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176  METROPOLITAN   KAILWAY 

great  pleasure,  and  none  more  so  than  your  own  father,  while 
life  is  permitted  him  to  enjoy  the  reflection  of  that  day's 
proceedings.  ...  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  reading  the 
report  of  the  proceedings  (which  I  think  correctly  stated),  and 
especially  your  speech ;  all  parties  who  have  read  it  seem  to 
make  out  that  it  was  to  the  point,  and  the  proper  word,  and 
each  word  in  its  place. 

"  Your  generosity  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Johnson's  great  assist- 
ance does  credit  alike  to  your  head  and  your  heart.  Several 
who  have  read  your  speech  make  the  same  remark  as  myself. 

"  And  now,  my  dear  John,  I  hope  that  the  very  high  esti- 
mation in  which  your  friends  and  the  public  hold  you,  will 
not  have  the  effect  to  raise  yourself  nor  any  part  of  your  family 
in  your  own  importance,  but  that  you  will  keep  that  humble 
and  even  path  in  life  which  has  hitherto  marked  your  progress 
in  all  these  matters.  I  beg  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  and 
pressing  invitation  to  the  opening,  and  I  am  glad  I  accepted 
it.  I  believe  I  have  not  taken  any  cold,  and  am  very  well 
this  morning.  ...  "  Yours  affectionately, 

"JOHN  FOWLER. 

"John  Fowler,  Esq." 

A  correspondent,  Mr.  Charles  Stanley,  writing  con- 
gratulations to  Mr.  Fowler  on  the  opening  of  the 
Metropolitan  Railway,  recalls  a  committee-room  incident 
of  the  year  1845  :— 

"During  the  great  parliamentary  campaign  of  1845,  when 
two  rival  lines  were  projected  from  Sheffield  into  Derbyshire, 
I  remember  hearing  you  cross-examined  as  to  one  of  them 
which  skirted  the  moors.  'I  believe,  Mr.  Fowler/  said  the 
opposing  counsel,  'your  line  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Grouse 
and  Trout  Line.'  'Very  likely/  you  replied,  'and  your  line 
is  called  the  Flute  Line,  because  it  is  nearly  all  tunnel/  It 
is  singular  that  you  should  have  now  sensibly  added  to  your 
fame  by  the  construction  of  a  line,  the  distinguishing  charac- 
teristic of  which  is  that  it  is  nearly  all  tunnel — in  fact,  a 
genuine  flute  line." 


SUBSEQUENT  DEVELOPMENTS  177 

With  regard  to  the  services  of  the  late  City  solicitor, 
Mr.  Pearson,  Mr.  Fowler  was  much  gratified  in  being 
able  to  put  in  a  favourable  light  the  claims  of  his  widow 
on  the  Metropolitan  Company  and  also  on  the  Corpora- 
tion, and  among  the  letters  preserved  is  a  very  grateful 
acknowledgment  of  his  kindness  from  Mrs.  Pearson. 

The  work  of  Fowler  in  making  the  Metropolitan 
Railway  was  a  pioneer  effort,  and  many  improvements 
have  since  been  added  to  the  business  of  tunnelling 
under  cities.  The  usefulness  of  a  pioneer  effort  is 
often,  as  we  have  already  insisted,  to  be  measured  by 
the  rapidity  and  completeness  with  which  its  methods 
are  improved  and  superseded. 

In  the  foregoing  description  of  the  Metropolitan 
Railway  we  mentioned  how  important  the  engineers 
considered  it  to  complete  the  tunnel  arch  at  as  early 
a  point  of  the  construction  as  possible.  In  the  later 
period  of  the  work  the  arch  was  keyed  and  the  soil 
under  the  arch,  "the  dumpling,"  was  removed  after- 
wards. In  recent  years  the  ^shield  patented  by  Brunei . 
as  long  ago  as  1818  has  been  used  with  success  for 
the  driving  of  iron  tunnels  through  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  at  so  low  a  depth  that  disturbance  of  the  surface 
and  buildings  no  longer  occurs.  A  steel  cylinder  forced 
forward  by  hydraulic  pressure  prepares  the  way,  and,  as 
the  material  is  removed  and  the  steel  cylinder  works 
its  way  forward,  an  iron  tunnel  of  a  slightly  smaller 
diameter  is  put  in  its  place.  The  space  so  left  round 
the  outside  of  the  iron  tunnel  is  filled  with  a  prepara- 
tion of  strong  cement,  forced  in  by  compressed  air 
at  a  pressure  of  50  Ibs.  to  the  square  inch.  The  whole 
structure  is  thus  sealed  and  completed  with  a  minimum 
of  disturbance  to  existing  buildings. 

N 


JL115KAK 1 
SSIVER6ITY  OF 
DAVIS 


LIFE   OF   SIR  JOHN    FOWLER 


THE    LIFE    OF 

SIR  JOHN  FOWLER 

ENGINEER 

BART.,  K.C.M.G.,   ETC. 


BY    THOMAS    MACKAY 


WITH   EIGHTEEN  ILLUSTRATIONS 


LONDON 

JOHN   MURRAY,  ALBEMARLE  STREET 
1900 


LIBRARY 


PLYMOUTH 

WILLIAM   BRENDON  AND  SON 
PRINTERS 


PREFACE 

life  of  a  great  practical  engineer,  whose  labours 
cover  the  last  sixty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  might  without  irrelevance  be  made  the 
occasion  of  writing  a  history  of  modern  engineering. 
It  was  Sir  John  Fowler's  business  to  utilise,  in  the 
interest  of  his  clients,  the  inventions  and  discoveries 
of  a  most  prolific  half-century  of  progress,  and  an 
enumeration  of  these  would  in  itself  constitute  a 
very  complete  chronicle  of  the  advance  of  engineering 
science. 

In  such  a  treatment  of  the  subject  the  vastness 
of  the  details  must  have  overwhelmed  the  features  of 
any  single  personality,  however  eminent,  and  no  such 
ambitious  task  has  here  been  attempted.  It  has  been 
the  author's  endeavour  to  sketch  the  lights  and  shades 
of  a  strong  and  interesting  character,  and  to  indicate 
the  particular  subdivision  of  scientific  function  to  which 
Sir  John  Fowler's  energies  were  so  successfully  devoted. 

A  great  organiser,  like  Sir  John  Fowler,  appeals 
perhaps  less  strongly  to  the  imagination  than  the  great 
discoverer  or  inventor.  Still,  his  work  is  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  that  most  important  task — the 
domestication  of  science  for  the  public  service.  Our 


vi  PREFACE 

conception  of  the  industrial  and  commercial  mechanism 
of  the  age  will  be  very  incomplete,  unless  we  realise 
the  part  which  is  played  by  men  like  the  subject  of 
this  biography. 

A  large  collection  of  letters  and  papers  has  been 
placed  in  the  author's  hands  by  Lady  Fowler.  To  her 
and  to  other  members  of  the  late  Sir  John  Fowler's 
family  he  is  much  indebted  for  information,  suggestions, 
and  corrections.  He  has  also  to  acknowledge  valuable 
assistance  given  by  the  late  Mr.  Baldry,  and  by  Sir 
Benjamin  Baker,  Sir  John  Fowler's  partners.  The 
kindness  with  which  all  his  inquiries  have  been  met 
has,  he  hopes,  enabled  him  to  overcome,  in  some 
degree,  two  great  disadvantages  :  one  that  he  did  not 
know  Sir  John  Fowler  personally,  the  other  that  he  is 
not  an  engineer. 

The  work  of  preparing  the  following  narrative  has 
been  full  of  interest.  An  experience  such  as  that  of 
Sir  John  Fowler  is  a  most  important  chapter  of  in- 
dustrial history,  and  the  author  can  only  hope  that 
in  his  presentation  of  the  facts  the  interest  has  not 
been  allowed  entirely  to  evaporate. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I. 
EARLY  LIFE 

PAGE 

Birth— Parentage— Wadsley  Hall — Education— Choice  of  a  pro- 
fession— Story-telling — Apprenticeship  with  Mr.  Leather — Early 
opposition  to  Railways — First  departure  from  home — Search 
for  employment — Mr.  Rastrick — Birmingham — London — A  visit 
to  Maidenhead  Bridge  .  .  ...  1 

CHAPTER  II. 

SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

Termination  of  first  engagement  with  Mr.  Rastrick — His  younger 
brothers  —  Re-engagement  with  Mr.  Rastrick  —  Surveying  in 
Cumberland — Morecambe  Bay — Plans  for  the  future — Stockton 
and  Hartlepool  Railway — Parliamentary  business — First  engage- 
ments .  .  .  .  ...  35 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER,  1844-1850 

Mr.  Fowler  sets  up  in  business  for  himself — List  of  engagements — 
Parliamentary  Committees  —  Expert  witnesses — The  Railway 
mania  —  Demand  for  Engineers  —  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire  Railway — The  Great  Central — Railway  politics — 
The  duty  of  an  Engineer — Mr.  Sidney's  ride — Railways  and 
agriculture — New  Holland — Torksey  Bridge — Article  on  Rail- 
way accidents  .  .  .  .  59 

CHAPTER   IV. 
PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  WORK,  1850-1860 

The  modern  engineer — Fowler's  power  of  organisation — Success  an 
index  of  worth — Fowler's  professional  courage — His  subordinates 
—His  partner,  Mr.  Baldry — Marriage — Early  home — Mr.  Hudson 
— Proposal  to  stand  for  Parliament — His  industry — Ireland — 
Irish  Railways — Other  works  .  .  ...  105 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  NENE  IMPROVEMENT  AND  NORFOLK  ESTUARY 

Nene  improvement — The  Fens — The  Nene  outfall — Operations  at 
Wisbech  —  Mr.  Fowler's  speech  on  Arterial  Drainage  —  The 
Norfolk  Estuary— Grunty  Fen  .  .  ...  134 

CHAPTER  VI. 
METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

Earlier  proposals — Committee  on  Metropolitan  Communications — 
Mr.  Fowler's  evidence — The  Report — The  State  and  Railways — 
The  work  begun— The  cost — The  underground  rivers— Levels 
and  gradients — Archaeological  discoveries — Methods  of  construc- 
tion— Ventilation — Mr.  Fowler's  letter — The  opening  ceremony 
— Letter  to  Mr.  Gladstone — Congratulations — Subsequent  de- 
velopments .  .  .  .  ...  145 

CHAPTER  VII. 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  INSTITUTION  OF  CIVIL  ENGINEERS 
Visit  to  Glasgow  Waterworks — Dunrobin — Fowler  as  Volunteer — 
President  of  the  Institution — His  address — Cooper's  Hill — Visit 
to  India — A  great  organiser         .  .  .  .    '    .     179 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
MR.  FOWLER  AND  GENERAL  GARIBALDI:    AN  EPISODE 

Roman  Floods — The  Engineering  problem — Garibaldi's  proposal — 
Fowler's  interview  with  Garibaldi — His  letter — Mr.  Wilson's 
Report — Mr.  Fowler's  diplomatic  success  .  .  .  193 

CHAPTER   IX. 
A  PROPOSAL  FOR  A  CHANNEL  FERRY 

International  Communications  Bill — Water  Station  at  Dover — Bill 
passes  the  Commons  and  is  rejected  in  the  Lords — Mr.  Fowler's 
disappointment  .  .  .  ...  203 

CHAPTER  X. 
EGYPT 

Fowler's  power  of  enjoyment — His  love  of  society — Arrival  in 
Egypt — Is  introduced  to  Khedive — Visits  the  Pyramids — His 
opinion  on  ancient  Egyptian  workmanship — Letter  to  a  child — 
Travels  with  the  Prince  of  Wales — Visits  Suez  Canal — Appointed 
Engineer  to  Khedive — The  Pax  Britannica — Sugar — Soudan 
Railway — Navigation  of  the  Nile — Gordon — Construction  of 
Railway  discontinued — Letters  from  Gordon — A  Sweet- water 
Canal — Lecture  on  Egypt  —  Irrigation — Barrage  —  Cleopatra's 
Needle — Finance — Ismail  deposed — Letter  from  Lord  Wolseley 
— Visits  to  Australia  and  India  .  212 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XL 
THE  FORTH  BRIDGE 

PAGE 

The  Firth  of  Forth— The  old  passage— Sir  T.  Bouch— Cantilever 
principle — The  demand  of  the  time — The  cost — The  foundations 
— Caissons — Wind  pressure — Workshops  at  Queensferry — Build- 
ing out  the  cantilevers — The  central  girder — The  rocking  pillar 
—Directors  and  staff — Sir  John  on  the  materials — Opening 
ceremony — Sir  John's  speech — Sir  Benjamin  Baker's  reply  to 
Mr.  Morris — Letter  from  Mr.  Waterhouse,  R.A.  .  .  .  276 

CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

Private  and  public  life — Friends  and  amusements— The  making  of 
Braemore — The  Engineer  as  Highland  laird — As  yachtsman — 
His  hospitality — A  visitor's  reminiscence — His  admiration  of 
intellect — Political  views — Letters  to  the  Times  on  Egypt — Candi- 
date for  Hallamshire — Views  on  Crofter  and  Deer  Forest  questions 
— His  recreations  and  tastes — As  chairman  of  a  learned  society — 
Letter  from  Sir  Benjamin  Baker — Last  days — The  greatness  of 
the  Arts  of  Peace  318 


APPENDIX 

Address  of  John  Fowler,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Institution  of  Civil 
Engineers,  on  taking  the  chair,  for  the  first  time  after  his 
election,  January  9th,  1866  .  .  ...  365 

INDEX  393 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

SIR  JOHN  FOWLER,  from  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Elliott  and  Fry    Frontispiece 
THE  VICTORIA  BRIDGE,  PIMLICO  .  .  .    To  face  page  132 

THE  MAKING  OF  THE  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY  .  .  ,,  166 

A  TRIAL  TRIP  ON  THE  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY  .  ,,  172 

SIR  JOHN  FOWLER,  from  a  portrait  by  Sir  J.  E.  Millais,  P.R.A.,  in  the 

Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  .  .  .    To  face  page   184 

MODEL  OF  THE  CHANNEL  FERRY  STEAMER  .  .  ,,           205 

FACSIMILE  OF  LETTER  FROM  GENERAL  GORDON  TO  MR.  FOWLER     Page  253 

PLAN  OF  PROPOSED  SWEET- WATER  SHIP-CANAL  .  .  To  face  page  256 

A  LIVING  MODEL  OF  THE  FORTH  BRIDGE  .  .  „           282 

INCHGARVIE  MAIN  PIER         .               .  .  ,,  300 

THE  FORTH  BRIDGE  FROM  THE  SOUTH-EAST  .  .  ,,           303 

THE  I'ORTH  BRIDGE  FROM  THE  SOUTH-WEST  .  .  „           311 

THE  FORTH  BRIDGE — METHOD  OF  ERECTION  .  .  ,,           315 

THE  HOUSE  OF  BRAEMORE      .               .  .  „  322 

CORRIE-HALLOCH,  BRAEMORE                 .  .  .  ,,           325 

THE    RECREATIONS    OF   A    STATESMAN,  from   a  sketch   by  Sir   J.   E. 

Millais,  P.R.A.     .  .  .  .  .    To  face  page   328 

STAGS  AND  HINDS,  from  a  sketch  by  Sir  E.  Landseer,  R.A.   .  ,,  328 

SIR  JOHN  FOWLER  AND  HIS  ELDEST  GRANDSON  .  .  ,,  335 

THE  FINDHORN  VIADUCT  358 


LIFE 


OF 


SIR   JOHN    FOWLER 


CHAPTER    I. 

EARLY   LIFE 

JOHN  FOWLER,  the  subject  of  this  biography,  was 
born  at  his  father's  house,  Wadsley  Hall,  near 
Sheffield,  on  the  15th  of  July,  1817.  For  more  than 
200  years  the  Fowler  family  had  been  connected  with 
Wincobank,  a  district  called  after  the  hill  of  that  name 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sheffield.  John  Fowler  the 
father,  himself  the  son  of  a  John  Fowler  of  Winco- 
bank, was  brought  to  be  baptised  at  Ecclesfield  Church 
on  the  18th  of  June,  1784.  Though  living  all  his  life 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sheffield,  he  never  became 
closely  connected  with  the  mineral  industries  of  the 
district.  In  early  life  he  was  among  the  young 
patriots  of  the  day  who  took  an  active  part  in  forming 
a  regiment  of  volunteers  to  resist  the  French  invasion 
threatened  by  Napoleon.  At  the  age  of  nineteen  he 
was  lieutenant  and  quartermaster  in  a  band  of  200 
raised  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ecclesfield.  A  false 
alarm,  caused  by  the  accidental  lighting  of  a  beacon 
B 


2  EAELY  LIFE 

fire,  called  out  the  regiment  and  marched  them  off  to 
the  east  coast.  This  military  incident  in  an  otherwise 
uneventful  life  was  often  the  subject  of  some  pleasant 
merriment  in  the  family  circle,  and  as  late  as  1868  the 
old  gentleman  wrote  a  brief  account  of  the  bloodless 
career  of  the  Ecclesfield  volunteers,  which  Dr.  Gatty 
has  incorporated  in  his  edition  of  Hunter's  History  of 
Hallamshire. 

For  five  years  Mr.  Fowler  gave  close  attention  to  his 
military  duties  ;  he  then  retired  and  applied  himself 
to  his  profession,  that  of  a  land  surveyor.  It  is 
pleasant  to  think  that  within  sound  of  the  whirr 
and  grinding  of  the  Sheffield  machinery  it  was  pos- 
sible for  one  whose  tastes  lay  in  that  direction  to 
win  competence  and  reputation  from  the  ancient 
industry  of  the  land,  and  to  rear  a  family  of  healthy 
and  stalwart  sons  ready  to  play  their  part  in  the  careers 
which  economic  changes  rendered  for  them  inevitable. 
His  residence  of  Wadsley  Hall  was  the  place  where 
the  courts  of  the  manor  of  Wadsley  were  held,  a  link 
with  the  vanishing  order  of  things,  yet  standing  on  the 
confines  of  the  new  industry,  and  soon  to  be  the  birth- 
place of  one  who  played  an  important  part  in  the 
economic  revolution  which  was  then  pending.  The 
elder  Fowler  could  resist  the  attraction  which  has  ever 
been  drawing  the  population  from  the  country  and  its 
pursuits  to  the  town,  and  to  the  triumphs,  the  suffer- 
ings, and  the  still  unsolved  problems  of  the  modern 
industrial  system.  John  Fowler  the  son,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  eagerly  and  confidently  and  with  a  real 
enjoyment  of  work  and  struggle,  threw  himself  into 
the  stream  of  the  new  industry,  and  was  carried  to 
successes  typical  not  only  of  the  noble  profession  which 


PAKENTAGE  3 

he  had  embraced,  but  indicative  also  of  high  personal 
qualities  of  courage,  endurance,  and  skill. 

To  return,  however,  to  his  parentage.  John  Fowler 
the  elder  married  on  the  24th  of  December,  1815, 
Miss  Elizabeth  Swann,  daughter  of  William  Swann  of 
Dykes  Hall.  In  a  letter,  written  at  the  time  of  his 
wife's  death,  to  his  daughter-in-law  (wife  of  Sir  John 
Fowler),  Mr.  Fowler  recounts  the  history  of  his  two 
years'  courtship  and  of  his  marriage  on  Christmas  Eve 
to  Miss  Swann ;  he  relates  how  they  decided  to  remain 
in  his  home  at  Wadsley  instead  of  spending  the  honey- 
moon in  travel,  and  how,  in  the  drawing-room  of  the 
bride's  new  home,  after  the  wedding  guests  had  gone, 
he  offered  a  prayer,  specially  prepared  by  himself  for 
the  occasion.  This  prayer  found  its  answer  in  many 
long  years  of  happy  married  life. 

Mrs.  Fowler  belonged  to  the  generation  which  valued 
highly  the  arts  of  the  good  housewife,  and  in  these  she 
excelled.  To  her  intelligence  and  capacity  were  due 
the  admirable  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the 
large  family  circle  at  Wadsley  Hall.  Her  husband, 
who  inherited  from  his  father  a  fine  physique  and  a 
stature  of  six  feet,  was  a  man  of  amiable  and  most 
trustworthy  character.  So  highly  esteemed  was  his 
probity,  that  he  not  infrequently  was  asked  to  act  as 
sole  valuator  by  contending  parties.  His  habits  of  life 
were  most  methodical ;  up  to  the  last  year  of  his  life 
he  never  retired  to  rest  without  making  a  personal 
inspection  of  his  farm  premises,  in  order  to  see  that 
every  animal  had  received  its  proper  share  of  attention. 

To  this  couple  was  born  on  the  15th  of  July,  1817, 
the  subject  of  this  biography,  John  Fowler  the 
engineer.  Other  children  came  in  due  course  : 


4  EARLY  LIFE 

William,  who  established  large  ironworks  near  Chester- 
field ;  Henry,  an  engineer,  who  died  on  his  return  from 
India,  comparatively  young ;  Charles,  an  architect,  who 
emigrated  to  Australia ;  Robert,  a  solicitor  in  West- 
minster; and  Frederick,  who  succeeded  to  and  ex- 
tended the  paternal  business  ;  one  daughter  married 
Mr.  Whitton,  government  engineer  of  railways  in  New 
South  Wales  ;  a  second  married  Captain  Holmes,  of 
Norfolk ;  a  third  remained  unmarried  in  attendance  on 
her  father.  Mrs.  Fowler,  the  mother,  died  on  the 
5th  of  June,  1858.  Her  husband  survived  her  for 
many  years,  and  died  on  the  19th  of  August,  1872,  in 
his  eighty-ninth  year.1* 

Mr.  Fowler  the  elder  was  an  energetic  man  of 
business,  but  his  interests  lay  somewhat  apart  from  the 
new  industry.  The  career  of  John  Fowler  the  son  was 
mapped  out  by  himself.  His  early  letters  to  his  father, 
though  testifying  to  his  filial  affection  and  respect, 
rarely  ask  for  advice,  but  exhibit  a  confident,  self- 
reliant  tone  which  is  not  a  little  remarkable  in  one  so 
young.  The  son,  soon  immersed  in  the  restless  whirl 
of  the  new  industry,  is  fond  of  poking  a  little  kindly 

*  The  Rev.  J.  EASTWOOD,  in  his  learned  History  of  the  Parish  of  Ecchs- 
field  (1862),  gives  some  additional  genealogical  details.  "Wadsley  Hall," 
he  says,  "was  rebuilt  in  17:22  by  Charles  Burton  ;  it  has  been  for  the  last 
forty-seven  years  in  the  occupation  of  John  Fowler,  Esq.,  whose  family 
sprang  from  Wincohank  in  this  parish.  Joshua  Fowler  (born  at  Wim'o- 
bank  and  baptised  at  Ecclesfield  in  1678)  died  April  27th,  1742.  His  son 
Samuel  married,  November  llth,  1731,  Hannah,  daughter  of  William 
Dixon,  of  Shiregreen,  and  died  April  6th,  1760.  John,  the  son  of  Samuel, 
born  at  Wincobank  in  1746,  married  Hannah  AVi-bster  (who  died  January 
25th,  1829,  aged  seventy-four),  and  died  May  25th,  1808.  Their  son  was 
the  present  Mr.  Fowler,  whose  wife  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  William  Swann 
of  Dykes  Hall,  died  June  5th,  1858,  aged  sixty-six,  leaving  a  numrrous 
family,  the  eldest  of  whom  is  John  Fowler  of  Queen  Square  Place, 
minster,  a  distinguished  engineer,"  etc.,  etc.  (p.  448). 


ECCLESFIELD  5 

fun  at  the  stay-at-home  instincts  of  his  parents, 
coupled  with  genuine  expressions  of  regret  that  they 
cannot  summon  up  energy  to  visit  him  at  some  of  the 
temporary  halting-places  to  which  his  professional  en- 
gagements called  him.  The  correspondence  between 
father  and  son  was  continued  to  the  end  of  the  former's 
long  life.  There  will  be  occasion  to  quote  from  it  in 
the  course  of  this  narrative ;  one  point,  however,  may 
here  be  noticed. 

It  was  a  characteristic  of  the  younger  man  that  he 
always  sought  to  make  men  talk  on  their  own  subjects. 
In  his  letters  to  his  father,  more  especially  in  later 
years,  when  his  professional  engagements  carried  him 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth — to  Spain,  to  Egypt,  and  to 
India — his  familiar  talk  (for  the  family  letter  is  a 
species  of  familiar  talk)  to  his  father  is  not  of  bridges 
and  railways  and  hydraulic  power,  but  of  cattle  and 
horses  and  agriculture. 

This  trait  may  perhaps  appear  again.  Here  it  has 
only  been  noticed  to  mark  by  the  son's  testimony  what 
we  believe  to  have  been  the  principal  secular  interest 
in  his  father's  life. 

The  parish  of  Ecclesfield  is  for  the  most  part  a  bleak 
moorland  country,  now  much  encroached  upon  by  the 
advancing  town.  Eoger  Dods  worth,  the  Yorkshire 
topographer,  visited  Ecclesfield  Church  in  1628,  and 
describes  it  as  follows  : — 

"This  church  is  called  and  that  deservedly  by  the  vulgar 
the  Mynster  of  the  Moores,  being  the  fairest  church  for  stone, 
wood,  glass  and  neat  keeping  that  ever  I  came  in  of  country 
churches." 

To  this  church,  for  many  years  after  their  marriage, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fowler  used  to  ride  across  the  fields 


6  EARLY  LIFE 

Sunday  after  Sunday,  mounted  on  an  old-fashioned 
pillion  saddle.  John  Fowler,  their  eldest  child,  ac- 
quired by  inheritance  the  vigour  of  a  family  reared  for 
generations  in  this  upland  country.  The  Yorkshireman 
of  the  moors  has  the  hardiness  of  his  surroundings,  but 
he  lives  too  near  the  stir  of  the  great  world  to  entertain 
for  long  any  of  the  dreamy  listlessness  often  character- 
istic of  those  who,  like  the  Highlander,  are  entirely 
secluded  from  the  modern  spirit.  The  family  were  in 
easy  though  not  affluent  circumstances.  There  was  no 
question  of  the  future  engineer  being  made  an  eldest 
son,  and  so  deprived  of  the  inspiriting  responsibility  of 
earning  his  own  living.  At  the  same  time  he  was  not 
stinted  of  the  sound  but  not  ornamental  education 
which  was  then  available  for  the  middle  and  pro- 
fessional classes  of  the  country. 

At  the  age  of  nine  John  Fowler  was  sent  to  Whitley 
Hall,  a  private  school  near  Ecclesfield,  kept  by  Mr. 
Eider.  Mr.  Eider  is  described  in  Mr.  Eastwood's 
book  as  one  "  under  whose  gentle  but  efficient  guidance 
many  of  the  principal  young  men  of  the  neighbourhood 
received  their  education." 

With  regard  to  his  school  days,  Sir  John  Fowler  in 
late  life  wrote  down  the  following  reminiscence,  which 
is  best  given  in  his  own  words  :— 

"  I  remember  two  incidents  there — one,  being  teased  by  an 
elder  boy  until  a  fight  took  place,  when  the  elder  boy  had  two 
front  teeth  knocked  out.  The  mother  of  the  boy  was  sent  for, 
and  a  scene  and  examination  occurred,  resulting  in  my  acquittal 
of  all  blame  and  my  resolution  never  to  fight  again — a  resolu- 
tion I  kept  through  life. 

"  Another  incident  was  a  fall  from  a  wall  and  a  cut  on  the 
eyebrows,  leaving  a  well-defined  cross,  ever  afterwards  to  be 
visible,  by  which  I  could  be  identified. 


SCHOOL  DAYS  7 

"  At  this  early  age  I  began  a  habit  of  telling  stories  in  bed, 
which  I  invented  in  the  dormitory  where  there  were  several 
boys,  and  gradually  acquired  such  proficiency  in  making  them 
more  and  more  horrible  until  timid  boys  sometimes  wept. 
Unfortunately  one  of  the  masters  happened  to  hear  something 
going  on,  and  listened,  and  heard  what  induced  him  to  put 
a  stop  to  my  improvising,  or  I  might  have  acquired  some 
curious  proficiency. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  an  attempt  to  frighten  me  by  a  big 
boy  coming  into  the  bedroom  one  night  wrapped  in  a  sheet, 
with  a  large  hollow  turnip  on  the  top  of  his  head  and  a  lighted 
candle  inside.  I  threw  a  pillow  so  well  that  the  boy  and 
candle  upset,  and  the  boy  himself  was  so  frightened  that  he 
screamed  loudly  and  brought  up  the  master,  and  we  all  got 
a  tremendous  lecture. 

"  I  was  active  and  strong,  and  could  throw  a  cricket  ball 
further  than  any  boy  of  my  age,  and  was  soon  very  much 
devoted  to  the  game.  I  never  became  scientific,  but  was  a 
hard  hitter  and  a  fast  bowler;  and  my  last  stroke  before 
giving  up  the  game  altogether  was  breaking  a  window  of  the 
parlour  of  Lord's  cricket  ground.* 

"  I  was  fairly  quick  in  elementary  scholarship,  and  in  mental 
arithmetic  was  decidedly  beyond  the  average  of  boys  and  men 
— a  gift  which  was  of  great  convenience  and  value  in  after  life. 

"  It  was  not  my  good  fortune  to  be  at  a  great  public  school 
or  at  either  of  the  Universities. 

"  I  was  always  deeply  interested  in  engineering,  both  in 
books  and  works,  and-  was  so  fixed  in  my  determination  about 
my  future  career  that  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen  I  persuaded 
my  father  to  allow  me  to  become  a  pupil  to  Mr.  J.  T.  Leather, 
who  was  engineer  of  the  Sheffield  Waterworks.  This  was 
fortunate  for  my  future  career,  as  I  had  a  thorough  training 

*  A  letter  of  congratulation  from  his  old  friend  Mr.  Bernard  Wake, 
written  to  him  on  his  being  made  a  baronet  in  1890,  recalls  to  Sir  John's 
recollection  "  their  sprightly  movements  to  Hyde  Park,  Sheffield,  to  play 
cricket  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning."  This  "peep-of-day  cricket"  Mr. 
Wake  dates  about  the  year  1834. 


8  EARLY  LIFE 

in  waterworks  engineering,  and  set  out  and  superintended  in 
my  capacity  of  pupil  the  Rivelin  and  Crookes  reservoirs  of  the 
company,  and  all  the  business  of  pipe  testing  and  pipe  laying 
in  every  detail. 

"During  my  pupilage  I  was  frequently  at  Leeds  with 
Mr.  Leather's  uncle,  who  was  engineer  of  the  Great  Aire  and 
Calder  Navigation,  Goole  Docks,  etc.,  to  give  him  assistance 
when  he  was  much  pressed  with  professional  work. 

"The  result  being  that  my  early  training  was  exclusively 
waterworks  and  hydraulic  engineering;  and  before  I  was 
nineteen  I  was  a  good  engineering  surveyor  and  leveller,  could 
set  out  works,  and  measure  them  up  for  certificates  to  be  paid 
to  contractors." 

This  record  of  a  healthy,  happy  boyhood,  of  a  brief 
and  by  no  means  richly  endowed  school  career,  to  be 
followed  by  a  cycle  of  busy  and  yet  joyous  apprentice 
years,  is  commonplace  enough.  "  Scientific  "  athleticism 
had  not  yet  become  a  part  of  the  school  curriculum, 
and  juvenile  philanthropy  was  as  yet  unknown.  There 
was  no  sign  then  of  that  introspective  melancholy  and 
sentiment  which  leads  boys  of  this  later  generation  to 
expend  their  energies  in  the  study  of  social  problems. 
Young  Fowler's  surroundings,  if  not  romantic,  were  sane 
and  healthy.  There  were  no  misgivings  in  the  air  as  to 
the  soundness  of  the  economic  foundations  of  society. 
The  future  successful  captain  of  industry  was  not  one  to 
allow  his  mind  to  be  * '  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast 
of  thought,"  and  if  misgiving  ever  occurred  to  him,  his 
robust  common  sense  would  probably  have  told  him 
that  the  career  of  a  successful  engineer  (and  of  that 
his  confident  nature  never  doubted)  would  contribute 
more  to  the  happiness  and  well-being  of  the  world 
than  many  projects  of  philanthropy.  To  bring  pure 
water  to  towns,  to  design  works  which  would  give 


CHOICE  OF  PROFESSION  9 

employment  to  thousands,  to  abolish  distance  by  means 
of  improved  locomotion,  to  make  a  home  that  should 
be  a  centre  of  domestic  happiness,  were  objects  which 
at  that  day  appealed  to  and  satisfied  the  generous 
instincts  of  youthful  ambition.  The  air  of  Yorkshire 
and  the  neighbourhood  of  Sheffield  were  not  favourable 
to  brooding  over  the  Welt-Schmerz.  When  Thoreau 
went  out  from  the  commercial  atmosphere  of  an 
American  city  for  which  he  had  no  taste,  and  set  up 
his  abode  in  a  hut  by  the  Lake  of  Walden,  a  life 
which  he  has  immortalised  in  a  charming  fragment  of 
autobiography,  there  were  those  of  his  fellow-townsmen 
who  asked  why,  if  the  superfluities  of  civilisation  were 
distasteful  to  him,  he  did  not  support  an  orphan.  Such 
questions  and  such  problems  were  not  raised  in  York- 
shire in  the  early  thirties.  Young  Fowler  became  an 
engineer  because  in  the  immediate  future  that  pro- 
fession seemed  likely  to  be  busy  beyond  all  others. 
Neither  sentimentalism  nor  an  abnormally  developed 
athleticism  tempted  him  to  decline  his  part  in  the 
workaday  world,  and  the  people  of  Sheffield,  at  that 
time  at  all  events,  did  not  put  forward  the  claim  of 
orphans.  He  became  an  engineer  because  it  was  the 
obvious  thing  to  do,  and  he  thoroughly  enjoyed  it. 

In  addition  to  the  "  elementary  scholarship,"  to 
which  allusion  is  made,  there  certainly  was  added  a 
careful  and  reverent  study  of  the  Bible.  Like  many 
greater  and  smaller  men,  Fowler  all  his  life  was 
reticent  on  religious  subjects,  but  throughout  his 
correspondence,  more  especially  in  the  letters  written 
from  Egypt  many  years  afterwards,  there  is  abundant 
evidence  that  he  knew  his  Bible. 

His    scholarly   equipment    may   have  been   narrow, 


10  EAKLY  LIFE 

viewed  in  the  light  of  modern  educational  theories ; 
but  it  was  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  write  a  terse 
and  vigorous  style.  The  corrections  which  occur  in 
his  familiar  correspondence  are  convincing  evidence  of 
a  true  literary  instinct.  Lucidity  in  even  his  most 
hurried  composition  is  never  wanting,  and  such  cor- 
rections as  are  made  are  directed  to  the  attainment  of 
greater  simplicity  in  the  structure  of  a  sentence  and 
to  a  severe  excision  of  redundancy  of  expression.  As 
a  result,  his  all  too  infrequent  contributions  on  en- 
gineering matters  to  the  Press  and  to  periodical 
literature  are  admirable  examples  of  popular  scientific 
exposition. 

It  is  a  tradition  in  Sir  John  Fowler's  family  that 
as  a  child  and  a  boy  he  was  remarkable  for  his 
destructive  habits.  As  the  principal  work  of  his  life 
was  to  be  construction  on  the  largest  and  most  suc- 
cessful scale,  the  contradiction  is  quoted  to  illustrate 
one  of  the  generalisations  of  Froebel,  viz.  that  the 
destructive  faculty  of  youth  can  be  trained  and  con- 
verted into  the  constructive  talent  of  the  adult  and 
fully  civilised  man.  Carefully  considered  in  the  light 
of  evolutionary  theory  the  paradox  becomes  a  truism. 
Civilisation  is  the  record  of  the  conversion  of  those 
human  instincts  which  Professor  Huxley  has  described 
as  those  of  the  tiger  and  the  ape  into  qualities 
appropriate  to,  or  at  least  not  incompatible  with,  our 
associated  life,  and  it  is  a  fact  well  known  to  biologists 
that  the  young  of  species  show,  even  physically,  traces 
of  remote  ancestry  which  disappear  or  become  modified 
past  recognition  in  the  fully  grown  adult. 

Fowler's  childish  success  as  a  story-teller  attests  his 
youthful  power  of  imagination.  It  might  seem,  and, 


IMAGINATION  AND   SCIENCE  11 

indeed,  he  almost  suggests  it  himself,  that  this  talent 
received  no  further  development.  This  we  believe  to 
be  a  mistake.  Some  years  ago  Professor  Tyndall  chose 
as  the  subject  of  his  presidential  address  to  the  British 
Association  the  use  of  the  imagination  in  science.  We 
do  not  think  that  a  better  instance  can  be  found  for 
illustrating  the  usefulness  of  the  imaginative  faculty 
in  science  than  that  which  is  contained  in  the  history 
of  engineering. 

"The  civil  engineer,"  says  Sir  John  Fowler  in  his  presi- 
dential address  to  the  Institute,  "should  have  a  correct 
appreciation  of  the  objects  of  each  work  contemplated  as 
well  as  their  true  values,  so  that  sound  advice  may  be  given 
as  to  the  best  means  of  attaining  them." 

To  do  this  successfully  demands  some  exercise  of  the 
imaginative  faculty. 

The  imagination  of  the  novelist  and  the  poet,  the 
"makar,"  as  the  old  Scots  phrase  runs,  has  at  its 
disposal  time  and  space  and  powers  natural  and  super- 
natural. The  engineer  works  within  narrower  limits. 
Like  the  artist,  he  desires  to  produce  a  given  effect ; 
he  has  to  consider  different  combinations  of  material 
and  alternatives  of  design,  and  at  times  he  has  to 
contrive  some  new  and  previously  unattempted  ex- 
pedient, and  then  (and  this  is  by  no  means  the  least 
important  part  of  his  function)  he  has  to  clothe  his 
conception  in  language  and  form  which  shall  be  con- 
vincing to  capitalists,  to  railway  directors,  and,  if 
compulsory  powers  are  needed,  to  Parliament. 

To  use  the  language  of  a  current  controversy,  it  is 
largely  the  ''ability"  of  the  engineer  which  sets  in 
motion  the  vast  operations  of  modern  industry.  At 


12  EAKLY  LIFE 

the  same  time  that  ability  is  limited  by  the  materials 
available,  by  the  demands  of  the  public,  by  the  willing- 
ness or  unwillingness  of  the  capitalist  community  to 
make  the  gigantic  effort  which  is  necessary  for  the  vast 
conceptions  of  modern  engineering,  and  generally  by 
the  circumstances  of  the  moment. 

The  true  nature  of  the  part  played  by  the  imagination 
of  the  great  engineer  in  the  history  of  progress  can  be 
well  illustrated  if  we  regard  the  confluence  of  causes 
and  suggestion  that  led  to  the  making  of  the  Forth 
Bridge. 

The  comparatively  simple  principle  of  the  cantilever, 
known  and  utilised  in  the  oldest  form  of  bridge  building, 
the  supply  of  cheap  steel  by  means  of  the  Bessemer 
process,  the  existence  of  wealthy  trading  populations 
on  each  side  of  a  great  tidal  estuary,  the  convenience 
and  economy  of  conveying  goods  and  passengers  over 
this  without  "  breaking  bulk,"  the  existence  of  great 
railway  companies  with  vast  traffic  ready  to  be  carried 
over  the  bridge, — in  a  word,  the  demand  for  such  a 
bridge, — the  readiness  of  resourceful  contractors  and 
armies  of  experienced  workmen,  the  existence  of  a 
tribunal  capable  of  appreciating  the  value  and  practi- 
cability of  the  proposal,  and  authorised  to  grant  the 
necessary  compulsory  powers — such  was  the  "hour." 
The  man  or  the  men  who  added  to  this  accumulation 
the  vital  spark  of  their  ability  were  the  engineers 
whose  business  it  was  to  explain  how  under  these 
conditions  the  thing  was  to  be  done.  In  that  vast 
subdivision  of  labour  which  is  characteristic  of 
modern  industry,  the  part  which  is  assigned  first  to 
the  imagination,  and  then  to  the  practical .  skill  of  the 
engineer,  is  as  honourable  and  as  truly  originating  as 


HIS  FIKST  APPRENTICESHIP  13 

is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  vouchsafed  to  any  form  of 
human  effort. 

Fowler's  connection  with  the  Leathers  was  a  very 
pleasant  one,  and  was  the  means  of  introducing  him 
to  the  great  industry  of  railway  extension,  then  in  its 
infancy.  In  a  letter  to  his  father  he  speaks  gratefully 
of  Mr.  J.  Towlerton  Leather's  kindness,  and  adds  that 
he  looks  on  him  as  his  pater  secundus.  His  occasional 
transference  to  the  service  of  the  uncle,  Mr.  George 
Leather,  gave  him  his  first  experience  in  railway  work, 
and  on  an  occasion  which  is  of  considerable  historic 
interest. 

The  great  George  Stephenson,  as  can  now  be  seen 
by  every  tyro,  attached  at  this  period  what  has  proved 
to  be  an  exaggerated  importance  to  ease  of  gradients, 
and  insisted  on  taking  the  line  of  rail,  which  after- 
wards was  known  as  the  Midland,  down  the  valleys 
formed  by  the  tributaries  of  the  Trent,  from  Derby 
to  Normanton.  By  this  policy  the  new  highway  left 
on  one  side  the  important  towns  of  Sheffield,  Barnsley, 
and  Wakefield.  At  this  juncture  Mr.  George  Leather 
was  called  into  consultation  by  the  Sheffield  people. 
The  result  may  be  described  in  the  language  of  the 
learned  historian  of  Sheffield,  Dr.  Gatty,  the  Vicar  of 
Ecclesfield,  the  editor  and  continuator  of  Hunter's 
Hallamshire : — 

"Strong  opposition  was  offered  to  this  design,  and  a  rival 
line  proposed  similar  to  that  which  is  now  being  effected,  which 
would  come  directly  from  Chesterfield  and  Sheffield;  whilst 
the  immediate  extra  cost  which  would  have  been  incurred 
would  probably  have  been  small  compared  with  that  of  the 
expedients  to  which  the  town  was  ultimately  driven  by  the 
adoption  of  Stephenson's  plan.  When  the  effort  to  divert 


14  EARLY   LIFE 

the  Midland  line  favourably  to  Sheffield  from  its  valley  course, 
and  the  counter  proposal  under  Mr.  Leather's  advice  was 
rejected,  a  survey  was  made  of  the  country  betwixt  Sheffield 
and  Manchester,  passing  through  Wharncliffe  Wood,  where 
much  engineering  difficulty  was  encountered.  In  the  severe 
labour  of  this  survey  Mr.  John  Fowler,  then  a  pupil  of 
Mr.  Leather,  first  acquired  his  practical  knowledge.  He 
assisted  Mr.  Yignoles  in  the  arduous  task  of  ascertaining  the 
practicability  of  a  route  through  a  district  abounding  with 
much  natural  obstruction,  and  had  ample  opportunity  of 
preparing  himself  for  his  great  local  work,  subsequently 
undertaken,  of  selecting  and  constructing  the  large  group  of 
railways,  now  known  as  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire  line." 

Fowler's  own  brief  account  of  the  transaction  is 
given  in  the  autobiographical  sketch  :— 

"  But  a  great  change  in  my  professional  life  was  to  take 
place  before  my  pupilage  was  completed.  The  Stephensons 
projected  the  Midland  Eailway,  and  as  it  was  proposed  to 
pass  at  a  distance  from  Sheffield,  the  Sheffield  people  opposed 
it  in  Parliament,  and  employed  Mr.  Leather  to  represent  them, 
and  as  a  matter  of  course  I  was  set  to  work  to  discover 
alternative  lines  to  put  Sheffield  on  the  main  line.  But  all  in 
vain.  Stephenson  carried  everything  before  him,  and  Sheffield 
was  put  on  a  branch.  This  has  since  been  remedied,  and 
Sheffield  is  now  on  the  main  line  of  the  Midland  Eailway." 

The  branch  line  which  first  connected  Sheffield  with 
the  main  railway  system  was  the  Sheffield  and  Eother- 
ham  line.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  his  father  in 
November,  1838,  the  young  engineer,  whose  pro- 
fessional pride  seems  to  have  been  wounded,  writes 
with  much  contempt  of  the  tall  talk,  as  it  seemed  to 
him,  indulged  in  by  Earl  Fitzwilliam  and  George 
Stephenson  at  the  opening  of  this  diminutive  line. 


MR   GEOEGE   LEATHEE  15 

He  has  read,  he  says,  with  great  regret  that  his  uncle 
had  countenanced  by  his  presence  the  vainglorious 
proceedings  of  the  opening  day.  The  slight  to  his 
native  Sheffield,  and  to  Mr.  Leather's  alternative  lines, 
roused  a  fine  partisan  spirit,  which  must  have  seemed 
very  diverting  to  the  writer  when  a  perusal  of  his 
boyish  letter  recalled  this  long -forgotten  indignity. 
Fowler  was  not  a  man  to  attach  undue  importance 
to  the  foibles  and  errors  of  great  men,  of  which  the 
history  of  engineering  affords  many  curious  instances ; 
yet  there  is  a  note  of  pardonable  satisfaction  and  pride 
in  his  record  of  the  fact  that  as  a  boy  he  had  con- 
tended, and  not  idly  or  ingloriously,  with  the  great 
pioneer  of  railway  engineering. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  his 
chief,  Mr.  George  Leather,  then  so  busily  engaged  in 
extending  facilities  of  railway  transport,  had  at  one 
time  been  altogether  incredulous  as  to  the  value  of 
Stephenson's  locomotive. 

"Mr.  George  Leather,  C.E.,"  says  Mr.  Smiles  in  his  famous 
biography  of  Stephenson,  "the  engineer  of  the  Croydon  and 
Wandsworth  Eailway,  on  which  he  said  the  waggons  went 
at  from  2J  to  3  miles  an  hour,  also  gave  his  evidence 
against  the  practicability  of  Mr.  Stephenson's  plan.  He 
considered  his  estimate  'a  very  wild  one.'  He  had  no 
confidence  in  locomotive  power.  The  Weardale  Eailway,  of 
which  he  was  engineer,  has  given  up  the  use  of  locomotive 
engines.  He  supposed  that,  when  used,  they  travelled  at 
3|  to  4  miles  an  hour,  because  they  were  considered  to  be 
then  more  effective  than  at  a  higher  speed." 

Such  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Leather  in  the  year  1825, 
when  he  gave  evidence  on  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
Eailway  Bill.  * 

*  See  SMILES'S  Stepkemon,  p.  242. 


16  EAKLY  LIFE 

Fowler's  early  letters  to  his  father  and  the  auto- 
biographical sketch  give  us  a  few  incidents  and  general 
descriptions  of  the  work  of  an  engineering  pupil  in  the 
thirties  which  are  of  considerable  interest.  The  hours 
of  work  were  long. 

"  If  I  had  to  go  seven  miles  to  the  works  and  back  I 
walked,  as  the  company  could  not  afford  a  conveyance.  If 
I  had  to  get  lunch  at  an  inn,  the  company's  limit  was  one 
shilling;  and  if  the  work  was  urgent,  to  finish  drawings  or 
specifications  on  a  certain  day,  we  constantly  worked  twelve 
hours  a  day.  This  was  severe  early  training,  but  it  had  much 
to  do  with  my  success  as  an  engineer  in  after  life,  as  I  was 
better  prepared  to  avail  myself  of  opportunities  at  twenty- 
one  than  most  young  men  now  are  at  nearly  thirty. 

"But  I  was  strong,  and  never  ill  or  tired  in  those  young 
days,  and  very  full  of  fun.  I  remember  on  one  occasion 
Mr.  James  Falshaw  (who  was  one  of  Mr.  George  Leather's 
assistants,  and  afterwards  Sir  James  Falshaw,  Lord  Provost 
of  Edinburgh)  and  I  were  walking  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Leeds.  I  suddenly  said  to  him,  'Falshaw,  I  will  throw  you 
over  that  gate.'  He  replied,  'Fowler,  you  can't.'  I  instantly 
took  him  in  my  arms  and  did  throw  him  over  the  gate.  He 
was  fond  of  telling  this  story  against  me  when  he  was  Lord 
Provost  of  Edinburgh,  and  especially  to  any  of  my  sons." 

"At  this  time,"  the  autobiography  relates,  "landowners 
were  violently  opposed  to  surveys  being  made  across  their 
property,  and  resisted  it  by  physical  force  as  well  as  by  the 
law,  and  of  course  we  engineers  endeavoured  to  dodge  them. 
I  remember  on  one  occasion  I  was  taking  levels  along  a  public 
road  to  accomplish  my  object,  when  one  of  the  landowner's 
servants  stood  before  my  level  and  obstructed  my  sight,  and 
declared  he  had  a  legal  right  to  stand  where  he  pleased  on 
a  public  road.  On  this,  one  of  my  stalwart  assistants  inquired 
if  he  also  had  a  right  to  stand  or  walk  where  he  pleased  on 
a  public  road.  Unthinkingly  the  landowner's  man  admitted 
that  any  man  had  such  legal  right.  'Then/  said  my  man, 


OPPOSITION  TO   EAILWAYS  17 

'  my  right  is  here,  and  if  you  obstruct  me  I  shall  remove  you J ; 
and  walking  up  to  the  man,  he  took  him  in  his  arms  and  de- 
posited him  in  a  ditch.  I  am  not  lawyer  enough  to  know 
which  was  right  in  law,  but  I  got  my  levels.  Curious  ques- 
tions of  law  such  as  this  sometimes  arise,  which  can  only  be 
settled  by  force  or  demonstration  of  force." 

Force  and  demonstration  of  force  do  not  necessarily 
result  in  equity,  nor  in  the  triumph  of  the  representa- 
tive of  progress.  Lord  Galway,  a  redoubtable  Nimrod 
who  lived  on  the  borders  of  Yorkshire  and  Nottingham- 
shire, was  at  this  time  a  violent  opponent  of  the  railway 
system.  "Mr.  Brundell  of  Doncaster,"  says  Mr.  Grin- 
ling  in  his  excellent  History  of  the  Great  Northern 
Railway,  p.  76,  "  relates  that  he  was  horsewhipped  by 
this  Lord  Galway  when  surveying  for  the  original 
London  and  York  line  between  Blyth  and  Tickhill." 

To  return  to  young  Mr.  Fowler  : — 

"  On  this  same  survey,"  he  continues,  "  I  arrived  in  the 
evening  at  a  well-known  inn,  and  expressed  a  wish  to  have 
dinner.  The  landlady  said  she  had  not  a  single  thing  in  the 
house  except  two  geese  which  were  being  roasted  for  one  of 
Mr.  Stephenson's  assistants,  who  was  engaged  on  the  line,  and 
would  soon  be  back.  '  But  why  two  geese  ? '  I  said.  *  Oh, 
well/  she  said,  'he  only  cares  about  one  special  bit,  and  it 
requires  two  geese  to  give  him  his  dinner.'  'Well,  my  good 
woman,'  I  said,  '  I  mean  to  have  one  of  these  geese,  and  shall 
take  it  when  cooked;  and  I  am  prepared  to  commit  a  crime 
if  anyone  attempts  to  prevent  me.'  She  was  then  ready  to 
give  me  the  goose.  I  took  it,  and  left  a  note  of  apology, 
which  was  laughingly  acknowledged  as  being  morally,  if  not 
legally  right." 

These  incidents,  trifling  in  themselves,  mark  the  long- 
span  of  time  covered  by  the  professional  career  of  Sir 
c 


18  EARLY  LIFE 

John  Fowler.  When  he  began  life  the  railway  engineer 
was  looked  on  as  an  interloper  and  an  outlaw,  and,  as 
has  well  been  said  in  a  notice  of  the  subject  of  this 
book,  recorded  in  the  Minutes  of  the  Institution  of 
Civil  Engineers — 

"  An  independent  professional  career,  commencing  before  the 
railway  mania,  and  extending  some  years  beyond  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Forth  Bridge,  is  indeed  a  notable  record,  and  it 
is  scarcely  possible  that  one  quite  like  it  will  ever  occur  again." 

The  young  engineer  appears  to  have  left  his  father's 
roof  for  the  first  time  about  the  middle  of  October, 
18^84,  when  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age.  The  first 
letter  which  has  come  into  his  biographer's  hand  is 
addressed  to  his  father,  and  is  dated  from  Park  Terrace, 
Leeds,  on  October  18th,  1834.  A  few  characteristic 
sentences  of  it  are  quoted  :— 

"  DEAR  FATHER, — You  would  be  rather  surprised  in  arriving 
at  home  on  Wednesday  to  hear  I  had  taken  my  journeyings 
to  this  town ;  but  as  I  had  before  told  you  that  it  was  likely 
that  I  should  have  to  come  over,  you  would  not  think  so  much 
about  it.  The  purpose  for  which  I  came  is  the  preparing 
plans,  sections,  specifications,  etc.,  for  a  most  immense  ship 
lock  at  Goole — the  largest  in  the  world — other  locks,  bridges, 
and  three  miles  of  canal,  all  for  the  Aire  and  Calder  Naviga- 
tion, at  a  cost  of  about  £100,000.  Mr.  George  Leather  is 
engineer  for  that  Company,  but  as  yet  I  have  done  nothing 
but  copy  the  specifications — a  job  I  don't  much  like,  but  it 
must  be  done. 

"I  have  seen  very  little  indeed  of  Leeds  yet,  as  we  work 
rather  long  hours — seven  in  the  morning  to  about  half-past  ten 
at  night — but  what  I  have  seen  of  it,  and  I  believe  it  to  be 
the  best  part  of  the  town,  has  not  prepossessed  me  with  it  ... 
decidedly  inferior  to  Sheffield  ...  the  shopkeepers  not  so 


FIKST   DEPARTUKE   FKOM   HOME  19 

polite  and  accommodating  as  at  Sheffield.  .  .  .  To-morrow 
being  Sunday,  and  as  I  shall  not  have  another  opportunity, 
I  intend  to  go  down  the  railway  to  Selby,  20  miles.  If  I 
get  an  opportunity  I  purpose  seeing  through  a  cloth  factory 
before  I  come  back.  .  .  ." 

The  remainder  of  the  letter  is  devoted  to  some 
domestic  details  as  to  shirts  and  the  key  of  his  carpet 
bag. 

On  November  4th  of  the  same  year,  1834,  he  writes 
again  from  Leeds  a  long  letter  to  his  father,  who  had 
apparently  consulted  him  about  some  pumping  opera- 
tions pending  at  one  of  Messrs.  Greaves'  mines  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  his  home  : — 

"I  hasten,  in  accordance  with  your  wish,  to  answer  by 
return  of  post.  You  have  not  acknowledged  the  receipt  of 
a  letter  I  sent  per  Mr.  Leather,  but  I  presume  it  has  arrived 
safe ;  it  was  not  of  any  consequence.  Mr.  Leather  as  well  as 
yourself  know  far  better  than  I  do  of  any  arguments  (though 
I  think  it  needs  none)  to  show  that  pumping  to  the  level 
is  preferable  to  pumping  to  the  surface,  but  as  it  is  a  subject 
about  which  I  feel  considerably  interested  I  feel  flattered  by 
your  writing.  The  argument  to  which  I  particularly  wished 
to  draw  your  attention,  and  by  you  the  attention  of  the 
Messrs.  Greaves,  is  the  amount  which  might  be  expended 
on  the  level  before  it  would  be  on  a  worse  footing  than 
pumping  to  the  surface."  Then  follows  an  elaborate  esti- 
mate of  two  different  proposals  for  draining  the  mine. 
"  The  preceding  calculations  are  not  random  statements 
.  .  .  but  are  the  result  of  calculations  (nice  and  par- 
ticular ones  too)."  He  concludes  with  a  hope  that  his 
father  "will  pour  into  Messrs.  Greaves'  ears  such  thundering 
arguments  as  will  not  fail  to  carry  conviction  to  their 
minds  and  (oblige  them  to)  see  the  danger  to  which  they 
have  been  exposed." 


20  EAELY  LIFE 

These  two  letters  record  what  possibly  was  our  young 
engineer's  first  sight  of  a  railway  and  also  the  delivery 
of  his  first  professional  report.  His  employments  with 
Mr.  J.  T.  Leather,  of  the  Sheffield  Waterworks,  and 
Mr.  George  Leather,  of  the  Aire  and  Calder  Navigation, 
continued  without  recorded  incident  till,  in  June,  1836, 
we  hear  of  him  in  Birmingham,  where  he  finds  "  the 
population,  traffic,  and  works  of  all  kinds,  not  merely 
in  the  town,  but  for  miles  on  all  sides,  most  astonish- 
ing." The  town,  he  says,  is  pretty  and  clean,  and  there 
is  as  much  bustle  as  at  Manchester,  without  any  of  its 
disagreeableness. 

""We  are  engaged  seeking  out  a  line  of  railway  between 
Birmingham  and  Stourbridge,  a  town  about  12  miles  from 
Birmingham,  and  the  last  two  days  Mr.  Leather  and  I  have 
been  engaged  in  taking  levels  in  various  directions  by  way  of 
trying  the  country ;  we  almost  expect  the  line  will  have  to  be 
continued  forwards  to  Worcester,  but  we  have  not  yet  got 
particular  instructions." 

On  June  5th,  1836,  he  writes  a  somewhat  fuller 
account  of  his  employment  as  follows  : — 

"A  railway  was  last  year  applied  for  and  an  Act  obtained 
for  a  line  between  Birmingham  and  Gloucester;  but  as  it 
passes  throughout  its  whole  distance  in  a  barren  country  (as 
to  minerals),  a  number  of  gentlemen  in  Birmingham  are 
working  to  get  a  railway  between  the  same  points,  but  passing 
through  the  rich  mineral  districts  of  Dudley  and  Stourbridge 
and  joining  the  original  line  at  or  near  Worcester,  and  have 
employed  Mr.  Leather  to  find  out  a  line  for  them,  and  he, 
conceiving  your  son  might  be  serviceable,  imported  him 
accordingly.  But  in  addition  to  this  competing  line,  another 
company  has  been  got  up  to  make  a  line  nearly  the  same 
as  ours;  so  that  you  perceive  there  is  at  all  events  in  this 


SEARCH  FOR  EMPLOYMENT  21 

case  fair  competition  and  no  monopoly.  We  are  now  engaged 
taking  running  levels  along  the  roads,  etc.,  with  a  view  of 
accurately  ascertaining  the  heights  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
country,  as  I  should  imagine  that  without  exception  there  is 
not  in  England  so  difficult  a  country  to  get  a  good  line  of 
railway  through,  not  even  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sheffield." 

In  these  and  other  employments  the  young  engineer 
learnt  the  practical  details  of  his  profession,  and  a  year 
later,  a  few  days  after  he  had  completed  his  nine- 
teenth year,  we  find  him  writing  from  the  Birkenhead 
Hotel  on  July  18th,  1837  :— 

"  MY  DEAR  FATHER, — As  I  daresay  you  will  have  no  objec- 
tion to  an  account  of  my  present  position  and  progress,  I  will 
endeavour  to  give  you  a  short  description  thereof.  First  as  to 
my  position.  It  is  at  this  moment  in  the  coffee-room  of  the 
Birkenhead  Hotel  on  the  Cheshire  side  of  the  River  Mersey, 
and  about  1J  miles  from  Liverpool,  having  a  beautiful  view  of 
the  river,  shipping,  and  town  of  Liverpool.  Then  as  to  my 
progress.  I  will  commence  with  leaving  Sheffield  on  Wednesday 
and  carry  you  through  to  the  present  moment. 

"  On  Wednesday  afternoon  I  left  Sheffield  per  '  Pilot '  and 
called  at  Sandal,  near  Wakefield,  to  see  Mr.  Dyson  (one  of  the 
principal  resident  engineers  on  the  North  Midland  Railway), 
armed  with  testimonials  from  Mr.  Leather,  and  was  very 
politely  received  by  him,  but  he  thought  I  had  not  sufficient 
experience  in  masonry  to  be  qualified  for  the  situation  I  sought, 
but  he  should  see  Mr.  Swanwick  and  Mr.  Gooch  the  following 
day  and  would  see  if  he  could  be  of  any  assistance  to  me.  I 
then  went  forward  to  Leeds  by  the  'Telegraph,'  and  in  the 
morning  waited  on  Mr.  George  Leather,  to  whom  I  stated  my 
object  and  Mr.  Dyson's  opinion  of  my  competence,  on  which 
he  desired  his  son  (Mr.  J.  W.  L.)  to  write  to  Mr.  Dyson  and 
say  that  I  had  seen  a  good  deal  and  would,  he  had  no  doubt,  be 
able  to  fulfil  the  situation  creditably.  I  then  returned  to 
Wakefield,  but  was  obliged  to  wait  till  night  before  Mr.  Dyson 


22  EAELY   LIFE 

and  Mr.  Swanwick  returned  to  dinner,  when  I  presented 
Mr.  Leather's  letter  to  Mr.  Dyson,  who  however  still  thought 
he  could  scarcely  safely  recommend  me  (on  the  score  of  in- 
experience), but  would  mention  me  to  Swanwick  and  Gooch 
and  do  everything  in  his  power  to  forward  my  interests.  Thus, 
then,  as  far  as  the  North  Midland  and  Leeds  and  Manchester 
were  concerned,  I  had  done  all  in  my  power  and  must  wait  the 
issue.  On  the  following  day,  therefore  (Friday),  I  went  up  to 
Beeston  Park  to  see  George  Leather,  and  spent  most  of  the 
day  very  pleasantly." 

The  next  two  days,  we  are  glad  to  find,  he  made 
holidays,  and  spent  in  rusticating  with  some  of  the 
Leather  family  at  Ilkley,  "celebrated  for  its  pure  air, 
romantic  scenery,  and  cold  baths,"  but  on  Sunday  he 
was  off  again  to  Manchester,  with  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Mr.  Locke  from  Mr.  George  Leather. 

"  At  Manchester  I  went  to  see  Mr.  Thomas  Brittain,  and  in 
the  afternoon  we  had  a  long  ramble  in  the  environs  and  town, 
and  at  night  he  kindly  offered  me  a  bed,  which  I,  with  my 
wonted  good  nature  in  such  cases,  accepted,  and  on  Monday 
morning,  having  furnished  myself  with  a  map  of  the  town,  I 
thoroughly  examined  the  public  works,  particularly  the  Bolton 
Eailway,  now  in  process  of  execution.  In  the  afternoon 
Mr.  Brittain  obtained  me  the  sight  of  a  spinning  and  weaving 
factory,  where  we  saw  the  whole  progress  from  the  raw  wool  to 
finished  calico,  and  in  perfection  too,  being  the  largest  of  the 
kind  in  Manchester,  which  I  assure  you  is  saying  no  little. 

"At  five  o'clock  I  left  Manchester  for  Liverpool,  much 
gratified  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brittain's  kind  hospitality.  The  first 
26|  miles  on  the  railway  we  traversed  in  sixty  minutes,  inclu- 
sive of  five  minutes'  stoppage,  being  at  the  rate  of  29  miles  in 
an  hour." 

At  Liverpool,  finding  that  Mr.  Locke  was  absent, 
he  determined  to  await  his  return,  and  in  the  mean- 


MR.   RASTRICK  23 

time  went  off  to  amuse  himself  by  an  inspection  of 
the  docks,  "a  rich  treat."  The  letter  ends  with 
"  kindest  love  to  mother,  yourself,  and  the  innumerable 
family  at  large." 

No  record  is  extant  of  his  interview  with  Mr.  Locke, 
but  we  next  hear  of  him  writing  from  Tapton,  near 
Chesterfield  (the  home,  it  may  be  noticed  in  passing, 
of  George  Stephenson),  where  he  had  secured  lodgings 
in  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Dean,  an  old-fashioned  farm 
"with  monstrously  low  rooms  and  stone  floors;  the 
bedroom  is  pretty  well,  but  has  a  confounded  plaster 
floor."  What  it  was  that  took  him  to  Chesterfield 
at  this  date  is  not  stated,  but  he  had  now  definitely 
entered  the  employment  of  Mr.  J.  U.  Eastrick,  and 
in  the  beginning  of  1838  we  find  him  writing  to  his 
father  to  say  that  he  is  duly  installed  into  his  new 
situation  and  his  new  lodgings  in  the  Crescent, 
Birmingham. 

"  Of  course,"  he  adds,  "  I  can't  say  yet  how  I  shall  like  the 
situation,  or  whether  the  situation  will  suit  me,  but  I  hope  all 
will  be  right.  I  was  very  much  pleased  to  meet  in  the  office 
with  a  Mr.  Turner,  whom  you  will  recollect  in  breeches  and 
leggings  surveying  on  the  Sheffield  and  Manchester  Railway. 
We  have  an  office  to  ourselves,  and  he  is  a  first-rate  designing 
draftsman,  highly  educated,  well  informed,  and  very  agree- 
able, so  that  I  am  of  course  quite  pleased  with  the  accidental 
meeting." 

John  Urpeth  Eastrick,  young  Fowler's  new  employer, 
was  one  of  the  leading  engineers  of  the  day.  He  was 
born  in  1780  and  died  in  1856.  He  is  frequently 
spoken  of  in  the  railway  literature  of  the  period  as 
Mr.  Eastrick  of  Stourbridge,  where  he  was  partner  in 
the  great  iron  foundry  of  Bradley,  Foster,  Eastrick, 


24  EARLY  LIFE 

and  Co.  As  early  as  1814  he  had  taken  out  a  patent 
for  an  engine,  but,  like  most  of  the  older  engineers, 
he  was  at  first  incredulous  as  to  the  merits  of  the 
locomotive  engine.  In  the  great  parliamentary  struggle 
for  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Kail  way  in  1825, 
he  was  employed  by  the  promoters,  and  was  the  first 
witness  called  in  support  of  the  railway.  Mr.  Eastrick 
on  this  occasion  spoke  favourably  of  Stephenson' s  loco- 
motives then  employed  on  the  Killingworth  and  Hetton 
railroads.  The  Bill  on  this  its  first  introduction  was, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  withdrawn.  In  the  next  and, 
as  it  proved,  successful  application,  the  precise  nature 
of  the  means  of  traction  to  be  used  was  left  an  open 
question.  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  when  the  Bill  for 
this  pioneer  line  of  railway  was  passed,  it  was  not 
yet  determined  whether  the  trains  were  to  be  drawn 
by  a  locomotive  or  by  a  stationary  engine.  The  con- 
struction of  the  railway  went  on,  and  Mr.  Walker  of 
Limehouse  and  Mr.  Kastrick  of  Stourbridge  —  two 
engineers  of  the  highest  reputation — were  instructed 
by  the  directors  to  visit  the  Darlington  and  Newcastle 
Kail  ways,  and  to  examine  carefully  both  plans — the 
fixed  and  the  locomotive — and  to  report  the  result. 
Messrs.  Walker  and  Kastrick  reported  in  favour  of  the 
fixed  engine,  and  "in  order  to  carry  the  system  re- 
commended by  them  into  effect,  they  proposed  to 
divide  the  railroad  between  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
into  nineteen  stages  of  about  a  mile  and  a  half  each, 
with  twenty-one  engines  fixed  at  the  different  points 
to  work  the  trains  forward."  It  is  matter  of  history 
how  Kobert  Stephenson  and  Joseph  Locke,  under  the 
direction  of  George  Stephenson,  successfully  combated 
the  views  of  Messrs.  Walker  and  Kastrick,  and  how 


BIBMINGHAM  25 

the  directors  in  their  dilemma  offered  a  prize  of  £500 
for  the  best  locomotive  engine ;  how  this  reward  was 
voted  by  the  judges,  of  whom  Mr.  Eastrick  of  Stour- 
bridge  was  one,  to  Stephenson's  famous  "Eocket,"  and 
how  the  triumph  of  the  locomotive  was  thus  finally 
won. 

All  this  happened  some  few  brief  years  before  young 
Fowler  entered  on  his  apprenticeship.  His  chiefs,  both 
Mr.  Leather  and  Mr.  Eastrick,  had  in  that  short  period 
been  swept  into  the  full  current  of  the  enterprise  that 
had  been  set  flowing  by  the  genius  of  their  old 
opponent,  George  Stephenson. 

Mr.  Eastrick  continued  to  be  employed  in  many  of 
Stephenson's  enterprises,  and  in  all  probability  Fowler's 
introduction  and  visit  to  Mr.  Locke  led  to  his  being 
passed  on  to  Mr.  Eastrick,  then  working  in  close  co- 
operation with  Stephenson. 

Fuller  details  of  his  work  are  given  in  a  letter  to 
his  father,  written  from  No.  1,  Crescent,  Birmingham, 
on  February  22nd,  1838  :— 

"I  have  now  been  more  than  a  fortnight  in  Birmingham, 
but  we  have  been  so  busily  engaged  that  the  time  has  appeared 
much  shorter.  However,  I  think  I  have  seen  sufficient  to 
be  able  to  say  that  everything  is  proceeding  satisfactorily  and 
will  prove  much  to  my  advantage. 

