[Updater's note: The previous version's footnotes were embedded
into their respective paragraphs. In this version, each chapter'sfootnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the endof their chapter.]
Iron Workers and Tool Makers
by Samuel Smiles
(This etext was produced from a reprint of the 1863 first edition)
The Author offers the following book as a continuation, in a moregenerally accessible form, of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Menintroduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that work hefrequently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors, mechanics,and iron-workers—the founders, in a great measure, of the modernindustry of Britain—whose labours seemed to him well worthy of beingtraced out and placed on record, and the more so as their livespresented many points of curious and original interest. Having beenencouraged to prosecute the subject by offers of assistance from someof the most eminent living mechanical engineers, he is now enabled topresent the following further series of memoirs to the public.
Without exaggerating the importance of this class of biography, it mayat least be averred that it has not yet received its due share ofattention. While commemorating the labours and honouring the names ofthose who have striven to elevate man above the material andmechanical, the labours of the important industrial class to whomsociety owes so much of its comfort and well-being are also entitled toconsideration. Without derogating from the biographic claims of thosewho minister to intellect and taste, those who minister to utility neednot be overlooked. When a Frenchman was praising to Sir John Sinclairthe artist who invented ruffles, the Baronet shrewdly remarked thatsome merit was also due to the man who added the shirt.
A distinguished living mechanic thus expresses himself to the Author onthis point:—"Kings, warriors, and statesmen have heretoforemonopolized not only the pages of history, but almost those ofbiography. Surely some niche ought to be found for the Mechanic,without whose skill and labour society, as it is, could not exist. Ido not begrudge destructive heroes their fame, but the constructiveones ought not to be forgotten; and there IS a heroism of skill andtoil belonging to the latter class, worthy of as grateful record,—lessperilous and romantic, it may be, than that of the other, but not lessfull of the results of human energy, bravery, and character. The lotof labour is indeed often a dull one; and it is doing a public serviceto endeavour to lighten it up by records of the struggles and triumphsof our more illustrious workers, and the results of their labours inthe cause of human advancement."
As respects the preparation of the following memoirs, the Author'sprincipal task has consisted in selecting and arranging the materialsso liberally placed at his disposal by gentlemen for the most partpersonally acquainted with the subjects of them, and but for whoseassistance the book could not have been written. The materials for thebiography of Henry Maudslay, for instance, have been partly supplied bythe late Mr. Joshua Field, F.R.S. (his partner), but principally by Mr.James Nasmyth, C.E., his distinguished pupil. In like manner Mr. JohnPenn, C.E., has supplied the chief materials for the memoir of JosephClement, assisted by Mr. Wilkinson, Clement's nephew. The Author hasalso had the valuable assistance of Mr. William Fairbairn, F.R.S., Mr.J. O. March, tool manufacturer (Mayor o