The invisible man of innovation
- John Bessant
- 12 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Meet Walter Hunt - probably the greatest inventor you've never heard of...
There’s a famous test, originally developed by psychologist J.P. Guilford, to give an idea of how ‘creative’ a person is. Ask them to think of as many uses as possible for an everyday object – a brick, a glass, a shoe, etc. The idea is that the more ideas you come up with (fluency) plus the number of different categories of idea (flexibility) gives an indication of your ability to think creatively.
If we tried the test with the simple safety pin it would certainly trigger some of the usual suspects – a nappy (diaper) pin, a clothes fastener, a medical device or an item of jewellery. Not so frequent a visitor to many peoples’ lists might be ‘a weightlifting aid’ – yet arguably that has been its most glorious moment so far. For one very good reason.
A $15 debt isn’t a big deal, even if it is incurred in 1849; its value would be around $600 in today’s money. An annoyance but not likely to bring on imminent bankruptcy if it remained unpaid. But for Walter Hunt there was a principle involved (he was, by all accounts a very moral man) and also the practical consideration that his relationship with his creditor (one J. R. Chapin) mattered. Chapin had helped him with a number of other projects as a draughtsman, providing the technical drawings needed for his patent applications. So Walter duly worried about how to repay the debt.
A period of hand wringing and fiddling which lasted about three hours, during some of which he picked up a piece of wire to keep his hands busy. And came up with the basic and still powerful principle behind the mechanism of the safety pin. Most pins up to that point were either simple and sharp with a point at the end or loops which came undone easily. These hadn’t changed much since the days when Roman legionaries pinned their cloaks with a fibula, a kind of simple brooch clasp pin.
By coiling the wire on itself he created a simple spring mechanism and by providing a catch at one end he was able to make the safe closure mechanism which we have come to know and love.
Quite a lot of us, in fact; estimates put the number of safety pins produced and sold per year around the world at around one billion, with specialised machines capable of turning out millions per day.
Walter Hunt was not a fool; he recognised that this idea could have value. And he was not inexperienced; he already had a healthy track record of successful innovation behind him and knew how to work the patent system. So he duly filed and was awarded patent number US6281A; he then offered this (and the accompanying rights it conferred) to the W R Grace company who snapped it up (excuse the pun), paying Hunt $400, enough to enable him to settle his debt and have some spare capital. And to lift a small but annoying weight from his shoulders…
It turned out to be a good deal for them; on an initial outlay of $15,000 in today’s money they secured profits running into millions over the next years.
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