viii PBEFACK. 



has rendered fire and water the most untiring workers in 

 all branches of industry, and the most effective agents in 

 locomotion by land and sea. Nearly all this has been 

 accomplished during the last century, much of it within 

 the life of the present generation. How and by whom 

 these great achievements have been mainly effected 

 exercising as they have done so large an influence upon 

 society, and constituting as they do so important an 

 element in our national history it is the object of the 

 following pages to relate. 



It was the author's original intention to have briruu 

 this work with the Life of Brindley, the earliest of our 

 canal engineers. But on mentioning the subject to 

 the late Mr. Robert Stephenson after the publication of 

 his father's Life had shown that this class of biography 

 was not so unattractive to general readers as he had 

 apprehended the author was urged by that gentleman 

 to trace the history of English engineering from the 

 beginning, and to include the labours of Vermuyden, 

 and especially of Sir Hugh Myddelton, a person of 

 great merit and boldness, considering the times in which 

 he lived, and whom Mr. Stephenson considered entitled 

 to special notice as being the First English Engineer. 

 Memoirs of these men have accordingly been included 

 in the series ; and in preparing them the author has 

 availed himself of the information afforded by the collec- 

 tion of State Papers, and (in the case of Myddelton) the 

 Corporation Records of the City of London. He has 

 also to acknowledge the valuable assistance of W. C. 

 Mylne, Esq., engineer to the New River Company, and 

 the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, M.A., of Clyst St. George, 

 Devon, a lineal descendant of Sir Hugh Myddelton. 



The Life of Brindley has been derived almost entirely 

 from original sources ; amongst which may be mentioned 

 the family papers in the possession of Robert Williamson, 



