- Joseph Clement
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name = Joseph Clement
nationality = British
birth_date =June 13 1779
birth_place = Great Asby,Westmorland
death_date =February 28 1844
death_place =Southwark
education =
spouse =
parents =
children = Sarah Clement
discipline =Engineering
institutions =
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significant_projects =Charles Babbage 'sDifference engine
significant_design =
significant_advance =
significant_awards = Isis medal of theSociety for the Encouragement of Arts : 1818, 1827, 1828Joseph Clement ( 1779 –
28 February 1844 ) was a Britishengineer andindustrialist , chiefly remembered as the maker ofCharles Babbage 's firstDifference engine , between 1824 and 1833.Biography
Early life
Joseph Clement was born on
13 June 1779 at Great Asby inWestmorland , the son of a hand-loom weaver. Although he was taught to read and write at the local school, he learnedmechanics andnatural history from his father, Thomas, who had built himself a lathe. He worked, first as a weaver, then as aslater , and learnedmetalwork from the localblacksmith . With these skills, he built himself his own lathe, on which he turnedwoodwind musical instruments, which he then learned to play.By 1805 he was making looms at a factory in
Kirkby Stephen , then moved first toCarlisle , then toGlasgow where he learned draughtsmanship from Peter Nicholson. By 1812 he was with Leys, Masson & Co. inAberdeen , where he attended lectures innatural philosophy atMarischal College .Career
In 1813, he moved to
London , first working forAlexander Galloway inHolborn where he soon left in search of wages more suiting his skills, moving toJoseph Bramah atPimlico . Bramah doubled the wages Galloway had paid and entered into a formal agreement with Clement for a term of five years, datedApril 1 1814 , making him chief draughtsman and superintendent of Bramah's Pimlico works.Following Bramah's death, Clement took up a position as chief draughtsman at Maudslay, Sons and Field, in
Lambeth , where he played a role in the design of the firm's early marine steam engines.In 1817 he left Maudslay and Field to set up his own firm, encouraged by the
Duke of Northumberland , a frequent visitor to Maudslay's works. Clement had managed to save the sum of £500 and took a small workshop at 21 Prospect Place, Newington where he set up in business as a draughtsman and manufacturer of precision machinery.In 1818 he was awarded the gold medal of the
Society for the Encouragement of Arts for his invention of a machine for markingellipse s, inspired by thetrammel s used by carpenters.Clement's main interest was the improvement of self-acting machine tools, and especially lathes. He introduced various improvements in the construction of lathes, being awarded the gold Isis medal of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in 1827 for his improved lathe which was of unprecedented precision and accuracy. The next year he added his self-adjusting centre chuck to the lathe, for which the Society of Arts awarded him their silver medal.
The same year (1828), Clement began making fluted screw-cutting tap and dies and urged the adoption of a standard system of screw threads where every machine screw of a particular length should have a set number of threads of a predetermined pitch and determined the number of threads for each length.
Joseph Whitworth , at that time one of Clement'sjourneymen afterwards played a major role in such standardisation, the Whitworth thread becoming a standard for machine screws.Involvement with Charles Babbage
The recognised excellence of Clement's machine tools and his skill in precision engineering led to him being employed by
Charles Babbage in 1823 to work on his project to design and build his mechanical calculating device, thedifference engine . The high prices of his large precision tools led to a falling out with Babbage (at the time workmen were allowed to keep any tools made by them in the course of their work), but his skill and the quality of his products kept him in employment for many years.Later years
In later years, Clement returned to music and constructed an organ. He died on
28 February 1844 at 31St George's Road ,Southwark . Although he had never married, he had a "natural" daughter, Sarah Clement, by one Agnes Esson fromCounty Durham .References
* "
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ".
*External links
* [http://www.pioneers.historians.co.uk/clement.html Pioneers of the Machine Tool Industry information]
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