MAUDSLAY. 85 



for him to construct: this attracted Maudslay's attention, and at 

 last he one day exclaimed to Sir Isambard, " Ah ! I see what you 

 are thinking of you want machinery for making blocks : " this 

 so pleased Brunei, that he became more open of communication, 

 and in the subsequent completion of the beautiful block machinery 

 afterwards erected at Portsmouth Dockyard, Mr. Brunei derived 

 great advantage from the sound mechanical knowledge of Maudslay. 

 The friendship commenced thus was never afterwards shaken, and 

 when Brunei began the Thames Tunnel, he consulted his old friend 

 relative to the construction of the shield, as it was termed, under 

 shelter of which the excavation beneath the bed of the river, and 

 the brickwork for forming the Tunnel were proceeded with. 



In the year 1807 Maudslay took out a patent for improvements 

 in the steam-engine, by which he much simplified its parts and 

 secured greater directness of action. His new engine was called 

 the Pyramidal, from its form, and was the first move towards direct 

 acting engines. In 1810, finding his business getting too extensive 

 for his premises in Margaret Street, he removed to the more capa- 

 cious ones in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Here he for many years 

 carried on a large business, embracing the manufacture of all kinds 

 of machinery, but more particularly of marine engines, to the con- 

 struction and improvement of which he early directed his attention, 

 foreseeing how important a branch of industry they would even- 

 tually become ; and it may be interesting to record, that the engines 

 (24 H. P.) of the ' Regent,' the first steamboat which ran between 

 London and Margate, were made at this yard in the year 1816. 



Mr. Maudslay held for several years the contract for supplying 

 the Royal Navy with ship tanks, and this led to his making im- 

 proved machinery for punching and shearing the iron plates used 

 in their manufacture, reducing the cost of preparing the plates for 

 receiving the rivets from seven shillings, to ninepence, per Tank. 



Mr. Maudslay has been described by his friend Mr. James Nasmyth 

 as the very beau-ideal of an honest, upright, straightforward, hard- 

 working intelligent Englishman : he died in his 60th year from a 

 severe cold which he had caught on his way home from a visit to 

 France, and was buried in Woolwich churchyard, in a vault he had 

 caused to be constructed there ; the monument and tablet erected 

 to his memory were of cast iron, and were made from a design of 

 his own. Maudslay married when twenty years old Sarah Tindel, 

 by whom he had four sons and three daughters, of whom now sur- 

 vive only one daughter, and one son Thomas Henry Maudslay. 

 From particulars communicated ty members of the present firm of 

 Maudslay, Sons and Field. Smile's Industrial Biography. London, 

 1863. 



