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T H E T A MB U R IT ZA T R ADI TI O N
 Languages and Folklore of the Upper Midwest

Joseph Salmons and Ja m e s P. L e a ry , Series Editors

Published in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Upper
Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

The Tamburitza Tradition: From the Balkans to the American Midwest

R i ch a r d M a r ch

Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State

Edited by T h o m a s P ur n e l l , E r i c R a i m y ,
and Joseph Salmons
 T H E T AM BUR I TZ A
T R AD I TI O N
From the Balkans to the American Midwest

R ich a r d M a r ch

The Univer sit y of Wisconsin Pre s s

 The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor
Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059
uwpress.wisc.edu

3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
eurospanbookstore.com

Copyright © 2013
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or
a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except
in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

March, Richard, 1946–

The tamburitza tradition : from the Balkans to the American Midwest /
Richard March.
p. cm — (Languages and folklore of the Upper Midwest)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-29604-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-299-29603-2 (e-book)
1. Tambura (Fretted lute)—History. 2. Tambura (Fretted lute)—Balkan Peninsula.
3. Tambura (Fretted lute)—United States. 4. Tambura (Fretted lute) music—
History and criticism. 5. Folk music—Balkan Peninsula—History and criticism.
6. Folk music—Middle West—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series:
Languages and folklore of the Upper Midwest.
ML1015.T3M37 2013
787.8´21629181—dc23
2013015067
Živjeli tamburaši
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
A Note on Language Usage xix
Introduction 3
1 The Soloistic Tambura Comes to the Balkans 16
2 A National Music and the Illyrian Movement 34
3 The Tamburitza Matures and Migrates to America 56
4 Ethnologists and the Politics of Folklore Festivals 93
5 The Tamburitza Tradition Takes on American Ways 111
6 The Soloistic Tambura 137
7 Tamburitza Combos 165
8 My Little (Global) Village 213
9 Tamburitza Orchestras 226
10 Folk Dance Groups 253
Conclusion 270
Glossary 273
Essay on Sources 279
Sources 287
Index 299
 Illustrations

Uncle John Grbac with tambura xiii

Aunt Agnes Daniels in radio studio xiii
Author in tamburitza orchestra xv
Homelands of the Tamburitza 2
Folklore ensemble from Sturlić, Bosnia-Herzegovina 18
Sketches of tambure by Franjo Ks. Kuhač 31
Ferdo Livadić Tamburitza Orchestra 35
Pajo Kolarić (1821–76) 54
Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834–1911) 63
Jadran tamburitza orchestra 75
Gilg Tamburitza Factory catalogs 84
Brochure from the 1978 International Folklore Festival 94
Villagers from Slavonia 109
Charles Elias Jr. (1911–83) 118
Duquesne University Tamburitzans, 1941–42 121
Edo Ljubić (1912–93) 128
Author recording a samica player 138
KUD Kordun from Cleveland 141
ix
x Illustrations

Pajo Sporčić selling kuterevke 144

Libby Fill and her combo 172
Milan Opacich (1928–2013) 187
Vjeko Dimter (1969–) 201
Zvonko Bogdan with Janika Balaž 203
“Kičo” Slabinac (1944–) 205
Milan Marković 210
Otrov, 2005 214
Jerry Grcevich 220
Impromptu combo of Croatian teenagers 238
Silver Strings Junior Tamburitzans 241
Graničari, 2007 250
Kolo dancing in Milwaukee 254
Lado, 1970s 263
 Preface

This book was a long time in coming, which is responsible for some of
its peculiarities. My formal research for this work began in 1975 when
Dr. Richard M. Dorson, my professor at the Folklore Department of
Indiana University, received funding from the National Endowment
for the Humanities to conduct research on the urban folklore of the
Calumet Region of northwest Indiana. He assembled a team of several
researchers drawn from his graduate students, nicknamed the “Gary
Gang” after the steel-mill town where we did much of our research. At
that time, team research was a virtually unknown practice among the
corps of highly individualistic American folklorists. Dr. Dorson was
a scholar of folk narrative with a historical orientation. He selected
folklorists for the research team with other specializations (i.e., music,
material culture, visual ethnography) to augment his own strengths.
From preliminary research Dr. Dorson was aware of and interested
in the large Serbian American and Croatian American communities of
the Calumet Region. He recruited me because I can speak Croatian
and already had familiarity with Croatian American and Serbian Amer-
ican traditional culture. I am Croatian American and I have cousins
who are Serbian American. My mother was a Croatian immigrant; my
maternal grandmother lived in our household. From them I learned
basic “kitchen language” in the local dialect in which my mother and
grandmother chatted daily. We were active participants in the Croatian
xi
xii Preface

Fraternal Union, an ethnic lodge. We frequently attended their dinners,

dances, concerts, and summertime picnics at which Croatian music,
especially tamburitza music, was ever present.
Listening to my grandmother’s reminiscences about her life and the
daily work routines in Nerezine, her home village on an Adriatic island,
aroused my interest in Croatian folk culture. I heard tamburitza music
at the ethnic events we attended, and family members told me that my
late uncles used to have a tamburitza ensemble. My Aunt Agnes was a
singer in Croatian operettas and the on-air hostess of a Croatian radio
program that emphasized tamburitza. My mother, Jane March, was a
singer in the Slavulj Croatian Choir in Los Angeles. I always felt a per-
sonal connection to the tradition.
I became a musician, but tamburitza was not my emphasis. As a boy
I played violin in the school orchestra and also played domra, a Russian
instrument, in a balalaika orchestra that rehearsed in my neighbor-
hood. From my teenage years on I played guitar and other stringed
instruments in the folk, blues, and rock scenes of the 1960s and 1970s.
As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, I
studied the literary Croatian language to improve upon my rudimentary
knowledge of the family dialect. The language knowledge I attained in
college prepared me to enroll in the ethnology program at Zagreb Uni-
versity from 1971 to 1973. There, I learned much from the renowned
professors Dr. Milovan Gavazzi, Dr. Branimir Bratanić, and then-
Asistent Aleksandra Muraj. I became acquainted with numerous fellow
students, several of whom became professional ethnologists, my life-
time friends, and colleagues. In Zagreb I enlisted some Croatian side-
men and started a band, playing American blues and country music.
We were reasonably successful, getting frequent gigs and a few media
appearances. Through this activity I met many musicians who played
in a variety of genres including tamburitza.
In 1973 I was offered a fellowship to do graduate study at Indiana
University and returned to the United States; by 1975 I was part of Dr.
Dorson’s “Gary Gang.” It was inevitable that tamburitza would become
a major focus of my research in the Calumet Region, but that likeli-
hood was enhanced by a coincidence. My brother William March was
a professor of Slavic languages at the University of Kansas. He told me
 Preface xiii

Uncle John Grbac

posing with his
tambura, Chicago,
ca. 1930. (Richard
March Collection)

