Tom Riley (born 1870) was a prominent English tattoo artist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, nicknamed "Professor". [1] Riley's work, alongside rivals Alfred South and Sutherland MacDonald, was part of establishing an English style of tattooing. [2]
Riley was born Thomas Clarkson in 1870, [2] from Leeds, Yorkshire. He was apprenticed as a bricklayer but chose not to pursue that profession. [2] Riley enlisted in the British Army in 1889; while in the army, he learned tattooing and worked on many other soldiers and officers. [2]
Riley also fought in the Second Boer War between 1899-1902 and in Sudan. [3]
Riley took drawing classes at a mechanics' institute in Leeds and opened a tattoo shop in Liverpool near the docks. [1] [4] He then went to Glasgow and built a reputation there, was invited to tattoo at the Royal Aquarium in London, then opened his own shop on the Strand in London. [1] Riley tattooed King Edward VII.
Riley's style was fine-lined and influenced by Japanese tattoo designs. [2]
Some sources credit Riley with patenting the first single-coil tattoo machine in 1891, soon after Samuel O'Reilly received an American patent for the first electric tattoo machine. [5]
In 1903, an interviewer noted that Riley was using a single-coil tattoo machine and said that Riley had co-invented it with O'Reilly, however a tattoo historian could not find any records of a British patent by Riley. [6] Another tattoo artist, George Burchett, had said that Riley had received a British patent for a tattoo machine in December 1891, improving on Samuel O'Reilly's design. [6] Burchett may have been misremembering Sutherland MacDonald's work, who received the first British tattoo machine patent in December 1894. [6]
A tattoo machine is a hand-held device generally used to create a tattoo, a permanent marking of the skin with indelible ink. Modern tattoo machines use electromagnetic coils to move an armature bar up and down. Connected to the armature bar is a barred needle grouping that opens the skin for the ink to flow into. All electromagnetic coil machines are powered by a wired regulated DC power supplies which send an electric current through the copper coils wrapped around opposing magnets and then moves the armature bar up and down. In addition to coil tattoo machines, there are also rotary tattoo machines, which are operated with regulated rotary motors and are powered by a wired external RC power supply or a wireless battery pack attached to the machine. There are many types of rotary machines, some that look similar to coil machines and some that look more like "pens". Coil machines are usually each tuned for a single function, such as for shading, or lining or packing ink. Rotary machines are multifunctional, taking any size or type of needle or cartridge needle. "The basic machine is pretty much unchanged today, in recent years variations of the theme have crept into the market, namely Manfred Kohrs' rotary machine of 1978 or Carson Hill’s pneumatic machine that uses compressed air rather than electricity, but the principle is essentially the same."
Samuel F. O’Reilly was an American tattoo artist from New York, who patented the first electric tattoo machine on December 8, 1891.
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Jack Riley was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1900s. He played at representative level for England, and at club level for Halifax, as a forward, during the era of contested scrums, and represented England in the first ever international rugby league game in 1904.
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