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The history of fountain pens is very fascinating and can be traced back to the 18th century. Even though, Lewis Waterman was the first man to patent the very first practical fountain pen in 1884, writing instruments designed to carry their own supply of ink had existed for over a 100 years. The oldest known fountain pen which has survived to this date was designed by a Frenchmen named M. Bion around 1702. Peregrin Williamson was the first American to receive the patent for fountain pens in 1809. It was John Jacob Parker who patented the first self-filling fountain pen in 1831. The main problem with the early fountain pen models was that they were plagued by ink spills and other such failures that impaired their sales.
Fountain pens were designed a 1000 years after the usage of quill pens. Its mechanism was composed of 3 parts- the nib, the feed or black part under the nib which controlled the flow of ink and the round barrel which was to hold the nib and feed together. It was Lewis Waterman’s idea to add an air hole in the nib and three grooves inside the feed mechanism, to avoid ink spillage.
All pens have an internal reservoir for ink and even the mechanism to fill the ink also underwent a transformation along with the evolving fountain pen. Initially, eyedroppers were used for filling ink into the pens. By 1915, most pens had a self-filling soft and flexible rubber sac as an ink reservoir. To refill these pens, the reservoirs were squeezed flat by an internal plate and the pen’s nib was inserted into a bottle of ink. When the pressure on the internal plate was released, the ink sac would fill up drawing in a fresh supply of ink. Eventually, several different patents were issued for the self-filling fountain pen design.
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