Mike Rendell

Challenged to think of a female scientist in the Georgian era I struggled to get beyond Caroline Herschel, about whom I have already blogged. Checking through the inventory of female scientists is a depressingly short list, partly because educational opportunities for women were so limited, and also because the higher echelons of acadaemia were firmly barred. But it turns out that there was an exception – not in England, but in Bologna where the university can claim to be the oldest in Europe, and where the person in question became Europe’s first ever official female teacher.

So let us raise a cheer for the flag bearer, the numero uno, the woman who blazed a trail for others to follow: one Laura Bassi. Never heard of her? Shame on us all, because her achievements really were rather remarkable.

Laura was born in Bologna in 1711 with considerable advantages: her dad was a wealthy lawyer, and one who was well-connected. Her father was sufficiently broad-minded to want more for his daughter by way of education that mere reading, writing, embroidery and musical accomplishments; he insisted that she received a private education to match any male. Perhaps she was encouraged because she was the only child of the Bassi household to survive childhood.

She was a child prodigy, who excelled at mathematics, philosophy, logic, meta-physics, anatomy and natural history. She was also a fluent linguist. By the age of 21 she was appointed professor of anatomy at Bologna University (1731) and in the following year was elected to the Academy of the Institute for Sciences. Her doctorate was marked by a lavish ceremony, one in which she was presented with an ermine cape, a ring, and a jewel-encrusted silver crown of laurels. A special medal was struck to mark the occasion, showing Bassi as the Goddess Minerva. 1733 saw her appointment to the Chair of Philosophy but in these early years her opportunities for teaching were distinctly limited. Why? Because it would not have been seemly for a woman to appear before a hall-full of men. Therefore her early teaching opportunities were limited to those where the general public were invited.

Her natural inclination was towards the sciences in general, and to physics in particular. She was a follower of Newton and helped introduce Newtonian ideas on physics and natural philosophy to Italy. For 28 years she lectured, and at the same time produced numerous papers of her own on topics ranging from physics (13 papers); hydraulics (11 papers); mathematics (2 papers) and one each on mechanics and chemistry.

She was particularly interested in Newton’s theories on optics, light and the laws of motion. From 1745 to 1778, she gained respect for her research on mechanics, hydrometry, and on the properties of gases including their elasticity. This respect was also tempered by a widespread antagonism towards her from male contemporaries: being a female academic scientist in a male dominated world was never going to be easy. In 1738 she married Giuseppe Veratti, a fellow academic. Some reports give her as having as many as twelve children by Giuseppe, others say a mere eight. Five of her offspring reached adulthood.

Being married had one important consequence: she was able to petition the University to allow her to teach from home. This would not have been ‘proper’ for a single woman but was acceptable for a married one. She carried out numerous experiments on electro-magnetism from home and, jointly with her husband, was interested in the role of electricity in medicine.

In all her scientific and academic efforts she was supported by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, and when the Cardinal was made Pope Benedict XIV he formed an elite group of scholars (called the Benedettini, after himself). In 1745 the group had 25 members and at Pope Benedict’s insistence, Laura Bassi was one of them – the only woman). Pope Benedict was also from Bologna, and had always supported Laura as being ‘the woman to put Bologna on the map’. Her unique qualities, made all the more rare because she was a woman, made her a star in Bologna’s firmament. She was an exceptional scientist, and an exceptional lecturer.

The University of Bologna Graduation ceremony

She used her connections to get the University to pay for scientific equipment to be installed in her home. In time, these powerful patrons saw to it that by 1760 she was the highest paid professor at either the University or the Institute for Sciences.

When she was 65 she was appointed to the new Chair in Experimental Physics. She had a teaching assistant – her husband! She died in Bologna two years later on 20th February 1778 and was succeeded to the Chair of Experimental Physics by her husband. There may have been better scientists in the Eighteenth Century, but none of them were women; there may have been more innovative and controversial lecturers, but she had extraordinary staying power. Here was a woman who blasted her way to the top of her chosen profession, and stayed there. She was the first, and deserves to be an inspiration to all who encounter barriers at the workplace, or are held back by prejudices and bigotry.

One of the things I like most about the Eighteenth Century is an awareness that ‘there walked giants’ – men and women who made a difference to the world in which we live. Few of us know of Henry Maudslay, yet he was a brilliant engineer who made the Industrial Revolution possible. His achievements were staggering.

He was born in Woolwich in 1771. His father died when he was nine years old and times must have been hard. As a twelve year old he went to work in the docks as a ‘powder monkey’ – loading cartridges. He moved on to training in a smithy, working with iron, and quickly made his name as a brilliant innovator and skilled technician.

