Bramah, Joseph

Joseph Bramah, (born April 13, 1748, Stainborough, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Dec. 9, 1814, London), engineer and inventor whose lock-manufacturing shop was the cradle of the British machine-tool industry.

Originally a cabinetmaker, Bramah became interested in the problem of devising a pick-proof lock. In 1784 he exhibited his new lock in his shop window, with a sign offering a reward of 200 guineas to anyone who could pick it. Despite many attempts, the Bramah lock defied all efforts for 67 years, until it was finally opened by a mechanic after 51 hours’ work. The success of the lock was won at the price of complexity, and it could be produced in quantity only after the creation of a whole set of well-designed and precisely engineered machine tools. To assist in making them, he hired a young blacksmith, Henry Maudslay, who proved to be an engineering genius. The prototype machines designed and built by Bramah and Maudslay went far toward founding the machine-tool industry, the basis of the vast expansion of British manufacturing in the 19th century.

Of Bramah’s other inventions the most notable is his hydraulic press; he also invented an improved water closet, a wood-planing machine, and a machine for numbering bank notes.