Roberts, Richard

Roberts, Richard

(born April 22, 1789, Carreghova, Montgomeryshire, Wales—died March 16, 1864, Manchester, Eng.) British inventor. He was an uneducated Welsh quarryman before he took a position with Henry Maudslay and then established his own machine-tool factory. He was one of the inventors of the metal planer, and he made important improvements to the lathe. His automatic spinning mule marked an important advance in spinning technology. He developed a screw-cutting lathe and built gear-cutting and slotting machines, railway locomotives with interchangeable parts, automatic machinery for punching holes in plate, and the first successful gas meter. Though he was said to have improved everything he touched, he was not a shrewd businessman, and he died in poverty.

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Roberts, Richard 

Born Apr. 22, 1789, in Carreghova, Montgomeryshire. Died Mar. 16, 1864, in Manchester. English inventor.

The son of a shoemaker, Roberts progressed from a worker in a stone quarry to an inventor of machines. He worked at various factories, including that of H. Maudsley. Between 1816 and 1817 he established a machine-building factory using the capital of a partner. Roberts built a planing machine in 1817 and later an original thread-cutting machine and several textile machines. He received patents in 1825 and 1830 for improvements in the design of textile machines. He invented a machine for boring holes in the structural members of bridges and in boiler plate (1848). Roberts also worked in the field of rail transport. In particular, he was the first to propose a system of standard width for track gauges (1845).

REFERENCES

Tseitlin, E. A. Ocherki istorii tekstil’noi tekhniki. Moscow-Leningrad, 1940.
Zagorskii, F. N. Ocherki po istorii metallorezhushchikh stankov do sere-diny XIX veka. Moscow-Leningrad, 1960.