Hagley Museum & Library’s collection includes material from all over the world. Hagley also has plenty of objects from innovators, and as a native Vermonter, I’d like to highlight one that I think is particularly interesting.
It’s a green machine nestled in among our many other lathes, eprouvettes, and sundry small machines. The Robbins & Lawrence rifling machine used by Smith & Wesson may not look very different from the other devices around it, but it is part of much larger story about its (and my) home state.
75.6 Robbins & Lawrence Rifling Machine
Robbins & Lawrence got its start in the town of Windsor, Vermont in 1838 as a partnership between Nicanor Kendell, an operator of a small mill manufacturing firearms, and Richard S. Lawrence, a young man with a talent for tinkering. They set up a small factory and starting custom making firearms. Samuel E. Robbins, a local businessman, joined them as a partner for their first big contract - for 10,000 Model 1841 Rifles for the United States Army.
A detail of the leg of 75.6
This order started a major business that went by several names over the years, which successfully continued to improve and experiment with various types of firearms.
The firearms themselves were only part of Robbins & Lawrence’s business, however. As Lawrence recalled later in a letter to his son, “When we first commenced the gun business at Windsor we commenced building nice machinery, made many machines for other gun makers. Made at Windsor for the English Government most of their gun machines for the Enfield armory…”
In the period when Lawrence and Kendell started making guns, they created most of their own tools and machinery. This passage also briefly alludes to one of the most important contracts that Robbins & Lawrence would get. In 1851, at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London, they showcased their machine tools that could create interchangeable parts. Parts made by these machines were standardized - a mainspring for one rifle would work any rifle made by the same machines. Previously, each firearm was hand assembled, tuned, and the parts for it made or altered to fit. Robbins & Lawrence were well received in Britain for their work in simplifying and speeding up manufacturing. As Lawrence mentioned, the firm was contracted to provide machinery for the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield - the manufacturer of guns for the British Army.
Robbins & Lawrence deserve to be remembered as much for machines for manufacturing firearms as they do for firearms.
The rifling machine in Hagley’s Collection is just a small piece of the story of the American Industrial Revolution. The rise of interchangeable parts played a central role in the rise of typewriters, automobiles and sewing machines. It also minted the name that area around Windsor, Vermont still bears today: The Precision Valley.
Keith Minsinger is the Registrar\Databases Manager at Hagley.