Sir John Anderson, 1814–86: The Unknown Engineer who Made the British Empire Possible

Abstract

a brilliant and inventive mechanical engineer . . . [who] had an ability to design and erect factories at very high speed . . . [and who] is totally unknown . . . He is not even mentioned in histories of the industrial revolution, which must count as being highly perverse since he is a fi gure of outstanding importance in the development of industrial production. Anderson introduced methods which were positively entrepreneurial, despite working all his life in the public sector, and developed the technique of manufacturing separately product parts which could then be easily and quickly assembled. It is possible that the reason he has been forgotten is that what he revolutionised was the production of armaments. He was appointed to take charge of making brass guns at the rundown Woolwich arsenal in 1842 where he invented a machine for mass-producing rifl e bullets. In 1853, on the eve of the Crimean War, he invented a way of manufacturing bayonets and then proceeded to design a way of making about 500 muskets a day. Each weapon was made up of only 57 parts, from a factory at Enfi eld which he also designed. Although the work of Brunel during the Crimean War is well known, that of Anderson is as much overlooked by military as social historians. In 1854 came an urgent demand for more Lancaster shells, a formidable task since they were formed from a single piece of wrought iron ‘shaped like a champagne bottle’. In two months Anderson erected a 2,788 m2 factory containing four steam engines, seven steam hammers and 40 other machines successfully turning out the shells. His next achievement was even more spectacular, rivaling in ingenuity Brunel’s prefabricated hospital. In 10 weeks Anderson fi tted out and dispatched to the Crimea a 600 ton ship rigged out as a fl oating factory, complete with cupola, four smith’s forges, 28 heavy machines, many thousands of small tools, a saw mill, all the requirements of a brass and iron foundry, together with workmen. The vessel’s engines were designed to work the machinery when not used for the screw. After the war Anderson supervised the manufacture of the Armstrong gun, became an advisor to governments and a member of international exhibition juries.1