84 General History of Bath. 



pitality which no one could better display. The charities 

 of the city were warmly championed, its beauties were 

 cultivated, and the early efforts of genius were sedulously 

 fostered. 



The third member of the Triumvirate, John 



John Wood. . , . . , 



Wood, was an able architect, brought to 

 Bath by Allen about the year 1727. He came just in 

 time to impress upon the city which was to spring up, the 

 stamp of his rare genius. 



Wood was more than an architect. He was an adminis- 

 trator of a type rarely met with. The stagnation of the 

 building trade had been so absolute during the seventeenth 

 century that there were no competent workmen. Wood 

 tells us how he had to bring gangs of excavators from the 

 Chelsea waterworks, masons from Yorkshire, carpenters and 

 plaisterers from London. " And it was," he continues,. 

 " then only that the lever, the pulley, and the windlass were 

 introduced amongst the artificers in the upper part of 

 Somersetshire, before which time the masons made use of 

 no other method to hoist up their heavy stones, than that 

 of dragging them up with small ropes against the sides of a 

 ladder." 



The work which the Triumvirate effected will 



^of ^^e'clt'r™ "^'^ '^^^'' dwelHng upon in detail. Pitching 

 and paving, laying out broad streets, scaveng- 

 ing, watching and lighting, are now matters of course. Then, 

 they were startling novelties. Each step towards sanitary re- 

 form had to be taken in defiance of a chorus of obstructives, 

 in scorn of the prophecies of the " laudatores temporis acti." 



But perhaps the severest contest of all was with a gang of 

 licensed marauders, the Bath chairmen. We have now to 

 deal with a body of men particularly noted for their civil and 



