By Susanna McLeod
Special to Ontario Construction News
Have you been startled by your screwdriver slipping out of the slot and damaging fine materials? Or worse, cutting yourself?
The incident happened to Peter Lymburner Robertson of Hamilton, Ontario when on his sales rounds in Montreal in 1906. Demonstrating a spring-loaded screwdriver to a potential customer, Robertson badly cut his hand when the driver slid out of the screw slot. After that accident, the salesman was determined to invent a safer screw.
Designing a new style of screwhead and submitting the plans for an initial patent, Robertson received Canadian Patent No. 113387 in 1907 for a “screw nail.” Improving on the design, Canadian Patent No. 116463 was granted in 1909. Robertson’s submission described the revised, soon-to-be popular object: “A screw having a cold process laterally extending head having punched therein an inwardly converging central axial recess of square cross section throughout its depth and sharply converging at its inner end to a point, the outer end of the recess having its edges flattened substantially…” The inventor called it the Robertson Screw.
The unique square-holed screws allowed the driver to grip better, achieving fewer injuries to hands and less damage to surfaces from screwdriver slips. To manufacture the screw, Robertson created his own process to punch the patented square holes into cold metal.
Opening Robertson Manufacturing Company Ltd. in Milton, Ontario in 1908, the new businessman “within five years of breaking ground… had established a strong industrial/manufacturing presence in Milton,” said Robertson Screw History (RSH). “At that time, starting pay was 25 cents an hour.”
That’s when the competition took notice. The newly-organized Stelco (Steel Company of Canada) in Hamilton “tried to invalidate (Robertson’s) patents, and a scathing story about him appeared in a 1910 issue of Saturday Night magazine,” according to Mark Kearney and Randy Ray in I Know That Name! (Hounslow, Toronto 2002). Unruffled, Robertson shot back with a long letter to the magazine’s editor. Stelco lost.
Although the square-head system was popular, money was tight for the company. However, Robertson had been wise. The screw and machinery patents were granted nationally and internationally. If he could get an investor, the company could soar.
Building Model T cars, and later Model A cars, in Windsor, Ontario, Henry Ford recognized the value of the Robertson screw. By using the socket-head screws that were driven in using one hand with little slippage and damage, Ford’s Canadian company saved production costs of two hours’ labour at $2.60 per car. (About $66 per car in 2020 dollars.)
Starting in 1908, “the Fisher Body Company, which made wooden bodies in Canada for Ford cars, used four to six gross of Robertson screws in the bodywork of the Model T,” described Ricketts. “Eventually, Robertson produced socket screws for metal, specifically for the metal-bodied Model A.” Henry Ford realized that the screw could be good for American lines, too.
Meeting the automaker in Detroit, Robertson received an offer that Ford thought the tool manufacturer could not refuse. But he did.
The licencing agreement presented to Robertson specified that Ford would have control over where and how the Robertson screws would be manufactured. Unimpressed with the idea of losing production control of his invention, P.L. Robertson declined and went home.
Setting up an overseas location in 1912, Robertson became a shareholder in Recess Screws Ltd. in Gillingham, Kent, England. Establishing the plant, the inventor returned to Canada. The threat of World War One loomed, and the Recess firm launched into wartime production with about 400 employees. Under the British munitions war act, the company was administered by government.
As the men went off to grisly battlefields, women were hired to assemble the military equipment. “The plant produced firing pins for hand grenades and trench mortars, fuse needles and detonating shells, guide pins used in shell fuses and gas checks screws for grenades,” RSH noted. Robertson soon resigned from the British firm.
Expanding the line-up, the businessman offered brass screws for international clients, and then created specialized screws for furniture and electrical manufacturers. The approach of World War Two brought massive military orders for combination square/slot screws to build the de Havilland Mosquito wood-body combat aircraft fleet.
In the 1930s, Robertson devised the Handikit. Generous, he gave away the exclusive screwdriver set by the hundreds “to high school and woodworking classes, plant visitors or anyone simply interested in the product,” said RSH.
A Canadian toolbox favourite, while the Robertson screw has fans globally, the Phillips screw developed in the 1930s reigns in the United States.
Retiring from Robertson Manufacturing Company in 1945, P.L. Robertson was wealthy but unwell. Suffering over several more years, the creative inventor passed away on September 8, 1951 at age 66. His treasured company thrives as Robertson Inc., still located at the same address on Bronte Street in Milton. Hand me a Robertson, please!
© 2020 Susanna McLeod. McLeod is a Kingston-based writer who specializes in Canadian History.