%0 Journal Article
%T Science and the City: Valentine Gottlieb, immigrant engineer of Lambeth: his trade card of c. 1810 unpacked
%A David  Bryden
%D 2022
%V 
%N Spring 2021
%K crane
%K engineer
%K ephemera as evidence
%K frictionless bearing
%K immigrant
%K patent
%K perpetual log
%K trade cards
%X Born in Biebrich, J V Gottlieb was an economic migrant who settled in London in the mid 1770s, initially working as a hairdresser before establishing himself as a mechanical engineer, designing and selling cranes and other machinery. An illustrated trade card in the Science Museum collections provides material evidence of his activities and an opportunity to examine the roles played by such advertising in the development of the technology and commerce of the period. The iconography of this unique item of printed ephemera is used to outline Gottlieb’s various inventive activities. Gottlieb patented his crane designs (1786) and a form of friction-reducing bearing (1787). He successfully lobbied government to install his design of a mechanical perpetual ship’s log to two newly-designed fast postal packets commissioned in 1790 for the North American and West Indian mail service. He also advertised his services in the London press. Gottlieb was a small player in fields where there were many competitors, and the business terminated with the death of the founder in 1820. In addition to uncovering the life and work of a relatively unknown immigrant engineer, this paper indicates how a detailed study of a small ephemeral museum object can unlock wider historical horizons.
%Z For example, the letter press listing of kaleidoscope sellers, item 223, has been cut from Brewster, D, 1819, A Treatise on the Kaleidoscope (Edinburgh: A. Constable), p 167; the letter press advertisement of Thomas Tuttell, item 412, has been cut from a London published periodical – The Present State of Europe for either April or May 1698 – see Vol 9, pp 134; 212. Another Tuttell item, entry 408, is the large plate associated with The Description and Explanation of Mathematical Instruments associated with all issues of the third edition (1700, 1701 and 1705) of Moxon, J, Mathematicks made Easie – see Bryden, D J, 1993, ‘A 1701 Dictionary of Mathematical Instruments’, in Anderson, R G W et al (eds), 1993, Making Instruments Count: Essays on historical scientific instruments presented to Gerard L’Estrange Turner (Aldershot, Variorum ), pp 365–382.
%Z The classic introduction to the genre is Heal, A, 1925, London Tradesmen’s Cards of the XVIII century: an account of their origin and use (London: B.T. Batsford) – reprinted 1968 (New York: Dover). Heal’s own collection of trade cards, together with that made Sarah Sophia Banks (d. 1818) is in the British Museum, and is readily accessible online. See also Lewis, J, 1962, Printed Ephemera, (Ipswich: W.S. Cowell). The bibliography to 2001, A Nation of Shopkeepers: Trade Ephemera from 1654 to the 1860s in the John Johnson Collection (Bodleian Library, Oxford), pp 144–146, includes recent studies. For a study focused on provincial commerce, see Friedman, T, 1976, …Engrav’d Cards...of Trades-Men residing in…the County of Yorkshire (Bradford: Lund Humphries).
%Z See also: Parliamentary Papers, Journals of the House of Commons, 36 (session 1776–7), pp 47, 58, 59 for the three readings of the bill for the naturalisation in November 1776; also Parliamentary Papers, Journals of the House of Lords, 35 (Session 1776–7), p 32. The bill received Royal Assent 2 xii 1776. See also Shaw, W A, 1923, Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalisation for Aliens in England and Ireland (Manchester: Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, Vol 27), p 183.
%Z For Gottlieb’s activities within the context of entrepreneurial activity among German immigrants, see Beerbühl, passim. Beerbühl p 392, is in error in supposing that Andreas Gottlieb, whose naturalisation received the Royal Assent on the same date, and was also born in Biebrich, was Valentine’s brother – they may have been cousins – Shaw (note 3), pp 182–3, records the quite different names of their respective parents.
