Fortune From a Shovel.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 5 November 1915, Page 3

Fortune From a Shovel.

The simplest labour-saving device may quite possibly be worth a fortune. Ninety 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 into barrows, and wheeling it away.

The shovels they were using were known as Irish shovels, with a square-cornered blade about 15in long. The work progressed but slowly, and the subcontractor in charge rebuked his workmen for not making quicker progress. One of them replied that if he would grind off the corners of the shovels it would be easier to get them into the earth, and consequently they would be able to work more quickly.

The contractor ridiculed the idea, which he considered a piece of insolence on the part of the workmen, but the navvy was quite in earnest, and not easily discouraged. When the work was completed, he discussed the matter with a friend in Sheffield, who persuaded an ironmonger he knew to make a dozen or so as an experiment. The tools were offered to a large 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 a;: to who should use the new tools, some arriving to work a quarter of an hour before time in order to be there first when the tool box was opened. The navvy’s suggestion had proved a good one ; a patent was secured, and an agreement made between the navvy, the manufacturer, and the contractor. When the navvy died he left a fortune of over £65,000, the proceeds from royalties on the manufacture of shovels under his patent.