The following is copied from a document sent to me in Janunary 1996 by Mr. Bob Nock, then the managing director of Orbit Manufacturing Limited, Unit 17, Charlton Drive, Corngreaves Trading Estate, Cradley Heath, Warley, West Midlands, B64 7BJ, which document was reprinted from the "AUGUST 1962 EDITION" of the Birmingham Sketch, a "now-defunct local newspaper".

Mr. Nock told me that in 1993, Orbit had acquired all the assets of Joseph Gillott & Sons Limited, which had manufactured pen nibs until the early 1960's, and he added, "You may also be interested to learn that some of the original pen nib display cabinets complete with nibs which were shown at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, London, in 1851 still exist and could be viewed." So, traveling NIBblers, has anyone been there? Anyone want to go? :-)

You are also invited to visit Richard Durrant's fascinating new (June 2000) site for a virtual tour of Gillott's one-time 1860's home, The Grove, near London, and/or a wonderful tour of his Graham Street factory, this latter complete with an illustrated description of how steel pens were made there.     (A copy of these links also appears at the end of this page.)

The Story of 
 

The doors are of plate glass. Inside, the decor of the entrance hall is predominately modern--the light fittings are slender, graceful and functional, and the walls are papered with a pattern of tiny white stars on a red background.

Outside, the frontage of the factory, which is shielded from the bustle of Dudley's traffic-pounded Birmingham Road by an expanse of grass and flower beds, is neat, modest, unostentatious.

A typical home, it would seem, for one of the newer and brighter industries, born in the post-war years and concerned maybe with electronics or computers or something requiring the prescence of studious looking young men with with coats and slide rules. Certainly the factory is new; certainly there are young men about the place busying themselves with the most up-to-date of processes and products, but in this well-planned works, the past, present and future are fused in a manner which for once fully justifies the use of the much overworked word unique.
 

First clues to the past are to be found in that gay and colourful entrance hall where, against all reason, three splendid examples of Victoriana blend astonishingly well with the contemporary style.

There is a marble bust of a bewhiskered founder; and oil painting of the same benevolent looking character and , in one corner, the original exhibit of his company's products at the Great Exhibition of 1851. This is an imposing glass-fronted cabinet containing thousands of pen nibs in various colours and sizes and forming intricate designs, for the subject of the bust and of the portrait is Joseph Gillott--and throughout the world the name Gillott has for generations meant pens in just the same way as Ford means cars.

Today the firm he founded, Joseph Gillott & Sons, Ltd., is headed by his great-great-grandson, Mr. Nicholas Gillott. Its products are exported far and wide; for more than a century the United States of America has been its biggest single overseas market; its pens penetrate the Iron Curtain, and it has even contrived to get throught the Bamboo Curtain and consign pens to Communist China.

But it all began, like so many other flourishing concerns in Britain's industrial Midlands, in the smallest possible way, as a one-man business, and following the typical and admirable pattern, it sprang from one man's inventiveness and enterprise against a background of necessity and even hardship.
 

. "...it may be of some interest to point out that when the trade says a 'pen', it means what the general public calls a 'nib', and not the complete tool." .

In 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo, a slump hit the great steel town of Sheffield, and young Joseph Gillott (1799-1872), then about 16 years old and already a skilled operative grinder with several years of working life behind him, had to seek employment elsewhere. He chose Birmingham, where the steel pen was just beginning to come into its own.

For generations, the quill had been the only writing instrument, and it was still used for drawing and calligraphy, but the industrial revolution and the spread of popular education were combining to stimulate demand for a tougher, faster, and more durable tool, and the steel pen was the answer. But in Birmingham, at the time of young Gillott's arrival there, the new steel pens were still being made by hand. (Incidentally, it may be of some interest to point out that when the trade says a 'pen', it means what the general public calls a 'nib', and not the complete tool.) Fashioning these early steel pens was a laborious and expensive business, and the cheapest of the finished articles cost a shilling or more each. Small presses were, however, already being used for such work as button and buckle making, and it was one such hand press which the youngster from Sheffield adapted for making pens.[

In so doing, he laid the foundation of his company and what was to be his own great private fortune. He might well be described, indeed, as a pioneer of automation.

By 1823 Joseph Gillott had founded his own business and taken to himself a wife. Even on his wedding day the shrewd yound man of business had an eye for the main chance as well as for his bride. Mr. Nicholas Gillott says there is no reason for doubting the story that the young couple spent the morning of their wedding day making a gross of pens, which after the ceremony they sold to their guests for a shilling each, bringing in a useful L7.4s. for their first week's housekeeping!
 

RIGHT:  an insert into the November 1868 American edition of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine  (published in New York by THE LEONARD SCOTT PUBLISHING CO.)

Gillott's introduction and exploitation of an early form of mass production--quantity production is perhaps a better description--soon began to pay handsomely, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, he had made a fortune. In this period, the Midlands bred many industrial millionaires, some of whom--and Gillott among them--began to take over the role of art patron from the nobles and landed gentry who had played it in the past.

