Joshua Routledge

Joshua Routledge
c.1820 by Unknown artist, displaying Routledge's Engineer's Rule and Patent Rotary Steam Engine
Born	27 April 1773 Riccall, Yorkshire
Died	8 February 1829 (1829-02-09) (aged 55) Warsaw, Poland
Nationality	British
Occupation	Engineer Ironmonger
Known for	Slide rule Rotary Steam Engine

Joshua Routledge (27 April 1773 – 8 February 1829) was an engineer and inventor during the late 18th and early 19th centuries when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Mechanical engineering as a profession was on the rise, and the advent of the steam age opened up viable career alternatives for many young Englishmen who, like Joshua Routledge, had grown up in an agriculture-based society.

Born on 27 April 1773 and baptised on the 29th in Riccall, Yorkshire,. Joshua Routledge was third of ten children. Generations of Routledges had been established as yeoman farmers and weavers in Riccall, a village about 9 miles (14 km) south of the city of York. Sometime before 1778, Joshua's parents, William (1744–1822) and Sarah Bell (1745–1819), moved the family a short distance to Elvington, 7 miles (11 km) southeast of York.

Apart from a few details, little is known of their time in Elvington. Joshua's father was a blacksmith by trade, but he seems to have been pious by nature. The Industrial Revolution allowed the advancement of all sorts of radical new ideas in tandem with mechanical innovations. Religious, political, and social reformers took to the highways and byways spreading discontent with the status quo, John Wesley being one religious reformer whose message took hold in Yorkshire. His brand of fervent evangelical Methodism encouraged lay preachers, which appealed very much to the working classes. Evidently, the Routledges of Elvington, including Joshua, were receptive to Wesley's teachings. They joined the movement as active members of the York Circuit, and according to an account by J. D. Greenhalgh published in 1882, William Routledge was among a list of "Wesleyan Methodist ministers admitted...in the year 1800."

Nothing is recorded of Joshua Routledge's early education, but supposedly he learned something about the smithing trades from his father. In 1798 Routledge was in Leeds, Yorkshire where his occupation is given as "whitesmith" (tinsmith) on a marriage certificate recorded at St Peter's Parish Church, Leeds. This was the occasion of his first marriage, on 5 November, to Mary King. A daughter, Ann, was born there in 1803.