"  I  told  you,  I  believe,  in  the  short,  hurried  note  you  would 
receive  when  my  uncle  returned  to  Sheffield,  that  we  were 
preparing  working  drawings  of  the  works  on  the  Manchester 
and  Birmingham  Eailway,  and  London  and  Brighton.  Since 
that  time  we  have  lost  the  Manchester  and  Birmingham  by 
a  stock-jobbing  trick,  at  which  the  Manchester  speculative 
swindlers  are  such  adepts.  On  Saturday  last  we  were  making 
great  exertions  to  complete  some  designs  that  Mr.  Kastrick 
was  to  take  with  him  to  Manchester  on  Monday  morning 


26  EARLY  LIFE 

for  a  meeting  of  directors.  On  his  arrival  there  he  was  told 
that  they  (the  directors)  had  given  notice  for  an  alteration 
of  the  line  of  railway  from  beginning  to  end.  Now  Mr. 
Rastrick  had  never  heard  one  word  of  their  intentions, 
although  he  had  come  from  London  a  few  days  before  with 
the  very  person  who  had  been  there  to  make  arrangements. 
Not  one  word  was  said  to  him  on  the  subject.  He  was 
naturally  very  indignant,  and  told  them  (the  directors)  that 
as  they  had  chosen  to  take  such  a  step  without  consulting 
him  he  should  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  concern, 
and  from  that  moment  their  connection  must  cease.  This, 
as  you  may  naturally  conceive,  rather  astonished  us,  for 
Mr.  Rastrick  in  his  usual  blunt  way  told  us  on  his  return, 
'  Well,  it's  no  use  drawing  any  more  bridges  on  the  Manchester 
and  Birmingham ;  we  must  now  attend  to  the  London  and 
Brighton.'  What  will  be  the  upshot  of  it  all  I  can't  tell, 
but  I  shall  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  we  have  to  oppose  the 
application  for  their  new  intended  line. 

"We  are  therefore  attending  to  the  London  and  Brighton 
Railway,  that  is,  drawing  working  plans  of  the  bridges,  etc., 
required  on  the  line." 

His  stay  in  Birmingham  was  not,  however,  to  be 
long.  On  March  3rd,  i.e.  in  less  than  a  month  from 
his  arrival,  Mr.  Rastrick  sent  him  to  London,  and  he 
writes  on  that  date  to  his  father,  saying  that  he  has 
enjoyed  an  inside  seat  in  the  "  Emerald  "  Coach. 

"  Although  my  residence  will  be  changed  from  Birmingham 
to  London,  I  am  not  aware  that  that  circumstance  will  make 
any  material  alteration  to  me  personally  with  respect  to  my 
engagement  with  Mr.  Rastrick,  but  it  may  be  of  advantage 
in  other  points  of  view ;  and  as  it  is  very  probable  I  shall  stay 
there  during  my  engagement  at  least,  I  shall  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  London,  and  maybe  obtain  a  wrinkle  from 
southern  acuteness.  As  far  as  personal  comfort  is  concerned 
I  am  afraid  the  change  will  be  for  the  worse;  I  don't  think 


LONDON  27 

I  shall  get  such  comfortable  lodgings  as  Mrs.  Farrow's,  nor 
shall  I  have  such  very  commodious  offices,  and  of  course 
I  don't  know  a  single  individual  in  town,  but  as  personal 
comfort  is  not  any  part  of  the  principle  of  Civil  Engineering 
these  things  are  of  no  importance/' 

His  friend  Mr.  Turner,  he  is  glad  to  say,  is  going 
with  him,  and  they  hope  to  continue  together  their 
occupation  of  designing  the  bridges  for  the  London 
and  Brighton  Railway. 

The  following  letter  gives  an  account  of  our  young 
engineer's  first  journey  to  London,  at  that  time  con- 
siderably behind  the  North  in  respect  of  railway 
development : — 

"  CRAVEN  HOTEL,  CRAVEN  STREET,  CHARING  CROSS, 

"Monday,  6  p.m.     (March  5th,  1838.) 

"  DEAR  FATHER, — I  arrived  at  last  in  that  wonderful  centre 
of  everything  that  is  great,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  that 
receptacle  of  the  most  accomplished  swindlers  and  the  most 
enterprising  men  of  business,  London,  after  a  most  tedious  and 
protracted  voyage  of  eighteen  hours,  the  roads  so  positively  bad 
that,  although  we  had  six  horses  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
journey,  the  passengers  were  obliged  to  dismount  and  the  coach 
dragged  at  a  foot's  pace  for  almost  a  mile  at  a  time,  and  at  no 
very  distant  intervals ;  however,  here  I  am  at  last,  and  I  must 
beg  leave  to  say  that  since  my  arrival  I  have  made  pretty  good 
use  of  my  time.  I  have  seen  St.  Paul's,  Westminster  Bridge, 
Blackfriars  and  new  London  Bridges,  Post  Office,  etc.,  etc., 
been  swindled  by  a  cabman,  called  on  493  different  houses  for 
lodgings,  and  at  last  engaged  a  most  beautiful  sitting-room  and 
bedroom  in  a  very  excellent  situation,  Warwick  Court,  Holborn. 
The  house  is  occupied  by  a  respectable  architect  and  builder, 
Mr.  Smith,  who  appears  quite  a  literary  character,  and  has 
a  good  library,  a  free  use  of  which  he  kindly  offered  me. 
I  have  engaged  the  rooms  for  a  week  certain,  at  a  moderate, 
a  very  moderate  rent,  considering  the  situation  and  style, 


28  EAELY  LIFE 

for  the  sitting-room  is  positively  elegantly  furnished.  I  intend 
to  keep  my  own  tea  and  coffee,  etc.,  but  not  to  dine  at  home, 
but  at  a  chop  and  eating  house,  where  to-day  for  Is.  2d.  I  had 
one  of  the  best  dinners  I  ever  ate. 

"  I  have  no  time  to  say  much  in  this  letter,  for  the  post  will 
soon  be  closed ;  however,  I  must  not  forget  the  most  im- 
portant subject  which  I  have  to  mention,  and  unless  for  it 
I  should  not  have  written  so  early  as  to-night.  The  fact 
is,  I  have  only  about  15s.  left,  and  I  don't  like  to  ask  Kastrick 
so  very  soon  to  advance  on  account;  it  looks  rather  too 
snobbish.  However,  I  hope  you  will  have  received  some 
portion  of  the  money  due  to  me  from  Mr.  Burbeary.  I  must 
beg  positively  of  you  to  send  a  £10  Bank  of  England  note  en- 
closed on  Tuesday  and  directed  to  me  at  care  of  J.  U.  Kastrick, 
Esq.,  C.E.,  454,  Charing  Cross.  I  must  again  beg  you  will  not 
neglect,  because  if  a  man  can't  meet  his  liabilities  he  becomes 
a  bankrupt.  ...  I  think  I  am  settled  here  for  the  next  five 
months  at  least,  which  is  just  what  I  wanted,  but  I  was  rather 
disappointed  to-day  when  I  tried  Eastrick  to  increase  my 
salary.  He  told  me  he  had  had  so  many  persons  applying 
for  employment  on  the  Brighton  Line  (the  crack  of  all  other 
lines)  that  he  had  been  offered  to  be  served  for  nothing.  But 
I  don't  care  much ;  salary  is  not  my  object  now,  and  what  I 
have  will  pay  my  expenses  pretty  well,  with  economy. 

"  I  have  a  great  deal  to  say  to  you  and  my  mother,  and  if 
I  stay  here  you  may  expect,  on  the  payment  of  IQd.  postage,  to 
receive  some  descriptive  accounts  of  London  and  its  wonders. 

"  Give  my  kindest  love  to  my  mother,  and  tell  her  that  I 
thought  of  her  when  I  first  set  eyes  on  St.  Paul's  Cathedral." 

In  a  long  letter  written  to  his  grandfather  he  gives 
the  following  account  of  the  nature  of  his  work  in  Mr. 
Kastrick's  office  in  Birmingham  and  then  in  London  :— 

"  I  must  now,  in  as  short  and  succinct  a  manner  as  possible, 
tell  you  how  I  spent  my  time,  which  I  assure  you  was  anything 
but  in  idleness.  In  the  morning  at  nine  o'clock  the  office 


OFFICE  HOUKS  29 

opened,  at  half-past  two  we  dined,  returned  at  half-past  three, 
and  remained  until  seven.  These  were  our  office  hours,  and 
as  to  my  employment  in  the  office  I  am  afraid  you  will  not 
understand  that  part  of  the  business  quite  so  clearly ;  however, 
to  give  you  an  idea,  Mr.  Eastrick  (the  gentleman  with  whom 
I  am  at  present  engaged)  is  the  principal  engineer  for  a  line 
of  railway  from  London  to  Brighton  which  is  now  in  progress 
of  being  executed,  and,  as  you  will  imagine,  a  great  deal  of 
work  has  to  be  done  in  making  bridges  over  and  under  roads, 
over  rivers  and  canals,  etc.,  and  as  these  works  have  all  to  be 
let  by  contract,  and  consequently  very  particular  working 
drawings  made  of  all  the  works  required,  you  may  conceive 
that  a  great  deal  of  preparation  is  necessary  before  this  can  be 
done,  and  the  work  commenced.  Now  my  part  or  employment 
was  to  make  designs  for  bridges,  calculations,  etc.,  which  is, 
of  course,  very  important,  as  immense  sums  of  money  might 
be  thrown  away  without  due  care  and  consideration. 

"Mr.  Eastrick,  finding  it  very  inconvenient  to  be  at  such 
a  great  distance  from  the  line  of  railway  on  which  we  were 
engaged  (the  London  and  Brighton),  very  properly  decided 
to  remove  us  nearer  to  our  work,  especially  such  of  us  as 
were  engaged  in  matters  requiring  constant  reference  and 
communication  with  surveyors,  etc.,  employed  taking  surveys 
and  levels  along  the  line.  This  was  the  reason  I  was  removed 
to  London.  ...  I  occupy  two  rooms,  the  sitting-room,  which 
is  on  the  ground  floor,  is  a  very  well  furnished  room,  with 
couch,  looking-glass,  stuffed  arm  chair,  paintings,  etc.,  and  the 
lodging-room  is  a  comfortable  room,  though  near  the  top  of 
the  house.  I  pay  a  certain  sum  per  week  for  the  rooms,  and 
then  have  to  find  my  own  coals,  candles,  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  milk, 
wood  for  lighting,  washing,  butter,  bread,  etc. 

"Our  office  hours  in  London  are  from  half-past  nine  to 
half-past  five,  with  the  intervention  of  a  dinner-hour,  which 
leaves  us  a  tolerably  long  evening  to  our  own  disposal;  and 
consequently,  after  leaving  the  office  I  go  to  a  coffee-house, 
and  for  Is.  or  Is.  2d.  I  get  as  good  a  dinner  as  I  could  possibly 
have,  and  see  the  daily  papers  into  the  bargain,  after  which  I 


30  EARLY  LIFE 

generally  look  a  little  about  some  part  of  London  and  then  return 
home,  where  I  amuse  myself  with  either  studying,  reading, 
or  writing,  according  as  I  may  feel  myself  disposed  at  the 
time,  and  on  the  whole  am  as  comfortable  as  can  be  expected 
considering  I  have  no  society  and  have  to  pay  4s.  $d.  per  ounce 
for  coals. 

"  I  have  not  yet  seen  much  of  London,  excepting  the  bridges 
over  the  Thames,  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  Westminster  Abbey, 
Regent's  Park,  Day  and  Martin's  blacking  manufactory,  and 
a  splendid  gin  palace;  the  two  last  places,  notwithstanding 
their  odd  titles,  are  decidedly  more  magnificent  places  than 
the  new  post  office  in  Sheffield." 

On  May  llth,  1838,  he  writes  from  45,  Stamford 
Street,  Blackfriars,  to  his  father  with  regard  to  some 
local  road-making  plans  on  which  our  young  engineer 
appears  to  have  been  consulted.  The  letter  is  curious 
as  illustrating  the  warm  and  personal  way  in  which 
he  espoused  his  client's  cause,  and  also  as  recording 
the  first  occasion  on  which  he  appeared  as  witness 
before  a  Parliamentary  Committee. 

In  the  course  of  the  letter  he  comments  very  freely 
on  what  he  considered  the  shady  tactics  of  the  opposi- 
tion, and  on  some  mismanagement  on  the  part  of  his 
friends.  He  approached  Mr.  Kastrick  with  some 
trepidation,  "he  is  such  a  queer  fellow,"  and  asked 
leave  to  attend  the  committee.  Rather  to  his  surprise, 
for  the  office  was  very  busy,  Mr.  Rastrick  told  him 
"to  take  and  go,"  "and  accordingly  I  did  take  and 
go."  Under  date  June  18th,  1838,  he  thus  describes 
his  first  appearance  in  the  witness-box  :— 

"  I  had  a  long  cross-examination  to-day,  and  succeeded  much 
better  than  I  anticipated,  for  I  was  not  the  least  nervous  or 
confused,  and  consequently  passed  very  respectably,  I  think, 


MAIDENHEAD   BRIDGE  31 

but  I  must  say  I  think  our  counsel  (Mr.  Talbot)  did  not  make 
the  most  of  his  case. 

"Baines  was  against  us,  but  he  was  rather  lenient  with 
me  than  otherwise,  and  did  nothing  more  than  his  duty  to 
his  clients. 

"I  have  now  made  my  maiden  bow,  and  know  the  worst 
of  this  much-dreaded  cross-examination,  but  I  have  been 
obliged  to  give  up  a  journey  to  Manchester  respecting  the 
Oldham  Waterworks,  which  is  now  in  the  House,  and  is  in 
an  awkward  situation  from  the  surveyor  making  a  complete 
failure  in  the  Commons  and  losing  the  cause  there.  Mr.  G. 
Leather,  of  Leeds,  is  the  engineer  employed,  and  begged  per- 
mission of  Mr.  Eastrick  for  me  to  go  down  and  repair  this 
blundering,  but  this  road  affair  compelled  me  to  stop  in  town." 

It  is  evident  that  young  Mr.  Fowler's  chiefs  were 
beginning  to  recognise  his  latent  capacity. 

In  the  same  letter,  viz.  May  llth,  1838,  Fowler  gives 
an  interesting  account  of  a  visit  paid  to  Maidenhead 
Bridge,  Brunei's  beautiful  construction,  about  which 
grave  misgivings  were  then  rife  : — 

"  On  Sunday  morning  last,  at  eight  o'clock  precisely,  I  threw 
myself  on  the  outside  of  an  Oxford  coach  to  go  to  Maidenhead 
to  see  a  brick  bridge  built  there  over  the  Thames,  on  the 
Great  Western  Eailway.  The  day  was  beautiful,  and  I  very 
much  enjoyed  the  journey.  Maidenhead  is  26  miles  from 
London.  .  .  .  The  bridge  I  went  so  far  to  see  is  of  a  novel 
construction,  being  built  of  brickwork  set  in  cement  for  two 
elliptical  arches  of  128  feet  span  each,  and  is  now,  I  arn 
sorry  to  say,  in  a  dangerous  situation.  The  centering  has 
been  slackened,  and  the  arches  have  followed  it  for  5  inches 
at  the  crown,  and  now  rest  on  them,  but  not  as  you  would 
suppose  at  the  crown  of  the  arch,  but  at  about  15  feet  on 
each  side,  while  the  crown  is  2J  inches  clear  of  the  centering. 
This  settling  has  made  the  outline  of  the  arch  perfectly  Gothic 
and  totally  destroyed  its  symmetry,  but  the  worst  of  the 


32  EAELY  LIFE 

matter  is  that  the  arch  which  has  been  turned  in  half-brick 
rings  has  separated  at  every  other  joint,  and  consequently 
the  arch  is  further  there  weakened  by  the  lower  part  of  it 
leaving  the  upper  part.  The  outside  of  the  arch  shows  eight 
half-brick  courses,  but  the  inside  has  thirteen.  The  spandril 
wall  of  one  arch  has  cracked  from  top  to  bottom,  so  likewise 
have  all  the  walls  for  backing  up  the  inside  of  the  arch,  both 
occasioned,  of  course,  by  the  settling.  The  foundations  are  on 
rock,  and  therefore  very  unyielding.  The  centering  is  a  very 
excellent  and  a  very  scientific  one,  the  whole  of  the  timbers 
being  in  a  state  of  thrust." 

"  What  will  or  can  be  done  is  too  much  for  me  to  say." 

The  incident  here  narrated  is  thus  noticed  by  Mr. 
Brunei's  son  and  biographer. 

"  The  great  bridge  over  the  Thames  at  Maidenhead  contains 
two  of  the  flattest  and  probably  the  largest  arches  that  have 
ever  been  constructed  in  brickwork.  .  .  .  The  main  arches  are 
semi-elliptical,  each  of  128  feet  span  and  24  feet  3  inches 
rise.  .  .  .  The  radius  of  curvature  at  the  crown  of  the  large 
arches  is  165  feet,  and  the  horizontal  thrust  on  the  brickwork 
at  that  point  is  about  10  tons  per  square  foot.  .  .  .  The 
Maidenhead  Bridge  is  remarkable,  not  only  for  the  boldness 
and  ingenuity  of  its  design,  but  also  for  the  gracefulness  of 
its  appearance.  If  Mr.  Brunei  had  erected  this  bridge  at  a 
later  period,  he  would  probably  have  employed  timber  or  iron ; 
but  it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  regret  that  this  part  of  the 
Thames,  although  subjected  to  the  dreaded  invasion  of  a 
railway,  has  been  crossed  by  a  structure  which  enhances  the 
beauty  of  the  scenery." 

With  regard  to  the  defective  condition  in  which 
young  Mr.  Fowler  found  the  bridge,  Mr.  Isambard 
Brunei  gives  the  following  information  : — 

"  During  the  construction  of  the  bridge  a  part  of  the  crown 
of  the  eastern  arch  proved  defective  in  consequence  of  the 


MAIDENHEAD   BRIDGE  33 

cement  in  the  middle  of  the  brickwork  not  having  set  suffi- 
ciently at  the  time  when  the  centering  was  eased.  Apprehen- 
sions which  had  been  entertained  by  some  as  to  the  safety  of 
the  structure  were  groundless,  for  when  the  defective  part  was 
taken  out  and  replaced  no  further  trouble  was  experienced.  The 
bridge  has  stood  well,  and  has  shown  none  of  those  symptoms 
which  an  overstrained  structure  exhibits." 

Mr.  Fowler's  connection  with  Brunei's  beautiful 
bridge  was  destined  to  be  renewed  again  many  years 
later.  In  1893,  addressing  tbe  Merchant  Venturer's 
School  at  Bristol,  he  gave  the  following  account  of 
the  widening  of  the  bridge.  He  cites  it  as  an  instance 
of  the  improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  materials, 
other  than  steel  and  iron,  used  in  bridges  and  similar 
structures  : — 

"  This  bridge,"  he  said,  "  consisting  of  two  main  arches,  each 
128  feet  span  with  a  rise  of  23  feet  3  inches,  was  built  in  1837 
with  bricks  known  as  '  London  Stocks '  and  with  mortar  made 
partly  with  chalk-lime,  and  partly  but  chiefly  with  Eornan 
cement  and  sand. 

"  With  such  materials  the  bridge  had  very  little  margin  of 
stability ;  indeed,  with  the  east  arch  considerable  difficulty  was 
experienced  in  putting  it  into  a  perfectly  safe  condition. 

"When  the  widening  of  the  Great  Western  Eailway  from 
London  to  Didcot  was  decided  upon,  the  mode  of  dealing 
with  the  Maidenhead  Bridge  necessarily  required  special  con- 
sideration. 

"Very  naturally,  as  the  consulting  engineer  of  the  com- 
pany since  the  death  of  Mr.  Brunei,  the  directors  referred  the 
matter  to  me  for  my  decision,  and  I  had  no  difficulty  in 
advising  the  Board  to  make  the  addition  on  each  side,  and 
preserve  the  old  beautiful  lines  and  elevation. 

"The  work  is  now  finished,  and  is  satisfactory  to  the 
directors  and  Mr.  Brunei's  old  friends. 

"The  bricks  used  in  the  widening  were  of  very  superior 
D 


34  EARLY  LIFE 

quality,  and  possessed  a  strength  of  resistance  against  crushing 
several  times  greater  than  the  bricks  originally  used  in  the 
work,  although  no  doubt  Mr.  Brunei  adopted  the  best  material 
at  that  time  obtainable. 

"  The  mortar  used  for  the  widening  (Portland  cement  and 
clean  Thames  sand)  possessed  a  degree  of  cohesive  strength 
and  a  regularity  of  quality,  which  were  unknown  in  the  days 
of  lime  and  Eoman  cement. 

"  With  such  superior  materials  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
additional  arching  was  a  work  of  perfect  simplicity,  and  free 
from  the  anxiety  which  the  original  work  under  other  con- 
ditions caused  the  engineer. 

"When  we  consider  the  amazingly  improved  methods  of 
manufacture  of  the  three  common  but  most  important 
materials  employed  upon  structures  for  land,  and  with  ships 
for  water,  viz.  steel,  bricks,  and  cement,  we  are  unable  to 
form  any  definite  idea  of  the  total  amount  of  benefit — 
economical  and  otherwise — that  has  resulted  from  these  im- 
proved methods." 

It  is  an  interesting  episode,  though  as  introduced 
here  it  somewhat  anticipates  our  narrative.  It  supplies 
a  comment  on  the  pessimism  which,  from  an  artistic 
point  of  view,  is  ever  bewailing  the  deterioration  of 
modern  methods  of  manufacture  and  workmanship. 
The  artistic  proprieties  perhaps  are  and  have  been  less 
considered  than  they  should  be,  but  the  superiority  of 
every  class  of  material  at  the  present  time  gives  the 
engineer  and  the  architect  a  larger  scope  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  design.  There  always  is  and  must  be 
a  question  of  economy  in  the  background,  for  the  desire 
to  economise  effort  is  a  condition  of  our  existence,  but 
it  is  very  questionable  if  it  has  more  weight  as  against 
artistic  considerations  with  the  present  generation  than 
with  generations  which  have  gone  before. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

HIS  engagement  with  Mr.  Eastrick  was  now  drawing 
to  a  close,  and  he  had  to  consider  the  next  step. 
In  pursuance  of  the  plan  of  allowing  Mr.  Fowler  as 
far  as  possible  to  tell  his  own  story,  the  following  letter 
to  his  father  is  inserted. 

"  45,  STAMFORD  STREET, 

"  BLACKFRIARS  ROAD,  LONDON, 
"JulylSth,  1838. 

"MY  DEAR  FATHER, — My  engagement  with  Mr.  Rastrick 
being  now  within  a  few  weeks  of  its  termination,  I  thought  it 
best  to  have  his  wishes  with  respect  to  its  continuance,  and 
to-day  I  have  had  a  conversation  with  him  on  the  subject,  the 
result  of  which  I  am  anxious  to  communicate  to  you,  and 
receive  your  answer  per  return,  if  possible,  as  I  have  promised 
to  give  a  final  reply  this  week. 

"  By  way  of  introduction,  I  must  beg  of  you  not  to  mention 
to  any  one  the  salary  I  have  had  or  am  to  have,  for  I  detest 
the  country  fashion  most  heartily  of  interfering  with  every 
person's  affairs  and  business. 

"Mr.  Rastrick's  offer  (which  I  feel  disposed  to  accept)  is 
£160  a  year  for  the  next  twelve  months,  or  £80  for  six  months 
and  the  chance  of  a  resident  engineer,  should  he  be  enabled 
to  give  me  one,  and  in  case  of  being  from  home  10s.  Qd.  a  day 
for  *  wittels.' 

"  Now  although  this  is  not  a  very  high  salary,  yet  I  think 

35 


36  SUBOEDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

on  the  whole  it  will  be  better  to  accept  it  at  the  present,  until 
something  better  turns  up,  for  the  following  reasons  :— 

"  Baines  will  not  then  be  able  to  badger  me  and  express  his 
indignation  to  the  House  of  Lords  at  the  heinous  crime  of  my 
being  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

"  If  I  should  be  disposed  to  try  my  luck  in  Yorkshire  the 
people  will  almost  have  forgotten  me  in  that  time,  and  conse- 
quently I  shall  be  much  better  thought  of. 

"  And,  lastly,  it  is  possible  I  may  meet  with  something  here 
worth  having  in  the  meantime. 

"Now  I  am  rather  disposed  to  think  that  Mr.  Eastrick 
would  give  me  rather  more  than  £160  a  year  before  he  would 
allow  me  to  leave,  but  I  would  much  prefer  concluding  a 
bargain  with  him,  with  an  obligation  on  his  part  to  give  me 
a  better  situation  if  he  has  the  opportunity,  than  drive  the 
bargain  to  the  utmost  sixpence,  because  I  believe  Kastrick  will 
do  me  a  service  if  he  can;  however,  do  let  me  have  your 
opinions  on  these  points. 

"  I  saw  my  uncle  in  town  last  week  for  a  very  short  time, 
but  I  shall  be  very  sorry  if  he  ever  comes  up  without  my 
seeing  him  ;  and  on  my  mentioning  to  him  what  would  probably 
be  the  result  of  my  trying  again  to  agree  with  Eastrick  he 
fully  concurred  with  me  in  opinion  as  to  the  policy  of 
continuing,  and  you  are  aware  that  I  entertain  a  very  high 
opinion  of  his  judgment  in  mundane  affairs. 

"  I  enclose  my  small  account  for  the  Halifax  and  Sheffield 
Eoad  Trustees,  which  I  will  trouble  you  to  deliver  for  me  with 
my  best  compliments  to  Mr.  Burbeary." 

Then  in  his  character  of  elder  brother  he  requests 
his  brother  Henry  to  send  him  specimens  of  his  work, 
and  with  an  eye  no  doubt  to  his  own  information  as 
well  as  Henry's  education  he  offers  to  pay  for  as  many 
designs  of  bridges  "as  he  can  afford  to  do  for  a 
sovereign." 

A  month  later,  August  14th,  1838,  we  find  a  further 


HIS  YOUNGER  BROTHERS  37 

letter  to  his  father  on  the  subject  of  Henry's  education, 
and  it  is  amusing  to  notice  how  completely  this  young 
man  of  twenty-one  has  taken  in  charge  the  whole  of 
his  family.  Henry  is  about  to  engage  with  his  own 
old  instructor,  Mr.  Leather. 

"  I  hope,"  he  says  to  his  father,  "  you  will  not  procrastinate 
again  for  the  very  moderate  period  of  twelve  months  before 
taking  the  final  step,  for  it  is  quite  possible  Mr.  Leather  may 
have  the  offer  of  a  large  premium  for  so  desirable  a  situation." 

He  feels  unable  to  advise  about  Charles,  who  was 
desirous  of  becoming  an  architect.  He  recommends 
London  in  preference  to  Sheffield,  and  prays  the  family 
not  to  be  bigoted  in  favour  of  Flockton,  a  local  architect 
of  Sheffield. 

The  letters  ramble  on  in  a  good-natured  way,  con- 
fident, yet  always  respectful  and  affectionate,  and 
occasionally  jocose. 

"  The  possibility  you  mentioned  in  your  last  of  yourself  and 
mother  coming  to  London  was  so  extremely  ludicrous  that 
I  laughed  for  twenty  minutes  consecutively.  My  mother  in 
London,  ha !  ha !  But  I  hope  she  will  go  with  you  to  the  north, 
and  if  you  should  come  to  town,  I  should  of  course  be  most 
glad  to  see  you.  .  .  . 

'<!  want  now  to  say  a  few  words  to  you  about  treating  me  to 
a  theodolite,  a  very  beautiful  instrument  which  I  can  purchase 
cheap,  £16 ;  for  with  the  expense  of  London  and  occasionally 
purchasing  a  few  books  and  instruments  I  am  as  poor  as  a  New 
Poor  Law  cat." 

The  future  Conservative  candidate  was  apparently 
even  at  this  time  a  Tory  in  politics,  but  there  are  very 
few  political  allusions  in  his  letters  of  this  date.  In 
this  letter  he  expresses  a  fear  that  "our  radical 


38  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

ministers  will  take  some  step,  perhaps  open  the  ports 
to  lower  the  price  of  corn  in  a  short  time,  for  people 
are  becoming  very  clamorous  at  the  rise  of  bread." 

Then  at  the  end  of  a  three-page,  closely  written 
letter  the  important  information  is  added,  "  I  have 
agreed  with  Mr.  Eastrick  again  on  his  own  terms." 

As  to  his  future,  he  continues  to  speculate.  He 
would  like,  when  leaving  Mr.  Eastrick,  to  have  em- 
ployment on  the  Manchester  and  Sheffield,  perhaps  as 
a  contractor,  or  perhaps  Lord  Wharncliffe  would  give 
him  the  post  of  a  resident  engineer.  His  uncle  at  this 
time  purchased  Chapel  Town  Iron  Works,  and  was 
looking  out  for  a  moneyed  partner. 

"  I  tell  you  candidly/'  he  says  in  a  letter  to  his  father,  "  that 
if  I  could  by  any  means  obtain  the  use  of  £3,000,  I  would 
negotiate  with  him  to  join  as  an  active  partner,  and  reside  upon 
the  works,  for  although  my  professional  prospects  are  perhaps 
as  bright  as  most  young  men  of  my  age,  yet  I  am  not  so  con- 
fident about  the  future,  and  if  I  had  a  chance  of  entering 
in  the  Chapel  Town  concern  I  assure  you  I  would  embrace 
it,  but  if  you  don't  know  any  Mr.  George  Greaves,  or  some 
such  person  who  has  a  few  thousand  he  is  anxious  to  employ, 
I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  give  it  up." 

By  this  time  he  had  moved  to  25,  Frederick  Place, 
Hampstead  Eoad,  but  in  November  he  was  sent  by 
Mr.  Eastrick  to  Cumberland,  and  he  writes  to  his 
father  from  Preston,  November  5th,  1838  : — 

"As  I  have  half  an  hour  to  spare  before  the  coach  starts 
for  Lancaster,  I  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity  of  writing  a 
few  lines  to  explain  the  object  of  my  being  here. 

"  I  start  from  Lancaster  to  find  the  best  line  of  railway 
through  Cumberland  near  to  the  sea  coast  as  far  as  the  Calder 


SURVEYING  IN   CUMBEELAND  39 

Eiver  (a  distance  of  40  miles),  where  I  shall  be  met  by  a 
gentleman  whom  Mr.  Eastrick  has  sent  to  start  from  Mary- 
port. 

"  This  railway  will  form  part  of  a  continuous  communication 
from  London  through  Birmingham,  Preston,  Lancaster,  Mary- 
port,  Carlisle,  and  thence  to  Glasgow,  of  which  that  portion 
from  London  to  Preston  is  now  open  and  from  Preston  to 
Lancaster  is  in  a  forward  state  of  execution. 

"  The  peculiar  feature  in  the  railway  in  which  I  am  engaged 
here  is  the  embanking  of  Morecambe  Bay  from  the  sea,  by 
carrying  the  railway  over  the  estuary  of  Morecambe  and  re- 
claiming about  50,000  acres  of  land  from  the  sea. 

"As  I  expect  to  have  nearly  fifty  miles  of  levels  to  take, 
I  fully  anticipate  being  in  Cumberland  for  a  month  or  six 
weeks  at  the  least,  especially  as  the  weather  appears  likely 
to  prove  unfavourable. 

"  I  am  accompanied  by  a  gentleman  (Mr.  Bristow)  who  has 
only  been  a  pupil  of  Mr.  Eastrick  for  a  very  short  time,  and 
whom  Mr.  Eastrick  has  placed  under  my  judicious  care  in  a 
professional  view,  but  he  is  a  very  clever,  gentlemanly  fellow, 
about  nineteen  years  of  age,  and  a  first-rate  mathematician, 
and  besides  a  very  pleasant  companion. 

"The  remainder  of  the  line  will  be  under  the  superin- 
tendence of  two  gentlemen  who  have  frequently  taken  levels 
for  Mr.  Eastrick.  and  knowing  his  ways  and  having  two  levels 
instead  of  my  one,  will  have  an  advantage  so  far  as  point  of 
rapidity." 

Then  follows  a  request  that  his  old  staff  holder, 
Marsh,  should  be  sent  to  him. 

In  his  next  letter,  dated  November  12th,  1838,  he 
gives  a  further  account  of  his  undertaking. 

"  You  wish  to  know  a  little  more  of  the  scheme  on  which  I 
am  engaged,  but  as  I  am  said  by  an  eminent  phrenologist  to  be 
deficient  in  the  bump  of  description,  I  am  afraid  I  can't  be  very 
clear  and  explicit. 


40  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

"You  are  probably  aware  that  a  good  deal  of  interest  has 
been  excited  by  the  discussions,  surveys,  etc.,  which  have  taken 
place  to  prove  whether  the  best  line  of  railway  to  Scotland 
should  be  taken  on  the  western  or  eastern  coast.  Now  it  is 
of  great  importance  to  the  existing  railways  in  the  direction 
of  the  north  from  London  that  theirs  should  be  made  use  of 
as  part  of  the  grand  Northern  Trunk,  and  it  is  with  reference 
to  the  scheme  of  continuing  the  railway  communication  from 
Lancaster  across  Morecambe  Bay  and  along  the  western  coast 
to  Carlisle  and  thence  to  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh  that  we 
are  now  employed.  The  portion  of  the  scheme  which  is  now 
being  surveyed  by  Mr.  Rastrick  is  from  Lancaster  to  Mary- 
port,  and  this  distance  is  divided  into  two  portions:  in  one 
from  Lancaster  to  the  Calder  River  beyond  Ravenglass,  I  have 
the  honour  of  being  entrusted  with  the  exploring  of  the 
country  and  finding  and  levelling  the  line,  and  thence  to 
Maryport  is  completed  by  two  gentlemen  who  have  before 
levelled  a  good  deal  for  Mr.  Rastrick. 

"The  principal  feature  in  this  scheme,  as  I  think  I  told 
you  before,  is  the  formation  of  a  railway  across  the  bay  of 
Morecambe,  and  thereby  reclaiming  about  40,000  acres  of 
land  from  the  sea.  The  bay  I  have  crossed  to-day  with  a 
chain  at  low  water,  and  then  the  sands  are  quite  dry  for 
miles  in  extent  and  most  beautifully  level,  and  indeed  at 
the  point  of  crossing  them  with  the  railway  embankment 
(10J  miles  in  length)  the  sands  are  only  covered  to  a  small 
extent  at  low  water. 

"I  have  been  detained  at  Lancaster  considerably  longer 
than  I  expected,  partly  from  the  unfavourable  state  of  the 
weather,  and  partly  from  having  taken  a  line  quite  distinct 
to  the  one  which  has  been  thought  of,  and  therefore  having 
to  level  twice  as  much  as  was  expected;  however,  I  have 
this  morning  sent  off  an  immense  despatch  to  Mr.  Rastrick 
with  the  result  of  our  operations,  which  I  hope  will  be 
satisfactory.  .  .  .  The  whole  of  the  Cumberland  hills  are 
covered  with  snow." 


MORECAMBE   BAY  41 

A  fortnight  later  he  writes  again  :— 

"MY  DEAR  FATHER, — I  must  apologise  for  not  complying 
with  your  wishes  as  to  a  letter  per  week,  but  really  I  have 
been  too  much  engaged  until  this  afternoon,  when  a  tre- 
mendous gale  of  wind  has  given  me  a  little  leisure. 

"My  survey  is  now  almost  completed,  and  if  the  weather 
should  be  favourable  I  shall  be  in  town  again  in  a  week. 

"After  finishing  on  the  Lancaster  side  of  Morecambe  Bay, 
I  had  a  difficult  country  to  encounter  in  the  peninsula  of 
Furness,  and  my  progress  with  respect  to  distance  was  slow ; 
but  I  determined  thoroughly  to  examine  and  find  out  the 
best  possible  line  in  a  general  point  of  view  without  entering 
unnecessarily  into  detail,  and,  I  think,  succeeded  tolerably 
well.  And  at  the  northern  extremity  of  the  peninsula  I  had 
to  level  across  the  estuary  of  the  Duddon,  which  at  low 
water  is  confined  to  a  channel  of  150  yards  in  breadth,  but 
at  high  water  is  nearly  two  miles.  Now  although  levelling 
across  sands  is  generally  a  very  simple  operation,  yet  in  this 
case  it  was  not  so  particularly  simple. 

"In  the  first  place  the  sands  are  almost  what  might  be 
called  quicksands,  and  in  the  next  place  low  water  was  before 
daylight  and  we  were  two  hours  after  the  ebb,  and  in  the 
last  place  I  had  an  attack  of  slight  English  cholera  or  some 
other  confounded  affection. 

"However,  we  managed  pretty  well  over  (being  ferried 
across  the  channel  in  a  boat)  to  the  opposite  shores,  but  the 
tide  was  then  rolling  in  apace,  and  we  had  nearly  a  mile 
to  run  to  get  to  the  boat  (now  pray  don't  be  alarmed,  I  beg, 
for  I  assure  you  I  am  not  going  to  be  drowned).  However, 
off  we  started  at  a  rattling  pace;  the  first  low  place  which 
had  been  covered  by  the  tide  was  not  more  than  a  foot  deep, 
and  easily  passed ;  then,  tally  ho !  on  for  the  next,  which  we 
knew  was  the  deepest,  and  if  we  couldn't  pass  it  return  was 
impossible ;  however,  the  first  got  over  in  about  18  inches 
of  water,  the  next,  who  was  at  his  heels,  about  2  feet,  the 
next  deeper;  I  was  the  next  with  my  level  on  my  shoulder, 
and  got  clear  of  a  tremendous  wave,  which,  however,  caught 


42  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

Marsh,  who  was  at  iny  heels,  and  nearly  overset  him.  And 
thus  all  got  clear  with  merely  a  desperate  cold  bath,  then 
off  and  away  over  the  dry,  intervening  high  sand  to  the  boat 
in  the  principal  channel,  which  by  this  time  had  become  more 
than  half  a  mile  broad ;  and  being  landed  on  the  opposite 
shore  we  made  the  best  of  our  way  to  quarters  and  changed, 
and  fortunately  I  took  no  increased  cold. 

"  After  sending  off  despatches  of  this  work  to  Mr.  Eastrick, 
I  passed  over  into  Cumberland,  and,  the  country  being  favour- 
able, I  have  progressed  at  a  rapid  rate  until  to-day,  when  the 
wind  has  been  too  high  for  levelling. 

"  Yesterday,  after  attending  divine  service  at  Bootle  Church, 
I  and  Bristow  ascended  one  of  the  mountains  (Black  Combe), 
2,000  feet  high,  and  the  day  being  very  clear  we  had  a  most 
magnificent  prospect,  the  inland  Cumberland  mountains 
(Helvellyn,  Scawfell,  Skiddaw,  etc.)  being  snow-capped  in  a 
most  splendid  manner,  and  besides  other  objects  we  saw  the 
Isle  of  Man  and  Scotland  very  distinctly. 

"  I  wrote  yesterday  to  Mr.  Eastrick  for  some  more  ammuni- 
tion, as  we  find  we  shall  be  obliged  to  remain  in  the  country 
if  not  taken  out  of  pawn.  Our  expenses  have  been  enormous, 
being  obliged  to  post  very  long  distances  round  Morecambe 
Bay,  Duddon,  etc.,  but  we  have  been  very  careful  as  far  as 
possible.  However,  £50  in  a  month — or  rather  a  little  more 
than  three  weeks — looks  almost  as  bad  as  valuators  travelling 
with  four  horses  on  the  Manchester  Eailway,  seeing  double  hills, 
and  estimating  the  wrong  ones  at  a  distance  that  required 
very  powerful  optical  instruments  even  to  distinguish. 

"As  the  supporters  of  the  West  Cumberland  and  Furness 
Eailway  are  very  sanguine,  it  appears  probable  that  they  may 
'deposit'  in  March;  and  if  so,  after  assisting  Mr.  Eastrick 
in  making  his  calculations  and  report,  I  may  perhaps  be  down 
here  again  in  a  month  to  take  the  parliamentary  levels." 

His  next  letter  is  from  Ravenglass,  Cumberland, 
under  date  December  4th,  1838  :— 

"I   have   nothing   particular  to   relate   except  my  having 


LETTERS   FROM   CUMBERLAND  43 

been  most  completely  soaked  through  and  through  every  day 
since  last  Sunday  but  once,  and  getting  amongst  the  water 
on  the  tide  rivers  with  which  the  shore  here  abounds;  but 
I  am  now  quite  accustomed  to  it. 

"We  have  been  so  much  delayed  beyond  the  time  at  first 
contemplated  for  our  getting  finished,  that  I  have  been 
devising  schemes  for  working  all  weathers  in  future,  if 
possible,  for  Cumberland  wind  and  rain  set  all  calculation 
at  defiance. 

"I  had  a  long  interview  yesterday  with  Sir  Fleming 
Senhouse,  who  takes  the  principal  management  in  this 
scheme,  and  lunched  with  him.  I  was  not  aware  before  that 
I  was  Mr.  Fowler,  the  engineer ;  but  so  Sir  Fleming  said, 
and  I  allowed  it  to  pass." 

Mr.  Fowler  at  this  period  of  his  life  looked  con- 
siderably more  than  his  real  age.  The  crime  of  being 
only  one  -  and  -  twenty  was  not  very  patent,  and  in 
after  years  Mr.  Fowler  used  to  say  that  the  fact  was 
to  his  advantage. 

Then  for  his  father's  information  there  follow  some 
remarks  on  the  state  of  agriculture,  the  nature  of  the 
fences,  which  here  consisted  of  soil  embankments  of 
about  5  feet  high,  4  feet  wide  at  the  top,  crowned 
by  a  low  hedge,  and  with  ditches  on  both  sides  "in 
size  more  like  young  canals." 

Three  days  later,  December  7th,  1838,  he  is  on 
his  way  back  to  London,  and  writes  to  his  father 
from  Preston  : — 

"I  expect,  if  the  West  Cumberland  and  Furness  Railway 
scheme  should  go  on,  we  shall  be  very  busily  engaged  from 
the  present  time  to  March  1st  (the  last  day  of  depositing 
plans  for  Parliament),  but  I  have  been  so  long  from  head- 
quarters that  I  am  rather  ignorant  of  the  arrangements 
which  have  been  made  on  the  subject;  but  I  will  take  an 


44  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

early  opportunity  to  write  you  a  full  account,  but  I  quite 
expect  I  shall  not  have  the  pleasure  of  eating  iny  Christmas 
pie  at  Wadsley  Hall." 

On  the  19th  December  he  writes  again  to  his  father 
that  his  survey  has  been  approved  by  Mr.  Kastrick, 
who  was  then  considering  his  report. 

"My  survey  was  very  satisfactory,  and  all  the  deviations 
I  took  from  the  general  principle  of  the  line  Mr.  Eastrick 
marked  out  upon  the  ground  (I  don't  mean  questions  of 
detail)  he  has  adopted  without  exception,  and  if  the  scheme 
proceeds  I  expect  to  go  down  again  immediately  and  remain 
till  March.  I  don't  think  I  shall  be  able  to  get  down  to 
see  you  this  Christmas,  but  I  don't  exactly  know,  as  there 
will  necessarily  be  a  calm  for  a  week  or  two  during  the  time 
Mr.  Eastrick 's  report  is  being  printed,  a  meeting  called,  and 
the  question  of  further  progress  decided  on  before  the 
hurricane  commences,  after  which  casting  anchor  is  out  of 
the  question,  for,  once  embarked,  we  must  ride  out  the  gale. 
If  I  do  come,  I  shall  dine  with  you  on  Sunday  next,  but 
don't  expect  me  until  you  see  me." 

Whether  Mr.  Fowler  spent  Christmas  with  his  father 
or  not  we  are  unable  to  say,  but  he  returned  again 
before  long  to  his  surveying  in  Cumberland.  The 
following  letter,  written  in  1883,  relates  an  incident 
in  connection  therewith  :— 

"I  remember,"  he  says,  "the  incident  in  crossing  More- 
cambe  Bay  sands  perfectly  well;  indeed,  it  was  a  danger  not 
likely  to  be  forgotten. 

"  Mr.  Bischoff  and  I,  and  Mr.  Jonathan  Binns,  of  Lancaster, 
were  driving  across  the  sands  when  I  was  acting  as  Mr. 
Eastrick's  chief  engineering  assistant  in  laying  out  the  railway 
from  Lancaster  across  the  sands  thence  near  to  Barrow  (now 
very  famous  for  iron  works,  shipbuilding  docks,  etc.),  through 


AN   ADVENTUEE  45 

Furness,  across  Duddon  sands,  Eavenglass,  Whitehaven,  and 
Workington. 

"  The  railway  was  called,  I  believe,  the  Morecambe  Bay 
Eailway,  and  the  plans  were  deposited  in  1838  and  1839. 
Mr.  Bischoff,  Binns,  and  myself  were  posting  across  the  sands 
when  a  sudden  and  violent  snowstorm  came  on. 

"I  recollect  that,  although  the  windows  were  closed,  the 
fine  snow,  driven  by  a  strong  wind,  penetrated  into  the 
carriage  and  formed  a  small  snowdrift  inside.  In  those  days 
the  route  across  the  sands,  and  especially  the  tidal  channels, 
which  had  to  be  crossed,  was  marked  by  boughs  of  trees  put 
into  the  sand  as  guides  to  travellers,  and  men  were  engaged 
to  watch  any  changes  in  the  channels,  and  then  alter  the 
position  of  the  boughs.  To  show  that  this  was  necessary, 
it  was  narrated  that  a  coach  got  into  a  channel  not  many 
years  before,  and  all  were  drowned. 

"After  passing  some  distance  across  the  sands  on  our 
journey,  we  became  aware  that  our  horses  were  no  longer 
trotting,  but  were  walking  slowly ;  and  on  opening  the  window 
and  speaking  to  the  driver,  I  found  he  was  crying,  and 
admitted  he  had  lost  his  way. 

"As  the  youngest  of  the  party,  I  got  upon  the  box,  took 
the  reins,  and  endeavoured  to  get  an  idea  of  our  course.  I 
had  to  take  a  leap  in  the  dark,  and  changed  the  course  con- 
siderably, but  as  it  turned  out  not  sufficiently,  for  a  man  soon 
after  galloped  up  to  us  and  inquired  where  we  were  going. 
Of  course  we  answered  that  was  exactly  what  we  wanted 
to  know. 

"  The  man  was  a  carrier,  and  had  detected  the  spot  where 
our  driver  had  gone  wrong,  and  where  I  had  partially  made 
the  mistake.  He  soon  brought  us  to  shore. 

"  It  appeared  that  the  driver  had  turned  his  course,  so  that 
he  was  driving  out  to  sea,  and  I  had  corrected  it  so  that  we 
were  driving  parallel  to  the  shore.  In  one  hour  we  should 
all  have  been  drowned  except  for  the  carrier. 

"Binns  is  dead  long  ago,  but  Bischoff  lived  to  resuscitate 
the  Tilbury  Eailway  which  I  made  many  years  ago,  and  I 


46  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

lived  to   make   the   Metropolitan   and   Metropolitan   District 
Railways,  and  a  good  many  other  things. 

"The  Morecambe  Bay  Railway  was  an  important  and 
thoroughly  sound  conception,  but  it  was  proposed  before  its 
time  ...  I  was  very  proud  to  have  been  entrusted,  at  twenty- 
two  years  of  age,  by  Mr.  Rastrick  with  the  sole  responsibility 
of  laying  out  so  great  and  difficult  a  work  !  " 

The  West  Cumberland  and  Furness  Railway,  or 
the  Morecambe  Bay  Railway,  as  Sir  John  Fowler 
calls  it,  apparently  came  to  nothing,  but  in  June, 
1839,  Mr.  Rastrick  sent  his  competent  young  assistant 
to  Burton-on-Trent  to  take  the  levels  of  a  line  of 
railway,  a  continuation  of  the  Manchester  and  Derby, 
to  join  the  Birmingham  and  Derby  at  Willington, 
some  five  or  six  miles  from  Burton,  but,  as  he  wrote 
to  his  father  : — 

"It  is  merely  an  opposition  scheme  to  the  Manchester 
Extension  Railway  now  before  Parliament,  and  not  a  bond 
fide  undertaking." 

On  June  29th,   1839,  he  writes  to  his  father  :— 

'  I  shall  most  certainly  leave  Rastrick  in  August,  when  my 
engagement  expires,  but  shall  not  decide  exactly  what  to  do 
until  I  come  down  into  Yorkshire,  which  I  have  considered  will 
be  best  in  several  respects,  although  probably  I  shall  immedi- 
ately open  offices  in  Sheffield  as  '  Civil  Engineer  and  Surveyor,' 
but  I  have  several  reasons  for  wishing  it  not  to  be  spoken 
about  at  present.  Your  assistance,  which  would  be  indispen- 
sable, I  take  of  course  for  granted  from  your  usual  kindness, 
would  not  be  wanting. 

"  Before  I  leave  London  I  purpose  getting  a  few  instruments 
and  books  of  reference,  which  I  can  do  much  better  and 
cheaper  on  the  spot  than  if  I  have  to  send  for  them,  and  for 
which  I  should  want  your  assistance,  and  my  time  being  now 
rather  limited,  I  wish  you  would  write  as  soon  as  possible. 


PLANS  FOE  THE  FUTUKE  47 

"  The  amount  about  as  under  : — 

£      s. 

5  in.  Theodolite  .  .         .     26     5 

Pocket  sextant  .  ..55 

Pentagraph      .  .  ..99 

Protractor        .  .  ..22 

Books,  including  Smeaton's  reports, 
Tredgold's  works,  etc.  that  I  have 
marked  down  in  a  catalogue  .  .  18  6 

£61     7 

"  Even  if  I  should  not  open  offices  in  Sheffield,  the  above 
list  will  be  necessary  in  almost  any  situation  I  should  be  in.  .  . 

"  We  are  much  engaged  in  Parliament  just  now  in  opposing 
the  Manchester  and  Birmingham  Extension  Eailway  Bill,  and 
from  the  present  state  of  the  promoters  and  opposers  it  appears 
likely  to  be  one  of  the  most  expensive  applications  and  opposi- 
tions ever  made,  not  less  I  should  say  than  £200,000,  which 
would  make  a  snug  little  railway  of  itself." 

A  letter  of  August  3rd,  1839,  gratefully  acknow- 
ledges the  receipt  of  £70  sent  to  him  for  the  modest 
equipment  above  mentioned. 

"My  time,"  the  letter  goes  on,  "with  Kastrick*  is  now  very 
short,  as  I  shall  leave  him  next  Thursday,  and,  the  day  after, 
I  propose  going  down  to  Potter  (James  Potter,  Esq.,  Civil 
Engineer,  Borden's  Farm,  Balcombe,  Sussex),  and  after  re- 
maining with  him  a  week  or  ten  days,  return  to  London,  and 
then  after  settling  my  important  worldly  affairs,  you  may 
expect  me  down  in  Yorkshire.  The  astronomical  calculations 
of  the  time  of  appearance  of  this  extraordinary  comet  give 
August  24th  as  the  time  when  he  may  be  expected  to  be  seen 
in  this  hemisphere." 

*  In  a  letter  to  the  Times,  September  26,  1891,  Sir  John  Fowler  drew 
attention  to  the  omission  of  Mr.  Rastrick's  name  from  an  article  com- 
memorating the  jubilee  of  the  London,  Brighton,  and  South  Coast 
Railway.  He  seems  throughout  life  to  have  cherished  a  kindly  recollec- 
tion of  his  old  employer. 


48  SUBOEDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

Eight  days  later  his  plans  had  again  changed,  as  we 
learn  from  a  letter  of  August  llth,  written  from  Leeds  : 

"On  Wednesday  last  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  J.  T. 
Leather,  stating  that  his  uncle  was  in  want  of  someone  to  be 
on  a  railway  of  his  in  Durham,  and  wishing  me  either  to  come 
or  write  immediately  on  the  subject. 

"  I  consequently  left  London  on  Thursday  night,  as  I  con- 
ceived writing  would  be  a  very  imperfect  mode  of  obtaining 
proper  and  correct  information  of  the  nature  of  the  situation, 
salary,  etc.,  and  it  appeared  it  was  necessary  to  be  decided 
in  the  shortest  possible  time. 

"On  my  arrival  in  Leeds,  and  calling  on  Mr.  Leather,  I 
found  the  situation  he  wished  me  to  take  as  follows : — 

"  To  be  at  Seaton,  in  Durham,  on  the  railway,  and  his  office 
at  Leeds  alternately,  and  the  salary  he  could  give  £200  a  year. 

"  Now  as  this  is  something  different  to  what  you  expected  me 
to  do,  and,  in  fact,  what  I  intended  to  do  myself,  I  will  detail 
to  you  the  circumstances  which  influenced  me  in  deciding  on 
the  step  I  have  taken,  which  is  to  accept  the  appointment. 

"  Mr.  Leather's  office  is  a  most  excellent  one  (from  the 
varied  and  miscellaneous  work  presented)  for  improvement, 
and  some  of  a  character  with  which  in  a  great  measure  I  am 
unacquainted,  and  the  railway  in  Durham  has  sea  embanking 
and  other  peculiar  works  which  make  it  desirable,  and  I  am 
desirous  of  getting  yet  more  information  on  works.  And 
generally  there  are  several  things  which  will  be  better  obtained 
in  his  office  than  anywhere  else,  before  I  commence  business  on 
my  own  account ;  and  in  future  I  am  convinced  the  only  way 
for  a  man  to  be  successful  is  to  understand  all  the  scientific 
and  practical  part  of  engineering  well. 

"I  have  not  decided  on  this  step  either  from  indecision  of 
character  or  in  haste,  but  from  a  well-considered  balance  of 
advantages  and  disadvantages. 

"  I  certainly  only  propose  to  remain  a  year  with  Mr.  Leather, 
and  intend  to  open  offices  in  Sheffield  on  the  1st  September, 
1840,  but  this  is  not  what  I  should  like  Mr.  Leather  to  know, 
as  he  might  not  perhaps  be  pleased." 


STOCKTON  AND   HARTLEPOOL  49 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year  we  find  him  settled 
down  in  permanent  quarters  at  Mr.  Stonehouse's  farm, 
Greatham,  near  Stockton,  Durham. 

"  Mr.  Stonehouse,"  he  writes,  "  is  a  farmer  of  400  acres  of 
land,  and  I  have  exceedingly  nice  rooms,  and  they  appear  a 
very  good  sort  of  people ;  but  of  course  it  was  rather  a  favour 
to  get  here  as  they  are  not  in  the  habit  of  taking  lodgers. 
However,  that  was  done  through  the  kind  offices  of  one  of  the 
directors. 

"  I  find  myself  very  fully  occupied,  which  must  be  a  sort  of 
permanent  excuse  if  I  write  a  short  letter,  or  if  I  don't  write 
at  all,  for  just  at  this  moment  I  have  made  an  engagement 
with  the  contractor  to  be  at  one  end  of  the  work  (five  miles 
from  here)  at  seven  in  the  morning,  to  measure  up  for  his 
monthly  payment,  and  at  twelve  I  have  to  meet  some  of  the 
directors,  the  solicitor,  and  the  agent  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
of  Durham  about  the  alteration  of  some  roads;  afterwards  I 
have  to  put  some  levels  in  for  a  part  of  the  work." 

Mr.  Fowler,  during  the  years  1839  and  1840,  re- 
mained in  superintendence  of  the  making  of  the 
Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Eailway,  spending  his  time 
between  Greatham  and  Hartlepool,  with  occasional 
absence  at  Leeds,  the  head  office  of  his  employer, 
Mr.  Leather. 

The  following  letter  to  his  principal,  a  draft  of 
which  has  been  preserved,  illustrates  the  sort  of  work 
which  had  to  be  performed  by  a  resident  engineer. 

"GKEATHAM,  July  30th,  1840. 

"We  have  had  a  considerable  influx  of  bricklayers  during 
this  week,  and  most  of  them  are  first-rate  hands  from  Leeds, 
so  that  now  we  have  men  for  the  outside  work  competent  to 
make  the  most  of  the  rather  middling  bricks  we  are  obliged  to 
use — middling  I  mean  for  appearance,  because  with  respect 
to  hardness  and  soundness  they  are  very  good  indeed. 

E 


50  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

"  I  enclose  you  a  sketch  of  the  present  state  of  the  viaduct, 
from  which  you  will  be  able  to  judge  of  our  progress. 

"We  have  about  100  bricklayers  at  work  at  the  viaduct  at 
present,  which  is  as  many  as  can  be  employed  with  the  present 
centreing,  but  I  expect  to-morrow  night  the  Greatham  Beck 
culvert  will  be  completely  finished  and  the  centreing,  and  thirty 
men  will  then  be  removed  to  the  viaduct. 

"  We  have  now  only  ten  piers  remaining  to  be  piled,  and  as 
there  are  nine  engines  to  drive  them  I  expect  to  have  them 
finished  next  week,  and  when  the  foundations  are  well  prepared 
we  shall  be  able  to  provide  materials  for  the  bricklayers  with 
less  difficulty. 

"  On  the  whole  I  consider  the  viaduct  to  be  now  proceeding 
in  a  very  satisfactory  manner,  because  as  many  men  are  em- 
ployed upon  it  as  can  possibly  work  with  advantage. 

"  The  bricks,  lime,  gravel,  sand,  timber,  and  other  materials 
required  for  the  work  demand  the  greatest  care  and  attention, 
in  order  that  nothing  may  be  wanting  to  keep  every  workman 
constantly  supplied,  and  this  I  find  sometimes  so  pressing  that 
I  have  several  times  been  under  the  necessity  of  causing 
Greatham  cutting  to  be  stopped  a  shift,  to  employ  the  men  and 
horses  in  providing  what  was  most  urgent. 

"I  am  now  able  to  furnish  you  with  an  account  of  the 
expense  of  covering  the  viaduct  with  coal-tar. 

"  To  cover  46  square  yards  : 

s.     d. 

Coal-tar  .  .  .  10  0 
Coal  .  .  .  10 
Time  .  ..36  Pounded  clay,  46  yards,  1 

inch  thick.     11 J  cubic  yards 

14    4  at  Is.  6d,  17s.  3d. 
or  3f d.  per  square  yard.  or  4Jd  per  square  yard. 

But  as  it  would  be  desirable  to  cover  the  tar  with  4  or  6  inches 
of  soil,  it  is  probable  the  expense  would  be  about  equal. 

"  The  coal-tar  done  makes  a  very  complete  work  by  being 
carried  up  the  spandril  walls,  and  in  a  heavy  shower  the  water 
immediately  runs  to  the  opening  of  the  pier  in  the  lowest  point 


THE  RAILWAY   OPENED  51 

and  flows  out  scarcely  discoloured,  and  the  degree  of  elasticity 
obtained  will  effectually  prevent  its  cracking. 

"  The  covering  of  the  spandril  walls  makes  a  much  better 
junction  to  the  arches  than  could  be  done  if  they  were  covered 
with  clay  instead  of  tar,  and  it  certainly  has  this  advantage 
over  clay,  that  the  brickwork  is  thereby  kept  perfectly  dry, 
whereas  clay  would  keep  it  moist  and  wet. 

"  As  an  instance  of  the  preservative  quality  of  boiled  coal- 
tar,  I  may  mention  that  a  few  weeks  ago,  in  repairing  the 
bridge  at  Sunderland  (which  I  suppose  is  nearly  100  years  old), 
a  piece  of  Memel  plank  was  taken  up  which  had  been  covered 
with  it,  and  was  found  perfectly  sound  and  hard  but  quite 
black,  and  the  tar  itself  unchanged. 

"  I  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  meet  with  a  very  clever 
man  to  manage  the  boiling  and  preparing  the  tar,  and  I  am 
sure  if  you  saw  the  five  arches  now  finished  with  it  and  the 
spandril  walls  covered,  you  would  be  pleased. 

"  Every  other  part  of  the  line  is  going  on  favourably  except 
the  laying  of  the  permanent  way,  for  which  we  have  not  yet 
sufficient  men ;  but  I  have  caused  advertisements  to  be  issued, 
which,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  procure  them  in  a  few  days." 

The  Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Eailway  was  opened 
early  in  1841.  Mr.  Fowler,  who,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  wont  to  identify  himself  with  his  work  in 
a  strongly  personal  way,  seems  to  have  been  a  little 
hurt  at  the  absence  of  his  family  from  the  opening 
ceremony.  In  a  letter,  dated  March  15th,  1841,  and 
written  from  Greatham,  after  dilating  on  this  grievance, 
he  goes  on  to  describe  his  own  connection  with  the 
railway. 

"  The  dinner  passed  over,  and  the  next  morning  found  me 
early  at  the  Stockton  station  with  a  slightly  feverish  brow  and 
a  great  many  arrangements  to  make  for  the  traffic  and  trains, 
and  at  eight  o'clock  I  mounted  the  engine  for  the  first  trip 
to  Hartlepool,  and  kept  to  my  post  (on  the  engine)  all  day, 


52  SUBOKDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

all  the  traffic  arrangements  and  conducting  of  the  trains  and 
orders  at  the  stations  appearing  to  devolve  on  me.  I  was 
up  a  good  deal  of  the  night  again,  and  next  day  was  on 
the  engine  all  day  again.  This  day  in  performing  the  last 
trip  we  had  an  accident  with  the  engine  by  blowing  out 
the  lead  plug  near  Hartlepool,  which  kept  us  up  till  between 
two  and  three  in  the  morning  to  repair  and  get  the  engine 
back  to  Stockton.  Since  that  time  I  have  been  nearly  as 
much  engaged,  but  we  have  had  no  accident  whatever,  except- 
ing killing  a  horse  belonging  to  Hutchinson,  the  contractor. 
The  accident  was  to  the  last  train  from  Hartlepool  to  Stockton 
(being  dark  at  the  time),  and  one  of  Hutchinson's  lads  was 
leading  bran  down  the  Clarence  Railway.  On  the  arrival 
of  the  lad  at  a  certain  part  of  the  line,  he  was  cautioned  not  to 
proceed  further  until  the  train  had  passed,  as  the  Clarence  has 
only  a  single  line  at  that  place  in  consequence  of  replacing 
some  old  materials;  but  the  fellow  said  he  would  go  into 
a  siding  immediately  below  and  wait  till  the  train  had  passed. 
And  had  he  done  so  all  would  have  been  well,  but  he  passed 
on,  and  met  the  train  full.  The  engine  driver  saw  him  a  short 
time  before  they  met,  and  slackened  speed  as  much  as  possible, 
but  the  concussion  was  sufficient  to  throw  the  engine  off  the 
rails,  kill  the  horse,  scatter  the  bran,  etc. 

"  I  was  not  on  the  engine  at  the  time,  but  attending  a  parish 
meeting  about  a  mile  distant  respecting  the  railway,  and  they 
immediately  sent  for  me.  I  collected  a  force  of  men  with 
screw-jacks  and  crowbars  and  winches,  and  we  got  her  on  the 
line  at  half-past  twelve,  and  with  the  other  engine  dragged  her 
to  Stockton." 

A  large  and  varied  responsibility  was  thus  thrown 
on  the  young  man  of  three-and- twenty,  and  the  next 
letter  shows  that  his  capacity  and  services  were  obtain- 
ing recognition.  On  August  12th,  1841,  he  writes  to 
his  father  from  Stockton-on-Tees  :— 

"  I  have  had  Mr.  Leather  over  here  to  the  general  meeting, 
and  during  his  stay  several  of  the  directors  of  the  Stockton 


GENEEAL  MANAGEK  53 

and  Hartlepool  Bailway  took  an  opportunity  of  speaking  to 
him  about  my  continuing  with  them.  He  replied  very 
handsomely  that  he  had  no  objection  if  they  wished  it,  and 
he  advised  my  continuing  to  manage  the  traffic  of  the  railway 
until  Hutchinson  was  done  with  his  contract,  and,  of  course, 
when  my  engagement  with  Mr.  Leather  might  expire,  and  then 
they  might  make  an  agreement  for  my  continuing  with  them. 
Mr.  Leather  said  he  thought  I  should  not  be  content  to  remain 
for  less  than  £300  a  year ;  and  they  said  although  well  aware 
they  could  obtain  persons  who  might  perhaps  be  able  to 
manage  for  them  for  less  salary,  they  would  have  no  objection 
to  give  that.  And  there  for  the  present  the  matter  rests. 
I  have  fitted  up,  or  am  fitting  up,  an  office  in  the  station,  and 
am  looking  out  for  lodgings  in  Stockton." 

Towards  the  close  of  the  letter  he  adds  that  he 
is  going  to  Newcastle  about  some  new  engines ; 
apparently  he  was  now  entirely  responsible  for  the 
management,  traffic,  and  locomotive  department  of 
the  new  line,  of  which  lie  had  himself  been  the  con- 
structing engineer.  Such,  a  concentration  of  authority 
in  one  person  was  rare  even  in  those  early  days,  and 
in  after  life  Sir  John  Fowler  was  wont  to  refer  to  his 
connection  with  the  Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Kailway 
as  a  very  valuable  experience.  Throughout  life  John 
Fowler  seems  to  have  revelled  in  hard  work,  and 
whether  his  day's  occupation  was  a  difficult  problem 
in  engineering  or,  as  here,  the  routine  of  a  responsible 
but  still  commonplace  task,  his  was  one  of  those 
fortunate  natures  which  require  neither  recreation  nor 
refreshment  apart  from  work. 

Herein  no  doubt  lay  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  success 
and  happiness. 

There  are  men  who  work  hard  at  trying  to  amuse 
themselves,  and  meet  with  only  moderate  success.  The 


54  SUBOEDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

most  enviable  life  is  that  which  is  fully  occupied  in 
some  congenial  and  engrossing  pursuit.  Fortunately 
many  men  find  their  happiness  in  what  is  superficially 
regarded  as  the  drudgery  of  daily  life,  and  for  many 
years  this  was  Fowler's  attitude  towards  his  profession. 
There  are  those  who  complain  of  the  too  narrow 
scope  of  the  industrial  life,  but  the  lesson  taught  by  a 
candid  consideration  of  the  facts  seems  to  be,  that  it  is 
quite  possible,  by  a  reasoned  submission  to  the  inevitable, 
to  find,  both  in  work  successfully  accomplished  and  in  the 
leisure  earned  thereby,  some  measure  of  artistic  satisfac- 
tion. The  career  of  a  successful  engineer  like  Sir  John 
Fowler  is  to  some  extent  exceptional,  but  it  is  still  a  fair 
illustration  of  a  wise  philosophy  of  industrial  life.  A 
long  career  of  useful  and  unremitting  toil,  from  which 
he  derived  a  never -failing  enjoyment,  brought  him 
ample  means  and  leisure  to  indulge  his  love  of  hos- 
pitality and  society,  sport,  travel,  and  art.  The 
biographer  has  been  struck,  in  turning  over  the 
materials  confided  to  him  for  the  purpose  of  this  work, 
by  noticing  how  much  wider  the  circle  of  interests 
seems  to  grow  in  middle  and  later  life,  and  further, 
how  on  the  whole,  at  every  period  of  it,  his  life  seems 
to  have  been  a  happy  one ;  so  much  so  is  this  the  case 
that,  though  undoubtedly  each  addition  to  wealth  and 
reputation  was  duly  appreciated,  the  impression  is 
firmly  created  that  even  had  his  ambition  been 
narrower,  and  his  success  less  marked,  Fowler  would 
still  have  been  a  happy  man.  Youth  is  generally 
supposed  to  be  the  period  of  wide  aspiration.  The 
doors  of  the  prison-house  of  life  tend  to  close,  the 
poet  tells  us,  on  the  growing  man.  This  process  was, 
we  believe,  reversed  in  the  case  of  John  Fowler. 


PAELIAMENTAEY  BUSINESS  55 

The  habit  of  getting  immersed  in  business  was  not 
unnoted  by  Fowler  himself.  He  does  not  reprobate 
it  or  excuse  it,  but  notes  it  as  inevitable  in  the  fol- 
lowing comment  on  the  failure  of  Mr.  J.  T.  Leather 
and  his  brother  Henry  to  visit  him  according  to 
promise. 

"It  is,"  he  says,  "a  most  extraordinary  circumstance,  how 
people  in  business  acquire  the  habit  of  never  going  to  any 
place  unless  there  is  some  advantage  in  it,  and  I  therefore 
shall  never  speculate  on  seeing  him,  unless  his  profession  calls 
him  here." 

Though  they  were  all  too  busy  for  mere  visits  of 
ceremony  or  pleasure,  the  young  man  was  very  ready 
to  take  much  trouble  in  order  to  assist  his  brothers  and 
to  advise  his  father  as  to  their  professional  prospects. 

Early  next  year,  i.e.  in  March,  1843,  he  was  in 
London  on  parliamentary  business  connected  with  the 
Hartlepool  extensions. 

"We  are  encountering  a  very  fierce  opposition  on  every 
point,  and  if  we  succeed  at  all  it  will  be  by  fighting  inch  by 
inch." 

On  May  22nd,  1843,  he  writes  : — 

"  I  am  here,  as  you  are  aware,  much  longer  than  I  expected, 
but  the  business  about  which  I  came  is  concluded  to-day,  so 
far  as  regards  the  House  of  Commons.  In  due  time  it  will 
be  introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords,  when  a  similar  fight 
will  again  have  to  be  encountered. 

"In  the  last  week,  however,  I  have  been  more  or  less  en- 
gaged in  some  other  matters,  and  to-day  I  have  been  engaged 
in  the  different  committee-rooms  in  three  different  questions. 
The  Hartlepool  Junction  Eailway,  against  (now  finished);  the 
Monkland  and  Kirkintilloch  Kailway,  for  (postponed  for  a 
week) ;  the  Ballochney  Railway,  for  (which  I  have  to  attend 
to-morrow)/' 


56  SUBORDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

This  practice  is,  he  remarks,  "  satisfactory  and 
profitable,"  and  he  wishes  he  had  more  of  it.  A 
cross-examination  in  a  committee-room  has  now  no 
terrors  for  him. 

