William Bickford was born in Ashburton, Devon
on January 1774. He moved to Truro as a currier, preparing leather, and
then to Tuckinghmill near Camborne in the heart of Cornwall’s mining
area. William Bickford had no connection with the mining industry, but was upset
to see the injuries caused by the crude methods of setting explosive charges
used to move large amounts of rock. He began to think of ways to make a
safety fuse. His first was to put the main explosive in a cartridge
made of parchment, and to attach a small parchment tube containing powder
as the fuse. This was rather like the goose feather quills stuffed with
gunpowder which were already being used as fuses – and just as unreliable! Then the one day he visited his friend James Bray who owned a rope factory
in Tolgarrick Road. He watched the rope-makers twisting the separate strands
together and realised that he might be able to adapt this process to make
a fuse. That same year he designed and patented a machine, which wound strands
of rope around a central core of gunpowder. Then it wound another layer
in the opposite direction in order to prevent the rope untwisting. Finally
the rope was varnished to make it waterproof. When one end was lit, the
rope safety fuse burnt along its length at a steady rate, and it never went
out. The shot-firer could simply cut off the right length of fuse to give
himself time to escape. In its first year, the Bickford factory in Tucking mill made 45 miles
of fuse, a huge amount as only a few feet were used for each blast. A hundred
years later the same factory, which had been enlarged, made 104,545 miles
of fuse. Sadly he saw nothing of this success. He became paralysed the year
after his great invention and died in 1834, just before the fuse factory
opened. William Bickford’s safety fuse has saved
hundreds of lives. The basic process of making the fuse is virtually unchanged
to this day. The remains of this factory, is now occupied by a number
of small businesses grouped around a courtyard beside the main crossroads
in Tuckingmill.
william bickford... inventor of the safety fuse