CHAP. T. 



SMEATON'S BOYHOOD AND EDUCATION. 



its own sake. He was never so happy as when put in 

 possession of any cutting-tool, by which he could make 

 his little imitations of houses, pumps, and windmills. 

 Even whilst a boy in petticoats he was continually 

 dividing circles and squares, and the only playthings in 

 which he seemed to take any real pleasure were his 

 models of things that would "work." When any car- 

 penters or masons were employed in the neighbour- 

 hood of his father's house, the inquisitive boy was sure 

 to be amongst them, watching the men, observing how 

 they handled their tools, and frequently asking them 

 questions. His life-long friend, Mr. Holmes, 1 who knew 

 him in his youth, has related that having one day 

 observed some millwrights at work, shortly after, to the 

 great alarm of his family, he was seen fixing some- 

 thing like a windmill on the top of his father's barn. 

 On another occasion, when watching some workmen 

 fixing a pump in the village, he was so lucky as to pro- 

 cure from them a piece of bored pipe, which he succeeded 

 in fashioning into a working pump that actually raised 

 water. His odd cleverness, however, does not seem to 

 have been appreciated ; and it is told of him that 

 amongst the other boys he was known as " Fooely 

 Smeaton ;" for, though forward enough in putting ques- 

 tions to the workpeople, amongst boys of his own age 

 he was remarkably shy, and, as they thought, stupid. 



At a proper age the boy was sent to school at Leeds. 

 That town then possessed, as it still does, the great 

 advantage of an excellent free grammar school, founded 

 by the benefactions of Catholics in early times, after- 

 wards greatly augmented by the endowment of one 

 John Harrison, a native of the town, about the period of 



1 An eminent clock and watch- 

 maker in the Strand, afterwards 

 Smeaton's partner in the Deptford 

 Waterworks. His ' Short Narrative 

 of the Genius, Life, and Works of 

 the late Mr. John Smeaton, C.E., 



F.R.S.,' published in 1793, contains 

 the gist of nearly all the notices of 

 Smeaton's life which have since been 

 published ; but it is a very meagre 

 account of only a few pages in length. 