In  September  he  is  back  again  at  his  post  on  the 
Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Bailway. 

"I  think  it  very  likely  some  change  will  take  place  here 
soon,  which  will  affect  me,  from  the  traffic  falling  so  very 
short  of  their  expectations,  and  it  will  probably  end  in  its 
being  leased  (as  in  truth  it  ought  to  be)  to  the  Clarence  Rail- 
way, with  which  it  communicates,  and  of  which  it  ought,  when 
first  projected,  to  have  been  a  branch. 

"We  are  preparing  plans  for  applying  to  Parliament  next 
year  for  a  dock  at  Hartlepool,  and,  from  the  continued  illness 
of  our  secretary,  and  having  all  his  duties  and  money  matters 
to  attend  to  in  addition  to  everything  else,  I  am  at  present 
closely  confined,  or  I  would  come  over  to  Wadsley  some  day 
soon,  and  ask  Henry  to  meet  me. 

"  I  have  been  very  anxious  about  Henry  for  some  time, 
from  knowing  his  position,  where  really  he  is  learning  nothing, 
and  from  a  letter  I  have  lately  received  from  him." 

On  January  19th,  1844,  he  writes  to  his  father  :— 

"We  expect  very  severe  opposition  to  our  new  docks  at 
Hartlepool,  and  an  immense  mass  of  engineering  evidence  is 
expected  to  be  given.  I  shall  at  least  gain  information  of  great 
value  in  the  contest,  whatever  may  be  the  fate  of  the  Bill. 
Sir  Gregory  Lewin  is  retained  for  us,  and  he  has  been  with  me 
two  days  upon  the  work,  getting  to  understand  the  engineering 
and  nautical  points  of  the  case.  I  have  engineers  or  con- 
tractors with  me  almost  every  day,  who  are  expected  to  give 
evidence  for  us,  and  this  takes  up  much  of  my  time;  and 
every  moment  I  can  spare  from  them  I  devote  to  a  chart  of 
the  coast  I  have  prepared,  with  soundings,  surveys  of  rocks, 
eddies,  etc.,  etc.,  and  also  the  preparing  of  a  model  of  our 
present  mode  of  shipping  coals  at  Hartlepool,  so  that  you  may 


HIS  FIEST  ENGAGEMENTS  57 

conceive  I  am  pretty  fully  occupied.     I  expect  to  be  in  London 
in  about  three  weeks.  .  .  . 

"  I  believe  this  session  will  be  a  very  busy 'one  in  Parliament 
with  railway  Bills.  I  have  not  got  anything  except  the  dock, 
although  I  believe  I  shall  be  engaged  in  some  other  matters. 
I  have  been  spoken  to  about  a  railway  in  Cornwall  by  a  party 
who  wishes  to  have  my  assistance  in  Parliament." 

The  Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Eailway  was  a  short 
line  of  some  eight  miles.  It  was  subsequently  worked 
in  close  connection  with  the  Clarence  Kailway,  and  the 
whole  combined  length  amounted  to  43  miles.  In 
1852  the  whole  was  amalgamated  with  the  Hartlepool 
Docks,  then  in  course  of  construction,  and  the  title 
of  the  undertaking  became  the  West  Hartlepool 
Harbour  and  Kailway  Co.  Two  years  later,  by  the 
Act  of  July  31st,  1854,  the  company  was  amalgamated 
in  the  system  of  the  North  Eastern  Eailway,  in  the 
balance-sheet  of  which  there  still  figure  certain  West 
Hartlepool  Primary  charges  representing  the  un- 
redeemed portion  of  the  shares  of  the  old  Clarence 
Kailway  Co. 

The  Ballochney  Kailway,  to  which  allusion  is  made 
above,  was  a  mineral  railway  in  direct  communication 
with  the  Slamannan  and  the  Monkland  and  Kirkin- 
tilloch  lines,  and  through  the  latter  with  the  Garnkirk 
and  Glasgow,  and  also  with  the  Wishaw  and  Coltness 
Railways.  It  was  authorised  by  an  Act  of  Parliament 
in  1826.  Up  to  1840  we  are  told  by  Whishaw  in 
his  Railways  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  published 
in  1840,  this  line  had  been  worked  chiefly  by  horses, 
but  at  that  date  it  was  being  prepared  for  locomo- 
tive traction.  It  also  contained  a  self-acting  run  of 
1,200  yards  on  some  modification  of  the  "switchback," 


58  SUBOBDINATE  EMPLOYMENTS 

altogether  a  very  primitive  work.  The  whole  of  these 
lines  is  now  incorporated  in  the  North  British  system. 

Mr.  Fowler's  inspection  of  these  railways  was  under- 
taken through  the  invitation  of  Sir  John  MacNeill,  the 
well-known  Scoto-Hibernian  engineer. 

The  Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Railway  was  an  under- 
taking of  comparatively  small  importance,  but  it  gave 
Mr.  Fowler  a  bit  of  experience  which  is  probably 
unique  in  the  annals  of  railway  engineering.  He 
seems  to  have  surveyed  and  then  built  the  line,  and 
then  to  have  combined  in  his  own  person  the  responsi- 
bility for  every  branch  of  railway  management,  from 
buying  the  engines  to  shutting  the  carriage  doors. 
In  the  course  of  this  employment  he  picked  up  a  great 
deal  of  miscellaneous  information  bearing  on  his  pro- 
fession which  is  not  readily  acquired  under  the  minute 
subdivision  of  labour  which  even  then  was  becoming 
usual. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

1844-1850 

IN  the  early  part  of  1844  young  Mr.  Fowler  came  to 
London,  and  his  independent  work  as  an  engineer 
may  be  dated  from  that  year.  In  a  "  List  of  various 
works  upon  which  Sir  John  Fowler  has  been  engaged," 
kindly  furnished  from  his  office,  there  are  three  entries 
only  for  1844.  Great  Grimsby  Railway,  Sheffield  and 
Lincolnshire  Railway,  Opposition  to  Sheffield  and 
Lincolnshire  Railway. 

In  1845  the  list  is  longer  and  more  imposing:  The 
Great  Grimsby  Railway,  Opposition  to  Great  Grimsby 
Railway,  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire  Railway,  Opposition 
to  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire  Railway,  East  Lincolnshire 
Railway,  Great  Grimsby  and  Potteries  Railway,  Wake- 
field,  Pontefract,  and  Goole  Railway,  Sheffield,  Barnsley, 
and  Wakefield  Railway,  Humber  Survey,  Great  Grimsby 
Works,  Wakefield,  Brigg,  and  Goole  Railway,  Sheffield 
and  Lincolnshire  Extension,  Great  Grimsby  Extension, 
Nos.  1,  2,  and  3. 

The  list  for  1846  contains  thirty-six  entries,  and 
that  for  1847  thirty-eight;  so  that  it  may  be  said  that 
at  once  the  young  engineer  stepped  into  a  large  and 
lucrative  practice.  Apart  from  his  chief  employment 
in  connection  with  the  Lincolnshire  railways  and  docks, 

59 


60  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

there  are  entries  of  consultations  and  work  done  with 
regard  to  railway  stations  at  Sheffield,  railway  and 
harbour  work  at  Cockermouth  and  Workington,  water- 
works at  Sheffield,  and  a  line  of  direct  railway  from 
London  to  Exeter,  and  a  number  of  small  railways  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Glasgow ;  and  in  the  following 
years  it  may,  without  exaggeration,  be  said  that  his 
practice  had  extended  into  every  part  of  the  kingdom. 

In  1851  we  find  an  entry  for  work  done  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Eheims  and  Douai  Railway,  and  in  the 
same  year  began  his  connection  with  the  Oxford, 
Worcester,  and  Wolverhampton  Railway,  now  an  im- 
portant section  of  the  Great  Western  system.  This 
]ast  work  had  been  begun  by  Brunei,  but  was  at  this 
date  transferred  to  the  charge  of  Mr.  Fowler,  who 
carried  it  to  completion. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  narrate  in  detail  the  manifold 
employments  in  which  Mr.  Fowler  now  became  engaged. 
Some  of  the  larger  undertakings  with  which  he  was 
associated  will  be  described  later  on.  His  task  at  this 
date  was  not  only  the  construction  of  works,  but  also 
the  conduct  through  Parliament  of  the  legislative 
measures  necessary  to  their  inception,  amalgamation, 
and  extension.  The  railway  mania,  then  about  to 
begin,  made  most  urgent  demands  on  the  time  and 
services  of  every  capable  engineer  in  the  kingdom,  and 
naturally  the  cool-headed,  competent  young  Yorkshire- 
man  was  in  great  request.  In  after  years,  discussing 
his  career  with  a  son  of  his  great  predecessor  and 
friend,  Brunei,  Mr.  Fowler  dwelt  on  the  comparatively 
prosaic  character  of  much  of  the  engineering  work  of 
this  period.  The  era  of  railway  romance  came  to  an 
end  with  Stephenson,  and  Mr.  Fowler  on  the  occasion 


PARLIAMENTAKY   COMMITTEES  61 

mentioned,  with  a  certain  paradoxical  exaggeration, 
described  the  work  of  railway  construction  at  this  time 
as  pinning  down  tapes  over  a  large  scale  map  and  then 
cutting  them  up  with  a  pair  of  scissors  into  convenient 
lengths  for  construction. 

A  new  departure,  in  his  own  career  at  all  events,  he 
always  maintained  was  begun  when  in  1853  he  became 
associated  with  the  first  scheme  for  tunnelling  a  railway 
under  the  streets  of  London,  an  enterprise  to  which  we 
propose  to  devote  a  special  chapter.  We  feel  justified, 
therefore,  in  passing  somewhat  lightly  over  the  work 
of  this  period  and  dwelling  rather  on  the  general 
conditions  under  which  the  engineer's  calling  was  then 
conducted. 

Much  of  his  work,  as  already  said,  was  done  in  the 
committee-rooms  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  Of  his 
views  of  the  duty  of  an  engineer  in  this  respect  the 
best  account  to  be  given  is  that  contained  in  his  pre- 
sidential address  to  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers, 
delivered  in  1866. 

"All  classes  of  the  profession,  but  especially  the  railway, 
the  dock  and  harbour,  and  the  water-works  engineer,  must 
possess  a  knowledge  of  parliamentary  proceeding,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  avoid  all  non-compliance  with  the  Standing  Orders  of 
Parliament.  To  do  this,  it  is  true,  is  no  easy  matter,  as  the 
clauses  are  often  drawn  up  with  so  little  care  and  practical 
knowledge  that  neither  engineers  nor  solicitors,  nor  the  most 
experienced  parliamentary  agents  can  understand  what  is 
intended. 

"  On  the  subject  of  parliamentary  proceedings  generally,  it 
may  be  taken  for  granted  that  all  committees  desire  to  do 
justice  to  the  cases  which  are  brought  before  them,  and  that  if 
they  sometimes  fail  in  their  decisions,  either  as  regards  the 
interests  of  the  public  or  in  arranging  a  fair  settlement  between 


62  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 

antagonistic  interests,  it  is  not  unfrequently  due  to  the  im- 
perfect and  crude  manner  in  which  the  cases  are  presented  to 
them.  I  would  therefore  impress  on  all  young  engineers  the 
importance,  both  to  themselves  and  to  their  clients,  of  laying 
their  cases  before  committees  in  the  most  perfect  manner 
possible,  accompanied  by  full  and  correct  information,  carefully 
prepared  and  clearly  worked  out." 

The  work  of  an  engineer  lias  necessarily  to  be  carried 
on  with  the  assistance  of  a  public  which  is  in  large 
measure  deficient  in  technical  knowledge.  Not  only 
parliamentary  tribunals,  the  counsel  who  practise 
there,  but  also  directors,  shareholders,  and  the  public 
who  may  become  shareholders,  have  to  be  instructed 
and  conciliated.  A  large  measure  of  Fowler's  success 
was  due  to  his  proper  appreciation  of  this  fact.  He 
was  an  admirable  witness,  and  a  most  persuasive 
advocate.  As  we  have  already  seen,  he  espoused  with 
warmth  any  cause  which  he  advocated,  and  naturally 
identified  himself  with  his  clients,  and  even  as  a  boy  he 
was  keenly  alive  to  the  mischief  done  to  a  cause  by 
the  slovenly  presentation  of  it  by  counsel  and  wit- 
nesses. Many  jibes  have  been  made  at  the  expense 
of  the  "expert  witness,"  but  they  are  due  largely  to 
a  misconception  of  his  position.  An  expert  witness, 
as  we  all  know,  is  examined  on  oath,  but  at  the  same 
time  his  position  is  very  generally  recognised  as,  in 
some  respects  and  within  certain  limits,  that  of  an 
advocate  for  the  side  which  retains  his  services. 
There  are  limits  in  advocacy  beyond  which  an 
honourable  man,  whether  on  oath  or  not,  will  refuse 
to  go.  A  railway  company,  demanding  from  Parlia- 
ment compulsory  powers,  supports  its  cause  by 
advancing  estimates  and  hypotheses  of  a  highly 


THE  EXPEET  WITNESS  63 

technical  character.  It  is  necessary,  owing  to  the 
uncertainty  which  must  attend  any  calculation  of  this 
character,  that  each  link  in  it  should  be  closely 
scrutinised.  Both  petitioners  and  opposers  are  justified 
in  having  the  technicalities  of  their  case  presented 
by  competent  witnesses.  There  is,  naturally  enough, 
a  disposition  on  the  part  of  counsel  and  litigants  to 
press  such  witnesses  to  pass  beyond  the  letter  of  their 
brief  and  to  affect  a  judicial  attitude  which  they 
ought  not  to  be  asked  to  assume.  In  discussing  with 
the  author  the  ethical  aspects  of  the  question,  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  living  engineers  admitted 
the  somewhat  anomalous  conditions,  and  the  embarrass- 
ment in  which  the  zeal  of  counsel  on  his  own  side 
occasionally  placed  him.  As  evidence  of  the  versatility 
of  the  expert  witness,  a  well-known  parliamentary 
solicitor  described  to  the  author  his  visit  to  an  accom- 
plished engineer  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his 
assistance  for  some  application  to  a  parliamentary 
committee.  The  answer  was  one  of  regret  that  the 
request  had  not  come  earlier,  as  he  had  already 
committed  himself  to  give  evidence  for  the  opposition. 
This  readiness  to  take  the  responsibility  for  arranging 
the  technical  arguments  relevant  to  the  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  any  particular  engineering  work  requiring 
compulsory  powers  from  Parliament  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply  any  trifling  with  truth.  The  legal 
technicalities  of  a  case  are  set  out  by  a  barrister 
who  is  not  on  oath,  while  the  engineering  technicalities, 
often  much  more  abstruse  than  the  other,  are  set  out 
by  expert  witnesses  on  oath.  Among  those  chiefly 
concerned  the  situation  is  well  understood,  and,  jesting 
apart,  there  is  not  in  the  mind  of  reasonable  men  any 


64  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEEK 

suspicion  of  the  integrity  of  an  honourable  profession 
which  is  obliged  to  conduct  an  important  section  of 
its  business  under  these  peculiar  conditions. 

The  railway  mania  of  1844-5  found  John  Fowler 
fully  equipped  for  the  work  of  railway  construction. 
It  carried  him  forward  almost  without  effort  to  fortune 
and  reputation ;  and  when,  as  was  inevitable,  the  reac- 
tion came  and  the  high  waters  of  speculative  enterprise 
began  to  ebb,  his  abilities  retained  for  him  the  com- 
manding position  which  he  had  already  gained  in  his 
profession.  Some  general  account  of  an  episode  so 
important  to  Mr.  Fowler's  career  will  not  be  out  of 
place. 

The  excitement  of  the  time  has  been  often  described. 
Up  to  1844  the  railway  industry  had  been  pursued 
with  moderation  and  caution.  It  provided  a  great 
public  convenience  and  a  remunerative  investment  for 
the  savings  of  all  classes.  Some  of  the  early  companies 
were  declaring  good  dividends,  and  there  seemed  every 
prospect  of  continued  prosperity.  Mr.  Francis,  in  his 
entertaining  History  of  the  English  Railway,  published 
in  1851,  writes  as  follows  : — 

"  The  traffic  of  the  country  had  trebled  within  the  previous 
twenty-one  years.  Three  railways,  the  London  and  Birming- 
ham, the  Grand  Junction,  and  the  York  and  North  Midland, 
paid  ten  per  cent,  while  a  fourth,  the  Stockton  and  Darlington, 
divided  fifteen  per  cent.  The  safety  of  the  locomotive  had 
also  been  proved.  In  1843,  seventy  railroads  had  conveyed 
25,000,000  passengers  for  330,000,000  miles  with  only  three 
fatal  accidents,  and  that,  too,  at  an  average  cost  of  Ifd  each 
person." 

The  success  of  the  railway  as  an  investment,  added 
to  its  obvious  convenience,  and  the  benefit  occasioned 


THE  KAILWAY  MANIA  65 

by   the    demand   for   labour,   seemed   to  justify   from 
every  point  of  view  the  zeal  of  the  new  adventurers. 

"It  was  calculated  that  were  2,000  miles  of  the  projected 
roads  completed,  500,000  labourers  would  be  employed  for 
four  years;  that  the  poor  rates  must  necessarily  diminish; 
that  the  consumption  of  excisable  liquors  would  increase,  and 
that  the  revenue  of  the  country  must  improve." 

The  press,  the  pamphlet,  and  the  pulpit  vied  in 
eulogising  the  new  invention.  Fine  writing,  says  Mr. 
Francis,  was  at  a  premium,  and  he  proceeds  to  give  a 
few  choice  specimens. 

"Kail ways,"  said  one  dithyrambic  journal,  "are  the  emblems 
of  internal  confidence  and  prosperity.  They  are  the  prophetic 
announcement  of  an  open-eyed  people  that  will  not  waste 
their  dearest  action  in  the  tented  field,  but  exhibit  it  in  the 
mightier  fields  of  commerce." 

The  political  economist  was  appealed  to  by  another  :— 

"  Do  the  people  want  present  employ  ?  Eailways  give  it  to 
hundreds  of  thousands  at  this  moment.  Is  it  desirable  that 
the  artisan  or  mere  labourer  should  at  all  times  be  able  to 
transfer  his  skill  or  his  strength  to  the  place  where  he  can 
most  profitably  employ  either?  Eailways  give  the  power  to 
do  so.  Is  it  desirable  that  prices  should  be  equalised  generally 
through  the  country  ?  Eailways  are  the  great  levellers,  bring- 
ing the  producer  and  consumer  into  immediate  contact.  .  .  . 
By  railways  the  whole  country,"  piously  added  the  writer, 
"will,  under  the  blessing  of  Divine  Providence,  be  cultivated 
as  a  garden." 

There  is  more  truth  perhaps  in  these  sanguine  pre- 
dictions than  Mr.  Francis,  writing  in  the  depressed 
period  of  1851,  is  prepared  to  admit;  but  there  is  no 


66  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

doubt  that,  for  the  moment,  expectation  as  to  the 
immediate  commercial  success  of  railways  was  much 
exaggerated. 

The  literature  of  the  prospectus,  says  Mr.  Francis, 
is  worthy  of  note.  One  route  ' '  would  disclose  a 
succession  of  picturesque  scenes,"  another  "  traversed 
a  country  of  unrivalled  beauty."  The  direct  London 
and  Exeter,  an  undertaking  in  respect  of  which 
Mr.  Fowler  seems  to  have  been  consulted,  was  pro- 
posed partly  because  "  it  was  nearly  the  road  adopted 
by  the  Komans." 

While  the  mania  lasted,  the  increase  of  railway  pro- 
posals was  extraordinary.  In  a  compilation  supplied 
to  the  Times  by  Mr.  Spackman  in  November,  1845, 
the  national  liability  in  respect  of  railway  extension 
is  set  out.*  Forty-seven  companies  had  completed  their 
works  and  had  absorbed  some  70J  millions  of  money,  of 
which  22^  millions  were  raised  by  loan.  There  were 
118  lines  and  branches  in  course  of  execution,  and,  of 
the  67  millions  required  for  their  construction,  only 
6j  millions  had  been  paid  up.  There  were  1,263  rail- 
ways projected.  In  respect  of  these  59  millions  had 
to  be  deposited  as  a  preliminary  to  their  consideration 
by  Parliament.  The  total  capital  paid  up,  together 
with  the  deposits  required  on  new  projects,  was 
£113,612,018.  The  liabilities  in  the  way  of  loans  and 
expenditure  incurred  or  to  be  incurred  in  the  con- 
struction was  £590,447,490.  How  all  this  money  was 
to  be  found  no  one  knew. 

There  were  not  wanting  warnings  that  speculation 
was  going  too  fast.  The  Bankers  Magazine  ridiculed 
the  suggestion  put  forward  by  some  enthusiast  that 

*  See  EVANS'S  Commercial  Crisis  of  1847-8,  p.  22. 


THE   REACTION  67 

"  we  are  to  have  railway  streets  in  London,  with  carriages  over- 
head, and  the  foot  passengers  and  shopkeepers  underneath ; 
while  in  the  country,  railway  steam-engines  on  the  atmospheric 
plan  are  not  only  to  perform  all  the  work  of  the  lines,  but  are 
to  employ  their  surplus  power  in  impregnating  the  earth  with 
carbonic  acid  and  other  gases,  so  that  vegetation  may  be  forced 
forward  despite  all  the  present  vicissitudes  of  the  weather,  and 
corn  may  be  made  to  grow  at  railway  speed." 

Other  influential  persons  and  journals,  notably  the 
Times,  tried  to  stem  the  torrent.  Mr.  Glyn,  the 
banker,  chairman  of  the  London  and  Birmingham  Kail- 
way  (now  the  London  and  North  Western),  pointed 
out  that  railway  property  by  reason  of  this  wild 
speculation  was  in  great  danger.  Mr.  Hudson,  the 
Railway  King,  warned  the  public  against  an  un- 
necessary and  over-hasty  multiplication  of  lines.  Mr. 
Saunders,  chairman  of  the  Great  Western  Eailway, 
spoke  in  similar  terms ;  but  remonstrance  was  in  vain. 
The  "  boom,"  to  use  a  modern  term,  continued  during 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1845,  till  on  October  16th, 
1845,  as  a  first  sign  of  the  impending  reaction,  the 
Bank  of  England  raised  the  rate  of  interest. 

Before  the  end  of  the  month  a  panic,  ultimately 
commensurate  with  the  previous  speculation,  had  begun. 
Prices  reached  their  lowest  point  some  three  years  after, 
namely  in  October,  1848.  Although  in  many  instances 
not  a  sod  had  been  cut,  and  notwithstanding  the  heavy 
liability  attached  to  them,  the  shares  of  most  of  these 
railways  were  at  a  premium.  When  confidence  was 
shaken  there  ensued  a  wild  anxiety  to  "get  out." 
Many  subscribers  had  applied  for  more  stock  than  they 
could  pay  for,  partly  because  they  saw  that  allotments 
in  full  were  not  made  in  the  early  stages  of  the  mania, 


68 


THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 


and  partly  because  premium-hunting  had  been  hitherto 
a  remunerative  pastime.  Now,  the  difficulty  was  to 
find  the  allottees  of  the  shares  and  to  extract  from 
them  the  balance  of  liability  on  their  allotments.  "On 
one  projected  line,"  says  Mr.  Francis,  "only  £60  out 
£700,000  was  realised  by  a  call.  No  other  panic," 
says  this  well-informed  authority,  "was  ever  so  fatal 
to  the  middle  class."  The  following  statement  of 
prices  will  show  as  clearly  as  anything  else  the  de- 
structive effect  of  the  panic. 


AUGUST,  1845. 

OCTOBER,  1848. 

Amount  of  share. 

Amount 

Highest 

Amount       Highest 

paid  up. 

price. 

paid  up.          price. 

£ 

£ 

& 

£                    £ 

Brighton    . 

50 

50 

...     80£ 

50 

29 

Caledonian 

50 

5 

...     12| 

50 

20f 

Eastern  Counties 

25 

14/16/0 

...    2H 

20 

13| 

Great  Western    . 

100 

80 

...  236 

90 

80 

L.  and  N.  Western 

stock 

— 

...  254 

stock 

121 

Midland     . 

stock 

— 

...  183 

stock 

86 

South  Eastern    . 

.    av.  33/2/4      ... 

— 

...     48J 

av.  33/2/4     . 

24£ 

South  Western  . 

.    av.  41/6/10    ... 

— 

...     84 

stock 

42 

York  and  N.  Midland            50 

50 

...  112 

stock 

54 

The  Board  of  Trade  on  November  28th,  1844,  had 
announced  that,  in  virtue  of  the  authority  conferred 
on  it  by  the  legislature,  it  would  require  evidence  on 
certain  points  from  promoters  before  reporting  to  Par- 
liament in  favour  of  their  proposals.  On  December 
31st  a  report  was  issued  by  the  Board  which,  if  its 
policy  had  been  adopted,  would  have  restricted  compe- 
tition within  what  the  Board  conceived  to  be  legitimate 
limits.  Parliament  however  set  this  advice  on  one  side, 
and  adopted  the  principle  that  a  railway  had  no  vested 
interest,  and  was  not  entitled  to  be  protected  from 
competition. 

Mr.  Morrison  urged  in  Parliament  the  necessity  of 


THE   BOAKD   OF  TRADE  69 

regulating   the  new  industry,  but  the  result  is  thus 
summed  up  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Mr.  Francis. 

"  Swayed  by  motives  which  it  is  difficult  to  fathom,  the 
two  Houses,  with  singular  unanimity,  agreed  to  reverse  their 
wise  decisions  (i.e.  the  recommendations  of  the  Board  of  Trade), 
and  to  give  unrestricted  scope  to  competition.  Little  regard 
was  paid  to  the  claims  and  interests  of  existing  railway 
companies,  still  less  to  the  interests  of  the  unfortunate  persons 
who  were  induced  to  embark  in  the  new  projects  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  they  had  been  sanctioned  by  Parliament. 
The  opportunity  of  confining  the  exceptional  gauge  within  its 
original  territory  was  also  for  ever  thrown  away.  By  an 
inconceivable  want  of  statesmanlike  views  and  foresight,  no 
effort  was  made  to  connect  the  isolated  railways  which  then 
existed  into  one  great  and  combined  system,  in  the  form  in 
which  they  would  be  most  subservient  to  the  wants  of  the 
community,  and  to  the  great  ends  of  domestic  government 
and  national  defence.  Further,  the  sudden  change  from  one 
extreme  of  determined  rejection  or  dilatory  acquiescence  to 
the  opposite  extreme  of  unlimited  concession  gave  a  powerful 
stimulus  to  the  spirit  of  speculation,  and  turned  nearly  the 
whole  nation  into  gamblers." 

Such  was  one  line  of  argument,  and  from  it  we  may 
formulate  the  following  statement  of  grievances  :— 

1.  That  Parliament  had  not  protected  railway  share- 
holders or  endeavoured  to  secure  existing  railway  com- 
panies from  competition. 

2.  That  it  had  not  enforced  one  gauge  for  the  whole 
railway  system. 

3.  That  it  had  allowed  railways  to  be  isolated,  where- 
by the  interests  of  "  domestic  government  and  national 
defence  "  had  been  neglected. 

4.  That  by  giving  unrestricted  scope  to  competition 
it  had  stimulated  speculation. 


70  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 

The  indictment  is  an  interesting  one,  if  only  because 
it  shows  how  difficulties  of  this  character  often  succeed 
in  solving  themselves.  No  body  of  railway  contro- 
versialists now  ask  to  have  special  legislation  in  favour 
of  shareholders.  The  gauge  question,  after  experiment, 
has  solved  itself  without  legislative  interference.  There 
is,  as  far  as  we  are  aware,  no  demand  for  military 
railway  lines  in  this  country.  A  large  proportion  of 
railway  property  is  held  by  trustees  and  persons  who 
select  it  because  it  is  not  a  speculative  investment.' 
Even  the  margin  of  ordinary  stock  is  not  speculative 
in  the  popular  sense  of  the  term.  The  neglect  of 
Parliament,  as  conceived  by  the  above-quoted  com- 
plainants, does  not  appear,  therefore,  to  have  had  very 
serious  consequences. 

There  was  of  course  another  side  to  the  shield.  If 
the  party  which  desired  a  stricter  regulation  of  railway 
enterprise  was  disappointed,  the  railway  interest  itself 
had  grounds  of  complaint.  Mr.  Robert  Stephenson,  in 
his  presidential  address  to  the  Institution  of  Civil 
Engineers  in  1856,  gave  expression  to  this  feeling. 
He  pointed  out  the  illogical  position  of  a  legislature 
which  assumed  that,  owing  to  the  facilities  for  combi- 
nation, competition  was  impossible  between  railways, 
and  yet  went  on  authorising  duplication  of  lines  to 
the  ruin  of  shareholders,  and,  insomuch  as  the  new 
competition  was  invariably  terminated  after  a  period 
by  fresh  combination,  without  any  advantage  to  the 
public.  By  this  policy,  as  he  puts  it,  the  capital  of 
railway  enterprise  is  constantly  being  increased,  while 
the  traffic  is  being  divided. 

Robert  Stephenson's  often  quoted  aphorism,  which  he 
on  this  occasion  imputes  to  the  legislature,  that  "  where 


THE  REGULATION  OF  RAILWAYS  71 

combination  is  possible  competition  is  impossible,"  may 
suggest  to  some  minds  the  corollary  that  a  railway 
company  can  and  does  charge  exorbitant  rates.  This 
was  not  Stephenson's  own  view,  as  the  following,  which 
he  himself  with  great  deliberation  has  inserted  in  this 
same  presidential  address,  will  show. 

"  It  may  be  thought,"  he  says,  "  that  with  respect  to  fares, 
the  interests  of  railway  companies  and  of  the  public  are 
antagonistic.  Regarding  the  question,  however,  with  a  more 
enlarged  view,  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  so  far  from  those 
interests  being  opposed,  they  are,  in  all  respects,  identical. 
Fares  should  be  regulated  by  directorates,  exclusively  by  a 
consideration  of  the  circumstances  which  produce  the  largest 
revenue  to  the  companies,  and  the  circumstances  which  produce 
the  largest  revenue  are  those  which  induce  most  travellers  to 
avail  themselves  of  railway  facilities.  As  regards  the  public, 
it  may  easily  be  shown  that  nothing  is  so  desirable  for  their 
interests  as  to  take  advantage  of  all  the  opportunities  afforded 
by  railways.  As  regards  railways,  it  is  certain  that  nothing 
is  so  profitable,  because  nothing  is  so  cheaply  transported,  as 
passenger  traffic.*  Goods  traffic  of  whatsoever  description 

*  Adam  Smith  (Wealth  of  Nations,  book  i.  chap,  viii.),  living  before 
the  age  of  railways,  said  that  "  a  man  is,  of  all  sorts  of  luggage,  the  most 
difficult  to  be  transported."  Nothing  marks  the  extent  of  the  economic 
revolution  produced  by  railways  more  clearly  than  the  complete  contra- 
diction that  may  now  be  given  to  Adam  Smith's  proposition.  Railway 
communication  permits  men  (and  the  permission  is  now  being  brought  to 
the  reach  of  the  manual  labourer)  to  live  in  one  place  and  do  their  daily 
work  in  another,  and  to  move  from  place  to  place  where  the  "  best  stock 
or  employment  is  to  be  found."  It  has  thus  gone  far  to  release  the 
labouring  class  from  the  immobility  which  at  one  time  tied  them  to 
unremunerative  » toil  upon  the  land  of  the  parish  where  they  were 
settled,  thereby  adding  enormously  to  the  efficiency  of  labour.  It  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that,  under  this  newly  acquired  mobility,  the 
units  of  labour  are  acquiring  something  of  the  character  of  interchange- 
able parts  of  machinery,  a  principle  of  the  most  far-reaching  importance. 
When  it  is  added  that  the  motive  power,  in  the  circulation  of  labour,  is  the 
attraction  of  better  remuneration  or  improved  conditions  of  toil,  and  the 


72  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 

must  be  more  or  less  costly.  Every  article  conveyed  by 
railways  requires  handling  and  conveyance  beyond  the  limit 
of  the  railway-station ;  but  passengers  take  care  of  themselves, 
and  find  their  own  way  at  their  own  cost  from  the  terminus 
at  which  they  are  set  down." 

This  passage  sets  out  very  correctly  the  grounds  on 
which  confidence  is  claimed  for  the  principle  of  freedom 
of  enterprise.  The  term  competition  as  ordinarily 
understood  is  a  very  inadequate  description  of  the 
guarantee  for  public  convenience  which  we  believe 
is  contained  in  that  policy.  The  influence  which  has 
prevented  railways  from  being  an  oppressive  monopoly 
has  not  been  merely  the  competition  of  other  modes 
of  transport,  (though  this  competition  has  not  been 
wanting),  nor  the  regulation  of  authority,  but  the 
much  more  effective  competition  of  the  natural 
tendency  of  men  and  things  to  remain  where  they  are. 
Immobility  is  cheap  and  simple,  and  is  far  the  most 
formidable  competitor  with  which  railway  companies 
have  to  contend,  and  it  can  only  be  overcome  by 
increasing  the  cheapness,  facility,  and  comfort  of 
transport. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  mania  of  1845. 

The  incipient  signs  of  panic  in  the  early  autumn 
of  1845  did  not  interfere  with  the  deposit  of  plans 
which,  according  to  the  regulations  of  the  Board  of 
Trade,  had  to  be  made  on  or  before  the  30th  November 
of  that  year. 

result,  as  regards  commodities,  greater  efficiency  and  cheapness  of  pro- 
duction, we  have  gone  near  to  formulating  the  very  essential  principle 
of  modern  civilisation — high  remuneration  for  labour  and  the  rapid 
multiplication  and  increased  cheapness  of  commodities.  We  are  able 
herein  to  see  how  important  a  part  has  been  played  by  that  most  valuable 
implement  of  commerce,  our  modern  railway  system. 


THE  EAILWAY  MANIA  73 

"The  30th  November,  1845,  the  day  by  which  the  docu- 
ments were  to  be  lodged,  fell  on  a  Sunday,  but  there  was  no 
Sabbath  for  the  restless  railway  promoter.  '  The  stir  of  agents,' 
says  the  Railway  Chronicle,  '  made  Sunday  anything  but  a  day 
of  rest  or  devout  observance  throughout  the  country.  The 
offices  of  clerks  of  the  peace  and  the  doors  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  were  stormed  by  breathless  depositors  till  the  stroke 
of  midnight.  Frantic  " standing- order  missionaries"  from 
Harwich,  arriving  a  few  minutes  afterwards  —  miscarried, 
alas !  by  blundering  postboys,  who  drive  for  an  hour  and  a 
half  about  Pimlico  seeking  the  office  in  vain — have  to  besiege 
its  inexorable  doors  and  fling  their  plans  into  the  lobby, 
breaking  the  passage  lamp,  with  no  effect  but  that  of  having 
them  flung  back  again  in  their  doleful  faces.  ...  On  the  Great 
Western  Eailway  the  haste  to  overtake  spare  minutes  had 
nearly  led  to  a  tragedy  dark  enough  to  fill  the  courts  of  Gray's 
Inn  and  the  purlieus  of  Chancery  Lane  with  inconsolable 
mourning.  A  squadron  of  solicitors  to  some  of  the  projected 
lines  had  borrowed  the  wings  of  an  express,  which  unhappily 
broke  down  at  Maidenhead.  In  this  disabled  condition  the 
engine  was  charged  by  another,  which  had  started  with  several 
legal  gentlemen  connected  with  the  Great  Western  and  Exeter 
Companies,  and  the  carriage  with  the  learned  freight  was 
dashed  to  pieces.  .  .  .  The  scared  pursuivants  shook  them- 
selves, packed  up  their  ruffled  plans,  charitably  picked  up  the 
stranded  attorneys,  whose  wreck  had  nearly  caused  a  dismal 
hiatus  in  the  profession,  and  heroically  steamed  onwards, 
arriving,  we  are  glad  to  hear,  in  good  time.  ...  A  collision 
between  engines  on  the  broad  gauge  we  take  to  be  as  smart 
an  encounter  as  any  tilting  encounter.  ...  On  the  Great 
Western  Eailway  on  Sunday  there  were  ten  express  trains 
similarly  employed';  and  reading  this,  we  deem  it  a  great 
mercy  that  we  have  no  worse  casualty  than  the  above  record."  * 

The  plans  had  to  be  deposited  not  only  at  the 
Board  of  Trade,  but  at  the  offices  of  the  Clerk  of  the 

*  FRANCIS,  History  of  English  Railways,  vol.  ii.  p.  248. 


74  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEEE 

Peace  in  the  several  counties.  The  Clerk  of  the  Peace 
at  Preston  kept  his  office  shut  on  the  Sunday,  con- 
sidering that  the  order  as  to  Sunday  opening  applied 
to  the  Board  of  Trade  only.  The  railway  promoters 
took  a  different  view,  and  stormed  the  office,  and  flung 
their  plans  in  through  the  broken  windows. 

The  Eastern  Counties  Company  ran  eighteen  or 
twenty  special  trains  for  their  various  projected  lines. 

"  The  majority  of  the  plans  from  the  provinces,"  says'  the 
Mwning  Chronicle,  "  have  been  sent  up  by  express  trains,  and 
it  is  whispered  that  those  companies  with  the  locomotives  at 
their  command,  and  to  whom  the  lines  belonged,  availed  them- 
selves of  this  advantage  to  such  an  extent  for  the  exclusive 
transmission  of  their  own  plans  and  sections,  as  actually  to 
refuse  special  trains  to  their  competitors." 

One  competing  company  was  driven  to  the  stratagem 
of  enclosing  their  plans  and  the  clerk  in  charge  in  a 
hearse  in  order  to  obtain  a  special  train  from  a  rival 
company. 

Curious  illustration  of  the  degree  to  which  rail- 
way enterprise  monopolised  the  services  of  the 
engineering  profession  may  be  furnished  from  both 
ends  of  the  scale.  That  competent  engineers  were 
fully  employed  is  natural  enough,  but  so  deep  were 
their  engagements,  and  so  satisfactory  to  them  their 
terms  of  remuneration,  that  when  in  1845  Mr.  James 
Morrison,  M.P.,  urged  on  the  Government  the  propriety 
of  holding  an  inquiry  conducted  by  some  competent 
and  expert  authority,  Lord  Dalhousie,  who  at  this  time 
was  at  the  head  of  the  Eailway  Department  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  took  refuge  in  the  excuse  "  that  he 
really  could  not  find  a  person  competent  from  his 


DEMAND   FOR  ENGINEERS  75 

qualifications  for  such  a  commission,  as  the  railway 
companies  had  engrossed  all  the  talent  available  for 
the  purpose."^  Mr.  Brunei  was  said  to  be  connected 
with  fourteen  lines,  Mr.  Kobert  Stephenson  with  thirty- 
four,  Mr.  Locke  with  thirty-one,  Mr.  Vignoles  with 
twenty-two,  Sir  John  Eennie  with  twenty,  and  Mr. 
Eastrick  with  seventeen. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  the  demand  was  equally 
fierce.  Mr.  Williams,  in  his  excellent  volume,  Our  Iron 
Roads,  describes  the  demand  which  arose  for  even  the 
humblest  service  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"  Innumerable  surveyors  and  levellers  were  required,  and 
in  many  instances  they  made  from  six  to  fifteen  guineas  a 
day ;  while  numbers  of  persons  were  employed  who  were 
acquainted  with  only  the  rudiments  of  the  art,  and  who,, 
by  their  blunders,  subsequently  occasioned  even  fatal  incon- 
venience to  the  enterprises  in  which  they  were  concerned.  The 
extravagant  payment  that  was  offered  also  induced  great 
numbers  to  leave  situations  they  occupied  in  order  to  learn 
the  new  business;  while  professors,  lecturers,  and  teachers 
announced  classes,  lectures,  and  private  instruction  which, 
with  almost  magical  celerity,  would  convert  all  persons  of 
ordinary  powers  into  practical  men,  earning  enormous  pay- 
ments. Still  the  demand  was  not  equal  to  the  wants  of  the 
case.  Surveyors  and  levellers  became  worth  their  weight 
in  gold,  and  countless  amateurs  presented  themselves.  A 
peddling  stationer,  who  long  itinerated  in  Northumberland 
and  Durham,  earned  'five  guineas  a  day  and  his  expenses' 
on  a  southern  railroad ;  and  the  Lancaster  Guardian  stated 
that  a  fat  neighbour,  long  unemployed,  obtained  an  engagement 
of  three  guineas.  *  I  could  have  had  five/  said  he,  '  but  it 
would  have  been  in  a  county  where  the  gradients  were  severe 
and  too  trying  for  my  wind';  and  he  preferred  three  guineas 

*  The  Influence  of  English  Railway  Legislation  on  Trade  and  Industry^ 
by  JAMES  MORRISON  (1848),  p.  25. 


76  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

and  a  level  line.  No  fewer  than  eighty  surveyors  arrived  in 
Lancaster  in  one  day  for  the  York  and  Lancaster  line  only,  and 
they  were  followed  by  another  batch  a  few  days  afterwards." 

No  record  of  strange  adventures  has  been  preserved 
as  to  the  persons  and  plans  that  raced  to  the  Board  of 
Trade  on  that  eventful  Sunday  on  behalf  of  the  lines 
with  which  Mr.  Fowler  was  concerned,  but  without 
doubt  they  were  all  involved  in  the  general  turmoil. 

The  following  passage  of  a  letter,  dated  5th  March, 
1890,  from  Mr.  Bernard  Wake,  recalled  to  Sir  John 
Fowler  some  of  the  incidents  of  that  time. 

"What  strides  the  world  has  made  since  the  1844  days, 
when  the  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire  Railway  was  launched. 
You  and  I,  with  divers  others,  were  busy  then  at  Brigg  for 
days  together,  without  going  to  bed ;  and  eyes  got  red  and 
hearts  got  heavy  when  plans  did  not  arrive  from  London. 
Carriages  were  at  the  door  to  deposit  them,  but  the  clock 
stole  on,  time  was  up,  and  plans  were  lacking,  and  the  Sheffield 
and  Lincolnshire  scheme  appeared  to  be  'as  dead  as  a  door 
nail.'  You  will  recall  those  early  days  of  railways.  I  well 
remember  travelling  from  Brigg  fast  asleep  the  whole  way  to 
Sheffield  with  R.  I.  Gainsford.  He,  when  we  got  to  Sheffield, 
thought  we  were  at  the  first  toll-bar  out  of  Brigg.  .  .  .  We 
had  been  sleepless  for  days,  only  catching  bits  of  sleep  whilst 
examining  books  of  reference,  especially  R.  I.  Gainsford,  who  in 
reading,  half  asleep,  mistook  his  own  finger-end  for  a  spider 
running  over  the  paper  ! 

"Then  one  recalls,  in  1845,  'The  Great  Grimsby,  Sheffield, 
the  Potteries,  and  Grand  Junction  Railway,'  otherwise  'The 
Great  Grouse,  Trout,  Ling-besom,  and  Billberry  Junction  Rail- 
way,' otherwise  '  The  Flute  Railway ' ;  and  how  the  Derbyshire 
hills  were  to  be  pierced  years  ago,  if  that  scheme  had  been 
acceptable  to  Parliament." 

In*after  life  Fowler  was  fond  of  telling  a  story  which 
relates  to  this  period ;  how  an  excited  railway  promoter 


MANCHESTER  SHEFFIELD,  AND  LINCOLNSHIEE     77 

arrived  at  dead  of  night  in  a  coach-and-four  at  his 
father's  house  of  Wadsley  Hall,  where  the  young 
engineer  happened  to  be.  Mr.  Fowler  was  roused 
from  sleep,  and  found  that  his  visitor  wished  him  to 
undertake  the  engineering  of  a  line  from  Leeds  to 
Glasgow,  and  had  brought  an  order  for  £20,000  as 
a  payment  on  account  of  survey  expenses.  It  wanted 
only  a  few  weeks  of  the  time  before  the  day  of  deposit- 
ing the  plan.  Mr.  Fowler  prudently  declined  what,  to 
a  young  man,  must  have  been  a  tempting  offer,  and  the 
coach-and-four  drove  off  into  the  night. 

His  main  work  for  the  next  few  years  was  the  laying 
out  of  the  group  of  railways  then  being  promoted  from 
Sheffield — the  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire,  the  Great 
Grimsby,  the  New  Holland,  the  East  Lincolnshire,  and 
others,  which  finally  became  amalgamated  under  the 
title  of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire. 
For  the  construction  of  these  Mr.  Fowler  was  the  chief 
engineer,  and  on  him  fell  the  responsibility  of  carrying 
the  necessary  legislation  through  Parliament. 

Among  the  papers  relating  to  this  period  are  the 
memoranda  of  "  Information  prepared  for  the  Kail- 
way  Department  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  in  con- 
formity with  their  circular  of  November  28th,  1844," 
with  respect  to  the  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire  Junction 
Eailway,  and  also  with  respect  to  the  Great  Grimsby 
and  Sheffield  Junction  Kailways.  The  memorandum 
with  regard  to  the  last  line  records  inter  alia  that  at  a 
meeting  at  Great  Grimsby  on  November  1st,  1844  (the 
Right  Hon.  the  Earl  of  Yarborough  in  the  chair),  the 
following  resolution,  proposed  by  Edward  Heneage, 
M.P.  for  Grimsby,  seconded  by  T.  G.  Cobbett,  Esq., 
of  Helsham,  was  unanimously  carried  : — 


78  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

"  That  this  meeting,  having  considered  the  report  of  John 
Fowler,  Esq.,  the  engineer  of  the  railway  company,  is  of 
opinion  that  the  route  recommended  by  him  vid  Glandford 
Brigg  is  the  best  that  can  be  adopted  for  accomplishing 
the  objects  in  view,  and  is  entitled  to  the  support  of  the 
landed  proprietors  of  North  Lincolnshire." 

Both  documents  attest  the  comparative  simplicity 
and  ease  of  the  engineering  of  the  lines,  and  the  great 
benefit  which  they  would  give  as  part  of  a  trunk  line 
between  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  the  eastern  ports. 

The  Great  Grimsby  line  was  a  favourite  at  one  time 
with  speculators.  Everyone  gambled  in  shares,  and,  as 
in  all  gambling,  choice  was  determined  by  the  merest 
trifles.  If  a  line  were  fortunate,  promoters  would 
endeavour  to  appropriate  as  much  of  its  name  as  they 
could  for  other  lijies,  in  the  hope  that  their  particular 
venture  would  gain  by  the  association.  As  an  instance, 
Mr.  Fowler's  Great  Grimsby  Eailway  was  at  a  premium, 
and  consequently  we  are  told  the  name  of  Great  Grimsby 
was  frequently  brought  in  quite  irrespective  of  geo- 
graphical facts.  This  was  done  to  such  an  extent  that 
the  Earl  of  Devon,  at  that  time  chairman  of  the  rail- 
way committee,  on  one  occasion  was  heard  to  exclaim, 
11  What!  Great  Grimsby  again  !  Go  it,  Great  Grimsby!" 

The  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  (now  the 
Great  Central  Kailway),  in  the  construction  of  which 
Mr.  Fowler  wTas  largely  employed,  consisted,  in  1846, 
of  an  amalgamation  of  the  Sheffield,  Ashton-under- 
Lyne  and  Manchester,  the  Great  Grimsby  and  Sheffield 
Junction,  the  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire,  the  Sheffield 
and  Lincolnshire  Extension,  and  the  Great  Grimsby 
Dock  Companies.  In  1847  a  further  amalgamation 
was  made  with  the  Manchester  and  Lincoln  Union 


THE   GEEAT   CENTEAL  79 

Company.  The  whole  was  then  dissolved,  and  incorpo- 
rated as  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire,  by 
the  Consolidation  Act  of  1849.  The  subsequent  ex- 
tension of  the  line,  and  its  recent  successful  invasion  of 
London  as  the  Great  Central,  are  matters  of  history. 
During  the  long  period  when  it  was  content  to  be  a 
junior  partner  to  one  or  other  of  the  great  trunk  lines, 
its  ambition  was  more  restricted.  The  original  con- 
ception seems  to  have  been  the  formation  of  a  trunk 
line  running  from  east  to  west.  The  traffic  to  London, 
however,  has  a  tendency  to  deflect  all  "  trunk"  opera- 
tions to  the  south,  and  when  the  Manchester,  Sheffield, 
and  Lincolnshire  Railway  met  in  its  course  the  Great 
Northern  Eailway,  there  naturally  came  to  be  some 
exchange  of  running  powers.  The  tasting  of  the  traffic 
to  the  "  Great  Wen,"  as  Cobbett  used  to  call  our  ever- 
expanding  Metropolitan  area,  whetted  the  appetite  of 
the  Sheffield  managers,  who,  after  nearly  half  a  century 
of  gradual  advance,  have  at  length  pushed  their  way 
into  the  position  of  a  first-class  but  somewhat  impover- 
ished railway,  with  a  terminus  in  London. 

The  facts,  though  they  are  only  pertinent  here  as  the 
later  history  of  a  line  with  the  early  portions  of  which 
Mr.  Fowler  was  concerned,  are  thus  given  in  Mr. 
Grinling's  History  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway  : — 

"  On  March  1st,  1848,  the  Great  Northern  Eailway  Company 
began  its  first  work  as  public  carriers  on  a  length  of  about 
30  miles  of  railway  from  Louth  to  New  Holland-on-Humber 
(opposite  Hull).  Nearly  half  this  route,  namely  the  14  miles 
from  Louth  to  Great  Grimsby,  was  completely  under  Great 
Northern  control  by  lease  from  the  East  Lincolnshire  Company, 
and  the  remainder  was  worked  over  by  arrangement  with  its 
owners,  the  Manchester,  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire,  who  in 
return  worked  over  the  East  Lincolnshire  to  Louth." 


80  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

Mr.  Cubitt,  the  superintending  engineer  of  the  Great 
Northern  Kail  way,  unfortunately  died  at  this  juncture, 
and  his  place  was  filled  by  Mr.  Edward  Bury. 

"Under  his  superintendence  and  that  of  Mr.  (now  Sir) 
John  Fowler,  who  was  engineer  both  to  the  East  Lincolnshire 
and  to  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  (eastern 
section),  the  traffic  from  Louth  to  New  Holland  was  efficiently 
conducted." 

The  Great  Northern  Kail  way  was  at  this  time,  1848, 
a  keen  competitor  in  the  race  to  the  North.  "  King  " 
Hudson  was  still  managing  the  interests  of  the  Midland 
Kailway,  which  as  yet  had  no  access  to  the  Metropolis. 
A  proposal  made  by  Hudson  to  extend  the  Midland 
from  Leicester  to  Hitchin  and  there  to  make  a  junction 
with  the  Great  Eastern  Kailway,  had  been  successfully 
resisted  by  the  Great  Northern.  The  position  of  the 
Great  Northern,  as  its  chairman,  Mr.  Denison,  pointed 
out  in  February,  1848,  was  practically  secure.  It  must 
form  the  southern  portion  of  the  East  Coast  line  between 
London  and  the  North.  Its  main  line,  between  York 
and  Peterborough,  had,  however,  still  to  be  made,  and 
the  Company,  owing  to  the  stringency  of  the  money 
market,  was  confining  itself  to  pushing  on  a  circuitous 
bit  of  loop  line  round  some  of  the  Lincolnshire  towns. 
A  Deviation  Bill,  which  the  company  was  promoting 
in  regard  to  this  loop  connection  with  the  North,  was 
unexpectedly  thrown  out,  and  their  strong  position 
was,  for  the  moment,  jeopardised.  The  situation  is 
thus  explained  by  the  historian  of  the  Great  Northern 
Railway  : — 

"  This  (the  rejection  of  the  Deviation  Bill)  was  an  alarming 
event  for  the  Great  Northern  Board,  for  it  threatened  com- 
pletely to  upset  the  plans  which  had  led  them  to  make  the 


EAILWAY  POLITICS  81 

loop  before  the  towns  line;  but  fortunately  they  found  a 
fairly  satisfactory  makeshift  in  an  alliance  with  the  Man- 
chester, Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire.  This  company,  as  we 
know,  had  powers  for  a  branch  from  its  main  line  at  Clar- 
borough,  about  five  miles  east  of  Ketford,  to  join  the  Great 
Northern  loop  at  Saxelby,  from  which  point  the  Great 
Northern  had  granted  it  running  rights  into  Lincoln  in  return 
for  similar  rights  over  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincoln- 
shire from  Ketford  to  Sheffield;  and  although  the  Sheffield 
directors  (whose  chairman,  Lord  Yarborough,  was  an  old 
London  and  York  committeeman)  had  intended  postponing 
the  construction  of  this  branch  till  better  times,  they  now 
acceded  to  the  Great  Northern  proposal  that  the  line  should 
be  made  at  once,  so  that  the  Great  Northern  might  use  it 
for  through  traffic  in  place  of  the  just  rejected  Gainsborough 
to  Kossington  line.  Accordingly  Mr.  John  Fowler  was  in- 
structed by  the  Sheffield  Board  to  put  the  work  immediately 
in  hand,  while  at  the  same  time,  and  with  the  same  object, 
the  Great  Northern  directors  let  a  further  contract  to  Messrs. 
Peto  and  Betts  for  the  section  of  their  main  line  from  Eetford 
to  Doncaster." 

This  alliance  with  the  Great  Northern  Eailway  put 
the  Lincolnshire  lines  and  the  ports  of  Boston,  Grimsby, 
and  Hull  in  direct  communication  with  London  as  well 
as  with  Lancashire. 

In  April,  1849,  came  the  collapse  of  the  Eailway 
King.  Hudson  resigned  the  chairmanship  of  the 
Midland,  which  for  the  moment  subsided  into  the 
position  of  a  second-class  line,  and  abandoned  the  com- 
petition with  the  Great  Northern  Railway  for  the  access 
to  London.  The  fact  largely  increased  the  importance 
of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire.  An 
alliance  at  Retford  between  the  Great  Northern  Rail- 
way and  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire 
lines  provided  an  alternative  route  to  Manchester, 
G 


82  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 

and  threatened  a  formidable  competition  to  the 
London  and  North  Western  Kailway.  The  London  and 
North  Western  Kailway  therefore  became  anxious  to 
conciliate  the  smaller  company,  and,  for  a  period,  the 
Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  line  was 
detached  from  its  alliance  with  the  Great  Northern 
Eailway.  Under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Allport,  at  this 
time  general  manager  of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire,  the  facilities  given  to  the  Great  Northern 
traffic  were  withdrawn,  and  the  running  powers  made 
as  inconvenient  as  possible. 

These  alliances,  ruptures,  and  reprisals  did  not  bring 
much  prosperity  to  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire  rail,  a  line  whose  ambitions  have  always 
seemed  to  be  in  excess  of  its  resources.  In  1853  a 
committee  was  appointed  with  a  view  of  inaugurating 
a  policy  of  retrenchment,  and  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir) 
Edward  Watkin  was  appointed  manager.  Sir  Edward's 
subsequent  conduct  of  the  railway  into  many  am- 
bitious, and  ultimately  successful  enterprises,  does  not 
quite  fit  in  with  that  limitation  of  expense  which 
was  one,  at  least,  of  the  original  objects  of  his  appoint- 
ment. 

The  relations  between  Mr.  Watkin  and  Mr.  Fowler 
were  at  first  cordial,  but  the  affairs  of  the  line  hardly 
gave  scope  enough  for  two  men  of  very  masterful 
character,  and  before  long  considerable  friction  was 
set  up  between  them,  and  Mr.  Fowler's  connection  with 
the  railway  gradually  ceased. 

The  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  con- 
tinued its  alliance  with  the  West  Coast  confederacy 
till  1857,  when  another  reconstruction  of  interests 
was  made — the  beginning  of  the  so-called  fifty  years' 


EAILWAY  POLITICS  83 

agreement  between  the  Great  Northern  and  the 
Sheffield  Companies.  In  1861  a  breach  of  this  agree- 
ment, as  it  was  regarded  by  the  Great  Northern 
Kail  way,  was  made  by  the  Sheffield  directors,  who 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Midland,  then  re- 
covering itself  from  its  earlier  misfortunes. 

It  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  the  policy  of  this  line 
to  play  off  the  different  trunk  lines  one  against  the 
other.  This  alliance  with  the  Midland  accentuated 
the  rivalry  between  the  Midland  and  the  Great 
Northern  Eailways,  and,  when  the  Great  Northern 
withdrew  certain  facilities  granted  to  it  at  King's  Cross 
for  coal  traffic,  the  Midland  thought  itself  forced  to 
push  on  and  obtain  independent  access  to  London — 
action  which  resulted  in  the  Midland's  successful  ex- 
tension to  St.  Pancras  in  1868. 

Many  years  later,  in  1880,  Mr.  Fowler  was  concerned 
in  an  incident  which  proved  of  considerable  importance 
in  the  tangled  history  of  railway  politics  in  connection 
with  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  Kail- 
way.  The  inhabitants  of  Huddersfield  were  anxious 
to  obtain  a  connection  with  the  Great  Northern  Kailway 
more  direct  than  the  existing  one  which  ran  over  a 
portion  of  the  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  and  the  Man- 
chester Sheffield  route,  and,  as  a  necessary  part  of  this 
Bill,  applied  for  compulsory  powers  over  a  portion  of 
the  Great  Northern  Kailway.  This  railway,  as  joint 
owner  of  the  West  Kiding  and  Grimsby  line,  felt 
bound  to  oppose.  The  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire  did  not  appear  until  Mr.  Fowler,  who 
with  Mr.  Fraser  was  acting  for  the  promoters,  and  was 
also  consulting  engineer  to  the  Great  Northern  Kail- 
way,  was  put  into  the  witness-box  to  announce  that  a 


84  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

compromise  had  been  arrived  at  between  the  directors 
of  the  Great  Northern  Kailway  and  the  promoters  of 
the  Huddersfield  connection.  The  Manchester,  Sheffield, 
and  Lincolnshire  Eailway  thereupon  instructed  counsel 
to  appear  and  protest  against  the  agreement  which  had 
been  accepted  by  its  partner.  As  a  result  of  this,  and 
other  opposition,  the  Bill,  or  rather  the  compromise 
founded  thereon,  was  lost. 

This  episode  led  to  an  attack  by  the  Huddersfield 
interest  on  the  agreement  then  subsisting  between  the 
Great  Northern  Railway  and  the  Manchester,  Sheffield, 
and  Lincolnshire.*  Notwithstanding  their  opposition, 
however,  the  so-called  fifty  years'  agreement  was 
sanctioned  by  the  Railway  Commission  for  another 
period  of  ten  years.  The  alliance  continued  in  force 
with  intervals  of  more  or  less  animated  misunder- 
standing till,  in  1892,  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire  obtained  independent  access  to  London 
under  the  title  of  the  Great  Central.  All  this  is  an 
anticipation  of  events,  introduced  here  to  show  how 
those  early  labours  of  Mr.  Fowler  led  to  great  and 
important  extensions  of  enterprise. 

We  shall  have  abundant  opportunity  later  to  describe 
some  of  Fowler's  engineering  triumphs.  We  dwell 
here  rather  on  some  of  the  social  and  economic  results 
which  followed,  or  seemed  likely  to  follow,  on  the  open- 
ing of  this  new  country  to  railway  communications. 
The  business  of  railway  construction  had  now  entered 
on  its  prosaic  period,  and  the  work  of  John  Fowler 
did  not  differ  from  that  of  many  of  his  compeers.  It 
was  characterised,  we  can  imagine,  by  its  thoroughness 
and  common  sense.  He  was,  it  has  always  been  said 
*  GRINLING,  p.  339. 


THE  DUTY   OF  AN  ENGINEER  85 

of  him,  a  good  shareholder's  engineer.     He  himself  has 
described  the  policy  which  he  pursued. 

"  It  is  not  the  business  of  an  engineer  to  build  a  fine  bridge 
or  to  construct  a  magnificent  engineering  work  for  the  purpose 
of  displaying  his  professional  attainments,  but,  whatever  the 
temptation  may  be,  his  duty  is  to  accomplish  the  end  and  aim 
of  his  employers  by  such  works  and  such  means  as  are,  on  the 
whole,  the  best  and  most  economically  adapted  for  the  purpose." 

The  self-effacement  of  the  engineer  who  sees  that 
his  business  is  to  make  a  railway,  and  not  to  raise 
a  monument  to  his  own  ingenuity,  deserves  recognition. 
The  railway  system  of  this  country  is  a  monument  not 
to  any  single  reputation,  but  to  the  common  sense  and 
business  capacity  of  a  great  army  of  railway  con- 
structors. The  success  of  a  work  at  this  period  is  to 
be  measured  rather  by  the  comparatively  commonplace 
and  simple  character  of  its  construction  than  by  its 
boldness  and  ingenuity.  The  demand,  in  railway  work, 
for  those  gigantic  and  difficult  undertakings  which 
strike  the  imagination  had  not  as  yet  arisen,  and  was 
not  yet  justified.  Naturally,  the  easier  gradients  and 
the  less  venturesome  experiments  were  attempted  first. 
It  was  the  engineer's  business  to  avoid  rather  than  to 
seek  difficult  and  adventurous  expedients. 

The  interest  of  the  work  of  this  period  is  therefore 
rather  for  the  economist  than  for  the  engineer.  It  had 
hitherto  been  a  complaint  that  the  agricultural  interest 
had  been  neglected  by  the  railway,  but  this  group  of 
railways  made  a  new  departure,  and  became  instru- 
mental in  connecting  the  manufacturing  Midland  towns 
with  the  rural  districts  of  Lincolnshire,  and  with  im- 
portant harbours  on  the  eastern  coast. 


86  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

Mr.  Samuel  Sidney,  the  ingenious  author  of  the 
Railway  System,  a  work  published  in  1846,  states  the 
position  in  the  following  terms.  He  observed 

"that,  while  in  purely  agricultural  districts  produce  sells 
at  barely  remunerative  prices,  while  timber  rots  in  the  woods 
for  want  of  a  market,  and  the  peasantry  shiver  through  the 
winter  (for  want  of  better  fire  than  faggots  gathered  by  their 
landlord's  sufferance  afford),  from  one  and  the  same  cause — the 
absence  of  means  of  conveyance  to  a  market — rich  coal  mines 
remain  unopened,  and  there  is  in  the  manufacturing  districts 
a  much  greater  demand  for  agricultural  produce  than  can  be 
easily  satisfied.  The  demand  for  a  luxury  affords  some  idea 
of  the  demand  for  absolute  necessaries.  When  we  learn  from 
Captain  Lawes'  evidence  that  Manchester  consumes  in  the 
season  from  ten  to  twelve  tons  of  cucumbers  a  week,  we  can 
form  some  idea  of  the  enormous  demand  for  bread,  meat, 
butter,  cheese,  and  poultry.  .  .  .  Our  agriculturalists  have 
just  received,  or  imagine  they  have  received,  a  heavy  blow  and 
deep  discouragement.  They  fear  low  prices,  and  the  cries  of 
alarm  are  loudest  and  deepest  from  those  most  distant  from  the 
vast  increasing  and  unceasing  demand  for  all  that  farms  pro- 
duce, made  by  the  great  Metropolis  and  the  manufacturing 
counties.  There  has  been  a  talk  of  compensation  for  the 
agricultural  interest.  The  best,  the  only  real  compensation, 
will  be  found  in  extending  the  farmers'  markets  and  giving 
him  thousands  for  customers  where  he  had  only  hundreds 
before  for  his  purchasers,  the  range  of  cities  instead  of  the 
neighbouring  village.  This  can  only  be  done  by  an  extension 
of  the  railway  system,  and  that  on  such  a  scale  that  it  shall  be 
worth  the  while  of  the  company  to  attend  to  agricultural 
traffic.  At  present  the  parish  roads  all  converge  towards  the 
highways  and  the  nearest  town  or  village ;  in  future  these 
roads  must  be  turned  toward  the  railway  station.  We  shall 
then  see,  on  market  days,  farmers  proceeding  with  their  stock 
of  produce  to  a  roadside  railway  station,  provided  as  the  focus 
of  a  circle  of  farms.  To  the  farmer  to  whom  the  choice  will 


A  SIDE-LIGHT   ON  FOWLEE'S  WOEK  87 

be  open  of  sending  his  bullocks  or  butter,  cheese  or  corn,  to 
London  or  to  Lancashire,  as  he  pleases — who  can  join  with  his 
neighbours  in  having  a  cargo  of  bones,  oilcake,  or  guano,  fresh 
from  the  ship  side,  who  can  buy  the  draining  tiles,  timber,  iron, 
limestone,  and  coal  wholesale,  where  formerly  he  bought  it  in 
retail — a  new  existence,  a  new  course  of  profit  will  be  opened. 
It  is  to  such  compensation  as  this  that  he  must  look  to  replace 
the  protection  that  he  lost  the  other  day." 

Two  years  later,  Mr.  Sidney  rode  through  North 
Lincolnshire,  and  published,  somewhat  after  the  manner 
of  Arthur  Young,  a  small  volume,  entitled,  Rough 
Notes  of  a  Ride  over  the  Track  of  the  Manchester, 
Sheffield,  Lincolnshire,  and  other  Railways,  1848. 
His  object,  he  says,  was 

"  to  notify  to  the  agricultural  and  railway  world  what  railways 
could  do  for  Lincolnshire  and  what  Lincolnshire  could  do  for 
railways  cheaply  constructed  and  liberally  worked.  I  took 
Lincolnshire  for  an  example  of  what  the  like  connection  might 
effect  in  every  other  agricultural  county,  where,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  East  Lincolnshire  and  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and 
Lincolnshire,  the  companies  and  the  engineer  had  determined 
to  make  their  lines  a  useful  '  implement  of  commerce '  for  the 
accommodation  of  all  classes." 

Events  have  moved  more  slowly,  and  perhaps  not 
exactly  on  the  lines  predicted  by  this  acute  observer, 
but  the  description  which  he  gives  of  the  Lincolnshire 
of  that  day,  and  of  the  expectations  of  an  enlightened 
advocate  of  railways  with  regard  to  this  corner  of 
England  where  it  was  Mr.  Fowler's  fortune  to  be 
largely  employed,  warrant  us  in  reproducing  some  of 
his  remarks. 

The  phrase  of  the  engineer  (who  is  not  named 
by  Mr.  Sidney)  that  the  railway  is  to  be  "  a  useful 


88  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

implement  of  commerce"  is  at  once  happy  and  accurate. 
Under  the  new  era  of  free  trade,  the  future  develop- 
ment of  a  country  or  district  was  to  depend  on  the 
ability  of  its  inhabitants  to  organise  an  industry 
such  as  would  enable  them  to  sell  their  products  in, 
and  to  draw  their  supplies  from,  the  open  markets  of 
the  commercial  world.  This,  it  was  fully  expected, 
might  bring  about  a  revolution  in  the  industrial 
employments  of  the  people.  As  regards  English 
agriculturalists,  who  were  not  likely  to  become  ex- 
porters, the  advent  of  foreign  supplies  in  the  home 
market  seemed  a  dangerous  source  of  competition. 
English  land  and  climate,  however,  is  not  so  poor,  and 
the  English  farmer  is  not  so  devoid  of  ingenuity  that 
English  agriculture  need  be  driven  from  the  markets 
which  lie  at  his  gate. 

In  the  passage  already  quoted,  Mr.  Sidney  indicates 
the  fallacy  of  supposing  that  before  the  era  of  the 
newly -increased  facilities  for  exchange  the  labourer 
enjoyed  a  golden  age  of  comfort  and  prosperity.  A 
few  years  earlier  the  whole  labouring  population  of  the 
land  had  been  partially  supported  by  the  poor  rate. 
The  parochial  system,  a  survival  in  pseudo- philan- 
thropic guise  of  a  repressive  feudalism,  confined  the 
labourer  by  a  delusive  guarantee  of  poor-law  main- 
tenance to  the  place  of  his  settlement.  The  railway 
system,  first  by  creating  an  entirely  new  industry,  and 
so  giving  employment  to  many,  and  then  by  promoting 
a  migration  from  districts  where  labour  was  congested 
to  industrial  centres,  where  remunerative  wages  were 
to  be  earned,  was  in  itself  a  useful  implement  of 
commerce,  which,  even  if,  or  may  we  not  say  because, 
it  allowed  certain  old  and  badly  remunerative  indus- 


EAILWAYS  AND   AGKICULTUEE  89 

tries  to  decay,  was  on  the  whole  to  the  advantage  of 
mankind.  As  Mr.  Sidney  goes  on  to  point  out,  the 
railway  opened  to  the  agriculturalist  new  markets  for 
his  old  products,  and  suggested  to  him  new  forms  of 
enterprise.  In  return,  he  became  a  purchaser  of  fuel 
and  other  products  from  the  manufacturing  districts, 
which  added  to  his  comfort,  and  also  of  manures  and 
agricultural  machinery,  which  added  to  the  efficiency  of 
his  labour,  and  to  the  capital  value  of  the  land. 

In  early  railway  expansion  the  growth  of  goods 
traffic  seems  to  have  been  generally  much  below 
expectation,  and  the  success  of  the  new  movement 
was  assured  rather  by  the  volume  of  passenger  traffic, 
which  proved  much  in  excess  of  calculation.  The 
arrangements  even  at  the  terminal  stations  were  not 
sufficiently  organised  to  allow  of  the  successful  dis- 
tribution of  large  quantities  of  agricultural  produce. 
This,  it  may  be  said,  is  a  distinct  branch  of  the  great 
industry  of  distribution,  and  required,  and  indeed 
still  requires,  much  time  and  ingenuity  before  it  is 
put  on  a  satisfactory  footing. 

