SS6 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECrS JOURNAL. 



[Decehbeb, 



constitutions materially affected from want of the necessary pre- 

 cautions. He expressed liis opinion that the corridor, lobby, and 

 staircase of a house should be well warmed, wliich would do away 

 with those cutting draughts that crept along the floors and were so 

 injurious in winter. St. George's Hall had been alluded to, and 

 Mr. \V'alker was, perhaps, not aware that Mr. Elmespaid consider- 

 able attention to the sulyect of ventilation in the construction of 

 that building. Every arrangement was made that he (Mr. Elmes) 

 considered necessary,' and the assistance of Dr. Reid was called in. 

 The great vaulted ceiling which was turned over the hall had 

 had especial reference to ventilation. Allusion had been made to 

 the ventilation of cottage tenements. As inspector to the Board 

 of Health it had been his duty to travel through the length and 

 breadth of the land, and he had visited tenements of all descrip- 

 tions. Doubtless many gentlemen in that room had read the state- 

 ments drawn up by menin office, and imagined them to be over- 

 charged; but he could assure them that there did not e.xist a man 

 who could adequately describe the utter wretchedness in which the 

 lower classes of this country lived in the nineteenth century, and 

 in the midst of boasted civilisation and refinement. This was not 

 the case in large towns alone, but it was the same in rural villages 

 where Irish emigrants took up their abode. It was laid down as a 

 law that 800 feet of air was necessary for each individual; and he 

 had seen thirty persons snoring fast asleep where there should 

 have been but two. It was high time that this state of things 

 should be altered. He followed the track of tlie fearful epidemic 

 last summer, and, if he vvas shown a tenement or house, he could 

 tell whether fever or the cholera would come there or not: there 

 was no mystery about it. If people were crowded together where 

 there was no means of obtaining fresh air, where refuse had accu- 

 mulated for a long period, there fever would make its visitations, 

 and in times of epidemic the cholera would take up its devastating 

 abode. It was also singular that damp had a great deal to do with 

 it. It was not enough to make the surface dry, but the subsoil 

 should also be in like condition. Something had been said with 

 regard to ancient and modern drainage; and it was certainly very 

 right that we should admire and imitate, so far as we could with 

 advantage, aU that had been done by the ancients; but we should 

 be doing very wrong if we followed the example of the Romans, 

 in their large sewers. Mr. Rawlinson contended that the minimum 

 sized drains were most efficient, and that tliose wliich were large 

 only afforded space for deposit. Again adverting to the subject of 

 ventilation, he recommended the application of hollow bricks or 

 tiles, which, he said, now that the duty was off, might be made of 

 any size or form. He had made an experiment to test the capa- 

 bilities of these bricks to carry pressure, doubts having been 

 expressed as to those on which the great ceiling of St. George's 

 Hall was turned, and he found they were capable of sustaining 

 the i-equired weight. 



Mr. Barber asked if the ceiling to which Mr. Rawlinson alluded 

 was turned at his suggestion.'' 



Mr. Rawli.vson said it was. The construction of that ceiling 

 gave a great deal of trouble, but it was always Mr. Elmes' inten- 

 tion that he (Mr. Rawlinson) should turn it for him. He had 

 seen at Castle Howard some tile piping, and he did not see why he 

 could not turn the arch of St. George's Hall with them; lie had 

 some made with two-inch bore, four inches square, and twelve 

 inches long, which answered the purpose very well. 



An interesting discussion ensued, in ivhich Mr. H. P. Horner 

 and Mr. J. Bollt took part, dwelling on the importance of large 

 buildings, such as St. George's Hall, as they were not only an 

 ornament to the town, but promoted public health by the open 

 space which was left around them, besides which they called forth 

 improvements in construction, and insanitary arrangements, which 

 would Jiot otherwise be thought of. 



MEMOIR OF THE LATE WILLIAM MURDOCK. 



On the Inventions and Life of the Inte Mr. Wiltinm Murdoch. 

 By Mr. BucKLK, of Soho. — (Paper read at the Institution of 

 .Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham.) 



