Men of Invention and Industry — Key Ideas to Explore

From Shipwrights to Steam Presses

The book’s structure is chronological and thematic, beginning with shipbuilding in the early chapters and later shifting to printing technology. Smiles devotes separate chapters to the screw propeller, the marine chronometer, and the steam-printing machine, but he frequently cross-references these stories. For instance, the chapter on Frederick Koenig’s steam press is followed by one on the Walters of The Times, who adopted and refined the invention. This arrangement allows Smiles to illustrate how a single innovation—like cylinder printing—can be taken up by different hands and adapted for newspapers, books, or even wallpaper. The reader moves from the Thames shipyards of Phineas Pett to the Belfast yards of Sir Edward Harland, then to the printing works of William Clowes, each location grounding the narrative in a specific industrial setting.

Recurring Images of Speed and Scale

Throughout the excerpts, Smiles returns to the language of speed and quantity. He describes the demand for newspapers that could be printed at “from 1500 to 2000” impressions per hour, a figure he calls “chimerical” before it is achieved. Similarly, he notes that the Stanhope presses could not keep up with “the insatiable demands of the newsmen.” This emphasis on numbers—hundreds of impressions, millions of banknotes—gives the inventions a tangible urgency. Smiles also uses analogies to other forms of transport: the desired printing speed is compared to “propelling a ship through the water against wind and tide at fifteen miles an hour” or “running a locomotive on a railway at fifty.” These comparisons tie the printing press to the broader industrial revolution in motion, making each invention part of a larger story of acceleration.

The Role of Patrons and Disappointments

Smiles does not present inventors as solitary geniuses; instead, he shows them depending on patrons, publishers, and sometimes family opposition. In the chapter on the Walter press, he recounts how John Walter II “endeavoured to induce several ingenious mechanical contrivers” to build a faster machine, but Marc Isambard Brunel “finally gave up” after many plans, and Thomas Martyn’s scheme collapsed when funds ran out. Even after Koenig’s machine was adopted, Smiles notes that the inventor “left this country in disgust,” leaving others to perfect the work. These setbacks are woven into the narrative as necessary steps. Smiles also highlights the role of the patent system: he cites patent numbers (e.g., No. 3974 for Cowper’s wallpaper printing) and describes how improvements were legally protected, giving the story a documentary texture.

Autobiographies and the Humble Life

The final chapter, “Astronomers and Students in Humble Life,” departs from the industrial focus to present “a series of Autobiographies.” Smiles acknowledges that this section “may seem, at first sight, to have little to do with the leading object of the book,” but he defends it as showing “what a number of active, earnest” minds pursued knowledge despite limited means. This shift in structure—from third-person biography to first-person accounts—mirrors the book’s broader interest in self-education and perseverance. The chapter echoes the themes of Self-Help and reinforces Smiles’s conviction that invention and industry are not confined to workshops and patents but also flourish in humble studies and observatories. The inclusion of Ireland in two chapters (IX and X) further broadens the geographical scope, linking the industrial narrative to regional economic development.

Readers should approach Men of Invention and Industry as a collection of linked case studies rather than a single argument. Smiles’s method is to accumulate examples, each illustrating how persistence, collaboration, and incremental improvement drive technological change. The book rewards those who follow the connections between chapters—the way a printing problem in London echoes a shipbuilding challenge in Belfast, or how a failed patent leads to a later success. Pay attention to the dates and patent numbers Smiles provides; they are not mere footnotes but evidence of his documentary approach.

Reading about Smiles’s patient shipwrights brought back my grandfather’s workshop, where he’d coax a dull blade into usefulness, never rushing. It felt like the quiet, steady sun in The BYU Solar Cooker/Cooler — Context and Discussion, which once reminded me that good things, like a beam of light focused slowly, simply take their time to work.