Chesterman Steel Tape
notes: label: Description
content: Steel tape graduated in inches and eighths of an inch on one side, and links and poles on the other. The brass handle of the leather case is marked "CHESTERMAN'S PATENT / SHEFFIELD" and "66 Ft."
label: Description
content: James Chesterman (1795–1867) was a metal worker in Sheffield, England who, in 1821, received a British patent for a method of using a spring to rewind measuring tapes. In 1842 Chesterman and James Bottom patented a woven cloth tape that incorporated strands of wire. Chesterman's 1853 patented process for heat-treating long strips of steel led to the manufacture of steel tapes that remained virtually unchanged for over 50 years.
label: Description
content: <i>Scientific American</i> called attention to Chesterman & Co. in 1869, noting that their patent steel tape "is about the most unique thing of the kind we have ever seen," and mentioning its portability, neatness, and exact measuring capability. W. & L. E. Gurley offered Chesterman steel tapes as early as 1871, describing them as "made of a thin ribbon of steel, which is jointed at intervals, and wound up in a leathern case, having a folding handle." Gurley went on to say that these tapes were the best on the market, but at $17, their "great cost" prevented their general use. Gurley also sold Chesterman tapes of cloth reinforced with wire; these cost just $5.25.
label: Description
content: Ref: "Steel Measuring Tapes," <i>Scientific American</i> 21 (1869): 216.
label: Description
content: W. & L .E. Gurley, <i>Manual of the Principal Instruments Used in American Engineering and Surveying</i> (Troy, N.Y., 1871), p. 132, and price list.
label: Description
content: James Chesterman & Co., <i>Chesterman's Patent Measures, Engineers' Tools, &c.</i> (Sheffield, n.d.), pp. 16–17.
label: Description
content: Douglas J. Hallam, <i>The First 200 Years. A Short History of Rabone Chesterman Limited</i> (1984).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, Sheffield, Sheffield
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.317041
label: catalog number
content: 317041
label: accession number
content: 211312
objectType: label: Object Name
content: measuring tape
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/4 in x 3 3/4 in; 3.175 cm x 9.525 cm