PREFACE. THE object of the following volumes is to give an account of some of the principal men by whom the material development of England has been promoted,— the men by whose skill and industry large tracts of fertile land have been won from the sea, the bog, and the fen, and made available for human habitation and sustenance; who have rendered the country accessible in all directions by means of roads, bridges, canals, and railways; and have built lighthouses, breakwaters, docks, and harbours, for the protection and accommodation of our home and foreign commerce. Notwithstanding the national interest which might be supposed to belong to this branch of literature, it has hitherto received but little attention. When the author first mentioned to the late Robert Stephenson his intention of writing the Life of his father, that gentleman expressed strong doubts as to the possibility of rendering the subject sufficiently popular to attract the attention of the reading public. "The building of bridges, the excavation of tunnels, the making of roads and railways," he observed, "are mere mechanical matters, possessing no literary interest;" and in proof of this he referred to the 'Life of Telford' as "a work got up at great expense, but which had fallen still-born from the press." Besides the apparent unattractiveness of the subject, its effective treatment involved the necessity of burrowing through a vast amount of engineering reports, which, VOL. I. b next to law papers, are about the driest possible reading, except to those professionally interested in them. Circumstances such as these have probably concurred in deterring literary men from entering upon this field of biography, which has hitherto remained comparatively unexplored. Hence, most of the Lives and Memoirs contained in the following series are here attempted for the first time. All that has appeared relating to Brindley, Smeaton, and Rennie, is comprised in the brief and unsatisfactory notices contained in Encyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries. What has been published respecting Myddelton's life is for the most part inaccurate, whilst of Vermuyden no memoir of any kind exists. It is true, a 'Life of Telford' has appeared in quarto, but, though it contains most of that engineer's reports, the history of his private life as well as of his professional career is almost entirely omitted. Besides the Lives of these more distinguished men, the following volumes will be found to contain memoirs. of several meritorious though now all but forgotten persons, who are entitled to notice as amongst the pioneers of English engineering. Such were Captain Perry, who repaired the breach in the Thames embankment at Dagenham; blind John Metcalf, the Yorkshire road-maker; William Edwards, the Welsh bridge-builder; and Andrew Meikle, Rennie's master, the inventor of the thrashing-machine. Although the Duke of Bridgewater was not an engineer, we have included a memoir of him in the Life of Brindley, with whose early history he was so closely identified; and also because of the important influence which he exercised on the extension of the canal system and the development of modern English industry. The subject, indeed, contains more attractive elements than might at first sight appear. The events in the |