INDUSTRIES 



These works will be noticed more particu- 

 larly later. In the meantime we have to 

 deal with the important manufactories of en- 

 gines and the engineering works which were 

 established more especially in Southwark and 

 Lambeth during the course of the nineteenth 

 century. Several of these have been carried 

 on by engineers who have been amongst the 

 most distinguished in their profession in a 

 century characterized by nothing so much as 

 by its engineering triumphs. 



A considerable number of engineers seem 

 indeed to have been established in business 

 about Southwark, Bermondsey and Lambeth 

 towards the close of the eighteenth century. 

 A study of the published indexes to the 

 patents of inventions granted during this 

 period and the first half of the following 

 century shows that a very large proportion of 

 those for inventions and improvements in 

 machinery were taken out by engineers and 

 others hailing from this district, and bears 

 strong testimony to the activity of their in- 

 ventive genius. Bryan Donkin, for instance, 

 who first appears as a millwright of Dartford, 

 Kent, but was afterwards settled as an en- 

 gineer in Fort Place, Bermondsey, and whom 

 we shall have occasion to refer to later in 

 this account of the industries of Surrey in 

 connection with improvements in the manu- 

 facture of paper and printing machinery, took 

 out between 1803 and 1850 eleven patents. 

 Some of these were in conjunction with 

 others, his inventions besides those for paper 

 and printing extending to other machinery 

 and to the manufacture of pens,' lace,^ 

 wheels for railway carriages,^ steam engines 

 and fluid meters.* Another Surrey engineer 

 who was somewhat prolific in inventions was 

 John CoUinge of Lambeth, the founder of 

 Messrs. Collinges' machinery and patent axle- 

 tree works in the Westminster Bridge Road, 

 which seem to have been of considerable ex- 

 tent about the year 1826.* This manufac- 

 tory is among those in Lambeth mentioned 

 by Lysons in 1811.* Between 1787 and 

 1830 Collinge took out eight patents. Three 

 of these — his first on 2 November 1787,^ 

 his second on 17 July 1792 * and his fourth 

 on 9 March 1 8 1 1 ^ — were for carriage wheel 

 boxes and axle-trees, which became the 

 speciality of his firm. His remaining patents 



1 Pat. of Invention, No. 31 18. 



^ Ibid. No. 4842. 3 Ibid. No. 10932. 



* Ibid. No. 12964. 



« Allen, Hist, of Lambeth, 304. 



» Environs of London (ed. 2), i. 229. 



' Pat. of Invention, No. 1626. 



8 Ibid. No. 1899. » Ibid, No. 3410. 



include improvements in sugar mills,'" in the 

 cast-iron rollers for the same,'' in hinges,'" 

 springs for closing doors and gates," and ap- 

 paratus for hanging ships' rudders.'* In his 

 first patent he is described merely as a cabinet 

 maker of Bridge Road, Lambeth, but subse- 

 quently appears as a wheel-box and axle-tree 

 maker, until in 1821 he is dignified as an 

 engineer. Charles Collinge of the same firm, 

 also an engineer, patented further improve- 

 ments in the manufacture of axle-trees on 

 2 May 1833.'" In connection with this 

 manufacture of carriage accessories we may 

 here recall the fact that the elliptic spring 

 which superseded to so great an ex- 

 tent the leathern straps on which carriages 

 had been generally hung since early in the 

 eighteenth century was the invention of 

 Obadiah Elliott, a coachmaker of St. Mary's, 

 Lambeth. Elliott took out a patent for this 

 invention on 11 May 1805, and on this 

 spring most carriages have since been 

 mounted.'* 



Among the famous engineers who at some 

 period of their career resided in Surrey it is 

 interesting to note Marc Isambard Brunei, 

 who at his first settling in England seems to 

 have lived at Newington. Shortly after- 

 wards however he must have removed to 

 Canterbury Place, Lambeth ; for he is de- 

 scribed as of this place on 1 1 April 1799 in 

 the patent, the first taken out by him in this 

 country, for an invention of a duplicating 

 writing or drawing machine." But two 

 years afterwards he had gone to live on the 

 Middlesex side of the Thames, and appears 

 as of Bedford Street, Bedford Square, in his 

 second patent, taken out in February 1801.'^ 

 Two of his more important engineering feats 

 may be noticed here, as they especially con- 

 cern our county. These were the erection 

 of his saw-mills at Bermondsey, the destruc- 

 tion of which by fire in 1814 led to his 

 bankruptcy, and, the most remarkable of all 

 his undertakings, the construction of the 

 Thames tunnel under the bed of the river at 

 Rotherhithe. This was commenced in 1825 

 and opened in 1843." 



The most important engine factories and 

 machinery works which have existed in Sur- 

 rey were those founded by the famous en- 

 gineers Rennie and Maudslay in Southwark 

 and Lambeth respectively. These were con- 



i» Ibid. No. 2019. " Ibid. No. 4583. 



12 Ibid. No. 4617. " Ibid. No. 5123. 

 " Ibid. No. 6023. " Ibid. No. 6415. 

 " Ibid. No. 2846. " Ibid. No. 2305. 



18 Ibid. No. 2478. 



19 Art. ' Brunei ' in Chambers's Encyclopaedia. 



415 



