In these days of Public Schools and extended facilities for populareducation it would be difficult to find many people unaccustomed tothe use of steel pens, but although the manufacture of this article bypresses and tools must have been introduced during the first quarterof the present century, the inquirer after knowledge would scarcelyfind a dozen persons who could give any definite information as towhen, where, and by whom this invention was made. Less than twodecades ago there were three men living who could have answered thisquestion, but two of them passed away without making any sign, and thethird—Sir Josiah Mason—has left on record that his friend andpatron—Mr. Samuel Harrison—about the year 1780, made a steel penfor Dr. Priestley.
This interesting fact does not contribute anything toward solving thequestion, Who was the first manufacturer of steel pens by mechanicalappliances? In the absence of any definite information, the balanceof testimony tends to prove that steel pens were first made by tools,worked by a screw press, about the beginning of the third decade ofthe present century, and the names associated with their manufacturewere John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott, and Josiah Mason, each, in his ownway, doing something toward perfecting the manufacture by mechanicalmeans.
The earliest references to pens are probably those in the Bible, andare to be found in Judges v. 14, 1st Kings xxi. 8, Job xix. 24, Psalmxlv. 1., Isaiah viii. 1, Jeremiah viii. 8 and xvii. 1. But thesechiefly refer to the iron stylus, though the first in Jeremiah—takenin reference to the mention of a penknife, xxxvi. 23—would seem toimply that a reed was in use at that period
There is a reference to “pen and ink” in the 3d Epistle of John xiii.5, which was written about A.D. 85, and as pens made in brass andsilver were used in the Greek and Roman Empires at that time, it isprobable that a metallic pen or reed was alluded to.
Pens and reeds made in the precious metals and bronze appear to havebeen in use at the commencement of the present era. The following area few notable instances:
“The Queen of Hungary, in the year 1540, had a silver pen bestowedupon her, which had this inscription upon it: 'Publii OvidiiCalamus,' found under the ruins of some monument in that country, asMr. Sands, in the Life of Ovid (prefixed to his Metamorphosis)relates. —“Humane Industry; or, a History of Mechanical Arts”, byThos. Powell, D.D.: London, 1661, page 61.
This was probably a silver reed, and, from the locality in which itwas found, was once the property of the poet Ovid. Publius OvidiusNaso was born in the year 43 B.C., and died 18 A.D. He was exiled atthe age of 30 to Tomi, a town south of the delta of the Danube. Thisat present is in modern Bulgaria, but at the period mentioned was inthe ancient kingdom of Hungary.
From “Notes and