How standard screws solved a 173 year old architectural mystery
Researchers and historians have solved the long-standing mystery surrounding one of Victorian England’s most iconic architectural marvels. What is the answer? The answer? Standardized nuts and bolts. The invention may not seem exciting, but it allowed engineers to build Crystal Palace in 1851 at speeds previously unimaginable. The Crystal Palace, which was 1,827 feet long, featured a glass roof that was supported by 3,300 columns made of cast iron. A study published in The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology has now solved the mystery. According to John Gardner, a professor of English literature at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), the Crystal Palace relied on a revolutionary screw thread designed by a man named Joseph Whitmore.
Before Whitworth’s standardized concept, every screw and bolt was unique to one another without standardized measurements. It was easy for lost screws and broken bolts to put construction projects on hold, until new ones were made. Given its immense size and complexity, the Crystal Palace alone needed 30,000 nuts and bolts–and yet requiring so many pieces somehow didn’t hinder the building’s construction.
“The forms of screw threads used in Crystal Palace buildings have not been recorded in any of the surviving drawings,” Gardner and his co-author Ken Kiss wrote in their paper. “Furthermore, none of the rare existing bolt threads have been measured, recorded and published, until
.”
The reason behind the original bolts’ rarity is that, after its deconstruction in Hyde Park and subsequent rebuilding in south London in 1854, the Crystal Palace burned down in 1936. Kiss, the curator of the Crystal Palace Museum excavated the last bolt from the original site. He also found a water tower that was built to power the palace’s fountains. Kiss provided the archeological artifacts for Gardner’s analysis.
An old nut fits into a newly made bolt that was manufactured to British Standard Whitworth. Credit: John Gardner1726532088Gardner found the Crystal Palace column bolt matched exactly to Whitworth’s measurements, years before it became known as the British Standard Whitworth (BSW), the world’s first national specification of its kind. Gardner used a combination heat, force and hammering to uncover screw threads in the water tower’s bolt and nut. They also matched BSW specifications. To further prove his theory, Gardner manufactured completely new bolts to BSW threading, which fit perfectly with the original nut.
According to the study co-authors, adopting Whitworth’s new, standardized option allowed builders to complete the monumental endeavor in a comparatively short period of time. Around six million people visited the Great Exhibition in 1851 between May and Oct. Gardner stated that during the Victorian period, there were many workshops in Britain who innovated and helped to change the world. The pace of progress at the time was so rapid that some breakthroughs, such as the Crystal Palace, were never fully realized. The Crystal Palace inspired modern architecture, even though it is long gone.
