Camel hair Pencil, from
Old French pincel, from late
Latin a "little tail" (see
penis;
pincellus) originally referred to an artist's fine brush of camel hair, also used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils. Though the
archetypal pencil was an artist's brush, the
stylus, a thin metal stick used for scratching in
papyrus or
wax tablets, was used extensively by the
Romans and for
palm-leaf manuscripts.
Graphite deposit discoveries As a technique for drawing, the closest predecessor to the pencil was
silverpoint or leadpoint until, in 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of
graphite was discovered on the approach to
Grey Knotts from the hamlet of
Seathwaite in
Borrowdale parish,
Cumbria, England. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.
Chemistry was in its infancy, and the substance was thought to be a form of
lead. Consequently, it was called
plumbago (Latin for "lead
ore"). Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or "a lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as
lead, even though it never contained the
element lead. The words for pencil in German (
Bleistift), Irish (
peann luaidhe), Arabic (قلم رصاص
qalam raṣāṣ), and some other languages literally mean
lead pen. The value of graphite would soon be realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for
cannonballs; the
mines were taken over by
the Crown and were guarded. When sufficient stores of graphite had been accumulated, the mines were flooded to prevent theft until more was required. The usefulness of graphite for pencils was also discovered, but initially it had to be smuggled out of England. Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of
encasement. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or
sheepskin for stability. England would enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method for reconstituting graphite powder was discovered in Germany in 1662. However, the distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. The town of
Keswick, near the original findings of block graphite, still manufactures pencils, the factory also being the location of the
Derwent Pencil Museum. The meaning of "graphite writing implement" apparently evolved late in the 16th century.
Wood encasement pencils Around 1560, an Italian couple, Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti, made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased
carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of
juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.
Graphite powder and clay The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in
Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite,
sulphur, and
antimony. English and German pencils were not available to the French during the
Napoleonic Wars; France, under a naval blockade imposed by Great Britain, was unable to import the pure graphite sticks from the British Grey Knotts mines – the only known source in the world. France was also unable to import the inferior German graphite pencil substitute. It took the efforts of an officer in
Napoleon's army to change this. In 1795,
Nicolas-Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with
clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a
kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture, which was discovered earlier by the Austrian
Joseph Hardtmuth, the founder of Vienna's
Koh-I-Noor company in 1790, remains in use. In 1802, the production of graphite leads from graphite and clay was patented by Koh-I-Noor. In England, pencils continued to be made from whole sawn graphite.
Henry Bessemer's first successful invention (1838) was a method of compressing graphite powder into solid graphite, thus allowing the waste from sawing to be reused.
United States American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the
American Revolution.
Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in
The Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and
George Washington used a pencil when he surveyed the
Ohio Country in 1762.
William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in
Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American
wood pencils in 1812. This was not the only pencil-making occurring in Concord. According to
Henry Petroski,
transcendentalist philosopher
Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the
binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in
New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.
Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the
Tantiusques graphite mine in
Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to
mass-produce pencils. By 1870, the
Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world's largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary
Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company. By the end of the nineteenth century, over 240,000 pencils were used each day in the United States. The favoured timber for pencils was
Red Cedar as it was
aromatic and did not splinter when sharpened. In the early twentieth century, supplies of Red Cedar were dwindling so that pencil manufacturers were forced to recycle the wood from cedar fences and barns to maintain supply. One effect of this was that "during World War II rotary
pencil sharpeners were outlawed in Britain because they wasted so much scarce lead and wood, and pencils had to be sharpened in the more conservative manner – with knives." It was soon discovered that
incense cedar, when dyed and perfumed to resemble Red Cedar, was a suitable alternative. Most pencils today are made from this timber, which is grown in managed forests. Over 14 billion pencils are manufactured worldwide annually. Less popular alternatives to cedar include
basswood and
alder. Environmentalists prefer the use of
Pulai – another wood native to the region in pencil manufacturing.
Eraser attachment On 30 March 1858,
Hymen Lipman received the first
patent for attaching an
eraser to the end of a pencil. In 1862, Lipman sold his patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000, who went on to sue pencil manufacturer
Faber-Castell for
infringement. In
Reckendorfer v. Faber (1875), the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer, declaring the patent invalid.
Extenders Historian Henry Petroski notes that while ever more efficient means of mass-producing pencils had driven down replacement costs, people continued to use even the stub of a pencil for some time. For those who did not feel comfortable using a stub, pencil extenders were sold. These devices function something like a
porte-crayon...the pencil stub can be inserted into the end of a shaft...Extenders were especially common among engineers and drafters, whose favorite pencils were priced dearly. The use of an extender also has the advantage that the pencil does not appreciably change its heft as it wears down. Artists use extenders to maximize the use of their
colored pencils. ==Types==