Penarth Dock, South Wales - the heritage and legacy

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Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - Large Testing Machines in South Wales, 1829-1906 . . .

Joseph Hartley Wicksteed (1842-1919)

The foregoing report refers to a gentleman named Joseph Hartley Wicksteed (1842-1919) and his paper entitled "Large Testing-Machines in South Wales, 1829-1906." Mr. Wicksteed was a native of Yorkshire.

Joseph Hartley Wicksteed (1842-1919) was born on 12 September 1842 in Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

He was educated at Ruthyn Grammar School, then apprenticed to the machine-tool making business of Joshua Buckton and Co at Well House Foundry, Leeds. There he became, in time, the chief designer, was later taken into partnership, and, on the retirement of Joshua Buckton, became the head of the firm.

He was the inventor of many mechanical appliances, including the vertical single-lever testing machine and the horizontal universal testing machine.

He became a Member of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce in 1906, and was its President in 1912-13; he was also a Life-Governor of the Leeds University and President of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society in 1901-2. During 1903-4 he was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. His death took place at his residence in Leeds on 16th December 1919, at the age of seventy-seven.

A summary of his paper, "Large Testing-Machines in South Wales, 1829-1906" was published during September 1906 within the periodical 'The Marine Engineer and Naval Architect' [198] [716] : -

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