SCREW SMITH AND SCREW WIMSHURST. "An inventor is one of those inconveniences with which civilization is "inevitably afflicted. *** To reward an inventor is to commit an act of folly: unless, indeed, as is not altogether impossible, a man who has a claim for "something remains unrewarded, whilst others are rewarded. In such a case the "inventor is punished, as he deserves; for he himself feels some of the mental "anguish he has constantly and unsparingly inflicted on others." "FOOL. Why, marry, your honour, that is, your Worship, that is, your Grace's Highness's altitudeship,—have their costard knobs, yclept heads, knocked roundly well together, so that they both call out; and reward the mildest."—Old Play. WHO invented the screw propeller; who designed the ship in which it could be practically used; who built the ship; and who has been rewarded by the Government? It appears to us, as we shall show further on, that two persons were concerned in the invention and practical application of the screw, and that one, alone-viz., he who was concerned in the conception, and not he who practically applied it, has reaped the honour. "Screw" Smith, as Sir F. P. Smith is familiarly spoken of, had, as far as we can see, at any rate certainly not more to do with the practical introduction of the screw, than another gentleman, whom we will now call "Screw" Wimshurst. If we were beginning de novo, and were asked to whom we should give the honours for the practical application of the screw, we should say, rather to Mr. Wimshurst than to Mr. Smith; but as Mr. Smith, now Sir F. P. Smith, has obtained some distinction for his original conception, we say, let him enjoy it. We will not question his right to it; but we urge that justice ought also to be done to Mr. Smith's colleague-Mr. Wimshurst, without whose aid and energy the mere conception would have been of no practical value to the country. We should have admired Sir F. P. Smith the more had he been one of the first to assert publicly and to testify to Mr. Wimshurst's share of the practical adaptation and application of the screw; but now that Mr. Wimshurst comes forward himself, and modestly asks for inquiry into his case-into the part he played in resolving the invention from theory to practice we trust that Sir F. P. Smith will take him by the hand and corroborate his statements. The world is large enough, and the invention is important enough, to admit of a recognition to two persons. We will endeavour to explain Mr. Wimshurst's position as he asserts it. We will begin with the men. Mr. Smith is said to have been in business, and his business is said to have been such as to require a N N FIG. 1. SMITH'S Patent Screw, and Plans proposed for the Experimental Vessel called the Archimedes, May, 1838. knowledge of the properties of the soil, rather than of the performances and construction of ships. He, however, had made and tried small models. Mr. Wimshurst, on the other hand, was a practical man, and a shipbuilder of known position on the Thames. Mr. Smith possessed the invention, Mr. Wimshurst the practical knowledge and the influence, necessary to make the invention of use. Mr. Smith himself began the attempt at an application of the propeller, and of course failed. A vessel, 30 ft. long, had thus actually been built, and fitted with Mr. Smith's propeller, before Mr. Wimshurst took the matter up at all; for some gentlemen had subscribed a sum of money to test the merits of Mr. Smith's screw, and the committee appointed by those gentlemen condemned Mr. Smith's production, as shown in his 30 ft. vessel. That Mr. Smith failed, when alone and unaided, is proved by the fact that the money subscribed for the screw was devoted to another purpose, and went to build a paddle steamer. Here we have then fact No. 1—viz., that Mr. Smith built the first screw boat, a boat 30 ft. long, and fact No. 2 that Mr. Smith's boat was a failure. This was in 1837. Fact No. 3 is the intervention of Mr. Wimshurst. This was in 1838. Through Mr. Wimshurst's position. and known character as a practical man, he was able to give life to "The Ship Propeller Company," was the "first promoter," and one of the first, if not the very first, to put money into the Company; and it was only when and because and after he did so that others followed, and that the capital was raised. Mr. Smith was employed by the Company, and Mr. Wimshurst was engaged to build the Archimedes, not from his own designs and drawings, but from those prepared under the directions of Mr. Smith and the Company's surveyor. Everything went on with the Archimedes strictly according to the plans of Mr. Smith and the surveyor; the vessel was up in frame, and was actually planked as far as the place for the propeller, when an important incident arose as regards the hullviz., no less an incident than the interference of Mr. Wimshurst with the designs of Mr. Smith and the surveyor. The 30 ft. vessel that Mr. Smith had built had turned out a failure. Mr. Wimshurst thought that this was because the screw was put too much into the body of the vessel, into a kind of well (it had a bulkhead before it and a smaller bulkhead behind it). According to Mr. Smith's plan, the Archimedes would also have had her screw similarly encumbered. (See illustration, Fig. 1.) Mr. Wimshurst and Mr. Smith differed, and the directors of the Company finally agreed with Mr. Wimshurst's plan, and did not agree with Mr. Smith's plan, and Mr. Wimshurst had his own way. He therefore at once did away with Mr. Smith's bulkheads, and introduced what he calls a "body post "-in reality he put the screw into the stern where the water could have free access to it, and where the water acted on by it could escape. |