The
steam hammer was invented around
1837 by
James Nasmyth in
Manchester,
England. Its first use was intended to be the forging of the paddle shaft of the
SS Great Britain. However, the paddle technology was replaced with the
screw propeller, and implementation of the hammer was left to the
Creuzot[?] foundry of
France.
The steam hammer was one of many machine tools[?] invented around this time which allowed for large scale industrialisation and the use of machines to build machines.