1646 he successfully directs the artillery at the Siege of Worcester, detailing his experiences and in his 1647 book The Art of Gunnery, believing that war is as much a science as an art. The earliest known clock makers in the town arrived from London in 1667. Between 1770 and 1870 there are over 700 clock and watch makers in the town. In 1689 Sir Richard Newdigate, one of the new, local Newdigate baronets, approaches manufacturers in the town with the notion of supplying the British Government with small arms. It is stressed that they would need to be of high enough calibre to equal the small arms that were being imported from abroad. After a successful trial order in 1692, the Government places its first contract. On 5 January 1693, the "Officers of Ordnance" chooses five local firearms manufacturers to initially produce 200 "snaphance musquets" per month over the period of one year, paying 17 shillings per musket, plus 3 shillings per hundredweight for delivery to London. During the 18th century, Birmingham became the leading supplier of guns for the expanding British Empire. 18th century 1722: Richard Baddeley, ironmonger, patents a method for "casting wheel streaks and box irons". 1727: Birmingham is becoming a hot-bed of creative activity and local businessman and bookseller Thomas Warren opens a bookshop in the Birmingham's High Street. Warren is an influential figure in Birmingham at this time. 1732: The Birmingham Journal is founded and published from Thomas Warren's book store. This is possibly Birmingham's first weekly newspaper; one of its contributors is the very notable Samuel Johnson of nearby Lichfield. 1733: Thomas Warren edits and publishes Samuel Johnson's first original writing—a translation of Jerónimo Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia. Johnson works for the Journal while he lodges with Warren. Johnson later moves on to greater things and James Boswell writes of Johnson's life: "After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". The dictionary brings Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's dictionary is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. 1738: Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, of Birmingham, patent the roller spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton to