CHAP. X. niMNPU-lY's DEATH CHABACTBBI8TIC8. 467 



CHAPTER X. 



BRINDLEY'S DEATH CHARACTERISTICS. 



IT will be observed that Brindley's employment as an 

 engineer extended over a wide district. Even before 

 his employment by the Duke of Bridge water, he was 

 under the necessity of travelling great distances to fit 

 up water-mills, pumping-engines, and manufacturing 

 machinery of various kinds, in the counties of Stafford, 

 Cheshire, raid Lancashire. But when he had been 

 appointed to superintend the construction of the Duke's 

 canals, his engagements necessarily became of a still 

 more engrossing character, and he had very little leisure 

 left to devote to the affairs of private life. He lived 

 principally at inns, in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 his work ; and though his home was at Leek, he some- 

 times did not visit it for weeks together. He had very 

 little time for friendship, and still less for courtship. 

 Nevertheless, he did contrive to find time for marrying, 

 though at a comparatively advanced period of his life. 

 In laying out the Grand Trunk Canal, he was neces- 

 sarily brought into close connection with Mr. John 

 Henshall, of the Bent, near New Chapel, land-surveyor, 

 who assisted him in making the survey. We find him 

 visiting liis house in September, 1762, and settling with 

 him as to the preliminary operations. At these visits 

 Brindley serins to have taken a special liking for Mr. 

 Henshall's daughter Anne, then a girl at school, and 

 when he went to see her father, he was accustomed to 

 take a store of irinuvrlnvad for Anne in his pocket. 

 She must have been a comely girl, judging by the 

 portrait of her as a woman, which we have seen. In 



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