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Joshua Field
Photo: J. Andrews, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons9

Joshua Field

British civil engineer and mechanical engineer

Joshua Field FRS (1786 – 11 August 1863) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Joshua Field (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born 1786, died Aug 11, 1863.1

About

Field was born in Hackney in 1786, his father was John Field a corn and seed merchant who was later to become Master of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors. Field was a pupil of dockyard engineer Simon Goodrich from 1803 to 1805.

Commissioned by Samuel Bentham, the Inspector-general of naval works, he worked with Samuel Goodrich to develop tools for mass-producing ships' blocks at Portsmouth Dockyard. The block mills they designed required ten unskilled men to take the place of 110 skilled craftsmen, and have been recognised as the first use of machine tools for mass production.

They were built by Henry Maudslay between 1802 and 1806, and represented the first steam-powered manufactory in any dockyard.

He then joined Maudslay to form the firm of Messrs. Maudslay, Sons and Field of Lambeth. One of their projects was to build engines for the SS Great Western's Atlantic crossing of 1838.

From Wikipedia’s article on Joshua Field, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Career

Occupation: engineer, civil engineer.4

Personal life

  • Born1786, Hackney5
  • DiedAug 11, 1863, Surrey6

His daughter, Matilda Field, married Dr Thomas H. Gladstone. Their children included the embryologist, Reginald John Gladstone FRSE (1865-1947).

Reginald married his first cousin (i.e. also a grandchild of Field) Ida Millicant Field in 1912.

From Wikipedia’s article on Joshua Field (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

  • Date not recordedFellow of the Royal Society7

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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