Aunt Agnes Daniels in

the studio of WJBK,
Detroit, ca. 1945. She
was the on-air host of
The Croatian Radio
Hour in that city for
more than a decade.
(Richard March
Collection)

that the father of one of his students (Karen Opacich) was a tamburitza
maker and musician in the Calumet Region. Milan Opacich (1928–
2013) turned out to be an ideal informant. Generous with his deep
knowledge and his time, Milan introduced me also to a dozen or more
other tamburaši from the area.
During the two academic years from 1975 to 1977, I made more
trips than I can count from Indiana University in Bloomington to the
xiv Preface

Calumet Region, almost always stopping for a while at Milan’s work-

shop to get the latest news on the local tamburitza scene. In 1977 I
completed my graduate studies in Indiana and, with Dr. Dorson’s en-
couragement as chairman of my dissertation committee, I applied for
and received fellowships from International Research and Exchanges
as well as Fulbright-Hays to conduct research for my PhD dissertation
in Yugoslavia—on the tamburitza tradition.
In 1977–78, I was graciously hosted in Zagreb by the research center
that currently is named the Ethnology and Folklore Institute (Institut
za etnologiju i folkloristiku). In addition to office space and the free-
dom to peruse their extensive library and archives, I had frequent stim-
ulating discussions with helpful colleagues Krešo Galin, Stjepan Sremac,
Olga Supek, and especially with Zorica Vitez, Jerko Bezić (1929–2010),
and Dunja Rihtman-Auguštin (1926–2002). Moreover, they facilitated
my fieldwork with many useful suggestions, contacts in the field, and
even occasional joint field trips.
I had the opportunity to conduct research in several regions of Cro-
atia, in Vojvodina, and in Bosnia. My field research was facilitated by
my insider-outsider status: the combination of my family background
(even my physical appearance is quickly recognized as Croatian), my
earlier connections to the United States and Croatian tamburitza scenes,
and my own musical abilities. (I even had opportunities to perform as
a member of a tamburitza orchestra in the Croatian city of Sisak, like
Gary, a steel-mill town.)
When I returned to the United States in 1978, my life took a differ-
ent direction. I lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1978 to 1983, and
there I had the opportunity to observe and participate in the active
tamburitza scene in and around that city. Between helping care for my
son, Nikola, who was born in 1980, and full- and part-time jobs, with
the help of my former wife, Mary Bruce, I managed to complete a draft
of The Tamburitza Tradition in May 1981. I brought the manuscript
to Dr. Dorson in Bloomington. I was shocked and saddened when a
month later Dr. Dorson suffered a massive, fatal heart attack.
A few months later, Dr. Ilhan Basgoz agreed to become chairman
of my dissertation committee. Dr. Basgoz acknowledged that I had
written the work under Dr. Dorson’s guidance, and it was obvious that
 Preface xv

the dissertation addressed Dr. Dorson’s interests. Although his own

scholarly approach was different, Dr. Basgoz requested relatively few
changes. I defended the dissertation early in 1983 to earn my PhD.
In 1983, academic positions for a folklorist were limited. In July of
that year, I was hired by the Wisconsin Arts Board to be that state
agency’s folk arts specialist. I enjoyed a twenty-five-year career in pub-
lic folklore, working to enhance the appreciation and ensure the con-
tinued vitality of the folk arts of all the peoples of Wisconsin. My
efforts included occasional work with tamburaši in the Midwest. More-
over, I became active in the Croatian Fraternal Union and a member of
the Milwaukee-based Graničari adult tamburitza orchestra. In this way
I kept abreast of developments on the tamburitza scene.
In 2003 Naila Ceribašić, my colleague from the Ethnology and Folk-
lore Institute in Zagreb, suggested that I write an article on more recent
developments in the tamburitza tradition. I did so, writing “My Little
(Global) Village” for the journal Narodna umjetnost. Subsequently Naila
suggested that I rewrite and bring up-to-date the entire dissertation. In

Richard March playing brač with the tamburitza orchestra of the

Independent Crafts Guild, Sisak, Croatia, October 1977. (Richard March
Collection)
xvi Preface

2007 I was invited to present a paper on tamburitza, drawing from my

previous and more recent research, at “Croatian Music of the 20th
Century,” a symposium in Zagreb, organized by Matica Hrvatska, an
important Croatian cultural institute. Material from the “My Little
(Global) Village” article and the Matica Hrvatska symposium paper
are incorporated into this present book.
Writing in the early 1980s, I addressed issues concerning “authen-
ticity,” which were current in the field of folklore at that time, and dis-
cussed them in terms of the extant literature. My update of the work
has been based largely on my ongoing personal experience as a partic-
ipant in the tamburitza tradition, on more recent relevant scholarship,
and on the wealth of new information created by tamburitza enthusi-
asts and made available on the Internet.
Over the past three decades, theoretical issues have been addressed
in academic work in the humanities and social sciences, which have
raised concerns regarding the roles of scholars and of scholarship itself
as actors in the cultural matrix that is their object of study. The point is
particularly applicable to my work as I have endeavored to be transpar-
ent with reference to my own role as an insider-outsider raised in the
culture I studied. Moreover, especially in the fieldwork-based section
of this book, I endeavored to reveal the experiential process and my
interactions with participants in the tradition that have been the main
sources from which I learned.
The lion’s share of my fieldwork was conducted by a process of
immersion in the tradition, frequent conversations with other partici-
pants, and by attending and observing events, taking a few field notes,
snapping some photographs. By comparison, I did little recording of
formal interviews or systematic media documentation of events. I in-
clude in the text many remembered statements from my informants
with the approximate date of the conversation.
Of all the people and institutions mentioned earlier, Naila Ceribašić
undoubtedly deserves the most credit for instigating this project and for
toiling with me to improve my manuscript. Thanks also to Ivan Lozica,
director of the Ethnology and Folklore Institute, for his support of
the publication of the Croatian-language version of the book. Thanks
also to Matica Hrvatska for reinvigorating my tamburitza enthusiasm
 Preface xvii

by inviting me to speak at their 2007 “Croatian Music of the 20th Cen-

tury” symposium. Thanks also to my longtime colleague and collabo-
rator Jim Leary. Our discussions over the years concerning our shared
passion—the traditional and ethnic musics in the Midwest—have been
crucial to my capacity to undertake this effort. Equally crucial has been
his canny perception that my transatlantic work nonetheless fits well
into the series, of which he is an editor, sponsored by the Center for
the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures devoted to midwestern tradi-
tional music. Thanks to the Mills Music Library at the University of
Wisconsin and to the University of Wisconsin Press, especially its staff
Sheila Leary, Raphael Kadushin, and Matthew Cosby, for helping me
to improve the manuscript. And I give many thanks also to my wife,
Nikki Mandell, for her unwavering support and encouragement.
 A Note on Language Usage

