FORTUNE FROM A SHOVEL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 15, 30 December 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

FORTUNE FROM A SHOVEL.

The simplest labour-saving device may quite possibly be worth a fortune. Eighty-nine years ago a number of men were at work on the road-bed of a line of railway in course of construction between Birmingham and Manchester. They were cutting through a hill and moving the material by loosening it- with picks, shovelling it info barrows, and wheeling it away. Tho shovels they were using were known as. Irish shovels, with a square-corner-ed blade about loin. leng. The work progressed but slowly, and the subcontractor in charge rebuked his workmen for not making quicker progress. Ono of them replied that if he would grim! off the corners of the shovels it would bo easier to get them into the earth, and consequently they would-be able to work more quickly.

Tho contractor ridiculed the idea which ho considered a piece of insob onto on the part of the workman, but tho navvy was quite in earnest and not easily discouraged. When the work was completed ho discussed the matter with a friend of his at Sheffield, who persnuded an ironmonger he knew to make a dozen or so as an experiment. The tools were offered to a 1.-irg,* contractor, who promised to let some of his men use the new' shovels and report results About a week afterwards the contractor returned with the information that his men were fairly quarrelling as to who should use the now tools, some arriving to work a quarter of an hour before time in order to be there first when tho tool-box was opened. The navvy’s suggest inn had proved a good one ; a patent was secured, and an agriv’ment. made between the navvv. ;he manufacturer, and the contractor. When the navvv died ho left a fortune of ou-r £6n.floo. th.- proceeds from royalties on tho manufacture of shovels under hi.s patent.