The  group  of  railways  now  under  consideration 
seems  to  have  given,  from  the  first,  much  attention 
to  this  important  extension  of  their  business.  Mr. 
Hudson,  the  Eailway  King,  has  been  credited  with 
the  merit  of  inducing  the  Eastern  Counties  Eailways 
to  make  liberal  additions  to  their  stations  in  the 
way  of  pens  and  cattle  sheds  and  warehouses  for 
grain. 

"Already,"  says  Mr.  Sidney,  "much  has  been  done.  For 
instance,  we  know  that  on  the  eastern  coast  the  straw  yards 
(where  that  manure  is  made  which  is  one  of  the  main  prin- 
ciples of  successful  cultivation)  are  filled  by  lean  cattle 


90  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEEE 

imported  from  Devonshire,  Herefordshire,  Yorkshire,  and  Scot- 
land, and  even  Ireland.  These  beasts  formerly  travelled  at  the 
rate  of  10  miles  a  day  along  the  roads  under  the  care  of 
drivers.  They  are  now  despatched  by  rail  in  as  many  hours 
as  days  by  the  road  system,  one  man  doing  the  duty  of  five, 
without  dogs." 

He  goes  on  to  tell  of  400  beasts  conveyed  within 
twenty  -  four  hours  from  the  moors  of  Cumberland 
to  the  turnip  farms  of  Norfolk  without  the  loss 
of  a  beast  or  a  pound  of  flesh,  and  remarks  that  the 
same  beasts,  fattened,  would  probably  find  their  way 
to  Smithfield.  "This,"  he  adds,  "may  be  taken  as 
a  sample  of  many  hundred  unchronicled  transactions 
of  the  same  kind  every  year."  On  the  shifting  of 
the  course  of  commerce  occasioned  by  railways  in 
this  neighbourhood,  he  makes  some  interesting  com- 
ment. The  forest  district  of  Nottingham  and  North 
Lincolnshire  formerly  had  a  profitable  trade,  con- 
ducted without  the  aid  of  a  railway,  with  the  clothing 
population  of  Yorkshire  and  the  town  of  Manchester, 
until  the  easy  conveyance  between  Manchester, 
Sheffield,  York,  and  Hull,  and  other  towns  diverted 
their  best  customers  to  markets  within  railroad  reach. 
In  the  evidence  given  before  the  committee  on  the 
Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  Kailways  it 
was  stated  that  Worksop  and  East  Ketford  had  both 
lost  trade  owing  to  the  competitors  which  the  new 
railway  system  had  brought  into  markets  of  which 
they  formerly  had  a  monopoly.  These  small  and 
temporary  inconveniences,  he  justly  remarks,  are 
definite  and  easily  formulated,  while  it  is  difficult  to 
give  any  statistical  account  of  the  innumerable 
advantages  which  railway  communications  have  con- 


PARLIAMENTARY  JEALOUSY  91 

ferred  on  all  classes.  Mr.  Smith  of  Deanston,  a 
celebrated  agricultural  authority  of  the  day,  giving 
evidence  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1846,  calculated  that  on  a  typical  farm  the  result 
of  the  cheapness  and  facility  of  transport  produced 
by  railway  communications  would  amount  to  an 
advantage  to  the  farmer  of  about  10s.  an  acre.  He 
further  entertained  the  opinion  that  railways  would 
be  found  useful  "for  the  purpose  of  mixing  soils," 
and  he  seemed  to  contemplate  even  a  larger  use  of 
the  railway  in  this  respect  than  the  transport  of 
manure  and  lime  and  sand,  which  is  an  everyday 
occurrence  at  the  present  time. 

With  regard  to  the  ferries  and  docks  which  were 
a  special  feature  in  this  particular  group  of  railways, 
Mr.  Sidney  takes  a  liberal  and  sensible  view. 

"  Parliament,"  he  says,  "  has  lately  displayed  great  jealousy 
with  regard  to  granting  any  powers  beyond  carrying  powers  to 
railway  companies.  Objections  have  successfully  been  urged 
to  their  becoming  owners  of  docks,  ferries,  steamboats,  and 
other  appliances  for  assisting  or  increasing  traffic  beyond  the 
limits  of  railway  termini.  In  the  only  instances  in  which 
railway  companies  have  obtained  such  powers,  the  public  have 
obtained  better  docks  and  steamboats  than  they  would  other- 
wise have  enjoyed.  The  result  of  what  certain  ignorant  M.P.'s., 
misled  by  sounds,  have  called  a  monopoly,  has  been  superior 
accommodation  for  the  public  at  a  cheaper  rate.  I  do  not 
think  there  would  be  any  difficulty  in  proving  that  the  public 
would  gain  practically,  especially  the  agricultural  public,  by 
permitting  every  railway  company  terminating  in  a  seaport 
town  to  have,  not  only  access  to,  but  the  whole  control  and 
possession  of  a  dock  and  warehouses.  A  railway  company 
of  large  capital  would  be  able  to  disregard  any  profits  on,  say, 
half  a  million,  sunk  in  docks  and  warehousing  in  consideration 


92  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

of  the  large  additional  traffic  which  would  be  attracted  by  a 
liberal  style  of  conducting  business. 

"In  bones  and  other  foreign  tillages,  with  the  exception 
of  guano,  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  price  is  composed 
of  the  cost  of  transfer  and  retransfer.  For  instance,  bones 
from  North  Germany  are  carted  from  the  shipside  to  a  ware- 
house, and  from  thence  to  a  railway  station.  Every  day  our 
farmers,  as  they  progress  in  scientific  farming,  are  more  depen- 
dent on  these  importations  of  foreign  tillages.  In  the  hands 
of  a  railway  company,  bones  and  many  other  matters  would  be 
moved  from  the  ship  to  the  warehouse  direct,  and,  frequently, 
under  an  arrangement  with  the  importer,  from  the  ship  to 
trucks  which,  without  halt,  would  convey  the  whole  cargo 
direct  to  some  inland  depot  at  a  saving  which  may  be  calculated 
from  the  fact  that  the  cost  of  carting  a  puncheon  of  rum  from 
St.  Katherine's  to  a  railway  station  exceeds  the  whole  freight 
from  London  to  Rotterdam.  A  grocer,  before  the  committee 
on  the  Lincolnshire  Railways,  proved  that  it  was  cheaper  to 
send  a  hogshead  of  sugar  from  the  London  Docks  by  sea,  round 
to  Gainsborough  and  thence  to  Sheffield,  than  to  cart  it  to  the 
Camden  Town  station  of  the  London  and  North  Western 
Railway.  It  is,  of  course,  on  articles  of  low  value  that  small 
savings  in  the  cost  of  conveyance  tell. 

"  In  certain  situations,  steam  mills  and  abattoirs  might 
advantageously  form  part  of  the  scheme  of  railway  stations, 
even  if  let  off  to  tenants.  Killing  beasts,  like  burying  human 
beings  within  the  limits  of  towns,  will  soon,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
be  rendered  penal.  The  next  step  will  be  to  make  in  each 
important  town  a  railway  beast  market  and  slaughter-house. 
These  companies  are  corporations  formed  to  our  hands  to 
secure  orderly  responsible  management.  .  .  .  Certain  it  is  that 
our  railway  powers  will  never  afford  full  advantage  to  the 
public  until  our  legislators  look  to  practical  results — not  to 
the  question  of  whether  powers  of  building,  boating,  damming, 
and  docking  are  contrary  to  precedent,  but  whether  they  will 
produce  good  accommodation  at  a  lower  rate  than  previous 
arrangements." 


NEW  HOLLAND  93 

After  a  fierce  struggle  the  necessary  powers  for 
constructing  docks  and  other  adjuncts  to  the  railway 
system  were  obtained.  Mr.  Sidney  thus  describes 
the  works  which  in  1848  were  proceeding  at  New 
Holland  :— 

"This  New  Holland,  two  years  ago  almost  a  solitude,  was 
formerly  a  famous  resort  for  smugglers  of  Hollands  and  prime 
tobacco,  of  late  renown,  by  a  ferry  to  Hull,  which  with  difficulty 
supported  one  coach  and  one  poor  alehouse.  But  Steam,  the 
great  magician  of  the  nineteenth  century,  had  been  at  work, 
and  raised  monuments  of  his  deeds  on  all  sides.  Hundreds 
of  workmen  were  engaged  in  putting  the  finishing  stroke  to 
a  pier,  one  of  the  water  stations  of  the  Manchester  and 
Lincolnshire  Eailway,  which  stretched  for  some  1,500  feet, 
like  a  long  black  snake,  into  the  Humber  as  though  intended 
to  end  only  on  the  other  side,  though,  in  fact,  the  intentions 
of  the  engineer  architect  were  more  modest.  The  earliest 
transit  at  this  spot  was  by  an  open  boat  running  chock-a-block 
upon  the  beach.  Then  came  a  small  wooden  pier  greatly 
descending  to  low  water  mark.  Then  a  tub  of  a  steamer  on 
a  narrow,  slippery  pier ;  and  now  the  railroad  was  extending 
itself  into  the  stream  far  enough  for  passengers  on  the  Lincoln- 
shire side  to  make  but  one  step  from  the  steam  coach  to  the 
steamboat  at  every  state  of  the  tide.  A  little  lower  down 
the  stream,  fast  advancing  too,  though  not  so  far  advanced,  a 
dock  of  three  acres  was  in  progress,  intended  to  be  surrounded 
by  sheds  for  goods  and  pens  for  cattle  about  to  be  attracted  to 
New  Holland  ferry  by  the  convenience  of  transit.  Hull  is 
at  present  the  real  capital  of  this  part  of  North  Lincolnshire, 
taking  from  it  a  good  deal  of  butcher's  meat  and  supplying 
groceries  and  other  domestic  requirements,  young  horses,  and 

lean  cattle." 

» 

The  traveller  proceeded  from  New  Holland  to 
Great  Grimsby,  remarking  on  the  various  features 


94  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

of  the  railway  and  the  embankments  and  the  agri- 
culture. 

"I  made,"  he  says,  "my  headquarters  at  Great  Grimsby, 
a  port  until  within  the  last  five  years  so  obscure  that  it 
probably  owes  its  place  in  maps  to  its  privileges  as  a  parlia- 
mentary borough." 

Formerly  the  place  was  of  some  importance,  but 
it  had  gone  the  way  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  our 
own  cinque  ports  of  Hythe,  Sandwich,  and  Romney. 
Its  natural  harbour  had  silted  up. 

"Within  the  last  few  years  a  succession  of  events  have 
tended  to  make  the  name  of  Great  Grimsby  less  absurd.  The 
increased  use  of  bones,  rape  seed,  oil-cake,  and  other  tillages 
largely  imported  from  the  north  of  Europe;  the  reduction 
of  the  timber  duties,  the  alteration  in  the  corn  laws,  the 
general  reduction  of  tariff  on  Baltic  produce,  and  lastly  and 
chiefly,  the  rapid  advance  of  railway  communication,  have 
all  tended  to  revive  the  decayed  fishing  village  towards  a 
position  commensurate  to  its  armorial  and  genealogical  claims. 
The  importation  of  timber  for  railway  use  has  quite  cast 
into  the  shade  the  profits  formerly  netted  from  contraband 
trade,"  and  generally  there  will  be  a  great  expansion  of 
legitimate  industry.  "  I  anticipate,"  he  says,  "  that  warehouses 
and  steam  mills  for  grinding  British  and  foreign  wheat,  for 
crushing  linseed,  and  sawing  timber,  will  shortly  rise  up  along 
the  lately  dreary  quays  of  Grimsby."  In  addition  to  the  rail- 
way facilities,  the  directors  are  "pressing  on  one  of  the  most 
complete  and  extensive  docks  in  the  kingdom  from  the  designs 
of  Mr.  Rendel,  the  engineer  of  Birkenhead  Docks." 

"  After  examining  these  works  and  a  railway  map,  including 
not  only  England,  but  the  opposite  shores  of  the  German  Ocean, 
it  was  impossible  to  doubt  that  railway  enterprise  would  make 
Grimsby  a  great  corn  market  and  a  great  seaport." 

"The  fish  caught  by  deep-sea  fishing  off  Grimsby  cannot 


TOEKSEY  BEIDGE  95 

be  surpassed ;  cod  and  turbot  are  to  be  had  in  any  quantity, 
worthy  of  the  London  market,  and  may  be  transmitted  by 
railway  to  London  six  hours  sooner  than  if  landed  in  Hull." 

Mr.  Sidney's  prophecies  have  been  better  fulfilled 
than  those  made  by  seers  of  much  greater  pretensions. 

The  making  of  these  railways  was  not  without 
incidents  of  engineering  interest.  The  system  included 
important  works,  such  as  the  Wicker  viaduct  and  the 
Sheffield  Victoria  Station,  the  New  Holland  floating 
bridge,  and  two  fine  bridges  over  the  Trent  at  Gains- 
borough and  Torksey.  With  regard  to  the  last  a  report 
addressed  to  the  directors  of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield, 
and  Lincolnshire  Railway  by  Mr.  Fowler  on  February 
15th,  1850,  recites  that 

"the  line  from  Leveston  to  Saxelby  was  finished  in  sufficient 
time  to  be  opened  for  public  traffic  on  January  1st,  but 
objections  were  made  by  the  inspecting  officer  to  the  sufficient 
strength  of  the  wrought -iron  bridge  across  the  Trent  at 
Torksey,  and  the  opening  to  the  public  has  been  consequently 
postponed.  The  bridge  has  been  tested  with  a  load  three  times 
as  great  as  will  ever  be  brought  upon  it  in  practice;  it  is 
at  least  as  strong  as  the  numerous  other  wrought-iron  bridges 
upon  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  Eailway, 
which  had  been  previously  sanctioned  by  other  inspecting 
officers;  and  it  is  of  greater  strength  than  the  Conway  and 
Britannia  bridges  on  the  Chester  and  Holyhead  Eailway. 
Under  these  circumstances  I  cannot  recommend  any  alteration 
to  be  made  to  it,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the  railway  commissioners 
will  shortly  rectify  the  error  into  which  they  have  unquestion- 
ably fallen." 

The  officer  of  the  Board  of  Trade  who  disallowed 
the  Torksey  Bridge  was  the  present  Field  -  Marshal 
Sir  Lintorn  Simmons,  then  a  captain  in  the  Royal 


96  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEER 

Engineers.  The  incident  was  a  serious  one  for  the 
young  engineer,  and  might  have  had  disastrous  con- 
sequences for  his  future  career.  The  matter  was 
argued  with  considerable  warmth,  but,  as  Sir  L. 
Simmons  has  assured  the  author,  with  good  temper 
and  fairness.  It  was  the  beginning  of  an  acquaintance 
between  the  two  men,  which  afterwards  ripened  into 
one  of  the  most  valued  and  intimate  friendships  of 
Sir  John  Fowler's  later  years.  The  controversy  of 
Torksey  Bridge  is  of  some  interest  and  deserves  a 
fuller  narration. 

Mr.  Scott  Russell  brought  the  subject  before  the 
Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  on  January  29th,  1850. 
It  was  well  known,  he  said,  that  for  some  years  past 
there  had  been  many  attempts  to  restrict  the  free 
exercise  of  the  talent  and  ingenuity  of  engineers,  and 
to  interfere  with  the  progress  of  mechanical  and  con- 
structive science  by  the  establishment  of  Government 
boards  and  commissions ;  almost,  in  fact,  endeavouring 
to  introduce  a  system  analogous  to  that  of  the  In- 
genieurs  des  Fonts  et  Chausse'es,  which  has  proved  so 
detrimental  to  all  individual  enterprise  in  France.  In 
the  year  1847  a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  for 
inquiring  into  the  application  of  iron  in  structures 
exposed  to  violent  concussions  and  vibration  ;  it  ex- 
pressly stated,  that  "  considering  the  great  importance 
of  leaving  the  genius  of  scientific  men  unfettered  for 
the  development  of  a  subject,  as  yet  so  novel  and  so 
rapidly  progressive,  as  the  construction  of  railways, 
we  are  of  opinion  that  any  legislative  enactments 
with  respect  to  the  forms  and  proportions  of  the 
iron  structures  employed  therein  would  be  highly 
inexpedient."  Relative  to  the  forms  of  construction 


TOKKSEY  BEIDGE  97 

of  hollow  girders  of  wrought  iron,  it  was  also  stated 
' '  those  methods  appear  to  possess  and  to  promise 
many  advantages ;  but  they  are  of  such  recent 
introduction  that  no  experience  has  yet  been  acquired 
of  their  powers  to  resist  the  various  actions  of  sudden 
changes  of  temperature.  For  the  reasons  above  stated 
we  are  unable  to  express  any  opinion  upon  them." 
Almost  simultaneously,  however,  with  the  issuing  of 
this  report,  a  girder  bridge,  built  of  wrought  iron 
from  the  designs  and  under  the  superintendence  of 
an  engineer  of  admitted  skill  and  extensive  practice, 
was  declared  by  one  of  the  inspecting  officers  of  the 
Railway  Board  to  be  unfit  for  the  public  service, 
because  it  did  not  conform  to  the  rules,  which,  in 
the  report  of  the  commissioners,  were  expressly 
declared  to  be  applicable  to  cast  iron  only.  The 
actual  consequence  of  this  decision,  or  rather  of  this 
application  of  an  antiquated  formula  to  a  modern 
invention,  was  that  the  public  had  already  been  for 
one  month  deprived  of  the  use  of  an  important  line 
of  railway,  and  the  probable  consequence  was  the 
condemnation  of  the  majority  of  the  railway  girder 
bridges,  which  had  for  years  borne  with  safety  the 
greatest  loads  that  could  be  imposed  on  them  under  any 
circumstances  of  their  traffic,  and  the  possible  result 
might  be  the  rejection  of  that  magnificent  monument 
of  engineering  skill,  the  Britannia  Bridge. 

Mr.  Scott  Eussell  hoped  that  the  Institution  would 
take  steps  to  expostulate  against  the  wrong  under 
which  the  public  and  the  profession  were  suffering. 
On  February  5th  he  inquired  again  what  the  Council 
was  doing.  Mr.  Vignoles  supported  his  appeal,  and 
complained  of  the  action  of  the  Eailway  Commission 
H 


98  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEER 

with  regard  to  a  bridge  built  by  himself.  Mr.  Simpson, 
vice-president,  asked  members  to  send  all  information 
in  their  power  to  the  secretary.  Mr.  Fowler's  action  in 
declining  to  recommend  the  railway  directors  to  make 
any  alteration  in  the  Torksey  Bridge  was  without  doubt 
supported  by  the  opinion  of  the  leading  members  of  his 
profession. 

On  March  12th,  1850,  Mr.  "William  Cubitt  in  the 
chair,  Mr.  William  Fairbairn  read  a  paper  on  "  Tubular 
Girder  Bridges,"  with  special  reference  to  Torksey 
Bridge.  A  difference  of  opinion,  he  said,  appeared 
to  exist:  (1)  As  to  the  application  of  a  given  formula 
for  computing  the  strength  of  wrought-iron  tubular 
bridges ;  (2)  as  to  the  excess  of  strength  that  should 
be  given  to  a  tubular  iron  bridge  over  the  greatest 
load  that  can  be  brought  upon  it ;  and  (3)  as  to  the 
effect  of  impact,  and  the  best  mode  of  testing  the 
strength  and  proving  the  security  of  the  bridge.  After 
a  technical  discussion,  in  which  he  criticises  some  of  the 
proportions  of  the  Torksey  Bridge,  he  sums  up  :— 

"  These  appear  to  be  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  although  the 
principal  girders  do  not  attain  the  standard  of  strength  which 
the  author  has  ventured  to  recommend  as  the  limit  of  force, 
they  are,  nevertheless,  sufficiently  strong  to  render  the  bridge 
perfectly  secure." 

The  discussion  of  the  paper  lasted  over  several 
evenings. 

Mr.  Fowler,  who  was  of  course  present,  expressed 
his  gratification  at  the  result  of  Mr.  Fairbairn's  in- 
vestigation, but  pointed  out  that  no  allowance  had 
been  made  for  the  additional  strength  of  a  continuous 
girder.  This,  he  calculated,  would  add  "  one-fourth 


TOKKSEY  BKIDGE  99 

to  the  absolute  strength  of  the  girder  spanning  each 
opening." 

In  building  the  first  of  these  girder  bridges  (the 
subject  being  new  to  him)  Mr.  Fowler  stated  that 
he  had  been  guided  by  Mr.  Fairbairn's  proportions, 
as  he  was  the  constructor  of  the  girders,  and  he 
complained  that  Mr.  Fairbairn  had  now  changed  his 
views  with  regard  to  the  requisite  proportions,  and,  as 
Mr.  Fowler  maintained,  without  sufficient  reason. 

Mr.  Bidder,  who  along  with  other  engineers  had  also 
been  requested  to  examine  the  bridge,  reported  that 
after  careful  inspection  and  consideration  the  general 
opinion  arrived  at  was  that  the  bridge  was  sufficiently 
strong  for  all  practical  purposes  of  public  safety. 
That,  he  gathered,  was  Mr.  Fairbairn's  opinion,  though 
he  had  detracted  from  the  value  and  weight  of  that 
verdict  by  assigning  other  proportions  for  a  bridge 
of  such  dimensions.  He  proceeded  to  question  some 
of  Mr.  Fairbairn's  minor  conclusions.  Mr.  Wild  and 
Mr.  Pole  had  also  examined  the  bridge,  and  were 
satisfied  that  it  was  of  sufficient  strength.  Indeed, 
throughout  the  lengthened  debate,  opinion  in  this 
respect  was  unanimous,  but  naturally  some  difference 
of  opinion  existed  as  to  the  precise  additional  value 
of  the  continuous  girder  and  other  technical  points. 

Captain  Simmons,  in  the  course  of  the  discussion, 
admitted  that  he  had  made  no  allowance  for  the  fact 
that  the  girder  was  a  continuous  beam,  "  because  he 
believed  the  beam  was  not  so  constructed  over  the 
central  pier  as  to  support  all  the  strain  which  might 
be  brought  upon  it,  and  therefore  he  thought  the  paper 
which  had  been  read,  however  interesting,  did  not  apply 
to  the  case  in  question." 


100  THE  EAILWAY  ENGINEEE 

The  controversy  dragged  on  for  some  months,  and 
month  by  month  the  Kailway  Commissioners  postponed 
the  opening  of  the  line.  During  March,  elaborate  ex- 
periments were  carried  out,  with  the  assistance  of 
Mr.  Wild  and  Mr.  Pole,  in  the  presence  of  Captain 
Simmons  and  Captain  Laffan. 

"The  experiments,"  says  Captain  Simmons  in  his  report, 
"were  made  with  great  care,  and  are  therefore  to  be  fully 
relied  on,  Mr.  Eowler,  assisted  by  Messrs.  Wild  and  Pole, 
having  afforded  every  possible  facility  and  assistance  in  render- 
ing them  trustworthy." 

In  conclusion  he  states  :— 

"I  am  induced  to  recommend  that  the  company  be  per- 
mitted to  use  this  bridge  for  public  traffic,  provided  the 
engineer  will  make  such  an  arrangement  of  the  platform 
that  the  ballast  cannot  be  allowed  to  accumulate  beyond  the 
depth  of  two  inches,  upon  which  consideration  was  based  his 
calculation  of  the  weight  of  the  structure,  and  also  that 
careful  tests  should  be  applied  from  time  to  time,  with 
occasional  inspections  by  an  officer  of  this  department,  who 
would  report  whether  by  the  effect  of  traffic  the  elasticity 
of  the  metal,  giving  the  effect  of  continuity  to  the  bridge 
over  the  two  spans,  remains  unimpaired." 

On  April  6th  the  commissioners  announced  that  on 
these  terms  they  had  reconsidered  their  decision,  and 
formal  permission  was  given  for  the  opening  of  the  line 
on  the  25th  of  April. 

"Thus,"  concludes  the  official  notice,  signed  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers,  "  had  an  important 
line  of  railway  been  arbitrarily  closed  for  a  period  of  upwards 
of  four  months,  and  a  bridge  been  condemned  as  unsafe  which, 
when  examined  by  practical  engineers,  had  been  proved  to 


AKTICLE   ON  RAILWAY  ACCIDENTS          101 

possess  ample  strength,  and  all  this  in  consequence  of  the 
attempt  to  introduce  the  system  of  centralisation  and  of 
Government  supervision,  which  was  found  to  be  so  pernicious 
in  continental  states,  and  the  employment  of  officers  who  pos- 
sessed undoubted  skill  for  their  own  military  duties,  but  who 
were  placed  in  a  false  position  when  they  were  entrusted  with 
the  execution  and  control  of  civil  works,  of  which  their 
previous  pursuits  precluded  their  obtaining  a  practical  know- 
ledge." 

Many  years  afterwards,  in  an  article  on  Eailway 
Accidents  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  June,  1877, 
Fowler  alluded  to  this  episode  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"An  Englishman  is  naturally  impatient  of  State  inter- 
ference with  any  private  enterprise  in  which  he  has  invested 
his  capital,  and  in  the  earlier  days  of  railway  inspections  by 
the  Board  of  Trade  the  proceedings  of  the  inspecting  officers 
were  suspiciously  watched,  and  sometimes  bitterly  resented. 
In  one  notable  case,  where  considerable  public  inconvenience 
resulted  from  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  inspector 
and  the  company's  engineer,  official  use  was  made  of  the 
circumstance  to  illustrate  the  baneful  effect  'of  the  attempt 
to  introduce  the  system  of  centralisation  and  of  Government 
supervision  which  was  found  so  pernicious  in  continental 
states,  and  of  employing  officers  who  possessed  undoubted 
skill  for  their  own  peculiar  military  duties,  but  who  were 
placed  in  a  false  position  when  they  were  entrusted  with 
the  execution  and  conduct  of  civil  works,  of  which  their 
previous  pursuits  precluded  their  obtaining  a  practical  know- 
ledge.' Subsequent  events  have,  nevertheless,  conclusively 
shown  that  State  control  in  the  construction  of  railways 
does  not  involve  an  injurious  '  system  of  centralisation/  but 
that  it  is  productive  of  vast  benefit  to  the  public,  and  even 
to  the  railway  officials,  as  it  provides  an  independent  check 
of  the  stability  of  the  works  and  of  the  sufficiency  and  com- 
pleteness of  arrangements  for  the  safe  conduct  of  traffic." 


102  THE  KAILWAY  ENGINEEE 

The  article  from  which  the  above  quotation  is  taken 
is  a  very  judicially  conceived  criticism  of  the  report 
of  the  Railway  Commission  of  1874,  issued  in  February, 
1877.  After  making  the  large  admission  above  quoted, 
the  article  goes  on  to  urge,  in  the  terms  of  the 
commissioners'  report,  that  "  any  change  which  would 
relieve  railway  companies  from  the  responsibility  which 
now  rests  upon  them  to  provide  for  the  safety  of  their 
traffic  would  be  undesirable."  It  dissents,  however, 
strongly  from  certain  recommended  invasions  of  this 
principle  which  the  commissioners  sought  to  in- 
corporate with  it.  Their  conclusions,  Fowler  observes, 
"  exhibit  verbal  dexterity  rather  than  practical  wisdom." 
The  difficulty  of  the  commission  in  arriving  at  a 
unanimous  decision  in  respect  of  these  proposed  ex- 
ceptions is  pertinently  quoted  as  a  reason  for  leaving 
responsibility  in  the  hands  of  the  executive. 

The  concluding  paragraphs  of  the  article  are  worth 
quoting : — 

"It  will  be  gathered  from  the  tenor  of  our  remarks  that 
thorough  and  searching  inquiry  into  every  alleged  sin  of 
omission  and  commission  on  the  part  of  a  railway  company, 
and  publicity  to  the  report  of  the  inspecting  officers  of  the 
Government,  are  the  remedies  which  we  would  substitute  for 
the  legislative  interference  recommended  by  the  commissioners. 

"  If  it  be  said  that  this,  after  all,  is  but  a  poor  guarantee 
as  compared  with  the  legislation  deemed  necessary  by  the 
commissioners,  we  would  say  that  the  influence  of  what  is 
in  our  opinion  the  most  important  of  all  of  the  elements 
conducive  to  public  safety  has  been  entirely  ignored  by  them, 
and  that  the  omission  invalidates  their  conclusions.  The 
element  of  '  human  fallibility '  has  justly  received  the  fullest 
consideration  from  the  commissioners,  but  surely  it  was  no  less 
essential  for  them  to  recognise  the  existence  of  the  active 


THE  MORALITY   OF   COMMEKCE  103 

living  force  'human  sensibility.'  How  constantly  do  we  hear 
of  accidents  being  prevented  by  the  presence  of  mind,  prompt- 
ness, and  energy  of  railway  officials,  and  of  porters  and  guards 
being  cut  to  pieces  in  the  attempt  to  save  passengers  from  the 
consequences  of  their  own  imprudence.  There  appears  no 
good  reason  to  exclude  the  directors  of  railways  from  the 
possession  of  '  human  sensibility/  even  as  we  must  admit  that 
they  are  liable  to  'human  fallibility,'  and  instances  might  be 
adduced  without  number  in  proof  of  the  presence  and  practical 
daily  value  on  railways  of  the  element  'human  sensibility.' 
Yet,  in  the  report,  some  of  the  commissioners  gravely  assume 
that  the  companies  actually  balance  the  probable  cost  of  rail- 
way collisions  against  the  cost  of  works  that  would  obviate 
them,  and  that  they  are  guided  in  their  decision  by  the  appear- 
ance of  the  figures !  If  it  is  to  be  taken  for  granted  that 
engine-drivers  and  guards  are  ready  to  lay  down  their  lives, 
superintendents  and  managers  to  endure  anxiety  and  mental 
anguish  hardly  less  tolerable  than  death,  and  directors  to  incur 
the  odium  attached  to  a  preventable  accident  merely  that  an 
eighth  per  cent,  greater  dividend  may  be  announced  to  the 
shareholders,  then  it  must  be  concluded  that  the  purchase  of 
the  lines  by  Government,  or  a  system  of  legislation  infinitely 
more  stringent  and  penal  than  that  proposed  by  any  of  the 
commissioners,  can  alone  ensure  the  public  against  the 
occurrence  and  consequences  of  frequent  and  preventable 
accidents." 

This  expression  of  opinion  from  a  man  of  Fowler's 
practical  insight  is  of  considerable  importance.  We 
are  in  this  country  irrecoverably  committed  to  free 
trade  and  private  enterprise.  More  and  more  the 
principle  of  exchange  is  becoming  the  pivot  on  which 
the  delicate  machinery  of  the  fabric  of  civilisation  is 
made  to  revolve.  If  those  whose  view  Fowler  is  here 
combating  are  right,  the  relations  of  commerce  are 
absolutely  impervious  to  those  generous  feelings  and 


104  THE  RAILWAY  ENGINEER 

sentiments  which,  explain  them  how  we  may,  we 
recognise  instinctively  as  part  of  our  higher  nature. 
Fowler's  protest  against  this  view  is  timely  and 
weighty.  We  hear  much  talk,  and  reasonably  enough, 
of  the  good  citizen,  that  is  the  man  who  brings  public 
spirit  and  rectitude  to  the  political  and  municipal 
affairs  of  his  country,  but  the  ground  covered  by  our 
political  life  is  infinitesimal  compared  with  the  fields 
in  which  effort  is  organised  by  the  influence  of  the 
market.  It  is  a  low  and,  what  is  more  important,  a 
false  view  of  human  nature  which  assumes  that  an 
unscrupulous  love  of  gain  is  a  motive  predominant  in 
all  industrial  undertakings.  The  prejudice  against  which 
Fowler  is  here  arguing  is  a  most  harmful  one.  It  is 
unworthy  of  a  great  commercial  nation  like  England. 
Honour  and  rectitude  and  fair  dealing  are  qualities 
evolved  not  by  authority,  but  by  and  in  the  mutuality  of 
exchange.  There  are  dishonest  tradesmen  just  as  there 
are  negligent  and  corrupt  officials.  There  is  no  escape 
from  the  fallibility  of  human  nature  and  from  the 
occasional  predominance  of  the  lower  motive,  but  the 
rules  and  restraints  of  moral  sentiment  and  conscience 
are  as  appropriate  and,  at  least,  as  powerful  in  the 
transactions  of  commerce  as  in  the  transactions  of  the 
State. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND   WORK 

1850-1860 

TTTE  propose  in  a  later  chapter  to  set  out  as  fully 
'  »  as  we  can  the  personal  characteristics  of  the  sub- 
ject of  this  biography.  Following  here  the  course  of  his 
professional  career,  we  think  it  important  to  notice  the 
somewhat  impersonal  nature  of  the  work  which  he 
helped  to  accomplish. 

The  magnitude  and  multiplicity  of  a  modern  en- 
gineer's engagements  (and  Fowler's  career  practically 
covers  the  modern  period)  made  it  necessary  for  him 
to  delegate  much  of  his  responsibility,  to  equip  an 
office,  and  to  organise  a  staff  of  assistants.  No 
engineer  who  did  not  accommodate  himself  to  this 
new  order  of  things  could  be  really  successful  under 
the  modern  conditions  then  beginning,  unless  he  was 
prepared  to  kill  himself  with  overwork.  The  develop- 
ment of  Fowler's  professional  character  was  naturally 
influenced  by  these  considerations,  and  the  result  we 
must  now  endeavour  to  describe. 

In  his  professional  career,  the  responsibility  for  great 
undertakings,  which  came  upon  him  early  in  life, 
obliged  him  to  acquire  and  to  develop  a  capacity  for 
command. 

Apart  from  his  engineering  skill,  he  was  emphatically 

105 


106  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTEEISTICS 

a  good  man  of  business,  a  character  which,  by  the 
fashionable  sentimentalism  of  the  time,  is  thought  to 
require  some  apology.  Such  a  view,  however,  is  super- 
ficial. Without  the  good  man  of  business,  neither  the 
accommodation  of  the  public,  the  wages  of  subor- 
dinate workers,  nor  the  dividends  of  investors  are 
secure.  The  master  mind  that  gives  order,  punctuality, 
direction,  and  economy  to  a  number  of  otherwise 
incoherent  and  wasted  forces,  and  which  finally  crowns 
their  co-operation  with  a  great  result,  must,  to  a 
certain  extent,  be  inexorable  and  exacting  as  the  laws 
of  gravitation.  All  these  considerations  have  without 
doubt  their  influence  in  forming  the  manner  and 
character  of  men  involved  in  these  important  responsi- 
bilities and  employments. 

To  some  extent  Fowler  was  himself  conscious  of  the 
necessity  under  which  he  lay  of  acting  a  part.  Personal 
considerations,  he  would  frequently  say,  ought  not  to 
influence  our  judgment  in  matters  of  business.  This 
opinion  was  based  on  reason  and  experience,  and  was 
not  the  natural  bent  of  his  character.  In  his  own 
household  he  was  the  most  impulsive  of  men.  With 
his  children  and  with  his  servants  he  was  indulgent 
to  a  fault. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  so-called  "  Paradox  of  the 
Actor,"  who,  when  he  is  depicting  the  most  impassioned 
frenzy  on  the  stage,  is  really  in  his  coolest  and  most 
calculating  mood.  There  is  some  parallel  to  this  in 
what  we  may  call  the  paradox  of  the  man  of  business. 
Here  is  a  man  naturally  -genial  and  impulsive,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  making  himself  an  impersonal 
pivot  on  which  vast  industrial  operations  are  made  to 
revolve.  It  is  his  function  to  conceive  a  great  idea, 


HIS  POWER   OF   ORGANISATION  107 

to  collect  the  instruments  for  carrying  it  into  effect, 
to  lay  down  the  orbits  within  which  each  shall  move, 
and  to  preserve,  by  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the  punctual 
and  due  performance  of  separate  contracts,  the  con- 
nected harmony  of  the  whole.  The  man  who  is 
accustomed  to  such  great  operations,  who  sees  how 
their  successful  conduct  leads  to  the  happiness  of 
mankind,  soon  learns  the  necessity  of  banishing  whims 
and  personal  caprice  from  his  moods,  and  naturally 
acquires  a  certain  magnanimity  of  view. 

In  discussing  the  career  of  his  friend  and  partner,  Sir 
B.  Baker  has  summed  up  to  the  author  the  nature  of 
Fowler's  success,  in  the  statement  that  very  early  in  his 
professional  career  Fowler  somehow  had  acquired  the 
position  of  being  the  man  to  whom  persons  with  a  big 
project  on  hand  felt  obliged  to  apply.  We  have  it 
on  high  authority  that  there  is  no  new  thing  under 
the  sun,  and  the  truth  is  one  which  would  be  confirmed 
by  a  study  of  the  history  of  great  engineering  works. 
The  scientific  imagination  is  concerned  not  so  much 
with  new  things  as  with  new  applications  of  well- 
known  principles  and  facts.  Further,  the  scientific 
imagination  can  achieve  very  little  till  it  is  materialised 
by  an  organising  faculty  which  is  not  imaginative,  but 
full  of  the  sober  prose  belonging  to  the  management 
of  men  and  finance. 

Fowler  was  by  no  means  devoid  of  the  scientific 
imagination,  but  undoubtedly  the  aspect  of  his  charac- 
ter which  impressed  the  public  was  his  strength  and 
dexterity  in  carrying  great  proposals  to  a  successful 
issue.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  a  great  invention 
or  a  great  idea  may  lie  idle  till  it  is  connected  with  some 
motive  force  which  thrusts  it  into  use,  in  spite  of  the 


108  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

initial  frictions  which  stand  in  the  way  of  all  improve- 
ment and  change.  This  truth  contains  the  justification 
of  patent  laws  when  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  general  public.  It  is  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
the  security  of  private  interest  is  rendered  subservient 
to  the  public  welfare.  The  peculiar  position  attained 
by  Fowler  seems  a  further  illustration  of  the  same  truth. 
The  idea  of  tunnelling  a  railway  through  London  is  ob- 
viously the  result  of  many  precedent  suggestions,  but 
it  lay  dormant  for  long,  in  ingenious  but  ineffectual 
hands,  and  only  became  actual  when  the  motive  forces 
to  carry  it  into  execution  were  organised  and  set  in 
motion  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Fowler. 

As  a  man  of  affairs  Fowler  had  many  remarkable 
characteristics.  As  we  turn  over  the  minutes  of  evi- 
dence submitted  by  him  to  parliamentary  committees, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  his  skilful  present- 
ment of  a  case ;  his  replies  to  examination  in  chief  are 
clear,  concise,  and  to  the  point,  but  it  was  in  cross- 
examination  that  he  was  most  persuasive.  There  he 
was  deferential  and  appreciative  of  the  points  that 
were  raised  against  him.  The  objection  raised,  he 
would  say,  had  been  duly  considered  by  him,  indeed, 
it  was  chiefly  because  his  scheme  overcame  it  so  com- 
pletely that  he  spoke  so  strongly  in  its  support ;  or 
if  this  line  of  reply  was  not  applicable,  he  would  urge 
that  there  were  difficulties  in  every  alternative,  and 
that  although  the  objections  were  put  with  great  force, 
they  were  more  easily  superable  than  those  which  beset 
other  schemes.  There  is  no  attempt  at  display,  no 
desire  to  browbeat  or  to  be  witty  at  the  expense  of 
his  questioner,  nothing  apparent  but  an  eager  desire 
to  bring  out  the  truth  by  means  of  fair  discussion. 


SUCCESS,  AN  INDEX   OF  WOKTH?  109 

A  director  of  one  of  the  railway  companies  with 
which  Fowler  was  connected  bore  the  following  testi- 
mony to  his  persuasive  powers  :  "  I  never  met  any 
one,"  he  said,  "who  so  often  was  able  to  convince  me 
that  things  which  I  had  all  my  life  long  regarded 
as  white  were  really  black."  There  was  a  genial 
sympathy  about  him  that  was  irresistible.  In  person, 
Fowler  was  a  big,  powerful  man  ;  his  habit  of  speech 
was  direct,  yet  so  kindly  and  humorous  that  it  never 
suggested  aggression.  Nor  did  his  appearance  belie 
his  character ;  he  was  emphatically  a  strong  man,  and 
the  strong  man  who  can  also  be  conciliatory  as  a  rule 
will  go  far. 

It  has  been  remarked  by  one  who  knew  and  admired 
him  that  he  seemed  at  times  to  attach  an  undue  im- 
portance to  material  success.  The  remark  raises  a 
fundamental  problem  of  ethics.  If,  as  the  evolutionary 
school  of  thinkers  maintain,  ethical  sentiment  is  the 
approval  of  a  body  of  rules  and  motives  dictated  and 
sanctioned  by  the  experience  of  human  society,  a  man 
with  the  experience  of  Fowler  must  have  observed 
that  industry,  punctuality,  the  honourable  performance 
of  contract,  the  considerate  and  sympathetic  rather 
than  the  coercive  management  of  men,  self-control 
and  self-renunciation,  the  power  to  resist  the  tempta- 
tion of  snatching  illegitimate  personal  advantage,  are 
the  qualities  which  lead  to  reputation  and  permanent 
success.  In  regarding  success,  therefore,  as  in  some 
measure  an  index  of  worth,  Fowler  did  not  necessarily 
take  a  low  view  of  life. 

The  point  is  of  some  importance,  for  Fowler  seems 
to  us  to  be  a  typical  figure.  With  many  personal 
and  unaccountable  idiosyncrasies  thrown  in,  he  was 


110  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

a  product  of  the  time.  His  success  came  to  him 
because  he  was  fully  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the 
new  industrial  era.  It  is  a  vindication  of  the  Economic 
Order  that  a  man  obviously  drawing  his  inspiration 
from  that  source  is  found  honourable,  veracious,  and 
courageous,  in  his  personal  relations  kindly  and 
courteous,  and,  what  perhaps  is  equally  remarkable, 
dignified  in  his  leisure  by  a  large  and  enlightened 
appreciation  of  all  that  is  best  in  the  social  life  of 
the  time. 

There  is  no  trace  in  his  letters  and  recorded  con- 
versation of  any  introspective  questioning  of  his  own 
motives  and  maxims  of  life.  They  seem  to  have  been 
more  or  less  the  spontaneous  outcome  of  his  own 
experience.  His  native  conservatism  and  his  con- 
stitutional respect  for  that  which  is  and  must  be,  his 
aversion  from  revolutionary  views,  made  him  a  strong 
supporter  of  Church  and  State,  but  he  was  not  a 
man  whose  deliberate  actions  were  dictated  by  effusive 
sentiment,  nor  was  he  given  to  that  abstraction  of 
thought  which  is  characteristic  of  martyrs  and  re- 
formers. 

He  was,  in  short,  an  example  of  a  man  of  the 
strictest  integrity  with  whom  the  sanctions  of  right 
conduct  are  practical  intuitions  rather  than  a  rule  of 
life  based  on  religious  or  philosophic  theory. 

The  following  appreciation  of  his  characteristics  as 
an  engineer  is  compiled  from  information  given  by 
those  who  were  for  many  years  associated  with  him 
in  business. 

He  was  professionally  a  man  of  great  moral  courage, 
very  prompt  to  face  a  difficulty.  It  is  a  very  usual 
thing  for  engineers  to  follow  precedent  closely  in 


HIS   PROFESSIONAL  COUEAGE  111 

difficult  situations.  Fowler,  however,  was  very  cour- 
ageous in  making  new  departures.  Thus,  notwith- 
standing his  admiration  and  friendship  for  Brunei, 
when  on  the  death  of  that  great  man  he  was 
appointed  his  successor  as  consulting  engineer  to  the 
Great  Western  Railway,  he  urged  the  directors  to  face 
the  loss  of  entirely  abandoning  the  broad  gauge. 

He  took  the  lead,  also,  in  recommending  the  use  of 
iron  or  steel  in  bridges  instead  of  timber,  and  also 
he  was  among  the  first  to  urge  the  employment  of 
steel  instead  of  iron  rails.  His  use  of  Portland  cement 
concrete  for  retaining  walls  was  also  an  innovation. 

A  well-qualified  critic  thus  sums  up  his  professional 
character : — 

"As  an  engineer  he  had  of  course  many  equals  from  a 
scientific  point  of  view,  but  he  was  so  eminently  practical 
that  nothing  beat  him,  and  his  power  of  dealing  with  men 
was  wonderful.  He  had  the  faculty  of  'spotting'  a  fault 
in  an  opposition  scheme  better  than  most  men,  and  this 
applies  also  to  drawings  or  designs  brought  to  him  by  his 
own  assistants  for  approval." 

He  used  laughingly  to  say  that  if  he  did  not 
understand  a  thing  at  once  he  never  understood  it, 
and  certainly  his  rapidity  of  judgment  was  very 
remarkable. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  plan  to  gibbet  the  subject  of 
this  biography  as  that  abnormal  monster  a  perfect 
man.  In  the  course  of  his  professional  career  Sir 
John  Fowler  had  a  good  many  controversies,  which, 
as  might  be  expected,  he  pursued  with  much  deter- 
mination ;  for  though  there  was  nothing  vindictive  in 
his  nature  he  was  very  unbending.  He  had,  indeed, 
a  considerable  share  of  that  quality  which  the  in- 


112  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

dulgence  of  our  friends  calls  firmness,  but  which  in 
hostile  circles  is  most  unreasonably  regarded  as 
obstinacy.  This  quality  of  heart  was  with  him  so 
spontaneous  that  he  was  by  no  means  conscious  of 
its  existence.  One  of  our  informants  tells  us  that  in 
confidential  talk  he  expressed  the  most  unbounded 
surprise  in  detecting  what  he  considered  a  trait  of 
obstinacy  in  one  of  his  children,  a  quality,  he  re- 
marked, so  entirely  absent  from  the  character  of  his 
parent. 

Of  his  dealings  with  contractors,  one  of  the  most 
difficult  personal  tasks  of  the  engineer,  somewhat 
various  accounts  have  been  given.  With  the  big  and 
powerful  firms,  such  was  the  keenness  of  his  lust  for 
battle,  he  was  more  inclined  to  be  exacting  than  with 
smaller  men.  In  the  initiation  of  engineering  projects, 
the  contractor  is  a  very  important  element.  It  is 
often  he  who  furnishes  the  funds  for  the  preliminary 
expenses,  and  at  one  period  of  his  career  Fowler 
suffered  a  good  deal  from  his  inability  to  agree  with 
certain  large  and  prominent  firms.  With  foemen 
worthy  of  his  steel  he  was  more  inclined  to  thresh 
out  his  differences  than  to  accommodate  matters  by 
compromise  or  concession.  The  precise  equity  of 
these  controversies  is  not  now  of  any  importance. 
Such  as  they  were,  however,  they  were  undertaken 
rather  as  the  result  of  temperament  than  from  any 
desire  to  snatch  an  illegitimate  advantage.  With  the 
smaller  men,  we  are  informed  by  one  whose  relations 
with  Sir  John  were  not  always  smooth,  he  was  fair 
and,  as  far  as  his  clients'  interest  would  allow,  liberal. 

The  same  characteristics  were  apparent  in  his  rela- 
tions with  members  of  his  profession  and  with  his 


RELATIONS   WITH   SUBORDINATES  113 

subordinates.  In  matters  where  the  responsibility  was 
entirely  his  own  he  naturally  would  brook  no  inter- 
ference. In  the  many  relations  of  an  engineer's 
business  where  the  responsibility  is  more  or  less 
divided,  he  was  ready,  perhaps  eager,  to  assume  a 
dictatorial  position,  a  course  not  to  be  wondered  at 
in  one  of  his  self-confidence  and  long  experience  of 
success.  He  was  probably  right  in  thinking  that,  if 
his  supreme  authority  was  conceded,  the  matter  in 
hand  would  be  better  managed  than  under  a  divided 
direction.  On  the  other  hand,  if  his  authority  was 
questioned  in  departments  where  the  responsibility  of 
one  of  his  colleagues  was  clear,  he  acquiesced  quite 
good  humouredly  in  the  situation,  and  recognised  that 
there  might  be  other  masterful  men  besides  himself. 
He  recognised,  in  fact,  that  there  were  differences  in 
men,  and  accommodated  himself  to  that  which  he  could 
not  bend.  It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  he 
liked  to  be  the  predominant  partner.  Being  himself 
painstaking  and  industrious  he  expected  his  sub- 
ordinates to  be  the  same.  No  one  understood  better 
than  he  the  need  of  delegating  work  and  responsibility. 
His  habit  was  to  select  his  assistants  with  care,  to 
put  them  in  charge  of  considerable  undertakings  with 
a  minimum  of  supervision  and  direction,  and  to  trust 
them.  To  have  been  one  of  Fowler's  assistants  was 
a  certificate  of  proficiency,  and  a  large  number  of 
men  who  have  done  and  will  do  their  country  good 
service  have  been  associated  with  Sir  John  Fowler 
as  his  trusted  assistants.  In  this  way  we  find  that 
he  had  expeditions  to  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Algiers, 
Italy,  and  over  a  series  of  years  to  Egypt,  the  Soudan, 
and  the  Upper  Nile. 


114  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

There  are  two  sides  to  most  questions,  and  the 
relation  between  a  leading  engineer  and  his  assistants 
is  no  exception.  In  the  devolution  of  work  to  sub- 
ordinates a  slight  miscalculation  may  easily  throw  too 
great  a  burden  on  individuals,  and  the  demand  of  the 
organiser  may  appear  exacting.  The  good  organiser, 
however,  will  in  most  cases  fit  the  task  to  the  workman, 
and  Fowler  s  skill  in  this  respect  was  certainly  extra- 
ordinary. Not  a  few  of  those  employed  by  him  in 
special  investigations  have  become  recognised  authorities 
in  those  particular  lines  of  work.  This  selection  of 
instruments  is  of  course  a  part  of  the  patronage  at  the 
disposal  of  a  successful  engineer,  and  in  a  profession 
abounding  with  talent  and  energy  the  selected  sub- 
ordinate is  to  a  certain  extent  put  under  an  obligation 
to  his  chief.  He  is  given  his  opportunity.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  period  of  apprenticeship  and  sub- 
ordination has  a  way  of  seeming  unduly  long  to  the 
ambitious  young  aspirant  and  to  his  friends ;  but,  as 
Adam  Smith  long  ago  pointed  out,  in  every  free 
bargain  both  sides  profit,  and  there  is  after  all  no  more 
equitable  method  of  settling  the  value  of  services  than 
the  give  and  take  of  the  market. 

Fowler  was  very  fortunate  in  the  selection  of  his 
business  associates.  With  many  of  them  his  connection 
extended  over  a  very  long  period.  His  distinguished 
partner,  Sir  Benjamin  Baker,  entered  Mr.  Fowler's 
office  in  1861,  and  became  a  member  of  the  firm  in 
1875,  and  the  record  of  their  co-operation  fills  a  large 
chapter  in  the  history  of  English  engineering.  Not- 
withstanding his  undoubtedly  imperious  character  he 
had  the  power  of  attaching  men  to  him  by  very  warm 
ties  of  admiration  and  affection. 


MR   BALDEY  115 

"  Sir  John's  disposition,"  says  one  who  knew  him  well,  both 
in  business  and  at  home,  "was  a  very  affectionate  one,  and 
his  home  life  was  very  happy.  He  was  a  loyal  friend,  and 
I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  heard  him  speak  ill  of  any 
one.  He  did  not  by  any  means  make  a  friend  of  every  one, 
but  he  did  not  speak  against  those  who  were  not  his  friends, 
or  against  those  who  had  offended  him." 

There  is  a  complete  absence  of  anything  in  the 
nature  of  personal  gossip  in  his  letters,  and  he  had,  we 
are  informed,  a  very  strong  objection  to  what  he  called 
talking  people  over. 

The  following  letter  to  his  old  friend,  secretary  and 
partner,  Mr.  Baldry,  might  appear  to  be  an  idealised 
reminiscence  rather  than  a  plain  statement  of  fact. 
Mr.  Baldry,  however,  assures  the  writer  that  its  terms 
do  not  appear  to  him  exaggerated.^  Such  a  letter 
throws  a  pleasing  light  on  the  prosaic  routine  of  the 
office  at  2,  Queen  Square  Place  : — 

"  THORN  WOOD  LODGE, 

"  CAMPDEN  HILL,  KENSINGTON,  W., 

"November  8th,  1888. 

"  MY  DEAR  BALDRY, — I  wished  to  say  a  few  words  of  good- 
bye and  good  wishes  to  you  last  night  in  your  own  office 
before  our  final  business  separation,  but  I  saw  it  was  too  much 
for  you  to  bear,  and  I  must  now  ask  you  to  let  me  write  the 
words  which  your  emotion  did  not  permit  you  to  hear. 

"  It  is,  I  am  sure,  permitted  to  a  very  limited  number 
of  men  to  have  had  the  intimate  and  confidential  business 
relations  which  have  for  thirty-six  years  subsisted  between 
you  and  me,  and  for  both  of  us  to  be  able  to  say  at  the  end 

*  While  these  pages  are  passing  through  the  press,  the  death  of  Mr. 
Baldry  at  Hyeres  is  announced  (Feb.,  1900).  Mr.  Baldry's  amiable  and 
kindly  nature  endeared  him  not  only  to  his  partners,  but  to  all  who  came 
in  contact  with  him. 


116  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

of  the  time  that  not  one  cool  look  or  one  unpleasant  word 
has  ever  been  known  during  the  long  intercourse. 

"But  the  word  business  expresses  very  inadequately  our 
relations.  During  the  last  twenty-five  years  at  least  you 
have  really  had  charge,  not  only  of  the  private  affairs  but 
almost  the  consciences  of  every  member  of  the  family,  and 
have  frequently  rendered,  as  we  could  all  testify,  the  most 
essential  service. 

"Lady  Fowler  feels  everything  I  would  say,  but  which 
it  is  impossible  fully  to  express.  I  know  every  son,  and 
indeed  every  member  of  the  family  have  the  same  feelings 
of  regard  and  gratitude  as  ourselves. 

"  I  can  speak  for  all  the  staff  in  the  office,  and  indeed  for 
all  Westminster,  and  the  numerous  persons  who  come  to  Queen 
Square  Place,  when  I  say  that  no  man  ever  left  the  scene  of 
a  long  and  honourable  career  with  more  unanimous  wishes  for 
future  happiness  than  you  carry  away  with  you. 

"But  although,  my  dear  Baldry,  your  health  and  prudence 
require  that  you  should  now  leave  your  business  chair  at 
Queen  Square  Place,  you  know  that  my  friendship  and  that 
of  my  family  is  for  life,  and  it  will  always  be  the  great  hope 
and  pleasure  of  Lady  Fowler  and  myself  that  you  should 
frequently  be  our  guest  both  in  London  and  at  Braemore. 

"  I  could  write  many  pages,  and  then  I  should  not  tell  you 
all   I   think   and   feel;    but  you  will   know  our  regard   and 
affection   for   you,   and   how  sincerely   we   wish   you   health, 
happiness,  and  every  good  wish  in  your  future  years. 
"  Believe  me,  my  dear  Baldry, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"JOHN  FOWLER." 

This  letter  is  somewhat  of  an  anticipation,  but  it 
is  quoted  here  to  show  that  though  a  man  of  Fowler's 
combative  zeal  and  ubiquitous  energy  did  not 
altogether  avoid  the  giving  of  hard  knocks  and  the 
incurring  of  enmities,  he  was  personally  a  man  of  a 
very  lovable  and  affectionate  disposition. 


MARKIAGE  117 

In  the  year  1850  Mr.  Fowler  married  Miss  Elizabeth 
Broadbent,  daughter  of  Mr.  James  Broadbent,  of 
Manchester,  a  lady  with  whom  he  had  become  ac- 
quainted the  year  before.  In  many  respects  John 
Fowler  is  to  be  described  as  a  fortunate  man,  but 
in  nothing  was  he  more  fortunate  than  in  his  marriage. 
The  copious  correspondence  which  has  been  placed  at 
the  biographer's  disposal  covers  a  period  of  nearly  fifty 
years,  and  constitutes  a  continuous  testimony  to  the 
warm  affection  and  entire  confidence  which  characterised 
the  relations  between  husband  and  wife.  Mr.  Fowler, 
owing  to  the  calls  of  his  profession,  was  frequently 
absent  from  home.  During  these  absences  he  wrorked 
with  fiery  energy,  rising  at  daybreak  and  putting  an 
almost  incredible  amount  of  work  into  every  twelve 
hours,  but  amid  all  this  pressure  of  business  he 
never  omitted  his  daily  letter  to  his  wife.  Though 
for  biographical  purposes  they  contain  little  that  is 
of  public  interest  they  are  charming  letters,  and  throw 
a  most  agreeable  light  on  his  domestic  life  and  on  the 
kindly,  considerate,  and  courteous  character  of  the 
writer. 

Their  first  home  in  London  was  2,  Queen  Square 
Place,  a  roomy,  old-fashioned  house  adjoining  Bird 
Cage  Walk.  Mr.  Fowler's  offices  were  under  the  same 
roof  as  the  dwelling-house.  There  was  a  large  garden, 
and  before  the  building  of  Queen  Anne's  Mansions  the 
situation  was  cheerful  and  bright.  The  house  had  a 
historical  interest.  Milton  had  lived  hard  by,  and 
had  planted  in  the  garden  a  cotton  willow  tree,  which 
was  blown  down  during  the  Fowlers'  tenancy.  The 
wood  was  made  into  a  "  davenport,"  and  is  still  a 
valued  ornament  of  Lady  Fowler's  drawing-room.  The 


118  PKOFESSIONAL   CHAKACTEKISTICS 

house  itself  had  been  the  home  of  Jeremy  Bentham, 
and  the  meeting-place  of  the  two  Mills,  Chadwick, 
Brougham,  Place,  and  the  other  founders  of  the  party 
of  philosophic  radicalism.  It  was  in  this  garden  that 
the  old  philosopher  used  to  take  his  exercise,  ambling 
round  the  walks  generally  in  the  company  of  one  of 
his  disciples,  and,  as  he  put  it  in  his  pedantic  way, 
"  maximising  recreation  and  minimising  time." 

Here  the  first  years  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fowler's  married 
life  were  passed,  and  the  place  and  the  actual  address 
had  a  sentimental  value  in  his  eyes,  which  may  appear 
strange,  but  which,  nevertheless,  is  entirely  in  keeping 
with  his  character.  Later  the  ancient  landmarks  of  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  were  removed,  and  the  enor- 
mous block  of  Queen  Anne's  Mansions  was  built  upon 
the  site.  Sir  John  Fowler  retained  in  the  reconstructed 
buildings  an  office  which  is  still  known  as  2,  Queen 
Square  Place.  There  is  no  number  one,  nor  indeed  any 
other  house  in  the  "  Place."  There  are  other  and  better 
known  Queen  Squares  in  London,  and  the  address  occa- 
sionally was  found  misleading  by  hurried  clients,  who 
arrived  at  times  in  a  ruffled  state  of  temper  which 
did  not  facilitate  business.  His  partner,  Sir  B.  Baker, 
tried  hard  to  bring  about  a  change  of  name,  and 
at  length  one  evening  obtained  his  consent,  but  next 
morning  Fowler  returned,  and  in  a  most  pathetic 
manner  asked  his  younger  partner  to  yield  to  what 
he  called  the  foible  of  an  old  man,  and  2,  Queen 
Square  Place  the  office  remains  to  this  day.  The 
addition  of  "  Queen  Anne's  Mansions"  to  the  firm's 
address  was  accepted  as  a  compromise. 

To  return  to  the  year  1850.  In  one  of  the  earliest 
letters  to  his  wife  in  the  first  year  of  their  marriage  he 


MR   HUDSON  119 

gives  a  passing  and  not  an  unpleasing  glimpse  of  a 
notoriety  who  was  much  before  the  public  at  that  time. 

"I  travelled  alone,"  Mr.  Fowler  writes,  "with  the  great 
Mr.  Hudson  from  London  to  Normanton  and  had  a  great  deal 
of  conversation  as  to  his  troubles. 

"He  told  me  the  greatest  comfort  he  had  when  all  the 
world  seemed  against  him  was  his  wife,  and  he  thought  that 
if  he  had  not  received  that  comfort  it  would  have  been  too 
much  for  him.  I  told  him  I  was  a  very  new  married  man, 
but  I  could  entirely  feel  the  force  of  his  observations.  .  .  . 
And  now,  my  dear  little  wife,  adieu,  and  may  God  bless  you 
with  all  the  happiness  your  husband  wishes  you.  I  feel 
already  how  essential  you  are  to  my  happiness,  and  I  am  sure 
before  Thursday  I  shall  be  very  impatient  to  be  back  again." 

The  career  of  Mr.  Hudson,  the  Eailway  King,  ran 
altogether  apart  from  Mr.  Fowler's  work,  but  it  is 
characteristic  of  Fowler's  good-natured  tolerance  for 
a  man  who  was  both  courted  and  condemned  beyond 
his  merit,  that  in  his  numerous  passages  to  the 
Continent  he  used  from  time  to  time  to  seek  out  the 
ex-Kailway  King  in  his  dingy  retirement  at  Boulogne 
and  try  to  enliven  his  exile  by  a  little  friendly  hos- 
pitality. Mrs.  Hudson,  a  blameless  and  exemplary  lady, 
lived  to  old  age  on  Campden  Hill,  Kensington.  Sir 
John  and  Lady  Fowler,  then  living  at  Thornwood  Lodge, 
and  not  forgetful  perhaps  of  this  little  incident,  were 
glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the  privilege  of  neighbours, 
and  by  various  kindly  attentions  to  show  their 
sympathy  for  misfortune  borne  with  dignity  and 
resignation. 

Of  engineering  matters  his  letters  to  his  young  bride 
naturally  say  very  little.  A  letter  of  October  29th, 
1850,  records  a  visit  to  New  Holland,  and  mentions 
"  a  most  successful  trial  of  our  new  crane."  These 


120  PKOFESSIONAL  CHAEACTERISTICS 

were  hydraulic  cranes,  designed  by  Sir  W.  Armstrong, 
and,  we  understand,  were  among  the  first  mechanical 
appliances  of  the  kind  used  for  the  handling  of  goods 
on  railways,  and  we  should  have  been  glad  to  hear 
more  of  them. 

In  January,  1851,  he  paid  a  visit  to  France,  in 
which  Mrs.  Fowler  accompanied  him,  with  regard  to 
the  Douai  and  Rheims  Railway,  a  project  which  came 
to  nothing.  On  December  2nd,  1851,  he  records  the 
coup  d'etat  of  Louis  Napoleon,  with  the  comment, 
"  strong  measures,  but  I  believe  necessary." 

On  June  1st,  1852,  he  writes  to  tell  his  wife  that 
overtures  have  been  made  to  him  by  the  people  of 
Dudley  with  a  view  to  his  representing  them  in 
Parliament. 

"I  find  a  curious  feeling  at  Dudley  on  the  subject  of  the 
election.  I  speak  quite  seriously  when  I  tell  you  a  very 
influential  party  are  anxious  to  get  up  a  memorial  to  ask  me 
to  be  a  candidate  at  the  next  election,  if  there  is  the  slightest 
prospect  of  my  receiving  it  favourably,  and  certain  parties  in 
the  district  who  are  friends  of  mine  are  to  have  a  non-official 
interview  with  me  in  a  few  days  for  the  purpose.  I  understand 
from  various  circumstances  I  should  stand  an  excellent  chance 
of  being  returned,  and  free  of  expense.  Of  course  I  should 
not  do  anything  without  consulting  you.  What  say  you  ? " 

Mrs.  Fowler,  who  was  better  aware  perhaps  than 
her  husband  himself  of  the  great  strain  which  the 
pressure  of  his  engagements  made  on  his  strength, 
was  strongly  opposed  to  his  adding  parliamentary  to 
his  professional  work.  A  few  paragraphs  from  the 
correspondence  between  the  husband  and  wife  will 
show  how  the  matter  was  allowed  to  drop. 

"  I  never,  never  could  consent  willingly,"  says  Mrs.  Fowler, 
"  to  your  undertaking  a  seat  in  Parliament.  I  should  be  very 


PAKLIAMENT  121 

unhappy  if  you  were  to  do  so.  Do  not  be  sanguine  about  it, 
my  darling,  but  rather  throw  cold  water  on  it  in  your  mind 
and  give  it  up  at  once. 

"  I  cannot  see  that  the  advantage  which  it  might  be  to  you 
is  worth  the  consideration.  Position  you  have,  and  you  do  not 
want  more.  Time  you  have  not  to  devote  to  it,  and  instead  of 
involving  yourself  in  larger  and  greater  engagements,  let  them 
diminish  and  enjoy  yourself  more.  Take  more  leisure  and 
pleasure,  rather  than  confine  yourself  more  by  undertaking 
such  a  responsibility.  More  I  will  not  say  till  I  see  you, 
which  I  hope  will  be  to-morrow,  when  you  will  indeed  have 
a  welcome." 

In  deference  to  his  wife's  wishes,  Mr.  Fowler  took 
no  steps  at  this  time  to  enter  Parliament.  Some 
years  later,  in  1859,  the  project  was  raised  again, 
and  Mrs.  Fowler  a  second  time  urged  the  unwisdom 
of  such  a  step.  His  reply  to  her  is  as  follows  : — 

"I  appreciated  all  your  letter  very  much  excepting  that 
part  which  tells  me  you  did  not  think  you  had  the  same 
influence  over  me  you  formerly  had.  This  is  a  great  mistake, 
and  to  prove  it  to  be  so  I  will  undertake  not  to  take  any  steps 
to  go  into  Parliament  except  with  your  approval. 

"Keep  this  letter,  and  bring  this  forward  against  me  if 
I  am  disposed  to  take  any  steps  against  your  wishes." 

He  seems  about  this  period  to  have  turned  his 
back  on  all  thought  of  a  parliamentary  career,  and, 
in  accordance  with  Mrs.  Fowler's  advice,  to  have 
taken  the  first  steps  towards  acquiring  that  Highland 
home  which  was  for  so  many  years  an  abundant  source 
of  pleasure  to  himself  and  his  friends. 

In  1857  he  purchased  the  estate  of  Glen  Mazeran, 
near  Tomatin,  in  Inverness -shire.  On  the  17th  of 
September  of  that  year  he  writes  to  compliment  his 
father  on  a  correct  estimate  of  the  letting  value  of 


122  PKOFESSIONAL  CHARACTEKISTICS 

one  of  the  farms  on  the  estate,  and  describes  his  first 
experiences  as  a  Highland  laird  : — 

"Yesterday  I  went  out  deer  stalking  on  the  upper  part  of 
Glen  Mazeran,  leaving  the  lodge  at  six  o'clock  as  the  sun  was 
rising  over  the  mountain,  but  as  I  rode  up  the  glen  the  wood 
was  in  shadow  and  was  quite  hard  with  frost,  and  the  water  on 
the  sides  of  the  road  was  frozen  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
thick.  In  some  places  on  the  higher  ground,  even  for  an  hour 
after  the  sun  had  risen,  the  ground  was  quite  crusted  over  by 
the  frost,  and  cracked  and  split  when  trodden  upon  as  in  winter. 

"  At  nine  or  ten  o'clock,  however,  the  sun  became  sufficiently 
powerful  to  warm  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants. 

"  I  must  tell  you,  for  the  information  of  Fred,  that  I  found 
two  splendid  stags,  one  with  ten  points  which  I  could  easily 
have  stalked,  but  they  were  a  short  distance  over  the  march 
and  my  conscientiousness  prevailed  and  I  refrained,  notwith- 
standing Eraser's  deep  disgust  and  strong  remonstrances. 

"  I  was  rather  sorry  afterwards  that  I  had  been  so  very 
good,  for  some  people  we  had  at  lunch  told  me  it  was  not  the 
habit  to  be  very  strict  about  marches  with  deer,  and  with 
regard  to  the  place  where  I  saw  the  deer  (near  Cairn  Gregor) 
nobody  was  shooting  the  ground  this  year,  and  it  belonged  to 
a  trustee  who  is  now  in  America.  Glen  Mazeran  now  has 
always  deer  in  it,  since  the  sheep  have  been  taken  off,  and 
I  daresay  I  shall  get  another  stag  before  I  leave,  and  if  I  do  I 
will  write  Fred  a  description.  I  wish  he  was  with  me  now. 
I  want  a  companion  who  is  not  afraid  of  early  rising,  walking, 
and  working,  when  sport  is  to  be  had." 

His  professional  engagements  from  1850-1860  con- 
tinued to  hurry  him  hither  and  thither  throughout 
England,  and  occasionally  to  the  Continent.  A  few 
only  of  the  most  important  of  these  can  be  mentioned. 
The  construction  of  the  Oxford,  Worcester,  and  Wolver- 
hampton  section  of  the  Great  Western  Railway,  the 
London,  Tilbury,  and  Southend  Railway,  in  conjunction 


HIS   INDUSTRY  123 

with  Mr.  Bidder,  the  Severn  Valley  Kailway,  the  Much 
Wenlock  and  Coalbrookdale  Railways  and  the  Craven 
Arms  Railway,  a  system  which  included  two  fine  cast 
iron  bridges  over  the  Severn,  the  Edge  ware,  High  gate, 
and  London  Railway,  the  Alexandra  Park  extension, 
and  the  Barnet  extension,  the  Mid-Kent  route,  and  the 
Hammersmith  and  City  Railway,  from  Paddington  to 
Hammersmith,  belong  to  this  period.  This  work  was 
varied  with  visits  to  Paris  in  October  and  to  Lisbon 
and  Cintra  in  November  of  1855.  In  May,  1856,  he 
visited  Dunkirk  in  company  with  Mr.  Brunei.  In  July 
he  delivered  a  report  on  the  Chester  Holyhead  route. 
In  July  and  in  December  he  was  in  Paris  in  con- 
nection with  the  Algerian  railways.  In  October  he 
reported  on  the  Turkish  railways,  and  in  the  same 
and  subsequent  years  he  was  much  occupied  with 
the  Nene  Improvement  Commission,  and  the  reclama- 
tion projects  of  the  Norfolk  Estuary  proprietors. 