The terminology of the tamburitza tradition draws on words and lin-

guistic rules from three languages. Throughout this book I use Ser-
bian or Croatian words that are commonly used in English-language
discourse about the tamburitza tradition. I have employed the terms
as they are habitually used by American participants in the tradition.
For some terms, like the word “tamburitza” itself, an anglicized spelling
has become common, but the original spelling tamburica also is fre-
quently encountered. Pronunciation varies too with some Americans
using the English short “ă” sound in the terms and others employ the
Slavic long “ā.”
When forming the plural, in some cases, the Slavic plural is used—
for example, tamburaš, a tamburitza player, becomes tamburaši, tam-
buritza players; tambura, singular, becomes tambure, plural. (The -i
ending is the plural for masculine words, the -e ending is for feminine
words.) In other cases, the -s plural ending from English is applied to
Slavic words, for example, tamburitzas, instead of tamburice, or bračes
instead of bračevi for the brač instrument. The plural of kolo, a line
dance, is usually kolos in English rather than the Slavic plural kola (-a
is the neuter gender plural).
Another issue is differences between the Serbian and Croatian place
names; for example, a historical province divided between Serbia and
Croatia is Srem in Serbian and Srijem in Croatian. For geographic
xix
xx A Note on Language Usage

names, if there is a common English version, like Belgrade (rather than

Beograd), I use it. If not, I use the Croatian form. As is common in a
discourse that blends elements from two or three different languages,
usage varies from person to person, and even a single individual may
be inconsistent. Readers may find the glossary at the end of the book
to be helpful.
T H E T A MB U R IT ZA T R ADI TI O N
Homelands of the Tamburitza. (Map by author)
 Introduction

S ix young men, their faces stern with concentration, are picking

out the fast and intricate melody of a folk dance on their tambu-
ritzas, fretted stringed instruments that range in size from smaller
than a mandolin to larger than a string bass. The musicians are wearing
clean, pressed, pajama-like Slavonian folk costumes of coarse white
linen with black vests and hats, but unlike their peasant forebears, they
no longer use these costumes for daily wear. Today is a festive occasion,
a regional folk fair. The young men are standing on an outdoor stage
in a large park, in the most inconspicuous position possible—at the
extreme rear corner of the stage. Although the musicians’ skills are
dazzling, they are not in the center of attention. The audience sitting
outside in Slavonia’s hot, early July wheat-ripening sun focuses its atten-
tion on the costumed folk dancers at center stage; their fast intricate
steps seem to match the aesthetic of the intricate melody that the
young musicians are playing.
Elsewhere, an octet of comfortably rotund Romani musicians strolls
from table to table, some strumming a dynamic rhythmic accompani-
ment, others tickling intercascading countermelodies to the tune of a
romantic song of sad love that they are singing. They receive generous
tips from the patrons of this tavern, located in an old fort, only a stone’s
throw from where the Danube meanders across the broad Pannonian
plains.
3
4 Introduction

In yet another setting, nine men whose occupations range from

truck driver to chemical engineer—amateur musicians all—are seated
behind music stands, carefully sight-reading their parts to a recently
penned “folk rhapsody.” They are kept on tempo by the waving baton
and out-loud counting of a high school music teacher hired to direct
the group. Squeezed in beside the long table in the meeting room of
the local artisans’ guild, these men are devoting half of their weekday
evenings to rehearsals for an upcoming community concert in their
small industrial city in central Croatia.
In another small city thousands of miles away, in the steel city of
America’s great Midwest, school children are poring over sheet music,
learning to pick out on their tamburitzas the right notes to a medley
of well-known Croatian sentimental songs. They are instructed by a
steel worker who is also a part-time professional musician and music
teacher. He teaches a different group of youthful musicians four eve-
nings per week.
A few more miles to the west, in an old-fashioned neighborhood
bar and restaurant on the industrial southeast side of Chicago, four
men, with modern, sponge-shielded microphones in front of them,
nonchalantly sing and play “Hang on Sloopy,” a recent rock ’n’ roll hit
accompanying themselves on beautiful old instruments, highly deco-
rated with mother-of-pearl inlay, Farkaš-system tamburitzas created by
the skilled hands of a master craftsman who took his apprenticeship in
Graz, Austria, in the days of Franz Joseph.
The preceding musical events were characteristic of the tamburitza
tradition in the 1970s and early 1980s when most of the research for this
book was done. This folk tradition of the South Slavs has a recorded
history extending back at least to the fifteenth century and is still the
focal point of an active and expanding cultural movement. The tradi-
tion flourishes not only in the regions that contributed most heavily
to the emergence and development of its present form—the Panno-
nian regions of former Yugoslavia: northern Croatia and Vojvodina—
but also in other former Yugoslav lands where it has taken firm root
wherever colonies of South Slavic, especially Croatian immigrants,
have been established in many parts of Europe, North and South
America, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, the musical form
 Introduction 5

has been adopted by non-Slavic enthusiasts for the tamburitza in cities

as distant from southeastern Europe as Los Angeles, California, and
Nagoya, Japan.
Today a type of tamburitza can still be found played by Balkan shep-
herds and wood-cutters; small tamburitza ensembles are an essential
feature at village weddings in many regions. To an even greater extent,
the tamburitza can be found in more urbane contexts. School orches-
tras and amateur “cultural and artistic societies” may play on the dusty
square of a small town or on the stages of the finest concert halls. Pro-
fessional Romani combos entertain in stylish restaurants and in dives.
Radio orchestras and national folk dance troupes featuring the tambu-
ritza perform on radio and TV and on international concert tours.
In North America, small ensembles entertain at weddings, christen-
ings, and picnics. Children’s orchestras perform in the halls of churches
and ethnic lodges as well as at local folk fairs. Thus, the tamburitza
tradition in its many manifestations, past and present, is the topic of
this work.
Participant observation, library research, and interviews with in-
formants were the principle research techniques. This study examines
a folk tradition that continues to exist both in the original rural and the
modern urban context. It is popular both in its original homeland and
in immigrant enclaves in the United States and elsewhere. Among its
practitioners are musicians who consciously perform tamburitza music
as an expression of their past or ethnic heritage and those who perpet-
uate it simply through a love of music. This study describes culture
change occurring in the course of urbanization and migration, relates
social and economic change to change in a form of expressive culture,
and examines the effect upon the expressive form of self-conscious
awareness by the musicians and audience that the artistry represents
their folklore heritage.
For many, including many participants in the tamburitza tradition,
the question remains: Should this tradition be considered folklore? To
answer we need a definition of folklore, but there has never been com-
plete agreement among folklorists on a definition. Early definitions
from nineteenth-century scholarship were based on mystical concepts:
it was lore that spontaneously arose from a nation’s soul or, according
6 Introduction

