a Scottish engineer, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography. Nasmyth patented his steam hammer design in June 1842, and built his first steam hammer later that year in his Patricroft foundry in Manchester, England, adjacent to the (then new) Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bridgewater Canal. In 1843 a dispute broke out between the two engineers over priority of invention of the steam hammer.