The  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  his  wife 
gives  an  idea  of  the  rate  and  pressure  at  which  he 
worked.  It  is  dated  from  Tavistock,  March  31st, 
1861  :— 

"  As  I  travelled  to  Exeter  on  Friday  afternoon  I  tried  to 
work  out  a  plan  by  which  I  could  arrive  at  home  by  a  train 
which  reaches  Paddington  to-morrow  afternoon  at  six  o'clock, 
so  that  I  might  dine  and  spend  the  evening  with  you ;  and 
I  found  by  making  a  start  at  daylight  yesterday  morning  and 
working  industriously  till  late  last  night,  and  again  starting  at 
daylight  to-morrow  morning  I  can  accomplish  it.  So  you  may 
expect  me  at  Paddington  at  six  o'clock,  and  I  think  you  had 
better  dine  at  seven,  arid  invite  Mr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  Baldry 
to  dine  with  us,  and  then  I  can  comfortably  transact  all  neces- 
sary business  with  them  and  enable  me  to  go  to  Ireland 
without  feeling  anything  neglected." 


124  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

From  1856  onwards  he  was  closely  connected  with  the 
development  of  Irish  railways.  He  was  the  engineer  of 
the  Great  Northern  and  Western  (of  Ireland)  Railway, 
and  visited  Ireland  yearly  in  connection  with  the  busi- 
ness of  that  and  other  lines  of  railway.  A  letter  of 
September  9th,  1856,  describes  his  method  of  travel. 
The  party  purchased  a  carriage,  and  attempted  to 
travel  in  comfort.  There  were  difficulties  at  each 
stage  about  horses,  and  the  harness  more  hibernico 
was,  for  the  most  part,  a  patchwork  of  rope,  but  the 
weather  was  fine  and  the  journey  enjoyable.  The 
accommodation  was  primitive  and  often  uncomfort- 
able. He  notes  that  their  food — mutton,  pork,  roast 
goose  and  pudding — was  all  put  on  the  table  at 
once,  and  in  none  too  cleanly  a  condition,  and  that 
the  solid  wings  of  the  goose  found  their  way  into 
his  feather  bed.  In  later  years  the  proverbial 
hospitality  of  the  Irish  made  his  journeys  more 
comfortable,  and  he  describes  it  as  "  lionising  through 
Ireland,  staying  at  the  best  houses."  It  is  indeed 
characteristic  of  the  man  that  comfort  and  discomfort 
interfered  very  little  with  his  thorough  enjoyment  of 
life  and  work. 

In  this  account  of  his  first  journey  he  describes 
their  arrival  at  the  west  coast,  where,  between  West- 
port  and  Castlebar,  they  met  the  chairman  of  the 
line,  Lord  Lucan.  Of  the  perennial  Irish  problem 
Fowler  says  very  little.  Irish  poverty  is  very  poetical 
and  picturesque,  and  civilisation  is  hard  and  orderly, 
and  not  readily  adopted  by  the  "  finest  peasantry  in 
the  world,"  or  indeed  by  any  other  proletariate  class. 
To  Fowler  the  problem  seemed  simple  enough,  and 
his  remedy  was  briefly :  "  Let  improving  landlords 


IEELAND  125 

introduce  better  methods  of  cultivation,  we  must  face 
the  suffering  which  this  change  will  make.  This  will 
be  kindest  in  the  end."  The  economy  of  western  civil- 
isation seemed  indeed  to  him  to  be  as  axiomatic  as  the 
rules  of  arithmetic.  No  plea  of  Celtic  nationality  had 
in  his  eyes  any  relevance  in  abrogating  the  authority 
of  either  the  one  or  the  other. 

"Between  Castlebar  and  Westport,"  he  says,  "we  saw  the 
effect  of  a  good  deal  of  Lord  Lucan's  proceedings.  Whole 
villages  completely  removed  and  not  a  vestige  remaining,  and 
fine  fields  with  rich  crops  of  grain  and  grass  growing  in  their 
place.  It  only  needs  a  ride  through  this  country  to  satisfy 
anybody  this  is  the  true  policy,  and  in  the  end,  kindness  to 
the  individual.  Only  conceive  a  miserable  cabin,  ten  times 
more  so  than  the  worst  you  ever  saw  in  Scotland,  and  ten 
times  more  filthy,  inhabited  by  pigs  and  poultry,  also  with 
a  swarm  of  children,  and  the  whole  family  supported  out  of  a 
rood,  perhaps,  of  land.  Why,  of  course,  fever  is  hardly  ever 
absent,  and  starvation  never,  and  the  poor  creatures  are  useless 
to  themselves  and  everybody  else." 

We  need  not  dwell  at  length  on  his  work  in  Ireland, 
which  continued  for  many  years,  unless  it  is  to  record 
an  event  to  which  he  himself  attached  considerable 
importance — the  capture  of  his  first  salmon. 

"Yesterday  morning  I  came  down  to  Gal  way  at  seven 
o'clock  with  Mr.  Eoberts  (who  was  on  his  way  to  Athenry)  to 
try  for  a  salmon  on  the  river,  and  was  fortunate  enough  to 
hook  the  largest  fish  which  had  been  caught  for  a  fortnight, 
and  after  fifty-five  minutes  of  hard  work  I  brought  him  safely 
to  land. 

"  I  can  quite  understand  now  why  people  become  so  excited 
about  salmon  fishing,  and  to  see  a  16  Ib.  salmon,  when  it  is 
first  brought  out  of  the  water,  with  colour  exactly  like  hum- 
ming-birds, and  to  feel  you  have  conquered  him,  and  done  it 


126  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

with  a  single  gut — as  the  fisherman  calls  it — is  like  every  other 
success,  very  pleasant. 

"  There  was  quite  an  excitement  on  the  river,  and  I  was 
pronounced  a  skilful  fisherman." 

His  knowledge  of  Ireland  and  his  well-established 
reputation  brought  him,  in  1867,  the  following  flatter- 
ing proposal  from  the  Government  :— 

"MY  DEAR  SIK"  (wrote  to  him  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  Mr.  Disraeli,  on  August  17th  of  that  year) — 
"H.M.'s  Government  are  anxious  on  the  subject  of  Irish 
railways.  They  have  resolved  to  issue  a  Treasury  Commission 
to  inquire  completely  into  this  subject.  My  opinion  is  that 
it  should  be  limited,  and  even  very  limited  in  number.  I 
should  prefer  three  to  a  greater  number  of  members :  a  first- 
rate  civil  engineer,  whose  name  would  inspire  confidence ;  a 
first-rate  official  financier ;  and,  if  that  be  possible,  a  first-rate 
railway  manager. 

"  It  will  be  a  paid  commission. 

"  I  should  be  very  happy  if  I  could  induce  you  to  be  a 
commissioner,  and  I  think  it  would  be  in  my  power  to 
associate  with  you  a  first-rate  financier.  I  am  quite  at  a 
loss  with  regard  to  the  character  who  should  complete  the 
triumvirate.  No  doubt  there  are  many  first-rate  managers 
if  abilities  only  were  requisite  for  the  duties  I  contemplate. 

"  Perhaps  you  might  assist  me  with  a  suggestion  ? 

"The  main  duties  of  the  commission  will  be  to  ascertain 
the  financial  position  of  the  Irish  railways,  to  accomplish  an 
official  verification  of  their  accounts,  the  state  of  their  lines, 
their  assets. 

"  I  repeat  my  great  desire  that  I  may  induce  you  to  assist 
the  Government  by  undertaking  this  inquiry.  No  expense 
shall  be  spared  in  securing  for  you  all  the  subordinate  aid 
you  may  require.  Let  me  hear  from  you  at  your  convenience, 
and  believe  me, 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

"  B.  DISRAELI." 


COMMISSION   ON  IEISH   EAILWAYS  127 

To  this  Mr.  Fowler  replied  : — 

"  I  cannot  but  feel  flattered  by  the  selection  of  my  name  and 
the  manner  in  which  you  introduce  the  question  to  me,  and 
although  I  am  much  engaged  with  my  professional  duties,  I  feel 
it  proper  to  say  that  if  you  think  I  can  be  useful  I  will  under- 
take the  duties  you  ask  me  to  perform,  but  I  am  afraid  I  could 
not  make  a  commencement  during  the  month  of  September. 

"  I  think  the  constitution  of  the  commission  you  propose 
is  more  likely  to  work  well  than  a  much  more  numerous 
one  would  be,  but  no  doubt  the  chief  difficulty  will  be  the 
selection  of  a  railway  manager. 

"Of  the  men  actively  engaged  upon  the  large  railways, 
I  think  Mr.  Seymour  Clarke,  the  general  manager  of  the 
Great  Northern  Eailway,  would  probably  be  the  best,  both 
as  respects  general  capacity,  public  confidence,  and  other 
qualities,  but  it  is  possible  you  may  feel  a  difficulty  in  asking 
a  gentleman  who  is  attached  to  any  particular  system  of 
railway,  and  his  company  might  possibly  have  a  difficulty  in 
sparing  him.  On  these  points,  however,  Lord  Colville,  one 
of  the  directors  of  the  Great  Northern  Eailway,  might  be 
safely  and  confidentially  spoken  to. 

"Of  the  chairmen  or  other  directors  of  railways  having 
practical  knowledge  of  the  working  of  lines,  but  not  being 
actual  general  managers,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  make  even  one 
confident  suggestion,  for  so  many  of  the  prominent  men  have 
lately  brought  themselves  and  their  companies  into  trouble  by 
clever  *  financing '  that  very  few  men  are  really  left. 

"In  many  respects,  however,  I  think  Mr.  Moon,  the  chair- 
man of  the  London  and  North  Western  Eailway,  would  be 
a  good  selection.  He  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with  railway 
management  and  its  minutest  details,  and  on  the  largest  scale, 
and  the  London  and  North  Western  Company  has,  without 
doubt,  been  successfully  established  under  his  rule  as  the 
best  and  safest  railway  property  in  England." 

In  the  sequel,  the  gentlemen  appointed  by  a  Treasury 
Minute,  dated  October  15th,  1867,  to  serve  on  this 


128  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

commission  were  :  Sir  Alexander  T.  Spearman,  Bart., 
John  Mulholland,  Esq.,  John  Fowler,  Esq.,  C.E., 
Seymour  Clarke,  Esq.,  Christopher  Johnstone,  and 
W.  Neilson  Hancock,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  Secretary. 

The  possibility  of  promoting  the  development  of 
Irish  industry  by  different  forms  of  State  aid  was  then, 
as  now,  engaging  the  earnest  attention  of  statesmen. 
The  task  imposed  on  Mr.  Fowler  and  his  colleagues  was 
not  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  the  economic  wisdom 
or  otherwise  of  State  ownership  of  railways,  but  to 
collect  and  arrange  certain  details  of  information,  and 
inter  alia  to  calculate  the  amount  of  loss  which  would 
be  sustained  by  the  State,  if  it  purchased  the  Irish 
railways  with  a  view  of  reducing  the  charges  to  such 
a  low  level  that  an  impoverished  people  like  the  Irish 
should  become  as  frequent  travellers  and  users  of  rail- 
ways as  the  Belgians. 

The  reply  of  the  commissioners  to  this  very  hypo- 
thetical conundrum  is  couched  in  very  cautious  terms. 
The  total  share  capital  and  borrowed  money  invested 
in  Irish  railways  was  stated  to  be  £27,527,286,  and 
for  canals  a  sum  of  £902,918  must  be  added.  In 
their  second  report  the  commissioners  estimate  that 
the  annual  loss  to  the  Government  if,  after  purchasing 
the  railways,  it  reduced  the  Irish  rates  to  the  Belgian 
level,  would  be  £655,265,  or  about  42  per  cent, 
of  their  receipts  from  passenger,  goods,  and  live  stock 
traffic.  The  concluding  paragraphs  of  the  second 
report  point  out  that  the  circumstances  of  Belgium 
and  Ireland  are  not  analogous.  In  Belgium  the  traffic 
is  chiefly  connected  with  mining  and  ironworks.  In 
Ireland  it  is  almost  wholly  of  an  agricultural  character, 
and  the  movements  of  a  people  engaged  in  that  industry 


IKISH  KAILWAYS  129 

are  much  more  limited.  The  reduction  of  charges  had 
been  a  great  success  in  Belgium  as  regards  long-distance 
traffic.  The  traffic  of  Ireland,  however,  "  requires  special 
stimulus  and  development  for  short  and  moderate 
distances,  both  for  goods  and  passengers,  as,  except  in 
the  case  of  tourists  and  people  travelling  for  pleasure, 
it  is  entirely  of  local  character  from  town  to  town." 
The  commissioners  therefore  think  that  any  reduction, 
to  be  beneficial,  must  be  on  "long"  and  " short"  traffic 
equally. 

They  had  no  difficulty  in  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  a  slight  diminution  in  the  charges  for  goods  and 
passengers  would  be  simply  a  loss  of  so  much  money. 
A  large  reduction  was  necessary  to  create  an  increase 
of  traffic.  In  passengers'  fares  they  suggest  a  re- 
duction of  31,  45,  and  42  per  cent,  for  first,  second, 
and  third  class  passenger  fares  respectively ;  a  re- 
duction of  from  47  to  78  per  cent,  for  different  classes 
of  goods,  and  of  32  per  cent,  for  cattle  traffic.  The 
deficiency  per  annum  resulting  from  such  a  revolution 
of  charges  would  be  £525,701,  or  30*45  per  cent.,  after 
allowing  £120,000  per  annum  as  the  estimated  re- 
duction of  expenditure  in  respect  of  interest  and  cost 
of  management. 

In  the  judgment  of  the  commissioners,  after  the 
lapse  of  eleven  years  the  receipts  from  the  increased 
traffic,  called  into  being  by  this  reduction  of  fares, 
would  suffice  to  pay  working  charges,  interest  on 
borrowed  money,  and  on  capital  advanced  to  meet 
losses  incurred  during  the  eleven  years  of  loss,  and 
would  leave  a  balance  in  favour  of  the  Exchequer. 

If,  as  is  frequently  said,  the  rise  and  fall  of  railway 
traffic  is  the  best  index  of  the  country's  industrial 

K 


130  PKOFESSIONAL   CHAEACTEKISTICS 

progress,  this  must  seem  a  very  simple  way  of  bringing 
material  prosperity  to  Ireland.  The  commissioners, 
however,  do  not  commit  themselves  unreservedly  to 
this  proposition,  and  add  :— 

"We  do  not  feel  it  to  be  within  the  spirit  of  the  instruc- 
tions which  we  have  received  to  speculate  upon  the  degree  of 
material  prosperity  which  would  be  given  to  Ireland  by  the 
adoption  of  a  great  reduction  of  rates  and  charges,  and  a 
concentration  of  management." 

Arguing,  however,  from  precedents  which  are,  as  the 
commission  points  out,  totally  dissimilar,  an  increase  of 
traffic  may  be  expected. 

"  These,"  the  report  concludes,  "  are  vast  results,  and  it  must 
be  always  remembered  that  calculations  of  this  nature  are 
subject  to  disturbance  from  unusual  or  unexpected  circum- 
stances, but  having  obtained  the  best  and  most  accurate 
information  in  our  power,  and  having  brought  our  own 
experience  to  bear  upon  the  questions  submitted  to  us,  we 
do  not  hesitate  in  giving  our  opinion  that  such  results  may 
be  fairly  expected  to  follow  the  suggested  reductions." 

Everything  connected  with  the  economic  history  of 
Ireland  is  deeply  interesting.  The  Government,  as  we 
know,  took  no  action  in  the  direction  indicated  by  their 
desire  for  information  on  this  subject.  The  industrial 
condition  of  Ireland,  if  not  "  unexpected,"  is  certainly 
"unusual."  A  mere  reduction  of  railway  charges  to 
a  population  which  is  not  permeated  by  the  industrial 
instinct,  the  Government  probably  judged  to  be  a  vain 
expedient. 

To  sum  up  the  verdict  of  the  commission,  the 
lowering  of  rate  indicated  would,  according  to  pre- 
cedents gathered  in  industrial  communities,  produce 


IRISH  KAILWAYS  131 

the  stated  increase  of  traffic  in  the  stated  time.  This 
was  the  reply  to  the  problem  proposed  to  them. 
Incidentally  they  hint  that  possibly  Ireland  is  not 
an  industrial  community,  and  that  therefore  their 
calculations  may  be  irrelevant. 

The  question  of  Irish  railways  continued  to  occupy 
the  attention  of  Government.  In  the  beginning  of 
1872  we  find  that  Mr.  Fowler  was  engaged  in 
negotiations  with  certain  eminent  financiers  for  an 
amalgamation  of  Irish  railways.  The  conditions  on 
which,  in  his  judgment,  negotiations  might  proceed 
are  summarised  as  follows  in  a  memorandum  drawn 
up  by  him  about  this  time  :  All  Irish  railways  to  be 
purchased ;  the  Government  to  find  four- fifths  of  the 
purchase  money  at  3J  per  cent.  ;  the  proposed 
company  the  remainder.  The  company  to  provide  at 
least  £5,000,000  of  unguaranteed  capital;  a  reduction 
of  10  per  cent,  in  railway  rates;  all  rolling  stock  to 
be  made  and  repaired  in  Ireland ;  Irish  representatives 
to  be  on  the  Board  of  the  company. 

The  Government,  he  states,  was  very  anxious  about 
the  matter,  and  would,  he  believed,  be  propitious  to 
any  suggested  plan  which  should  include  Government 
aid  without  financial  risk  or  the  necessity  of  Govern- 
ment management. 

"  The  Irish  railway  problem  "  (so  the  impossibility  of 
a  cheap  railway  system  among  a  population  whose  in- 
dustrial capacities  are  undeveloped  is  euphemistically 
termed)  was  not  to  be  solved  in  this  way.  It  is  of 
course  impossible  for  a  Government  to  buy  up  a 
struggling  industry  and  to  reduce  its  tariff  without 
incurring  both  risk  and  responsibility. 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  many  years  earlier,  viz.  in 


132  PROFESSIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

1847,  Lord  George  Bentinck  had  made  a  somewhat 
similar  proposal.  In  what  his  biographer  has  termed 
the  best  speech  he  ever  made,  he  urged  that  the 
Government  should  advance  £16,000,000,  to  which 
£8,000,000  of  share  capital  should  be  added,  for  the 
extension  of  railway  enterprise  in  Ireland.  An  in- 
teresting account  of  Lord  George  Bentinck's  proposal 
will  be  found  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  life  of  that  states- 
man. Its  revival,  when  the  biographer  had  become  the 
leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  is  probably  more  than  a  coincidence. 

This  anticipation  of  events  is,  we  hope,  justified 
with  a  view  of  bringing  into  one  continuous  record 
Sir  John's  connection  with  Ireland.  To  return  to 
the  earlier  period,  we  find  in  1857  the  first  entries 
referring  to  the  Victoria  Station  and  Pimlico  Eailway 
Company,  as  it  was  called,  a  scheme  which  was  to 
make  Sir  John  Fowler  responsible  for  one  of  the  most 
important  exits  from  London,  namely,  the  Pimlico 
Kail  way  Bridge  and  Victoria  Station.  This  bridge  was 
the  first  railway  bridge  over  the  Thames  in  London, 
and  (we  are  fortunately  able  to  append  an  illustration) 
it  is  still  the  handsomest.  This  encomium,  the  cynic 
will  say,  does  not  convey  high  praise ;  but  a  review 
of  the  London  railway  bridges  will  make  us  wish 
that  Sir  John  Fowler  had  been  responsible  for  more 
of  them. 

One  other  expedition  of  considerable  importance  was 
undertaken  by  him  at  this  time.  In  1857  he  made  a 
prolonged  stay  in  Algiers  with  the  purpose  of  con- 
structing a  system  of  railways  there.  He  had  inter- 
views with  the  Emperor  Napoleon  and  his  ministers, 
and  made  great  progress  in  his  survey.  The  work 


OTHER  WORKS  133 

was  finally,  by  arrangement,  given  over  to  French 
engineers,  and  the  line  was  not  constructed  by  Fowler 
and  his  English  assistants.  During  his  absence  he 
wrote  long  and  detailed  letters,  descriptive  of  the 
country  and  scenery,  to  his  wife.  The  letters  are 
remarkable  letters,  both  in  respect  of  the  historical 
information  they  contain  and  the  description  and 
shrewd  comment  which  they  make  on  the  country 
and  the  people ;  but  they  are  reticent  as  to  business, 
and  though  they  suggest  to  us  that  Sir  John  Fowler, 
if  he  had  given  himself  time,  might  have  written 
admirable  volumes  of  history  and  travel,  they  are 
only  the  record  of  an  uneventful  business  journey, 
and  contain  nothing  that  is  of  interest  to  the  general 
reader. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  NENE  IMPROVEMENT  AND  NORFOLK  ESTUARY 

FOWLER'S  work,  however,  was  not  confined  to 
railway  construction.  Hydraulic  engineering,  from 
his  early  training,  always  had  a  special  fascination  for 
him. 

His  connection  with  the  Nene  Improvement  and  the 
Norfolk  Estuary  reclamation  scheme  brought  him  into 
relation  with  what  may  well  be  termed  a  perennial  and 
classical  problem  of  English  engineering. 

The  history  of  the  drainage  of  the  Fens  dates  from 
Roman  times,  but  its  more  modern  phase  began  when 
Charles  I.  employed  Vermuyden  on  engineering  work 
in  this  region.  Since  then  the  restless  and  ever 
varying  action  of  the  waters  and  the  sediment  which 
they  contain  have  taxed,  generation  after  generation, 
the  skill  and  patience  of  a  succession  of  great  English 
engineers.  Sir  John  Rennie,  in  a  speech  delivered  on 
the  subject  at  the  Institution,  enumerates  the  great 
names  of  those  who  had  given  attention  to  the 
problem-- Vermuyden,  Westerdyke,  Kinderley,  Arm- 
strong, Labelye,  Golborne,  Watte,  Elstob,  Smeaton, 
Mylne,  Page,  Huddart,  the  elder  Rennie,  Robert 
Stephenson,  and,  in  due  succession  of  time,  and  on  a 
subdivision  of  the  great  question,  John  Fowler. 

134 


THE  FENS  135 

The  general  nature  of  the  problem  is  well  stated 
by  Walker  and  Craddock  in  their  History  of  Wisbech 
and  the  Fens,  1849. 

"  The  Fens  are  a  large  basin  which,  but  for  drainage,  would 
be  generally  a  standing  pool  formed  by  the  washings  of  the 
high  borderlands.  The  great  reservoir  into  which  they  dis- 
charge their  contents  is  filled  with  sediment,  which  every  wind 
and  tide  throws  into  the  mouths  of  its  rivers.  If  the  Fens 
were  of  greater  elevation,  the  force  which  these  elevations 
would  give  the  fresh  waters  falling  into  their  outfall  would 
effectually  cleanse  whatever  the  tide  and  tempests  might 
deposit,  and — as  in  the  Ehone,  which  brings  vast  quantities 
of  earthy  materials  from  its  mountains — drive  the  suspended 
matter  forward  till  it  subsided  in  deep  water.  But  the  Fen 
rivers  are  placed  in  such  peculiar  relation  to  the  sea — their 
force  is  so  nearly  balanced  by  the  sea  force — that  they  have 
no  energy  to  push  forward,  but  become  passive  and  clogged 
up  unless  art  brings  in  its  aid  to  assist  them. 

"  In  these  circumstances,  whatever  force  can  be  imparted 
to  the  Fen  waters  requires  to  be  economised  and  used  as 
effectually  as  possible.  It  is  clear  that  the  rivers  which  have 
the  greatest  quantity  of  fresh  waters  to  scour  them  have  the 
greatest  chance  of  keeping  their  channels  open,  provided  these 
channels  are  restricted  against  weakening  themselves  with 
breadth.  It  is,  then,  an  exceeding  waste  of  impoverished 
means  to  send  the  fresh  waters  of  these  regions  to  sea  in 
three  or  four  separate  streams,  instead  of  combining  them 
into  one  stream  and  driving  them  into  their  receptacle  in  a 
firm,  united  body.  That  this  was  the  original  method  of 
nature  seems  pretty  evident  from  the  history  of  the  Great 
Ouse,  which  .  .  .  discharged  itself  originally  by  Wisbech, 
carrying  with  it  the  waters  of  the  Nene,  and  even  part  of 
those  now  discharged  by  the  Welland.  Engineers  have  not 
been  entirely  blind  to  this  fact,  but  the  extent  of  the  work 
and  the  adverse  interests  it  would  involve  have  made  them 
shrink  from  any  work  which  might  be  considered  perfect." 


136  THE  NENE  IMPKOVEMENT 

As  early  as  1720  operations  with  regard  to  the  Nene 
outfall  were  commenced  by  Charles  Kinderley,  but 
owing  to  local  opposition  Kinderley 's  Cut  was  not 
finally  complete  till  more  than  half  a  century  later, 
i.e.  1775.  Though  an  experiment  on  too  limited  a 
scale,  it  successfully  established  the  principle  that  the 
chief  obstruction  to  the  discharge  of  the  waters  lay  at 
the  outfall. 

In  1814  Mr.  John  Kennie  was  called  in  to  advise. 
His  recommendation  involved  a  new  channel  "  from 
the  mouth  of  Kinderley 's  Cut  to  the  level  of  low  water 
in  the  bay,"  and  other  works  for  deepening  the  course 
of  the  Nene.  Opposition  due  to  financial  reasons  and 
to  local  feeling  delayed  any  action  till  March  1826, 
when  the  North  Level  Commissioners  undertook  to 
carry  out  the  necessary  works  "on  receiving  reason- 
able contributions  from  all  the  other  parties  to  these 
measures. " 

Further  works  were  authorised  in  1830.  The 
general  effect  of  the  opening  of  the  Nene  Outfall 
was  most  satisfactory.  The  scour  of  the  river  through 
the  town  of  Wisbech  added  10  to  12  feet  to  its  depth 
and  saved  the  town  the  expense  of  some  £50,000,  the 
amount  estimated  by  Kennie  in  1814  as  required  for 
deepening  the  river  by  manual  labour. 

Further  important  works  in  1849  were  carried  out 
by  Kennie  and  Stephenson. 

The  task  which  Fowler  was  called  on  to  undertake 
in  December,  1856,  was  the  up-keep  and  improvement 
of  this  system  of  drainage.  In  a  report  addressed  to 
the  Commissioners  of  the  Nene  Valley  Drainage  and 
Navigation,  Mr.  Fowler  pointed  out  that  some  of  their 
works  were  in  a  dangerous  condition  owing  to  the 


OPEKATIONS  AT  WISBECH  137 

excessive  scour  of  the  water  in  some  parts  of  the 
channel  and  to  excessive  silting  up  in  others. 

A  Bill  authorising  the  raising  of  fresh  funds  had  been 
rejected,  and  the  commission  was  placed  in  a  position  of 
some  difficulty.  The  engineer  states,  however,  that  as 
a  temporary  expedient  he  had  placed  across  the  river 
in  the  town  of  Wisbech,  a  contraction  by  means  of 
a  submerged  weir  and  self-acting  gates.  This  he  had 
hoped  to  remove,  when  permanent  alteration  had  been 
made,  but  he  felt  now  obliged  to  fall  back  on  the 
expedients  authorised  by  their  existing  Act.  The 
report,  which  is  of  great  length,  deals  principally  with 
matters  of  detail  and  contains  a  criticism  of  various 
proposals  advanced  in  the  interests  of  the  different 
parties  concerned  in  the  drainage  and  navigation. 
These  works,  notably  the  temporary  construction  at 
Wisbech,  caused  great  inconvenience  to  some,  and  the 
engineer  emphasises  the  statement  that  the  difficulty 
to  be  faced  is  not  so  much  one  of  engineering  as  of 
reconciling  a  number  of  conflicting  interests.  The 
problem,  in  fact,  was  one  to  be  solved  by  a  de- 
velopment of  jurisprudence  as  an  antecedent  to  the 
operations  of  the  engineer. 

The  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  devoted  more 
than  one  evening  to  the  discussion  of  a  paper  on 
arterial  drainage  and  outfalls,  read  by  Mr.  R.  B. 
Grantham  on  November  29th,  1859. 

The  following  is  a  resume  of  Mr.  Fowler's  speech 
on  that  occasion.  It  may  be  mentioned  that  his 
intervention  in  the  debates  of  the  institution  is  very 
infrequent.  He  dwells,  as  is  characteristic  of  his  habit 
of  mind,  on  the  importance  of  detail  and  material, 
and  on  the  danger,  in  engineering  problems,  of  making 


138  THE  NENE   IMPKOVEMENT 

hasty  generalisations.  Fowler's  objection  to  generalisa- 
tion is  not  that  of  the  ignorant  empiric,  but  of  the  man 
of  experience,  who  knows  the  difficulty  of  apprehending 
all  the  factors  of  the  problem  about  which  generalisa- 
tion has  to  be  attempted.  Without  generalisation, 
science  is  impossible,  but  in  applied  science  the  factors 
of  the  problem  are  often  so  numerous  and  so  com- 
plicated that  generalisation  may  easily  cease  to  be 
correct  generalisation,  and  may  fail,  because  it  attempts 
to  include,  in  identical  propositions,  facts  and  forces 
that  are  not  homogeneous  and  which  therefore  require 
different  formulae  for  their  explanation. 

Fowler  began  by  expressing  his  doubt  as  to  the 
advantage  of  a  commission  with  compulsory  powers 
—the  obstructiveness  of  private  owners  was  a  great 
evil,  but  possibly  a  commission  might  be  a  greater 
evil.  He  feared  that  a  commission  would  not  be 
competent  from  a  professional  point  of  view,  and  it 
might  inaugurate  works  of  a  disastrous  character  on 
a  large  scale  owing  to  the  presence  of  some  one  member 
of  great  authority  but  no  technical  knowledge. 

The  remarks  must  be  taken  as  a  defence  of  the  Nene 
Commission,  which  had  no  large  compulsory  powers. 

With  regard  to  arterial  drainage  he  would,  he  said,  "  attempt 
to  give  direction  to  the  discussion.  The  Ancholme  drainage 
was  a  case  where  the  outfall  was  not  dependent  upon  the 
discharge  of  the  water  from  the  level  itself.  The  Witham 
was  a  case  where  it  was  so  dependent,  but  where  the  tide  was 
shut  out.  The  Ouse  and  the  Nene  were  cases  in  which  the 
outfall  was  dependent  upon  the  discharge  of  the  water  from 
the  level,  but  the  tide  was  admitted.  The  Ancholme  drainage 
.  .  .  was  one  in  which  the  tide  was  not  admitted  at  all.  The 
tidal  current  of  the  estuary  of  the  Humber  swept  past  its 
sluice  entrance  and  kept  it  free,  and  it  was  not  dependent  upon 


SPEECH  AT  THE  INSTITUTION  139 

the  discharge  of  water  from  the  land.  The  Ancholme  was 
a  combination  of  drainage  and  navigation  with  catch-water 
drains.  The  drainage  was  perfect  as  far  as  freedom  from 
inundation  was  concerned,  while  the  means  of  irrigation  was 
afforded  by  the  catch- water  drains :  and  it  combined  better 
than  at  most  other  places  drainage  and  navigation. 

"Other  cases  of  the  kind  had  been  treated  upon  the  plan 
of  Vermuyden,  who,  having  a  great  dislike  for  tidal  water, 
excluded  it  wherever  it  was  practicable ;  and  in  some  cases  he 
was  right.  To  the  Witham,  Vermuyden's  principle  was  applied 
of  shutting  out  the  tide  above  Boston ;  but  in  that  case  it  was 
wrong,  because  the  outfall  was  dependent  upon  the  mode  in 
which  the  water  was  discharged,  and  consequently  the  naviga- 
tion had  been  imperfect  ever  since.  At  Boston  there  was  a 
large  expanse  of  low  land,  over  which  the  water  struggled 
to  get  into  the  deep  water  of  the  Wash ;  the  outfall,  therefore, 
was  dependent  upon  the  way  in  which  it  was  discharged.  If 
the  water  was  permitted  to  go  up  by  the  Witham  in  the  same 
way  as  by  the  Ouse  and  the  Nene,  the  Witham  would  be  in  a 
very  different  condition  to  that  in  which  it  was  at  present. 
The  Ouse  and  the  Nene  might  be  termed  open  rivers,  the 
Nene  perfectly  so,  and  the  Ouse  up  to  Denver  sluice. 

"The  Nene  was  a  river  which  had  been  really  benefited 
by  the  alterations  already  effected.  The  outfall  was  very  good, 
and  all  that  was  now  wanted  was  to  carry  out  improvements 
up  the  river ;  and  by  removing  obstructions  and  properly 
attending  to  the  banks,  it  would  become  a  fine  river.  The 
Ouse  was  of  a  similar  character  to  the  Nene,  and  had  fairly 
repaid  all  the  care  bestowed  on  it.  Every  improvement  has 
been  of  great  value  both  to  navigation  and  drainage.  Sir  John 
Eennie  had  described  the  large  amount  of  drainage  that  had 
been  carried  out  in  that  district :  Mr.  Fowler,  however,  did  not 
think  that  13  feet  had  been  gained  at  Lynn.  (Sir  J.  Eennie 
later  in  the  debate  re-affirmed  his  statement,  while  Mr. 
Bidder,  V.P.,  questioned  Kennie's  statement  and  supported 
Fowler.)  Still,  at  the  present  time  the  Ouse  below  and  above 
Lynn  was  a  complete  river.  The  cut  obtained  by  Sir  J.  Eennie 


140  THE  NENE  IMPROVEMENT 

and  the  late  Mr.  Stephenson  was  certainly  one  of  the  finest 
engineering  works  in  the  country.  The  cut  was  two  miles  in 
length  and  from  600  to  700  feet  in  width,  and  a  more  success- 
ful result  had  never  been  obtained. 

"He  thought  there  was  no  branch  of  engineering  science 
which  required  more  care  than  such  cases  as  these.  The 
material  was  easily  acted  on  by  the  scour,  and  even  if  cut 
originally  in  straight  lines,  it  was  easily  distorted  and  turned 
into  irregular  forms.  That  required  to  be  corrected,  and  it  was 
the  province  of  the  engineer  to  decide  upon  the  materials  that 
should  be  used  to  protect  the  slope  of  the  cut,  upon  the  form 
to  be  given  to  the  slope,  and  upon  the  means  of  maintaining 
the  improvements  at  the  smallest  expense.  The  first  depth 
obtained  was  seldom  so  much  as  was  subsequently  arrived  at. 
These  improvements  were  obtained  at  the  risk  of  damage  to 
the  banks;  as  the  depths  increased,  the  banks  must  be  pro- 
tected, and  constant  watchfulness  was  necessary  to  carry  them 
out  with  safety.  In  this  respect  it  was  impossible  to  lay  down 
any  general  principle.  The  engineer  must  consider  each  case 
separately  as  it  occurred  to  him,  but  as  a  rule  a  formation  of 
rubble  stone  at  the  foot  of  the  slope  was  a  good  system  for 
directing  the  general  current,  and  the  upper  part  of  the  slope 
was  kept  in  order  with  less  difficulty.  A  minor  improvement 
had  been  lately  introduced  into  the  works  of  the  Norfolk 
Estuary  by  creosoting  the  stakes,  and  it  was  believed  that  this 
small  additional  expense  was  attended  with  advantage.  He 
expressed  his  entire  concurrence  with  the  remark  of  Sir  John 
Eennie,  that  it  was  impossible  to  lay  down  any  general 
principle  as  applicable  to  all  conditions  and  circumstances. 
The  conditions  of  every  case  must  be  carefully  and  separately 
considered,  and  he  specially  cautioned  engineers  against  the 
adoption  of  Vermuyden,  of  an  inflexible  principle  in  all  cases." 

Fowler's  connection  with  the  Nene  Improvement 
Scheme  was,  even  more  than  his  railway  work,  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  labour  of  earlier  engineers.  As  we 
have  already  pointed  out,  perhaps  the  most  important 


THE  NOEFOLK  ESTUAKY  141 

effects  of  the  work  of  Fowler  and  his  compeers  in 
connection  with  railway  communications  are  the  in- 
direct economic  results  which,  though  each  in  itself 
small,  yet  cumulatively  amount  to  a  great  revolution. 
So  here,  too,  in  addition  to  the  question  of  arterial 
drainage  and  navigation,  and  the  reclamation  of  land, 
the  drainage  of  the  Fens  brings  to  light  important 
principles  of  economic  progress. 

The  connection  between  the  solution  of  engineering 
problems  and  the  development  of  the  jurisprudence 
of  a  civilised  and  progressive  society  is  aptly  illustrated 
in  the  experience  of  the  association  known  as  the 
Proprietors  of  the  Norfolk  Estuary,  of  which  Sir  John 
Kennie  and  Mr.  Fowler  were  the  engineers.  The  tract 
of  swamp  dealt  with  lay  between  the  Nene  Outfall  and 
the  town  of  Lynn,  and  extended  along  the  Wash,  past 
what  are  now  the  Sandringham  estates  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales.  The  inception  of  such  work  requires  first 
a  clear  definition  of  proprietary  rights  in  respect  of 
the  area  to  be  treated,  and  then  some  reconciliation 
of  the  conflicting  interests  of  the  various  proprietors. 
The  following  quotation  from  the  engineers'  report  to 
the  proprietors  for  the  year  1858  shows  the  method 
followed  in  this  instance:— 

"  During  the  past  season  the  works  of  the  Babingley  enclosure, 
recommended  in  our  last  report,  have  been  completed,  and  about 
550  acres  of  valuable  land  have  been  recovered  from  the  sea. 

"The  value  of  the  land  was  settled  by  arbitration  before 
being  enclosed  in  the  manner  provided  for  by  clauses  in  your 
Act,  and  the  increased  value  by  reason  of  the  enclosure  is 
now  being  settled  in  a  like  manner.  When  this  has  been 
ascertained,  the  difference  between  the  two  amounts  will  repre- 
sent the  improved  value  of  the  land,  and  the  Norfolk  Estuary 


142  THE  NENE  IMPKOVEMENT 

Company  will  then  receive  one-third  of  it  from  the  present 
proprietors,  whose  further  rights  as  frontagers  will  thereby  be 
extinguished,  and  in  future  all  enclosures  carried  further 
seaward  will  be  the  sole  property  of  the  Norfolk  Estuary 
Company." 

Partly  by  aid  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  and  partly 
by  voluntary  agreement,  the  proprietary  rights  in  this 
derelict  waste  were  defined.  Without  this  security  of 
tenure  nothing  could  be  done.  This  granted,  contract 
and  industry  became  possible,  and  in  the  present  case 
the  landlord  on  the  existing  foreshore  paid  to  the 
adventurers  one-third  of  the  improved  value  of  his 
reclaimed  land  and  ceded  to  the  adventurers  all  claim 
to  further  reclamations  seawards.  The  engineering 
operations  consisted  of  making  a  number  of  embank- 
ments generally  in  the  form  of  wattled  groins  which 
afforded  protection  to  land  which  was  in  danger  from 
the  scour  of  the  tide,  and  which  at  the  same  time 
promoted  an  area  of  still  water  where  the  silt  was  so 
deposited  as  in  time  to  render  the  area  fit  for  enclosure. 
The  process  is  known  as  "  warping,"  and  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  the  visible  sign  that  the  land  so 
reclaimed  is  becoming  fit  for  enclosure,  is  the  spread 
of  the  growth  of  the  samphire  plant.  In  the  maps  and 
plans  of  the  reports  the  range  of  the  samphire  plant  is 
carefully  indicated. 

We  are  tempted  to  add  a  further  illustration  estab- 
lishing the  converse  proposition,  namely,  that  the 
uncertainty  of  tenure  which  ensues  in  default  of 
individual  appropriation  retards  the  beneficent  action 
of  the  engineer  and  the  agriculturalist. 

The  reward  given  to  the  original  adventurers  who 
drained  the  Bedford  Level  was  certain  farms  which 


GKUNTY   FEN  143 

they  redeemed  from  the  swamp.  Ownership,  security 
of  separate  tenure,  improved  agriculture,  and  the  main- 
tenance of  a  sound  system  of  drainage  went  together. 

That  part  of  the  Fen  which  remained  intercommon- 
able — in  other  words,  that  which  was  every  man's  or 
no  man's  land — remained  still  a  stagnant  waste. 

The  particular  piece  of  land  which  we  have  in  view 
was  an  area  ' * intercommonable  of  seven  parishes" 
situate  in  the  union  of  Ely,  and  bearing  the  unromantic 
title  of  Grunty  Fen.  A  part  of  it  was  drained  by  the 
Earl  of  Bedford  and  his  associates  of  the  Bedford 
Level  Corporation  and  reclaimed  for  the  service  of  man. 
As  time  went  on,  however,  the  unreclaimed  portion  of 
Grunty  Fen  ceased  to  possess  even  the  amenities,  such 
as  they  are,  of  a  good  swamp.  The  drainage  all  round 
it  rendered  even  the  life  of  the  pike  precarious,  and 
gave  no  safe  breeding-ground  for  the  wild  duck.  There 
was  swamp  enough  left  to  give  foot-rot  to  the  sheep 
and  establish  ague  in  the  shepherd's  hut.  The  Fen 
was  covered  with  ant-hills  and  thistles.  Stray  gunners 
poached  at  large  after  snipe.  No  one  seemed  to  know 
who  had  legal  rights  on  the  Fen ;  everyone  did  what 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes — dug  it  for  sods,  and  even 
carried  away  the  soil  to  the  adjoining  lands.  A  neigh- 
bouring owner,  and,  as  such,  possessed  of  commonable 
rights,  describes  how  he  set  about  abolishing  this 
nuisance.  "  I  ferreted  about,"  he  says,  "in  the  Kecords 
of  the  Court  of  Exchequer  and  in  the  Petty  Bag  Office 
and  ascertained  what  was  the  history  of  the  other  Fens 
before  they  were  enclosed."  As  a  result  the  proper 
procedure  was  ascertained,  and  a  scheme  for  a  pro  rat  a 
allotment  secured  the  requisite  number  of  assents  and 
an  Act  was  obtained  in  1861  for  enclosure.  The 


144  THE  NENE   IMPKOVEMENT 

interests  of  those  who  had  rights  in  respect  of  the 
Fen  were  adjusted  by  a  valuer,  lots  were  laid  out, 
roads  and  watercourses  were  made,  and  the  recovered 
acres  were  given  over  to  separate  ownership  and  cul- 
tivation. Something  like  £11,000  was  expended  in 
the  process  mainly  for  drains  and  dykes  and  inde- 
pendent watercourses  and  outfall  works. 

"  The  crowning  evidence  of  modern  civilisation,"  says 
Mr.  Pell  in  his  most  interesting  pamphlet  (The  Making 
of  the  Land  of  England.  Murray,  1899),  from  which 
the  foregoing  particulars  are  taken,  "is  seen  in  a 
railway  bisecting  the  Fen  with  two  stations  on  it, 
bringing  London  within  a  two-and-a-quarter  hours' 
run."  The  story,  which  should  be  read  at  length  in 
Mr.  Pell's  pamphlet,  is  indeed  an  epitome  of  the  history 
of  civilisation.  It  assigns  with  much  precision  the  part 
that  is  played  both  by  the  juridical  reformer  and  by 
the  engineer. 

The  granting  of  a  title  to  land  in  the  hitherto  dere- 
lict Grunty  Fen  enabled  the  adventurers  to  drain  a 
portion  of  it.  The  advantages  of  secure  ownership  and 
the  disadvantage  of  community  of  tenure  being,  in 
process  of  time,  made  apparent,  steps  were  taken  to 
end  the  ownerless  condition  of  the  remainder  of  the 
fen.  The  land  at  length  was  given  over  to  separate 
ownership.  This  security  encouraged  industry,  and 
industry  availed  itself  of  engineering  science,  and 
civilisation  advanced.  All  this,  gathered  from  the 
microcosm  of  Grunty  Fen,  from  the  Norfolk  Estuary 
Association,  and  from  the  labour  of  its  engineer,  John 
Fowler,  must  be  weighed  and  considered  if  we  would 
frame  aright  the  panegyric  of  the  engineering  pro- 
fession. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

WE  now  come  to  what  was  probably  the  most  ex- 
tensive enterprise  which  Fowler  carried  through 
single-handed — the  making  of  the  Metropolitan  Kail- 
way.  The  attention  of  the  public  is  periodically  directed 
to  the  growth  of  London  traffic  and  the  need  of  im- 
proved communications;  and  about  the  year  1853  the 
subject  was  being  a  good  deal  discussed.  It  occurred, 
of  course,  to  many  that  some  portion  of  the  traffic 
might  be  carried  underground,  but  it  required  great 
intrepidity  on  the  part  of  a  responsible  engineer  to 
undertake  the  making  of  such  a  line.  Fowler,  how- 
ever, was  nothing  if  not  self-confident,  and  in  1853 
we  find  him  acting  as  engineer  for  the  promoters  of 
an  experiment  in  this  direction,  and  some  description 
of  this  must  now  be  attempted. 

In  1834  there  were  steam  carriages  worked  by  steam 
power  between  Paddington  (which  twenty  years  before 
was  described  as  a  village  four  miles  from  London)  and 
Moorgate,  following  very  much  the  route  of  the  present 
underground  railway,  but  running  on  the  surface. 

After  another  interval  of  twenty  years  an  Act  of 
Parliament  was  procured  for  the  "  North  Metropolitan 
Eailway ;  Paddington  to  the  Post  Office ;  Extensions 
to  Paddington  and  the  Great  Western  Eailway,  the 

L  145 


146  METROPOLITAN  KAILWAY 

General  Post  Office,  the  London  and  North  Western 
Railway,  and  the  Great  Northern  Railway.  John 
Fowler,  Engineer ;  John  Hargrave  Stevens,  Architect." 
This  Act  of  Parliament  may  be  described  as  the  first 
definite  step  towards  the  construction  of  underground 
Metropolitan  railways,  though  the  first  portion  of  the 
then  projected  railway  was  not  opened  till  thirty  years 
later. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  facilitating  the  con- 
veyance of  passengers  from  one  part  of  London  to 
another,  as  early  as  1845  the  great  railways  were 
beginning  to  realise  how  important  it  was  for  them 
to  have  their  stations  as  close  as  possible  to  their 
sources  of  traffic.  Accordingly  no  less  than  nineteen 
bills  were  deposited  in  that  session  for  lines  within  the 
Metropolitan  area.  A  Royal  Commission  was  appointed 
to  inquire  into  the  matter.  Many  projects  were  then 
put  forward.  Mr.  Vignoles  had  a  scheme  for  a  Charing 
Cross  to  Cannon  Street  Railway.  Messrs.  Stephenson 
and  Bidder  were  for  extending  the  South  Eastern  to 
Waterloo  Bridge.  Mr.  Locke  suggested  an  extension 
of  the  London  and  South  Western  to  London  Bridge, 
and  Mr.  Page  a  line  from  the  Great  Western  through 
Kensington  to  Westminster  and  along  a  proposed 
Thames  Embankment  to  East  Cheap  and  Blackwall. 
There  was  also  a  North  London  Railway  and  a  Regent's 
Canal  Railway.  Mr.  Charles  Pearson,  the  City 
solicitor,  was  in  favour  of  having  a  Great  Central 
Terminus  at  Farringdon  Street  with  a  connecting  line 
to  King's  Cross. 

"  Mr.  Pearson,"  says  the  report  of  the  commissioners, 
"  would  carry  the  line  of  railway  between  two  rows  of  houses 
which  he  proposes  to  build  so  as  to  form  a  spacious  and 


EARLIER  PROPOSALS  147 

handsome  street,  80  feet  in  width  and  8,506  feet  in  length ; 
the  railway  to  be  on  the  basement  level  and  to  be  arched 
over  so  as  to  support  the  pavement  of  the  street,  which  would 
be  on  the  level  of  the  ground-floor  of  the  houses.  Mr.  Pearson 
proposed  to  give  light  and  air  to  the  railway  by  openings  in 
the  carriage-way  and  footpath." 

Mr.  Pearson,  says  Sir  Benjamin  Baker,  from  whose 
paper  on  ''Metropolitan  Kail  ways"  the  information 
here  given  has  been  mainly  compiled,  "is  clearly 
entitled  to  the  credit  of  being  the  originator  of  the 
whole  tribe  of  Arcade  Kailways."  He  was  even  the 
first  to  suggest  "blow-holes,"  a  subject  which  has 
occasioned  much  heartburning  in  subsequent  years  to 
the  authorities  charged  with  the  maintenance  of  the 
public  streets.  In  bearing  testimony  to  the  value  of 
Mr.  Pearson's  services  to  the  cause  of  Metropolitan 
communications,  Mr.  Fowler^  remarked  that  his  view 
was  vitiated  by  the  assumption  that  the  public  con- 
venience required  the  concentration  of  railways  in  one 
central  station,  adding  that  if  a  man  of  the  ability  of 
Mr.  Pearson  had  lived  to  see  the  great  development 
of  railway  travelling,  he  would  have  abandoned  his 
advocacy  of  concentration. 

The  Commission  of  1846  was  not,  as  Sir  Benjamin 
Baker  remarks,  very  far-seeing.  They  objected  to 
the  carrying  of  railway  bridges  across  the  river,  as 
likely  to  create  an  obstruction  to  navigation ;  and 
none  of  the  existing  bridges  could  be  given  over  to 
railway  traffic  without  inconvenience  to  the  public. 
They  calculated  that  the  average  distance  travelled  by 
passengers  arriving  at  the  Euston  terminus  was  64 
miles,  and  argued  that  the  saving  of  another  mile  or 

*  Minutes  of  Proceedings  of  the  Institute  of  Civil  Engineers,  vol.  81,  p.  G8. 


148  METROPOLITAN  EAILWAY 

two  was  of  very  little  importance.  The  time  was 
clearly  not  yet  ripe  for  a  Metropolitan  system  of 
railways. 

Mr.  Pearson,  however,  was  not  daunted,  and  con- 
tinued, with  his  colleague  Mr.  Stevens,  architect  and 
surveyor  to  the  western  division  of  the  City,  to  advo- 
cate various  projects — for  a  City  terminus  line,  for 
arcades,  for  vegetable  and  meat  markets,  and  for 
Holborn  Valley  Viaducts.  Finally,  in  1853,  an  Act 
was  obtained  for  a  line  of  2^  miles,  from  Edgware 
Eoad  to  Battle  Bridge,  King's  Cross.  To  this  line 
Mr.  Fowler  was  the  engineer,  Mr.  Stevens  the  architect, 
and  Mr.  Burchell  the  solicitor.  Plans  were  at  once 
prepared  for  extensions  both  westwards  to  Paddington 
and  eastwards  to  the  City.  The  line  authorised  in  1853 
was  entirely  under  the  public  roadway,  and  it  was  not 
necessary  to  acquire  any  buildings,  but  the  extensions 
were  more  ambitious,  and  it  was  proposed  to  tunnel 
under  buildings  and  to  acquire  certain  private  property. 
In  1854  the  Great  Western  Eailway  joined  the  pro- 
moters, and  offered  to  contribute  £175,000  of  capital 
if  the  line  from  Paddington  to  the  Post  Office  could 
be  sanctioned.  There  was  a  severe  parliamentary 
contest.  Mr.  Fowler  was  supported  by  Messrs.  Brunei, 
Hawkshaw,  Scott  Eussell,  Peacock,  and  Stevens,  and 
was  opposed  by  many  equally  distinguished  engineers. 
A  great  variety  of  objections  were  put  forward.  The 
tunnels  could  not  be  ventilated,  the  rails  would  be  so 
greasy  that  no  locomotive  would  be  able  to  drag  a 
train.  This  last  objection  was  put  forward  by  no  less 
distinguished  an  authority  than  Mr.  Locke,  a  great 
engineer,  whom  his  countrymen  have  justly  honoured 
with  a  resting-place  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


METROPOLITAN   COMMUNICATIONS  149 

The  approval  of  the  Post  Office  authorities  was  at  the 
time  deemed  of  great  importance.  Sir  Eowland  Hill 
wrote  to  the  chairman  of  the  railway  company  :— 

"The  Postmaster -General  thinks  it  necessary  that  such 
arrangements  should  be  made  as  will  admit  of  the  intended 
railway  being  brought  into  the  basement  of  the  building,  so 
that  bags,  when  made  up,  may  be  placed  at  once  in  the 
railway  carriages";  and  this  was  part  of  the  original  scheme. 

In  1855  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  on  Metropolitan  communications  was  ap- 
pointed, and  Mr.  Fowler  appeared  to  give  evidence 
as  to  "  exact  position  of  the  Metropolitan  Kail  way, 
for  which  an  Act  of  Parliament  has  been  obtained." 
The  actual  course  followed  by  the  Metropolitan  Kail- 
way  system  has  deviated  so  largely  from  the  original 
design  that  it  will  be  interesting  to  set  down  Mr. 
Fowler's  evidence  on  this  point  :— 

"In  the  session  of  1853  a  part  of  that  scheme  was 
sanctioned  from  near  the  Edgware  Koad  to  King's  Cross,  a 
distance  of  two  miles,  with  a  capital  of  £300,000.  That 
was  avowedly  an  imperfect  scheme,  and  the  intention  was 
expressed  of  coming  forward  in  the  next  session  and  com- 
pleting it  so  far  as  to  join  the  northern  railways  with  each 
other  and  with  the  Post  Office.  That  was  done  last  session. 
The  scheme  of  last  session  was  to  join  the  Paddington  station 
by  two  lines — one  for  passengers  and  one  for  goods — in  con- 
nection with  the  Great  Western  Company,  who  are  share- 
holders in  it,  and  to  join  the  London  and  North  Western  at 
Euston  Square,  and  the  Great  Northern  at  King's  Cross, 
taking  the  line  down  to  the  Post  Office,  and  there  terminating 
in  such  a  manner  as  shall  communicate  conveniently  with  the 
Post  Office  vaults,  where  the  letters  could  be  put  into  the  vans. 
That  was  done  in  conjunction  with  the  Post  Office  authorities, 
and  with  their  entire  sanction.  The  total  length  of  that 


150  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

scheme,  including  the  part  sanctioned  in  1853,  is  4f  miles, 
and  the  capital  is  £1,000,000.  The  works  have  not  yet  been 
commenced,  owing  to  the  war  and  the  depressed  state  of  the 
money  market,  and  the  determination  of  the  directors  not 
to  proceed  till  the  whole  of  the  shares  had  been  taken  up. 
Every  share  has  now  been  taken  up,  and  the  works  are  about 
to  commence." 

Such  was  the  scheme  as  sanctioned  by  Parliament  at 
that  date.  Mr.  Fowler  goes  on  to  explain  a  further 
extension,  "  which  will  complete  the  communications 
with  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Eailways,  both  with 
each  other  and  with  the  Post  Office."  The  line  was 
to  communicate  with  the  Eastern  Counties  Kailway, 
with  the  Brighton,  and  the  South  Eastern,  and  to 
cross  the  river  by  means  of  a  bridge.  The  addition  in 
question  was  to  amount  to  3|  miles.  From  the  Post 
Office  it  was  to  run  underground  to  near  Old  Fish 
Street,  then  to  pass  over  Thames  Street,  and  so  over 
the  river,  and,  by  means  of  "  a  viaduct  of  ordinary 
construction,"  to  join  the  South  Western  on  one  side 
and  the  London  and  Brighton  on  the  other. 

The  extension  to  the  Eastern  Counties  Kailway  was 
to  be  entirely  underground,  with  a  station  at  Moorgate 
Street  in  its  course.  This  was  an  extension  which  the 
Eastern  Counties  authorities  were  anxious  to  secure, 
as  they  were  dissatisfied  with  their  existing  station 
accommodation. 

Opposite  the  Great  Western  Eailway  Hotel  there  was 
to  be  a  passenger  station,  communicating  by  an  under- 
ground passage  with  the  "new"  passenger  station  on 
the  Great  Western  Kailway. 

There  was  also  to  be  a  "  branch  line,"  parallel  to  the 
Grand  Junction  Canal,  for  goods  alone,  and  this  was  to 


ME.  FOWLER'S  EVIDENCE  151 

be  so  laid  out  that  a  through  train  could  pass  along  it 
quite  conveniently.  It  was  further  in  contemplation  to 
make  a  similar  goods  connection  with  the  London  and 
North  Western  and  with  the  Great  Northern,  "  so  that 
coal  trains  and  goods  trains  can  come  along  the  Great 
Northern,  and,  by  means  of  the  North  London,  along 
the  London  and  North  Western  to  any  part  of  the 
City,  which  the  Metropolitan  line  will  communicate 
with."  This  arrangement,  it  was  pointed  out  to  the 
witness,  as  at  the  moment  authorised,  unduly  favoured 
the  Great  Western  Kail  way.  "It  must  be  evident  to 
you,  Mr.  Fowler,"  said  the  chairman,  "that  if  this  rail- 
way, which  is  to  communicate  with  the  north  and  south 
sides  of  the  Metropolis,  is  ever  sanctioned,  it  must  be 
sanctioned  upon  the  principle  of  giving  to  every  rail- 
way company  in  the  Metropolis  the  privilege  of  using 
it."  Mr.  Fowler's  reply  is  characteristic  of  his  method 
of  meeting  an  objection.  He  adopts  most  enthusi- 
astically the  suggestion  propounded  by  the  adversary, 
and  goes  on  to  show  how  entirely  it  is  met  by  the 
scheme  which  he  is  advocating. 

It  would  have  been  a  lengthy  process  to  explain 
in  answer  to  this  question,  as  he  does  elsewhere,  that 
"it  is  no  part  of  their  scheme  to  bring  all  the  railways 
to  one  common  centre.  They  do  not  believe  that  such 
a  thing  would  be  convenient,  and  therefore  they  have 
along  the  course  of  the  line  intermediate  stations  at 
convenient  places  " — convenient,  that  is,  to  the  Metro- 
politan stations  of  the  great  lines.  Mr.  Fowler  was 
all  along  of  opinion  that  the  Metropolitan  Kailway 
would  be  a  passenger  railway,  and  that  its  traffic  would 
be  of  the  "omnibus"  character.  This  question  about 
affording  equal  facilities  for  goods  traffic  to  all  the 


152  METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

great  railway  companies  was  therefore  of  comparatively 
little  importance,  but  it  obviously  took  important  rank 
in  the  mind  of  the  chairman.  The  answer  given  is 
quite  truthful  and  diplomatic.  It  agrees  that  equal 
facilities  must  be  given,  and  "  we  are  quite  prepared 
to  carry  it  out  on  that  principle,  so  much  so  that  I 
have  considered  the  details  of  doing  it,  and  it  can  be 
done  quite  conveniently."  The  question,  however, 
really  was  whether  the  various  companies  would  think 
the  accommodation  offered  worth  the  expense  which  it 
would  involve. 

"The  communications,"  Mr.  Fowler  added,  "connecting  the 
different  railways  can  only  be  carried  out  in  conjunction  with 
those  railways.  The  parties  interested  in  the  London  Bridge 
Station  and  the  South  Western,  as  well  as  the  great  northern 
companies,  must  themselves  feel  the  value  of  this  communica- 
tion, and  must  be  active  parties  in  co-operating  to  carry  it 
out,  in  order  to  enable  it  to  be  done  with  prudence  and 
success." 

The  conclusion  of  the  committee  is  worth  quoting  :— 

"On  the  preliminary  point  of  their  inquiry,  your  com- 
mittee find  that  the  requirements  of  the  existing  traffic  of 
the  Metropolis  far  exceed  the  facilities  provided  for  it;  that 
the  rapid  increase  of  that  traffic  is  constantly  adding  to  the 
amount  of  inconvenience  and  loss  thus  caused ;  that  enormous 
as  the  increase  has  been,  it  is,  and  must  continue  to  be,  kept 
seriously  in  check  by  the  want  of  means  for  its  natural 
expansion;  and  that  it  has  become  indispensable  to  make 
provision  in  this  respect  for  the  future  on  a  great  and 
comprehensive  scale,  and  with  the  least  possible  delay.  In 
order  that  the  House  may  the  better  appreciate  the  grounds 
on  which  your  committee  rest  these  convictions,  the  following 
facts,  adduced  in  evidence  by  Mr.  Charles  Pearson,  may  be 
cited. 


THE   COMMITTEE'S   REPORT  153 

"The  population  of  the  Metropolitan  District,  which  in 
1811  was  1,138,000,  by  the  census  of  1851  was  2,362,000,  thus 
showing  that  it  has  doubled  in  forty  years.  Your  committee 
find  that  about  200,000  persons  enter  the  City  each  day  on 
foot  by  different  avenues,  and  about  15,000  by  the  river 
steamers ;  and  that  besides  the  cab,  cart,  carriage,  and  waggon 
traffic  of  the  streets,  the  omnibuses  alone  perform  an  aggre- 
gate of  7,400  journeys  through  the  City.  The  number  of 
passengers  arriving  at  and  departing  from  the  London  Bridge 
group  of  railway  termini  which  in  1850  amounted  to  5,558,000, 
had,  in  1854,  risen  to  10,845,000.  At  the  South  Western 
Railway  it  appears  that  during  the  same  period  the  numbers 
have  increased  from  1,228,000  to  3,308,000.  The  number 
arriving  at  and  departing  from  the  Shoreditch  Station  last  year 
is  stated  at  2,143,000;  Euston  Square  Station,  970,000; 
Paddington  Station,  1,400,000 ;  King's  Cross  Station,  711,000 ; 
the  Blackwall  Station  in  Fenchurch  Street,  8,144,000.  These 
figures  serve  to  convey  some  idea  of  the  rate  at  which  the 
traffic  of  the  Metropolis  is  increasing,  and  that  increase, 
the  House  will  bear  in  mind,  takes  place,  notwithstanding 
the  obstructions  presented  by  the  existing  means  of  com- 
munication. Looking  at  the  overcrowded  state  of  the 
principal  thoroughfares  of  a  capital  which,  as  has  been  shown, 
has  doubled  its  population  within  the  last  forty  years,  and 
which  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  is  annually  accelerating 
the  ratio  of  its  growth,  your  committee  have  arrived  at  the 
following  conclusions.  .  .  ." 

The  committee  then  sets  out  eight  recommendations. 
The  most  important  are  to  this  effect : — 

(3)  That  the  different  Metropolitan  railway  termini  should 
be  connected  by  railway  with  each  other,  with  the  docks,  the 
river,  the  Post  Office,  so  as  to  accelerate  the  mails,  and  take  all 
through  traffic,  not  only  of  passengers,  but,  in  a  still  more 
important  degree,  of  goods  off  the  streets. 

(4)  That   all   existing   restrictions   upon   the    natural    and 
convenient  flow  of  traffic,  such,  for  example,  as  tolls  on  the 


154  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

roads  and  bridges  within  the  Metropolitan  district,  should,  as  a 
general  rule,  be  removed. 

(5)  That  wherever,  as,   for   example,  in   the   case   of   the 
Metropolitan  Railway,  works  for  improving  the  communication 
of  the  Metropolis  can  be  carried  out  by  private  enterprise,  that 
course  should  be  adopted,  and  your  committee  consider  that 
most  important  results  may  be  secured  in  this  way. 

(6)  That  when   the   improvements    contemplated   partake 
more  of  the  character  of  a  public  benefit  than  of  a  commercial 
speculation,  care  be  taken  by  such  means  as  economising  the 
waste  spaces  of  the  river,  or  opening  new  streets  through  poor 
neighbourhoods,  to  diminish  the  cost  of  the  undertaking  to  the 
lowest  possible  point. 

(7)  Contains  a  recommendation  for  combining  railway  ex- 
tensions with  street  improvements. 

(8)  That  all  the  cost  of  public  improvements  required  by 
the  existing  or  prospective  demands  of  Metropolitan  traffic, 
whether  in  forming  new  streets,  or  enlarging  existing  ones,  or 
in  purchasing  or  building  bridges,  or  removing  toll-bars,  should 
be  defrayed  by  a  local  rate  levied  on  the  whole  Metropolitan 
area. 

The  question  of  Metropolitan  communications  is, 
perhaps,  as  pressing  to-day  as  it  was  forty  years  ago. 
The  railways  constructed  by  Sir  John  Fowler  and  his 
fellow-engineers  have  done  much  to  relieve  the  con- 
gestion, but  the  economical  difficulties  which  they 
partially  overcame  still  remain,  some  of  them,  indeed, 
in  an  aggravated  form.  Towards  private  enterprise 
in  the  form  of  Metropolitan  railways  the  committee 
adopts  an  attitude  of  benevolent  neutrality.  For  foot- 
passengers  and  horse  traffic  the  public  authority  should 
tax  all  the  ratepayers,  but  there  is  no  suggestion  that 
the  public  authority  should  provide  any  sort  of  facility 
for  station  and  line  accommodation  for  the  great 
modern  convenience  of  railway  travelling.  It  does  not 


THE  STATE  AND   KAILWAYS  155 

suggest,  however,  that  this  beneficent  form  of  effort 
should  be  thwarted.  This  neutral,  if  not  benevolent, 
attitude  of  the  commission  of  1855  has  by  no  means 
been  imitated.  The  whole  system  of  imposing  local 
rates  on  railways,  their  exclusion  from  any  right  of 
representation  on  local  spending  authorities,  the 
passenger  duty,  the  attempt  to  impose  onerous  con- 
ditions, in  the  way  of  rebuilding  and  workmen's  trains, 
on  the  occasion  of  every  application  to  the  public 
authority,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  attitude  of  Parlia- 
ment to  those  public  improvements  which  are  carried 
out  by  private  enterprise  and  "  commercial  speculation  " 
seem  to  suggest  that  railways  are  a  public  scourge 
rather  than  a  public  convenience.  Unfortunately  for 
progress,  the  number  of  persons  who  are  willing  to 
deprive  themselves  and  their  neighbours  of  a  great 
convenience,  because  someone  may  derive  a  commercial 
profit  from  its  use,  is  largely  on  the  increase.  The 
result,  of  course,  is  to  throw  more  and  more  into  the 
hands  of  municipalism,  that  most  important  body  of 
industrial  enterprise  which  is  obliged  to  invoke  the 
aid  of  parliamentary  powers  for  its  inception.  The 
suburban  and  metropolitan  railway  traffic  of  London 
is  a  monument  of  what  private  enterprise  can  do  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  popular  misconception. 

The  ability  of  municipalism  to  conduct  large  enter- 
prises may  some  day  be  proved.  In  the  meantime 
its  aggressive  attitude  has  only  succeeded  in  paralysing 
and  obstructing  private  enterprise  in  such  industries 
as  housebuilding  for  the  poorer  class,  the  making  of 
tramways,  the  extension  of  railway  accommodation,  the 
generation  of  cheap  electrical  power,  telephones,  and 
similar  conveniences.  Its  ability  to  sustain  by  its  own 


156  METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

initiative  the  advance  of  economic  improvement  and  to 
ensure  the  adoption  of  scientific  invention  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind,  which  hitherto  has  been  effected 
by  private  enterprise,  is  by  no  means  apparent.  Its 
period  of  usurpation  is,  however,  too  recent  to  enable 
men  to  see  clearly  what  use  it  will  make  of  the  power 
which  it  has  assumed. 

This  feeling  of  jealousy  (ill- warranted  as  we  believe 
it  to  be)  against  private  enterprise  working  under 
compulsory  powers  is  new.  It  has  been  the  out- 
come of  the  comparative  success  of  the  railway 
and  other  similarly  authorised  undertakings.  The 
difficulty  to  be  overcome  in  the  early  fifties  was  of  a 
somewhat  different  character,  though  it  is  all  part  of 
the  same  problem.  The  initial  difficulty  from  which 
all  others  proceed  is  the  necessity  which  ex  hypothesi 
has  arisen  for  the  compulsory  expropriation  of  private 
property  for  purposes  of  some  public  convenience. 
We  have  already  given  our  reasons  for  considering 
that  the  right  conferred  on  a  railway  company  is  by 
no  means  a  monopoly  in  the  sense  that  it  enables  the 
railway  to  charge  exorbitant  rates.  This  seems  more 
especially  to  be  true  with  regard  to  a  Metropolitan 
railway,  which  is  by  no  means  set  free  from  the 
competition  of  omnibuses,  cabs,  tramways,  steamers, 
and  (perhaps  most  important  of  all)  of  walking  on 
our  own  ten  toes.  The  whole  endeavour  of  the  owners 
of  a  Metropolitan  railway  must  be  to  induce  us  to 
prefer  their  line  to  other  methods  of  transport,  and 
also  to  make  journeys  which,  but  for  the  convenience 
they  offer,  we  should  never  undertake  at  all.  The 
right  to  acquire  property  at  an  exorbitant  price 
confers  little  benefit  on  the  railway  company.  Justly 


THE  WOEK   BEGUN  157 

enough,  property  acquired  under  such  conditions  has  to 
be  paid  for  at  an  ample  rate  of  compensation,  but  this 
setting  aside  of  the  principle  of  free  exchange,  inevitable 
though  perhaps  it  may  have  been,  is  the  occasion  of  the 
whole  difficulty  of  the  situation.  An  owner  who  is 
compelled  to  sell  naturally  fights  to  obtain  the  utmost 
compensation ;  hence  costly  legal  proceedings,  and  costly 
terms  of  acquisition.  At  the  date  of  Mr.  Fowler's 
first  connection  with  the  Metropolitan  Railway  no  one 
ventured  to  say  that  the  public  would  be  overcharged, 
and  that  therefore  the  way-leave  granted  ought  only  to 
be  granted  to  a  public  body.  The  main  opposition 
came  rather  from  property  owners,  and  from  those  who 
alleged  that  in  some  way  or  other  their  proprietary 
interests  were  adversely  affected  by  the  proposed 
line.  These,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  in  a  crowded 
Metropolis  were  innumerable,  and  when  once  the 
principle  of  free  exchange  has  to  be  abandoned  the 
difficulties  of  assessing  values  for  the  purposes  of 
compulsory  exchange  become  enormous.  Indeed,  con- 
sidering the  mass  of  property  and  interests  affected,  the 
business  aspects  of  the  construction  of  this  line  were 
really  more  formidable  than  its  engineering  difficulty. 