to another school, survivals of savage thought-patterns from an ear-

lier phase of human evolution (Dorson 1972, 18). These conceptions
have been rejected, for the most part, in later scholarship; as folklorist
Dan Ben-Amos has pointed out, the many definitions proposed by
twentieth-century folklorists tended to utilize three major characteris-
tics of the lore as criteria: its social base (in common folk or peasantry),
its time depth (dating from antiquity), and its medium of transmission
(spreading orally or by imitation) (Ben-Amos 1971, 8).
Though there may be general agreement on these three criteria,
there is still considerable difference in emphasis by various folklore
scholars. For example, central European professors of folklore [Volks-
kunde] and the folklife specialists from the British Isles tend to empha-
size a social base in the peasantry as the crucial criterion. It suits the
field data readily available to them; feudalism was finally abolished a
little more than two centuries ago, and central Europeans usually can
distinguish culture stemming from the feudal peasant class. Thus in
Europe, the concept of folklore is often identical to “peasant art,” the
artistic aspects of traditional peasant life (Bošković-Stulli 1973).
While the Europeanists emphasize the arts of peasants, the African-
ists, or scholars who specialize in the folklore, anthropology, or ethno-
musicology of the third world, emphasize time depth or traditionality
since they often investigate cultural phenomena in which partake both
the ruling elite and the common people of the societies they study
(e.g., d’Azebedo 1973). The class distinction is obscured.
Class distinctions are perhaps still vaguer to American folklorists
who work in a country that never knew actual feudalism. In addition,
the newer countries of the Americas have spawned more recent tradi-
tions so that Americanists emphasize neither a distinct peasant social
base nor great time depth but instead stress oral transmission as the
most crucial defining criterion of folklore (Dorson 1972).
These differences already are not inconsequential, yet the definition
question is further complicated by the emergence in the late 1960s of
a school of thought, spearheaded in articles by Dan Ben-Amos and
Robert Georges. They attempt to move away from defining folklore as
discrete objects and strive for a definition of folklore as a particular
process of small group communication (Ben-Amos 1971).
 Introduction 7

In terms of these varying but noncontradictory definitions, to what

extent does the tamburitza tradition correspond to a strict definition of
folklore? First, regarding the criterion stressed in Europe, the instru-
ment, the music, and most of the repertoire performed stems from an
origin in the peasant class; there can be no doubt that the tamburitza
does not stem from an elite origin (Andrić 1968, 186). Second, the
form of the instrument, much of the music, and many of the songs per-
formed originated several decades or even more than a century ago,
thus satisfying a second commonly cited criterion, time depth. Third,
much of what the tamburaš learns is by ear, by listening to and imitat-
ing a mentor. In short, transmission through oral, aural, and imitative
means is important to the tradition.
The preceding statements seem to place the tamburitza tradition
in the realm of folklore, even according to stringent definitions. There
are still some illiterate mountain shepherds who strum hoary melo-
dies on simple handmade tamburitzas. These are, however, quite dif-
ferent aspects of the tamburitza tradition. To investigate only the
nonliterate shepherd tambura player, one would have to ignore the
most obvious manifestations of tamburitza, often in much more
urbane contexts.
Today’s tamburitza music is an expression of a more complicated
way of life. For every shepherd musician whose rugged figure matches
a romantic image of the primitive folk, there are dozens, perhaps hun-
dreds, of educated and sophisticated tamburaši. For every player of
the primitive samica, an instrument not suited for ensemble play and
whose name means it is played solo, there are many more musicians
who belong to large tamburitza orchestras who learn their repertoire
from sheet music, which may include arranged folk songs in addi-
tion to elite compositions and transcriptions by classical composers
like Franz Schubert or Aram Khachaturian (Kolar 1975, 76). Café
entertainers use the tamburitza to perform an eclectic repertoire draw-
ing on popular hits as well as traditional folk songs (Kuhač 1877). Even
the primitive shepherd no longer seems so idyllic. Nowadays a shep-
herd is more likely to sing recently composed songs heard on the radio
than old ballads of folk tradition. In the world of the present, the tam-
buritza has entered the mass media: radio and television broadcasts
8 Introduction