%Z Russell, W A [?1781], A New and Authentic History of England (London), p 875 lists ‘Valentine Gottlieb, Camomile Street’ among the subscribers. For the subscription proposal see Public Advertiser (London), 2 x 1777.
%Z London Metropolitan Archives: MS 11936-7 – see also https://www.londonlives.org/
%Z George Wellings, coach maker, 36 Camomile Street, appears in Lowndes’s London Directory for the year 1786 (London 1786); and in The Universal British Directory 2nd edition, 1 (London, 1793).
%Z ‘Gottlieb & Thielk Perfumers 10 Walbrook’ are listed in London section of The Universal British Directory, 2nd edition, 1 (London, 1793). However, not only did the publishers of this work re-issue sections of old stock with later dates, but they also pirated entries from earlier publications by other directory compilers – see Atkins, P J, 1990, The Directories of London 1677–1977 (London: Mansell), pp 46–49. 
%Z For an outline of the conditions relating to release petitions for insolvent debtors, see Bryden, D J, 2014, ‘Bankrupt and Insolvent Scientific Instrument Makers: The London Gazette as a source for the history of the English Instrument Trade 1720–1849’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, No. 123, pp 37–38.
%Z Kent’s Directory of London and Westminster &c. ... for the year 1794, (London 1794).
%Z Critchett, B, Post Office [London] Annual Directory for 1807 (London, 1807); Holden’s Annual London and Country Directory for the Year 1811 (London, 1811); Post Office [London] Annual Directory for 1814 (London, 1814) and that for 1816; Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide and Street Directory (London, 1818). Observer (London) 20 ix 1801; Public Ledger (London) 21 i 1806; Public Ledger 12 ii 1808.
%Z See below for details of the disposal of the business, etc.
%Z The National Archives: TNA: PROB 11/1639/174. There is no reason to suppose that Hill(s) was his common-law wife. Indeed, he appears to have married, with a son born to him and his wife Elizabeth, christened Thomas Valentine Gottlieb in September 1788 – records for London/Middlesex compiled by the International Genealogical Index – see http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/genealogy/IGILondon/V/Valentine.htm – they presumably had both died at an earlier date.
%Z The 1820 Post Office [London] Directory has the entry: ‘Edwards, Arnold & Co., Hat-manuf. Holland-str. Blackfriars-road.’ Kent’s Original London Directory for 1823 has entry ‘Edwards, Arnold & Co., hat-manuf. Holland-st. Bankside’. J. Pigot & Co, Commercial Directory of London, (Manchester 1825–6), listed under ‘Hat Manufacturers’ plus the * = wholesale, ‘Edwards, Arnold & co., 2 Holland-st, Bankside. Tanswell, J, 1858, The History and Antiquities of Lambeth (London: Frederick Pickton), p 221 Mines Allen – ‘Valentine Gottlieb, an ingenious mechanics and civil engineer, resided in Lambeth Marsh. He was a German, and died here in 1820.’
%Z Kent’s [London] Directory for 1803 has the entry: ‘Downer, Henry & Sanders, Furnishing Ironmongers, 153, Fleet-st.’ 1814 Post Office [London] Directory has Downer & Saunders, furnishing Ironmongers, 153 Fleet Street’, whilst the 1816 and 1820 editions have Henry Downer, Furnishing Ironmonger and Manufacturer of Patent Cooking Machines, 155 Fleet Street. Downer & Saunders of 153 Fleet Street advertising in Morning Post (London) 26 ii & 23 iii 1811, and in the Public Ledger (London) 3 & 14 xii 1812.
%Z Though in none of the advertisements is the address of the counting house given. The copy in Public Ledger 28 vi 1811 implies that the models could be viewed at the manufactory, New Cut, Blackfriars Road.
%Z See Stratton’s trade card issued from 48 Cornhill and re-issued from 73 Cheapside to which he moved in April 1791 – The Times 8 iv 1791 – remaining at his manufactory on the Hackney Road – British Museum, Dept of Prints and Drawings: Banks, 85.285 and Banks, 85.157.
