230 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OE 
lie took the bull by the horns, and commanded the mortars to be instantly 
proceeded with, and under my entire control. All honor be to his memory. 
The original design for these mortars, as above described, was that laid 
before Mr. C. Mare, then of the Thames Iron Works, Blackwall. Those 
works at that date (1855), with the exception of the Mersey Steel and 
Iron Company (now Messrs. Horsfall), at Liverpool, possessed the largest 
and best forging appliances in England. It was for other reasons desirable, 
if possible, to execute the work in the Port of London. 
The work being explained to Mr. Mare and to his forge manager, Mr. 
Hardy, and rapid execution urged as essential, it was represented by them 
that the making, bending, and welding of these broad and heavy rings must 
prove a work of difficulty and delay. They proposed to forge great square 
slabs, and to cut the rings out from these in one piece, and avoid bending 
and welding; and intimated that they would only undertake the work in 
that way. 
With reluctance I consented to this being tried; and upon this basis the 
contract for execution was made, 11th June, 1855, and the work at once 
commenced. 
After two or three weeks had been spent in attempts to forge the huge 
slabs out of which the rings were proposed being cut, and to forge one 
of the chamber pieces, during which I was frequently present, it was obvious 
to me that the contractors were quite in error as to their notions of pro¬ 
ducing these large pieces of wrought-iron, and that their method must be 
abandoned. 
Hot long after, the contractors bankruptcy occurred, and it became neces¬ 
sary to arrange with his assignees for the completion of the Contract. The 
beds, &c. were in progress, the cast-iron base pieces cast, other work done, 
and instalments paid on account prior to the above event. I now there¬ 
fore reverted, as regarded the construction of the chases of the mortars, to 
my original design, with this modification—that to obviate any difficulty as 
to bending and welding the rings of heavy scantlings, and to hasten the pro¬ 
duction of the rings themselves by rolling the iron for them in place of 
forging it, and so at the same time to improve its quality and fibre, I reduced 
the thickness and width of the rings, and built up the entire thickness of 
the lowest segment of the chase in seven plies in place of only in two, there 
being four plies at the muzzle. The rings, from their now manageable 
scantlings, all admitted of “scarph and lap” welding under the steam 
hammer, thus embracing the best conditions for sound welding. 
The execution of all parts of the mortars in this way was then entrusted 
to Mr. C. Mare's assignees under a new contract, which included the fitting 
into place of the chamber pieces—a contract for the production of which 
was made, as stated in General Lefroy's memoir, at Liverpool, and was 
efficiently carried out there. 
In reviewing after this lapse of time these changes, and this mode in which 
these mortars have been built up in so many thin plies, it must be borne in 
mind that we were then in pre-armour-plating and Eraser gun days; that 
forge work upon the scale now familiar, was but just coming above the 
horizon; and that, besides the limited forging appliances then to be had, 
there were none of those Herculean tools for bending and shaping, as well 
as for rolling enormous masses of wrought-iron, now become common. 
