Joseph R. Brown was born on January 26, 1810 in Warren, Rhode Island. He was the eldest son of David and Patience (Rogers) Brown. His father was modestly established as a manufacturer and dealer in clocks, watches, jewelry, and particularly silverware.
Brown, as a youth, obtained the limited education which the district school afforded and at the same time, after school and during summer vacations, assisted his father in the conduct of the manufactory.
When barely seventeen years old he left home to learn the general machinist's trade in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. Within three months he was entrusted with the making of the finest and most important parts of cotton machinery. After a second short term with another manufacturer, in 1829 he joined his father who was then established at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in the manufacture of tower clocks.
The construction and installation of clocks in churches of towns both in Rhode Island and Massachusetts kept Brown busy for the next two years, but, upon reaching his majority, he went into business for himself in Pawtucket, manufacturing lathes and small tools for machinists. After conducting this business in a modest way for two years he rejoined his father in Providence as partner, to engage in the manufacture of watches, clocks, and surveying and mathematical instruments.
For eight years father and son continued in their chosen profession and when the elder Brown retired in 1841 the son continued alone for twelve years. The highest degree of mechanical accuracy and perfection seems to have been their goal, as evidenced by the tower clocks built by them and still in use. This same incentive led the younger Brown early in his career to design a linear dividing engine which he finally perfected and built in 1850.
It was, so far as is known, the first automatic machine for graduating rules in the United States and is, together with two more built in 1854 and 1859, in use to-day, meeting all modern requirements for accuracy. Following the graduating machine, Brown brought out in 1851 the vernier caliper reading to thousandths of an inch, applied the vernier to protractors in 1852, and introduced the micrometer caliper in 1867.
By 1853 Brown's business had grown to the point of employing fourteen persons, and it was then that Lucian Sharpe was taken into partnership and the firm became J. R. Brown & Sharpe. Fifteen years later they incorporated under the name of Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company.
In 1855 Brown invented a precision gear cutter to make clock gears and to supply his jobbing customers with gears. The machine was capable not only of producing accurate gears but also of drilling index plates and doing circular graduating. Several of them were built and sold and one is still preserved for its historic significance. The introduction of these several precision tools and their acceptance both in this country and abroad, coupled with a contract in 1861 to make Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machines, marked a turning point in Brown's life in that he stopped making clocks and gave his whole time and thought to his manufacturing interests and the development of machine tools. The Civil War proved a stimulus to this development because of ordnance requirements.
Thus Brown in 1861 designed and built a turret screw machine for a company manufacturing muskets. He also invented and built during this and the following year a universal milling machine which embodied such important advantages in all types of manufacturing that the demand taxed to the limit the facilities of his plant. Ten machines were sold in 1862 and seventeen were made for as many gun factories during the remaining three years of the war. By 1870 twenty machines had been distributed abroad into twelve different countries. For this invention Brown received Patent No. 46, 621 on February 21, 1865, and so far as is known, it was always respected. Brown's greatest achievement, probably, was the invention of the universal grinding machine, Patent No. 187, 770, February 27, 1877, issued after his death.
In this he introduced an entirely new conception of manufacturing procedure in that articles could be hardened first and then ground with the utmost accuracy and the least waste. This is the universal practise to-day in all modern manufacturing and tool plants. It was the result of over ten years' constant thought and experimenting, beginning about the time he started making sewing machines and ending just before his death. It was also during this most productive period in Brown's career, namely, 1860 to 1870, that he invented the formed gear cutter which could be sharpened on its face without changing its form.
This improvement on earlier gear cutters had a marked influence in the general adoption by manufacturers of the involute form for cut gearing as well as for the use of diametral pitch. Brown had always the respect and love of his employees. He had a contagious enthusiasm about his inventions which was shared by all of his associates and his whole-souled affection for each new mechanism was most genuine.
His death was very unexpected, occurring at Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire, while he was taking a short vacation.
Joseph Brown perfected and produced a highly accurate linear dividing engine in 1850, and in the succeeding two years he developed a vernier caliper reading to thousandths of an inch and also applied vernier methods to the protractor. Brown’s micrometer caliper, widely used in industry, appeared in 1867. He also invented a precision gear cutter in 1855 to produce clock gears, a universal milling machine in 1862, and, perhaps his finest innovation, a universal grinding machine (patented in 1877), in which articles were hardened first and then ground, thereby increasing accuracy and eliminating waste. Another Joseph Brown's achievement was in the establishment in 1853 of Brown and Sharpe in the partnership with Lucian Sharpe, which exists to this day and now focuses on measuring tools and CMM software.
In 1837 Brown was married to Caroline B. Niles, who died in 1851; in 1852 he was married to Jane Frances Mowray, who with one daughter survived him.