transmit the music across great distances so that sophisticated music

can penetrate the most remote backwater. Recorded music travels still
farther to reach distant audiences. Since the beginning of the twenty-
first century, recordings and videos of tamburitza performances are
being shared worldwide on the Internet. Once limited to oral transmis-
sion, the tradition has entered whatever medium of communication is
available in its cultural environment.
The picture is further complicated because the tamburitza musi-
cians of today have lost the innocence and purity attributed them by
romantics. Nowadays the word “folklore” has entered the lexicon of
most tamburaši along with a romantically based concept of what it
means. Sometimes strident arguments rage between practitioners of
the tradition as to whether a particular song, instrumental style, or
form of presentation is “authentic folklore.” Musicians make a con-
scious decision about whether to play new material or to stick to the
old heritage. Many play both old and new, depending upon the con-
text. Far from being a nonreflective, spontaneous creation as some
scholars used to believe pure folklore should be, tamburaši make
conscious, thoughtful choices to play this instrument, what to play
on it, and how it should be played. A frequent criterion for the judg-
ments of a significant segment of tamburaši is how it meets their con-
cept of “authentic folklore” or “true national music” (Rihtman-Auguštin
1976, 11).
Finally, the forms of the instrument commonly in use today and
how they are played (in ensembles of various-sized tamburitzas) trace
their origins to the efforts of nineteenth-century nationalists, for the
most part urbanites, who wanted, for political reasons, to “ennoble”
Croatian culture with a folk-based but refined musical form, a proof
of the autonomy of their national culture (Kuhač 1893). Suddenly
the same tradition that once seemed folkloric—a spontaneous, orally
transmitted traditional creation of the peasantry—now seems to be a
forgery, the fabricated “folk soul” of a romantic nationalist movement,
which is today spread by the entertainment industry.
Viewed holistically, either extreme view is untenable—that the tra-
dition either is or is not folklore. The tamburitza tradition once existed
as a “pure” folk tradition, but since the mid-nineteenth century the
Another random document with
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into the boilers, and accumulated there. It saponified and formed a
foam which filled the whole boiler and caused the water to be worked
over with the steam as fast as it could be fed in. I have always
wondered why the engine, being vertical, should not have exhibited
any sign of the water working through it at the upper end of the
cylinder. The explanation after all appears simple. The water on
entering the steam chest mostly fell to the bottom and little passed
through the upper ports. The trouble from oil was not felt at all in the
Lancashire boiler. This, I suppose, was due to three causes. The
latter held a far greater body of water, had a much larger extent of
evaporating surface, and far greater steam capacity. I was always
sorry that I did not give the Harrison boiler the better chance it would
have had with a jet condenser.
In this pair of diagrams, which are copied from the catalogue of
Ormerod, Grierson & Co., the low steam pressure, 29 pounds above
the atmosphere, will be observed. This was about the pressure
commonly carried. The pressure in the exhibition boilers, 75 pounds,
was exhibited by Mr. John Hick, of Bolton, as a marked advance on
the existing practice.
In preparing for the governor manufacture I had my first revelation
of the utter emptiness of the Whitworth Works. Iron gear patterns
were required, duplicates of those which had been cut for me at
home by Mr. Pratt. The blanks for these gears were turned as soon
as possible after I reached Manchester, and sent to the Whitworth
Works to be cut. It seemed as though we should never get them.
Finally, after repeated urging, the patterns came. I was sent for to
come into the shop and see them. They were in the hands of the
best fitter we had, who, by the way, was a Swedenborgian preacher
and preached every Sunday. The foreman told me he had given
them to this man to see if it was possible to do anything with them,
and he thought I ought to see them before he set about it. I could
hardly believe my eyes. There was no truth about them. The spaces
and the teeth differed so much that the same tooth would be too
small for some spaces and could not be wedged into others; some
would be too thick or too thin at one end. They were all alike bad,
and presented all kinds of badness. It was finally concluded to make
the best of them, and this careful man worked on them more than
two days to make them passable.
The first governor order that was booked was the only case that
ever beat me. I went to see the engine. It was a condensing beam-
engine of good size, made by Ormerod, Grierson & Co. to maintain
the vacuum in a tube connecting two telegraph offices in
Manchester, and had been built to the plans and specifications of the
telegraph company’s engineer. The engine had literally nothing to
do. A little steam air-pump that two men could have lifted and set on
a bench would have been just suitable for the work. They could not
carry low enough pressure nor run slowly enough. On inspection I
reported that we should have nothing to do with it.
The custom of making whatever customers order and taking no
responsibility was first illustrated to me in this curious way. I saw a
queer-looking boiler being finished in the boiler-shop. In reply to my
question the foreman told me they were making it for a cotton-
spinner, according to a plan of his own. It consisted of two boilers,
one within the other. The owner’s purpose was to carry the ordinary
steam pressure in the outer boiler, and a pressure twice as great in
the inner one, when the inner boiler would have to suffer the stress
of only one half the pressure it was carrying.
I asked the superintendent afterwards why they did not tell that
man that he could not maintain steam at two different temperatures
on the opposite sides of the same sheets. He replied: “Because we
do not find it profitable to quarrel with our customers. That is his
idea. If we had told him there was nothing in it, he would not have
believed us, but would have got his boiler made somewhere else.”
Perhaps the most curious experience I ever had was that of
getting the governor into cotton-mills. There was a vast field all
around us, and we looked for plenty of orders. This was the
reception I met with every time. After listening to the winning story I
had to tell, the cotton lord would wind up with this question: “Well, sir,
have you got a governor in a large cotton-mill?” After my answer in
the negative I was bowed out. I early got an order from Titus Salt &
Son, of Saltaire, for two large governors but these did not weigh at
all with a cotton-spinner; they made alpaca goods.
 The way the governor was finally got into cotton-mills, where
afterwards its use became general, was the most curious part. A mill
in the city of Manchester was troubled by having its governor fly in
pieces once in a while. After one of these experiences the owners
thought that they might cure the difficulty by getting one of my
governors. That flew in pieces in a week. I went to see the engine.
The cause of all the trouble appeared at a glance. The fly-wheel was
on the second-motion shaft which ran at twice the speed of the main
shaft, and the gearing between them was roaring away enough to
deafen one. The governor was driven by gearing. The vibrations
transmitted to the governor soon tired the arms out. I saw the son of
the principal owner, and explained the cause of the failure of every
governor they had tried, and told him the only remedy, which would
be a complete one, would be to drive the governor by a belt. That, he
replied, was not to be thought of for an instant. I told him he knew
himself that a governor could not endure if driven in any other way,
and that I had hundreds of governors driven by belts, which were
entirely reliable in all cases. “But,” said he, “supposing the belt runs
off the pulley.” “The consequence,” I replied, “cannot be worse than
when the governor flies in pieces.” After wasting considerable time in
talk, he said, “Well, leave it till my father comes home; he is absent
for a few days.” “No,” said I, “if I can’t convince a young man, I shall
not try to convince an old man.” Finally, with every possible
stipulation to make it impossible for the belt to come off, he yielded
his assent, and I had the governor on in short order, lacing the belt
myself, to make sure that it was butt-jointed and laced in the
American fashion.
More than three years afterwards, two days before I was to sail for
home, I met this man on High Street, in Manchester. It was during
the Whitsuntide holidays, and the street was almost deserted. He
came up to me, holding out both hands and grasping mine most
cordially. “Do you know,” said he, “that we have increased our
product 10 per cent., and don’t have half as many broken threads as
we had before, and it’s all that belt.”
 Condenser and Air-pump designed by Mr. Porter. (Cross-section)

The tendency towards the horizontal type of engine, in place of the

beam-engine, began to be quite marked in England about that time.
This was favorable to the use of the Allen engine. The only thing that
seemed wanting to its success was a directly connected jet
condenser. No one believed that an air-pump could be made to run
successfully at the speed of 150 double strokes per minute. Yet this
had to be done, or I could not look for any considerable adoption of
the high-speed engine. This subject occupied my mind continually.
When I returned from Oporto, I had thought out the plan of this
condenser, and at once set about the drawings for it. No alteration
was ever made from the first design of the condenser, which I
intended to show with the engine at the coming Paris Exposition in
1867, and which I finally did succeed in showing there, but under
very different and unexpected relations.
The philosophy of this condenser is sufficiently shown in the
accompanying vertical cross-section. A hollow ram, only equal in
weight to the water which it displaced, ran through a stuffing-box at
the front end of the chamber, and was connected with an extension
of the piston-rod of the engine. So the center line of the engine
extended through this single-acting ram, which had the full motion of
the piston. It ran through the middle of a body of water, the surface of
which fell as the ram was withdrawn, and rose as it returned. A quiet
movement of the water was assured by three means: First, the
motion of the ram was controlled by the crank of the engine, and so
began and ceased insensibly. Second, the motion of the ram, of two
feet, produced a rise or fall of the surface of the water of only about
one inch. Third, the end of the ram was pointed, a construction which
does not appear in this sectional view, permitting it to enter and
leave the water at every point gradually. Both the condenser and the
hot-well were located above the chamber in which the ram worked.
The problem was to obtain complete displacement by means of
solid water without any admixture of free air, the expansion of which
as the plunger was withdrawn would reduce the efficiency of the air-
pump. To effect this object the air must be prevented from mingling
with the water, and must be delivered into the hot-well first. This was
accomplished by two means: First, placing the condenser as well as
the hot-well above the air-pump chamber, as already stated, and
secondly, inclining the bottom of the condenser, so that the water
would pass through the inlet valves at the side farthest from, and the
air at the side nearest to, the hot-well. Thus the air remained above
the water, and as the latter rose it sent the air before it quite to the
delivery valves. Pains were taken to avoid any place where air could
be trapped, so it was certain that on every stroke the air would be
sent through the delivery valves first, mingled air and water, if there
were any, next, and the solid water last, insuring perfect
displacement.
I have a friend who has often asked me, with a manner showing
his conviction that the question could not be answered, “How can
you know that anything will work until you have tried it?” In this case I
did know that this condenser would work at rapid speed before I tried
it. The event proved it, and any engineer could have seen that it
must have worked. The only question in my mind was as to the
necessity of the springs behind the delivery valves. Experiment was
needed to settle that question, which it did in short order. At the
speed at which the engine ran, the light springs improved the
vacuum a full pound, showing that without them these valves did not
close promptly.
The following important detail must not be overlooked. The rubber
disk valves were backed by cast-iron plates, which effectually
preserved them from being cut or even marked by the brass
gratings. These plates were made with tubes standing in the middle
of them, as shown. These tubes afforded long guides on the stems,
and a projection of them on the under side held the valves in place
without any wear. They also determined the rise of the valves. The
chambers, being long and narrow, accommodated three inlet and
three outlet valves. The jet of water struck the opposite wall with
sufficient force to fill the chamber with spray.
When the plans for this condenser were completed, and the Evan
Leigh engine had been vindicated, I felt that the success of the high-
speed system was assured, and looked forward to a rapidly growing
demand for the engines. We got out an illustrated catalogue of sizes,
in which I would have put the condenser, but the firm decided that it
would be better to wait for that until it should be on the same footing
with the engine, as an accomplished fact.
Suddenly, like thunder from a clear sky, I received notice that
Ormerod, Grierson & Co. were in difficulties, had stopped payment,
placed their books in the hands of a firm of accountants, and called a
meeting of their creditors, and the works were closed. Some of their
enormous contracts had proved losing ones. I had made such
provision in my contract with them that on their failure my license to
them became void. Otherwise it would have been classed among
their assets.
 CHAPTER XII

