Carpentry And Joinery For Amateurs by James Lukin, 1879
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James Lukin was one of the most popular authors and proponents of what the nineteenth century’s burgeoning middle class termed “Amateur Work”. His father, a surgeon, was a man whose avocational passion was lathe work. It was no surprise then that Lukin also acquired a life long love of tools and in particular, of woodworking and turning.
A confessed Amateur, Lukin authored numerous books and journal articles on subjects mechanical, woodworking, electrical and steam. His writings were anticipated and sought after by people of all ages and for many decades throughout the nineteenth century.
Autobiographical preface from:
“To be asked for a personal biographical narrative is, in my own case, to ask for what is hardly worthy of record; but, like all the army of scribblers, I bow to our Commander-In-Chief, the Editor."
Born in 1827, I appeared as an infant of the usual nondescript character, blushing for my own impudence in thrusting myself before the eyes of the few interested spectators. No one but my mother detected any beauty in me, or any predisposition to mechanical pursuits. Yet, undoubtedly, from my mother's father I inherited my yet undeveloped love of tools. He was an army surgeon, and private surgeon to the then Duke of York, and saw much service in the Peninsular War. He was so devoted to mechanics that he carried a small lathe with him in his service kit. I never saw it, but, from my mother's account, it must have been a bar-lathe with hand fly-wheel, with which inefficient tool he made many small articles with survived to my own time.
As a boy I was very fond of machinery, and as a pupil at the old Marlborough Grammar School, my chief delight was to have the entree of the head-master's lathe-room, but my fear of him -- for I was a nervous lad -- detracted considerably from that pleasure. He was a splendid mechanic, blessed with money, and a five or six-inch Holtzapffel lathe. My own first lathe was but a sorry affair, made by the village carpenter, and was succeeded by one not much better -- a triangle bar-lathe -- the work of a local gunsmith. I had no cash, loose or otherwise, and some years passed before I became the happy possessor of a good lathe, the predecessor, as it proved, of several others.
At these I have worked, on and off, all of my life, and when The English Mechanic was started and a chance copy fell into my hands, I felt myself fairly qualified to write on "The Lathe and its Uses"; and this has led, in the course of time, to very many other articles in that paper, and "The Forge and Lathe", "Amateur Work", The Young Engineer, "Work", The Engineering World, and several others. I have also written "The Young Mechanic", "The Boy Engineer", "Possibilities of Small Lathes", "Simple Decorative Lathework" and several other books of similar kind.
I may add that I went to Brasenose, Oxford, in 1845, graduated without honour in 1849; have been rector of some half-dozen parishes, and am now a very retired and elderly chip of the clerical block.
J. L.”