BRAMAH. 15 



coining department. He also constructed the machinery for the 

 great national mints of St. Petersburgh and Copenhagen ; his son, 

 to whom the establishment at Soho devolved upon his death, doing 

 the same for the extensive and splendid establishments of the East 

 India Company at Bombay and Calcutta. 



Boulton died August 17, 1809, in his eighty-first year, and his re- 

 mains were borne to the grave by the oldest workmen connected 

 with the works at Soho; five hundred persons belonging to that 

 establishment joined in the procession, which numbered among its 

 ranks several thousand individuals, to whom medals were given 

 recording the age of the deceased and the date of his death. 

 Stuart's Anecdotes of the Steam Engine. London, 1829. Muirhea&s 

 Translation of Arago's Life of J. Watt. London, 1839. 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 



Born April 13, 1749. Died December 9, 1814. 



This eminent practical engineer and machinist was born at Stain- 

 borough, in Yorkshire. His father rented a farm on the estate of 

 Lord Strafford, and Joseph, being the eldest of five children was 

 intended for the same employment ; but fortunately for his subse- 

 quent career, an accidental lameness, which occurred when he was 

 sixteen years old, prevented his following agricultural pursuits. 

 When quite a boy, Bramah exhibited unusual mechanical talent ; 

 he succeeded in constructing two violoncellos, which were found 

 to be very tolerable instruments, and also managed to cut a violin 

 out of a single block of wood, by means of tools which were forged 

 for him by a neighbouring smith, whom in after life he engaged in 

 London as one of his principal workmen. After having served an ap- 

 prenticeship to a carpenter and joiner, Bramah obtained employment 

 in the workshop of a cabinetmaker in London, and soon afterwards 

 established himself as a principal in the business. The history of 

 his life after this is perhaps best given by a record of his numerous 

 inventions, all of which are, more or less, of a highly useful charac- 

 ter. For the manufacture of these, Bramah first took up his resi- 

 dence in Denmark Street, Soho, but subsequently removed to 

 Piccadilly, and established the various branches of his manufactory 

 in some extensive premises at Pimlico. In 1783 he took out a patent 

 for an improved watercock, and in the year following, completed the 

 invention of his famous lock, which for many years stood unrivalled 

 in ingenuity of construction, workmanship, and powers of resistance 



