1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



103 



mill on his own account. His Mas being always so much towards me- 

 chanics, it is not improbable that his idea was that he could make great im- 

 provements in the cotton machinery, and that this led him to engage in the 

 business of a manufacturer. 



Ewart remained in Manchester in constant association with Dr. Dalton, 

 Dr. Henry, Mr. Kennedy, and other eminent men, until 1S35, when he was 

 recommended by the present Mr. Watt to the Admiralty as a proper person 

 to fill the situation which he held until the time of bis decease, on the loth 

 September, 1812, then in his 76th year. His health had been delicate for 

 some time ; but the immediate cause of his death was a blow from the end 

 of a chain which broke when he was standing near it in the Dock Yard at 

 Woolwich. Notwithstanding the long interval between his quitting the 

 practice of engineering and his returning to it, and notwithstanding his age 

 {68 years) when he undertook the office, he gave, so far as I have ever heard 

 at the Admiralty or elsewhere, great satisfaction. The professional respon- 

 sibilitv, in his own department, of the steam machinery of the British navy 

 rested upon him, and how well he acquitted himself is proved by the results 

 in China and Syria, and in almost every other quarter of the globe. 



Mr. Ewart's change of employment for so long a period of his life has 

 caused his name and character to be less generally known than they deserved 

 to be. Like Playfair, I may say that I never met with a man who had so 

 general an acquaintance with engineers and mechanical men of his own time 

 as Ewart had, hut he was not easily brought out. I have often pressed him 

 to record in some way his great store of anecdotes and interesting facts, but 

 my doing so was in vain. To write or even to speak on matters in which he 

 had taken an active part appeared painful to him, and was never done when 

 with more than one or two friends. His knowledge of machines, and par- 

 ticularly of the principles of the steam engine, was very intimate. His ad- 

 miration of Watt, and his practice at Soho, inclined him to view with some 

 degree of scepticism any innovation in the engine, which he considered to 

 have been almost perfected by his great master; and, for the public situation 

 which he held, this prejudice was probably useful, for the war steamers in 

 active service are not those in which new schemes should first be tried. 



Ewart was a warm and persevering friend to merit. My friend, Mr. Hart- 

 ley, engineer to the Liverpool Docks, considers that he owes his appointment 

 chiefly to Ewart's exertions in his behalf, and Ewart was ever afterwards 

 ready to assist Mr. Hartley with his scientific opinion. Mr. Hartley is con- 

 scious of the advantage he derived from it, and considers that by Ewart"s 

 death he has lost his best and ablest friend and counsellor. Sir Edward 

 Parry (the comptroller of steam machinery to the navy,) in a note I have 

 lately received from him, states, that " after more than five years' constant 

 and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Ewart, he must declare that he never 

 met with a man of sounder judgment, more amiable feelings, or stricter in- 

 tegrity of purpose; and that he felt he had, at his decease, lost an esteemed 

 friend, as well as a valuable coadjutor in the public service." Sir Edward's 

 note then refers to the late results of the war in Syria, and still later in 

 China, in which he says. " the mighty power of steam played so decisive a 

 part, that these wars, humanly speaking, may be said to have been entirely 

 terminated by steam." 



I will close tiiis subject with an extract of a letter, dated in 1793, from 

 Dr. Currie of Liverpool (the elegant biographer and editor of Burns), to Mr. 

 Wilberforce. The letter is given in the first volume of Wilberforce's corres- 

 pondence. It appears by the description that at that time the distress of 

 the cotton manufacturers was greater than even anything of recent date ; 

 that the workmen were in a starving state ; and that Ewart, the partner of 

 Oldknow, went to Liverpool to represent the extreme case, and endeavour to 

 obtain the attention of ministers through the members. He had a meeting 

 with Dr. Currie, who writes thus to Wilberforce in order to increase his at- 

 tention to the statement of the case. 



" (Ewart) is no common character; he was with Boulton and Watt as 

 superintendent of machinery, and has an extraordinary degree of the most 

 useful knowledge of every kind, and in a word is one of the first young men 

 I ever knew. These qualities recommended him to the notice of the manu- 

 facturers, among whom he exercised his profession of mechanic and engi- 

 neer. He had offers of partnership from the first houses there, and was ac- 

 tually taken into the house of Mr. Oldknow (of Stockport), at that time the 

 first establishment in Lancashire. Mr. Oldknow was the original fabricator 

 of muslin in this country, aud a man of first-rate character." 



Mr. Cotton. — Having referred to the countenance received from distin- 

 guished noblemen, I must not omit also to say how proud I am of the com- 

 munications and presents we have received from my excellent friend Mr. 

 Cotton. Ewart was not more devoted to Watt than Cotton was to his late 

 friend Huddart, whose portrait is, through Mr. Turner's kindness, before 

 me. Watt and Huddart were indeed kindred spirits, I have often seen 

 them together, and at the time and since I have often thought that never 

 were two men better paired in person and bearing as well as in mind. Mr. 

 Cotton was the friend of both. Being governor of the Bank of England, 

 and therefore tilling the highest office in the greatest corporation in the 

 world, he has given us very decided marks of the estimation in which he 

 holds us. Following his friend Huddart in the march of mechanical im- 

 provements, Mr. Cotton has invented a very beautiful machine for weighing 

 gold coin : it is now used at the Bank, and from his uniform attention we 

 may expect soon to have it brought under our notice. 



