James White (inventor)

Inventions from his period in Paris include an articulated or "serpentine" barge, a new form of turbine, and an automatic wire nail-making machine.

He presented a novel straight-line mechanism at the 1801 Exposition des produits de l'industrie française at the Louvre, and was awarded a medal by Napoleon Bonaparte.

[1] At some point within the late 1780s, he built a differential gear train to change the gap between the millstones of a Kent windmill in order to account for varying wind speed.

[3] In early 1792, he sent a letter from the Chevening estate in Kent, possibly indicating his acquaintanceship with the scientifically-minded 3rd Earl Stanhope, whom he would later name his "noble Patron".

He showcased a hypocycloidal straight-line mechanism at the 2nd Exposition des produits de l'industrie française in 1801, which he had designed in the years prior to the event.

[5] The following year, bolstered by cross-Channel transmission of information during the Peace of Amiens, Matthew Murray built a number of steam engines incorporating White's mechanism.

These inventions include an automatic nail-making machine (the first known device to produce wire nails) and shears for cutting circular portions out of sheet iron.

In late 1815, he submitted a paper titled "On a new system of cog or toothed wheels" to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester.

[10] While in Manchester, White composed his main work, A New Century of Inventions, Being Designs and Descriptions of One Hundred Machines, Relating to Arts, Manufactures, and Domestic Life.