At the age of 18 he came to the attention of locksmith Joseph Bramah, who had recently invented the ‘unbreakable padlock’ but needed someone to design the machinery to make it a feasible business proposition. The year was 1789. Maudslay not only designed the machinery to make the padlock, but proved its efficacy by putting it in the Bramah shop window with a challenge of 200 guineas for anyone who could open it. The challenge went unmet for nearly half a century – and then took the American locksmith A C Smith some fifty one hours, spread over a sixteen day period, before he could open the darned thing in 1850.

 The Maudslay lock

During the time he worked for Bramah Maudslay realized the importance of standardisation, and inter-changeability. As an example, all nuts and bolts were previously hand-made in matching pairs – dismantle a bolted piece of equipment and unless you kept the pairs together you would have a devil of a problem re-assembling it again. Maudslay worked with such precision that he was able to mass-produce interchangeable nuts and bolts, and manufacture screws to a standard size and strength. It spawned a revolution. Before Maudslay, a man typically worked a lathe with a treadle, holding the piece of metal being worked against the cutting edge and moving it by hand. Maudslay re-engineered the whole process so that countless identical pieces could be made – a feature which became the hallmark of all his projects.

Courtesy of http://home.howstuffworks.com

In 1791 he married Bramah’s housemaid and six years later had the nerve to ask for a raise (by then he was Bramah’s manager). Bramah declined, so Maudslay left to set up his own business, in tiny premises in Wells Street (off Oxford Street). Here he made further inventions of precision tool making equipment. Just one example brought him a contract with the Royal Navy to supply 42 machines for making wooden rigging blocks (each ship needed thousands of these). The machines could churn out 130,000 blocks a year using just ten (unskilled) operators – compared to over a hundred skilled workers needed previously. The machines worked on a mass-production assembly-line basis – one of the first examples in this country. Another naval contract was for the invention of a tool to punch holes in boiler plates – a job which needed immense accuracy, and was previously done, often badly, by hand.

Maudslay did further developments on lathe design, coming up with new gearing, rests etc and worked with such precision that he needed to invent the first ever bench-mounted micrometer (accurate to one ten thousandth of an inch).

The Maudslay lathe

Nick-named ‘The Lord Chancellor’ he used it to settle any arguments about the accuracy of his workmanship. James Nasmyth, a former apprentice of Maudslay who went on to invent the steam hammer, described the significance of Maudslay’s slide lathe as follows: “its influence in improving and extending the use of machinery has been as great as that produced by the improvement of the steam engine in respect to perfecting manufactures, and extending commerce.”

In many ways it was his influence on his apprentices which became his biggest legacy. His factory became a centre of excellence to which all aspiring engineers sought admission. If you were a Maudslay Man you were marked for the top! He inspired and motivated them, drumming in the maxims by which he worked. These were intended to encourage clear planning and a dedication to simplifying the process. “First get a clear notion of what you desire to accomplish, and then you will succeed in doing it” was one maxim. Another was “When you want to go from London to Greenwich don’t go via Inverness”. Simplicity was paramount. I rather like ” ‘Remember the get-at-ability of parts. If we go on as some mechanics are doing, we shall soon be boiling our eggs with a chronometer”.

The business expanded and in time Maudslay took two of his four sons into partnership, along with the brilliant young admiralty draughtsman Joshua Field. By now the business, known as Maudslay Sons & Field, was based in Lambeth and specialized in the production of marine engines for the Navy. In 1823 the Navy commissioned their first ever steam-powered engines for HMS Lightning, using an engine supplied from the Lambeth works. Within thirty years more than 200 vessels were using Maudslay Sons & Field engines, including the mighty 750 horse power engines commissioned for Brunel’s SS Great Western.

Somewhere along the way Maudslay also manufactured flour and saw mills, made precision machinery for minting coins, and produced steam engines.

In 1825 Isombard Kingdom Brunel’s father Marc had started work on the first tunnel under the Thames, linking Rotherhythe and Wapping. It was a huge undertaking, and it was 1842 before the tunnel was finished. It was the Maudslay steam pumps which kept the tunnel dry, and it was their manufacture of the Brunel-designed shield which made the tunnelling possible.

Maudslay never lived to see the tunnel completed. In 1831 he caught a chill crossing the English Channel and died a month later on 15 February. He was buried in St Mary Magdalen Church in Woolwich.

 A Maudslay grinding machine for ornamental turning, courtesy of http://www.birminghamstories.co.uk/

On this the anniversary of his death, spare a thought for a man who really did engineer the Industrial Revolution.