The subject, interesting in itself, was rendered peculiarly so by 

 the exhiliition of several meclianical antiquities, among which may 

 be specially noticed a diminutive locomotive engine, constructed 

 by Mr. Murdock in liSi, and uncpiestionably tlie first that ever 

 was made. A bust of the deceased mechanician, by Chantrey, was 

 appropriately placed in the room, and the Rumford medal, awarded 

 to him by the Royal Society, was inspected with interest by the 



members. The chairman prefaced the subject by observing, that 

 he had the distinguished honour of exhibiting to the present, as 

 the first public Scientific Institution, the very first locomotive 

 engine ever constructed. To the late William Murdock belonged 

 the honour of jiroducing it. He was at that time at Redruth, in 

 Cornwall, and having conceived the idea of making a locomotive, 

 he carried it into effect, as the interesting piece of mechanical 

 antiquity then exhibited, would best testify. A very curious 

 anecdote was preserved in connection with it. On one occasion, 

 having placed it on a gravel walk conducting to the church at 

 Redruth, he lighted the lamp beneath the boiler, and whilst the 

 locomotive was pursuing its course, to the singular dismay of the 

 clergyman of the parish, it attracted his notice, and he fancied that 

 the evil one himself was making night hideous. 



The paper was then read by ilr. Marshall, secretary to the Insti- 

 tution. It commenced by observing, that the subject of his notice 

 was born at Bellow iSlill, near Old Cumnock, Ayrshire, in \15i, 

 where his father, an ingenious mechanic, carried on the business of 

 millwright and miller. His mother's maiden name was Bruce, and 

 she used to boast of being lineally descended from Robert Bruce, 

 the Scottish hero. So remarkable a man, whose talents and inven- 

 tions have contributed to the advantage of society, and whose 

 ingenuity was so well known, should not be allowed to go out of 

 the world without some special notice. Little was known of his 

 habits and pursuits prior to his joining the establishment of 

 Messrs. Boulton and AV'att, at Soho, in the year 1777, then in its 

 infancy ; but he must, before he left his native country, have had 

 celebrity, as he was employed to build a bridge over the river 

 Nith, in Dumfries-shire — a very handsome structure which still 

 exists. His talents were soon justly appreciated at Soho, particu- 

 larly by the celebrated James U'att, with whom he continued on 

 terms of the warmest friendship to the time of Mr. Watt's death 

 in 1H19. After a short residence of about two and a-half years at 

 Soho, he was appointed by ^Messrs. Boulton and Watt to superin- 

 tend the erection and undertake the general charge of their 

 engines in Cornwall, where he erected the first engine with the 

 separate condenser in that district; and he remained there, giving 

 great satisfaction to the mining interests, until 1798, when, as a 

 proof of his usefulness, the adventurers in the mines, hearing of 

 his intention to return to Soho, used all their efforts to retain his 

 services, and offered him 1000/. a-year to remain in Cornwall; but 

 his attachment to Soho and his Soho friends would not allow him 

 to comply with their urgent request. 



In the year 1785 he married the daughter of Captain Painter, of 

 Redruth, Cornwall, and had four children, of whom only one son 

 survives; his wife died in 1790, at the early age of twenty-four 

 years. In 1798, Mr. Murdock returned to Soho to take up his 

 permanent residence, and superintend the erection of the machi- 

 nery at the foundry connected with that establishment ; but he 

 occasionally superintended the erection of engines at a distance, 

 and among others those of Lambeth, Southwark, Chelsea, New 

 River, East London, ^V'estminster, and Essex water-works. His 

 energies to further the interests of Soho were not emjiloyed in 

 vain, for they assisted in no slight degree in procuring for it a 

 name celebrated throughout the civilised world. His time, whilst 

 at that establishment, and for years afterwards, was so completely 

 occupied by his mechanical pursuits, that he had no leisure to 

 devote to any sort of relaxation. The rising sun often found him, 

 after a night passed in excessive labour, still at the anvil or turning- 

 lathe, for with his own hands he would make those articles which 

 he would not trust to hands less skilful. Mr. Watt, in his notes 

 on Dr. Robison's ' Treatise on the Steam-Engine,' bears testi- 

 mony to some of Mr. Murdock's valuable improvements, and 

 others are recorded in a patent he took out in 1799. These, 

 although described by the writer in detail, may be briefly indi- 

 cated as boring cylinders by means of an endless screw working 

 into a tooth-wheel ; beam cases for cylinders cast in one piece, 

 fitted to the cylinder with a conical joint at top and bottom; the 

 double D slide valve for simplifying the working of the steam- 

 engine and saving the loss of steam; the cylindrical valve for the 

 same purpose as the preceding one; and a rotary engine, consist- 

 ing of two wheels with both working into each other, and fixed in 

 a case fitting close to the sides of the two wheels and the ends of 

 the teeth, these parts being made steam-tight by packing. Mr. 

 Murdock had one of these engines, of about one-horse power, set 

 to work about 1802, at Soho Foundry, to drive the machines in his 

 private workshops; it continued there for about thirty years, and 

 afterwards in nearly constant work, was found to work well. 



First Locomotive Enyine — Now that locomotive steam-engines 

 applied to carriages have become so extensively used, it is proper 



