The News And Herald

Few persons who use steel pens on which is stamped "Gillott" have any idea of the story of suffering, of indomitable pluck and persistence which belong to the placing of that name on that article. A long depression in trade in England threw thousands of Sheffield mechanics out of work, among them Joseph Gillott, then twenty-one years of age. He left the city with but a shilling in his pocket. Reaching Birmingham, he went into an old inn and sat down upon a wooden settle in the tap-room. His last penny was spent for a roll. He was weak, hungry and ill. He had not a friend in Birmingham, and there was little chance down on the table, declaring to himself that he would try and trust in God, come what would. He found work that day in making belt buckles, which were then fashionable.

As soon as he had saved a pound or two he hired a garret in Bread street, and there carried on work for himself, bringing his taste and his knowledge of tools into constant use, even when working at hand-made goods. This was the secret of Gillott's success. Other workmen drudged on passively in the old ruts. He was wide-awake, eager to improve his work, or to shorten the way of working. He fell in love with a pretty and sensible girl named Mitchell, who, with her brothers, was making steel pens. Each pen was then clipped, punched and polished by hand, and pens were sold at enormously high prices. Gillott at once brought his skill in tools to bear on the matter, and soon invented a machine which turned the points out by thousands in the time that a man would require to make one.

He married Miss Mitchell, and they carried on the manufacture together for years. On the morning of his marriage the industrious young workman made a gross of pens, and sold them for thirty-six dollars to pay the wedding fees. In his old age, having reaped an enormous fortune by his shrewdness, honesty and industry, Mr. Gillott went again to the old inn, bought the settle, and had the square sawed out and made into a chair, which he left as an heirloom to his family to remind them of the secret of his success.