31 



his earnest request I collected and arranged for him nearly all the 

 facts and substance of the memoir. I mention this circumstance 

 lest any of you who have read Dr. Lonsdale's biography of Graham 

 may think I am merely poaching on his preserves. It has occurred 

 to me that a short account of Graham and what he accomplished 

 might be acceptable to the Society, and be thought worthy of a 

 permanent record in its Transadiotis. 



George Graham, as I have already said, was born in the 

 year 1673, in the Parish of Kirklinton ; but of his boyish days we 

 know next to nothing. He went to London at the age of fifteen, 

 and there is no evidence that he ever afterwards visited his native 

 county or maintained any communication with those he left behind 

 him. Probably his early lot was a hard one. His parents were 

 in very humble circumstances, and the general condition of the 

 peasantry at that time was that of grinding poverty and extreme 

 hardship. A petition presented to parliament about the date I 

 have mentioned, says that "families of the first quality had scarcely 

 bread sufficient for their consumption, and no beverage but water; 

 that many died in the highways for want of sustenance, and 

 that there were thirty thousand families who had neither seed, nor 

 bread corn, nor money to buy any. ' Probably young Graham's 

 reminiscences of his boyhood would be unpleasantly tinged with 

 the memory of much privation, and this may account for his 

 apparent forgetfulness of his native county.' In 1688, Graham 

 was bound apprentice for seven years to Henry Aske, clock- 

 maker, London ; and at the termination of his apprenticeship in 

 1695, he was admitted by the Society of Clock-makers, a "free 

 clock-maker." He then became assistant to Mr. Tompion, an 

 horologist of European fame, and an original thinker and inventor 

 of no mean order. So highly was he esteemed, that on his death 

 in 1 7 13, his remains were buried within the hallowed walls of 

 Westminster Abbey. 



Before proceeding to an account of the inventions with which 

 Graham will be for ever associated, let me draw your attention to 

 the importance of an accurate measure of Time ; for an accurate 

 knowledge of this element lies at the very root of every funda- 



