Joseph Gillott, an English manufacturer, born in Warwickshire about 1800, died in Birmingham, Jan. 6, 1872. He began life as a grinder of cutlery in Sheffield. Then he removed to Birmingham, and with the assistance of his wife began the manufacture of steel pens. It is said that he made them in a garret and sold them to small shopkeepers about the town.

They were the black barrel pens, and were very stiff and scratchy compared with the quills which they were intended to supersede. In 1820 Gillott made the first great improvement by cutting three slits instead of one, which gave an immediate impetus to the trade. Then by the introduction of machinery he greatly reduced the price, and by successive minor improvements made his pens still more popular, until he was able to build a large factory in Birmingham, and they were sold all over the world. The price of one steel pen when he entered business would buy 900 at the time of his death. His works now use five tons of steel weekly, and make 150,000,000 pens annually. Gillott acquired immense wealth, and was a connoisseur in the fine arts, having a celebrated gallery of paintings at his country residence, near Edgbaston.