The Early History of the Fountain Pen

Lewis Waterman might turn in his grave if he knew that the first self-filling fountain pen had been a "Parker!" But not our Geo. S. Parker of Janesville, WI. PenLovers is pleased to add this history of the fountain pen compiled from several sources, principally the out-of-print book, "Western Writing Instruments" by Michael Finlay.

Let's begin by reviewing what we regard as a "fountain pen." Most important is that it holds its own ink supply rather than requiring dipping. Also, we consider writing on contact with paper and not leaking to be necessary criteria of fountain pens. We don't know how or when the term "fountain" was first used to describe pens. But we do know that hundreds of years ago, a fountain commonly meant the slow and steady trickle from a spring rather than the high pressure gushers we associate with the term today. "Fountain" appears to have been applied early to pens that held their own ink supply which flowed to the nib in a controlled manner.

In 1951, an Egyptian scholar, Hassan El-Basha Mamoud, translated a passage from a Fatimid dynasty manuscript dating to 969 AD as follows:

When Mu'izz mentioned the pen he described its merits and regarded

it as the symbol of the secret of knowledge; he then said he would like

to make a pen which would write without the need of an inkpot. Such a

pen, said the Caliph, would be self-supplying and have the ink inside.

One could write what one wanted with it but as soon as one relinquished

it the ink would disappear and the pen would become dry. The writer

could keep such a pen in his sleeve without fearing any mark of filtration

of the ink for the ink would filter only when the pen wrote. It would

certainly be a wonderful instrument and one without precedent. In a few

days the craftsman to whom the pen had been described brought a model

made of gold. After filling it with ink, he was able to write with it. But

as more ink came out than was needed, the craftsman was ordered to

alter it. Finally the pen was brought back repaired. It was turned over in

the hand and tilted in all directions and no ink appeared. But as soon as

he took it and began to write, he wrote the best hand for as long as he

wished and when he took the pen away from the paper the ink vanished.

Thus I beheld a wonderful work the like of which I had never thought to see.

The instrument described here appears to meet each of our criteria for a fountain pen. We can never know whether the pen actually performed as described, or what its design may have been. We do know that until 17th century Europe, there appears no evidence that anyone overcame the problem between the need for a steady flow of ink, and the tendency to leak.

In the early 1600s, writing was the domain of the hand-cut quill and the ink pot. The photo below shows an array of 17th century writing tools. Across the top are ink wells and seals. Toward the bottom are quill-cutting devices. Specialized tools for the exacting job of correctly cutting a quill for a pen are the origin of the common term "pen-knife."

In 1636, Daniel Schwenter published "Delicia Physic-Mathematicae" in Nurenberg. In it, he described a pen made from two quills with one serving as an ink reservoir inside the other. Cork sealed the ink inside and a gentle squeeze moved the ink through a small hole to the writing point.

The first mention of what appears to be a fountain pen in the English language appears in the diary of Samuel Pepys in 1663. He speaks of receiving a letter from a Mr. Coventry, "and with it a silver pen he promised me to carry inke in, which is very necessary." Later in his diary, he describes a coach trip during which he found need to write a letter. "By the help of a candle at a stall I wrote a letter to Mr. Halter, and never knew so great an instance of the usefulness of carrying pen and ink about me." The diary does use the term fountain pen, but the trade card of a London general merchant from the same period lists "fountain-pens" among items for sale.

It is interesting to note that this card does not define or explain what a "fountain-pen" is. This suggests that the term may have been in common use for some time already.

M. Bion was the chief instrument maker for the King of France at the beginning of the 18th century. In his, "The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments," appears the first illustration of a metal fountain pen. The oldest known fountain pen that has survived is of Bion's design and is dated 1702.

About five pens of Bion's design are known today. Two of them are owned by Dr. Stephen Berger of Columbus, who directed PenLovers to the materials for this article and whose Bion pens we have been able to examine.

Through the early 1800s, a number of patents for fountain pens emerged. A significant advance was found in the design of John Scheffer in 1819. The ink was held in a quill section covered with sheep's-gut and housed in a metal case. The ink flow was controlled by pressing a button which exerted pressure on the reservoir and squeezed ink into a feed cock. The feed cock could be closed with a small lever making the pen leakproof for the pocket.

This pen also appears to be the first where an attempt was made at wide-scale manufacturing and distribution. An 1823 ad for the pen shows it as manufactured by W. Robson & Co.

Another significant advance was made in 1832 by John Jacob Parker with the first self-filling fountain pen. Until this time the devices were filled with funnels or eyedroppers. Parker's pen is filled by putting the point in ink and turning the end of the case to raise an internal piston. So much for Mont Blanc having invented the piston-filler! The tube of the pen was lined with glass or gold to protect against corrosive inks, and the cap had a wire which entered and sealed the feed when repalced for carrying.




The top image is a drawing of the Parker pen. The bottom photo shows the Scheffer pen at the top (note the button at the middle of the barrel and the lever just behind the point) and the Parker self-filling pen at the bottom.

All this pre-Waterman history is not to diminish the contribution of Lewis Waterman. His "Ideal" pen of 1884, was the first fountain pen that was truly reliable and leakproof and as such, it was the first to be successfully marketed to a large segment of the population. But Waterman was by no means the beginning of the story. Waterman, and soon after, George Parker and Walter Sheaffer, advanced what we now know to be centuries of invention to launch the golden age of fountain pens.