The maker of pens began to collect paintings, both contemporary works and old masters, and it has been said that his taste in landscape painting was impeccable. He numbered Turner among his friends and owned several of his works as well as others by Constable, Crome, Gainsborough, Bonnington, Linnell, and Richard Wilson. He also amassed a world famous collection of violins and violas, including a Stradivarius which was bought by Kubelik in 1910 for L4,200 and a Guarnerius which was acquired by William Primrose, the great viola player.

But to return from the art patron to the industrialist: from his first 'business premises', which were the attics of the house which he occupied in the centre of Birmingham, Gillott twice moved to larger premises, and by 1840 was installed in a new factory in Graham Street, in the city's famous jewellery quarter. This remained the company's headquarters until 1955.

Penmaking became one of Birmingham's thousand-and-one trades, and Gillott found himself with many local rivals, whilst foreign competition began to come from France, Germany and the U.S.A. The coming of the fountain pen was one blow at the steel pen industry; the advent of the typewriter and the telephone were others, even more serious.

But the Gillott concern held its own by adaptability--inherited, perhaps, from its founder--and ingenuity, turning competition to good account by making for its rivals accessories in the form of pocket clips for fountain pens and propelling pencils as a side line. 
 

At the end of World War II, when Mr. Nicholas Gillott came back to civilian life to take up the reins of the business, it became apparent that the century-old factory in Graham Street was no longer suitable as a headquarters. It was impossible either to modernise or to expand it economically, so for the first time the company began to consider moving out of Birmingham, where both land and labour were very hard to come by. 

Eventually a site was found at Dudley, nine miles to the north-west of Birmingham, which would not only meet present needs but would offer room for future expansion. Here was built a fine modern factory, a single-story building 23,000 square feet in extent, and smokeless, without a chimney anywhere in the factory and office blocks.

It was not only in the strictly physical sense that the famous old company was given a face-lift by the move to a new headquarters. Old ideas--and sometimes they are hard to shift when they have become part of the very fabric of a firm steeped in tradition--were uprooted just as thoroughly as were old machines. Machines, methods, and mental attitudes all came under a severely critical eye as they were transplanted from the comparative gloom of Graham Street to the exciting and stimulating atmosphere of the light and airy new plant in Dudley.

It had been obvious to Mr. Nicholas Gillott when he returned that the highly profitable great days of steel penmaking were just history and a proud memory. There was-- and still is--a world market for precision writing and drawing points, and in this field the Gillott company continues to hold an unchallenged position, but the fifth generation Gillott at the head of affairs looked hard facts squarely in the face and recognised that so far as steel pens in general were concerned, the future was past.
 

The move from Birmingham was completed in 1956, and the six years that have elapsed since then have seen a radical change in the outlook and the activities of the company. Old skills have been put to work in new ways; prudent and intelligent use has been made of the modern techniques of styling, design, and presentation. More and more is the old name becoming familiar in new fields.

Even before the transfer from Birmingham, the company had extended its manufacturing activities to an appreciable extent, adding a variety of special purpose high precision small pressings to the substantial business of clips for fountain and ball pens. One of the fundamental changes along with the change of location was a decision to concentrate more on developing, making, and marketing complete new proprietary products. 

Even before the transfer from Birmingham, the company had extended its manufacturing activities to an appreciable extent, adding a variety of special purpose high precision small pressings to the substantial business of clips for fountain and ball pens. One of the fundamental changes along with the change of location was a decision to concentrate more on developing, making, and marketing complete new proprietary products. 

An arrangement had been made with the C. Howard Hunt Company of America to make and sell under licence the very well known Boston automatic pencil sharpener. One of the first fruits of the "new thinking" was the appearance of a Gillott-designed version of the Boston sharpener, giving the original American designed product a completely new look.

So successful has this British-designed Boston been that it is now being bought from Gillott's in large quantities by the Hunt company for sale in the United States against their own design!

The success of the re-designed sharpener was a fair indication that the new Gillott policy was sound and full of promise, but complete vindication came when the company broke new ground by designing and manufacturing a new free-running dome castor particularly suitable for modern furniture. The choice of "Orbit" as a brand name was apt and highly topical, and a measure of this castor's immediate success was its selection for one of the coveted Design Centre Awards for 1961 within a few months of its first appearance.

The company's present intention is to apply the name "Orbit" to a range of new products, or new variations of existing products which time and tradition have moulded into accepted forms, patterns or shapes. It is planned that the brand name "Orbit" will be synonymous with the best of modern design and functional efficiency.

Within the next few years it is as certain as anything can be that the name Gillott--and/or Orbit--will add new lustre to an already well matured reputation. It is equally certain that whatever products may come along, i t  w i l l  s t i l l  b e  a s
 

that the Gillott company will be readily identified.