SAMUEL GUPPY (1755-1830) MAKES A TIDY PENNY

I wrote recently about the character-forming influence over my 3x great uncle Thomas Richard Guppy, a civil engineer, by his mother the inventor Sarah Beach Guppy. I was being a little disingenuous in not giving Thomas’s father some credit too.

Samuel Guppy married Sarah in the port of Bristol in 1795, and Thomas was born there two years later. Sarah’s first patent, for a better system for building the pilings for suspension bridges, was granted in 1811 – the same year this penny token was issued by the Patent Sheathing Nail Manufactory of Bristol.

Penny token of the Patent Sheathing Nail Manufactory, Bristol

The manufactory was owned by Samuel Guppy. In 1796 Samuel invented and patented a labour-saving machine for “cutting, heading and finishing nails” to which he added several patented improvements in 1804. His great innovation was the invention of a barbed copper nail for fixing copper sheathing to the wooden hulls of ships. Although a mere nail may not seem much of a contribution to marine engineering now, it was at the time such an important development that the British Government bought the patent for it from Guppy for the vast sum of £40,000 – about £3,000,000 at 2012 prices.

Wooden ships suffered greatly from wear and tear. The hulls were vulnerable to shipworm and seaweed infestations which affected both the structure and the handling of the vessels. Traditionally hulls were coated with oil, brimstone or tar to resist these perils. Early attempts at sheathing the hulls with lead or replaceable wooden skins met with partial success. From the mid-18^th century the Royal Navy began experimenting with sheets of copper.

Halfpenny token of the Patent Sheathing Nail Manufactory, Bristol

Copper was effective, and the corrosive electrolytic reaction of the copper bolts used to attach it with the iron bolts of the hull’s internal construction was addressed by using alloys. By 1780 Britain was at war with America, France, Spain and Holland; the supremacy of the nation’s navy was essential, and the order was given to sheath the entire fleet. By the end of the war in 1783 the hulls of 393 vessels had been clad. Over the following three years, as problems with corrosion recurred, the decision was taken to re-bolt every single hull with copper bolts. The cost of all this was high – copper sheathing was up to six times more expensive than wood. But with the nation’s fleet and supremacy at sea at stake, it becomes obvious that the government thought the price of Mr Guppy’s patent pure copper sheathing nails a price worth paying.

Merchant ship owners began to adopt the practice, although it was generally an expensive option applied only to the best ships by owners wealthy and farsighted enough to maintain their fleets. Copper-sheathed vessels attracted lower insurance premiums from Lloyds and a new expression entered the language for an investment with a safe, dependable return – such ventures were described as copper-bottomed.

Farthing token of the Patent Sheathing Nail Manufactory, Bristol

Samuel’s company traded at 34 Queen Square Bristol, Grove Avenue Bristol, and 22 Dowgate Hill London, both addresses where the farthing, halfpenny and penny tokens he issued could be redeemed for coin of the realm. I’m not sure why Samuel needed to mint them. The rapid expansion of the economy caused by the industrial revolution at the end of the 18^th century caused a severe currency shortage, which some industrialists overcame by paying their employees in their own currency tokens; but the building of a new Royal Mint in London was complete by 1809, two years before the issue of these coins.

After Samuel’s death, his wife Sarah’s last patent, in 1841, continued the family’s contribution to the science of wooden ship-building, with a device for the better caulking of wooden hulls. But by then, events in Bristol had already been set in motion which would render the wooden ship obsolete. In 1837 a family friend, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, launched his wooden-hulled SS Great Western, built at Bristol with financial and engineering backing from Samuel and Sarah’s eldest son Thomas. The success of that ship led directly to the construction of the iron-hulled SS Great Eastern in 1858, at that time far and away the largest vessel ever built. In their own ways, Samuel, Sarah and Thomas Guppy could all take some credit!

Since posting this, I've been told by a friend that when George Keats, the brother of the poet, emigrated to America in 1818, the ship he sailed on was advertised as being "copper bottom'd and copper-fasten'd." That's Guppy's doing!

SARAH MARIA GUPPY née BEACH (1770-1852) BOILS AN EGG

I recently co-wrote a history of inventions (Everything You Need To Know About Inventions, out in April 2012!) and I can say with some authority that female inventors are few and far between. Step forward, Sarah Guppy.

Sarah Guppy (1770-1852)

Inventor

Sarah Guppy, nee Beach, was the mother of my 3x great uncle Thomas Richard Guppy. He turned out pretty well, an extremely successful civil engineer and entrepreneur; and when you read about Sarah you can see where he got it from. 

Sarah was married to Bristol merchant Samuel Guppy. She lodged her first patent in 1811 at the age of 41 and her last, when she was 74 years old, in 1844.

The first patent was an astonishing debut for a female inventor. Sarah was effectively an 18^th century woman, presumably raised amidst the prevailing attitudes towards gender of her day. Yet her first invention was not some aid to sewing or housework but a new approach to the construction of pilings for the safer erection of suspension bridges.

Thomas Telford (1757-1834)

suspension bridge builder

No less a giant of civil engineering than her contemporary Thomas Telford got wind of her innovation. He wrote asking her if he might use her ideas, and she agreed, waiving any licensing fees. Eight years later Telford began work on the Conwy and Menai suspension bridges. The latter was at the time the longest such bridge in the world; its span of 580 feet was only made possible by Telford’s genius and Guppy’s piling.

In 1864 the Menai bridge lost its crown to the Clifton suspension bridge which spanned 700 feet of the River Avon at Bristol. It was designed by a friend of Sarah’s son Thomas – none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel, with whom she also discussed her ideas.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859)

suspension bridge builder

Her last patent was for a device to improve the process of caulking ships. In between she came up with a system for taking exercise while still in bed; a design for a candleholder which burned the candles more efficiently and therefore longer; and, my favourite, a sort of multi-tasking breakfast machine. This was a tea urn which cooked eggs in the steam it produced, and contained a steam-heated plate on which to keep your toast warm.

Unlike many male inventors, Sarah Guppy didn’t seek widespread public recognition; it was, she felt, “unpleasant to speak of oneself – it may seem boastful, particularly in a woman.” But she was a central figure in Bristol society, a successful and well-rewarded businesswoman.

In 1837, aged 67 and by then a rich widow, she raised a few eyebrows by marrying 39-year old Richard Eyre-Coote. Richard, it has to be said, was not a good husband to her; he not only neglected her but gambled her fortune away on horse-racing. When he collapsed and died in the street in 1853, only a year after Sarah’s death, there was only £200 left.

Sarah Guppy remained largely unknown by the wider public for over 150 years. But in 2006 a blue plaque was erected outside 7 Richmond Hill, her former home in Bristol. Sarah had purchased the land opposite for the benefit of local residents, and it remains a green space in Clifton to this day.

Kim Hicks as Sarah Guppy in the Show Of Strength production

An Audience with Sarah Guppy, 2006, showing off her caulking

(photograph by Kevin Clifford)

The same year, as part of the celebrations marking the bicentenary of Brunel’s birth, the Bristol theatre company Show of Strength staged a one-woman play, An Audience With Sarah Guppy (written by Sheila Hannon), which marked her important contribution to the success of that man and reminded us of her own brilliant engineering mind. Sarah Guppy is a rare and welcome female star in the inventors’ firmament.