I'IMOFACE. ix 



Esq., of Hamsdell Hall, Cheshire ; the documents relating 

 to the engineer in the possession of Lord Ellesinere, 

 proprietor of the Bridgewater Canal ; and the valuable 

 MS. collection of Joseph Mayer, Esq., of Liverpool. The 

 a ut 1 loi- has also to acknowledge information obtained from 

 Robert Rawlinson, Esq., engineer to the Bridgewater 

 (/anal, relative to certain interesting details as to the exe- 

 cution of the works of that undertaking. 



The materials for the Life of John Eennie have been 

 mainly obtained from Sir John Rennie, C.E., who lias 

 kindly placed at the author's disposal the elaborate 

 MSS. prepared by Sir John, descriptive of his father's 

 great works ; of which no consecutive account has been 

 published until the present memoir. 



The Life of Telford has been principally derived 

 from a large collection of that engineer's confidential 

 letters to his friends in Eskdale, in the possession of Mr. 

 Little, of Carlesgill, near Langholm, containing Telford's 

 own account of the early part of his career ; whilst, in 

 the later part, the author has had the assistance of Joseph " 

 Mitchell, Esq., and other gentlemen. In preparing this 

 part of the w r ork, the author has reversed the process 

 adopted in the ' Life of Telford ' already published : he 

 has omitted the engineer's reports, but included the bio- 

 graphy ; by which method he believes the narrative will 

 be found considerably improved. 



The author's principal labour has consisted in compress- 

 ing rather than in expanding the large mass of materials 

 placed at his disposal. It would indeed have been much 

 easier to devote two volumes to each of the following 

 lives ilia n it has been to comprise the whole of them 

 within a like compass; but he believes that labour is 

 well bestowed in condensing biography up to a certain 

 point, provided no essential feature is omitted the inte- 