In  stating,  in  1855,  that  the  work  of  the  Metropolitan 
Railway  was  about  to  begin,  Mr.  Fowler  was  somewhat 
too  sanguine.  The  preliminary  difficulties  were  not 
overcome  till  1859,  and  the  works  were  not  actually 
commenced  till  March,  1860. 

The  original  programme  was  varied  from  time  to 
time.  Sir  B.  Baker  gives  the  following  account  of 
these  changes  of  plan  :— 

"In  1861  powers  were  obtained  for  extending  the  Metro- 
politan Eailway  to  Moorgate  Street,  and  for  widening  the  line 


158  METROPOLITAN  EAILWAY 

from  King's  Cross  eastwards ;  and  in  1864  for  constructing  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Extensions  to  Tower  Hill  and  Brompton 
respectively,  the  District  Railway  from  Brompton  to  Tower 
Hill  and  the  St.  John's  Wood  Railway.  Owing  to  financial 
difficulties  the  Metropolitan  Railway  Company  sought  to 
abandon  the  Eastern  Extension  in  1870,  but  the  Bill  was 
thrown  out  by  the  Lords.  An  alternative  mode  of  completing 
the  Inner  Circle  by  Fenchurch  Street,  instead  of  by  Tower 
Hill,  was  authorised  in  1871,  but  the  latter  and  original 
route  is  the  one  adopted.  As  regards  the  Western  Extension, 
Mr.  Fowler's  first  idea  was  to  take  it  through  Kensington 
Gardens  and  Hyde  Park;  but  the  authorities  objected,  and 
the  present  line  was  selected.  Practically  there  was  very 
little  choice  in  laying  out  the  Metropolitan  Railway,  for  the 
Lords'  committee  of  1863  decided  that  '  it  would  be  desirable 
to  complete  an  inner  circuit  of  railway  that  should  abut  upon, 
if  it  did  not  actually  join,  nearly  all  the  principal  railway 
termini  in  the  Metropolis,  commencing  with  the  extension  in 
an  easterly  and  southerly  direction  of  the  Metropolitan  Rail- 
way, from  Finsbury  Circus  at  the  one  end,  and  in  a  westerly 
and  southerly  direction  from  Paddington  at  the  other,  and  con- 
necting the  extremities  of  those  lines  by  a  line  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Thames.'  The  Inner  Circle  of  railways  as  con- 
structed is  the  direct  outcome  of  that  recommendation.  The 
total  length  of  the  line  is  13  miles  8  chains,  of  which  about 
two  miles  are  laid  with  four  lines  of  rails,  and  there  are  twenty- 
seven  stations." 

The  following  is  a  table  of  the  proportions  made 
by  the  different  engineers  : — 

ENGINEER.  LENGTH  EXECUTED.      PERCENTAGE. 

Miles.  Chains. 

John  Fowler    .  .     11       20  .86 

Edward  Wilson            .  27  .         2J 

Francis  Brady              .  28  2£ 

Jas.  Tomlinson,  jun.     .  35  3£ 

Hawkshaw  and  Barry  .               58  .         5J 

13         8  100 


THE   COST  159 

Of  the  cost  of  this  railway  it  is  difficult  to  give 
any  precise  estimate,  "  because  the  financial  liabilities 
assumed  by  the  contractors  varied  from  time  to  time, 
and  other  complicating  conditions  entered  into  the 
question."  The  following,  however,  is  Sir  B.  Baker's 
summary  on  this  head  :— 

"In  1871,  when  the  works  had  been  completed  and  opened 
from  Moorgate  Street  to  Mansion  House,  the  expenditure  on 
capital  account  by  the  District  Kailway  Company  for  works 
and  equipment  of  7J  miles  of  double  line  railway  was  stated 
in  the  Directors'  Keport  to  have  been  £5,147,000,  and  by  the 
Metropolitan  Railway  Company  £5,856,000  for  10£  miles,  both 
amounts  being  subject  to  deduction  in  respect  of  surplus  lands. 
It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that  these  figures,  as  already 
intimated,  are  of  little  value  to  an  engineer,  because  they 
include  items  dependent,  among  other  things,  upon  the 
market  value  of  the  shares,  which  in  the  case  of  the  Metro- 
politan ranged  from  50  to  140,  and  in  that  of  the  District  from 
20  to  100,  during  the  making  of  the  lines." 

The  completion  of  the  so-called  Inner  Circle,  accord- 
ing to  Sir  J.  Wolfe  Barry,  was  completed  for  about 
£3,250,000.  This,  however,  includes  something  like 
£1,000,000  contributed  to  the  making  of  new  streets, 
as  well  as  the  cost  of  the  Whitechapel  extension. 

It  may  here  be  noted  that  the  so-called  circle  railway 
is  not  circular,  but  is  really  two  parallel  lines  running 
east  and  west,  connected  at  each  end  by  comparatively 
short  lengths  running  north  and  south.  This  fact,  it 
is  alleged,  has  interfered  with  the  value  of  the  railway 
as  a  communication  between  the  north  and  the  south. 
The  set  of  the  traffic  of  London  has  apparently  always 
been  from  east  to  west.  We  may  conjecture  that  this 
tendency  was  originally  imparted  to  it  by  the  water- 


160  METROPOLITAN  KAILWAY 

way  of  the  Thames,  which,  on  the  whole,  runs  from 
west  to  east.  Every  additional  facility  in  the  way 
of  streets  and  railways  increases  the  tendency  of  the 
traffic  to  concentrate  itself  on  this  route,  so  that  it  is 
difficult  to  say  whether  the  growth  of  East  and  West 
London  is  due  to  comparatively  ample  transport 
accommodation,  or  whether  the  better  transport  ac- 
commodation is  due  to  the  agglomeration  of  popula- 
tion in  the  western  and  in  the  eastern  parts  of  the 
city. 

We  have  dealt  with  the  route  followed  by  the  rail- 
way ;  we  must  next  say  something  on  the  equally 
important  question  of  the  level  on  which  the  rails 
are  laid. 

"  When  a  tract  of  country  is  closely  covered  by  buildings  of 
varying  heights,  and  the  natural  watercourses  are  converted 
into  covered  sewers,  it  is  difficult  to  form  a  general  idea  of  the 
physical  features  determining  more  or  less  the  character  of  the 
railway  as  regards  level  and  gradients. 

"In  the  case  of  the  Metropolitan,  however,  a  sufficient 
record  exists  of  the  previous  conditions  of  the  country,  and 
the  excavations  have,  in  many  instances,  afforded  an  interesting 
confirmation  of  traditions." 

The  reader  must  be  referred  to  Mr.  Loftus,  or  some 
other  history  of  London,  for  a  picture  of  a  primitive 
"  Lynn  din,"  or  Port  of  the  Waters,  standing  on  the 
hill,  which  we  now  know  as  the  City,  with  a  tidal 
estuary  running  up  from  the  Thames,  along  the  course 
of  the  Fleet,  or  Hole-Bourne,  a  river  which  descended 
from  the  Hampstead  and  Highgate  Hills.  To  the 
engineer  the  facts  of  the  case  are  presented  by  the 
statement  that  within  a  few  yards  of  their  institution 
in  Great  George  Street,  Westminster,  the  level  of  the 


THE  UNDERGROUND  RIVERS  OF  LONDON     161 

footway  is  eight  feet  below  the  highest  tide,  while  at 
Hampstead  the  height  is  443  feet  above  the  ordnance 
datum. 

"The  highest  ground  traversed  by  the  Inner  Circle  is  at 
Edgware  Road,  and  the  lowest  at  the  back  of  Victoria  Street, 
Westminster,  the  respective  heights  being  103  feet  and  8  feet 
above  ordnance  datum.  At  Swiss  Cottage  the  rails  of  the 
St.  John's  Wood  branch  climb  to  a  height  of  167  feet,  and 
at  King's  Scholar  Pond  Sewer  in  Victoria  Street  the  District 
Railway  dips  to  a  depth  of  9  feet  below  the  same  datum, 
or  3  feet  below  Thames  low  water." 

The  course  of  the  streams  that  in  olden  times  flowed 
to  the  Thames  from  the  Northern  Hills  is  always  a 
matter  of  interest  to  Londoners,  though  now  these 
streams  are  confined  in  sewers.  Still,  even  in  their 
degraded  condition  we  are  glad  to  hear  of  them  from 
engineers  who  encounter  them  on  their  subterranean 
work. 

"  To  the  west  of  Kensington  and  Chelsea,  rising  in  the  high 
ground,  but  traversing  chiefly  the  low-lying  district,  was  the 
Bridge  Creek,  now  known  as  the  Counters  Creek  Sewer,  which 
is  carried  under  the  District  Railway  at  Warwick  Road  in  a 
flat-topped  channel  7~  feet  wide  and  8  feet  high. 

.  .  .  Proceeding  eastwards,  the  next  stream  met  with  was 
the  West  Bourne,  rising  on  the  western  flank  of  Hampstead 
Hill  and  flowing  southwards  to  the  Serpentine,  and  thence 
into  the  Thames  near  Chelsea  Bridge.  This,  now  called  the 
Ranelagh  Sewer,  is  carried  under  the  Metropolitan  Railway 
at  Gloucester  Terrace  and  over  the  District  Railway  at  Sloane 
Square  Station,  the  construction  in  the  former  case  being  a 
brick  channel  9  feet  wide  by  8  feet  high,  with  flat  iron  top, 
and  in  the  latter  a  cast-iron  tube  9  feet  in  diameter,  supported 
on  wrought-iron  girders  of  70  feet  span. 

"Next  in  order  was  the  Ty-Bourne,  which  flowed  from 
M 


162  METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

Hampstead  through  Regent's  Park,  thence  by  Marylebone 
Lane — whose  strange  windings  are  due  to  the  houses  having 
originally  been  built  on  the  banks  of  the  stream — and  by 
the  Green  Park  to  the  river  between  Vauxhall  and  Chelsea 
Bridges.  At  Baker  Street  the  Metropolitan  Railway  is  crossed 
by  this  stream  under  its  present  name  of  the  King's  Scholar 
Pond  Sewer,  the  construction  being  a  cast-iron  oval  tube 
resting  on  cast-iron  girders.  At  Victoria  Street  the  District 
Railway  is  similarly  crossed,  but  the  size  of  the  tube  is  14  feet 
by  11  in  the  latter  case,  as  compared  with  half  those  lineal 
dimensions  at  the  northern  crossings." 

The  next  stream  to  be  dealt  with  was  the  famous 
Fleet,  which  proved  the  most  serious  difficulty  in  the 
construction  of  the  railway. 

"When  building  the  retaining  wall  on  the  west  side  of 
Farringdon  Street  Station,  the  Fleet,  then  carried  in  a  slightly- 
built  brick  sewer,  10  feet  diameter,  resting  on  the  rubbish 
filled  into  the  old  channel,  burst  into  the  works  and  flooded 
the  tunnel  with  sewage  for  a  great  distance.  Again,  when 
constructing  the  District  Railway  at  Blackfriars  the  Fleet  had 
to  be  diverted  and  re-diverted,  carried  temporarily  in  syphons, 
and  otherwise  carefully  guarded,  as  the  large  volume  of  water 
coming  down  it  necessitated.  No  less  than  five  crossings  of 
the  Fleet  had  to  be  dealt  with,  namely,  two  at  King's  Cross 
over  the  junction  curves  with  the  Great  Northern  Railway, 
one  at  Frederick  Street  over  the  Metropolitan  Railway,  another 
at  the  same  spot  over  the  widening  lines,  and  finally  a  fifth 
under  the  District  Railway  at  Blackfriars  Bridge.  The  first 
four  crossings  were  in  cast-iron  tubes  of  tunnel  section, 
ranging  in  size  from  9  feet  by  8  to  10  by  10  feet,  and  the 
latter  in  two  brick  channels  11  feet  6  inches  by  6  feet  6  inches 
high,  with  flat  iron  tops. 

"  In  regard,  therefore,  to  the  natural  configuration  of  the 
ground  it  may  be  said  that  the  railway  on  the  southern  side 
of  its  course  ran  along  an  old  river-bed  through  what  was  once 
the  swamps  of  Pimlico  and  Belgravia,  while  the  northern 


LEVELS  AND   GEADIENTS  163 

section  of  the  Metropolitan  is  on  the  lower  slopes  of  the 
hills  that  lie  to  the  north  of  London.  The  average  rail-level 
of  the  District  Kail  way  is  13  feet  below  Thames  high  water, 
while  the  northern  section  is  60  feet  above  the  same  level. 

"  For  the  purpose  of  joining  the  high  levels  of  the  north 
with  the  low  levels  of  the  southern  lengths  of  the  railway, 
deep  cuttings  or  tunnels  were  necessary  in  the  eastern  and 
western  parts  of  the  line. 

"In  construction,  cuttings  42  feet  deep  and  a  tunnel  421  yards 
in  length  are  found  at  Campden  Hill  on  the  west,  and  cuttings 
33  feet  deep  and  a  tunnel  728  yards  in  length  at  Clerkenwell 
on  the  east;  the  respective  gradients  to  get  down  the  sloping 
ground  being  about  f  mile  of  1  in  70  on  the  west,  and  1  mile 
of  1  in  100  on  the  east.  Further,  as  the  valleys  of  the  West 
Bourne  and  the  Ty-Bourne  are  crossed  by  the  Metropolitan 
Eailway,  dipping  gradients  of  1  in  75  and  1  in  100  are 
required  at  these  points.  On  the  District  Eailway  the  rise 
from  the  Fleet  Valley  to  the  hill  upon  which  the  earliest 
parts  of  the  city  were  built  has  to  be  surmounted,  and  it 
is  done  by  a  gradient  of  about  J  mile  of  1  in  100." 

Contrary,  therefore,  to  what  we  might  have  expected, 
the  levels  and  gradients  of  the  Metropolitan  Railway 
have  been  very  little  affected  by  the  buildings  and 
underground  communications  of  London ;  they  have 
followed  very  closely  the  natural  configuration  of  the 
land  exactly  as  they  might  have  done  in  an  open 
country.  The  curves,  on  the  other  hand,  which  have 
a  minimum  radius  of  10  chains  on  the  Inner  Circle 
and  6f  chains  on  the  Great  Northern  branch,  were 
fixed  chiefly  by  the  situation  of  the  sources  of  traffic 
and  by  property  considerations. 

In  his  address  to  the  British  Association  in  1882 
Mr.  Fowler  made  the  following  comments  on  the  diffi- 
culties of  working  a  railway  with  frequent  stoppages, 
.and  throws  out  a  hint  as  to  what  would  be  an  ideal 


164  METROPOLITAN  KAILWAY 

arrangement  of  gradients.  The  Great  Northern  Rail- 
way, he  points  out,  runs  its  trains  from  London  to 
Grantham,  a  distance  of  105  miles,  without  stoppage, 
so  that  little  power  and  time  are  lost.  On  the  Metro- 
politan, on  the  other  hand,  no  sooner  has  a  train  ac- 
quired a  reasonable  speed,  than  the  brakes  have  to  be 
sharply  applied  to  pull  it  up  again. 

"As  a  result  of  experiment  and  calculation,"  he  says,  "I 
have  found  that  60  per  cent,  of  the  whole  power  exerted  by 
the  engine  is  absorbed  by  the  brakes.  In  other  words,  with 
a  consumption  of  30  Ibs.  of  coal  per  train  mile,  no  less  than 
18  Ibs.  are  expended  in  grinding  away  the  brake  blocks,  and 
only  the  remaining  12  Ibs.  in  doing  the  useful  work  of  over- 
coming frictional  and  atmospheric  resistances. 

"Comparatively  high  speed  and  economy  of  working  might 
be  attained  on  a  railway  with  stations  at  half-mile  intervals, 
if  it  were  possible  to  arrange  the  gradients  so  that  each  station 
should  be  on  the  summit  of  a  hill.  An  ideal  railway  would 
have  gradients  of  about  1  in  20,  falling  each  way  from  the 
stations,  with  a  piece  of  horizontal  connecting  them.  With 
such  gradients,  gravity  alone  would  give  an  accelerating  velocity 
to  the  departing  train  at  the  rate  of  1  mile  per  hour  for  every 
second;  that  is  to  say,  in  half  a  minute  the  train  would  have 
acquired  a  velocity  of  30  miles  an  hour,  whilst  the  speed  of 
the  approaching  train  would  be  correspondingly  retarded 
without  the  grinding  away  of  brake  blocks.  Could  such  an 
undulating  railway  be  carried  out,  the  consumption  of  fuel 
would  probably  not  exceed  one-half  of  that  on  a  dead-level 
railway,  whilst  the  mean  speed  would  be  one-half  greater. 
Although  the  required  conditions  are  seldom  attainable  in 
practice,  the  broad  principles  should  be  kept  in  view  by  every 
engineer  when  laying  out  a  railway  with  numerous  stopping- 
places." 

Most  interesting  are  some  of  the  historical  and 
geological  details  which  the  construction  of  the  rail- 


AKCILEOLOGICAL  "FINDS"  165 

way  brought  to  light.  In  some  places  the  engineers 
found  themselves  working  through  24  feet  of  ruins 
and  dust,  the  deposit  of  bygone  generations  of  Celts 
and  Romans,  Saxons,  Danes,  and  Normans.  The 
foundations  of  an  old  fort  were  exposed  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Fleet,  and  at  the  Mansion  House  a  masonry 
subway  was  discovered  intact.  Along  the  old  river- 
bed the  foundations  had  to  be  sunk  in  some  places 
to  a  depth  of  37  feet  below  high  water.  Beds  of 
peat  were  encountered  in  the  swamp  of  Pimlico. 
Below  the  peat  is  the  London  clay,  and  on  this  the 
railway  walls  between  Gloucester  Road  and  Victoria 
were  made  to  rest.  On  the  top  of  the  clay  were 
found  varying  depths  of  sand  and  gravel  heavily 
charged  with  water.  This  fact  necessitated  an  elaborate 
system  of  pumping,  costing,  it  is  estimated,  about 
£600  per  month,  during  the  period  of  construction. 
Permanent  pumping-stations  are  now  established  at 
South  Kensington,  Victoria,  Sloane  Square,  and  the 
Temple  stations. 

The  north  section  of  the  line  was  driven  through 
gravel  and  sand  beds  of  comparatively  small  dimensions, 
lying  on  the  top  of  the  London  clay. 

The  cuttings  and  longitudinal  section  of  the  railway 
show  that  if  what  Sir  Charles  Lyall  called  the  great 
ochreous  gravel  deposits  of  the  Pleistocene  Age  were 
swept  away,  the  hills  and  valleys  of  the  Metropolitan 
area  would  be  practically  unaltered  in  appearance.  At 
what  period  in  the  remote  past  the  sand,  gravel,  and 
brick-earth,  cut  through  by  the  railway  in  Westminster 
at  a  level  of  8  feet  and  in  Marylebone  at  103  feet 
above  ordnance  datum,  were  deposited  no  one  can  tell. 
Geological  speculation,  however,  suggests  that  England 


166  METROPOLITAN  EAILWAY 

was  then  united  to  the  Continent,  that  the  present  site 
of  the  North  Sea  was  dry  land,  and  the  Thames  a 
tributary  of  the  Khine,  along  whose  banks  disported 
themselves  mammoths,  woolly  rhinoceros,  and  other 
extinct  animals,  and,  possibly,  also  man. 

The  Underground  Kail  way  consists  of  covered  ways, 
tunnels,  and  open  cuttings  with  retaining  walls. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  line  is  what  is  technically 
called  a  covered  way,  that  is  to  say,  the  buildings  and 
the  roadway  were  removed  and  the  necessary  excava- 
tions made ;  the  railway  was  then  laid,  and  again 
covered  in,  and  the  buildings  in  some  cases  recon- 
structed. A  variety  of  expedients  were  employed. 
The  type  of  covered  way  adopted  in  the  first  portion 
of  the  railway  consisted  of  "a  six-ring  elliptical  arch, 
of  28  feet  6  inches  span  and  11  feet  rise,  with  side 
walls  three  bricks  thick  and  5  feet  6  inches  high  from 
the  rails  to  the  springing."  Originally  there  was  no 
"  invert "  for  the  support  of  the  side  walls,  but  ex- 
perience seems  to  have  shown  that  this  was  desirable, 
and  in  later  constructions  this  was  generally  added. 

In  places  there  was  not  sufficient  depth  for  a  brick- 
covered  way,  and  here  iron  girders  were  substituted. 
The  cast-iron  girders  appear  to  have  been  more  satis- 
factory than  wrought-iron,  as  the  former  suffered  less 
from  oxidation  ;  but  Sir  B.  Baker's  verdict  is  that  the 
brickwork,  though  more  costly  and  involving  deeper 
cutting,  has  proved,  in  the  long  run,  the  cheaper  and 
more  satisfactory  form  of  construction. 

The  erection  of  the  covered  way  was  attended  with 
the  greatest  difficulty.  Temporary  roadways  had  to  be 
made  in  order  to  interfere  as  little  as  possible  with  the 
traffic  of  the  streets.  Considerable  improvements  and 


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METHODS   OF  CONSTRUCTION  167 

economies  were  effected  as  experience  dictated.  They 
began  apparently  by  excavating  the  whole  width  of 
the  cutting,  and  then  protecting  the  sides  and  the 
foundations  of  the  contiguous  buildings,  during  re- 
construction, by  balks  of  timber  and  struts  of  a  more 
or  less  elaborate  character. 

The  following  is  Sir  B.  Baker's  description  of  the 
latest  and  most  ingenious  device  : — 

"  In  later  days,  when  the  District  Eailway  was  being  con- 
structed, the  general  practice  was  not  to  timber  the  entire 
width  of  covered  way,  but  to  sink  a  couple  of  six  feet  wide 
trenches  for  the  side  walls,  to  build  the  latter  up  to  four  feet 
above  springing,  take  out  the  excavation  full  width  down  to 
that  level,  fix  the  centering,  turn  the  arch,  and  finally  take  out 
the  '  dumpling.' " 

By  this  contrivance  the  risk  of  subsidence  of  the 
adjoining  land  was  reduced,  and  the  new  permanent 
supports  were  introduced  before  the  whole  of  the  old 
supports  were  finally  removed. 

Although  to  the  ordinary  traveller  the  whole  of  the 
Underground  seems  to  be  in  tunnel,  technically  there 
are  only  three  tunnels  on  the  line — the  Clerkenwell 
tunnel,  728  yards  long,  on  the  original  Metropolitan ; 
the  "Widening"  tunnel,  733  yards  in  length,  parallel 
to  the  preceding;  and  the  Campden  Hill  tunnel,  421 
yards  in  length.  Considerable  amount  of  trouble  was 
experienced  with  regard  to  these  tunnels,  more  espe- 
cially at  Campden  Hill.  The  two  first-named  tunnels 
were  driven  for  the  most  part  through  hard  and  dry 
clay,  and,  as  a  matter  of  mere  tunnelling,  were  com- 
paratively simple. 

"However,"  says  Sir  B.  Baker,  "with  the  utmost  precautions 
tunnelling  through  a  town  is  a  risky  operation,  and  settlements 


168  METROPOLITAN   RAILWAY 

may  occur  years  after  the  completion  of  the  works.  Water 
mains  may  be  broken  in  the  streets  and  in  the  houses,  stone 
staircases  fall  down,  and  other  unpleasant  symptoms  of  small 
earthquakes  alarm  the  unsuspecting  occupants." 

In  the  driving  of  the  tunnels,  as  well  as  in  making 
excavations  for  the  covered  way,  it  was  necessary  to 
proceed  by  very  short  lengths  at  a  time  in  order  to 
lessen  the  risk  of  landslips.  Some  difference  of  opinion 
arose  between  the  engineers  and  the  contractors  on 
this  point  in  connection  with  that  most  troublesome 
bit  of  the  line  which  traverses  Campden  Hill.  The 
soil  here  is  extremely  light  and  loose,  and  the  engineers 
insisted  that  it  should  be  worked  in  six-feet  rather 
than  twelve-feet  lengths. 

With  regard  to  that  portion  of  the  line  which  is 
made  in  open  cutting,  no  special  remark  has  to  be 
made,  except  that  in  open  cuttings  excavated  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  buildings  more  than  ordinary  pre- 
cautions are  necessary.  The  same  plan  which  has 
been  described  with  regard  to  the  covered  ways  was 
followed  here.  At  first  the  whole  width  was  timbered 
and  excavated.  In  the  later  work  trenches  were  sunk 
and  the  retaining  walls  built,  and  then  the  "dumpling" 
or  centre  portion  was  removed  in  railway  waggons. 

Such  was  the  normal  course  of  construction.  There 
were,  however,  innumerable  difficulties  of  a  special 
character  to  be  overcome.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  forty  years  ago  work  of  this  class  was  in  its 
pioneer  stage. 

"  It  is  now  known,"  says  Sir  B.  Baker,  "  what  precautions 
are  necessary  to  ensure  the  safety  of  valuable  buildings  near  to 
the  excavations ;  how  to  timber  the  cuttings  securely  and  keep 
them  clear  of  water  without  drawing  the  sand  from  under  the 


VENTILATION  169 

foundations  of  adjoining  houses;  how  to  underpin  walls,  and, 
if  necessary,  carry  the  railway  under  houses  and  within  a  few 
inches  of  the  kitchen  floors  without  pulling  down  anything; 
how  to  drive  tunnels,  divert  sewers  over  or  under  the  railway, 
keep  up  the  numerous  gas  and  water  mains,  and  maintain  the 
road  traffic  when  the  railway  is  being  carried  underneath ;  and, 
finally,  how  to  construct  the  covered  way,  so  that  buildings  of 
any  height  and  weight  may  be  erected  over  the  railway  without 
risk  of  subsequent  injury  from  settlement  or  vibration." 

It  was  originally  intended  to  work  the  line  by  means 
of  locomotives  of  special  construction.  Very  light  trains 
of  three  carriages,  running  at  intervals  of  five  to  ten 
minutes,  stopping  at  alternate  stations,  would,  it  was 
thought,  be  sufficient.  Mr.  Fowler  proposed  to  have  a 
locomotive  using  no  fuel,  but  having  simply  a  reservoir 
of  hot  water  capable  of  being  heated  up  again  at  the 
end  of  each  journey,  and  a  reservoir  of  cold  water  to 
condense  the  steam ;  still  he  maintained  that  the  line 
could  be  worked  by  ordinary  locomotives.  Brunei 
supported  this  view  strongly,  and  declared  that  even 
with  ordinary  locomotives  no  special  means  of  ventila- 
tion would  be  found  necessary.  There  had  been  a 
standing  order  in  former  days  that  required  committees 
of  Parliament  to  report  on  the  means  of  ventilation 
proposed  for  tunnels.  Engineers  now  thought  that 
this  was  unnecessary,  and  in  proof  Brunei  instanced 
his  own  Box  tunnel,  where  a  screen  had  to  be  intro- 
duced because  the  draught  was  excessive.  The  trains 
were  to  be  worked  by  hot- water  locomotives,  were 
not  with  passengers  to  exceed  20  tons,  and  the  trip 
from  Paddington  to  the  City  was  to  occupy  from  twelve 
to  fifteen  minutes.  Sir  B.  Baker,  who  takes  a  special 
delight  in  pointing  out  the  frequent  futility  of  the 


170  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

prophecy  even  of  experts,  remarks  that  the  hot-water 
engine  was  not  even  tried,  trains  of  120  instead  of 
20  tons  are  used,  and  the  time  is  doubled.  The  earlier 
part  of  the  line  was  constructed  with  a  view  of 
accommodating  traffic  of  small  dimensions,  and  it 
is  not  to  be  wondered  that  the  ventilation  was  not 
altogether  satisfactory.  The  experiment  of  the  hot- 
water  type  of  engine  had  to  be  abandoned  when  it 
was  decided  to  allow  the  trains  and  engines  of  other 
lines  to  have  running  powers  over  the  Metropolitan. 
The  earlier  portion  of  the  line  was,  for  the  convenience 
of  the  Great  Western  Railway,  laid  with  broad-gauge 
rails,  and  the  earliest  engines  used  on  the  Metropolitan 
were  supplied  by  the  Great  Western. 

The  type  of  engine  is  thus  described  in  Sir  B. 
Baker's  often-quoted  paper  :— 

"It  was  a  six-wheel  broad-gauge  tank  engine,  having  four 
coupled  wheels  6  feet  in  diameter,  and  outside  cylinders 
16  inches  by  24  inches.  The  heating  surface  of  tubes  was 
615  square  feet,  of  fire-box  125  square  feet,  and  the  grate 
area  was  18'5  square  feet;  a  tank  of  375  gallons  capacity 
and  a  condenser  of  420  gallons  were  provided." 

This  arrangement,  after  continuing  for  some  months, 
was  ended  by  a  dispute  as  to  terms  between  the  Great 
Western  Railway  and  the  Metropolitan.  The  Great 
Western  Railway  withdrew  their  engines  and  the 
Metropolitan  had  to  turn  for  assistance  to  the  Great 
Northern  Railway. 

"  The  engines  used  were  six-wheeled  tender  engines,  having 
four  coupled  wheels  5  feet  4  inches  in  diameter,  cylinders 
15  \  inches  by  22  inches,  and  a  total  heating  surface  from 
760  to  940  square  feet.  Experience  showed  that  both  the 
Great  Western  and  the  Great  Northern  engines  were  too 


ME.   FOWLER'S  LETTER  171 

light  for  their  work,  and  the  powerful  tank  engines  now  used 
on  the  line  were  designed  by  Mr.  Fowler  and  Messrs.  Beyer 
and  Peacock.  These  engines  have  four  coupled  wheels  5  feet 
9  inches  in  diameter,  a  four-wheel  bogie,  and  cylinders  17  inches 
in  diameter  by  24  inches  length  of  stroke.  The  heating  surface 
of  the  fire-box  is  103  square  feet,  of  the  tubes  909  square  feet, 
and  the  grate  area  is  19  square  feet.  The  weight  in  working 
order  is  between  42  and  43  tons,  with  1,000  gallons  of  water 
in  the  tanks." 

Mr.  Fowler,  who  was  prevented  by  illness  from 
being  present  at  the  reading  of  the  paper  from  which 
we  have  so  largely  quoted,  wrote  a  letter  which  is 
entered  on  the  minutes,  stating  how  grateful  he  was 
"  to  his  old  friend  and  partner,  Mr.  Baker,  and  he 
was  sure  every  member  of  the  institution  would  be 
equally  so,  for  the  trouble  he  had  taken  in  searching- 
through  old  documents  bearing  upon  the  early  history 
of  the  Metropolitan  Railway,  and  describing  so  fully 
the  works  of  the  Inner  Circle."  He  associated  himself 
with  Mr.  Baker  in  his  tribute  to  Mr.  Pearson,  the 
City  solicitor.  The  only  other  point  he  desired  to 
mention  was  one  which  might  be  encouraging  to  the 
younger  members  of  the  profession.  At  the  monthly 
meetings  of  the  directors,  members  of  the  Board  used 
frequently  to  tell  him  that  they  were  warned  by 
engineers  that  the  line  would  never  be  made ;  that 
even  if  made,  it  could  never  be  worked ;  and  that 
even  if  worked,  that  no  one  would  travel  by  it.  This, 
as  he  mildly  puts  it,  was  rather  discouraging,  but  he 
knew  his  business  and  believed  in  it,  and  the  directors 
believed  in  him,  and  he  did  make  it,  did  work  it,  and 
the  public  travelled  by  it. 

The  first  section   of  the  Metropolitan  Railway  was 


172  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

opened  on  January  9th,  1863.  The  idea  that  the 
Metropolitan  was  a  line  of  connection  between  the 
great  trunk  lines  having  stations  in  London  is  to  be 
found  in  most  of  the  notices  of  the  opening  of  the 
line.  The  Times  describes  the  new  line  as  the  begin- 
ning of  a  system  of  conveying  traffic  across  London 
without  break  of  carriage,  an  expectation  which  we 
know  has  never  been  realised. 

An  entry  made  by  Mr.  Fowler  in  his  wife's  diary 
records  that  Professor  and  Mrs.  Owen  came  to  Queen 
Square  Place,  by  appointment,  at  twelve  o'clock,  and 
accompanied  the  engineer,  Mrs.  Fowler,  and  their  eldest 
son  to  Bishop's  Eoad  Station,  where  they  received  the 
Lord  Mayor,  Lord  Harris,  Mr.  Lowe,  and  other  dis- 
tinguished guests.  At  one  o'clock  they  started  in  the 
first  train.  They  stopped  at  each  station  and  examined 
it  thoroughly,  especially  those  at  Portland  Road  and 
King's  Cross,  till  they  reached  Farringdon  Street. 
Part  of  the  station  here  was  enclosed,  and  an  ' '  elegant 
dejeuner"  provided  by  the  directors  for  650  people. 
The  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Palmerston,  had  been  invited 
to  take  part  in  the  opening  ceremony,  but  excused  him- 
self on  the  score  of  his  age  and  engagements,  adding 
with  a  sparkle  of  his  never-failing  humour,  that  for  his 
part  he  was  anxious  to  keep  above  ground  as  long  as 
he  could.  In  his  absence,  Mr.  R.  Lowe,  M.P.,  called 
on  the  company  to  drink  a  bumper  to  the  success  of 
the  Metropolitan  Railway,  and  described  Mr.  Fowler 
as  the  modern  St.  George,  who  had  four  times  van- 
quished the  Fleet  ditch.  The  enterprise,  he  de- 
clared, "  was  an  honour  to  the  country,  and  a  solid 
advance  worthy  of  civilisation."  The  Lord  Mayor  con- 
gratulated himself  and  the  Corporation  because  they 


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THE   OPENING   CEREMONY  173 

had  relaxed  their  rule  against  embarking  in  private 
speculation,  and  had  allowed  themselves  to  subscribe 
£200,000  towards  the  great  public  improvement  which 
they  were  inaugurating.  Lord  Harris  proposed  the 
health  of  Mr.  Fowler,  who  in  reply  gave  a  brief  history 
of  the  construction  of  the  line.  The  difficulty  of  raising 
capital  he  ascribed  mainly  to  the  Kussian  War,  and  he 
concluded  by  publicly  thanking  those  who  had  been 
engaged  with  him  in  carrying  out  this  great  work. 

"Of  the  directors  it  would  not  be  proper  for  me  to  say 
more  than  that  they  have  always  given  me  a  most  generous 
and  unbounded  confidence,  without  which  I  feel  the  task 
would  have  been  beyond  my  powers.  I  wish  especially  to 
thank  my  old  assistant  and  friend,  Mr.  Johnson,  who  has 
acted  as  resident  engineer  of  the  line  throughout,  and  of 
whose  assiduity  and  intelligence  I  cannot  speak  too  highly.  I 
have  also  to  thank  the  contractors,  Messrs.  Smith  and  Knight 
and  Mr.  Jay,  for  the  admirable  manner  in  which  they  have  done 
their  work  and  their  prompt  attention  to  my  instructions." 

Among  the  distinguished  men  who  showed  interest  in 
the  new  line  none  were  more  eager  than  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and,  shortly  after  its  opening,  Mr.  Fowler  sent  him,  in 
April,  1863,  an  elaborate  statement  of  its  progress,  from 
which  the  following  extract  is  taken  :— 

"From  the  great  interest  you  took  in  this  work  during 
its  construction,  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  you  will  feel 
an  interest  in  its  working ;  and  in  the  hope  that  it  will  not 
be  troublesome  to  you,  I  have  had  a  few  statistical  facts  pre- 
pared for  your  perusal.  The  line  was  opened  to  the  public  on 
January  10th  last. 

"The   number  of  passengers  already  carried 

exceeds  .  ...     2,000,000 

The  average  receipt  per  passenger  is        .         .     2'8224d. 

The   average  number   of  passengers  daily   is     28,687 

Greatest  number  carried  in  one  day         .         .     60,000 


174 


METROPOLITAN  KAILWAY 


Mileage. 

Total  Number 
of  Passengers 
in  18(52. 

Total  Number 
of  Passengers 
per  Mile  per 
Annum. 

Passenger 
Receipts 
per  Mile 
for  One 
Week  in 
March. 

£     s. 

d. 

664 

10,375,322 

15,625 

16  14 

2 

992 

7,302,156 

7,361 

22     2 

9 

1,179 

18,142,506 

15,388 

29  11 

3 

72£ 

2,508,175 

34,715 

29  13 

6 

330 

5,237,323 

15,871 

30     1 

9 

442£ 

8,925,987 

20,183 

30  16 

7 

247i 

11,928,355 

48,244 

40     2 

1 

806 

12,388,227 

40,484 

45     8 

1] 

9 

6,580,173 

731,130 

216  15 

7 

5| 

9,103,390 

1,583,200 

247     0 

0 

3| 

10,470,750 

2,792,200 

629  11 

5 

"The  following  figures  give  the  mileage,  passenger  receipts 
per  mile,  and  total  number  of  passengers  in  one  year  of  all  the 
Metropolitan  railways : — 


Name  of  Line. 

Great  Eastern 

Great  Western    . 

London  and  North  Western 

London,  Chatham  and  Dover 

Great  Northern  . 

London  and  South  Western 

London,  Brighton  and  South  \ 

Coast       .         .         .         .  j 
South  Eastern     . 
North  London     . 
Blackwall  .... 
Metropolitan    according    to ) 

present  rate  of  traffic        .  ) 

"Although  the  traffic  of  the  Metropolitan  line  has  been 
very  large,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  City  terminus 
of  the  company  is  at  present  situate  in  Farringdon  Street, 
a  distance  of  about  one  mile  from  the  Bank.  When  the 
company's  extension  to  Finsbury  is  completed,  the  number 
of  passengers  will  be  largely  increased. 

"The  traffic  of  the  line  at  present  is  purely  local,  and 
is  entirely  of  the  character  of  an  omnibus  traffic.  There  is 
a  large  traffic  between  the  terminal  stations,  but  a  very 
considerable  proportion  is  conveyed  between  intermediate 
stations. 

"  The  proportion  of  passengers  of  each  class  carried  in  the 
month  of  February  was  as  under : — 

First  class      .  .  .         .17  per  cent. 

Second  class   .  .  .         .     31       „ 

Third  class     .  .  .     52 

"The  experience  of  working  for  some  months  has  quite 
dispelled  all  fear  as  to  noise  and  vibration  to  either  streets 
or  houses.  I  have  heard  no  complaints  of  any  kind,  and 
the  feeling  generally  appears  to  be  that  a  vast  convenience 
is  accomplished  without  interferences  with  streets  or  otherwise, 


CONGKATULATIONS  175 

and  that  the  appearance  of  London  is  not  prejudicially  affected 
by  anything  we  have  done. 

"  Altogether  it  is  a  source  of  great  satisfaction  to  me  that 
the  result  appears  fully  equal  to  the  opinion  you  were  kind 
enough  to  form  of  the  interesting  undertaking.  I  know  how 
much  you  are  engaged,  and  especially  at  the  present  time, 
and  I  beg  you  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  acknowledge  the 
communication. 

"  I  remain,  my  dear  sir, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"JOHN  FOWLER. 

"  The  Right  Honourable  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P. 
"April,  1863." 

Among  the  numerous  letters  of  congratulation 
received  by  Mr.  Fowler  on  the  completion  of  his  great 
enterprise,  none  was  more  valued  by  him  than  that 
which  was  sent  to  him  by  his  father  (then  in  his 
seventy-ninth  year),  who,  notwithstanding  his  age, 
had  come  up  from  Sheffield  to  attend  the  ceremony  :— 

"WADSLEY  HALL, 

"January  12th,  1863. 

"  MY  DEAR  JOHN, — I  had  a  comfortable  journey  home  on 
Saturday,  and  arrived  safely  at  Sheffield  at  two  o'clock. 
Although  I  had  no  companion  on  my  way,  my  thoughts  on 
the  opening  of  the  Metropolitan  Eailway  fully  occupied  me. 

"  I  most  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  that  occasion.  Your 
numerous  friends  felt  a  gratification  on  the  proceedings  of 
that  day  no  less  than  your  father,  although  none  could  feel 
as  your  own  father  could  feel,  having  had  the  opportunity 
of  watching  from  your  youth  that  progress  in  life  which, 
from  your  natural  talent,  united  with  great  energy  and  sound 
judgment,  has  been  the  means  of  raising  you  to  the  high 
estimation  in  which  your  friends  and  the  public  hold  you. 

"The  proceedings  of  last  Friday  will  be  long  remembered 
by  your  friends,  and  they  will  look  back  on  that  day  with 


176  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

great  pleasure,  and  none  more  so  than  your  own  father,  while 
life  is  permitted  him  to  enjoy  the  reflection  of  that  day's 
proceedings.  ...  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  reading  the 
report  of  the  proceedings  (which  I  think  correctly  stated),  and 
especially  your  speech ;  all  parties  who  have  read  it  seem  to 
make  out  that  it  was  to  the  point,  and  the  proper  word,  and 
each  word  in  its  place. 

"  Your  generosity  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Johnson's  great  assist- 
ance does  credit  alike  to  your  head  and  your  heart.  Several 
who  have  read  your  speech  make  the  same  remark  as  myself. 

"  And  now,  my  dear  John,  I  hope  that  the  very  high  esti- 
mation in  which  your  friends  and  the  public  hold  you,  will 
not  have  the  effect  to  raise  yourself  nor  any  part  of  your  family 
in  your  own  importance,  but  that  you  will  keep  that  humble 
and  even  path  in  life  which  has  hitherto  marked  your  progress 
in  all  these  matters.  I  beg  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  and 
pressing  invitation  to  the  opening,  and  I  am  glad  I  accepted 
it.  I  believe  I  have  not  taken  any  cold,  and  am  very  well 
this  morning.  ...  "  Yours  affectionately, 

"JOHN  FOWLER. 

"John  Fowler,  Esq." 

A  correspondent,  Mr.  Charles  Stanley,  writing  con- 
gratulations to  Mr.  Fowler  on  the  opening  of  the 
Metropolitan  Railway,  recalls  a  committee-room  incident 
of  the  year  1845  :— 

"During  the  great  parliamentary  campaign  of  1845,  when 
two  rival  lines  were  projected  from  Sheffield  into  Derbyshire, 
I  remember  hearing  you  cross-examined  as  to  one  of  them 
which  skirted  the  moors.  'I  believe,  Mr.  Fowler/  said  the 
opposing  counsel,  'your  line  goes  by  the  name  of  the  Grouse 
and  Trout  Line.'  'Very  likely/  you  replied,  'and  your  line 
is  called  the  Flute  Line,  because  it  is  nearly  all  tunnel/  It 
is  singular  that  you  should  have  now  sensibly  added  to  your 
fame  by  the  construction  of  a  line,  the  distinguishing  charac- 
teristic of  which  is  that  it  is  nearly  all  tunnel — in  fact,  a 
genuine  flute  line." 


SUBSEQUENT  DEVELOPMENTS  177 

With  regard  to  the  services  of  the  late  City  solicitor, 
Mr.  Pearson,  Mr.  Fowler  was  much  gratified  in  being 
able  to  put  in  a  favourable  light  the  claims  of  his  widow 
on  the  Metropolitan  Company  and  also  on  the  Corpora- 
tion, and  among  the  letters  preserved  is  a  very  grateful 
acknowledgment  of  his  kindness  from  Mrs.  Pearson. 

The  work  of  Fowler  in  making  the  Metropolitan 
Railway  was  a  pioneer  effort,  and  many  improvements 
have  since  been  added  to  the  business  of  tunnelling 
under  cities.  The  usefulness  of  a  pioneer  effort  is 
often,  as  we  have  already  insisted,  to  be  measured  by 
the  rapidity  and  completeness  with  which  its  methods 
are  improved  and  superseded. 

In  the  foregoing  description  of  the  Metropolitan 
Railway  we  mentioned  how  important  the  engineers 
considered  it  to  complete  the  tunnel  arch  at  as  early 
a  point  of  the  construction  as  possible.  In  the  later 
period  of  the  work  the  arch  was  keyed  and  the  soil 
under  the  arch,  ''the  dumpling,"  was  removed  after- 
wards. In  recent  years  the  jshield.  patented  by  Brunei 
as  long  ago  as  1818  has  been  used  with  success  for 
the  driving  of  iron  tunnels  through  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  at  so  low  a  depth  that  disturbance  of  the  surface 
and  buildings  no  longer  occurs.  A  steel  cylinder  forced 
forward  by  hydraulic  pressure  prepares  the  way,  and,  as 
the  material  is  removed  and  the  steel  cylinder  works 
its  way  forward,  an  iron  tunnel  of  a  slightly  smaller 
diameter  is  put  in  its  place.  The  space  so  left  round 
the  outside  of  the  iron  tunnel  is  filled  with  a  prepara- 
tion of  strong  cement,  forced  in  by  compressed  air 
at  a  pressure  of  50  Ibs.  to  the  square  inch.  The  whole 
structure  is  thus  sealed  and  completed  with  a  minimum 
of  disturbance  to  existing  buildings. 
N 


178  METROPOLITAN  RAILWAY 

One  other  element,  denied  by  a  series  of  accidents  to 
Fowler's  earlier  work,  is  necessary  to  the  successful  use 
of  the  shield  system  of  deep  tunnelling.  Mr.  Fowler, 
as  we  have  seen,  abandoned  very  reluctantly  his  special 
engines  designed  for  the  use  of  the  Underground 
Railway.  In  his  address  to  the  Merchant  Venturers' 
School,  in  1893,  after  reciting  the  circumstances  under 
which  this  took  place,  he  adds  :— 

"  But  the  ventilation  has  always  been  an  objection  and  a 
difficulty,  notwithstanding  various  attempts  to  improve  it ; 
but  experience  has  shown  that  so  long  as  trains  run  every 
two  or  three  minutes,  no  satisfactory  ventilation  can  be  ob- 
tained with  the  present  type  of  engine,  or  any  modification 
of  it,  and  the  only  solution  of  the  difficulty  with  our  present 
knowledge  appears  to  be  the  adoption  of  an  electric  motor 
similar  to  that  used  on  the  South  London  Railway. 

"  In  my  opinion  we  may  expect  henceforth  that  all  under- 
ground railways  in  London  will  be  constructed  on  the  plan  of 
the  Oxford  Street  scheme,  which  avoids  disturbing  the  streets 
or  houses  above  the  railway,  and  worked  by  an  electric  motor." 

The  late  Mr.  J.  H.  Greathead  was  the  engineer,  and 
Sir  John  Fowler  and  his  partner,  Sir  Benjamin  Baker, 
were  the  consulting  engineers  on  the  City  and  South 
London  Railway,  which  was  the  first  railway  con- 
structed as  above  described. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PEESIDENT  OF  THE  INSTITUTION  OF  CIVIL 
ENGINEEKS 

IN  1863,  as  already  narrated,  the  first  portion  of  the 
Metropolitan  Railway  was  completed.  The  most 
interesting  excursion  of  the  following  year,  1864,  was 
the  inspection  of  the  Glasgow  Waterworks.  The 
bursting  of  a  reservoir  at  Sheffield  had  caused  a  good 
deal  of  alarm  among  the  persons  responsible  for 
waterworks  throughout  the  country.  Mr.  Fowler  had 
been  employed  in  the  inquiry  which  followed  this 
disaster.  "With  him  were  Mr.  La  Trobe  Bateman  and 
two  other  engineers.  They  unanimously  agreed  that 
the  bursting  of  the  reservoir  was  due  to  the  sliding  of 
the  clay  foundation  of  the  dam  and  puddle  trench 
(under  the  pressure  of  a  landslip  in  an  adjacent  hill) 
upon  the  shaly  rock  beneath. 

The  Glasgow  municipality  very  naturally  desired  to 
reassure  themselves  by  submitting  their  works  to  the 
inspection  of  the  best  engineering  opinion  of  the  day. 
Accordingly,  in  August,  1864,  Mr.  Fowler,  accompanied 
by  the  Lord  Provost  and  the  committee  of  the  water- 
works, Mr.  Bateman  and  Mr.  Gale,  the  engineers,  and 
other  gentlemen,  made  a  tour  of  inspection  among  the 
beautiful  lakes  of  the  Trossachs  which  supply  Glasgow 
with  water.  The  works,  he  writes  to  his  wife,  are 

179 


180  PRESIDENT   OF  THE   INSTITUTION 

"well  and  neatly  executed,"  but,  he  adds  in  his 
capacity  of  salmon  fisher,  "  steps  or  stairs  have  been 
made  for  the  passage  of  salmon  from  the  river  into  the 
loch  above  (Loch  Vennacher),  but  they  are  not 
executed  in  a  proper  manner,"  a  point  which,  we  are 
glad  to  find,  was  duly  noticed  in  his  formal  report 
to  the  Corporation.  The  works  on  Loch  Vennacher 
and  Loch  Drunkie  are  only  incidental  to  the  supply  of 
Glasgow,  and  were  really  obligations  put  on  the 
Corporation  for  the  benefit  of  the  mill  owners  on  the 
streams  below. 

The  water-supply  of  Glasgow,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  is  taken  from  Loch  Katrine,  by  means  of 
sluices  placed  on  the  south  side  of  the  loch.  These 
sluices  admit  the  water  into  a  tunnel  and  aqueducts 
which  carry  it  to  Glasgow,  a  distance  of  about  thirty 
miles. 

"  The  works  of  the  Glasgow  Corporation  Waterworks,  which 
we  inspected  yesterday,"  he  writes  to  his  wife,  "  consist  chiefly 
of  a  tunnel  under  the  hills,  8  feet  wide  and  8  feet  high,  with 
aqueducts  over  the  valleys  constructed  of  stone  piers  about 
45  feet  apart,  with  a  wrought-iron  trough  to  convey  the  water 
resting  on  them.  Some  of  these  works  are  of  considerable 
extent.  The  larger  valleys,  of  which  there  are  three,  are 
crossed  by  pipes  laid  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley  and 
up  the  other  side  to  save  the  great  expense  which  would  have 
been  involved  by  long,  high  aqueducts." 

The  report  to  the  Corporation  on  the  state  of  their 
property,  dated  November  7th,  1864,  is  signed  by 
John  Fowler,  J.  F.  Bateman,  and  James  M.  Gale,  and 
is  very  satisfactory  and  reassuring.  Certain  minor 
recommendations  involving  an  expenditure  of  about 
£9,000  were  made. 


EEPOET   ON   GLASGOW  WATERWORKS        181 

"We  have  given  our  reasons  in  detail  for  the  recommenda- 
tion of  expending  a  sum  of  £9,000,  and  have  stated  that  a 
considerable  portion  of  this  expenditure  is  rather  to  place 
every  portion  of  the  work,  as  far  as  human  foresight  can  do 
so,  beyond  the  possibility  of  serious  casualty  than  to  remedy 
existing  defects;  but  our  report  would  scarcely  be  complete, 
or  convey  a  correct  impression,  unless  we  were  to  add,  in 
conclusion,  that  the  works  are  admirably  fulfilling  the  purposes 
for  which  they  were  designed,  as  to  present  and  future  require- 
ments ;  and  the  great  works  of  construction  are  of  the  most 
sound  and  durable  character," 

This  approval  of  the  Glasgow  Waterworks  was  of 
considerable  importance,  for  Glasgow  has  been  a 
pioneer  in  the  movement  which  has  led  great  centres 
of  population  to  bring  their  water-supply  from  large 
natural  or  artificial  lakes,  situated  at  a  distance. 

Here,  again,  the  art  of  the  engineer  is  raising  new 
and  important  questions  of  equity  and  jurisprudence. 
To  whom  does  the  water-supply  of  an  upland  country- 
side of  right  belong  ?  What  compensation  is  to  be 
given  to  landowners,  to  other  towns  competing  for  the 
same  source  of  supply,  to  country  villages  and  farms 
whose  springs  are  tapped  by  the  marauders  from  the 
great  towns?  The  Glasgow  water-supply  was,  of 
course,  taken  from  an  already  existing  lake.  By  com- 
paratively simple  means  the  level  of  the  loch  was 
actually  raised,  notwithstanding  the  water  taken  from 
it,  and  so  comparatively  little  disturbance  was  made ; 
but  when  artificial  lakes  are  made,  and  the  springs  of 
many  hillsides  are  diverted  into  aqueducts  for  the 
supply  of  a  distant  town,  the  case  becomes  more 
serious ;  and,  if  we  mistake  not,  we  are  here  face  to 
face  with  one  of  the  most  difficult  questions  of  the 
immediate  future.  The  problem  has  been  raised  by 


182  PEESIDENT  OF  THE  INSTITUTION 

the  new  values  created  by  engineering  progress,  and, 
as  on  so  many  other  occasions,  we  have  no  doubt  that 
the  progress  of  jurisprudence  will  be  found  equal  to 
its  solution. 

Later  in  the  year  we  find  he  was  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
superintending  the  extension  of  the  island  railways,  the 
greater  part  of  which  had  been  laid  down  by  him. 

In  1865  he  took  the  important  step  of  purchasing 
from  Mr.  Davidson  of  Tulloch  the  Highland  estate  of 
Braemore,  and  from  that  date  he  began  to  identify  his 
interests  with  Scotland. 

Of  a  visit  paid  to  Dunrobin  about  this  time,  for  the 
purpose  of  advising  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  about 
his  private  railway  venture,  he  writes  an  interesting 
account  to  his  wife.  "  It  is,"  he  says,  "a  most  difficult 
decision  for  the  Duke  to  make,  but  I  hope  to  be  of 
use  to  him."  The  result  of  the  Duke's  deliberations  on 
the  question  of  the  railway  was  that  he  made  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  this  line  at  his  own  sole  expense. 
This  was  ultimately  sold  to  the  Highland  Eailway  at  a 
price  very  much  below  what  it  had  cost  the  Duke  to 
make.  In  the  evening  a  novel  employment  was  found 
for  Mr.  Fowler.  One  of  the  ladies  of  the  party  was 
prevailed  on  to  sing,  if  he  would  finish  her  letters 
dismissing  one  cook  and  engaging  another.  This 
he  accomplished  most  successfully,  and,  he  says,  in 
exactly  the  words  which  were  thought  to  meet  the 
occasion.  He  also  was  commissioned  to  write  a  letter 
to  an  absent  husband.  In  this,  however,  he  was  less 
successful,  as  his  effort  was  pronounced  to  be  "  not 
quite  affectionate  enough." 

On  February  13th,  1865,  Mr.  Fowler  became  a 
member  of  the  Engineer  and  Kailway  Volunteer  Staff 


FOWLER  AS  VOLUNTEER  183 

Corps  which  was  then  being  organised.  In  this  body 
he  continued  to  take  a  warm  interest  for  the  rest  of 
his  life.  He  was  made  commandant  of  the  corps  in 
1891.  This  interesting  and  useful  body  never,  we 
are  informed,  makes  any  public  appearance  as  part  of 
Her  Majesty's  forces,  but  it  is  a  body  to  be  consulted 
by  the  War  Office  in  matters  in  which  it  may  be 
thought  advantageous  to  obtain  the  opinion  of  railway 
experts.  In  December,  1892,  he  received  the  rank  of 
honorary  colonel  and  the  Volunteer  medal  given  in 
recognition  of  twenty  years'  service. 

The  years  from  1860  to  1866  were  probably  the 
busiest  years  of  Mr.  Fowler's  life.  The  office  entries 
show  that  he  and  his  staff  were  during  each  of  these 
years  actively  engaged  in  advising  upon,  and  in  many 
cases  actively  superintending,  on  an  average,  some 
seventy  or  eighty  large  engineering  undertakings.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  at  this  period  no  consider- 
able engineering  project  was  set  on  foot  without  his 
service  being  called  in,  either  for  the  promoters  or  for 
the  opposers.  The  following  are  among  the  principal 
works  belonging  to  the  decade  1860-1870  :  extensions 
of  the  Metropolitan  Eailway  to  Farringdon  Street,  the 
Metropolitan  District  Railway  and  other  extensions  of 
the  underground  system,  the  Oswestry  and  Dolgelly 
line,  the  Bristol  and  Clifton  Railway,  Liverpool  Central 
Station,  the  Glasgow  and  City  Railway,  with  a  viaduct 
over  the  Clyde,  St.  Enoch's  Station  in  the  same  city, 
Millwall  Docks,  railways  in  Devon  and  in  Cheshire. 
He  also  advised  H.M.'s  Office  of  Works  as  to  the 
bridges  in  the  Regent's  Park  and  as  to  the  Serpentine 
and  other  ornamental  waters  in  the  London  Parks. 

In  1866  he  was  elected  president  of  the  Institution 


184  PKESIDENT  OF  THE  INSTITUTION 

of  Civil  Engineers,  the  highest  honour  which  it  is  in 
the  power  of  his  professional  brethren  to  bestow.  He 
was  at  this  time  only  forty-nine  years  of  age,  and  the 
youngest  president  who  ever  sat  in  the  chair.  His 
portrait  was  painted  by  Millais,  and  presented  to  the 
Institution  by  his  fellow-engineers.  A  reproduction  of 
this,  one  of  Millais'  earliest  portraits,  is  added  to  this 
volume.  His  presidential  address  is  so  characteristic  of 
the  man  and  of  the  position  he  occupies  in  the  history 
of  engineering  that  we  make  no  apology  for  reproducing 
it  in  full.  It  is  mainly  concerned  with  the  education  of 
the  engineer.^ 

"  We  of  the  passing  generation,"  said  the  president, 
"had  to  acquire  our  professional  knowledge  as  best 
we  could."  It  is  characteristic  of  Fowler  that,  though 
his  education  was  of  the  most  practical  nature,  no  one 
was  more  keenly  alive  to  the  advantage  of  applying 
sound  scientific  principles  to  engineering  work.  He 
supplied  the  deficiency  of  his  earlier  training  by  an 
astonishing  quickness  in  apprehending  the  teaching  of 
the  new  science,  by  the  aid  of  precedents  gathered  in  a 
professional  experience  of  extraordinary  variety,  and 
by  the  careful  selection  of  qualified  assistants. 

The  Times  of  January  llth,  1866,  makes  the  follow- 
ing comment  on  engineering  education.  The  sentiment 
reads  a  little  strangely  at  the  present  day.  The  views 
of  Mr.  Eobert  Lowe  (Lord  Sherbrooke)  as  to  educa- 
tional endowments  were  still  a  power  in  the  columns 
of  the  Times  and  in  the  land.  After  dwelling  on  the 
dangers  of  endowments,  "  which,  if  they  encourage  and 
direct,  also  have  a  tendency  to  narrow  and  confine," 
the  article  continues  : — 

*  See  Appendix. 


FOWLEE   ON  EDUCATION  185 

"Civil  engineering  has  hitherto  been  free  from  this  danger. 
If  endowed,  it  is  at  any  rate  free.  Offering  very  lucrative 
prizes  to  the  ambition  of  the  students,  it  leaves  them  quite 
at  liberty  to  seek  for  the  instruction  necessary  to  obtain  these 
prizes  when  and  where  they  please.  The  result  has  been  what 
might  naturally  be  expected ;  the  human  mind,  being  steadily 
bent  on  attaining  one  particular  kind  of  knowledge,  has  found 
the  means  of  knowledge  for  itself,  and  the  engineers  of 
England  occupy  a  position  all  the  prouder  because  it  is  due 
to  no  extraneous  assistance. 

"  Such  were  the  feelings  with  which  we  heard  the  excellent 
address  to  the  Institute  of  Civil  Engineers  from  their  president, 
Mr.  Fowler,  a  man  who  though  not,  as  far  as  we  are  aware, 
possessed  of  any  university  degree,  or  any  other  distinction  than 
the  modest  letters  '  C.E.'  which  follow  his  name,  has  probably 
done  as  much  to  promote  the  prosperity  and  spread  the  repu- 
tation of  England  as  any  person  of  his  class  in  the  country." 

The  following  retrospect  from  an  address  delivered 
by  Sir  John  Fowler  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
after  this  date  is  worth  quoting  as  showing  the  sustained 
interest  which  he  took  in  engineering  education  : — 

"  It  is  now  twenty- seven  years  ago,"  he  says,  addressing  the 
Merchant  Venturers'  School  at  Bristol  in  1893,  "when,  as 
president  of  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers,  I  selected  for 
the  subject  of  my  inaugural  address  the  education  and  train- 
ing of  the  engineer.  .  .  .  The  time  had  evidently  arrived  for 
taking  up  this  subject  with  earnestness  and  energy,  and  wide 
circulation  was  promptly  given  to  this  address  in  England  and 
our  colonies,  and  especially  by  the  Indian  Government,  who 
sent  out  copies  to  all  their  engineers  in  India. 

"We  had  already  gone  far  beyond  the  stage  of  'rule  of 
thumb,'  when  good  work  and  good  materials  were  considered 
sufficient  to  constitute  excellence.  It  was  inevitable,  under 
such  a  rule,  that  much  of  the  material  got  into  the  wrong 
place,  or  was  wasted  in  needless  profusion.  In  those  days 
of  'rule  of  thumb,'  when  a  well-known  engineer  was  remon- 


186  PEESIDENT   OF  THE  INSTITUTION 

strated  with  on  the  excessive  quantity  of  material  he  put 
into  his  works,  he  made  the  reply, '  Keinember,  it  takes  rather 
a  clever  man  to  know  when  a  work  is  too  strong,  but  any 
fool  can  tell  when  it  falls  down.' 

"The  word  'practical'  is  a  word  of  which  English  people 
have  always  been  proud,  and  no  doubt  it  is  an  excellent  and 
significant  word;  but  before  the  comparatively  recent  intro- 
duction of  technical  training,  sound  theories,  and  careful 
calculations  the  expression  'practical'  applied  only  to  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  quality  of  the  material  and  work- 
manship, and  not  to  their  economical  and  scientific  arrangement. 
"  But  now  the  word  '  practical '  would  be  felt  to  be  almost 
a  term  of  reproach  unless  it  was  combined  with  a  knowledge 
of  sound  principles. 

"On  the  other  hand,  the  word  'theory,'  or  'a  theoretical 
person,'  were  terms  almost  of  derision,  and  no  doubt  when  you 
saw  a  young  student  with  just  sufficient  mathematical  know- 
ledge to  calculate  the  stresses  on  a  simple  girder,  dubbing 
himself  an  engineer,  without  the  slightest  knowledge  of  the 
quality  of  the  material  or  of  the  workmanship,  you  were  not 
surprised  to  hear  such  a  person  spoken  of  with  considerable 
contempt.  .  .  . 

"  This  one-sided  knowledge  is  now  a  thing  of  the  past,  or 
very  nearly  so,  and  the  professor's  knowledge  of  theory  and 
the  workman's  knowledge  of  practice  are  expected  to  be 
combined  and  taught  together  to  the  same  individual,  both 
in  regard  to  large  things  and  small.  .  .  .  The  rate  of  progress 
in  arriving  at  the  present  stage  of  theoretical  and  practical 
teaching  has,  of  late  years,  been  astonishingly  rapid,  and 
especially  since  about  the  date  of  my  address  in  1866.  .  .  . 
It  is  common  knowledge  that  the  facilities  were  not  then 
either  great  or  numerous ;  and  although  it  would  be  unbe- 
coming and  incorrect  to  say  that  there  were  no  good  technical 
colleges,  yet  I  suppose  for  one  technical  institution  in  those  days 
there  are  now  fifty,  and  the  higher  qualifications  of  the  teaching 
staff  and  the  superior  character  of  the  laboratories  have  pro- 
gressed almost  as  much  as  the  numbers  of  the  institutions." 


COOPEE'S  HILL  187 

His  interest  in  engineering  education  led  him  to 
support  and  follow  with  friendly  sympathy  the  fortunes 
of  the  Engineering  College  at  Cooper's  Hill. 

Speaking  at  the  distribution  of  prizes  on  July  25th, 
1888,  Sir  John  told  his  audience  that  his  first  con- 
nection with  the  college  had  been  at  the  time  when  the 
Government  of  India  found  themselves  unable  to  give 
employment  to  every  Cooper's  Hill  student  who  had 
passed  his  examination,  as  had  been  the  practice,  and 
when  it  became  a  question  whether  the  college  should 
be  continued  or  given  up  altogether,  Lord  Cranbrook, 
who  was  then  Secretary  of  State,  asked  him  for  his 
advice. 

"  I  then,"  continued  Sir  John,  "  took  on  myself  the  responsi- 
bility of  advising  that  the  experiment  of  keeping  on  the  college 
should  be  made,  provided  that  the  Government  of  India  felt 
themselves  at  liberty  to  give  the  students  a  certain  limited 
number  of  appointments  in  India.  This  has  been  done,  and 
the  result  was  most  thoroughly  and  completely  successful." 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  was  consulted  by 
a  friend  as  to  the  best  education  for  a  son  who  in- 
tended to  follow  engineering  as  his  profession.  Sir 
John's  reply  was  at  once  shrewd  and  practical.  "  If 
the  young  man  has  the  force  of  character  to  resist  the 
temptations  to  idleness  which  beset  the  student  at 
the  Universities,  and  if  he  has  any  aptitude  for  a 
serious  study  of  the  higher  mathematics,  then  let  him 
go  to  Cambridge."  Otherwise,  Cooper's  Hill  and  the 
earliest  possible  introduction  to  the  practical  work  of 
the  profession  were  his  recommendations.  The  con- 
ditions on  which  a  Cambridge  curriculum  was  con- 
sidered desirable  were  very  stringently  expressed,  so 


188  PKESIDENT   OF  THE   INSTITUTION 

much  so  that  probably  very  few  young  men  would  be 
able  to  satisfy  them.  Such  at  least  was  the  conclusion 
of  both  father  and  son  in  this  particular  case. 

In  the  year  1870  Mr.  Fowler  visited  Norway  as 
member  of  a  commission  appointed  to  advise  the 
Indian  Government  on  the  subject  of  gauges.  A 
broad  gauge  of  5  feet  6  inches  had  been  adopted  in 
the  great  trunk  lines  of  India,  but  for  the  less  im- 
portant lines  it  was  thought  that  economy  and 
efficiency  would  be  served  by  the  adoption  of  a 
narrower  gauge.  Mr.  Fowler's  experience  in  respect 
of  the  Great  Western  line  had  formed  in  him  a  strong 
objection  to  any  break  of  gauge.  The  question  sub- 
mitted to  the  commission,  however,  assumed  that  the 
Government  of  India  felt  itself  obliged  to  adopt  a 
break  of  gauge,  and  the  experts  were  asked  to  say 
which  narrow  gauge  was  the  best.  Mr.  Fowler's  col- 
leagues were  General  Strachey,  Colonel  Dickens,  and 
Mr.  (now  Sir)  A.  Meadows  Rendel.  The  Duke  of 
Sutherland  accompanied  the  party  in  his  private 
capacity,  and  the  commission  was  attended  by  Mr. 
Carl  Pihl,  the  Norwegian  Government  Engineer  of 
Eailways.  The  Norwegian  railways  are  on  a  3  feet 
6  inches  gauge.  The  rails  and  engines  are  very  light, 
and  the  rate  of  speed  is  very  slow.  Mr.  Fowler 
thought  the  gauge  was  narrow  enough,  and  that  the 
rails  and  engines  were  too  slight  for  economy.  His 
colleagues,  however,  recommended  a  2  foot  9  inch 
gauge  as  suitable  for  India.  Mr.  Fowler  wrote  a 
minority  report  to  the  effect  that  the  3  foot  6  inch 
gauge  was  the  narrowest  which  he  could  approve. 
In  the  event  the  Government  has  adopted  the  metre 
gauge,  a  3  foot  3J  inch  gauge,  thus  inclining  more 


VISIT  TO   INDIA  189 

towards  Mr.  Fowler's  opinion  than  to  that  of  the 
majority  report.  In  1889  he  paid  a  visit  to  India, 
and  his  inspection  of  the  Indian  railway  system  seems 
to  have  satisfied  him  that  his  advice  was  correct. 

