Henry Trueman Wright Wood

“ Succeeding to his father's business at the age of twenty-two, he introduced into it so many scientific improvements that he soon amassed a considerable fortune and was able to devote his time and attention to his favourite mechanical pursuits. His inventions, though numerous and evincing very great ingenuity, were not of the very highest class. ”

“ Like many other remarkable men, however, James Brindley had a wise and careful mother. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to one Abraham Bennett, a millwright, or as he would now be termed an engineer, of Sutton, near Macclesfield. Strangely enough, he seems for some time to have had the credit of being but a poor workman, so much so that his master even threatened to cancel his indentures and send him back to the field-work for which alone he was fitted. ”

“ As secretary to the Society of Arts, he took part in many public movements originated by the society, but being a man of simple tastes, and singularly devoid of personal ambition, he was never anxious to obtain recognition for his labours or to dispute with others the credit which was often justly his due. ”

“ ARCHER, FREDERICK SCOTT (1813–1857) , inventor of the collodion process in photography, was the second son of a butcher at Bishop Stortford, and was, as a young man, assistant to a silversmith, Massey, in Leadenhall Street. Showing some talent for sculpture, he was enabled, by the kindness of friends, to start in business as a sculptor, and it was a desire to obtain reproductions of his works that led him to take up the then recently discovered art of photography. ”

“ Owen's successful administration in Paris in 1855 led to his appointment in 1857 as deputy general superintendent of the South Kensington Museum, and in 1860 he was promoted to the post of assistant director, Cole being director of the museum and secretary of the Science and Art Department. In 1862 the second great London exhibition was held, and Owen acted as director of the foreign sections, a post for which his knowledge of foreign languages specially qualified him. In 1867 another exhibition was held in Paris, and Owen was second in command to Cole as assistant executive commissioner. ”

“ The great reputation of Brindley, however, was gained in civil, not in mechanical, engineering. Having been called in by the Duke of Bridgewater in 1759 to advise upon the project for forming a canal by which the produce of the Worsley coal-mines could be cheaply transported to Manchester, he produced a plan of striking originality, including the construction of an aqueduct by which the canal was to be carried over the river Irwell. ”

“ The Wedgwoods, then small potters, employed him to construct flint-mills for grinding the calcined flint employed for glazing pottery, and, like all the engineers of his time, he tried his hand at the solution of the great problem of clearing mines from water, a problem not to be solved till the perfected steam-engine provided the power alone able to meet the difficulty. ”

“ Probably nowhere else could he have found so suitable a field for the exercise of his peculiar talents as in a parliamentary committee-room, nor is it easy to conceive a man better adapted to this special sort of work.
But, besides his parliamentary practice, Bidder was also much employed in the actual practice of his profession, and as engineer constructed numerous railways and other works at home and abroad. The Victoria Docks (London) are considered one of his chief constructive works, and, after railway matters, hydraulic engineering principally engaged his attention. ”

“ The invention by which he is best known is the fish-joint for the rails of railways. Before the date of this invention (1847) engineers had failed in all their efforts to contrive a joint which should firmly unite the ends of the rails while allowing fast traffic to be carried over them. Bridges Adams applied the well-known ‘fish’ or overlapping plate to the ends of the rails, and set the joint in the space between two of the supporting ‘chairs,’ instead of immediately over a ‘chair,’ so that the destructive effect of the pressure between the wheels and the chair was avoided. ”

“ After a brief employment in the Ordnance Survey and a still briefer trial of a clerkship in the office of a life assurance company, he took regularly to engineering. He was employed on several works of more or less importance, and became associated with Robert Stephenson in 1834 in the London and Birmingham railway. A year or so later this brought him into parliamentary work, and here he soon found full scope for his marvellous powers of calculation. ”

“ Bramah's most important contribution to mechanical science was his hydraulic press, patented in 1795. The power which he gave to engineers by this invention of converting into a steady continuous pressure of practically unlimited amount a number of comparatively small impulses, was an entirely new one, and was capable, as it afterwards proved, of enormous development. That this development was not unforeseen by the projector is evident from the proposals he made in several of his patents, proposals which in many cases have only recently been carried into effect. ”

