W. F. Stanley
William F. Stanley of Great Turnstile, Holborn.
Mathematical, Drawing and Surveying Instruments.
1853 Company established.
William Ford Stanley was an inventor and engineer. He had 78 patents filed in the UK and US.
He designed and made precision drawing and mathematical instruments, surveying instruments and telescopes.
1866 Cycloscope for setting out railway and other curves. [1]
1869 Manufactured the Apomecometer as invented by R. Millar. [2]
1885 New Protractor. [3]
1909 Obituary
THE LATE MR. W. F. STANLEY.
The report of the death of Mr. W. E. Stanley, the founder of the famous firm of mathematical instrument makers, whose head-quarters have for many years been in Great Turnstile, High Holborn, will be received with regret among engineers the world over. The regrets will not be confined to British engineers, for wherever excellence of design and precision of manufacture in drawing and mathematical instruments have been appreciated during the last fifty years there has the name of Mr. W. F. Stanley been familiar, for probably no single man was ever more enthusiastic in perfecting such instruments than he. Mr. Stanley passed quietly away in the early hours of Saturday last at his residence in South Norwood, being conscious almost to the end. years, having attained his eighty-first birthday last February. His health had been gradually failing during the last two years, though he refused to regard himself as an invalid.
He was born at Buntingford, in Hertfordshire, his father being a mechanical engineer, and it was in his father's shop that he gained his early mechanical training. In 1854, however, he started business in a modest way on his own account, chiefly as a metal and ivory worker. Two years later, however, he invented and placed upon the market the first open stereoscope, and shortly after this he devoted his attention to the improved construction of scientific instruments. Here it was that he really made his name. His ability and energy found many other channels, but it is undoubtedly in connection with drawing and surveying instruments that his name will live among engineers. He produced standard text-books relating to these subjects. He was also the author of a treatise on “Properties and Motions of Fluids,” which received recognition from Tyndall and Darwin. Several other works came from his pen, among them being “The Nebular Theory in Relation to Stellar, Solar, Planetary, Cometary, and Geological Phenomena,” and “A Political Utopia,” the latter appearing in 1895.
Mr. Stanley’s first patent for drawing instruments was taken out in 1860. It refers to a bolt to hold the needle of a pair of compasses firmly, a form which has since been adopted throughout the world. The taper form of tee-square is also due to him, as well as the lettering set square. Having taken up the improvement of drawing instruments, it was only a short step to surveying instruments, which the subject of our memoir soon made his speciality, with such success that any instrument bearing his name would be accepted by engineers without question as representing the highest standard of accuracy. In fact, the name of the firm became so well known, and the demand for their instruments so great, that Mr. Stanley was compelled to divide his business. Keeping the drawing and surveying-instrument department at Great Turnstile, High Holborn, he established the philosophical, meteorological, and photographic branch at Railway Approach, London Bridge. In 1900 the firm was turned into a limited company.
Two ingenious instruments with which Mr. Stanley’s name is associated are the circular dividing-engine and the logarithmic-dividing-engine. These will do work which, up to the time they were devised, was looked upon as impossible. It is not only as an engineer, however, and as a man who brought to bear marvellous care and patience in the manufacture of delicate instruments, that Mr. Stanley will be remembered. He was, among other things, a great enthusiast on educational matters, in fact so much so that it may be said that his life’s dream was to institute a system of education which should give boys a practical taste for mechanics, and so make them of immediate usefulness in a workshop when leaving school. His trade schools were the outcome of this. He was very fond of art and took a great interest in sculpture, which he practised with his own hands, as he also did wood-carving, in which latter art he excelled. He was a great benefactor to the district of South Norwood, where he lived, having given large sums of money to public institutions during his lifetime.
Three years ago Mr. W. F. Stanley, foreseeing that he was not likely to live much longer, retired from the post of managing director of the firm, although he remained chairman till the day of his death. During these later years he gradually withdrew from active work, leaving the business under the managing directorship of Mr. H. T. Tallack, who, for over 20 years, was Mr. Stanley's right-hand man. The subject of our memoir married in 1857, but he leaves no family with the exception of an adopted daughter. The funeral service took place at St. John’s, Auckland-road, Upper Norwood, and the interment at the Crystal Palace Cemetery, Elmers-road, S.E., last Tuesday.[4]