The  bent  of  his  mind  in  this,  and  indeed  in  all  other 
matters,  was  ever  against  what  seemed  to  him  a  "  penny 
wise  and  pound  foolish  "  policy.  During  this  visit  to 
India  in  1889  he  was  consulted  by  Sir  F.  (now  Lord) 
Eoberts,  on  the  question  of  the  steep  gradients  on  the 
Jhelum  and  Eawalpindi  Kailway,  which  varied  from 
1  in  50  to  1  in  100.  The  alternatives  proposed  for 
improving  this  most  important  strategic  line  were : 
(1)  to  double  the  existing  line  without  altering 
gradients — marked  by  Fowler  in  memo,  now  before 
us  as  "unanimously  rejected";  (2)  to  use  heavier 
engines  and  rails — rejected  as  impracticable  owing  to 
sharp  curves  and  liability  to  breakdown  due  to 
enormous  engines,  and  strain  on  couplings,  etc.  ; 
(3)  to  regrade  the  line,  leaving  two  stiff  gradients  of 
1  in  50  where  bank  engines  should  be  employed. 
This  last  proposal  had  been  provisionally  accepted  by 
the  Government,  and  an  expenditure  of  some  18  lacs 
of  rupees  sanctioned.  The  objections  to  this  were  the 
expense  of  bank  engines  and  the  inefficiency  of  the 
arrangement  for  press  of  traffic  in  war  times.  Mr. 
Fowler  estimated  the  cost  of  regrading  the  line 
throughout  at  49  lacs.  His  characteristic  conclusion  is 
as  follows : — 

"  As  a  practical  question  for  a  commercial  railway  it  would, 
in  my  opinion,  be  wise  to  spend  31  lacs  to  get  rid  of  two  banks 
of  -g1^.  If  so,  still  more  would  it  be  wise  to  do  so  to  meet 
the  possible  military  requirements,  when  a  breakdown  (probable 
enough  with  the  hurry  and  confusion  and  rush  of  war  emer- 


190  PKESIDENT  OF  THE   INSTITUTION 

gencies)  would  be  an  incalculable  risk.     I  cannot  doubt  the 
Indian  Office  will  sanction  the  improvement  of  the  whole  line 

tO  T^." 

The  experience  which  he  gained,  and  the  work  which 
he  did  in  these  years,  seem  to  justify  the  estimate  of 
his  qualifications  as  an  engineer  which  he  himself  pro- 
pounded, when  in  the  year  1882  he  was  invited  to 
preside  over  the  Mechanical  Science  Section  of  the 
British  Association,  which  met  at  Southampton. 

"  A  well-informed  man,"  he  said,  "  has  been  defined  to  be  a 
man  who  knows  a  little  about  everything  and  all  about  some- 
thing. If  you  give  me  credit  for  being  a  well-informed 
engineer,  I  will  endeavour  to  justify  your  good  opinion  by 
showing,  whilst  presiding  at  these  meetings,  that  I  know  a 
little  about  steam-navigation  and  machinery  generally,  a  little 
about  steel  and  iron  and  other  manufactures,  and  I  trust  a  good 
deal  about  the  construction  of  railways,  canals,  docks,  harbours, 
and  other  works  of  that  class." 

This,  we  are  inclined  to  think,  is  a  very  just  estimate. 
What  Sir  John  did  not  know  about  the  construction  of 
railways,  canals,  docks,  and  harbours  was  probably  not 
worth  knowing.  He  followed,  moreover,  the  results  of 
improved  processes  of  manufacture,  and  knew  exactly 
how  to  turn  them  to  engineering  uses.  He  had  the  eye 
of  a  skilful  general  thoroughly  understanding  the  objec- 
tive of  his  campaign,  able  to  use  to  advantage  every  arm 
of  the  service,  and  well  aware  of  the  necessity  of  securing 
for  his  lieutenants  the  best  scientific  intellects  of  the 
profession — in  a  word,  a  great  organiser,  with  sufficient 
scientific  knowledge  to  make  his  organisation  thoroughly 
efficient. 

As  Fowler  has  himself  told  us,  M.  de  Lesseps  was 
at  pains  to  explain  to  his  friends  that  he  was  not  an 


A  GEEAT   OKGANISEK  191 

engineer,  yet  the  Suez  Canal  will  in  all  future  ages 
be  associated  with  the  name  of  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps, 
and  rightly  so.  Fowler,  unlike  Lesseps,  was  a  com- 
petently trained  engineer ;  yet,  if  we  are  not  mistaken, 
they  both  owe  their  great  positions  to  the  same 
qualities.  Sir  John  Fowler's  achievement  and  the  im- 
portant place  which  he  undoubtedly  occupies  in  the 
engineering  history  of  the  nineteenth  century,  are  due 
not  so  much  to  his  high  scientific  acquirements  as  to 
his  practical  powers  of  organisation.  In  framing  the 
panegyric  of  Sir  John  Fowler,  there  is  no  need  to 
depreciate  the  value  of  correct  theory.  No  one  has 
insisted  more  emphatically  on  the  paramount  import- 
ance of  scientific  training,  but  the  impartial  bystander 
will  not  fail  to  notice  how  frequently  high  scientific 
attainment  is  combined  with  a  certain  futility  of 
purpose,  and  how  requisite  to  the  business  of  this  in- 
dustrial age  is  the  organising  mind.  If  we  wished  to 
claim  a  scientific  pre-eminence  for  Sir  John  Fowler,  it 
would  be  a  pre-eminence  in  that  most  difficult  and  as 
yet  unformulated  science,  the  management  of  men  and 
of  finance.  This  quality  of  intellect  is  necessary  for 
successful  achievement,  and,  in  its  highest  forms,  it  is 
certainly  rare.  Mere  scientific  knowledge  of  the  brute 
forces  of  nature  is  by  no  means  rare,  it  can  be  hired  in 
many  markets  on  honourable  yet  by  no  means  extrava- 
gant terms. 

Sir  John  Fowler  is  a  type  of  a  class  of  men  whose 
importance  is  apt  to  be  under- estimated.  They  move 
through  life  in  comparative  silence,  they  make  them- 
selves no  great  addition  to  our  knowledge,  but  if  we 
may  use  the  hackneyed  words  in  this  connection,  si 
monumentum  quceris  circumspice. 


192  PKESIDENT   OF  THE   INSTITUTION 

The  subdivision  of  labour  in  the  service  of  mankind 
has  proceeded  far.  Invention  is  one  thing,  the.  utilisa- 
tion of  invention  is  another.  To  be  inventive  and  to 
be  practical  is  not  always  given  to  one  and  the  same 
person.  We  have  all  heard  and  laughed  at  the  story  of 
Lord  Ellenborough,  who  removed  his  banking  account 
when  he  heard  that  his  banker  (Samuel  Eogers)  wrote 
poetry,  but  there  is  a  certain  justification  of  this  view 
to  be  found  in  the  sober  reality  of  history.  The  purely 
inventive  and  scientific  genius  is  not  always  the  safest 
guide,  though  undoubtedly  its  work  is  essential  to 
human  progress.  We  need  not  go  to  the  length  of 
Lord  Ellenborough,  who  declared  his  intention  of  seek- 
ing out  the  stupidest  man  in  the  world  of  banking  as 
the  fittest  to  be  entrusted  with  the  safe  custody  of  his 
cash,  but  we  do  obviously  require  the  sifting  process  of 
stolid,  unimpressionable  common  sense,  if  the  world  at 
large  is  to  enjoy  the  full  benefit  of  the  progressive 
victories  of  science.  The  selection  of  what  is  practic- 
able, and  the  rejection  of  what  is  impracticable,  are 
functions  which  require  very  high  qualities,  and  every 
day  they  are  becoming  more  imperatively  necessary. 
This  is  the  useful  work  which  is  performed  by  the 
class  of  men  of  whom  Sir  John  Fowler  was  an  eminent 
type. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ME.    FOWLER   AND    GENERAL   GARIBALDI 
AN  EPISODE 

AN   interesting  but  not  important  episode  in  Mr. 
Fowler's  life  may  now  be  narrated.     It  will  serve 
to   mark   the   fact  that  he  now  enjoyed  a  European 
reputation,  and  will  display  his  diplomatic  adroitness, 
a  quality  to  which  he  owed  much  of  his  success. 

The  inundations  of  the  Tiber  in  the  Roman  Campagna 
and  in  Rome  itself  had  for  long  been  a  subject  of 
anxiety  for  Italian  statesmen.  Disastrous  floods  had 
occurred  in  the  year  1870,  and  numerous  projects 
were  put  forward  for  the  reclamation  of  the  Campagna 
and  the  relief  of  Rome  from  the  danger  of  floods  and 
malaria. 

Naturally,  the  standing,  perennial  problem  of  the 
Italian  engineer  interested  Fowler.  When  visiting 
Rome  in  1871  he  discussed  the  question  with  Count 
C.  Arrivabene.  This  gentleman,  under  date  June  19th, 
1873,  sent  him,  by  the  hand  of  Baron  French,  the  head 
of  a  well-known  financial  firm  in  Rome,  a  proposal  for 
getting  up  a  company,  of  which  Mr.  Fowler  was  to 
be  the  leader,  for  the  drainage  of  the  Campagna. 
Nothing  appears  to  have  come  of  the  matter,  but  the 
subject  became  urgent  when  in  1875,  after  the  entry 
of  the  Italian  Government  into  Rome,  General  Garibaldi 
o  193 


194     MR  FOWLER  AND   GENEEAL  GARIBALDI 

took  his  seat  in  the  chamber  as  a  deputy,  and  announced 
his  intention  of  devoting  himself  to  this  great  national 
work.  The  task  which  had  baffled  the  power  of 
imperial  and  papal  rulers  naturally  challenged  the 
energy  of  the  democratic  liberator. 

The  General's  advent  in  Eome  was  not  without  its 
anxiety  for  the  government  of  Victor  Emmanuel.  It 
was  so  far  a  matter  of  congratulation  that  the  hero 
renounced  all  intention  of  making  experiments  on  the 
constitution,  but  it  was  soon  found  that  his  schemes  for 
social  improvement,  though  benevolent  and  magnificent, 
were  not  always  consistent  with  sound  and  business-like 
engineering.  His  plans,  indeed,  were  at  first  on  the 
largest  and  most  ambitious  scale.  Like  all  true  vision- 
aries, the  great  Italian  patriot  prided  himself  on  being 
a  practical  man. 

"  I  am  only  a  practical  man,"  he  told  the  correspondent 
of  an  English  newspaper.  "  I  am  resolved  to  push  forward  the 
project,  as  soon  as  it  is  approved,  into  immediate  action.  What 
I  want  is  that  a  beginning  should  be  made,  and  if  I  only  see  a 
trench  opened  I  shall  know  that  the  work  is  begun." 

There  is  no  more  dangerous  character  in  the  world 
than  the  popular  hero  declaring  with  his  hand  on 
his  heart  that  "  something  must  be  done,"  and  with 
only  a  very  vague  notion  as  to  what  that  something 
ought  to  be.  The  General's  authority  with  the  people 
of  Italy  was  of  course  unbounded.  His  behaviour  to 
the  monarchical  authorities  had  been  magnanimous, 
and  the  government  was  bound  to  treat  his  proposals 
with  the  greatest  deference. 

The  engineering  problem  may  be  stated  briefly  as 
follows.  The  Koman  Campagna  is  a  large  triangle  with 


THE  EOMAN  MAESHES  195 

its  base,  some  88  kilometres  in  length,  resting  on  the 
sea.  The  apex  of  the  triangle  is  stretched  towards 
the  Apennines,  and  consists  of  a  surface  of  about 
1,000,000  acres;  a  great  part  of  this  area  is  unin- 
habitable for  many  months  of  the  year.  The  Tiber 
winds  through  this  plain  and  overflows  into  the  swamps 
and  marshes.  The  whole  region  is  only  about  nine  feet 
above,  and  some  of  it  even  below,  the  sea  level. 

The  ingenuity  of  Mr.  Lecky  has  discovered  that  the 
malarial  dangers  of  the  Koman  Campagna  have  conferred 
on  Italy  one  great  boon,  namely,  that  its  parliament 
can  hold  no  prolonged  session,  owing  to  the  un- 
healthiness  of  the  summer  season ;  but  otherwise  the 
swamps  of  the  Campagna  have  been  considered  deplor- 
able evils.  This  condition  of  things,  moreover,  was 
obviously  capable  of  improvement  by  wise  engineering 
measures. 

The  plan  of  the  General  is  thus  described  by  a  well- 
informed  correspondent.  It  was  to  divert  the  waters 
of  the  Tiber  into  the  bed  of  the  Anio  for  about  a 
couple  of  miles,  as  far  as  the  Nomentano  Bridge,  and 
then  to  cut  an  entirely  new  and  navigable  canal,  which 
would  serve  also  as  a  collector  to  the  whole  system 
of  lateral  drains  down  to  the  sea.  The  old  bed  of  the 
Tiber  was,  in  the  General's  first  conception,  to  be  filled 
in,  though  later  he  proposed  that  it  should  still  be 
preserved,  controlled  by  locks  which  should  regulate 
the  flow,  and  enable  the  antiquary  to  explore  the  bed 
of  the  river  for  the  lost  treasure  of  earlier  times. 

There  is,  perhaps,  nothing  impracticable  in  all  this, 
except  the  question  of  cost.  This  to  the  "practical 
man  "  who  wished  something  to  be  done  was  a  detail, 
but  it  was  a  consideration  not  to  be  ignored  by  Signor 


196     MR  FOWLER  AND   GENERAL   GARIBALDI 

Minghetti,  the  Prime  Minister,  and  his  financial 
advisers. 

The  idea  seems  to  have  been  that  the  engineering 
works  to  be  agreed  upon  should  be  carried  out  by  an 
association  of  adventurers,  whose  remuneration  should 
consist  in  grants  of  reclaimed  land,  and  in  sums  raised 
in  the  form  of  taxation  or  loans  by  the  Government 
and  by  the  municipality  of  Eome. 

Among  the  persons  interested  were  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  the  Prince  Torlonia,  and  other  dis- 
tinguished capitalists.  At  this  point  Mr.  Fowler  was 
asked  to  intervene,  first  by  the  Duke  of  Sutherland, 
whose  friendship  with  Garibaldi  had  induced  him  to 
interest  himself  in  the  problem,  and  then  by  the 
Italian  Government.  Sir  John  Fowler's  account  of 
the  transaction  may  be  given  in  his  own  words  :— 

"  Before  leaving  Cairo  I  received  a  telegram  from  Rome  to 
the  effect  that  a  serious  difference  of  opinion  had  arisen 
between  the  Italian  Government  and  Garibaldi  with  reference 
to  the  mode  of  dealing  with  the  River  Tiber,  so  as  to  prevent  a 
repetition  of  the  injury  to  health  and  property  which  had 
resulted  from  a  recent  flood ;  and  I  was  invited  by  both  parties 
to  go  to  Rome  and  endeavour  to  reconcile  the  differences. 

"  On  my  arrival  I  called  on  M.  Minghetti,  then  Prime 
Minister  of  Italy,  to  obtain  information  regarding  the  question 
upon  which  my  assistance  was  requested.  He  informed  me 
that  the  matter  was  very  serious  indeed,  for  Garibaldi's  position 
at  that  time  was  one  of  great  influence,  and  it  would  be 
dangerous  to  have  a  quarrel  with  him,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  it  was  impossible  to  entertain  his  views. 

"  I  then  called  upon  Garibaldi,  who  at  once  said,  '  I  am  a 
pessimist ;  the  Tiber  is  a  danger  to  Rome,  and  therefore  I  say 
remove  the  Tiber.'  This  was  rather  startling,  and  I  explained 
that  being  an  engineer,  I  could  only  give  an  opinion  on  facts, 


COUNTING  THE   COST  197 

and  that  I  should  first  desire  to  ascertain  what  would  be  the 
cost  and  consequence  of  removing  the  Tiber  as  he  proposed 
from  Kome  to  Tivoli.  Garibaldi  assented  to  this  as  being 
reasonable,  and  I  consequently  lost  no  time  in  obtaining 
engineers  from  the  Italian  Government  to  make  surveys  and 
sections  over  the  ground,  and  an  estimate  of  the  cost. 

"  This  was  done  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  I  called  upon 
Garibaldi  to  state  the  result  of  my  investigation  of  his  sug- 
gestion, which  practically  involved  a  cost  of  about  nine  millions 
sterling  and  an  equal  amount  for  compensation.  I  went 
through  the  details  with  him,  and  he  frankly  admitted  that 
I  had  demonstrated  the  impracticability  of  his  scheme,  and  he 
was  much  obliged  for  the  trouble  I  had  taken." 

Sir  B.  Baker,  who  was  present  at  some  of  the  inter- 
views of  his  chief  with  General  Garibaldi,  has  described 
how  they  were  received  by  the  Italian  patriot.  His 
young  wife,  like  a  peasant  girl,  sat  in  the  room  sewing, 
but  took  no  part  in  the  conversation.  The  General, 
who  received  all  and  sundry,  was  much  exposed  to 
tourists  and  adventurers  of  all  kinds.  He  said  to 
Fowler,  jokingly,  that  he  was  much  taken  with  the 
proposal  of  some  American  engineers,  wrho  were  pre- 
pared to  deviate  the  Tiber  for  no  other  payment  beyond 
the  antiquities  which  they  expected  to  discover,  "  while 
you,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  English  engineers,  "  say 
the  thing  will  cost  millions."  Mr.  Fowler  succeeded 
to  some  extent  in  inducing  the  old  man  to  hold  aloof 
from  the  irresponsible  crowd  which  he  admitted  all  too 
readily  to  his  confidence. 

The  General  took  a  very  gracious  leave  of  his 
visitors,  and  presented  Fowler  with  his  photograph 
and  autograph. 

Before  leaving  Eome  Mr.  Fowler  addressed  the 
following  letter  to  General  Garibaldi  by  way  of 


198     MR.  FOWLER  AND   GENERAL  GARIBALDI 

summing  up  the  situation,  and  with  the  purpose  of 
at  least  delaying  the  General's  decision.  It  displays, 
we  venture  to  think,  considerable  diplomatic  skill  on 
the  part  of  the  writer,  and  is  a  good  instance  of 
Fowler's  adroitness  in  the  management  of  men. 

"ROME,  March  2Sth,  1875. 

"DEAR  GENERAL  GARIBALDI, —  Before  leaving  Rome  for 
England  to-morrow  morning,  I  wish  to  send  you  a  very  short 
note  of  the  result  of  my  visit  to  Rome. 

"  Our  excellent  friend,  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  communi- 
cated to  me  in  Cairo  by  a  telegraph  from  Rome  that  he  thought 
I  could  be  useful  to  you  in  your  great  undertaking,  and  that 
you  would  be  very  pleased  to  see  me  on  the  subject. 

"  It  has  been  a  great  gratification  to  me  to  come  to  Rome 
and  to  see  you  and  examine  this  great  question. 

"At  the  special  wish  of  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  and  the 
Duchess,  I  called  upon  Sir  A.  Paget  and  S.  Minghetti. 

"  I  found  Minghetti's  disposition  excellent.  He  told  me  he 
had  no  wish  or  views  as  to  the  mode  of  accomplishing  your 
objects,  that  he  entirely  sympathised  with  them,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  give  hearty  assistance  to  any  proposal  which  did  not 
exceed  a  total  amount  which  did  not  embarrass  the  finances 
of  Italy. 

"  He  immediately  gave  me  all  documents  in  his  possession 
which  supplied  information,  and  expressed  a  hope  that  the 
Duke  of  Sutherland  would  be  induced  to  co-operate  with  you 
in  your  work. 

"Having  the  advantage  of  your  general  views  and  the 
documents  supplied  to  me,  I  next  examined  the  valley  of  the 
Tiber,  the  marshes  on  each  side  of  the  Tiber,  and  the  site 
of  the  proposed  harbour,  in  which  I  was  accompanied  by  Mr. 
Wilkinson. 

"My  previous  knowledge  of  Rome  and  the  neighbourhood, 
and  my  attention  having  been  called  to  sanitary  Roman  im- 
provements in  1871  and  1873,  greatly  facilitated  my  present 
proceeding. 


MR  FOWLEK'S  LETTER  199 

"  Since  the  consolidation  of  Italy  into  one  kingdom,  and  the 
adoption  of  Rome  for  its  capital,  the  rectification  of  the  Tiber 
and  the  diminution  of  malaria  have  become  not  only  an  Italian 
but  an  European  necessity. 

"The  result  of  my  careful  studies  during  the  present  visit 
is,  that  rectification  of  the  Tiber  and  the  improvement  of  the 
marshes  on  each  side,  which  you  have  taken  up  with  so  much 
enthusiasm  and  general  sympathy,  are  perfectly  practicable 
and  reasonable  work,  and  may  be  adequately  supported  with 
prudence  by  the  Italian  Government. 

"The  rapid  fall  and  physical  conditions  of  the  Tiber  are 
favourable  to  works  of  rectification  for  the  prevention  of 
injurious  floods  in  the  city. 

"  The  remedies  for  this  evil  naturally  divide  themselves  into 
two  parts. 

"  1st.  A  diversion  of  the  Tiber  from  the  city. 

"  2nd.  An  improvement  of  the  Tiber  in  and  near  the  city. 

"  The  object  desired  can  be  accomplished  by  either  of  these 
means. 

"Until  the  profile  or  section  was  prepared  of  the  diversion 
of  the  Tiber  from  Rome,  no  opinion  could  be  formed  upon  it. 

"This  section  has  been  prepared  during  the  last  few  days, 
and  has  been  furnished  to  me.  The  work  of  excavation  in- 
volved is  great,  but  it  presents  no  peculiar  difficulties  beyond 
its  magnitude. 

"  No  borings  have  been  taken,  and  therefore  an  approximate 
estimate  only  can  be  made  at  present.  I  greatly  fear,  however, 
that  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances  the  total  cost 
of  such  a  diversion,  including  the  filling  of  the  old  channel, 
drainage,  purchase  of  property,  and  expenses  consequent  upon 
its  construction  would  be  beyond  that  which  could  be  prudently 
entertained. 

"  I  do  not  think  it  possible  that  this  total  cost  can  be  less 
than  from  five  to  six  millions  sterling. 

"Of  the  reputed  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the 
removal  of  the  Tiber  from  Rome,  in  respect  to  its  navigation, 
current  of  air  from  the  mountains,  and  otherwise,  I  will  not 


200     ME.  FOWLER  AND   GENERAL   GARIBALDI 

speak,  because  on  such  subjects  others  are  better  authorities 
than  I  am. 

"  Fortunately  you  are  not  dependent  for  a  satisfactory  solu- 
tion of  the  question  upon  a  complete  diversion.  The  documents 
placed  at  my  disposal,  and  my  own  examination,  show  me  that 
by  means  of  a  small  diversion  of  the  river  below  Rome  and 
proper  works  of  rectification  in  and  above  Rome,  your  object 
can  be  adequately  accomplished. 

"Of  the  value  of  drainage  and  cultivating  the  marshes  on 
each  side  of  the  Tiber  I  have  the  highest  opinion.  The  work 
is  simple  and  easy,  and  certain  in  its  results  of  improved  value 
and  sanitary  condition. 

"Of  the  harbour — I  see  no  objection  to  Mr.  Wilkinson's  plan 
of  breakwaters ;  it  would,  however,  be  prudent,  in  my  opinion,  to 
have  boreholes  put  down  through  the  alluvial  deposit  of  the 
Tiber  on  the  site  of  the  proposed  breakwater,  so  as  to  estimate 
with  greater  accuracy  the  probable  settlement  of  the  blocks. 

"The  marshes  should  be  drained  and  made  healthy  before 
the  port  is  opened  for  business,  or  its  character  as  a  safe  and 
proper  position  would  be  at  once  destroyed. 

"  I  have  no  statistics  to  enable  me  to  form  an  opinion  of  the 
commercial  necessity  for  a  harbour,  but  those  will  be  in  your 
possession. 

"  On  the  whole,  my  dear  General,  my  suggestion  would  be  to 
have  the  studies  of  the  diversion  completed,  including  borings 
and  other  information,  and  a  trustworthy  estimate  prepared  by 
competent  Italian  engineers  on  whom  you  and  others  can  rely, 
discarding  those  who  would  mislead  you  by  imaginary  quanti- 
ties and  prices. 

"  If  the  result  of  this  investigation  produces  much  more 
favourable  features  than  my  approximate  estimates  present 
with  existing  information,  then  extend  the  inquiry  into  all  its 
consequences  and  have  full  designs  and  estimates  prepared. 

"  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  find  the  cost  and  consequences  to 
present  insuperable  obstacles  to  its  realisation,  let  a  complete 
scheme  of  rectification  be  prepared  of  the  existing  Tiber  through 
Rome. 


ME.  WILSON'S  EEPOET  201 

"In  either  case  I  would  advise  that  the  work  of  improving 
about  100,000  acres  of  the  Tiber  marshes  be  included  in  the 
project  of  Tiber  rectification. 

"  I  am  of  opinion  that  a  satisfactory  plan  of  Tiber  rectifica- 
tion, on  the  basis  of  preserving  the  course  of  the  river  through 
Eome,  including  the  reclamation  of  the  marshes  I  have  de- 
scribed, could  be  carried  out  for  a  total  cost  of  two  millions 
sterling,  and  within  a  period  of  three  years. 

"Allow  me,  in  conclusion,  my  dear  General,  to  express  my 
gratification  in  seeing  you  upon  this  great  and  useful  question, 
and  to  assure  you  that  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  and  myself  will 
always  be  happy  to  render  you  any  assistance  in  our  power. 

"Believe  me  always, 

"Yours  very  truly, 

1 1  JOHN  FOWLER." 

Though  leaving  Eome  in  March,  Fowler  was  kept 
advised  as  to  negotiations.  A  trusted  member  of  his 
staff,  Mr.  W.  Wilson,  was  deputed  by  him  to  report 
upon  the  various  schemes  which  were  brought  forward. 
In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fowler,  written  in  May,  1875, 
Mr.  Wilson  describes  his  labour  in  making  himself 
conversant  with  something  like  a  dozen  rival  schemes. 

Garibaldi  had  apparently  got  the  estimate  made  as 
Fowler  had  recommended.  The  General,  Mr.  Wilson 
reports,  had  yielded  to  the  feeling  of  the  people  of 
Home,  who  objected  to  a  diversion  of  the  Tiber  from 
the  city,  and,  indeed,  was  altering  his  plans  from  day 
to  day.  A  new  plan  received  by  Mr.  Wilson  the 
very  morning  of  his  report  proposed  a  complete  diver- 
sion from  the  junction  of  the  Eiver  Anio,  round  the 
eastern  side  of  Eome,  joining  the  Tiber  again  near 
St.  Paulo,  but  the  old  course  was  to  be  preserved, 
and  the  flow  of  the  river  was  to  be  regulated  by  locks. 
The  flood- water  was  to  run  down  the  course  of  the 


202     MR  FOWLER  AND   GENERAL  GARIBALDI 

new  diversion,  while  the  river  in  its  ancient  channel 
would  be  maintained  at  its  ordinary  level.  The  cost 
of  this  was  estimated  by  Garibaldi  and  his  advisers 
at  75  million  francs.  In  Mr.  Wilson's  judgment  it 
would  cost  at  the  very  least  100  million  francs. 

Both  of  these  sums  were  beyond  the  amount  which 
the  Italian  Government  was  prepared  to  advance,  and 
the  scheme  itself  was  open  to  many  serious  objections. 
The  principal  of  these  was,  that,  at  normal  times,  a 
division  of  the  water  of  the  river  would  not  insure 
the  proper  scouring  of  both  channels,  and  would  in 
fact  aggravate  rather  than  improve  the  insanitary  con- 
dition of  the  river. 

Fowler's  success  in  inducing  the  General  to  con- 
descend to  estimates,  secured  a  delay  and  saved  the 
State  from  the  undue  precipitancy  of  the  hero. 

The  sequel  seems  to  have  been  that  a  commission 
examined  some  nineteen  plans,  rejected  those  which 
involved  a  deviation  of  the  river,  and  selected  one 
which  proposed  to  clear  the  existing  channel  from 
numerous  obstacles,  such  as  old  bridges,  piers,  and 
other  superfluous  masonry,  to  wall  and  embank  the 
river  within  the  city  to  a  height  of  55  feet,  to  rebuild 
certain  bridges  with  larger  openings,  to  give  to  the  river 
a  minimum  width  of  109  yards,  to  construct  main  drains 
or  sewers  on  each  side  of  the  embankment.  This  plan 
had  the  approval  of  Mr.  Fowler.  The  Government 
adopted  the  recommendation,  and  the  works  were  com- 
menced in  1876. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
A  PBOPOSAL  FOR  A  CHANNEL  FERRY 

MR  FOWLER,  as  we  have  already  seen,  became 
a  pioneer  in  the  matter  of  Metropolitan  railway 
communications,  and,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
relate,  he  was  the  chief  engineer  of  the  Forth  Bridge, 
a  structure  wrhich  entirely  revolutionised  the  railway 
communications  of  Scotland. 

All  Mr.  Fowler's  projects,  however,  did  not  end  in 
success,  and  the  following  narrative  of  his  failure  to 
revolutionise  the  passage  to  France  will  not  be  without 
its  interest. 

The  history  of  the  International  Communications 
Bill,  by  which  it  was  sought  to  authorise  a  Channel 
Ferry,  deserves  for  its  own  sake  a  somewhat  full  notice. 
Though  rejected  for  the  time  being,  it  still  remains  the 
most  feasible  of  the  methods  proposed  for  facilitating 
the  journey  from  England  to  the  Continent. 

The  Bill  was  brought  before  a  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  on  April  29th,  1872,  and  naturally 
Mr.  Fowler,  as  the  engineer  of  the  scheme,  was  a 
principal  witness  in  its  favour. 

We  condense  the  following  account  of  the  proposal 
from  the  evidence  which  he  offered  in  its  support. 
The  subject  of  better  communications  with  the  Con- 
tinent, he  said,  had  engaged  his  attention  from  1864 

203 


204         PEOPOSAL  FOR  A  CHANNEL  FERRY 

onwards,  and  in  the  following  year,  1865,  surveys  of 
the  coast  of  France  and  England  were  made  by  himself 
and  by  his  able  coadjutors,  Mr.  Abernethy  and  Mr. 
W.  Wilson,  with  a  view  of  selecting  a  suitable  place 
for  the  accommodation  required.  Dover  was  selected 
as  the  best  starting-point  on  the  English  side,  but 
the  promoters  could  not  at  this  time  come  to  terms 
with  the  Admiralty,  who  objected  to  certain  inter- 
ferences with  the  Admiralty  pier.  The  negotiations 
were  renewed  in  1867,  but  without  success.  In  the 
meantime  Mr.  Fowler  was  applied  to  by  persons  who 
proposed  a  tunnel. 

"I  came  to  the  conclusion,"  he  said,  "that  at  all  events 
it  was  premature.  Yes,  and  I  declined  to  take  the  responsibility 
of  adopting  it.  I  thought  it  very  much  better  that  we  should 
begin  with  something  which  at  all  events  we  could  see  our 
way  to  the  end  of.  It  may  lead,  in  the  course  of  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years,  to  a  tunnel  being  seriously  proposed,  but  we  are 
certainly  not  ready  for  a  tunnel  yet."  "  The  bridge,"  he  goes 
on  to  say,  "is  too  ridiculous  to  discuss,  as  the  bridge  would 
consist  of  a  number  of  piers,  which  would  be  rocks  dangerous 
to  navigation." 

There  remained,  therefore,  nothing  but  his  own  plan, 
which  he  shortly  described  :— 

"  My  proposal  is  parallel  to  a  tunnel  in  this  sense,  that  it 
is  a  continuous  communication.  The  very  essence  of  my 
proposal  is  that  carriages,  goods  trucks,  and  mails  should 
be  carried  across  without  breaking  bulk ;  that  would  be  accom- 
plished by  a  tunnel,  but  it  will  be  accomplished  much  better, 
in  my  opinion,  by  proper  boats." 

The  proper  boats  which  he  had  in  view  were  boats  of 
about  450  feet  long,  of  6,000  tons  burden,  and  10,000 
horse-power,  capable  of  carrying  a  train  of  sixteen 
carriages,  the  weight  of  which  was  estimated  at  a  little 


WATEK  STATION  AT  DOVEE  205 

over  100  tons.  The  carriages  were  to  be  run  bodily 
on  to  the  ferry  boat  and  conveyed  "  without  breaking 
bulk"  across  to  France.  The  railway  companies 
already  possessed  the  necessary  powers  for  building 
such  boats,  but  parliamentary  powers  were  required 
for  alterations  in  the  harbour  at  Dover  and  for  the 
construction  of  what  he  called  a  water  station.  The 
details  of  the  changes  at  Dover  Harbour  need  not  be 
particularly  described,  as  operations  conducted  by  the 
Government  on  a  much  larger  scale  are  now  in  progress. 
The  general  result  was  that  a  new  harbour  of  95  acres 
was  to  be  obtained,  which  would  secure  perfectly  still 
water  for  the  use  of  the  ferry  boats. 

The  water  station  was  to  be  fitted  with  hydraulic 
lifts,  wharves,  and  the  necessary  apparatus  for  the 
passage  of  the  trains  to  the  steamer.  The  hydraulic 
lift  was  to  be  one  half  the  length  of  the  vessel,  and 
trains  of  the  London,  Chatham,  and  Dover,  and 
South  Eastern  Companies  were  to  be  put  on  the  lift 
as  they  arrived,  and  run  on  board  the  boat  side  by 
side.  Sir  William  Armstrong  had  been  consulted 
about  the  machinery,  and  undertook  to  provide  lifts 
that  would  complete  the  operation  in  a  minute.  Mr. 
Fowler,  more  cautiously,  thought  that  five  minutes 
would  not  be  an  unreasonable  delay.  Some  extension 
or  alteration  of  the  companies'  lines  was  necessary  for 
the  project.  The  London,  Chatham,  and  Dover  were 
at  first  favourably  disposed,  but  the  South  Eastern, 
whose  interests  were  identified  with  Folkestone,  and 
with  the  tunnel  scheme  of  which  its  chairman  was 
the  principal  promoter,  were  strong  opponents  of  Mr. 
Fowler's  scheme.  The  Harbour  authorities  of  Dover 
also  opposed  before  the  committee  of  the  House  of 


206         PEOPOSAL  FOR  A   CHANNEL  FERRY 

Commons,  but  their  opposition  was  withdrawn  when 
the  Bill  reached  the  Lords. 

Satisfactory  assurances  of  support  had  been  received 
from  the  French  Government  through  M.  Thiers,  and 
there  seemed  reasonable  ground  for  hoping  that  the 
concession  necessary  for  constructing  the  corresponding 
landing-stages  on  the  French  coast  would  be  given. 
Mr.  Ward  Hunt,  a  leading  member  of  the  Conservative 
party,  and  some  time  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  and 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  gave  evidence  that  in'  the 
year  1869  he  and  Mr.  Fowler  had  an  interview  with 
the  Emperor  of  the  French,  and  received  considerable 
encouragement.  War  broke  out  between  France  and 
Germany  in  1870,  and  negotiations  came  to  an  end. 
Favourable  assurances  had  also  been  received  from 
M.  Alphonse  de  Rothschild,  chairman  of  the  Great 
Northern  Railway  of  France.  The  negotiations  were 
renewed,  through  the  instrumentality  of  Mr.  Philip 
Stanhope,  one  of  Mr.  Fowler's  assistants,  in  1871,  when 
M.  Thiers,  the  President,  more  or  less  directly  renewed 
the  favourable  assurances  of  the  French  Government. 
He  stipulated,  however,  that  the  necessary  concessions 
for  beginning  the  work  on  the  English  side  of  the 
Channel  should  first  be  obtained  before  it  w,ould  be 
possible  for  him  to  approach  the  French  Chambers  on 
the  subject.  A  variety  of  considerations  seemed  to 
point  to  Andrecelles  as  the  place  of  debarkation  for 
the  ferry  steamers  on  the  French  coast.  From  the 
nature  of  the  case,  therefore,  the  promoters  were  unable 
to  produce  any  definite  agreement  binding  the  French 
authorities  to  accept  and  forward  their  proposals. 

The  estimated  cost  of  all  these  works  was  stated  by 
Mr.  Fowler  to  be  £890,000. 


PASSES   THE   COMMONS  207 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  the  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  found  the  preamble  of  the  Bill 
proved,  but  added  the  condition  that  the  powers 
applied  for  should  cease  and  determine  if  within  a 
given  time  (two  or  three  years  were  mentioned  as  the 
proper  limit)  the  necessary  concessions  were  not  ob- 
tained from  the  French  Government. 

In  July  of  the  same  year  the  Bill  was  brought  before 
a  select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords,  consisting 
of  Earl  Belmore  (Chairman),  Earl  of  Moreton,  Earl  of 
Ilchester,  and  Lords  Eaglan  and  Lawrence.  Much  the 
same  ground  was  travelled  over.  It  appeared,  how- 
ever, that  in  the  interval  the  South  Eastern  Bailway 
had  to  some  extent  succeeded  in  detaching  the  London, 
Chatham,  and  Dover  from  their  support  of  the  Bill. 
It  was  also  brought  out  that,  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  promotion,  negotiations  had  taken  place,  and,  as 
it  was  hoped  by  the  promoters,  an  agreement  reached 
between  the  International  Communications  Company 
and  the  authorities  of  the  South  Eastern  Kailway. 
The  arrangements,  however,  broke  down  on  the 
question  of  terms,  and  the  promoters'  counsel  made 
much  of  the  point  that  practically  both  the  companies 
had  agreed  to  the  principle  of  the  Bill,  and  that  their 
opposition,  as  now  shown,  was  merely  prompted  by  the 
question  of  terms.  Against  the  Bill  it  was  urged  that 
the  promoters 

"  stand  entirely  alone,  without  friends  in  the  English  railways, 
without  friends  in  the  French  railways,  and  without  any 
assurance  from  the  French  Government  that  the  conditions  of 
their  undertaking  will  be  satisfied,  also  without  any  prospect 
of  any  person  whatever  finding  them  the  capital  necessary 
for  this  undertaking." 


208         PKOPOSAL  FOR  A  CHANNEL  FERRY 

In  vain  the  counsel  for  the  promoters  drew  glowing 
pictures  of  a  brilliantly  lighted  water  station,  invalids 
in  search  of  warm  climate  conveyed  to  the  sunny  south 
without  risk  of  exposure  from  the  weather,  the 
abolition  of  sea-sickness,  the  vast  increase  of  traffic, 
and  improved  harbour  at  Dover  for  craft  of  all  kinds, 
and  the  entente  cordiale  between  our  island  and  the 
Continent  strengthened  and  confirmed.  In  the  ruth- 
less official  language  of  the  report,  the  committee- 
room  was  cleared ;  after  some  time  the  counsel  and 
parties  were  again  called  in,  and  the  chairman,  Earl 
Belmore,  announced  that 

"  the  committee  have  given  a  careful  consideration  to  this  Bill, 
which  they  consider  one  of  considerable  importance,  and  the 
majority  are  of  opinion  that  the  preamble  is  not  proved." 

The  value  of  all  this  "  consideration  "  is  not  perhaps 
enhanced,  when  it  is  added  that  the  committee  was 
evenly  divided,  and  that  the  adverse  decision  was 
adopted  on  the  casting  vote  of  the  chairman. 

Two  coincidences  which  arose  in  the  course  of  the 
evidence,  personal  to  the  subject  of  this  biography,  are 
worth  noting.  One  was  the  evidence  given  as  to  the 
steam  ferry  which  conveyed  goods  trains  across  the 
Forth  from  Granton  to  Burntisland,  a  service  destined 
to  be  more  or  less  entirely  superseded  by  the  Forth 
Bridge.  Secondly,  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Kobert  George 
Underdown,  general  manager  of  the  Manchester, 
Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire  Eailway,  who  was  called 
to  show  that  the  transit  between  New  Holland  and 
Hull,  a  distance  of  three  miles,  was  conveniently  man- 
aged without  a  steam  ferry  proper,  by  transhipment  of 
passengers  and  goods  from  the  train  to  the  ferry  boats. 


THE  SCHEME  KEJECTED  209 

The  construction  of  the  piers  and  landing-stages  for 
this  service  was,  as  already  pointed  out,  originally  made 
by  Mr.  Fowler,  and  it  was  a  high,  if  not  altogether  an 
agreeable,  compliment  to  quote  the  success  of  the  works 
at  New  Holland  against  their  author,  when  he  was  ad- 
vocating a  new  departure  for  the  improved  convenience 
of  a  steam  ferry  proper. 

The  following  letter  of  condolence  from  Lord  Arm- 
strong (then  Sir  William  Armstrong)  was  received  and 
preserved  by  Mr.  Fowler  : — 

"NEWCASTLE,  July  11,  1872. 

"  MY  DEAR  FOWLER, — I  am  afraid  you  had  an  uneasy  day  of 
it  yesterday.  There  are  days  on  which  all  things  seem  to  go 
wrong,  and  this  seemed  to  be  the  case  with  you  yesterday. 
What  on  earth  could  make  the  Lords'  committee  declare  against 
your  preamble  ?  It  struck  me  when  I  was  present  that  Lord 
Lawrence  had  some  adverse  crotchet  in  his  head — something, 
perhaps,  about  the  supposed  impolicy  of  encouraging  a  French 
harbour  available  as  a  basis  of  invasion  opposite  Dover.  How- 
ever, I  can  now  only  wish  you  success  another  year." 

Mr.  Fowler  felt  this  repulse  very  keenly.  Com- 
mittees of  the  Houses  of  Parliament  are  not  obliged 
to  give  reasons  for  their  verdict,  and  they  are  generally 
wise  enough  to  avail  themselves  of  this  privilege. 
Undoubtedly  the  hostility  of  the  two  English  rail- 
ways, whose  passengers  were  to  be  the  beneficiaries  of 
the  improved  Channel  service,  would  have  done  much 
to  hinder  the  successful  working  of  the  scheme. 

Mr.  Fowler  retained  his  belief  in  the  practicability 
of  a  Channel  Ferry  to  the  end  of  his  life.  In  March, 
1882,  he  contributed  a  paper  to  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  in  which,  after  giving  a  curious  account  of 
the  several  proposals  which  had  been  made  for  the 


210         PEOPOSAL  FOE  A  CHANNEL  FERRY 

more  convenient  crossing  of  the  Channel,  he  sets  out 
his  own  alternative  scheme  as 

"  a  project  for  the  establishment  of  huge  floating  railway 
stations  which  would  traverse  at  a  high  speed  the  distance 
between  the  English  and  French  coasts.  That  is  to  say,  a 
Continental  train  from  Victoria  or  Charing  Cross  would  run 
into  a  first-class  station  at  Dover,  and  then  straight  ahead 
on  to  and  between  the  decks  of  a  very  large  ferry  steamer." 

He  then  describes  the  enlargement  of  Dover  Harbour 
and  the  hydraulic  lift,  and  concludes  :— 

"  Two  lines  of  rails  were  to  have  been  laid  along  the  lower 
deck  of  the  steamer,  on  which  the  passenger  carriages  would 
remain  in  complete  shelter,  with  platforms,  waiting  and  re- 
freshment rooms,  and  the  other  conveniences  provided  in 
stations  ashore.  On  arrival  in  harbour  on  the  French  side, 
the  train  would  be  disembarked  by  the  aid  of  hydraulic 
appliances,  and  proceed  direct  on  its  way,  the  total  saving 
of  time  being  estimated  at  not  less  than  two  hours,  as 
compared  with  that  occupied  under  the  present  arrange- 
ments. ...  In  default  of  better  arguments  it  has  been 
attempted  to  ridicule  the  system  by  suggesting  that  as 
passengers  would  probably  leave  their  carriages  during  the 
Channel  crossing,  the  transit  of  the  carriages  would  merely 
be  for  the  accommodation  of  the  umbrellas  and  rugs,  which 
would  be  their  sole  occupants.  Such  an  argument  hardly 
needs  refuting,  for  it  would  apply  equally  to  the  whole 
system  of  through  carriage  accommodation,  which  has  been 
so  laboriously  built  up  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century 
in  England  and  abroad.  .  .  .  Experienced  railway  managers 
are  fully  alive  to  the  value  of  providing  through  carriages 
and  all  possible  conveniences  for  competitive  traffic,  and 
they  know  how  trifling  a  matter  turns  the  course  of  a 
traveller  along  one  railway  or  another.  It  would,  I  think, 
be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  comfort  which  would  result 
from  the  ability  to  secure  a  seat  at  Charing  Cross  or  Victoria 


KEJECTION  NOT   FINAL  211 

Stations,  especially  where  ladies  and  invalids  are  concerned, 
with  the  knowledge  that  there  will  be  no  disturbance,  no 
hunting  about  at  Calais  or  Boulogne  in  the  dark,  and  no 
separation  of  family  parties,  or  necessity  to  mount  into  car- 
riages with  unknown  occupants." 

The  two  railway  companies — the  London,  Chatham, 
and  Dover,  and  the  South  Eastern — have  now  come 
to  terms  after  a  long  period  of  rivalry.  As  we  have 
already  pointed  out,  the  competition  which  the 
railway  manager  has  to  overcome  is  the  disposition 
of  the  Queen's  subjects  to  remain  in  their  own  homes. 
This  competition  is  especially  strong  when  the  bourn 
to  which  the  railway  desires  to  convey  its  passengers 
is  beyond  seas.  Now  that  the  harassing  and  wasteful 
competition  between  the  two  companies  has  come  to 
an  end,  we  may  hope  that  they  will  some  day  find 
it  to  their  interest  to  increase  the  facilities  for  foreign 
travel,  in  which  case  we  may  hope  to  hear  again  of 
the  Channel  Ferry  Scheme. 


CHAPTER   X. 
EGYPT 

THE  year  1869  brings  us  to  an  event  in  Fowler's 
life  which  he  himself  regarded  as  most  important, 
namely,  his  first  visit  to  Egypt.  On  May  8th,  1869, 
writing  to  congratulate  his  father  on  his  birthday,  he 
alludes  to  his  visit  of  the  past  winter  in  the  following 
terms : — 

"  My  own  visit  to  Egypt  has  been  an  important  incident  of 
the  year,  and  I  have  been  very  glad  to  know  you  were  able  to 
take  interest  in  my  wandering  and  in  the  sights  I  witnessed. 
A  thorough  exploration  of  Egypt  such  as  I  was  able  to  make 
must  always  constitute  one  of  the  most  important,  if  not  the 
most  important  event  of  any  man's  life. 

"  The  feeling  that  you  are  treading  on  the  same  ground,  that 
you  are  on  the  same  wonderful  river,  and  that  you  are  amid  the 
same  scenes  which  in  the  old  days  of  Abraham  and  Moses  we 
have  always  felt  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  pictures  of 
Bible  history,  must  always  leave  an  ineffaceably  vivid  impression 
on  the  mind  of  those  who  have  been  privileged,  as  I  have  been, 
to  see  the  spot  itself." 

That  a  man  of  Fowler's  full  and  varied  experience 
should  regard  his  visit  to  Egypt — a  visit  not  in  the 
first  instance  undertaken  with  any  professional  object 
—as  perhaps  "  the  most  important  event  of  his  life,"  is 
not  a  little  remarkable;  yet  the  sentiment  is,  we  believe, 
thoroughly  genuine  and  characteristic  of  the  writer. 

212 


HIS   POWER   OF  ENJOYMENT  213 

The  exclusively  professional  interests  of  his  earlier 
career  have  been  noticed.  By  the  year  1868  his 
position  as  one  of  the  foremost  in  the  ranks  of  English 
engineers  was  assured.  Except  in  regard  to  some  great 
works,  yet  to  be  conceived  and  executed,  his  ambition 
as  an  engineer  was  satisfied.  Thenceforward  he  was 
inclined  to  allow  his  exuberant  energy  and  restlessness 
of  intellect  to  employ  itself  in  other  channels  as  well 
as  in  the  business  of  his  profession.  Unlike  many  men 
who  have  made  their  own  fortunes,  Fowler  had  no 
inclination  to  despise  the  pleasures  which  find  accept- 
ance with  an  educated  leisure  class.  His  faculty  for 
enjoyment  was,  in  this  sense,  very  catholic.  He  had, 
moreover,  no  sort  of  liking  for  Bohemian  society  and 
Bohemian  amusements.  The  immense  amount  of 
thought  and  money  that  is  devoted  to  sport  in  this 
country  is  evidence,  if  evidence  is  required,  that  the 
majority  of  men  who  are  in  a  position  to  indulge 
their  whim,  anticipate  great  enjoyment  from  its 
pursuit.  Fowler  thought  so  too,  and  when  we  come 
to  record  his  life  at  Braemore  we  shall  find  that  even 
fastidious  critics  pronounced  him  to  be  a  good  sports- 
man. So,  too,  with  regard  to  the  company  which  he 
kept.  Fowler's  success  in  life  legitimately  gave  him 
an  introduction  to  the  best  society.  He  naturally 
adopted  the  intellectual  independence  of  tone  which 
characterises  the  real  aristocracy  of  talent  and  achieve- 
ment. He  was  entirely  without  what  the  French  call 
mauvaise  honte,  a  social  infirmity  for  which  we  have 
no  adequate  expression.  His  real  kindness  of  heart 
furnished  him  with  a  courtesy  of  manner  which,  though 
neither  courtier-like  nor  conventional,  had  the  advan- 
tage of  being  obviously  sincere.  At  the  same  time 


214  EGYPT 

his  conversation  was  trenchant  and  forcible.  No  one 
could  accuse  him  of  being  a  sycophant.  This  rugged 
independence  of  character  was  quite  compatible  with 
the  fact  that  he  made  no  concealment  of  his  gratification 
in  being  honoured  with  the  friendship  of  the  great. 
He  belonged  of  right  to  the  aristocracy  of  talent  and 
achievement,  and  he  had  a  genial  pleasure  in  the 
position  which  his  abilities  and  industry  had  secured 
for  him. 

To  this  catholic  yet  discriminating  choice  of  interests 
and  recreation,  we  are  disposed  to  refer  the  almost  en- 
thusiastic interest  which  he  was  henceforward  to  take 
in  the  history  and  destiny  of  Egypt. 

From  Fowler's  education  and  other  antecedents,  one 
would  not  naturally  have  expected  that  his  mental 
activity  would  have  been  inclined  to  pass  much 
beyond  the  absorbing  engineering  problem  of  the 
railways  and  irrigation  of  Egypt.  His  mind,  however, 
was  responsive  to  the  pleasure  found  by  the  scholar 
and  the  antiquarian  in  a  study  of  the  ancient  history 
of  that  wonderful  country.  We  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that  he  ever  became  an  expert  in  Egyptian  lore,  but 
his  attitude  towards  the  scholarly  study  of  antiquity 
was  one  distinctly  of  homage.  Occasionally  the 
exponents  of  modern  scientific  arts  are  disposed  to 
throw  ridicule  on  the  vocation  of  the  scholar.  Fowler 
had  none  of  this  arrogance.  Scholarship,  a  pursuit 
which  had  called  forth  the  enthusiasm  of  so  many 
of  the  best  minds,  could  not  be  altogether  absurd. 
He  adopted,  therefore,  in  this  respect,  the  verdict  of 
the  learned,  and  endeavoured,  with  considerable 
success,  to  view  the  question  from  their  standpoint. 
Egyptology  is  in  scholarship,  it  might  perhaps  be  said, 


AEPJVAL   IN   EGYPT  215 

what  salmon  fishing,  or  deer  stalking,  or  yachting  is  in 
sport.  Fowler  was  no  doubt  more  assiduous  as  a  sports- 
man than  as  an  Egyptologist,  but  his  interest  in  all  these 
pursuits  and  his  love  of  distinguished  society  were  due 
to  his  genial  eagerness  to  enter  into  those  pleasures  of 
life  which  are  approved  by  the  most  distinguished  and 
most  cultured  section  of  English  society. 

It  was  in  this  spirit  in  1869  he  first  visited  Egypt. 
He  had  been  suffering  from  the  effect  of  overwork, 
when,  to  use  his  own  words, 

"  a  kind  and  valued  friend,  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  proposed 
to  me  the  pleasant  remedy  of  a  visit  to  Egypt  with  himself 
and  a  few  friends,  including  Professor  Owen.  An  expedition 
to  the  nearly  finished  Suez  Canal  was  a  part  of  the  programme, 
and  a  trip  up  the  Nile  under  very  favourable  conditions  was 
suggested  as  probable.  The  temptation  was  beyond  my  power 
of  resistance,  and  I  gladly  agreed  to  be  one  of  the  party." 

On  board  the  P.  and  0.  paddle  steamer  Nyanza, 
on  which  they  embarked  at  Marseilles,  they  found 
the  Egyptian  statesman,  Nubar  Pasha,  whom  Fowler 
learnt  to  regard  with  respect  and  esteem.  The  landing 
at  Alexandria  was  accomplished  in  state  on  the 
"  splendid  barge  rowed  by  twelve  sailors  in  uniform," 
which  was  in  attendance  for  His  Excellency  Nubar 
Pasha.  In  his  letters,  in  a  journal  kept  while  in 
Egypt,  and  also  in  a  lecture  delivered  at  Tewkesbury 
in  1880,  he  describes  with  considerable  minuteness 
the  details  of  his  daily  life.  Our  selection  of  quota- 
tions is  compiled  in  the  first  place  with  the  object 
of  illustrating  the  holiday  aspect  of  his  journey.  We 
reserve  for  a  later  section  a  brief  statement  of  the 
professional  services  which  he  was  invited  to  render 
to  the  Government  of  the  Khedive. 


216  EGYPT 

On  arrival  at  Cairo  he  was  carried  off  to  the  race- 
course, where  the  sand,  he  remarks,  is  a  poor  substitute 
for  the  springy  turf  of  Old  England.  There  he  was 
presented  to  His  Highness  Ismail  Pasha  the  Khedive, 
and  invited  to  view  the  races  from  his  stand.  His 
subsequent  relations  with  Ismail  were  so  important 
that  it  seems  worth  while  to  preserve  Fowler's  record 
of  their  first  interview. 

"  Ismail  Pasha,  the  son  of  Ibrahim  Pasha,  and  grandson 
of  Mohammed  All,  was  born  December  1st,  1830.  He  is 
slightly  below  the  middle  height,  powerfully  built,  and  with 
very  broad  shoulders.  His  habitual  expression  is  somewhat 
heavy,  except  when  interested  during  conversation,  and  then 
he  suddenly  flashes  a  quick  look  upon  you  and  shows  by  his 
manner  and  by  a  few  emphatic  words  that  he  has  thoroughly 
understood  all  you  have  said.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of 
his  intelligence,  or  of  his  uniformly  courteous  manner.  On 
these  points  natives  and  strangers  of  all  ranks  are  in  accord, 
however  much  they  may  differ  with  regard  to  his  administra- 
tion of  the  country.  At  the  races  he  seemed  greatly  amused 
with  the  betting,  which  he  encouraged,  and  when  his  sons 
lost  their  bets  to  him  (which  they  generally  did)  he  insisted 
on  being  instantly  paid  in  gold,  and  chaffed  the  young  losers 
most  unmercifully.  He  made  rather  a  large  bet  with  a 
Captain  Butler,  who  had  brought  over  a  mare  from  Malta, 
rode  her  himself,  and  beat  the  Khedive's  best  horse  and 
best  jockey.  The  great  Pharaoh  was  evidently  not  free  from 
human  susceptibilities,  for  he  showed  unmistakable  signs  of 
annoyance  when  he  lost  the  race  and  the  bet."  "  On  this 
occasion,"  adds  Mr.  Fowler,  "  I  was  introduced  by  the  Khedive 
to  M.  de  Lesseps." 

An  early  visit  was  of  course  made  to  the  Pyramids. 
After  reciting  their  dimensions  and  the  most  probable 
dates  of  their  construction,  he  continues  :— 

*  Tewkesbury  Lecture,  delivered  in  1880. 


THE  PYEAMIDS  217 

"As  an  engineer  who  has  designed  and  constructed  large 
works,  I  was  naturally  much  interested  in  examining  the 
Pyramids,  statues,  and  temples  of  Egypt,  with  special  reference 
to  their  construction,  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  during 
the  last  twenty  years.  The  first  impression  on  the  mind  when 
you  come  into  their  immediate  presence  is  that  of  magnitude. 
You  are  positively  oppressed  with  this  feeling,  especially  with 
the  Pyramids  of  Ghizeh,  the  Temple  of  Karnak  at  Thebes,  the 
statue  of  Barneses  at  Memnonium,  and  the  rock  temples  at 
Aboo  Simbel.  Further  examination  leads  you  to  appreciate 
and  admire  the  evidences  of  elaborate  and  mature  design, 
which  are  at  least  as  remarkable  as  the  magnitude.  Lastly, 
you  find  granite,  porphyry,  alabaster,  and  other  stone  of 
sizes  almost  unmanageable,  which  must  have  been  brought 
great  distances  by  land  and  water  under  difficulties  nearly 
insuperable. 

"Let  us  first  consider  the  Pyramids  of  Ghizeh.  The  main 
body  of  the  work  is  built  of  blocks  of  nummulitic  limestone 
quarried  on  the  spot.  The  two  large  Pyramids  (Cheops  and 
Chephren)  were  originally  faced  with  fine-grained  limestone 
from  the  Toorah  quarries,  of  which  covering  nothing  now 
remains  except  near  the  top  of  the  Chephren  Pyramid.  The 
third  Pyramid  of  Mycerinus  was  faced  with  granite  brought 
from  Syene.  In  the  interior  of  the  Great  Pyramid  are 
passages,  chambers,  and  sarcophagi  formed  of  polished  granite 
and  porphyry,  of  design  and  workmanship  well  worthy  of  the 
present  time;  and  in  the  tombs  near  the  Pyramids  are  also 
varieties  of  granite,  porphyry,  and  alabaster  exquisitely  worked 
and  polished. 

"The  ancient  Toorah  quarries,  which  furnished  the  stone 
for  the  covering  of  the  Pyramids  of  Cheops  and  Chephren, 
are  on  the  opposite  or  eastern  side  of  the  river,  and  a  few 
miles  further  south  than  the  Pyramids.  These  quarries  were 
really  large  tunnels  cut  into  the  face  of  the  mountain  to 
obtain  a  particular  quality  of  stone,  and  extended  for  several 
miles  in  length.  The  one  I  explored  was  entered  by  an 
opening  about  200  feet  wide  and  60  feet  high,  and  was  half 


218  EGYPT 

a  mile  long,  with  a  branch  of  considerable  size  for  admitting 
daylight.  So  distinct  are  the  marks  on  the  rock  face,  that 
it  is  easy  to  conjecture  the  size  and  form  of  the  tools  which 
were  used,  and  the  sharpness  of  the  marks  indicates,  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  the  tools  must  have  been  of  some  very  hard 
metal.  The  stones  cut  from  these  quarries  appear  to  have  been 
of  equal  size,  and  of  the  exact  form  required  to  fit  the  angle  of 
the  Pyramid  and  each  other. 

"  After  the  stones  had  been  prepared,  they  were  conveyed 
down  and  across  the  river,  and  from  thence  up  to  the 
Pyramids,  on  a  causeway  specially  formed  for  the  purpose. 
They  were  then  fitted  with  great  nicety,  without  mortar, 
upon  the  two  Pyramids,  polished,  and  finally  inscribed  with 
hieroglyphic  writing.  These  covering  stones  have  long  since 
been  conveyed  away  and  used  in  the  buildings  of  Cairo,  but  a 
few  fragments  have  been  discovered  and  preserved. 

"  The  extent  and  character  of  these  quarries,  Pyramids,  and 
temples  of  a  very  ancient,  if  riot  prehistoric  world,  being 
such  as  I  have  described,  I  found  it  hard  to  comprehend 
how  persons  could  bring  themselves  to  suggest  the  formation 
of  a  flat  slope  of  sand  round  the  Pyramids  as  the  means 
by  which  they  were  probably  constructed.  From  numerous 
hieroglyphic  inscriptions  we  have  the  certain  knowledge  that 
when  these  works  were  built  Egypt  possessed  men  of  science, 
philosophers,  painters,  and  sculptors,  as  well  as  architects, 
and  that  the  architects  who  were  entrusted  with  the  design 
and  erection  of  Pyramids  and  temples  were  the  most  noble  and 
distinguished  men  of  the  period. 

"These  facts  seem  to  be  quite  forgotten,  and  also  the 
common-sense  inference  that  before  such  works  as  the 
Pyramids  of  Ghizeh  and  the  Temple  of  Karnak  could  have 
been  conceived  by  a  Pharaoh  or  designed  by  an  architect, 
earlier  and  simpler  designs  necessarily  preceded  them,  and 
that  architects  and  builders  became  gradually  educated  in 
methods  of  construction,  as  well  as  in  principles  of  design. 
It  is  true  that  we  have  no  record  of  the  metal  of  which 
their  tools  were  made,  and  very  little  of  their  constructive 


ANCIENT  ENGINEEKING  219 

appliances,  but  we  have  abundant  evidence  in  the  works  them- 
selves to  show  that  it  would  be  well  for  us,  in  these  days,  if  we 
knew  some  of  the  tools  they  used  and  how  they  used  them. 

"  The  mutilated  statue  of  Kameses  at  Memnonium,  weighing 
900  tons,  was  undoubtedly  brought  from  the  Syene  quarries,  a 
distance  of  about  130  miles,  either  by  a  raft  on  the  Nile,  or  by 
the  less  probable  way  of  a  prepared  causeway  for  the  whole 
distance ;  by  either  plan,  the  operation  would  be  regarded  even 
now  as  one  of  exceeding  difficulty. 

"  A  valuable  piece  of  indirect  evidence  that  the  removal  and 
elevation  of  large  stones  could  not  in  those  days  have  been 
very  difficult  to  the  builders  is  the  fact  that  they  are  con- 
stantly found  in  positions  where  they  have  no  special  value 
either  for  appearance  or  structural  strength." 

Elsewhere,  namely  in  the  address  given  to  the 
Merchant  Venturers'  School  at  Bristol,  1893,  he  says:— 

"  In  Egypt  the  student  of  mechanics  has  abundance  of 
problems  on  which  to  exercise  his  ingenuity.  For  instance, 
given  the  evidence  of  appliances  with  which  the  Egyptians 
were  familiar  (as  described  on  the  walls  at  Beni-Hassan  and 
other  places),  the  size  of  the  stones  and  their  position  in  the 
Pyramids  and  temples,  especially  the  statue  of  Kameses  the 
Second,  weighing  888  tons,  brought  130  miles  from  Assouan, 
then  let  it  be  shown  in  detail  how  the  work  was  accomplished. 
A  good  solution  of  this  problem  would  be  entitled  to  a  first- 
class  prize  at  the  Merchant  Venturers'  School." 

Then,  after  referring  to  the  discovery  of  Dr.  Flinders 
Petrie  that  the  tool  used  for  making  the  statues  of 
hard  material  (e.g.  that  of  Chephren)  was  probably  a 
precious  stone,  about  as  hard  as  a  ruby,  set  in  a  frame, 
he  declares  his  conviction  that  the  works  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians 

"were  at  least  equal  to  the  best  works  of  the  present  day, 
as  regards  (1)  Workmanship,  as  shown  in  the  polished  sur- 


220  EGYPT 

faces  and  the  almost  invisible  mortarless  joints  of  the  por- 
phyry, syenite,  alabaster,  and  basalt  masonry  in  the  passages 
and  chambers  of  the  Great  Pyramid.  (2)  Statuary,  as  appears 
in  the  statues  of  hard  material.  (3)  Mechanical  Engineering 
in  the  removal  of  vast  numbers  of  huge  monolithic  masses 
of  rock  over  great  distances  and  obstacles.  (4)  Architecture. 
He  must  have  been  a  splendid  architect  indeed  who  designed 
the  Temple  of  Karnak  in  the  Plains  of  Thebes,  with  its  avenue 
of  Sphinxes,  its  Pylons,  its  Propylons,  its  Obelisks,  and  its 
Hall  of  Columns.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  the  Temple 
of  Karnak  was  the  noblest  work  ever  raised  by  man  for  the 
worship  of  God." 

There  is  nothing  new  in  Fowler's  pronouncement 
on  the  engineering  skill  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  but 
it  is  interesting  as  the  carefully  worded  verdict  of  an 
expert  who  had  devoted  more  of  his  attention  to  the 
question  of  materials  than  probably  any  other  engineer 
of  his  time. 

Fowler  described  this  his  first  visit  to  Egypt  as  a 
mixture  of  pleasure-seeking  and  work.  After  a  few 
days  spent  at  Cairo  he  started  with  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  M.  de  Lesseps,  Professor  Owen,  and  other 
friends  for  the  Suez  Canal,  and  on  his  return  from  his 
inspection  of  the  great  work  then  on  the  eve  of  com- 
pletion, he  was  honoured  with  an  invitation  to  attend 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales  on  an  expedition 
up  the  Nile.  In  this  he  was  accompanied  by  his  guest, 
Professor  Owen,  a  friend  of  thirty  years'  standing.  In 
the  course  of  the  trip  Fowler  was  requested  to  deliver 
a  lecture  to  the  Prince  and  his  suite  on  his  recent  visit 
to  the  canal,  but  perhaps  the  best  account  we  can  give 
of  the  thoughts  which  occupied  the  mind  of  the  con- 
valescent traveller  will  be  by  quoting  from  a  letter 
which  he  sent  to  a  child  friend. 


LETTEE  TO  A  CHILD  221 

Fowler  at  all  times  was  a  great  letter  writer.  "The 
well-informed  man,"  he  says  in  his  British  Association 
address,  "is  the  man  who  knows  a  little  about  every- 
thing and  all  about  something."  Another  of  his  axioms 
was,  "  Commit  what  you  learn  on  any  subject  to 
writing,  it  is  the  best  way  of  remembering  and  testing 
your  knowledge."  Some  ideas  of  this  sort  may  perhaps 
explain  his  habit  of  writing  accounts  of  the  scenery, 
history,  geology,  and  other  remarkable  but  well-known 
facts  connected  with  the  country  in  which  he  is  travel- 
ling. These  communications  contain  exactly  the  sort 
of  knowledge  which  would  be  possessed  by  the  "  well- 
informed." 

The  following,  attuned  to  the  comprehension  of  a 
child,  seems  a  favourable  specimen  of  his  epistolary 
style,  and  supplies  a  very  interesting  picture  of  the 
practical  man  of  science  gossiping  with  a  child  on  the 
history  of  ancient  Egypt : — 

"  ON  THE  NILE,  MINIEH  (200  miles  above  CAIRO), 

"  February  22nd,  1869. 

"  MY  DEAR  LITTLE  AMY, — You  will  wonder  when  you  see  the 
outside  of  the  envelope  of  this  letter  who  can  possibly  have 
written  you  a  letter  with  an  Egyptian  postmark  upon  it ;  and 
when  you  see  the  shaky  writing,  which  a  shaky,  vibrating 
steamer  produces,  you  will  turn  to  the  signature  at  the  end 
of  the  letter,  and  then  I  hope  you  will  recognise  the  name  of 
an  old  friend.  And  now,  my  dear  Amy,  as  we  are  thus  intro- 
duced to  each  other,  I  should  like  to  tell  you  a  little  of  this 
wonderful  land  of  Egypt. 

"  In  the  first  place,  let  me  say  that  Egypt  is  remarkable  as 
being  the  newest,  or  last-formed  land,  and  yet  contains  the 
most  ancient  people  known  in  the  world. 

"  Let  me  explain  what  I  mean.  In  England  and  France  the 
most  recent  rocks  are  the  flint-bearing  chalk  rocks,  but  in 
Egypt,  long  after  these  chalk  rocks  were  in  existence,  three 


222  EGYPT 

different  kinds  of  limestone  came  into  existence,  and  rest  upon 
this  chalk,  and,  as  a  singular  confirmation  of  the  correctness 
of  this  geological  order  of  things,  the  fossils  found  in  this 
Egyptian  limestone  correspond  much  more  nearly  to  the  exist- 
ing forms  of  life  on  the  earth  and  in  the  sea,  than  those  found 
in  the  chalk  or  older  rocks. 

"  Of  the  antiquity  of  the  people,  we  have  most  interesting 
records  in  their  temples,  their  Pyramids,  and  their  now  under- 
stood hieroglyphics. 

"  The  time  of  Abraham  leaving  Haran  in  the  land  of  Canaan 
to  take  his  flocks  to  drink  of  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  and  to 
escape  the  famine  of  his  own  land  by  dwelling  for  a  time  in 
the  rich  lands  of  Egypt,  cannot  be  determined  with  precision 
by  any  reliable  historical  records,  but  we  know  that  it  was 
at  an  early  period  of  man's  history,  and  that  Abraham  was  the 
origin  and  founder  of  the  Jewish  nation. 

"  In  Egypt,  however,  we  have  perfectly  trustworthy  records 
of  events  which  happened  long  before  Abraham  entered  Egypt, 
and  we  have  the  knowledge  that  Egypt  even  then  was  a  great 
and  powerful  nation,  with  magnificent  temples  and  palaces,  and 
with  her  equally  magnificent  but  mysterious  Pyramids. 

"  The  earliest  records  we  find  in  the  nature  of  writing  are 
the  hieroglyphics,  which  really  mean  sacred  carving,  and  in  the 
first  instance  this  system  was  used  to  represent  animals,  and 
things  themselves,  but  subsequently  a  kind  of  language  became 
formed  and  understood,  and  hieroglyphics  were  then  used  to 
represent  the  names  of  what  was  intended  to  be  communicated. 

"  It  is  curious  that  it  was  reserved  for  the  present  century 
(about  the  year  1814)  to  discover  the  key  by  which  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics  could  be  read,  but  you  will  easily  understand 
how  vast  a  store  of  new  and  deeply  interesting  knowledge  was 
opened  out  by  it  in  Egypt,  where  every  temple,  obelisk,  etc., 
is  covered  with  records  which  are  mysterious  now  no  longer. 

