# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maudslay, Henry

​MAUDSLAY, HENRY (1771–1831), engineer, son of Henry Maudslay, was born at Woolwich 22 Aug. 1771, and entered the arsenal, where his father, a native of Clapham, Yorkshire, who served in the royal artillery from 1756 to 1776, was an artificer. He became a very expert workman, and at the age of eighteen entered the employment of Bramah, who was then engaged in devising machines for the manufacture of his well-known locks. According to James Nasmyth (Smiles, Industrial Biography, p. 205) it was Maudslay who suggested to Bramah the self-tightening leather collar for the hydraulic press, in place of the cupped leather shown in the specification of his patent of 1795 (No. 2045).
A dispute about wages led Maudslay to leave Bramah in 1798; and setting up in business as an engineer on his own account, he took premises at No. 64 Wells Street, Oxford Street. In 1802 he removed to a larger house, No. 75 Margaret Street, and his business increased rapidly (cf. rate-books of the parish of Marylebone). He was employed by the elder Brunel to construct his machinery for making ships' blocks, afterwards erected at Portsmouth dockyard. In 1805 he took out a patent (No. 2872) for printing calico, and another in 1808 (No. 3117) relating to the same subject. In conjunction with Bryan Donkin he patented in 1806 (No. 2948) a differential motion for raising weights, applicable also to driving lathes. In 1807 he patented (No. 3050) an arrangement of steam engine known as a ‘table engine,’ which, with some modifications, continued for forty years or thereabouts to be a favourite type for engines of small power. In 1810 he removed to Westminster Bridge Road, where the works have remained ever since. In 1812 he patented (No. 3538), in conjunction with Robert Dickinson, a method of purifying water on board ship by blowing air through it. Some time afterwards the firm was known as Henry Maudslay & Co., and subsequently Mr. Joshua Field was taken into partnership. In conjunction with Mr. Field, Maudslay patented in 1824 (No. 5021) a method of regulating the supply of water to boilers at sea, and preventing the formation of brine in the boilers. The firm devoted their attention especially to marine engines, in which Maudslay and his partners made many important improvements. He devoted great attention to the improvement of the lathe, and an account of his labours in this direction may be found in Gregory's ‘Mechanics,’ 2nd edit. 1807, ii. 471. Maudslay's original screw-cutting lathe, made about the end of the last century, at which Sir Joseph Whitworth worked during the time he was in Maudslay's employment, is still in existence. Among other specimens of his skill may be mentioned the measuring machine, divided so as to register a ten thousandth of an inch, which was made about the same time as the lathe. Whitworth afterwards adopted the principle of Maudslay's apparatus in his ‘millionth measuring machine.’ These relics were shown at the Naval Exhibition in 1891. In a chapter on ‘The Introduction of the Slide Principle in Tools and Machines,’ contributed by Nasmyth to Buchanan on ‘Millwork,’ ed. 1840, he says, p. 401: ‘It would be blamable indeed (after having endeavoured to set forth the vast advantages which have been conferred on the mechanical world, and therefore on mankind generally, by the invention and introduction of the slide-rest) were I to suppress the name of that admirable individual to whom we are indebted for this powerful agent towards the attainment of mechanical perfection. I allude to the late Henry Maudslay, engineer, of London, whose useful life was enthusiastically devoted to the grand object of improving our means of producing perfect workmanship and machinery. To him we are certainly indebted for the slide-rest. … The indefatigable care which he took in inculcating and diffusing among his workmen, and mechanical men generally, sound ideas of practical knowledge, and refined views of construction, has rendered, and ever will continue to render, his name identified with all that is noble in the ambition of a lover of mechanical perfection.’ Among Maudslay's pupils and workmen may be named Joseph Whitworth, James Nasmyth, Richard Roberts, Joseph Clements, Samuel Seaward, and William Muir.
Maudslay died at Lambeth on 14 Feb. 1831, and was buried in Woolwich churchyard, where he is commemorated by a cast-iron monument, bearing a number of inscriptions relating to his father and mother, his wife ​Sarah (d. 29 March 1828, aged 66), and many of his children and grandchildren.
The eldest son, Thomas Henry Maudslay (1792–1864), became a member of his father's firm, and by his commercial ability greatly contributed to its progress. His firm constructed the engines for the ships of the royal navy for more than a quarter of a century. He gave evidence before a select committee of the House of Commons on steam navigation in 1831. He purchased the estate of Banstead Park, Surrey, but died at Knight's Hill, Norwood, on 23 April 1864, and was buried at Woolwich. He was twice married (Mechanics' Magazine, 29 April 1864; Gent. Mag. 1864, i. 808; inscriptions on the father's tomb).
The third son, Joseph Maudslay (1801–1861), engineer, originally intended for a shipbuilder, was apprenticed to William Pitcher of Northfleet, but he subsequently joined his father's engineering business at Lambeth, in which he took a prominent position. In 1827 he patented an oscillating engine in which the slide valves were worked by an eccentric, and many engines were made upon that plan. He was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1833. In conjunction with Joshua Field he took out a patent in 1839 for a double-cylinder marine engine, which came into extensive use. His early training as a shipbuilder led him to take great interest in marine propulsion, and in 1841–2 his firm made the engines for the Rattler, the first screw-steamer built for the admiralty, which was afterwards employed in the trials of various forms of screw propellers. The screw was driven direct without the intervention of gearing. In 1848 he patented a feathering screw propeller, which was fitted in 1850 in three vessels belonging to the Screw Steam Shipping Company. Another of his inventions was the direct-acting annular cylinder screw engine, which formed the subject of a paper read by him before the Institution of Naval Architects in 1860. He died on 25 Sept. 1861 (Mechanics' Magazine, 11 Oct. 1861 p. 250, 29 Nov. 1861 p. 351; Alban, High Pressure Steam Engine, p. 208).
[Smiles's Industrial Biography, pp. 198–235; W. Walker's Distinguished Men of Science, 1862, p. 129; Vincent's Records of Woolwich, v. 213; Autobiography of James Nasmyth.]
R. B. P.