SMEATON'S HOUSE AT AUSTHORPE. 

 [By Percival Skelton, after an original Drawing by T. Suteliffe, Leeds.] 



CHAPTER VI. 



SMEATON'S PRIVATE LIFE DEATH AND CHARACTER. 



WHILST Mr. Smeaton was thus extensively employed as 

 an engineer throughout the three kingdoms, his home 

 continued to be at Austhorpe, near Leeds, where he had 

 been born. The mechanical experiments of his boyhood 

 had been conducted there, as were also those of his 

 maturer years. His father had allowed him the privi- 

 lege of a workshop in an outhouse, which he long con- 

 tinued to enjoy ; after which, when the house had 

 become his settled home, he erected a shop, study, and 

 observatory, all in one, for his own special use. The 

 building was in the form of a square tower, four stories 

 high, standing apart from his dwelling, on the opposite 