%Z See, for example, Stratton & Hill’s advertisement in Cambridge Intelligencer 15 & 22 & 29 xi 1794; also their engraved and letterpress handbill in BM, P&D: D,2.204 – an item that predates April 1795, when Robert Hills left the partnership – see London Gazette 28 iv 1795; also Stratton & Co’s advertisement in Evening Mail (London) 22 ii 1796; and Stratton & Crowder’s advertisements in The Times (London) 8 & 22 iv 1796 & 2 v 1796. James Crowder left the partnership in July 1797 – see London Gazette 3 vi 1797.
%Z I have been unable to locate an account in the London press, but the story was widely repeated in provincial papers – Northampton Mercury 11 vi 1791 is the fullest; but see also Bath Chronicle 9 vi 1791; Derby Mercury 9 vi 1791; Stamford Mercury 10 vi 1791; Sheffield Register 10 vi 1791; Reading Mercury 13 vi 1791.
%Z See above, note 15.
%Z Kentish Gazette 7 ix 1790. John Besant held two carriage design patents, 1674 (1786) and 1767 (1790); see also British Postal Museum & Archive Information Sheet: The Mail Coach Service (London, 2005) available at: http://postalheritage.org.uk/history/downloads/BPMA_Info_Sheet_MailCoaches_web.pdf 
%Z This entry retained into the 6th (1823) edition and mined for use elsewhere – see, for example, in Wilkes, J (ed), 1810–29, Encyclopaedia Londinensis, Vol 14, 1816, (London: J. Adlard), p 675. The criticism repeated by the engineer William Baddeley, who contrasted the design with that of Garnett (see below, note 42) – see Baddeley, W, 1839, ‘On friction and the employment of anti-friction rollers – Gottlieb’s, Garnett’s, [William] Spong’s [5542 (1827)], [William] Coles [6957 (1835)], [Thomas Shaw] Brandreth’s [5281 (1825)] and [William]Howard’s [5913 (1830)] [patent] Inventions’ Mechanics Magazine, Vol 31, pp 66–68.
%Z For the Garnett patent see Garnett, J, 1787, ‘A method of greatly reducing the friction of an axis or fulcrum, useful in all axles, wheels, beams, levers’, British Patent 1580 – Farey incorrectly dates the patent as 1784. He described the design in his article ‘Mill Work’ in The Cyclopaedia, Vol 23 (1819), sig 3A1r-v – this part first published December 1812 – but without naming the patentee. On the Garnett roller bearing see Ward, O, 2010, ‘The House of Pinney and Garnett’s Patent Rollers’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 128, pp 196–7. The 1801 application to extend the life of that patent – London Gazette 15403, 1 ix 1801; 15405, 8 ix 1801 & 15410, 26 ix 1801 – does not appear to have been granted. The application of the bearing to ship’s blocks was particularly successful but peculation in the Navy Board meant that Garnett & Co were unable to break the contracts given to existing suppliers – see Hansard: Parliamentary Debates from the year 1803 ...comprising the period...1805, 1812, Vol 3 (London: Hansard), ‘Third Report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry...June 1803; Block contract’, p 909 – see also, The Times 15 ix 1803.
For the Collinge patent see Collinge, J, 1787, ‘New invention and improvements in and upon carriage and other wheel boxes and axletrees’, British Patent 1626; and 1792, ‘New invention and improvements in and upon carriage and other wheel boxes and axletrees’, British Patent 1899.
For the Flight & Brook patent see: Flight, B, 1809, ‘Metal axle and box for wheeled carriages’, British Patent 3266, and Spratley, W, 1813, ‘Axle-trees of wheels for carriages’, British Patent 3770; also Spratley Brooks & Co.’s advertisement in Morning Chronicle [London] 4 i 1814.
%Z Totals taken from ‘Coaches section iv, shafts, axletrees and boxes’, in Woodcroft, B, 1857, Subject matter index of Patents of Invention (London: Patent Office ) and Patent Office, 1880, Abridgements of specifications relating to carriages and other vehicles for common roads 1625–1866 (London: Patent Office).