“ In 1846 he returned to England and was appointed professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution in Manchester, where he had settled in practice as a consulting chemist. He now devoted himself almost entirely to questions of industrial chemistry, tanning, the desulphurisation of coke, the protection of iron ships from rust, the manufacture of chlorate of potash, iron puddling, calico-printing, &c. A few years later he took up the manufacture of coal-tar products, especially of phenic or carbolic acid, which he was the first to manufacture in a pure state in this country. ”

“ Archer himself, soon after his discovery, left his house in Henrietta Street, and went to live in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, where he practised, with no great success, as a photographer. Here he produced several other inventions. Of these the more important were a camera, in which the various processes for producing a photographic picture could be carried on ”

“ His most important invention was the chemical telegraph of 1843 previously mentioned. This apparatus could be worked at a speed hitherto impossible, and its invention certainly entitles Bain to the credit of being the pioneer of modern high-speed telegraphy. It is stated that the rate at which the apparatus was capable of working was discovered accidentally, in consequence of the breaking of a spring during an experiment. ”

“ He was also connected in various capacities with several of the earlier foreign exhibitions. He was one of the first to practise, as a scientific amateur, the art of photography, and was one of the founders of the Photographic Society. ”

“ At the age of sixteen he left London for France, where he remained till 1846. One result of this long stay abroad was that till the end of his life he spoke English with a French accent, and was, in consequence, frequently taken for a foreigner. ”

“ His son and his grandchildren possess this visualising power, and they also inherit considerable calculating abilities. A study of Bidder's system, partly natural and partly elaborated, cannot fail to be of value to all who wish to improve their calculating powers ”

“ There is a very full account of Arnold in the Biographical Dictionary commenced by the Useful Knowledge Society; a short account of him, with a full list of authorities, is given in Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, iii. 1034; for his improvements in the chronometer see Rees's Cyclopædia, s.v.; Frodsham on the Marine Chronometer ”

“ His principal reputation was gained as an engineer. He invented an improved method of manufacturing links for chain cables, which he patented in 1816 conjointly with Philip Thomas, and the experiments which he carried out led to the introduction of chain cables into the navy. ”

“ Allen, he was led by the imperfections of the system to devise improvements on it, and thence, in 1778, came the first of the long series of patents taken out by him. The closet described in the specification of that patent, with certain improvements devised by the inventor, has continued in use, it may be said, until the present day. ”

“ Leaving the Hague, he came to England, and appears to have made a scanty living as an itinerant mechanic. By the help of a gentleman who was struck with, his mechanical powers, he was enabled to set up in business in Devereux Court, Strand, whence he afterwards removed to the Adelphi. ”

“ Besides his writings on technical subjects, he was the author of several political pamphlets, published under the pseudonym of Junius Redivivus. Most of these were issued about the time of the 1832 Reform Bill. He died at Broadstairs, and was buried at St. Peter's. In 1834 he married Sarah Flower [see Adams, Sarah Flower] .
[A very full biographical notice in Engineering newspaper, 26 July 1872 (xiv. 63) , and a shorter sketch in the Journal of the Society of Arts, 2 August 1872 (xx. 763) ; Men of the Time (eighth edition) .] ”

“ In both cases he was unquestionably very early in the field. He discovered independently the use of the earth circuit, but here he was certainly anticipated by Steinheil. Electric fire-alarms and sounding apparatus were also among his inventions. ”

“ About the same time he also entered into partnership with Mr. Fothergill. The works were opened in 1762, and soon obtained a reputation for work of a higher character than it was then usual to associate with the name of Birmingham. ”

“ In the later part of his life he held a post as registrar of births and deaths in Marvlebone. Bachhoffner was an inventor, and took out several patents for inventions connected with the electric telegraph, gas stoves, oil lamps, &c. ”