Innovation, market, investment, and skill
Mike O’Sullivan, FRSA, champions the revival of skills’ training, which dates from the medieval Guild system and was maintained in the industrial revolution
There is a need to train young engineers to boost national creativity, manufacture, productivity and wealth. Training of skilled craftsmen dates back to the Guild system, which was set up in medieval England and in Europe in the 13th century.
Groups within different trades, usually artisans and merchants, formed to protect their commercial interests. Artisan trade groups had a progressive system of training from apprentice to craftsman, and journeyman to master.
Proficiency in any trade was based upon individual levels of capability and development, application and attitude to work. The guild system survives in England, primarily in London where its traditions are still maintained and celebrated through the protection and promotion of artisan skills.
Trade unions, to protect workers’ rights and maintain trade skills, were established in Britain in the 1870’s. Trade unions in large part superseded the craft-based guilds as industry expanded during the industrial revolution. Trade apprenticeships were maintained, however, to replenish and enlarge the nation’s skill base, allowing industry and business to develop and expand.
Engineering apprentices a century ago trained for seven years before qualifying as craftsmen. On completion of training they would have become competent enough to work on many complex tasks relating to their trade.
There is a reference dated 1325 to individuals in the military who worked on catapults and siege engines being known as engineers, ones who worked on engines (‘engine’, from the Latin Ingenium meaning skill). When gunpowder was first used in Europe in the 14th century those who had worked on catapults and siege engines could have moved to military ordnance.
It could be said that the production of military ordnance would have been the first large-scale use of metal-related engineering techniques. Casting cannon initially from bronze, and later from cast iron, and honing the barrels to create efficient parallel bores were among the first objectives. Casting and honing barrels to a uniform internal diameter to take a standard diameter ball would have been one of the first precision engineering projects undertaken by the state at military arsenals.
During the industrial revolution, forms of engineering produced the machinery and equipment required to keep all other British industries operating. After the invention of the steam engine, and its first industrial use in the latter part of the 18th century, large press tools and forging equipment were manufactured greatly enhancing engineering possibilities. After the invention of the Bessemer converter in the 1850s, a process that created large amounts of inexpensive steel, engineering manufacture turned predominantly to the use of steel and steel alloys which have greater tensile strength and are more durable than cast iron.
Levels of precision within engineering became of paramount importance. To be efficient, engines had to maintain pressure and be kept cool; they had to function without losing gasses and fluids. At the same time areas that needed lubrication to create frictionless movement had to be fed with oil. To achieve these needs clearances between moving parts had to be kept to a minimum with oil-ways and water jackets created to assist lubrication and cooling.
Manufacturing criteria in the 19th century, as machines became more sophisticated, demanded high levels of individual skill. The apprentice training programme adopted by the medieval guild system was ideal in this regard for the training of young engineers.
Highly skilled individuals in the early part of the 20th century may have become toolmakers making patterns, engineering jigs and tooling to high levels of precision. This tooling would be used in conjunction with varieties of different machines to manufacture the first uniform massed produced products.
Both the guild system and the trade unions promoted and maintained areas of production. The Hands On The Future group believes that national character and the work ethic created to maintain and increase productivity, allied to wealth creation, needs to be maintained and developed through professional skill training.
The author is one of the founders of Hands On The Future