   sir joseph whitworth, 1st baronet (21 december 1803 â 22 january 1887) was an english engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. in 1841, he devised the british standard whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads. whitworth also created the whitworth rifle, often called the 'sharpshooter' because of its accuracy and considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle. at his death in 1887, he bequeathed much of his fortune for the people of manchester, with the whitworth art gallery and christie hospital partly funded by whitworth's money. whitworth street and whitworth hall in manchester are named in his honour. whitworth was created a baronet on 7 october 1869. ==biography== ===early life=== whitworth was born in stockport, cheshire, the son of charles whitworth, a teacher and congregational minister, and at an early age developed an interest in machinery. he was educated at idle, near bradford, west riding of yorkshire; his aptitude for mechanics became apparent when he began work for his uncle.bradshaw (1985); pp.&nbsp;57â58 ===career=== after leaving school whitworth became an indentured apprentice to his uncle, joseph hulse, a cotton spinner at amber mill, oakerthorpe in derbyshire. the plan was that whitworth would become a partner in the business. from the outset he was fascinated by the mill's machinery and soon he mastered the techniques of the cotton spinning industry but even at this age he noticed the poor standards of accuracy and was critical of the milling machinery. this early exposure to the mechanics of the industry forged in him the ambition to make machinery with much greater precision. his apprenticeship at amber mill lasted for a four year term after which he worked for another four years as a mechanic in a factory in manchester. he then moved to london where he found employment working for henry maudslay, the inventor of the screw-cutting lathe, alongside such peop
1803_births 1887_deaths American_Civil_War_industrialists Baronets_in_the_Baronetage_of_the_United_Kingdom British_mechanical_engineers English_businesspeople English_engineers English_inventors English_philanthropists Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society Firearm_designers History_of_Greater_Manchester Machine_tool_builders People_associated_with_the_University_of_Manchester People_from_Stockport People_of_the_Industrial_Revolution