He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools.

He moved to Patricroft, an area of the town of Eccles, Lancashire, where in August 1836, he and his business partner Holbrook Gaskell opened the Bridgewater Foundry, where they traded as Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

Up to 1843, Nasmyth, Gaskell & Co. concentrated on producing a wide range of machine tools in large numbers.

Initially locomotives were purchased from a wide range of private manufacturers such as Edward Bury and Company and Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

* Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company ( 1836 – 1850 ), later James Nasmyth and Company ( 1850 – 1857 ), Patricroft Ironworks ( 1857 – 1867 ), Nasmyth, Wilson and Company ( 1867 – 1940 ).

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company, the name is that of a hero from Greek mythology.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

: Built by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company.

In 1837 the Great Western Steam Company was experiencing many problems forging the paddle shaft of the SS Great Britain ; when even the largest hammer was tilted to its full height its range was so small that if a really large piece of work were placed on the anvil, the hammer had no room to fall, and in 1838 the company's engineer wrote to Nasmyth:

* The Barsi Light Railway used an F class of thirteen locomotives, ten built by Nasmyth, Wilson and Company between 1926 and 1929, and three built by Hunslet Engine Company in 1949.

* The Great Indian Peninsula Railway used a B / 1 class of seven locomotives, four built by NBL in 1917, one more by NBL in 1922, and two by Nasmyth, Wilson and Company in 1926.

Nasmyth was also one of the first toolmakers to offer a standardised range of machine tools ; before this, manufacturers constructed tools according to individual clients ' specifications, with little regard to standardisation and caused compatibility problems.

Nasmyth was also largely employed by noblemen throughout the country in the improving and beautifying of their estates, in which his fine taste rendered him especially skilful.

Nasmyth also taught painting outside his own family and " instilled a whole generation with the importance of drawing as a tool of empirical investigation "; it was probably from him that John James Ruskin ( father of John Ruskin ) learned to paint as a schoolboy in Edinburgh in the later 1790s.

His picture of the " Slave Market, Constantinople ", was purchased by Alexander Hill, the publisher, and ‘ Byron in a Fisherman's Hut after swimming the Hellespont ’ ( exhibited 1831 ) by R. Nasmyth, who also bought Allan's portraits of Burns and Sir Walter Scott, which were engraved by John Burnet.

In memory of his renowned contribution to the discipline of mechanical engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering building at Heriot-Watt University, in his birthplace of Edinburgh, is called the James Nasmyth Building.

Alexander Nasmyth ( 9 September 1758 – 10 April 1840 ) was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter, often called the " father of Scottish landscape painting ".

The Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company's Bridgewater Foundry, which began operation in 1836, was one of the earliest factories to use modern materials handling such as cranes and rail tracks through the buildings for handling heavy items.

Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming, he did not allow his children to eat meat.

Elizabeth Gaskell was also a successful writer and first novel, Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848.

Another related novel, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, was also published in this magazine.

' He also encouraged Gaskell to include chapters 36 and 37, the dialectical glosses added by William Gaskell, a preface and the chapter epigraphs.

Gaskell also describes an Italian torture chamber where the victim is afforded many luxuries at first but in the end the walls of the cell start closing in and finally they crush him.

Stephen Derry mentions that Gaskell uses the concept of the shrinking cell to describe John Barton's state of mind but also added the element of luxury in order to further enhance it.

He also assisted at the Sunday School at Cross Street where he met William Fairbairn and William Gaskell.

In the early 21st century, with Gaskell ’ s work “ enlisted in contemporary negotiations of nationhood as well as gender and class identities ” ( Matus, 2007, p. 9 ), North and South — one of the first industrial novels describing the conflicts between employers and workers — is now seen as presenting not only a narrative that depicts social conflicts as more complex but also as offering more satisfactory solutions through its heroine, Margaret Hale, spokesperson for the author, and Gaskell ’ s most mature creation.

These early chapters in different places have also been taken to mean a theme of mobility in the novel: In moving from one place to another, the heroine learns to understand herself and the world better and it advances Gaskell ’ s intent to show Margaret ’ s going where Victorian women were not supposed to go — the public sphere.

Matus ( 2007, pp. 35-43 ) also focuses on Gaskell ’ s depiction of “ interiority ,” or psychic process particularly as expressed in dreams and trances such as Thornton ’ s dream of Margaret as a temptress or the “ trance of passion ” of the rioters.

According to Bodenheimer, the narrative in the novel may sometimes appear melodramatic and sentimental ( e. g., But, for all that — for all his savage words, he could have thrown himself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her garment ( chapter 29 )), particularly in the riot scene, but she also sees Gaskell ’ s best writing as “ done with the unjudging openness to experience ” that she shares with D. H. Lawrence ( Bodenheimar, 1979, pp. 296-300 ).

Matus also finds Gaskell ’ s vocabulary “ Gothicized ” in descriptions of the characters ’ agonized inner life — their responses of suffering and pain — that may appear melodramatic when taken out of context.

Gaskell also uses one of the causes of conflicts between masters and workers, the installation of ventilators in the carding rooms to show the cupidity of one and the ignorance of the other in making social progress difficult ( Navailles, 1983 ), and calls attention to the extremely strong anti-Irish prejudices in the city where the Irish constitute a very small minority.