Introduction to the Whitworth Works. Sketch of Mr. Whitworth. Experience in the

Whitworth Works. Our Agreement which was never Executed. First Engine in
England Transmitting Power by a Belt.

was still debating with myself what course to take,

when I received a note from Mr. W. J. Hoyle, secretary
of the Whitworth Company, inquiring if I were free from
any entanglement with the affairs of Ormerod,
Grierson & Co., to which I was able to make a
satisfactory reply. Mr. Hoyle was then a stranger to
me. It appeared that he was an accomplished steam engineer, and
had been employed as an expert to test one of my engines in
operation, an engine which we had made for a mill-owner in
Bradford. He had been very favorably impressed by the engine, so
much so as to form this scheme. He had been with the Whitworth
Company only a short time, and was struck with the small amount of
work they were doing in their tool department; and after his
observation of the engine at Bradford, learning of the stoppage of
Ormerod, Grierson & Co., it occurred to him that it would be a good
thing for his company to undertake the manufacture of these
engines. After receiving my answer to his preliminary inquiry, having
Mr. Whitworth, as he afterwards told me, where he could not get
away, on a trip from London to Manchester, he laid the plan before
him and talked him into it. I directly after received an invitation to
meet Mr. Whitworth at his office, and here commenced what I verily
believed was one of the most remarkable experiences that any man
ever had.
 William J. Hoyle

In the course of our pretty long interview, which terminated with

the conclusion of a verbal agreement, Mr. Whitworth talked with me
quite freely, and told me several things that surprised me. One was
the frank statement that he divided all other toolmakers in the world
into two classes, one class who copied him without giving him any
credit, and the other class who had the presumption to imagine that
they could improve on him. His feelings towards both these classes
evidently did not tend to make him happy. Another thing, which I
heard without any sign of my amazement, was that he had long
entertained the purpose of giving to the world the perfect steam-
engine. “That is,” he explained, “an engine embodying all those
essential principles to which steam-engine builders must sooner or
later come.” This, he stated, had been necessarily postponed while
he was engaged in developing his system of artillery, but he was
nearing the completion of that work and should then be able to
devote himself to it.
I cannot perhaps do better than stop here and give my
impressions of Mr. Whitworth. He was in all respects a phenomenal
man. As an engineer, or rather a toolmaker, he addressed himself to
all fundamental constructive requirements and problems, and
comprehended everything in his range and grasp of thought,
continually seeking new fields to conquer. Long after the period here
referred to he closed his long and wonderful career by giving to the
world the hollow engine shaft and the system of hydraulic forging. At
that time he was confidently anticipating the adoption by all nations
of his system of artillery. He had made an immense advance, from
spherical shot, incapable of accurate aim and having a high
trajectory, to elongated shot, swiftly rotating in its flight and having a
comparatively flat trajectory, and which could hit the mark and
penetrate with destructive effect at distances of several miles. These
fundamental features of modern artillery thus originated with Mr.
Whitworth. All his other features have been superseded, but his
elongated pointed rotating projectile will remain until nations shall
learn war no more; a time which in the gradual development of
humanity cannot be far away. Before I left England, however, he had
abandoned his artillery plans in most bitter disappointment. He had
met the English official mind. By the authorities of the war and navy
departments it had been unanimously decided that what England
wanted was, not accuracy of aim and penetration at long range, but
smashing effects at close quarters. The record of that is to be found
in the proceedings of the House of Commons in 1868, only thirty-
nine years ago. Think of that!
Mr. Whitworth was not only the most original engineering genius
that ever lived. He was also a monumental egotist. His fundamental
idea was always prominent, that he had taught the world not only all
that it knew mechanically, but all it ever could know. His fury against
tool-builders who improved on his plans was most ludicrous. He
drew no distinction between principles and details. He must not be
departed from even in a single line. No one in his works dared to
think. This disposition had a striking illustration only a short time—
less than a year—before I went there. He had no children. His
nearest relatives were two nephews, W. W. and J. E. Hulse. The
latter was a tool-manufacturer in Salford. W. W. Hulse was Mr.
Whitworth’s superintendent, and had been associated with him for
twenty-four years, for a long time as his partner, the firm being
Joseph Whitworth & Company. Lately the business had been taken
over by a corporation formed under the style of the Whitworth
Company, and Mr. Hulse became the general superintendent.
Mr. Whitworth was taken sick, and for a while was not expected to
live, and no one thought, even if he did get better, that he would ever
be able to visit his works again. Mr. Hulse had been chafing under
his restraint, and during Mr. Whitworth’s absence proceeded to make
a few obvious improvements in their tools, such, for example, as
supporting the table of their shaper, so that it would not yield under
the cut. To the surprise of every one, Mr. Whitworth got well, and
after more than six months’ absence, he appeared again at the
works. Walking through, he noted the changes that had been made,
sent for Mr. Hulse, discharged him on the spot, and ordered
everything restored to its original form.
To return now to my own experience. Since Mr. Whitworth had
been absorbed in his artillery development he had given only a
cursory oversight to the tool manufacture. Mr. Hulse had been
succeeded as superintendent by a man named Widdowson, whose
only qualification for his position was entire subserviency to Mr.
Whitworth.
 Sir Joseph Whitworth

