Joseph Whitworth

Sir Joseph Whitworth
by Unknown artist, Joseph Whitworth c.1846
Born	(1803-12-21)21 December 1803 , Cheshire, England, United Kingdom
Died	22 January 1887(1887-01-22) (aged 83) Monte Carlo, Monaco
Engineering career
Institutions	Royal Society Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Significant advance	Whitworth standardised screw threads
Awards	FRS (1857) Albert Medal (1868)

Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet (21 December 1803 – 22 January 1887) was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads. Whitworth also created the Whitworth rifle, often called the "sharpshooter" because of its accuracy and considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle.

At his death in 1887, he bequeathed much of his fortune for the people of Manchester, with the Whitworth Art Gallery and Christie Hospital partly funded by Whitworth's money. Whitworth Street and Whitworth Hall in Manchester are named in his honour. Whitworth was created a baronet on 7 October 1869.

Whitworth was born in , Cheshire, the son of Charles Whitworth, a teacher and Congregational minister, and at an early age developed an interest in machinery. He was educated at Idle, near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire; his aptitude for mechanics became apparent when he began work for his uncle.

After leaving school Whitworth became an indentured apprentice to his uncle, Joseph Hulse, a cotton spinner at Amber Mill, Oakerthorpe in Derbyshire. The plan was that Whitworth would become a partner in the business. From the outset he was fascinated by the mill's machinery and soon he mastered the techniques of the cotton spinning industry but even at this age he noticed the poor standards of accuracy and was critical of the milling machinery. This early exposure to the mechanics of the industry forged in him the ambition to make machinery with much greater precision. His apprenticeship at Amber Mill lasted for a four-year term after which he worked for another four years as a mechanic in a factory in Manchester. He then moved to London where he found employment working for Henry Maudslay, the inventor of the screw-cutting lathe, alongside such people as James Nasmyth (inventor of the steam hammer) and Richard Roberts.