Career
During his youth, he was an apprentice of the inventor and locksmith Joseph Bramah, who patented the first elastic ink reservoir for a fountain pen. In 1822, Mordan and his co-inventor John Isaac Hawkins filed the first patent in Great Britain for a metal pencil with an internal mechanism for propelling the graphite "lead" shaft forward during use, as an improvement on the less complex leadholders that merely clutched the pencil lead to hold it into a single position. From 1823 to 1837, they manufactured and sold silver mechanical pencils with the marking "SMGR".
Mordan often made his pencils in whimsical "figural" shapes that resembled animals, Egyptian mummies, or other objects.
Like his other silverware and goldware, these pencils are now highly collectible. "South. Mordan & Company" continued to make silverware and brass postal scales until 1941, when their factory was destroyed by bombs during the London Blitz.