%Z For Varlo’s marketing see, for example, his advertising in: Leeds Intelligencer 28 vii 1772; Manchester Mercury 4 viii 1772; Caledonian Mercury 7 x 1772.
%Z Also see Vaughan’s advertisement in Gloucester Journal 10 xi 1794 and Hereford Journal 26 xi 1794.
%Z Based on a survey of advertisements for second-hand carriages in the London press. In the year 1804, for example, of the ten second-hand carriages offered for sale in the Morning Post described as having patent axletrees, and where the maker is named, eight were made to Collinge’s patent. In stark contrast, a search of both the London and provincial press has located only one advertisement for a vehicle fitted with the Gottlieb axletree - Ipswich Journal 28 ix 1799.
%Z See Farey ‘Mill Work’ (1812) and Ward (footnote 22).
%Z For the complex history of the English system of patents for invention, see Bottomley, S, 2014, The British Patent System during the Industrial Revolution 1700–1852 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). See also Hewish, J, 2000, Rooms Near Chancery Lane: The Patent Office under the Commissioners, 1852–1883 (London: The British Library) for the reforms undertaken by Woodcroft.
%Z (See notes 40 & 41.) See also Gregory, O, 1806, Treatise of Mechanics, Vol 2, pp 124–5 and pp 155–6 for a description of the cellar crane and the crane carriage using more or less the same text, though the former entry fails to credit the design to Gottlieb. Note too that the 1797 Britannica entry was mined to re-appear amongst the descriptions of various cranes within the article ‘Mechanics’ in Britannica (1810), Vol 13, p 134 – and retained up to and including the sixth edition of 1823. The Portable Stone Crane and the Portable Cellar Crane appear in the fourth and subsequent editions, but are no longer ascribed to Gottlieb.
%Z Article ‘Crane’ in Rees, 1819, Vol 10, sig Ll4r. (This part first appeared in May 1808.) See also Figures 4 and 5 of ‘Mechanics’ plate 21 in plates Volume 3. The plate has a copyright date of 1809. Authorship is not attributed. It is probable that it was written by John Farey (snr 1766–1826). Torrens, H S, 2004, art. ‘John Farey 1766–1826’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edition, at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9154 – indicates that Farey (snr) wrote for Rees up to the end of the letter I/J. His eldest son John Farey Jnr (1791–1851) was drawing illustrations for the Cyclopaedia from 1805, and was already making a systematic study of industrial machinery in and around London – see Woolrich, A P, 2004, art ‘John Farey, 1791–1851’, ODNB – https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9155. John Farey Jnr signed this plate, and the three others illustrating crane designs.
%Z European Magazine, vol 2 (London 1782), pp 89-91 for descriptions and illustrations of perspective instruments by Crocker, and Priestley – vol 2  (1782), pp 377- 8; An astronomical instrument by Bowles – vol 3  (1783), pp 173-5; An account of the  making of artificial mineral waters, drawn from a variety of printed works – vol 10, (1786), pp 198-208. 
%Z Most of the contributions had been printed on the ephemeral paper covers of various monthly issues, hence the editor’s need to collect them in a series of independent volumes. The Gottlieb instruments appeared as an appendix to the reprinting in part 2 (1792) of Gilmore, J, 1722, The Improvement of Navigation by two new-invented engines: the one called a Navium, for measuring a ship’s way...first printed in 1722. In re-printing the text (excluding the descriptions of the time regulator and tell tale) the inventor named was ‘VALENTINE GOLLUB’ – a typographical error noted by the reviewer of the volume in Gőttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 3 (Gőttingen, 1792), 1664 – the re-issued plate retained the inscription: ‘V. Gottlieb Inventor’.