Thames Tunnel. — Among many engineering works of which this country 

 is possessed, none has, during its execution, attracted so much public notice 



as the Thames Tunnel, and this even more in foreign countries than in 

 England. In October 1812 the shield reached the shaft on the Middlesex 

 side ; and we may therefore congratulate Sir Mark Isambard Brunei in 

 having, so far as the great engineering work goes, completed the tunnel, and 

 accomplished the great wish of his heart. With the amazement with which 

 foreigners consider the abstract notion of a tunnel under the Thames, we in 

 this country of mines and tunnels do not sympathize. We know that if the 

 tunnel had been through the London clay or the chalk, there would have 

 been little difficulty; hut this was not the case; the strata were of the 

 worst kind, often entirely silt and quick-sand, which were forced through 

 the smallest apertures. At these times the iron of the shield, little more 

 than an inch in thickness, was the only division between the tunnel and the 

 Thames. On three occasions this ever-watchful enemy succeeded. The 

 second irruption, which took place on the 14th January, 1828, was the most 

 serious, as then not only was the whole tunnel in possession of the Thames, 

 but the shield, the invention of Brunei, and by which alone so much could 

 have been done, was, as if in revenge, seriously damaged by the invader, and 

 the tunnel was left nearly tilled with mud. Nine-tenths of those who pro- 

 fessed to know anything of the subject, then considered the case desperate, 

 and the works were indeed abandoned until the year 1836; but never, at 

 least since the time of the Roman engineers, who confined him to his pre- 

 sent width by their artificial embankments, had Father Thames so deter- 

 mined a general to oppose him as Father Brunei. Armed with a new and 

 more powerful shield, in design a masterpiece of ingenuity and contrivance, 

 and executed in the best manner by Messrs. Kennie, the engineer and his 

 companions renewed the attack ; and although twice afterwards beaten back 

 and obliged to surrender possession, he has at last succeeded, and may now-, 

 I think, bid defiance to the enemy. It was my duty, as the engineer con- 

 sulted by the treasury, to visit the works on several occasions, and I can 

 therefore certify to the difficulties and indomitable courage of our veteran 

 member, which never failed him, for the notes which he despatched to four 

 individuals (of whom I was one) on the occasion of irruptions, read as if he 

 were rather pleased that the event had taken place; as if he had gained a 

 victory rather than suffered a defeat ; resembling in this respect the bulletins 

 from other great generals, who have not however always been so successful 

 in recovering thetr misfortunes. The difference might be that Sir Isambard 

 bad a Wellington, not to oppose, but to aid him. But, seriously, looking at 

 the Thames tunnel entirely in an engineering point of view, we cannot but 

 be proud of the work, and pleased to have the opportunity of congratula- 

 ting Sir Isambard Brunei on the result of sixteen years (eight of which he 

 spent on the spot) of hard mental and bodily labour. I know no other man 

 who would have so worked, or if he had, could have so succeeded. France, 

 his native country, has reason to be proud of him, as England, his adopted 

 country, is. To Mr. Armstrong, Mr. I. K. Brunei, Mr. Beamish, and Mr. 

 (now Professor) Gordon and Mr. Page, who were successively the assistant 

 engineers, great credit is due ; and Sir Isambard has always spoken with 

 satisfaction of their services and of the perseverance and courage of the 

 men, many of whom stood by him in his greatest need as if the merit were 

 to be theirs. 



Electric Telegraph. — Having said thus much on the Tunnel, I am induced not 

 to pass over unnoticed Professor Wheatstone's application of electricity for 

 telegraphic and other purposes, considering it strictly within our province, 

 not ouly from its nature, but its application to railroads and similar pur- 

 poses. And as respects utility (if there be use in despatch), we need have 

 no apprehension on that account. The velocity of Wheatstone's messenger 

 has reached a maximum, which can safely be said of but few human things, 

 and we ought to be satisfied, as we know that the speed is about 170,000 

 miles per second — that therefore a message could go to Bristol or Birming- 

 ham in 14 ', ll) of a second, or round the globe, if wires could he laid for its 

 travelling upon, in one-sixth of a second. The messages upon the Black- 

 wall railway, upon part of the Great Western railway, and some other rail- 

 ways, are carried at this extraordinary rate. The bells in the House of 

 Commons are rung by it, and its uses are extending. Its superiority for 

 telegraphing appears obvious. Professor Wheatstone informed me some 

 years since that by his machine for measuring the velocity he made 10,000 000 

 of miles per minute. I had named 10 A millions, being the velocity of light 

 — my opinion, erroneous perhaps, having long been, that solar light is a 

 modification of electricity, an hypothesis that seems to dispense with the 

 necessity for the doctrine of latent light, which Professor Moser has intro- 

 duced to account for his late elegant discoveries ; but this is too wide a field 

 to enter on now. My object is to express how much I think the profession 

 and the country are indebted to my highly gifted friend, who has entered 

 upon his important labours with a zeal worthy of the cause, and a success 

 that holds out the hope of ample reward ; for I feel convinced, that great as 

 the recent discoveries in electricity or photography are, they are but an ear- 

 nest of what is to come ; that riches are to be extracted from these recently 

 opened mines, of which we have not at present the most distant notion. 

 Unfortunately miners cannot work without tools, and they cannot always, 

 from their own resources, command them. France has, by rewarding Da- 

 guerre, and giving, so far as she could give, his inventions as a free gift to 

 the world, set a noble example. I have nut heard that Wheatstone has bad 

 any public aid in prosecuting his researches ; but with our own honorary 

 member as premier, we may depend that the government of this great 

 country will not be indifferent to a matter which involves so much of prac- 

 tical utility and at the same time national glory. 



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