On 18th March 2018, a special letter was sent to Prime Minister Theresa May by the Whitworth Society.
The letter marked, to the day, 150 years since Sir Joseph Whitworth, a 19th century toolmaker and “unsung hero of the industrial revolution”, took the bold step of writing to then Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, proposing a new engineering scholarship.
Whitworth, a Victorian visionary and entrepreneur, built a machine capable of measuring a millionth of an inch, introducing it to a world that was yet to meet the telephone. He standardised the common screw thread (altering the path of modern manufacturing), devised a new method to find a perfectly flat surface, and created such an accurate rifle that some consider it to be one of the world’s earliest sniper weapons.
Whitworth believed in combining practical experience with academic studies. In 1868, he donated £100,000 (the equivalent of over £10 million today) to fund the Whitworth Scholarship, which has been supported by the Whitworth Society since 1923. The scholarship has benefited over 2,400 engineers, men and women from all walks of life. It has brought science and industry closer together, as Whitworth envisaged.
A century and a half later, the new Whitworth letter is being written by Dr Howard Stone, president of the Whitworth Society. It serves as a reminder of Sir Joseph’s spirit and the power engineers have to change the world. It comes during a new global revolution, this time digital, and at a time of historic change for the United Kingdom, where billions are being invested into science by government.
“150 years ago, one man, Sir Joseph Whitworth, had the foresight to support the advancement of engineering through engineers with practical experience and theoretical knowledge,” Mr Stone said. “Today, this combination of skills is just as relevant for the greater good of the nation.”
Whitworth scholars are business leaders and owners, recent graduates and professors, who continue to advance academic knowledge and shape the engineering industry, working to solve some of its greatest challenges.
“Parallel to Sir Joseph Whitworth’s concerns in 1868, we also see the United Kingdom has fallen behind the United States, France, Italy and Germany in our productivity,” Mr Stone writes in his letter to the Prime Minister. He calls on government to help promote and advertise the Whitworth Scholarship and to include it in its apprenticeship reform programme.
Whitworth Society www.whitworthsociety.org