%Z I have been unable to locate the story in the London press in early January 1791, but both the English provincial press and that in the United States picked up and re-printed edited versions; see, for examples: Derby Mercury 6 i 1791; Oxford Journal 8 i 1791; Newcastle Weekly Courant 8 i 1791; Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia) 26 iii 1791; State Gazette of North Carolina 15 iv 1791. The copy in Independent Gazetteer, which cited ‘a London paper’ added a fuller account: ‘and if it [the perpetual log] answers the inventor’s expectations it will serve every purpose of a time-piece.’ (That whole story also circulated in Germany, see Annalen der Brittischen Geschichte 6 (Carlsruhe, 1792), pp 212–3.) The fuller version reported that the rigging blocks were designed to Garnett’s patent, using rollers, and that there was a novel ‘engine’ aboard, the invention of [Joseph] Bramah, useful not only for pumping the ship, but also to work as a fire extinguisher, and to wet the sail in light winds – capable of discharging 9,000 gallons in under an hour – probably built to Bramah’s patent 1720 (1790). The first two vessels on the stocks were named after Lord Carteret and the Earl of Westmoreland, the latter having succeeded the former as head of the Post Office in August 1789.
%Z TNA: Chatham Papers: 1783–1806 (PRO 30/8/ 139/1, 133–134)
%Z For example, Moore, J H, 1822, The New Practical Navigator, corrected and improved by A Mackay, 25th edition (London: G. Offor et al), pp 9–13; Washington, J, 1843, ‘M. Clement’s Nautical Inventions’, Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1843, pp 372–4.
%Z See also The English Encyclopaedia, 1802, Vol 5 (London: George Kearsley), 280; Encyclopaedia Perthensis, 1806, Vol 13, (Perth: J. Morison), pp 316–67; Good, J M et al (eds), 1813, Pantologia: A New Cyclopaedia, Vol 7 (London: J Kearsely et al ), sig H6v.
%Z See article ‘Log’ in Rees, 1819, Vol 21. The author opens by noting that ‘the log is a very precarious way of computing and must always be corrected by experience and good sense’. What follows is largely based on the trials described in Phipps, C J, 1774, A voyage towards the North Pole undertaken by his Majesty’s command 1773, (London: J. Nourse), pp 87–94.
%Z HRH Princess Amelia (1783–1810) was the fifteenth and last child of George III and Queen Charlotte – see Purdue, A W, 2004: ‘Daughters of George III’, ODNB https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/59209.
%Z With more or less identical text in Morning Advertiser 21, 22 & 25 v 1818.
%Z The Times 9 iv 1821; Public Ledger 9, 13, 17 & 21 iv 1821; Public Ledger 16, 19, 25 & 27 v 1821. See also The Times 4, 11 & 25 vi 1821; Public Ledger 4 xii 1822.
%Z Sharp, A J, 1999, Distance Run: a history of the patent ship-log (Weymouth: Brassbounders), incorrectly attributes Gottlieb’s design to 1720 – strong on the later nineteenth century development of the mechanical log, coverage of the earlier history is inadequate. For the context of Gottlieb’s log design see Bryden, D J, ‘Finding Way at Sea – alternatives to the log-line and sandglass: the British Experience in the Hanoverian era: Conservative navigational practice or technological failure?’, forthcoming. 
%Z London Courier & Evening Gazette 17 x 1815; Morning Chronicle 20 x 1815; Morning Post 23 xi 1815, and then frequently – with slightly changed wording in London Courier & Evening Gazette 26 vii 1817; Morning Post 28 v 1818; Morning Chronicle 31 xii 1818, and then frequently. With additional copy Public Ledger 29 viii 1821 & Morning Post 3 x 1821, and then frequently.  
%Z This is not the place to enter the debate over current responses to the historical legacy of slavery in the British Empire. To see labour saving machinery as either the enlightened use of human resources or rampant and callous capitalism is to simplify a complex historical issue.
%Z London Gazette 59831, 24 vi 2011, for notice of the final winding-up of the company, insolvent since 2006.     
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%@ 2054-5770
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