My drawings and patterns were purchased by the Whitworth

Company, and I was installed with one draftsman in a separate
office, and prepared to put the work in hand at once for a 12×24-inch
engine for the Paris Exposition, where Ormerod, Grierson & Co. had
secured the space, and the drawings for which I had completed. If I
remember rightly, the patterns were finished also. While I was getting
things in order, Mr. Widdowson came into my office, and in a very
important manner said to me: “You must understand, sir, that we
work here to the decimal system and all drawings must be
conformed to it.” I received this order meekly, and we went to work to
make our drawings all over, for the single purpose of changing their
dimensions from binary to decimal divisions of the inch. There was of
course quite a body of detail drawings, and to make these over, with
the pains required to make these changes to an unaccustomed
system, and make and mount the tracings, took us nearly three
weeks. When finished I took the roll of tracings to Mr. Widdowson’s
office. He was not in, and I left them for him. An hour or so later he
came puffing and blowing into my office with the drawings. He was a
heavy man, and climbing upstairs exhausted him. When he got his
breath, he broke out: “We can’t do anything with these. Haven’t got a
decimal gauge in the shop.” “You gave me express orders to make
my drawings to the decimal system.” “Damn it, I meant in halves and
quarters and all that, and write them decimals.” So all that work and
time were thrown away, and we had to make a new set of tracings
from the drawings I had brought, in order to figure the dimensions in
decimals. He told me afterwards that when Mr. Whitworth
commenced the manufacture of cylindrical gauges he made them to
the decimal divisions of the inch, imagining that was a better mode of
division than that by continual bisection, and supposing that he had
influence enough to effect the change. But nobody would buy his
gauges. He had to call them in and make what people wanted. “And
now,” said Mr. Widdowson, “there is not a decimal gauge in the
world.” He knew, too, for up to that time they made them all. So Mr.
Whitworth could make a mistake, and I found that this was not the
worst one that he had made.
 While time was being wasted in this manner, the subject of
manufacturing the governors came up. Mr. Whitworth concluded that
he would first try one on his own shop engine, so one was bought
from Ormerod, Grierson & Co. I had a message from Mr. Widdowson
to come to the shop and see my governor. It was acting in a manner
that I had seen before, the counterpoise rising and dropping to its
seat twice every time the belt lap came around. “Total failure, you
see,” said Mr. Widdowson, “and I got a new belt for it, too.” I saw a
chance to make an interesting observation, and asked him if he
would get an old belt and try that. This he did, lapping the ends as
before about 18 inches, according to the universal English custom,
which I had long before found it necessary carefully to avoid. As I
knew would be the case, the action was not improved at all. I then
cut off the lap, butted the ends of the belt, and laced them in the
American style, and lo! the trouble vanished. The governor stood
motionless, only floating up and down slightly with the more
important changes of load. Mr. Whitworth was greatly pleased, and
at once set about their manufacture, in a full line of sizes.
He made the change, to which I have referred already, from the
urn shape to the semi-spherical form of the counterpoise. In this
connection he laid the law down to me in this dogmatic fashion: “Let
no man show me a mechanical form for which he cannot give me a
mechanical reason.” But Jove sometimes nods. They were to exhibit
in Paris a large slotting-machine. The form of the upright did not suit
Mr. Whitworth exactly. He had the pattern set up in the erecting-
shop, and a board tacked on the side, cut to an outline that he
directed. He came to look at it every day for a week, and ordered
some change or other. Finally it was gotten to his mind, the pattern
was altered accordingly, and a new casting made. This was set up in
the shop, and I happened to be present when he came to see it.
“Looks like a horse that has been taught to hold his head up,” said
he. “Mechanical reason,” thought I, fresh from my lesson. When
finished the slotting-machine was tried in the shop, and found to
yield in the back. The tool sprang away from its work and rounded
the corner. Mr. Whitworth had whittled the pattern away and ruined it.
Instead of being sent to Paris, it was broken up.
 My experiment with the governor proved the defect in the English
system of lacing belts. Every machine in the land, of whatever kind,
tool or loom or spinning or drawing frame, or whatever it was, driven
by a belt, halted in its motion every time the lap in the belt passed
over a pulley, sufficiently to drop my governor, when the same
motion was given to it, and no one had ever observed this
irregularity.
I thought they would never be ready to set about work on the
engine. First, Mr. Widdowson ordered that every casting and forging,
large and small, must be in the shop before one of them was put in
hand. After this was done I found a number of men at work making
sheet-iron templets of everything. I saw one man filing the threads in
the edges of a templet for a ³⁄₈-inch bolt. When these were all
finished and stamped, an operation that took quite a week, a great
fuss was made about commencing work on everything
simultaneously.
I went into the shop to see what was going on. The first thing to
attract my attention was the steam-chest, then made separate from
the cylinder. A workman—their best fitter, as I afterwards learned—
was engaged in planing out the cavities in which the exhaust valves
worked. I saw no center line, and asked him where it was. He had
never heard of such a thing. “What do you measure from?” “From
the side of the casting.” I called his attention to the center line on the
drawing, from which all the measurements were taken, and told him
all about it. He seemed very intelligent, and under my direction set
the chest up on a plane table and made a center line around it and
another across it, and set out everything from these lines, and I left
him going on finely. An hour later I looked in again. He was about his
job in the old way. To my question he explained that his foreman had
come around and told him I had no business in the shop, that he
gave him his directions, and he must finish his job just as he began
it.
I made no reply but went to Mr. Hoyle’s office, and asked him if he
knew what they were doing in the shop. He smiled and said, “I
suppose they are finally making an engine for you.” “No, they are
not.” “What are they doing?” “Making scrap iron.” “What do you
mean?” I told him the situation. He took his hat and went out, saying,
“I must see this myself.”
A couple of hours later he sent for me, and told me this. “I have
been all around the works and seen all that is doing. It is all of the
same piece. I have had a long interview with Mr. Widdowson, and
am sorry to tell you that we can’t make your engine; we don’t know
how. It seems to be entirely out of our line. The intelligence does not
exist in these works to make a steam-engine. Nobody knows how to
set about anything. I have stopped the work, and want to know what
you think had better be done about it?” I asked him to let me think
the matter over till the next morning. I then went to him and
suggested to him to let me find a skilled locomotive-erecter who was
also a trained draftsman, and to organize a separate department for
the engine and governor manufacture, and put this man at the head
of it, to direct it without interference. This was gladly agreed to. I
found a young man, Mr. John Watts, who proved to be the very man
for the place. In a week we were running under Mr. Watts’ direction,
and the engine was saved. But what a time the poor man had!
Everything seemed to be done wrong. It is hardly to be believed. He
could not get a rod turned round, or a hole bored round.
In their toolmaking they relied entirely on grinding with “Turkey
dust.” I once saw a gang of a dozen laborers working a long
