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Sir Joseph Whitworth enjoyed a challenge and produced a few unusual items such as the Besom Cart (a horse drawn street sweeping machine), which he patented in 1842, and a knitting machine which was patented in 1846.

Although he did not take on large developments such as railways and steamships, he produced the machine tools, which made these developments possible. But his major engineering contribution was his large screw-cutting lathe. These meant that nuts and bolts would be made to fit as a pair and were not interchangeable.

Manchester was the terminal point for the first major public railway and the centre of the textile industry. Probably his most important innovation was to devised a machine capable of measuring to an accuracy of one hundredth-thousandth of an inch.

By the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 Whitworth had acquired a world-wide reputation of producing machines of unrivaled quality and precision.

Most of these achievements represent international firsts, yet Whitworth's prolific and fascinating career has received surprisingly little attention. He would spend the winters in the French Riviera and it was here that he died on the 22nd January 1887. From here it was a short step to the standardisation of screw threads, for which Sir Joseph Whitworth is probably best known.

It has been said that he was the founding father of modern production engineering in his day. The Ordinance Board later accepted the Martini-Henry rifle, which had used Sir Joseph Whitworth's basic principles, and they concluded, to his dissatisfaction, that the smaller bore size was in fact suitable for a military weapon. He went on to work in several other engineering establishments in the same area as a mechanic working at a bench, until in 1825, in order to further his career, he moved to London and secured job at Henry Maudslay's works at Lambeth Marsh.

In 1853 Joseph Whitworth was appointed to serve on the Royal Commission to visit the New York International exhibition. He was a harsh taskmaster who willingly spoke his mind.

Henry Maudslay was among one of the first to recognise the importance of standardisation and interchangeability of machine parts. He was the first to drive both longitudinal and cross feeds automatically on one lathe using a single lead screw.

In 1862 Sir Joseph Whitworth developed a powerful cannon and a bitter dispute began with the Ordinance Board, when this was also rejected because it was not of the traditional design. Engineers were accustomed to working in 'bare' of 'full' measures until the late 1830's. In 1834 his workforce totalled fifteen, by 1854 this had increased to 368 and in 1874, when his works were made into a limited company he was employing approximately 750 workers.

There was a great demand for machine tools in the 1830's, due to the rapid expansion of the railways. He carried out exhaustive test in his home grounds at the expense of the government and 20 patents relating to arms production were issued to Sir Joseph Whitworth between 1854 and 1878. Many other great engineers did the same, such as Richard Roberts, the inventor of the planing machine, Joseph Clement, the inventor of the water tap and James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer.

He is best remembered for his promotion of true plane surfaces and the Whitworth screw thread.