Portsmouth Block Mills

The Portsmouth Block Mills form part of the Portsmouth Dockyard at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and were built during the Napoleonic Wars to supply the British Royal Navy with pulley blocks. They started the age of mass-production using all-metal machine tools and are regarded as one of the seminal buildings of the British Industrial Revolution. They are also the site of the first stationary steam engines used by the Admiralty.

The Manufacture of the Block-making machines

Brunel's patent specification shows wooden framed machines, which, while they show many of the principles of the machines actually installed bear little resemblance to the final designs. Once the contract with the Admiralty had been placed he engaged Henry Maudslay to make them, and it is clear the final designs had considerable input from Bentham, Maudslay, Simon Goodrich, (mechanician to the Navy board) as well as Brunel himself.

Related Topics:
Henry Maudslay - Simon Goodrich

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These machines were entirely hand made, the only machine tools being used being lathes to machine circular part, and drilling machines for boring small holes. At that time there were no milling, planing or shaping machines, and all flat surfaces were made by hand chipping, filing and scraping. There is evidence that the grinding of flats was also done to get near-precision finishes. Each nut was made to fit its matching bolt and were numbered to ensure they were replaced correctly. This was before the days of interchangeability, of course. The materials used were cast and wrought iron, brass and gun metal. The use of metal throughout their construction greatly improved their rigidity and accuracy which became the standard for later machine tool manufacture.

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