grinding-bar, in the bore, 10 inches diameter by 8 feet long, in the
tailstock of an enormous lathe. I peered through this hole when the
bar was withdrawn. It looked like a ploughed field. Scattered over it
here and there were projections which had been ground off by these
laborers. On the other hand, the planing done in these works was
magnificent. I never saw anything to equal it. But circular work beat
them entirely. I found that the lathe hands never thought of such a
thing as getting any truth by the sliding cut. After that they went for
the surface with coarse files, and relied for such approximate truth as
they did get upon grinding with the everlasting Turkey dust.
Mr. Whitworth invented the duplex lathe tool, but I observed that
they never used it. I asked Mr. Widdowson why this was. “Because,”
said he, “the duplex tool will not turn round.” After a while I found out
why. When our engine was finished, Mr. Widdowson set it upon two
lathe beds and ran it. Lucky that he did. The bottom of the engine
bed was planed, and it could be leveled nicely on the flat surfaces of
their lathe beds. The fly-wheel ran nearly a quarter of an inch out of
truth. He set up some tool-boxes on one of the lathe beds, and
turned the rim off in place, both sides and face being out. That, of
course, made it run perfectly true. I asked the lathe hand how he
could turn out such a job. He replied, “Come and see my lathe.” I
found the spindle quite an eighth of an inch loose in the main
bearing, the wear of twenty or thirty years. He told me all of the
lathes in the works were in a similar condition. That explained many
things. The mystery of those gear patterns was solved. Every spindle
in the gear-cutting machine was wabbling loose in its holes. I can’t
call them bearings. Now it appeared why they could not use the
duplex tools. With a tool cutting on one side, they relied on the
pressure of the cut to keep the lathe spindle in contact with the
opposite side of its main bearing, and a poor reliance that was, but
with a tool cutting on each side, fancy the situation. Then boring a
true hole was obviously impossible. The workmen became
indifferent; they had no reamers, relied entirely on grinding. I asked,
Why do you not renew these worn-out bushings? but could never get
an answer to the question. Some power evidently forbade it, and the
fact is that no man about the place dared to think of such a thing as
intimating to Mr. Whitworth that one of his lathe bearings required
any fixing up, or that it was or could be anything short of perfect. He
(Mr. Whitworth) had designed it as a perfect thing; ergo, it was
perfect, and no man dared say otherwise.
Our engine work was finally, as a last resort, done by Mr. Watts on
new lathes, made for customers and used for a month or two before
they were sent out. Not only in England, but on the Continent and in
America, the Whitworth Works were regarded as the perfect
machine-shop. I remember a visit I had at the Paris Exposition from
Mr. Elwell, of the firm of Varrell, Elwell & Poulot, proprietors of the
largest mechanical establishment in Paris. After expressing his
unbounded admiration of the running of the engine, he said, “I
warrant your fly-wheel runs true.” After observing it critically, he
exclaimed, “Ah, they do those things at Whitworth’s!”
The fact was Mr. Whitworth had cursed the British nation with the
solid conical lathe-spindle bearing, a perfect bearing for ordinary-
sized lathes and a most captivating thing—when new. These
hardened steel cones, in hardened steel seats, ran in the most
charming manner. But they wore more loose in the main bearing
every day they ran, and there were no means for taking up the wear.
It came on insensibly, and no one paid any attention to it. The cream
of the joke was that people were so fascinated with this bearing that
at that time no other could be sold in England, except for very large
lathes. All toolmakers had to make it. I remember afterwards that Mr.
Freeland, our best American toolmaker, who, as I have already
mentioned, went to England and worked for some years as a
journeyman in the Whitworth Works for the purpose of learning
everything there that he could, did not bring back to America the
conical bearing.
The firm of Smith & Coventry were the first to fit their lathes with
the means for taking up this wear, which took place only in the main
bearing, where both the force of the cut and the weight of the piece
were received. They made the conical seat for the back end of the
spindle adjustable in the headstock and secured it by a thin nut on
each end. This then could be moved backward sufficiently to let the
forward cone up to its seat. This made it possible to use the solid
bearing, but it involved this error, that after this adjustment the axis of
the spindle did not coincide with the line connecting the lathe
centers; but the two lines formed an angle with each other, which
grew more decided every time the wear was taken up. This,
however, was infinitely better than not to take up the wear at all.
At that time the Whitworth Works were divided into four
departments. These were screwing machinery, gauges, guns and
machine tools. The first three of these were locked. I never entered
either of them. The latter also, like most works in England, was
closed to outsiders. No customer could see his work in progress.
This department was without a head or a drawing-office. It seemed
to be running it on its traditions. I once said to Mr. Hoyle, “There
must at some time have been here mechanical intelligence of the
highest order, but where is it?” They had occasionally an order for
something out of their ancient styles, and their attempts to fill such
orders were always ruinous. The following is a fair illustration. They
had an order for a radial drill to be back-geared and strong enough
to bore an 8-inch hole. Mr. Widdowson had the pattern for the upright
fitted with the necessary brackets, and thought it was such a good
thing that he would make two. The first one finished was tried in the
shop, and all the gears in the arm were stripped. He woke up to the
fact that he had forgotten to strengthen the transmitting parts, and
moreover that the construction would not admit anything stronger.
There was nothing to be done but to decline the order, chip off the
brackets, and make these into single-speed drills. This I saw being
done.
Mr. Widdowson told me the following amusing story. The London
Times had heard of the wonderful performance of Mr. Hoe’s multiple-
cylinder press, and concluded to have one of them of the largest
size, ten cylinders. But, of course, Mr. Hoe did not know how to
make his own presses. His work would do well enough for ignorant
Americans, but not for an English Journal. The press must be made
in England in the world-renowned Whitworth Works.
Mr. Hoe sent over one of his experts to give them the information
they might need, but they would not let him in the shop. Mr. Hulse
told him they had the drawings and specifications and that was all
they needed. When the press was finished they set it up in the shop
and attempted to run it. The instant it started every tape ran off its
pulleys, and an investigation showed that not a spindle or shaft was
parallel with any other. They had no idea of the method that must be
employed to ensure this universal alignment. After enormous labor
they got these so that they were encouraged to make another trial,
when after a few revolutions every spindle stuck fast in its bearings.
Mr. Whitworth, absorbed in his artillery and spending most of his
time in London, of course had no knowledge of how things were
going on in his shop, of the utter want of ordinary intelligence.
I formed a scheme for an application of Mr. Whitworth’s system of
end measurement to the production of an ideally perfect dividing-
wheel. In this system Mr. Whitworth employed what he termed “the
gravity piece.” This was a small steel plate about ¹⁄₈ of an inch in
thickness, the opposite sides of which were parallel and had the
most perfectly true and smooth surfaces that could be produced by
scraping. The ends of the piece to be tested were perfectly squared,
by a method which I will not stop here to describe, and were finished