Jacob Perkins was an American inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, and engraver whose work ranged from nail-making machinery and counterfeit-resistant bank-note plates to high-pressure steam systems, water-compression experiments, and mechanical refrigeration. He later established a major security-printing business in London.
Background
Jacob Perkins was born on July 9, 1766, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, a coastal manufacturing town in the early United States. He was the son of Matthew Perkins and Jane Noyes Perkins. He attended school in Newburyport until about the age of twelve, when he was apprenticed to Edward Davis, a local goldsmith.
Davis died several years later, and Perkins continued the goldsmith's business on behalf of Davis's widow before eventually managing it himself. His early metalworking included the manufacture of gold beads and shoe buckles, as well as a method for plating buckles. These activities gave him practical experience with metals, dies, tools, and small-scale manufacturing.
Education
Perkins received only a limited formal education in Newburyport and left school at approximately twelve years of age. His apprenticeship to the goldsmith Edward Davis supplied the practical training that shaped his later work with metalworking, engraving, dies, machinery, and manufacturing.
At about twenty-one, he was employed by the Massachusetts mint to make a die for striking copper coins. The mint operated in the period when Massachusetts and other states were developing early American coinage practices before the federal government established exclusive constitutional authority over coinage.
Career
Perkins began his working life in Newburyport as a goldsmith and silversmith, continuing the business of his deceased master, Edward Davis. His early inventions included improved shoe-buckle plating and machinery for cutting and heading nails in a single operation. The nail-making machinery was developed for commercial production at Byfield and later at Amesbury, where water power supported manufacturing.
His skill with dies led to work for the Massachusetts mint in the 1780s, where he prepared dies for copper coinage. He later developed processes for engraving bank notes on steel rather than copper. Soft steel could be engraved and then hardened, producing durable plates whose detailed work made counterfeiting more difficult. In partnership with Gideon Fairman and other associates, Perkins developed a security-printing business that produced bank notes and other engraved material.
Perkins also pursued mechanical and physical experiments. He investigated the compressibility of water with a piezometer of his own design and developed high-pressure steam apparatus, including boilers, engines, pumps, and devices for marine use. His inventions included an improved paddle wheel, methods for circulating water in boilers, a steam gun, and early mechanical refrigeration systems. His work on high-pressure steam anticipated later developments in flash-boiler and heat-exchange technology, although some of his experimental engines were not commercially adopted.
In 1819 Perkins moved to London with printing equipment and associates to seek wider application for his bank-note engraving process. The Bank of England did not adopt his proposed bank-note system, but he established a successful security-printing enterprise. The business operated successively as Perkins, Fairman & Heath, Perkins & Heath, Perkins & Bacon, and Perkins, Bacon & Petch. It printed bank notes and, beginning in 1840, produced the first adhesive British postage stamps, including the Penny Black, using steel-engraving methods.
Perkins remained associated with engineering, printing, and invention in London until his retirement in the 1840s. London was then a major center of industrial manufacturing, scientific exchange, and commercial publishing, making it an important setting for his later work in security printing and mechanical technology. He died there on July 30, 1849.
Achievements
Perkins invented machinery that cut and headed nails in a single operation, helping mechanize an important manufacturing process in the early United States.
He developed steel-plate bank-note engraving and a method of engraving soft steel before hardening it. The process produced durable, detailed plates that made counterfeit bank notes more difficult to manufacture.
His experiments with a piezometer demonstrated and measured the compressibility of water, forming his principal contribution to experimental physics.
Perkins developed high-pressure steam boilers, engines, pumps, marine equipment, and methods for circulating water in boilers. His experiments helped establish important early examples of high-pressure steam engineering.
His London security-printing enterprise produced the first adhesive British postage stamps in 1840, including the Penny Black, through the firm later known as Perkins, Bacon & Petch.
Perkins developed early mechanical refrigeration systems and is frequently identified as an important precursor of practical vapor-compression refrigeration.
Membership
Perkins was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1813 and became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1819. These institutions brought together scientists, inventors, physicians, and scholars during the formative period of organized scientific life in the United States.
He was also elected to the Institution of Civil Engineers in London. The institution, founded in 1818, promoted professional exchange and the development of civil engineering during the expansion of British industrial infrastructure, transport, machinery, and public works.
Elected Fellow.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
United States
1813
Elected member.
American Philosophical Society
,
United States
1819
Elected member.
Institution of Civil Engineers
,
England
Personality
Contemporary biographical accounts described Perkins as inquisitive, ingenious, fair, open, and kind-hearted. His career is documented as one of repeated experimentation across metalworking, printing, steam power, hydraulics, and refrigeration.
Connections
Perkins married Hannah Greenleaf of Newbury on November 11, 1790. They had nine children. Their second son, Angier March Perkins, joined his father in England and later became known for high-pressure steam heating systems.
Perkins's grandson Loftus Perkins also pursued engineering experiments involving high-pressure steam. Loftus later constructed the yacht Anthracite, whose engines operated at exceptionally high pressure for the period.
Wife:
Hannah Greenleaf
Perkins married her on November 11, 1790, and they had nine children.
Son:
Angier March Perkins
He joined his father in England and became known for a system of heating buildings with high-pressure steam.
Grandson:
Loftus Perkins
He experimented with high-pressure steam engines and constructed the yacht Anthracite in 1880.
Society for the Encouragement of the Arts medal,
England
Perkins received a medal from the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts for his method of ventilating ships' holds. The award recognized a practical contribution to improving conditions aboard vessels.
Perkins received a medal from the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts for his method of ventilating ships' holds. The award recognized a practical contribution to improving conditions aboard vessels.
