This eminent practical engineer and machinist was born at Stainborough, in Yorkshire. His father rented a farm on the estate of Lord Strafford, and Joseph, being the eldest of five children was intended for the same employment; but fortunately for his subsequent career, an accidental lameness, which occurred when he was sixteen years old, prevented his following agricultural pursuits. When quite a boy, Bramah exhibited unusual mechanical talent; he succeeded in constructing two violoncellos, which were found to be very tolerable instruments, and also managed to cut a violin out of a single block of wood, by means of tools which were forged for him by a neighbouring smith, whom in after life he engaged in London as one of his principal workmen. After having served an apprenticeship to a carpenter and joiner, Bramah obtained employment in the workshop of a cabinetmaker in London, and soon afterwards established himself as a principal in the business. The history of his life after this is perhaps best given by a record of his numerous inventions, all of which are, more or less, of a highly useful character. For the manufacture of these, Bramah first took up his residence in Denmark Street, Soho, but subsequently removed to Piccadilly, and established the various branches of his manufactory in some extensive premises at Pimlico. In 1783 he took out a patent for an improved watercock, and in the year following, completed the invention of his famous lock, which for many years stood unrivalled in ingenuity of construction, workmanship, and powers of resistance against all attempts to pick.[4] Bramah's indefatigable spirit of invention was stimulated to fresh efforts by the success of his lock, and he now entered upon a more important and original line of action than he had yet ventured upon. In his patent of 1785 he indicated many inventions, although none of them came into practical use--such as a Hydrostatical Machine and Boiler, and the application of the power produced by them to the drawing of carriages and the propelling of ships, by a paddle-wheel fixed in the stern of the vessel. For different modifications of pumps and fire-engines, Mr. Bramah took out three successive patents, the two last being dated in 1790 and 1798. But in the year 1795 he produced and patented the most important of all his inventions, namely, 'The Hydraulic Press,' a machine which gives to a child the strength of a giant, enabling him to bend a bar of iron as if it were wax. The chief difficulty which Bramah experienced in constructing this press was that of devising an efficient packing for the ram or solid piston, which, while capable of keeping out the water under the tremendous internal pressure exercised by the pump, should, on the withdrawal of that pressure, allow the ram to sink into its original place. This was at length accomplished by the invention of the self-tightening leather-collar, which was firmly secured in a recess at