



Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.











                  THE STORY
               OF THE INVENTION
                OF STEEL PENS

             WITH A DESCRIPTION OF
         THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS BY
           WHICH THEY ARE PRODUCED

                BY HENRY BORE
                   LONDON


                    1890

In these days of Public Schools and extended facilities for popular
education it would be difficult to find many people unaccustomed to
the use of steel pens, but although the manufacture of this article by
presses and tools must have been introduced during the first quarter
of the present century, the inquirer after knowledge would scarcely
find a dozen persons who could give any definite information as to
when, where, and by whom this invention was made.  Less than two
decades ago there were three men living who could have answered this
question, but two of them passed away without making any sign, and the
third--Sir Josiah Mason--has left on record that his friend and
patron--Mr.  Samuel Harrison--about the year 1780, made a steel pen
for Dr. Priestley.

This interesting fact does not contribute anything toward solving the
question, Who was the first manufacturer of steel pens by mechanical
appliances?  In the absence of any definite information, the balance
of testimony tends to prove that steel pens were first made by tools,
worked by a screw press, about the beginning of the third decade of
the present century, and the names associated with their manufacture
were John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott, and Josiah Mason, each, in his own
way, doing something toward perfecting the manufacture by mechanical
means.

The earliest references to pens are probably those in the Bible, and
are to be found in Judges v. 14, 1st Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalm
xlv. 1., Isaiah viii. 1, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. 1. But these
chiefly refer to the iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah--taken
in reference to the mention of a penknife, xxxvi. 23--would seem to
imply that a reed was in use at that period.

There is a reference to "pen and ink" in the 3d Epistle of John xiii.
5, which was written about A.D. 85, and as pens made in brass and
silver were used in the Greek and Roman Empires at that time, it is
probable that a metallic pen or reed was alluded to.

Pens and reeds made in the precious metals and bronze appear to have
been in use at the commencement of the present era.  The following are
a few notable instances:

"The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1540, had a silver pen bestowed
upon her, which had this inscription upon it: _'Publii Ovidii
Calamus,'_ found under the ruins of some monument in that country, as
Mr. Sands, in the Life of Ovid (prefixed to his Metamorphosis)
relates.  --_"Humane Industry; or, a History of Mechanical Arts," by
Thos. Powell, D.D.: London, 1661, page 61._"

This was probably a silver reed, and, from the locality in which it
was found, was once the property of the poet Ovid.  Publius Ovidius
Naso was born in the year 43 B.C., and died 18 A.D.  He was exiled at
the age of 30 to Tomi, a town south of the delta of the Danube.  This
at present is in modern Bulgaria, but at the period mentioned was in
the ancient kingdom of Hungary.

From "Notes and Queries," in Birmingham _Weekly Post_, we take the
following:

"EARLY METALLIC PENS.---Metallic pens are generally supposed to have
been unknown before the early part of the last century, when gold and
silver pens are occasionally referred to as novel luxuries.  I have,
however, recently found a description and an engraving of one found in
excavating Pompeii, and which is now preserved in the Museum at
Naples.  It is described in the quarto volume 'Les Monuments du Musee
National de Naples, graves sur cuivre par les meillures artistes
Italienes.  Texte par Domenico Monaco, Conservateur du meme Musee,
Naples, 1882,' and is in the Catalogue:

"' Plate I26 (v) Plume en bronze, taillee parfaitement a la facon de
nos plumes 0.13 cent.

"' Plate I26 (y) Plume en roseau [reed] trouvee pres d'un papyrus a
Herculaneum.'

"The former (v) is engraved to look like an ordinary reed pen,