Joshua Routledge (27 April 1773 – 8 February 1829) was an engineer and inventor of the early 19th century during the Industrial Revolution.
Mechanical engineering as a profession was on the rise and the advent of the steam age opened up viable career alternatives for many young Englishmen who, like Joshua Routledge, grew up in an agriculture-based society.
Early life
Born on 27 April 1773 and baptised on the 29th in Riccall, Yorkshire. Joshua Routledge was third of twelve children. Generations of Routledges were established as yeoman farmers and weavers in Riccall, a village about 9 miles (14 km) south of the city of York.
Joshua's father was a blacksmith by trade, but he seems to have been pious, curious and adventurous by nature. The Industrial Revolution allowed the advancement of all sorts of radical new ideas in tandem with mechanical innovations. Religious, political, and social reformers took to the highways and byways spreading discontent with the status quo, John Wesley being one reformer whose message took hold in Yorkshire. Wesley's brand of fervent evangelical Methodism encouraged lay preachers, which appealed very much to the working classes, William Routledge (1744-1822) for one. It is known that William with wife Sarah Bell (1746-1819), one-year-old Joshua and his two-year-old sister Dinah (1771-1791), joined a group of Methodists sailing to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1774. Records indicate that the family sailed on board the vessel Two Friends, embarking from Hull, Yorkshire the "week of 28th February to 7th March" and arriving in Halifax on 9 May 1774.
It is certain that the family returned to Yorkshire before 1778 when Joshua's brother Joseph was born in Elvington, a village located about 7 miles southeast of York. Later on, they joined the Methodist movement as active members of the York Circuit, and according to an account by J. D. Greenhalgh published in 1882, William Routledge was among a list of "Wesleyan Methodist ministers admitted...in the year 1800."
Career
Nothing is recorded of Joshua Routledge's early education, but supposedly he learned something about the smithing trades from his father. In 1798 Routledge was in Leeds, Yorkshire where his occupation is given as "whitesmith" (tinsmith) on a marriage certificate recorded at St Peter's Parish Church, Leeds. This was the occasion of his first marriage, on 5 November, to Mary King. A daughter, Ann, was born there in 1803.
The Round Foundry
Routledge may have apprenticed at the historic Round Foundry in Leeds. Matthew Murray (1765–1826) and David Wood (1761–1820) partnered in building the Round Foundry circa 1795 and were later joined by James Fenton (1754–1834) and silent partner William Lister. Fenton, Murray, & Wood quickly gained a reputation for innovative thinking and sound technical practices. The firm became famous as designers and builders of textile machinery and steam engines that rivalled the Soho Works in Birmingham operated by steam-age pioneers James Watt and Matthew Boulton.
Routledge Engineer's Rule
By 1800, Routledge had become Manager at the Round Foundry. Somehow, along the way, he learned the value of logarithms and thereby had the means of developing a method of measuring "all kinds of metals and other bodies" needed for engineering purposes. Using the principles of Edmund Gunter's (1581–1626) logarithmic scales and William Oughtred's (1574–1660) sliding rule, Routledge combined a 12-inch brass slide containing the logarithmic scales with an ordinary 2-foot ruler to which he added a table of commonly used references called gauge points. This rule became known as the Routledge Engineer's Rule.
According to a handwritten, unsigned document on file at Bolton Archives (Lancashire) Routledge acquired a patent for his improved slide rule in 1813 but, to date, no record of this has been traced. It is certain that, in 1805, he published the first known Instructions for the Engineer's Improved Sliding Rule and that numerous editions followed before and after his death in 1829, the most recent being in 1983.
A letter from his parents, dated 1811, records that Routledge was associated, at that time, with Thompson, Swift and Co, iron founders and steam engine makers located in Little Bolton, Lancashire, and a notice published in the Manchester Mercury dated 12 November 1811 informs that his partnership with that firm had been dissolved by mutual consent.
