CHAP. TT. MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER. 11 



his son desired to adopt. No doubt lie thought that by 

 giving up the position of a member of a learned and 

 lucrative profession, and descending to the level of a 

 mechanical workman, his son was performing an act of 

 great folly, for there was no such thing then as the pro- 

 fession of a civil engineer. Almost the only mecha- 

 nical work of importance done at that time was executed 

 by millwrights and others, at labourers' wages, as we 

 have already seen in the Life of Brindley. The edu- 

 cated classes eschewed mechanical callings, which were 

 neither regarded as honourable nor remunerative ; and 

 that Smeaton should have felt so strongly impelled to 

 depart from the usual course and enter upon a line 

 of occupation, must be attributed entirely to his innate 

 love of construction, or, as he himself expressed it to his 

 father, the strong " bent of his genius." 



When he received his father's letter, the young man 

 experienced the joy of a prisoner on hearing of his re- 

 prieve, and he lost no time in exercising his new-found 

 liberty. He sought out for himself a philosophical 

 instrument maker, who could give him instruction in the 

 business he proposed to follow, and entered into his 

 service, his father being at the expense of his main- 

 tenance. In due course of time, however, he was 

 enabled to earn enough to maintain himself; but his 

 father continued to assist him liberally on every occa- 

 sion when money was required either for purposes of 

 instruction or of business. 



Young Smeaton did not live a mere workman's life, 

 but frequented the society of educated men, and was a 

 regular attendant of the meetings of the Royal Society. 

 In 1750, he lodged in Great Turnstile, a passage leading 

 from the south side of Holborn to the east side of 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields ; and shortly after, when he com- 

 menced business as a mathematical instrument maker on 

 his own account, he lodged in Furnival's Inn Court, 

 from which his earlier papers read before the Royal 



