story exaggerates the process, describing thirty-four steps, but the desperation and confusion felt by the would-be patentee as he negotiates the system is echoed by contemporary accounts. Dickens writes: ‘Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong? How else can a man feel, when he is met by such difficulties at every turn? All inventors taking out a Patent must feel so.’

  Calls for reform of the patent system coincided with calls for the protection of what were termed ‘ornamental’ designs. This came about because of the huge increase in mass-produced goods, especially textiles. Piracy of designs was common, and could mean major financial losses for manufacturers.

  As the production of goods sped up, so did the rate at which designs could be copied. In 1787 the Calico Printers’ Act was passed, giving protection to textile designs, and in the years that followed manufacturers of other types of goods started to demand protection for their designs.5

  The Act of 1839 extended copyright to all ornamental designs – so that as well as textiles, decorative items made from any other material could also be registered. However, inventors were also registering their work – inappropriately in the eyes of the Registrar – and in part to address this problem, and also to extend the period of copyright for printed fabrics, the 1839 Act was replaced in 1842 by the Ornamental Designs Act. This created thirteen ‘material classes’ – metal, wood, glass and so on – each with its own period of copyright protection. Either because of genuine confusion, or because registering a design was cheaper and easier than taking out a patent, the 1842 Act failed to stop ‘the incessant attempts on the part of inventors of utilities to squeeze in along with their more fortunate brethren the inventors of ornament. Patents were, from their expense, in a multitude of cases quite out of the question’.6

  The 1843 Utility Designs Act, which provided copyright protection for designs ‘not being of an ornamental character’, but instead for ‘any new or original design for any article of manufacture having reference to some purpose of utility’, gave proprietors copyright protection for three years. The Act also addressed a growing feeling that the patent system should be reserved for ‘important’ inventions, and not ‘snuffers, stirrups, lamps, cork-screws, and other articles of domestic use’7 – although in reality many ‘significant’ inventions were also registered.

  Although there was still some confusion between what should be covered by a patent and what should be registered as a design – this hinged on the fact that protection for non-ornamental designs was based on a new ‘shape or configuration’ of a useful object, while a patent covered its utility, or function – the law struggled to find a logical basis for distinguishing between the two categories.8 The Act was widely perceived as a cheaper and quicker form of protection for small tradesmen than the convoluted patent system. As the barrister Thomas Turner explained: ‘As regards all the minor inventions, and therefore the majority of them, the patent, from its enormous and inflexible cost, afforded no protection at all. It is insisted on that the [1843] act was expressly provided to remedy this, and to such inventions it has been widely applied.’9

  “THE WANTS OF SOCIETY CALL FOR EVERY MAN’S LABOUR. NO ONE IS PERMITTED TO BE A BLANK IN THE WORLD. NO RANK NOR STATION EXEMPTS ANY MAN FROM CONTRIBUTING HIS SHARE TO THE PUBLIC UTILITY AND GOOD. THIS IS THE PRECEPT OF GOD; THIS IS THE VOICE OF NATURE; THIS IS THE JUST DEMAND OF THE HUMAN RACE ONE UPON ANOTHER.”

  MECHANICS MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1839–MAY 1840

  In practice the decision as to whether to register an invention as a design or to apply for a patent was left to the applicant. It was felt unlikely that the inventor of a design which ought to be patented would forego fourteen years’ patent protection in favour of the three years offered by registration. Thousands of inventors chose to register their designs, resulting in the unique documents seen in this book.

  A Clip for attaching grapes or other fruit to Epergnes, 1870

  “WE OFTEN DISCOVER WHAT WILL DO BY FINDING OUT WHAT WILL NOT DO; AND PROBABLY HE WHO NEVER MADE A MISTAKE NEVER MADE A DISCOVERY.”

  SAMUEL SMILES, SELF HELP, 1859

  Having decided to register his design, the inventor had to take or send to the Designs Registry ‘two exactly similar drawings or prints [of the design] made on a proper geometric scale’. He also needed to provide the title of the design; his name and address; explanatory text; and to state which parts were (or were not) new and original.

