Novelty Invention - PENCIL

Nicolas-Jacques Conté (1755 - 1805)

Has anyone ever wondered how pencils come about? Who invented the pencils that we have been using since we learn to write? Maybe pencil seems to be a common thing that people take things for granted and care less about the history of pencils. As early as 1500, graphite was discovered on the approach of Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England where the locals use the graphite to mark on sheep. Later on in 1795, Nicolas-Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing the powdered graphite with clay and forms the mixture into rods that were then finished by firing in a kiln to be made into the pencil leads that we are using today to write and draw. What leads Conté to make make such discovery? Well, he was requested to create a pencil by Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, a French politician, engineer and mathematician, which does not rely on foreign imports materials because at that time, the French Republic was under economic blockade and was unable to import graphite from Great Britain (the main source of the material). It took several days for Conté to think of the idea of mixing powdered graphite with clay and pressing the materials between two half-cylinders of wood and burn them in a kiln, turning them into pencil leads. His method of the basic recipe of the mixture is still widely used today by pencil manufacturers around the world. Conté received a patent for the invention in 1795. That was how our pencils come about.