James Hall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth; 19 August 1808 – 7 May 1890) was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.
Early life
Nasmyth was born at 47 York Place, Edinburgh where his father Alexander Nasmyth was a landscape and portrait painter. One of Alexander's hobbies was mechanics and he employed nearly all his spare time in his workshop where he encouraged his youngest son to work with him in all sorts of materials. James was sent to the Royal High School where he had as a friend, Jimmy Patterson, the son of a local iron founder. Being already interested in mechanics he spent much of his time at the foundry and there he gradually learned to work and turn in wood, brass, iron, and steel. In 1820 he left the High School and again made great use of his father's workshop where at the age of 17, he made his first steam engine. From 1821 to 1826, Nasmyth regularly attended the Edinburgh School of Arts (today Heriot-Watt University, making him one of the first students of the institution). In 1828 he made a complete steam carriage that was capable of running a mile carrying 8 passengers. This accomplishment increased his desire to become a mechanical engineer. He had heard of the fame of Henry Maudslay's workshop and resolved to get employment there; unfortunately his father could not afford to place him as an apprentice at Maudslay's works. Nasmyth therefore decided instead to show Maudslay examples of his skills and produced a complete working model of a high-pressure steam engine, creating the working drawings and constructing the components himself.
Career In May 1829, Nasmyth visited Maudslay in London, and after showing him his work was engaged as an assistant workman at 10 shillings a week. Unfortunately, Maudslay died two years later, whereupon Nasmyth was taken on by Maudslay's partner as a draughtsman. When Nasmyth was 23 years old, having saved the sum of £69, he decided to set up in business on his own. He rented a factory flat 130 feet long by 27 feet wide at an old cotton mill on Dale Street, Manchester.
The combination of massive castings and a wooden floor was not an ideal one, and after an accident involving one end of an engine beam crashing through the floor into a glass cutters flat below he soon relocated. He moved to Patricroft, an area of the town of Eccles, Lancashire, where in August 1836, he and his business partner Holbrook Gaskell opened the Bridgewater Foundry, where they traded as Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company. The premises were constructed adjacent to the (then new) Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bridgewater Canal. He was elected to corresponding membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 7 January 1862 In March 1838 James was making a journey by coach from Sheffield to York in a snowstorm, when he spied some ironwork furnaces in the distance. The coachman informed him that they were managed by a Mr. Hartop who was one of his customers. He immediately got off the coach and headed for the furnaces through the deep snow. He found Mr. Hartop at his house, and was invited to stay the night and visit the works the next day. That evening he met Hartop's family and was immediately smitten by his 21-year-old daughter, Anne. A decisive man, the next day he told her of his feelings and intentions, which was received "in the best spirit that I could desire." He then communicated the same to her parents, and told them his prospects, and so became betrothed in the same day. They were married two years later, on 16 June 1840 in Wentworth. Up to 1843, Nasmyth, Gaskell & Co. concentrated on producing a wide range of machine tools in large numbers. By 1856, Nasmyth had built 236 shaping machines. In 1840 he began to receive orders from the newly opened railways which were beginning to cover the country, for locomotives. His connection with the Great Western Railway whose famous steamship SS Great Western had been so successful in voyages between Bristol and New York, led to him being asked to make some machine tools of unusual size and power which were required for the construction of the engines of their next and bigger ship SS Great Britain.
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