Maudslay's 'Lord Chancellor' bench micrometer
Micrómetro de banco «Lord Chancellor» de Maudslay
- Date
- c. 1805 · confidence medium
- Place
- Lambeth, London, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Henry Maudslay
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A measuring bench with a fine-pitch screw and a graduated wheel that allowed parts to be compared to a precision of one ten-thousandth of an inch. Maudslay's workshop used it as a standard for making screws and parts accurately, and the workmen nicknamed it the 'Lord Chancellor'.
It is preserved in the Science Museum, London. Gascoigne had used a screw micrometer for astronomy in 1638-1640; Maudslay's merit is its application to workshop metrology.
What it led to
- screws and parts interchangeable to thousandths of an inch
- the culture of precision inherited by Whitworth, Nasmyth and Whitney
- 19th-century pocket screw micrometers