  Although some inventors produced their own drawings and applications, others used the services of a registration agent. Patent agents had begun to appear at the end of the eighteenth century, as the numbers of patent applications and court cases began to increase along with industrialization, and as applicants found it increasingly difficult to negotiate the system. By 1851 patent agents had become an established service industry, and dealt with around 90 per cent of all patents. Many were engineers and patentees themselves, while others had a legal background.10

  While some patent agents saw the introduction of the Designs Registry as a threat, others saw it as an opportunity to expand their businesses and were quick to rebrand themselves as both patent and registration agents.

  Unsurprisingly, it tends to be the case that where particularly detailed and professional drawings have been submitted, a registration agent was used. They would either have made the drawing themselves on behalf of their clients, or employed a professional draughtsman to do so. The accompanying explanation of the designs tends to be carefully worded to avoid any suggestion that the object should have been patented instead of registered as a design. Words such as ‘principle’, ‘action’ or ‘invention’ were avoided, and instead the object was described using terms such as ‘shape’, ‘form’ and ‘configuration’. The ‘object of utility’, or purpose of the design, would always be described.

  Design for a Pedo-manu-motive, c. 1848

  The fee for registering designs of utility (useful designs) was set at £10. It was hoped that the relatively high cost compared with ornamental designs would avoid making registration of designs too attractive to inventors whose designs should be the subject of patents, and would also act as ‘a safeguard against the Registrar being inundated with merely trifling or insignificant designs’.

  Trifling or otherwise, these designs provide a fascinating insight into the social history and technology of the period. Some seemingly inexplicable inventions make sense within their historical context. One example is the ‘Design for a Flying or Aerial Machine for the Artic [sic] Regions’, which was registered at a time when exploration of the Arctic, and in particular attempts to find a trade route through
the Northwest Passage, was the subject of sensational news stories. There are several designs registered around the time of the gold rushes, and the ‘Anti-Garotting Cravat’ coincided with a national scare about incidents of robbery. The Victorians seem to have been preoccupied by personal safety, judging by the number of items designed to protect life and limb. Some of these seem as perilous as the dangers they hoped to mitigate: the ‘Design for a Fire-Escape’, for example, is intended to catch a person jumping from the window of a burning building.

  Contemporary crazes can also be found – such as hydropathy, or hydrotherapy – which involved mineral or vapour baths, cold plunges and sitz baths, and were thought to cure a wide range of ills. The designs for therapeutic baths often refer to users as ‘patients’. The ‘Hydro Vapour Bath’ promises ‘an instantaneous ablution of cold or tepid water whilst immersed in the steam’.

  A number of the designs were displayed at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, one of the wonders of the Victorian age, held in 1851 in London’s Hyde Park. Pressure for reform of the patent system increased in the run-up to the Great Exhibition, as manufacturers feared that their exhibits would be copied by competitors. Although patent reform did not take place until the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, the Designs Act of 1850 provided copyright protection of one year (termed ‘provisional’ protection) for designs to be exhibited.

  Design for “Cantab” Braces, 1850

  The Great Exhibition was the first world fair and marked the high point of British economic power, consolidating Britain’s position as ‘the workshop of the world’. Over six million visitors flocked to see the huge machines that powered industry, as well as the vast range of commodities on offer. Although the more spectacular exhibits received the most publicity, thousands of items made by small-scale tradesmen and manufacturers were also on display. This meant that as well as being awestruck by power-looms, the Jacquard lace machine and steam-powered threshing machines, visitors could also admire the ‘Somapantic Bath’ registered by Samuel Gilbert of Stamford, Lincolnshire, a gravy dish registered by John Gray from Edinburgh, and the ‘Cantab’ braces (which ‘yield to any strain and maintain the trousers of the wearer in perfect fit under all positions’), registered by Welch, Margetson & Co, of Cheapside, London.