"It  is  almost  necessary  to  come  to  Egypt  and  see  how 
dependent  the  land  is  on  the  water  of  the  Nile,  and  how  good 
and  bad  seasons  are  produced  by  the  extent  of  the  Nile  floods, 
to  understand  how  that  clever  Joseph,  when  Prime  Minister 


PHARAOH  223 

of  Lower  Egypt,  took  advantage  of  good  seasons  to  change  the 
tenure  of  the  estate  and  get  possessed  of  the  land  for  the  king. 

"You  remember  the  land  of  Goshen,  which  the  Egyptians 
gave  up  to  the  Israelites  because  it  was  unfavourably  placed 
for  irrigation  by  the  Nile,  and  required  great  labour  for  its 
cultivation.  I  thought  of  this  description  when  I  was  travel- 
ling through  the  land  of  Goshen,  as  it  is  called  to  this  day, 
and  it  is  still  a  true  description  of  it. 

"Not  far  from  Goshen  I  saw  a  real  Philistine  from  Gaza, 
which  you  remember  was  the  scene  of  Samson's  exploits.  He 
was  rather  a  fair-complexioned  man,  but,  like  all  his  race  at 
the  present  time,  an  awful  scoundrel. 

"  On  crossing  the  Nile  from  Cairo  to  visit  the  Pyramids  you 
see  the  place  where  that  kind  daughter  of  Pharaoh  found 
little  Moses  and  saved  his  life.  I  always  greatly  respect  Moses, 
and  I  hope  you  do  the  same.  You  remember  he  became 
possessed  of  all  the  knowledge  of  the  Egyptians,  and  was 
probably  a  learned  priest  of  Heliopolis,  and  then  took  the 
lead  in  forming  the  new  code  of  laws  forbidding  the  worship 
of  Egyptian  gods,  and  the  animals  they  considered  sacred,  and 
enjoined  the  worship  of  the  one  true  and  living  God.  After- 
wards, when  the  Israelites  had  been  cruelly  used  by  the 
Egyptians  and  their  king,  Pharaoh,  Moses  led  them  out  of 
Egypt,  and  in  their  flight  from  Pharaoh  and  his  hosts  they 
crossed  the  Ked  Sea  and  escaped,  whilst  the  Egyptians,  in 
attempting  to  follow  them,  were  drowned.  Well,  my  dear 
Amy,  I  have  seen  the  place  where  this  crossing  is  said  to  have 
taken  place  (between  the  Bitter  Lakes  and  the  Eed  Sea),  and 
I  assure  you  that  the  rising  of  the  south  wind  or  the  tide 
would  account  for  it  by  natural  laws  most  perfectly,  and  we 
know  that  God  does  His  work  and  shows  His  power  by  natural 
laws.  I  think  I  have  sermonised  sufficiently  to  you,  but  I 
assure  you  it  is  impossible  to  forget  the  Bible  when  in  Egypt. 
The  same  ploughs,  I  believe,  are  used  now  as  then,  and  you 
see  the  Bedouins  of  the  desert  come  to  buy  corn  in  Egypt  as 
of  old,  and  in  numberless  ways,  places,  and  things  are  you 
reminded  of  portions  of  the  Bible  history  of  man." 


224  EGYPT 

The  letter  goes  on  to  describe  the  writer's  journey 
with  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales,  an  uneventful 
voyage  under  the  most  favourable  auspices  on  the 
historic  river  with  a  distinguished  and  agreeable 
company,  among  whom,  besides  the  staff  of  the  Prince, 
were  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  Mr.  Oswald  Brierley  the  artist, 
the  Duke  of  Sutherland  and  his  son,  Professor  Owen, 
and  Mr.  W.  H.  Kussell  of  the  Times. 

To  Fowler  even  this  pleasure-voyage  was  not  alto- 
gether a  time  of  idleness.  He  was  busy  in  preparing 
a  letter  on  the  Suez  Canal,  which  he  sent  to  the  Times, 
and  in  writing  a  memorandum  on  the  irrigation  of 
Egypt  for  the  Khedive.  This  last  was  presented  on 
his  return  to  Cairo,  and  Mr.  Fowler  was  requested 
to  delay  his  return  to  England  in  order  that  the 
Khedive  might  have  the  opportunity  of  considering 
and  discussing  the  valuable  suggestions  therein  con- 
tained. Announcing  this  delay  to  one  of  his  own 
children,  he  again  dwells  on  that  continuity  of  history 
which  Egypt  seems  to  suggest  to  every  mind.  The 
famine  in  Joseph's  time,  he  tells  his  child,  was  caused, 
no  doubt,  by  an  inadequate  flow  of  Nile  water  on 
the  land — 

"  And  it  will  sound  strange  when  I  tell  you  that  my  present 
visit  to  the  Delta  of  Egypt  (which  produced  the  corn  which 
Joseph  purchased)  is  to  study  the  best  means  of  improving  the 
irrigation  of  the  land  so  as  to  prevent,  as  far  as  the  power  of 
man  can  do,  any  farther  scarcity  or  famine." 

His  letter  for  the  Times,  February  18th,  1869,  on 
the  Suez  Canal,  was  transmitted  to  that  journal  by 
the  Duke  of  Argyll,  at  whose  suggestion  it  seems  to 
have  been  written.  This  letter  is  of  some  historical 
importance,  as  preparing  the  way  for  a  change  of 


VISIT  TO   SUEZ   CANAL  225 

public  opinion  in  this  country  towards  that  great 
enterprise. 

His  inspection  of  the  Canal  took  place  under  the 
personal  guidance  of  M.  de  Lesseps,  M.  Voisin  and  the 
other  French  engineers,  and  in  the  company  of  the  Duke 
of  Sutherland  and  Professor  Owen. 

On  the  political  aspects  of  the  question,  Mr.  Fowler 
was  always  at  pains  to  defend  Lord  Palmerston's 
opposition  to  the  terms  of  the  original  concession  made 
to  M.  de  Lesseps.  This  included,  he  pointed  out,  (l) 
a  grant  of  land  along  the  whole  length  of  the  Canal 
from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Red  Sea,  with  powers 
which  amounted  practically  to  political  independence ; 
(2)  the  absolute  property  in  a  fresh  water  canal  from 
Cairo,  through  the  land  of  Goshen,  to  Ismailia  and 
Suez ;  (3)  the  supply  on  the  part  of  the  Egyptian 
Government  of  a  minimum  of  20,000  fellahin  on  what 
was  practically  a  system  of  forced  labour. 

These  concessions  were  given  to  the  company 
by  the  Egyptian  Government  gratuitously;  but  the 
award  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  to  whose  arbitra- 
tion certain  objections  raised  by  the  English  and 
Egyptian  Governments  were  submitted,  obliged  the 
Egyptian  Government  to  pay  a  sum  of  £3,686,000 
to  the  company  on  its  abandonment  of  the  objection- 
able part  of  the  concession.  Another  3J  millions  were 
advanced  by  the  Egyptian  Government,  and  with 
subsequent  concessions  and  expenditure,  first  and  last, 
the  canal,  Mr.  Fowler  estimated,  cost  the  Egyptian 
Government  some  20  millions  sterling.  The  money 
had  to  be  raised  on  very  onerous  terms.  Her 
support,  in  fact,  of  the  great  international  highway 
threw  on  Egypt  an  intolerable  burden,  and,  as  Mr. 
Q 


226  EGYPT 

Fowler  has  remarked  on  a  later  occasion,  "  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  present  (1880)  large  debt  and  injured 
credit  of  Egypt."  The  benefit  to  Egypt,  moreover, 
from  the  construction  of  the  canal  was  not  in  any  way 
commensurate  with  the  burden  which  it  imposed. 

The  party  spent  five  days  inspecting  the  canal 
Fowler  was  busy  with  the  engineering  features  of  the 
scene,  while  fossil  bones  in  abundance  from  the  excava- 
tions were  provided  for  the  amusement  of  Professor 
Owen.  Among  others  was  a  shark's  tooth  from  the 
head  of  a  prehistoric  monster  which  must,  said  the 
Professor,  have  been  60  feet  in  length.  Nor  was 
the  scientific  picnic  without  its  mild  pleasantries. 
M.  de  Lesseps  produced,  for  the  inspection  of  the 
English  savant,  a  piece  of  conglomerate  in  which  sea 
shells  were  embedded,  and  demanded  a  geological 
identification.  The  Professor  was  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion, and  with  confidence  assigned  the  specimen  to  the 
formation  Lessepsienne. 

"  One  day,"  says  Fowler,  in  his  article  in  the  Minster,  "  I  had 
a  delightful  gallop  with  Lesseps  over  five  miles  of  a  depression 
in  the  desert,  now  occupied  by  the  Bitter  Lakes  and  forming 
part  of  the  Suez  Canal  Navigation,  and  he  playfully  reminded 
me  that  I  should  never  have  another  opportunity  of  a  ride  on 
that  spot.  Lesseps,"  he  says,  "  took  special  care  to  impress 
upon  us  that  he  was  not  an  engineer,  and  when  I  requested 
an  interview  with  the  engineers  of  the  canal  to  give  them  my 
impressions  of  the  work,  he  laughingly  declined  to  be  present, 
as  he  said  he  did  not  understand  the  elements  of  engineering, 
either  theoretically  or  practically." 

Fowler's  relations  with  the  projector  of  the  great 
canal  were  very  friendly,  and  he  witnessed  with  sorrow 
the  failure  of  his  over  -  sanguine  undertaking  at  the 


THE  POLITICS   OF  THE   CANAL  227 

Isthmus  of  Panama.  Fowler  attended  the  dinner 
given  in  his  honour  at  Stafford  House  by  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  on  which  occasion  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr. 
Disraeli  were  both  present  to  show  their  respect  for  the 
illustrious  Frenchman. 

"My  last  interview  with  Lesseps,"  Fowler  says,  "was  in 
Egypt,  after  the  purchase  of  the  Canal  shares  by  England,  when 
he  came  up  to  me  with  both  hands  extended  and  said, '  Now, 
M.  Fowler,  that  your  country  has  become  partners  with  me,  and 
risked  money  in  my  canal,  England  shall  share  in  its  manage- 
ment,' and  I  understand  the  promise  was  fulfilled."  * 

The  great  canal  highroad  from  Europe  to  Asia  was, 
as  Fowler  was  fond  of  pointing  out,  forced  on  Egypt 
by  the  pressure  of  Western  ideas.  The  idea  of  a  free 
waterway  worked  on  commercial  principles  was  one 
altogether  foreign  to  the  Oriental  mind.  Indeed,  the 
passage  and  even  the  approach  of  foreign  ships  was 
a  thing  to  be  prohibited  rather  than  encouraged.  In 
this  connection  Mr.  Fowler  gives  in  his  Tewkesbury 
lecture  the  following  translation  of  a 

"Proclamation  of  the  Sublime  Porte,  under  date  of  the 
year  1799  (1193  of  the  Mahommedan).  Hatti  Cherif,— We 
do  hereby  order  that  no  foreign  vessel  whatever  shall  approach 
the  Suez  Coasts,  either  openly  or  secretly.  The  sea  of  Suez 
is,  moreover,  the  privileged  route  of  the  glorious  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca ;  to  permit  of  free  navigation  to  the  above-mentioned 
vessels,  to  favour  and  not  prevent  the  same  would  be  to  betray 
our  religion,  our  Sovereign,  and  the  whole  of  '  Islamism.' 

"  Consequently  whoever  dares  to  transgress  this  order  will 
inevitably  suffer  the  merited  punishment,  both  in  this  world 
and  in  the  next.  It  is  therefore  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  State  and  to  our  religion  that  this  peremptory  and  irre- 
vocable order  be  conformed  to  with  zeal  and  promptness.  Such 
is  our  Imperial  Will." 

*  Minster,  February,  1895. 


228  EGYPT 

Time  was  when  such  a  decree  was  not  a  mere  brutum 
fulmen.  Much  against  its  will,  the  Ottoman  power  has 
had  to  abandon  its  exclusive  policy.  The  very  weak- 
ness of  its  rulers  as  against  Western  encroachment, 
coupled  with  the  autocratic  power  which  they  exercised 
over  their  own  subjects,  rendered  these  great  con- 
cessions to  a  body  of  foreign  adventurers  a  possibility. 
The  increasing  interest  taken  by  Western  powers  in 
the  destiny  of  the  far  East  made  them  insist  on 
allowing  engineering  skill  to  do  its  utmost  to  bring 
East  and  West  nearer  together. 

England,  at  the  date  of  Mr.  Fowler's  lecture  (1880), 
owned  74  per  cent,  of  the  shipping  that  availed  itself 
of  the  new  highway.  This  fact,  and  the  great  stake 
which  she  has  in  her  Eastern  Empire,  combine  to  make 
the  problem  of  the  internationalisation  of  the  Canal 
one  of  vital  importance  to  this  country.  Here  again 
the  art  of  the  engineer  has  created  new  problems  for  the 
international  jurist.  Events  have  proved  the  incapacity 
of  the  Ottoman  power  to  fill  adequately  the  part  of 
trustee  to  the  international  waterway  which  the  great 
Frenchman  had  pierced  through  its  territory,  and 
have  unavoidably  thrust  that  vast  responsibility  on 
the  country  whose  interests  are  most  largely  at 
stake. 

The  development  of  international  law  which  has 
arisen  out  of  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  is  full  of 
important  and  hopeful  augury  for  the  future  history 
of  mankind.  Just  as  the  appeal  to  private  warfare 
has  been  abandoned  for  an  appeal  to  the  constituted 
tribunals  of  the  land,  so  also  in  international  affairs 
the  new  values  and  new  properties  created  by  en- 
gineering science  are  brought  in  case  of  dispute  into 


ENGINEEE  TO   THE   KHEDIVE  229 

newly  constituted  courts  of  arbitration,  and  give  rise 
to  new  applications  of  international  law. 

Fowler's  interest  in  the  Suez  Canal  was  merely  that 
of  an  Englishman  and  an  engineer,  but  his  responsi- 
bility for  the  other  engineering  problems  of  Egypt 
was  destined  to  be  very  large.  The  presentation  of 
his  report  on  irrigation  led  to  his  appointment,  in  1871, 
to  be  General  Engineering  Adviser  to  the  Egyptian 
Government,  an  office  which  he  held  for  eight  years. 

Apart  from  the  Suez  Canal,  Egypt  is  in  itself  a 
country  created  by  the  engineer,  and  the  political 
problem  which  the  burden  of  empire  has  imposed 
on  this  country  may  be  summed  up  in  the  sentence 
that  England  is  under  an  obligation  to  give  security 
in  Egypt  for  the  work  of  the  engineer.  No  more 
striking  example  of  the  value  of  security  in  the  history 
of  progress  can  be  found  than  that  which  may  be 
gathered  from  the  success,  abandonment,  and  sub- 
sequent resumption  under  happier  auspices  of  the 
engineering  works  on  the  railways  and  irrigation  of 
Egypt,  instituted  in  the  first  place  by  John  Fowler, 
under  the  authority  of  Ismail  the  Khedive. 

The  history  of  modern  Egypt,  when  it  comes  to  be 
written,  will  present  an  extraordinary  and  interesting 
contrast  to  the  chronicle  of  the  Pharaohs.  A  great 
civilisation  is  the  product  of  the  organisation  of  labour. 
That  organisation  may  be  directed  either  by  an  absolute 
arbitrary  power  controlling  the  movements  of  vast 
armies  of  men,  who  act  not  on  their  own  motive,  but 
are  marshalled  and  controlled  by  the  will  of  a  master ; 
or  it  may  proceed  from  a  society  in  which  the  parts 
move  on  their  own  free  initiative — in  other  words, 
from  the  ordered  harmony  of  economic  freedom.  The 


230  EGYPT 

first  of  these  was  the  basis  of  the  civilisation  of  ancient 
Egypt,  the  civilisation  emphatically  of  a  slave  power. 
The  Egyptian  peasant,  whose  primitive  methods  of 
irrigation  Fowler  describes,  was  little  further  advanced 
under  Ismail  than  he  was  under  the  ancient  Pharaohs. 
Fowler's  attempt  to  bring  to  his  aid  the  resources  of 
modern  science  broke  down  not  from  any  error  on  the 
part  of  the  engineer  or  his  methods,  but  because  of 
the  insecurity  of  the  personal  despotism  of  Ismail. 
The  authority  of  an  intelligent  Pharaoh,  no  longer 
hardening  his  heart  against  Western  ideas,  squander- 
ing on  one  side  with  Oriental  profusion  his  subjects' 
money,  and  on  the  other  promoting  schemes  of  far- 
reaching  and  wise  beneficence,  literally  fell  to  pieces 
when  confronted  with  the  incongruous  demand  of  the 
bondholder  that  debts  must  be  paid,  and  that  the 
government  of  Egypt  must  be  conducted  on  business 
principles.  Pharaoh,  subjected  to  the  rule  of  Lombard 
Street,  crumbled  away,  and  with  him  went  alike  his 
waste  and  his  good  intentions.  It  was  the  fortune 
of  Fowler  to  be  the  minister  of  an  irresponsible 
despot,  whose  foible  was  the  promotion  of  beneficent 
schemes  of  engineering.  He  saw  the  plans  which  he 
had  laid  frustrated  by  the  fall  of  his  patron,  and 
lived  to  see  them  resuscitated  again  under  the  happier 
auspices  of  the  Pax  Britannica. 

The  Pax  Britannica  is  not  identical  with  that 
popular  acquiescence  in  authority  which  is  the  result 
of  free  political  institutions,  but  any  government  that 
is  well  administered,  though  not  perhaps  the  best, 
still  leaves  the  organisation  of  society  to  be  ordered  by 
the  normal  economic  principles  of  personal  liberty, 
security  of  property,  and  the  right  of  exchange. 


THE  "PAX   BPJTANNICA"  231 

Forced  labour,  the  very  basis  of  the  barbaric  power  of 
the  Pharaohs,  has  come  to  an  end.  Arbitrary  spoliation 
under  the  title  of  taxation  has  been  brought  within 
moderate  limits.  Property  is  secure  and  exchange  is 
free.  These  are  the  conditions,  realised  in  Egypt  under 
the  Pax  JBritannica,  which  underlie  the  organisation 
of  the  modern  industrial  cosmos. 

The  future  of  India  and  Egypt,  protected  by  a 
foreign  domination  from  the  ravages  of  famine,  pesti- 
lence and  civil  war,  inhabited  by  peoples  whose  am- 
bition is  confined  to  the  satisfaction  of  very  modest 
material  wants,  is  likely  to  produce  problems  of  the 
deepest  interest  to  the  student  of  history.  The  question 
of  a  surplus  population  in  Western  states  seems  to 
be  solving  itself.  The  rate  of  increase  there  is  already 
less  rapid,  while  the  growth  of  wealth  is  certainly 
accelerated.  Higher  standards  of  life  and  a  keener 
atmosphere  of  intellectual  activity  seem  to  act  as  a 
restraint  on  the  increase  of  a  proletariate  population. 
The  increase  of  wealth,  the  career  open  to  prudence, 
and  the  wider  distribution  of  property  have  a  like 
restraining  influence.  In  Egypt,  and  more  notably 
(as  the  system  is  of  longer  standing  there)  in  India, 
the  responsibility  of  rule,  the  elevating  tasks  of  in- 
tellectual labour,  notably  the  scientific  work  of 
engineering,  rest  for  the  most  part  in  the  hands  of 
aliens.  What  elements  are  there  in  the  situation 
which  can  prove  a  substitute  for  the  decimation  of 
the  population  by  war,  famine,  and  disease,  those 
"positive  checks,"  which  periodically  arose  anterior  to 
the  arrival  of  British  rule  ?  Better  conditions  of  life 
in  a  Western  state  in  any  given  class  are  accompanied 
by  a  slower  growth  of  population.  Increased  wealth  is 


232  EGYPT 

used  not  to  produce  numbers,  but  to  improve  condi- 
tions. Among  a  subject  population  the  same  prosperity 
shows  a  tendency  to  produce  a  different  result. 

The  problem  is  one  which  the  future  only  can  decide. 
In  Egypt  one  of  the  keys  of  the  situation  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  engineers  who  are  introducing  the  modern 
science  of  engineering  into  this  ancient  land,  a  work 
in  which,  under  less  favourable  auspices,  Fowler  was  a 
pioneer. 

It  is  interesting  to  record  that  Mr.  Fowler,  through- 
out his  Egyptian  connection,  was  at  considerable  pains 
to  induce  native  Egyptians  to  qualify  themselves  as 
engineers,  and  he  befriended  several  young  men  who 
came  to  this  country  for  that  purpose.  He  found, 
however,  an  insuperable  objection  in  the  mind  of  the 
Khedive  to  give  them  employment  in  responsible 
positions.  His  Highness  preferred  to  deal  with  Euro- 
peans, remarking  to  Mr.  Fowler,  who  pressed  their 
claims,  that  his  own  subjects  of  this  class  assumed  for 
themselves  intolerable  pretensions. 

It  is  impossible  to  set  out  in  detail  all  the  work  on 
which  Fowler  in  his  capacity  of  Engineering  Adviser  to 
the  Khedive  was  consulted.  Three  subjects,  however, 
seem  to  be  of  the  greatest  importance :  (1)  the  manu- 
facture of  sugar  ;  (2)  the  Soudan  Kail  way ;  (3)  the 
irrigation  of  the  Delta. 

The  first  was  an  industry  which  the  Khedive  was 
anxious  to  promote,  more  especially  on  his  own  estates. 
At  the  direction  of  the  Khedive  much  machinery  and 
plant  had  been  purchased  and  erected.  At  Mr.  Fowler's 
suggestion  Sir  F.  J.  Bramwell  and  Dr.  Letheby  were 
brought  out  from  England  to  advise — the  one  on  the 


SUGAE  233 

machinery   and   the   other   on    the   chemistry   of   the 
manufacture. 

The  growth  of  sugar  on  a  small  scale  for  home  use 
is  not  a  new  industry  in  Egypt.  The  Khedive,  how- 
ever, conceived  the  idea  that  the  industry  might  be 
made  important,  and  large  new  factories  had  been 
opened  at  Minieh,  Benisooef,  Magaga,  Beni  Mazar, 
Matai,  and  Ehoda.  The  best  machinery  was  em- 
ployed, and  the  result  is  thus  summed  up  by  Fowler 
in  his  Tewkesbury  lecture  :— 

"The  sugar-cane  of  Egypt  yields  a  very  fair  percentage 
of  crystallisable  sugar,  but  is  inferior  in  that  respect  to  the 
cane  of  the  Mauritius  in  the  proportion  of  15  to  18.  On 
the  whole,  however,  it  is  a  question  of  considerable  doubt 
whether  it  would  not  have  been  more  advantageous  to  the 
Khedive  and  to  Egypt  to  use  the  land  for  ordinary  crops  of 
corn  and  cotton  rather  than  for  the  sugar-cane." 

Fowler  was  not  responsible  for  the  initiation  of  these 
costly  and  on  the  whole  unprofitable  experiments,  but 
much  of  his  time  was  occupied  in  the  vain  endeavour 
to  put  the  Khedive's  speculation  on  a  satisfactory 
footing.  It  may  be  added  that  the  prospects  of  sugar 
cultivation  in  Egypt  have  since  that  date  considerably 
improved. 

The  question  of  the  Egyptian  railways,  more  par- 
ticularly that  of  the  Soudan  Railway,  is  one  of  his- 
torical as  well  as  personal  interest.  The  facts  we  shall 
endeavour  to  narrate  as  far  as  possible  in  Fowler's  own 
language.  In  the  printed  edition  of  his  Tewkesbury 
lecture  he  writes  as  follows  : — 

"The  discoveries  in  Equatorial  Africa  during  the  last  twenty 
years  naturally  led  to  the  consideration  of  the  means  of 
providing  improved  communication  for  the  populace  and 


234  EGYPT 

produce  of  those  vast  districts.  The  River  Nile  is  an  available 
navigation,  notwithstanding  the  interruption  of  the  first 
cataract,  as  far  south  as  Wady  Haifa ;  beyond  that  point  the 
constant  succession  of  cataracts  make  it  practically  useless, 
and  consequently  all  goods  traffic  and  personal  communication 
are  limited  to  camel  caravan  and  the  electric  telegraph. 

"The  late  Khedive  instructed  me  to  make  the  requisite 
surveys  and  investigations,  so  as  to  advise  the  Egyptian 
Government  on  the  important  question  of  providing  the  best 
access  to  these  newly  discovered  regions  which  had  been 
claimed  as  a  part  of  the  Egyptian  territory,  and  the  claim 
had  been  unquestioned.* 

"  The  result  of  two  years'  study  was  a  report  to  the  effect 
that  a  light  and  cheap  railway  from  Wady  Haifa  to  Khartoum 
(550  miles)  would  be  of  inestimable  value  to  trade,  government, 
and  civilisation,  and  that  in  a  few  years  the  traffic  would 
probably  he  sufficient  to  give  a  return  on  the  outlay,  but  that 
it  would  be  undesirable  to  make  any  railway  into  Darfour. 

"The  importance  of  the  railway  to  Khartoum  cannot  be 
over-estimated,  either  for  its  immediate  or  remote  influence. 
It  will  furnish  the  cultivated  land  near  the  Nile  with  an 
outlet  for  its  produce,  which  at  present  it  does  not  possess, 
vast  regions  on  both  sides  of  the  railway  will  have  access 
to  it  by  camel  routes,  and,  at  its  Khartoum  terminus,  the 
Blue  Nile  for  a  short  distance  and  the  White  Nile  for  a  very 
long  distance  will  continue  the  communication  into  Central 
Africa. 

"  After  due  consideration  I  was  authorised  to  let  the  works 
by  contract  and  proceed  with  the  construction  of  the  railway, 
called  for  convenience  the  'Soudan  Kail  way,'  and  about  60 
miles  of  its  length  have  been  completed  and  are  available 
for  traffic.  Unfortunately,  financial  difficulties  have  pressed 

*  Mr.  Fowler  always  insisted  that  the  Soudan  was  from  geographical 
considerations  necessarily  a  part  of  Egypt.  He  wrote  in  this  sense  April, 
1885,  to  Earl  Granville,  urging  that  no  stable  government  in  Egypt  was 
possible  which  did  not  include  Khartoum  and  the  Soudan.  Lord  Granville 
wrote  thanking  him  for  his  letter,  and  added,  "your  authority  is  very 
great,  but  Khartoum  appears  to  me  to  be  a  large  order." 


SOUDAN  EAILWAY  235 

so  heavily  upon  Egypt  that  this  great  and  useful  work  has 
been  interrupted,  and  will  probably  for  the  present  be 
abandoned.  My  surveys  and  reports,  however,  will  remain, 
and  when  Egypt  has  recovered  from  the  effects  of  its  wasteful 
extravagance  this  work  and  others  on  which  I  have  reported — 
such  as  the  Barrage — will  be  resumed  and  carried  out. 

"  I  must  briefly  describe  the  ceremony  of  the  inauguration 
of  the  Soudan  Kailway,  and  the  speeches  delivered  on  the 
occasion.  On  January  15th,  1875,  in  a  violent  gale  of  wind 
and  sand,  the  ceremony  commenced.  The  Egyptian  officers 
engaged  upon  the  work  were  in  attendance,  and  soldiers  were 
placed  instead  of  flag  posts  to  mark  out  the  line.  Close  at 
hand  were  the  labourers,  with  their  tools  and  baskets.  I 
verified  the  levels  and  angles,  and  then  the  Cadi,  the  eccle- 
siastical judge,  and  his  assistant  with  a  large  assembly  arrived, 
carrying  banners,  on  which  were  texts  from  the  Koran.  The 
assistant  read  an  address  in  Arabic,  and  while  he  was  reading 
a  long  piece  of  poetry  incorporated  in  the  address,  Chabim 
Pasha,  the  Governor,  intimated  to  the  orator  that  sufficient 
had  been  recited,  upon  which  the  assembled  company  said 
'  Amen/  and  prematurely  ended  the  address.  The  Pasha  then 
responded  in  Arabic." 

The  history  of  Fowler's  Egyptian  employments  is 
the  same  strange  mixture  of  Western  and  Oriental 
ideas.  The  following,  extracted  from  a  report  to  His 
Highness,  describes  the  formidable  nature  of  surveys 
undertaken  in  the  cause  of  railway  construction. 

The  surveying  expedition,  which  started  in  November, 
1875,  and  returned  to  Cairo  in  August,  1876,  contained 
eight  English  engineers  and  a  doctor — Messrs.  Bakewell, 
Simpson,  Ensor,  Chambers,  Solymos,  Murcott,  Burr, 
Meley,  and  Dr.  Lowe — four  Egyptian  engineers  and 
officers  in  command  of  troops,  thirty-six  soldiers, 
300  to  400  camels,  100  to  120  drivers,  guides,  and 
others.  In  view  of  the  subsequent  lapse  of  these 


236  EGYPT 

regions  into  a  state  of  cruel  and  fanatical  barbarism, 
it  is  noteworthy  that  the  expedition  was  well  received. 
In  the  words  of  the  report,  "Every  possible  facility 
was  afforded  to  my  surveyors  for  carrying  on  their 
important  work."  A  curious  incident  with  regard  to  a 
chronometer  stolen  from  this  expedition  is  worth 
mention.  After  the  occupation  of  Omdurman  by  the 
Sirdar  in  1898  this  chronometer  was  found  in  a  house 
occupied  by  the  Mahdi,  as  the  makers,  Messrs. 
Frodsham  and  Co.,  relate  with  pardonable  pride,  in 
excellent  order  and  as  good  as  new. 

Fowler's  diaries  for  his  several  Egyptian  sojourns 
are  full  of  the  discussion  of  large  engineering  projects. 
Interviews  with  the  Khedive  were  most  satisfactory. 
Never  was  there  a  potentate  more  desirous  of  his 
subjects'  welfare.  Distinguished  English  engineers- 
Armstrongs,  and  Kendels,  and  Bramwells — flit  across 
the  scene.  The  railway  was  of  course  only  part  of  the 
larger  question  of  communications  generally.  With  a 
view  of  facilitating  transport  of  material  great  works 
were  instituted  at  the  harbour  of  Alexandria,  but 
perhaps  the  most  interesting  problem  before  the 
English  engineer  was  the  discovery  of  the  best  mode 
of  bringing  shipping  up  the  first  cataract.  The 
following,  extracted  from  the  diary  of  1872,  a  good 
example  of  how  the  time  was  spent,  deals  with  this 
point. 

On  January  27th,  1872,  a  little  before  ten  o'clock, 
Mr.  Fowler,  accompanied  by  Sir  William  Armstrong, 
Messrs.  Eendel  and  Knowles,  set  out  from  Cairo 
to  inspect  the  first  cataract.  The  diary  describes 
in  some  detail  the  carrying  of  a  train  across  the  Nile 
at  Boulag  on  a  steam  pontoon  fitted  with  double  rails. 


A  NILE  JOUKNEY  237 

The  idea,  mutatis  mutandis,  suggests  Fowler's  larger 
proposal  of  a  Channel  ferry  (1872).  The  pontoon, 
however,  he  remarks,  is  inadequate  for  the  growing 
traffic,  and  a  railway  bridge  is,  in  his  judgment,  a 
necessity  of  the  immediate  future.  The  train  stopped 
next  at  Magaga  to  allow  an  inspection  of  the  sugar 
factory,  and  finally  arrived  at  Minieh  at  six  o'clock. 
At  Minieh  next  morning  the  journey  was  interrupted 
by  a  message  from  the  Khedive  that  he  would  receive 
Mr.  Fowler  at  the  Minieh  Palace  that  morning. 

Admitted  to  the  presence,  Fowler  stated  that  the 
ferry  at  Boulag  was  inadequate ;  that  a  bridge  was 
necessary,  which  would  take  two  years  in  construction, 
meantime  that  the  passenger  bridge,  Kazr-el-Nil,  then 
nearly  completed,  could  be  temporarily  used  for  trains ; 
that  the  railway  between  Cairo  and  Alexandria  was 
sufficient,  being  a  double  line,  and  that  a  rail  from 
Ghizeh  to  Alexandria  was  in  the  meantime  unnecessary  ; 
that  the  carrying  power  of  the  rail  from  Khoda  to 
Ghizeh  might  with  advantage  be  increased  by  doubling 
the  line.  His  Highness  then  went  into  the  question 
of  the  Soudan  Eailway.  At  3  p.m.  they  started  again 
on  the  dahabieh  Assouan,  towed  by  a  Government 
steamer.  They  anchored  for  the  night  at  Khoda. 
Next  day  they  inspected  sugar  mills,  and  continued 
their  journey  at  twelve  o'clock,  arriving  at  Daroot  at 
three,  where  a  locomotive  and  carriage  were  waiting  to 
take  the  party  to  inspect  the  new  sluice  works  on  the 
Ibrahimia  and  Yoosef  Canal.  Elaborate  particulars 
supplied  by  the  resident  Egyptian  engineer  are  entered 
in  the  diary.  Next  morning  (January  30th)  at  six 
the  party  started  again,  and  arrived  at  Sioot,  where 
Mohammed  Abusamra,  resident  engineer  for  this  part 


238  EGYPT 

of  the  Ibrahimia  Canal,  called  and  arranged  for  an 
inspection  of  works  next  day.  The  mouth  of  the 
canal,  made  some  four  years  previously,  owing  to  the 
absence  of  regulating  sluices,  had  been  much  injured 
by  floods,  and  works  were  then  in  progress  to  remedy 
this. 

On  February  1st  the  steamer  arrived  at  Soohag, 
where  the  local  canal  had  to  be  inspected.  It  was  dry 
and  dilapidated.  At  Thebes  the  party  stopped  for  a 
few  days  to  visit  the  temples,  and  on  February  6th 
they  were  again  ascending  the  river,  and  the  engineers 
were  attacking  the  problem  of  the  cataracts. 

"During  the  earlier  part  of  the  day,"  says  the  diary, 
"Mr.  Fowler  was  engaged  with  Sir  William  Armstrong  in 
considering  and  discussing  details  of  the  hydraulic  machinery 
proposed  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  working  an  incline 
from  the  lower  to  the  upper  part  of  the  cataracts  near 
Assouan,  and  thus  improving  the  navigation  of  the  Nile ;  also 
in  calculating  the  best  means  of  working  the  river  traffic 
which  will  be  created  with  the  construction  of  the  Soudan 
Railway." 

Next  day,  February  7th,  they  arrived  at  Assouan, 
and  in  the  afternoon  Mr.  Fowler  took  a  small  boat 
as  far  as  the  lower  part  of  the  cataracts,  and  landed 
near  the  Isle  of  Shellal.  He  then  walked  along  the 
east  side  of  the  cataracts,  and  passed  the  village  of 
Koroor,  returning  to  the  dahabieh  by  river. 

"Next  day,  February  8th,  he  was  occupied  all  day  with 
Sir  William  Armstrong  in  examining  the  various  rapids  along 
the  whole  course  of  the  cataracts,  so  as  to  select  the  one  most 
convenient  upon  which  to  locate  the  hydraulic  wheels  and 
pumping  station." 


CATAKACT  "INCLINE"  239 

The  following  days  were  spent  in  the  same  manner, 
and  the  ground  for  the  proposed  inclined  slope  was 
surveyed  and  the  gradients  laid  down. 

After  their  return  to  Cairo,  on  February  23rd,  Mr. 
Fowler,  Sir  William  Armstrong,  and  Mr.  Kendel  had  an 
interview  with  the  Khedive  at  which  Mr.  Fowler 
explained,  with  plans,  the  Cataract  Incline,  and  the 
system  by  which  it  was  proposed  to  utilise  the  water 
power  of  the  rapids.  He  pointed  out  that  the  scheme 
suggested  would  be  efficient  and  economical  in  working, 
and  that,  in  point  of  cost  and  time  required  for  execu- 
tion, it  was  greatly  superior  to  the  alternative  of  a 
canal,  which  would  involve  deep  cuttings  in  the  rock, 
at  an  expense  in  money  and  time  difficult  to  estimate 
and  perhaps  prohibitory.  Sir  William  Armstrong 
showed  plans  of  the  water  wheels,  pumps,  accumulator 
and  hauling  machinery,  and  stated  that  125  horse 
power  was  required  for  working  the  water  wheels, 
and  that  this  amount  was  procurable  from  one  stream 
in  the  rapids  at  all  times  of  the  year. 

His  Highness  asked  Mr.  Fowler  whether  Nile 
steamers  and  large  boats  could  be  carried  over  the 
incline,  and  Mr.  Fowler  replied  that  all  the  present 
Nile  vessels  could  be  so  carried.  His  Highness  wished 
to  know  whether  there  was  space  provided  for  shunting 
vessels,  so  as  to  repair  them,  if  necessary,  when  hauled 
out  of  the  water.  Mr.  Fowler  pointed  out  the  area 
destined  for  workshops  and  repairing  yard,  and  further 
showed  the  wharf  provided  by  the  plan,  at  which  two 
large  and  three  small  vessels  could  lie.  Mr.  Fowler  also 
called  attention  to  the  harbours  of  still  water  at  the 
end  of  each  incline. 

As  to  cost,  Mr.  Fowler  stated  that  about  £50,000 


240  EGYPT 

would  cover  the  cost  of  all  the  machinery  delivered 
at  Alexandria,  and  that  £40,000  would  be  about  the 
cost  of  the  masonry  and  other  works  requiring  skilled 
labour.  The  bulk  of  the  incline  embankment  and 
works  could  be  done  by  unskilled  labour  and  filled 
in  from  material  already  at  hand,  and  would  require 
about  1,000  men,  if  the  Incline  Eailway  was  to  be 
made  in  one  year.  Sir  William  Armstrong  agreed 
that  it  would  take  two  Niles,  or  say  two  years,  to 
put  the  whole  machinery  into  actual  position  and 
operation.  The  first  thing  to  do  would  be  to  build 
workshops  at  Mahatta ;  the  machines  in  these  shops 
would  be  worked  by  the  water  power  of  the  incline, 
which  would  also,  when  not  fully  engaged  in  hauling, 
pump  water  for  irrigation. 

His  Highness  was  much  struck  with  the  proposal  of 
utilising  the  power  of  the  rapids,  and  on  learning  that  at 
the  first  cataract  it  amounts  to  about  9,000  horse  power, 
at  present  wholly  unused,  and  that  the  second  cataract 
was  at  least  as  powerful,  his  sense  of  economy  was 
shocked.  He  expressed  his  regret  that  such  power  was 
not  being  utilised,  and  suggested  that  cotton  might  be 
spun  as  well  as  grown  in  Egypt  and  irrigation  much 
extended,  developments  of  enterprise  which,  Mr.  Fowler 
said,  had  already  occurred  to  him. 

Mr.  Fowler  proposed  the  construction  of  two  trial 
steamers  for  the  traffic  in  connection  with  the  incline, 
which  should  be  so  designed  and  engined  as  to  consume 
half  the  coal  required  by  existing  steamers.  His 
Highness  asked  whether  existing  steamers  could  not  be 
furnished  with  improved  engines,  and  proposed  that  Mr. 
Fowler  should  examine  the  present  steamers  and  select 
one  or  two  of  the  most  suitable  form  for  the  purpose  of 


FUEL  SUPPLY  241 

being  re-engined.  He  was  also  desirous  that  the  two 
engines  should  be  able  to  burn  wood,  which  could  be 
brought  down  from  Wady  Haifa  at  high  Niles  in  large 
quantities. 

On  the  subject  of  coal  Mr.  Fowler  expressed  an 
opinion  that  the  samples  furnished  by  M.  Monnier 
from  a  small  shaft  at  Edfoo  were  not  true  coal  of 
the  coal  measures,  and  that  such  coal  would  not  be 
of  use  in  its  present  condition  for  engines,  though  it 
might  be  burnt  as  fuel  of  an  inferior  kind  and  would 
produce  gas.  At  the  same  time  Mr.  Fowler  desired 
to  see  M.  Monnier  in  concert  with  Sir  William 
Armstrong  and  to  report  to  His  Highness  after  full 
inquiry.  His  Highness  stated  that  the  price  of  coal 
must  if  possible  be  reduced,  and  asked  Mr.  Fowler's 
opinion  of  a  plan  by  which  His  Highness  was  himself 
to  build  steamers  expressly  for  coal  traffic,  and  to 
import  coal,  at  a  loss  if  necessary,  in  order  to  reduce 
the  present  freights.  Mr.  Fowler  replied  that  it  would 
be  well  to  use  this  plan  as  a  menace,  and  resort  to 
it  only  on  its  failure  as  a  menace.  He  received  His 
High  ness's  authority  to  confer  with  coal  owners  and 
shippers  in  England  with  the  view  of  procuring  purer 
coal  at  low  freights.  He  also  pointed  out  that  it 
was  cheaper  to  import  good  coal  at  a  fair  price  from 
England  than  to  import  inferior  coal  at  a  gift,  and 
he  stated  that  during  his  recent  journey  on  the  Nile, 
he  had  noted  the  miserable  quality  of  the  coal  supplied. 

His  Highness  insisted  on  the  importance  of  the 
question  of  fuel  supply,  as  bearing  on  the  Soudan 
Railway  scheme.  He  said  that  the  Soudan  Eailway 
must  be  made,  but  reminded  Mr.  Fowler  that  its 
success  depended  in  a  measure  on  the  cost  of  steam 


242  EGYPT 

transport  on  the  Nile.  In  reply,  Mr.  Fowler  reverted 
to  his  proposal  of  improved  marine  engines,  by  which 
in  his  opinion  a  saving  of  50  per  cent,  could  be  effected 
in  fuel,  whether  coal  or  wood. 

Mr.  Fowler  then  referred  to  the  necessity  of  im- 
proving the  cranes  and  dock  machinery  at  Alexandria, 
and  obtained  leave  to  confer  with  Sir  William  Arm- 
strong for  the  erection  of  the  necessary  plant. 

Mr.  Fowler  next  remarked  on  the  Nile  deposit  above 
the  first  cataract,  and  suggested  that,  the  wind  being 
constant  in  this  district,  windmill  pumps  might  be 
used  for  irrigation.  Nubar  Pasha,  who  was  present, 
said  he  had  tried  these  without  success,  but  Mr.  Fowler 
pointed  out  that  better  results  might  be  obtained  in 
the  narrower  part  of  the  valley,  where  the  winds  were 
more  constant. 

A  long  discussion  then  followed  as  to  the  manage- 
ment of  the  sugar  factories  and  the  private  estates  of 
the  Khedive  generally,  in  the  course  of  which  proposals 
were  made  for  additional  machinery,  locomotives,  and, 
a  point  on  which  Mr.  Fowler  was  insistent,  an  organised 
staff  of  competent  engineers. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  disentangle  from  other 
contemporary  and  pressing  matters  the  history  of  the 
railway.  A  section  of  the  railway  was  actually 
completed,  but  before  long  the  pressure  of  financial 
distress  brought  the  works  to  a  standstill.  A  less 
ambitious  programme  became  necessary.  Accordingly, 
in  January,  1877,  we  find  Mr.  Fowler  conferring 
with  His  Excellency  Ismail  Pasha  Ayoub,  Governor 
of  the  Soudan,  who  had  undertaken  to  complete  the 
line  by  means  of  the  resources  of  the  Soudan.  At  an 
interview  with  the  Khedive  Mr.  Fowler  explained  to 


SOUDAN  EAILWAY  243 

His  Highness  that  the  result  of  his  conference  with 
Ismail  Pasha  and  Mr.  Janson  was  that  he  was  prepared 
to  advise  His  Highness  to  proceed  with  the  works  of 
the  Soudan  Kailway,  at  such  a  rate  of  progress  as  would 
be  consistent  with  the  financial  resources  of  the  Soudan, 
as  far  as  Hanneck,  and  that  from  Hanneck  to  Dabbeh 
(a  distance  of  258  kilometres),  the  river,  which  was 
there  navigable  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  should  for 
the  present  be  adopted ;  that  from  Dabbeh  the  railway 
should  be  made  to  Khartoum.  On  January  19th  Mr. 
Fowler  and  Mr.  Duport  had  long  conferences  with 
Ismail  Pasha  Ayoub,  the  Governor  of  the  Soudan, 
and  agreed  on  a  memorandum,  which,  with  only  a 
few  alterations,  was  subsequently  accepted  by  the 
Khedive : — 

"(1)  The  superior  control  and  responsibility  to  be  vested  in 
the  Governor  of  the  Soudan. 

(2)  Existing  financial  obligations  to  be  discharged  by  the 

Egyptian  Government. 

(3)  After  January  1st,  1877,  financial  responsibility  to  be 

on  the  Soudan  Government. 

(4)  All  the   net   revenue   of    the   Soudan   and   Equatorial 

provinces  to  be  devoted  to  the  construction  of  the 
railway.  Annual  sum  of  at  least  £50,000  to  be  paid 
to  Bank  of  England. 

(5)  Mr.  Janson  or  other  chief  engineer  to  be  responsible  for 

direction  of  works,  etc. 

(6)  Mr.  Janson  to  keep  Mr.  Fowler,  the  consulting  engineer 

of  the  Egyptian  Government,  advised,  and  to  send 
lists  of  material  required  under  the  contract  with 
Messrs.  Appleby. 

(7)  The  entire  management  of  all  matters  connected  with 

Soudan  Eailway  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Governor 
of  Soudan. 


244  EGYPT 

(8)  To  avoid  delay  under  above  clause,  the  Governor  of  the 

Soudan  authorises  the  engineers,  Mr.  Janson  and 
Mr.  Duport,  Mr.  Fowler's  responsible  representatives 
in  Egypt,  to  make  selections  and  carry  out  requi- 
sitions. 

(9)  The    transit    administration    to    forward    material    to 

Soudan  at  once,  on  the  certificate  of  Mr.  Duport. 

(10)  For    purchases    and    material    and    for    salaries    the 

Governor  of  the  Soudan  is  to  provide  to  the  extent 
of  £10,000  per  annum. 

(11)  The  telegraph  to  be  under  control  of  Soudan  Eailway 

administration. 

(12)  The  Governor  of  Soudan  to  submit  a  yearly  financial 

report  to  Minister  of  Finance. 

(13)  Certificates  for  material  required  in  the  contract  with 

Messrs.  Appleby  to  be  signed  by  Mr.  Fowler  and 
to  be  received  by  Minister  of  Finance  as  a  full 
discharge." 

On  January  26th,  1877,  Mr.  Janson  saw  the 
Governor  of  the  Soudan,  H.E.  Ismail  Pasha  Ayoub, 
with  reference  to  the  railway,  apparently  for  the  last 
time.  During  the  first  fortnight  of  February  there 
is  record  of  numerous  interviews  with  Colonel  Gordon, 
who  "  expressed  himself  very  strongly  and  fully  on 
the  subject  of  the  cruel  and  unjust  treatment  of  the 
natives  by  Ismail  Pasha  Ayoub." 

On  February  14th  at  half-past  eleven  Mr.  Fowler 
called  at  the  Palace  by  appointment,  and  found  His 
Highness  the  Khedive,  Barrot  Bey,  Cherif  Pasha, 
Mr.  Appleby,  and  Colonel  Gordon.  The  scheme  of 
organisation  for  the  railway  was  settled  item  by 
item. 

"  It  was  explained  by  His  Highness  that  Gordon  Pasha 
would  be  the  Governor-General  of  the  whole  of  the  Soudan 


GOEDON  245 

from  Assouan  to  the  Equatorial  Lakes,  and  would  include 
the  Directorship  of  the  Soudan  Kailway  in  his  duties.*  The 
alterations  made  were  unimportant,  chiefly  the  adoption  of 
Gordon  Pasha  as  the  Governor,  and  the  railway  administration 
under  General  Marriott  for  the  reception  and  forwarding  of 
Soudan  material." 

An  appointment  was  further  made  for  a  meeting 
between  Colonel  Gordon  and  Mr.  Janson  two  months 
hence 

"to  examine  the  site  of  the  railway  terminus  at  Hanneck, 
and  also  the  proposed  site  of  the  Kobe  Bridge,  with  a  view 
to  determine  the  question  of  making  a  bridge  across  the  river 
in  the  first  instance,  or  postponing  the  bridge  and  working 
a  ferry  provisionally." 

Next  day,  February  15th,  Mr.  Janson  was  directed 
to  call  on  Colonel  Gordon  with  a  copy  of  Messrs. 
Appleby's  contract  and  the  engineers'  agreements. 
Gordon  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  latter, 
which  concerned  Mr.  Janson  and  not  him.  He  wished 
to  be  troubled  as  little  as  possible  with  the  manage- 
ment of  the  railway,  and  said  he  intended  to  leave 
the  direction  of  the  works  entirely  to  Mr.  Janson. 
He  could  not  at  present  say  what  sums  he  would  be 
able  to  devote  to  the  construction  of  the  line,  but 
he  would  give  every  assistance  in  his  power.  He  was 
going  to  Khartoum  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  would 
then  at  once  telegraph  to  Mr.  Janson,  who,  after 
making  all  necessary  arrangements  at  Cairo,  would 
then  hurry  up  to  meet  him  at  Hanneck  and  go  over 
the  line  with  him. 

*  A  letter  from  the  Khedive  to  Gordon,  February  17th,  1877,  contains 
the  following  instruction  :   "  I  direct  your  attention  to  two  points,  viz., 
the  Suppression  of  Slavery  and  the  Improvement  of  Communications.  "- 
BOULGER'S  Life  of  Gordon,  vol.  ii.  p.  3. 


246  EGYPT 

Gordon  Pasha  said  he  would  remit  to  the  Bank  of 
Egypt  the  sums  necessary  for  payments  to  Messrs. 
Appleby.  The  sums  necessary  for  local  expenses  should 
be  sent  to  Wady  Haifa,  where  the  payments  and  dis- 
bursements would  be  effected  under  Mr.  Janson's  direc- 
tion. He  was  anxious  that  Messrs.  Appleby's  payments 
and  deliveries  should  suffer  no  delay,  and  understood 
that  Messrs.  Appleby's  position  was  a  very  painful  and 
embarrassing  one.  He  would  do  all  that  lay  in  his 
power  to  prevent  any  difficulties.  He  expected  to  leave 
on  Saturday  morning  for  Suez. 

On  the  18th  Mr.  Fowler  called  on  Gordon  Pasha, 
and  at  his  desire  furnished  an  estimate  of  the  pro- 
portion of  Mr.  Fowler's  personal  account  due  in  respect 
of  the  Soudan  Eailway  and  Darfour  surveys.  On  the 
same  day  he  received  from  Gordon  advice  of  an  order 
on  the  Bank  of  Egypt  for  £10,000,  to  be  applied  in 
payment  of  Messrs.  Appleby. 

The  following  characteristic  notes  from  Gordon  are 
among  Sir  John  Fowler's  papers,  and  relate  to  this 
period.  The  first,  written  on  the  day  of  the  above- 
described  interview  with  the  Khedive,  bears  witness 
to  the  assiduity  with  which  Fowler  had  pressed  the 
affairs  of  the  Soudan  Eailway  on  the  sorely  over- 
wrought and  newly  appointed  Governor. 

"February  Uth,  1877. 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  FOWLER, — I  have  received  your  letter,  and 
I  throw  myself  on  your  indulgence  to  excuse  me  coming  or 
indeed  discussing  the  railway  question  any  further.  I  am 
utterly  ignorant  of  this  railway  for  the  present,  and  can  form 
no  ideas  on  the  subject,  and  will  express  no  opinion  on  it. 
The  railway  has  gone  on  hitherto  without  me,  and  it  can 
surely  do  so  till  I  get  to  Khartoum ;  I  will  then  give  it  my 


LETTEES   FKOM   GOKDOIST  247 

first  attention  and  do  all  that  lies  in  my  power.  I  have  so 
many  more  things  that  need  my  attention,  which  are  to  me 
more  important  than  the  railway  is  for  the  moment,  that  I 
must  attend  to  them. 

"  Eegretting  very  much  that  you  are  not  well,  and  with  my 
kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Fowler, 

"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  C.  G.  GORDON." 

Two  days  later  the  new  Governor,  on  his  way  to 
his  province,  sent  the  following  amende  honorable  for 
the  impatient  attitude  into  which  he  had  been 
betrayed  : — 

"  SUEZ,  February  l$th,  1877. 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  FOWLER, — I  was  indeed  sorry  I  missed 
saying  good-bye  to  you  and  Mrs.  Fowler.  I  wished  much 
to  do  so,  for,  owing  to  worry,  etc.,  I  fear  I  was  not  as  courteous 
to  you  as  I  would  have  been  in  my  general  quiet.  I  hope 
you  will  therefore  excuse  me  in  consideration  of  my  position 
and  the  hurry  I  was  in. 

"I  have  sent  an  order  to  the  Bank  of  Egypt  for  £2,600.* 
I  wish  to  clear  up  all  these  outstanding  claims,  for  they  are, 
like  hang-nails,  a  great  trouble. 

"  With  very  kind  regards  to  you  and  Mrs.  Fowler,  your 
son,  and  Mrs.  Ferguson, 

"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  C.  G.  GORDON. 

"J.  Fowler,  Esq." 

The  more  important  matters  requiring  the  attention 
of  the  new  Governor  may  be  easily  imagined,  but  as 
everything  in  connection  with  the  heroic  defender 
of  Khartoum  is  of  interest  we  make  no  apology  for 

*  This  sum  was  for  salaries  due  to  the  Darfour  staff. 


248  EGYPT 

the   following,    a   copy  of  which   is  among  Sir  John 
Fowler's  papers : — 

"CAIRO,  February  17th,  1877. 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  GIBBS, — The  firman  is  signed.  H.H.  has 
given  me  the  old  province  of  Equator,  the  whole  of  Soudan, 
and  the  littoral  of  Eed  Sea.  No  one  could  be  invested  with 
greater  power.  Finance,  etc.,  are  all  in  my  hands,  and,  in 
a  word,  I  am  astounded  at  the  vast  commission. 

"It  will  be  my  fault  now  if  slavery  does  not  cease,  but 
of  course  I  need  time. 

"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  C.  G.  GORDON." 

And  so  Gordon  proceeded  to  his  Governorship. 
When  he  arrived  there  and  began  to  count  the  cost 
his  enthusiasm  for  the  railway,  never  very  warm, 
began  to  cool.  The  following  letter,  addressed  to  Mr. 
Janson,  the  resident  engineer  of  the  Soudan  Eailway 
Works,  shows  his  state  of  mind  :— 

"!N  DESERT,  November  IQtJi,  1877. 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  JANSON, — (Such  a  pen  and  such  ink!) 
Camels  do  well  enough  for  tramway  draught.  I  used  one 
for  drawing  a  cannon  in  Darfour,  and  they  plough  with  them 
in  Turkey.  Find  out  all  about  tramways,  the  inclines,  curves, 
etc.,  and  any  prices  of  tramway  plant ;  we  will  not  need  much. 
I  feel  sure  that  H.H.  will  be  glad  of  it.  It  will  be  a  great  thing 
to  utilise  the  Nile ;  it  is  by  far  the  simpler  mode.  A  railway 
is  too  exotic  a  plant  to  flourish  in  these  countries.  Do 
not  let  Fowler  put  a  spoke  in  the  wheel,  viz.  stop  this  work, 
which  he  will  if  he  can.  Said  Pasha  had  a  screw  steamer 
at  Debba  twenty  years  ago.  If  you  have  spare  engine  power 
could  you  work  a  wire  rope  railway  or  tramway  around  the 
rapids  ?  Next  winter  you  must  take  the  levels  around  the 
rapids  for  the  tramways  by  your  officers  at  Wady  Haifa. 
I  count  on  your  putting  the  chain  of  steamers  right  up  to 


THE   SEQUEL  249 

Berber  in  1878.  Try  and  get  Appleby  to  take  (off?)  10  per 
cent.  If  he  does  not  I  may  have  to  let  it  go  into  the  floating 
debt  list !  "  Yours  sincerely, 

"C.  G.  GORDON. 

"P.S. — I  can  get  sleepers  up  along  the  river  for  the  tram- 
ways." 

On  February  4th,  1878,  there  is  entry  in  Fowler's 
diary  of  the  receipt  of  "  a  long  telegram  from  Gordon 
Pasha  explaining  why  he  could  not  supply  more  than 
£20,000  this  year  for  material."  Later  in  the  same 
month,  at  an  interview  with  the  Khedive,  it  was 
agreed  (February  21st,  1878),  with  regard  to  the 
Soudan  Kailway,  that  the  whole  question  should  remain 
to  be  decided  on  Gordon  Pasha's  arrival ;  and  so  for 
the  time  being  the  work  of  constructing  the  Soudan 
Kailway  came  to  an  end. 

In  the  article  in  the  Minster,  from  which  quotation 
has  already  been  made,  Fowler  tells  the  sequel  of  the 
story  as  follows  : — 

"The  works  of  the  railway  duly  proceeded,  the  whole 
country  was  sanguine,  and  nearly  one  hundred  miles  of  the 
line  were  more  or  less  finished.  But  the  dark  days  were  at 
hand ;  the  Egyptian  Government  became  subjected  to  a  form 
of  financial  restriction  which  gradually  stopped  all  payments 
to  the  Soudan  Eailway,  and  although  Gordon  had  sent  down 
contributions  from  the  Soudan,  ...  he  was  finally  compelled 
to  telegraph  to  me,  on  March  13th,  1878,  that  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  provide  funds  from  the  Soudan  alone,  and  in  his 
capacity  of  director  he  was  obliged  to  order  the  works  to 
be  stopped  and  the  contract  cancelled. 

"A  large  sum  of  money  was  necessarily  wasted  in 
compensating  the  contractors,*  but  this  was  a  small  matter 

*  An  arbitration  took  place  between  Messrs.  Appleby  and  the  Egyptian 
Government,  in  which  Mr.  Fowler  was  arbitrator.  His  award  gave  some 
£78,000  to  the  contractors. 


250  EGYPT 

compared  with  the  consequences  which  necessarily  followed, 
viz.  the  official  abandonment  of  the  country  south  of  Wady 
Haifa,  with  the  Egyptian  garrisons ;  the  attempted  rescue  of 
the  garrison  by  Gordon ;  and  the  attempted  rescue  of  Gordon 
by  Lord  Wolseley. 

"  It  would  be  too  painful  to  dwell  on  these  sad  events,  but  I 
cannot  feel  that  the  words  of  the  Khedive  Ismail,  when  I  saw 
him  in  London,  some  time  after  he  was  deposed,  were  altogether 
without  justification.  'Ah,  M.  Fowler,  you  and  I  were  not 
such  fools,  after  all.  If  we  had  been  left  alone  we  should  have 
finished  the  railway  to  Khartoum  for  four  millions  of  money, 
and  established  permanent  government;  but  instead  of  that 
eleven  millions  of  money  have  been  uselessly  spent  and  many 
valuable  lives  sacrificed  in  a  military  operation,  and  the  whole 
of  the  country  south  of  Wady  Haifa  abandoned  to  anarchy  and 
slavery.' " 

He  concludes  with  a  tribute  to  Ismail's  good  qualities, 
which  ought  not  to  be  entirely  overshadowed  by  the 
impatience  and  extravagance  which  were  the  defects  of 
his  character. 

The  ex-Khedive's  view  as  to  the  strategical  import- 
ance of  a  railway  hardly  requires  corroboration,  but 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Lord  Salisbury,  speak- 
ing on  May  18th,  1899,  on  behalf  of  the  Eailway 
Benevolent  Institution,  dwelt  on  this  aspect  of  the 
subject  at  considerable  length  : — 

"We  live/'  he  said,  "in  a  time  of  many  industries,  and 
many  industries  have  only  a  doubtful  and  precarious  existence. 
There  is  many  a  failing,  many  a  doubtful  prospect,  but  this 
one  thing  is  certain — that  during  the  last  half -century  the 
one  industry  that  has  pushed  forward  beyond  any  other  is 
the  railway  industry,  and  there  is  no  prospect  that  its  power 
will  diminish.  I  say  that  from  my  own  point  of  view  with 
sound  conviction,  because  in  the  Foreign  Office  we  are  par- 
ticularly employed  in  considering  what  influence  railway 


IMPOETANCE  OF  THE   RAILWAY  251 

expansion  has  on  the  destiny  of  nations.  By  a  tremendous 
effort  of  railway  creation  we  have  recently  conquered  the 
Soudan.  No  doubt  the  Sirdar  wielded  many  weapons,  and 
no  weapon  less  surely  than  that  of  his  own  splendid  in- 
telligence and  skill ;  but  if  you  go  out  of  that  and  ask  what 
material  weapons  he  wielded,  I  should  say  he  won  by  the 
railway,  and  the  railway  alone — that  railway  which  he  built 
at  the  rate  of  about  two  miles  per  day  from  Korosko,  almost 
now  to  Khartoum.  That  railway  enabled  him  to  succeed 
where  a  far  larger  force,  under  great  intelligence  and  with 
great  support,  lamentably  failed.  I  can  imagine  nothing  more 
likely  to  exult  and  satisfy  the  dreams  of  any  railway  engineer 
than  to  think  of  what  the  Sirdar  had  in  his  hands.  Think 
of  building  a  railway  at  the  rate  of  two  miles  a  day,  across 
country  where  there  were  no  tunnels,  where  there  were  hardly 
any  cuttings,  and  no  embankments,  and  where  you  had  an 
unlimited  command  of  labour  and  no  difficulties  about  money, 
and,  above  all,  where  you  had  the  use  of  the  splendid  skill 
of  Lieutenant  Girouard,  a  lieutenant  of  French  extraction  in 
Canada,  a  subject  of  the  Queen,  who  is  now  the  Eailway 
Commissioner  in  Egypt,  whose  wonderful  skill  enabled  him 
to  complete  this  railway  with  a  rapidity  and  faultless  exacti- 
tude that  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  the  splendid 
success  which  his  chief  accomplished." 

The  works  projected  by  Fowler  and  frustrated  at 
this  time  by  the  instability  of  Oriental  rule,  have,  as 
all  are  aware,  been  resumed  under  more  favourable 
auspices.  A  railway  to  Khartoum  is  part  of  Lord 
Kitchener's  plan  for  the  civilisation  of  Upper  Egypt. 

The  remainder  of  the  letters  of  Gordon  preserved  by 
Mr.  Fowler  relate  mainly  to  questions  of  account. 
The  correspondence  on  this  head  winds  up  with  the 
following  characteristic  touch  from  Gordon.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  Fowler's  anxiety  about  the 
accounts  was  not  solely  on  his  own  behalf.  The 


252  EGYPT 

financial  position  pressed  very  heavily  on  contractors, 
engineers,  and  the  whole  staff  of  Europeans  employed 
in  connection  with  the  railway  : — 

"ALEXANDRIA,  January  IQth,  1880. 

"  To  J.  Fowler,  Esq.,  2,  Queen  Square  Place, 
Westminster,  S.  W. 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  FOWLER, — I  was  tossed  out  of  my  place 
so  soon  that  it  was  not  in  my  power  to  say  a  word  about 
anything.  However,  having  to-day  received  your  letter, 
January  2nd,  I  have  written  the  Khedive  very  strongly,  and 
sent  your  account,  and  in  my  letter  I  have  said,  'Take  care 
not  to  offend  a  personage  of  your  status.'  It  is  not  my  fault, 
therefore,  if  you  are  not  paid  at  once.  The  best  of  it  is  that 
they  owe  me  a  miserable  £1,200,  which,  to  spite  me,  they 
will  put  into  Floating  Debt !  It  is  not  the  Khedive,  but  Riaz 
(the  dancer  of  Abbas  Pasha)  who  does  this. 

"  I  hope  to  see  you  soon,  but  be  kind,  and  do  not  ask  me 
to  dinner,  for  I  am  ill.  "  Yours  sincerely, 

"  C.  G.  GORDON. 

"P.S. — Write  yourself  to  H.H.,  and  say  it  is  a  Soudan 
debt,  and  H.H.  may  pay  it." 

One  other  letter  from  Gordon  is  added,  though  it 
does  not  refer  to  the  Soudan  Eailway,  but  to  a  map 
which  Mr.  Fowler  had  been  at  great  pains  to  have 

prepared. 

"114,  BEAUFORT  STREET,  CHELSEA, 

"April  21st,  1880. 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  FOWLER, — I  am  very  much  obliged  for  your 
kind  present  of  the  map,  and  your  lecture,  and  for  your  kind 
letter.  Do  not  be  vexed  if  I  tried  to  obtain  the  map  in 
the  way  of  trade,  for  (with  the  exception  of  the  Darfour  part, 
which  is  defective)  it  is  the  best  map  that  is  published,  and 
I  think  you  ought  to  let  it  be  purchased.  I  gave  the  one 
you  gave  me  through  Watson  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians, 
who  was  much  pleased  with  it.  I  think  you  might  let  it 


J 

•^» 


/. 

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X^-'C*— C-*-.  o*V         '"fVv*^/  .  (S*<-+*&~*        «x/-~^ 


+^*^~6^         -^  *^I*  A-»-^-^-ey-c 


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FACSIMILE  OF  LETTER  RECEIVED  BY  MR.   FOWLER  FROM  THE  LATE  GENERAL  GORDON. 


x  ^ 


_,    X^ 


A  SWEET  WATER   CANAL  255 

be  sold;  as  I  have  said,  the  Darfour  part  is  incorrect,  but 
otherwise  it  is  first  rate. 

"I  will  call  on  you  in  a  few  days.  You  ought,  through 
Rivers  Wilson,  to  push  your  claim  in  Egypt.  They  have 
enough  money  to  make  fresh  annexations,  and  ought  to  pay 
their  debts  of  the  Soudan.  A  letter  from  you  to  the  Khedive 
and  one  to  R.  Wilson  would  settle  it. 
"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  C.  G.  GORDON." 

One  other  of  the  projects  of  the  Khedive  Ismail 
deserves  notice  in  connection  with  the  improvement 
of  communications  in  Egypt.  He  very  soon  became 
alive  to  the  fact  that  the  Suez  Canal — that  great 
work  for  which  his  country  had  undertaken  such 
heavy  burdens  — had  diverted  traffic  from  the  port 
of  Alexandria  and  carried  passengers  past  Egypt  who 
formerly  had  travelled  through  and  even  halted  there, 
thereby  contributing  to  the  prosperity  of  the  land. 
Egypt,  formerly  a  great  terminus,  had  been  practically 
reduced  to  the  position  of  a  wayside  station  off  the 
main  route  between  the  East  and  the  West. 

The  Khedive,  who,  whatever  his  faults  may  have 
been,  knew  most  accurately  the  necessities  and  engi- 
neering possibilities  of  his  country,  conceived  the  idea 
of  making  an  alternative  Suez  Canal  via  Cairo  and 
Alexandria.  In  1883,  on  the  occasion  of  some  friction 
between  M.  de  Lesseps  and  the  representatives  of 
British  interests,  Messrs.  Fowler  and  Baker  contributed 
an  article  to  the  Nineteenth  Century  recalling  the 
Khedive's  plan,  and  urged  it  on  the  British  public  as 
one  well  worthy  of  their  consideration. 

"As  ruler  of  Egypt,"  they  say,  "the  Khedive,  in  laying 
out  an  alternative  Suez  Canal,  had  in  his  mind  the  attainment 


256  EGYPT 

of  three  great  objects:  (1)  to  make  Alexandria  one  of  the 
important  ports  of  the  world,  and  to  establish  docks  for  the 
sea-going  vessels  at  Cairo;  (2)  to  provide  an  alternative 
ship  canal,  by  which  the  traffic  would  be  taken  through  the 
heart  of  the  country  instead  of  across  an  outlying  desert; 
(3)  to  provide  high-level  irrigation  for  the  cultivated  land 
of  Lower  Egypt  and  means  for  reclaiming  a  large  area  of 
desert  and  marsh  land,  at  present  of  no  value  to  the  country." 

During  his  official  connection  with  the  Khedive 
Mr.  Fowler  had  been  called  into  consultation,  and  was 
prepared  to  show  how  these  various  objects  could  be 
attained.  The  proposal,  as  matured  and  set  forth 
by  himself  and  Sir  Benjamin  Baker  in  1883,  was  as 
follows  : — 

"  Eeferring  to  the  map,"  the  article  states,  "  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  proposed  canal  runs  from  Alexandria  to 
Suez  wd  Cairo,  a  total  distance  of  240  miles.  The  Nile 
divides  the  canal  into  two  portions,  which  may  be  best 
described  separately.  At  Cairo  the  level  of  low  water  is 
about  39  feet  above  sea -level,  so  there  will  be  a  current 
down  the  two  portions  of  the  canal  towards  the  Mediterranean 
and  the  Eed  Sea  respectively.  The  rate  of  this  current  will 
depend  upon  the  quantity  of  irrigation  water  abstracted  from 
the  canal,  but  will  always  be  very  moderate.  Locks  are 
provided  where  the  canal  joins  the  Nile  at  Cairo,  and  basins 
and  docks  for  the  accommodation  of  shipping.  From  the 
basin  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river  the  canal  wends  its  way 
by  straight  reaches  and  easy  bends  to  Alexandria,  a  total 
distance  of  118  miles.  At  the  36th,  the  66th,  and  the 
85th  mile  locks  are  provided,  as  the  fall  from  the  Nile  to 
the  sea  would  otherwise  lead  to  a  current  of  destructive 
rapidity.  An  additional  lock  at  the  31st  mile  will  be  worked 
during  high  Nile.  It  will  be  seen  from  the  map  that  for 
the  last  28  miles  of  its  length  the  canal  runs  thro"gh  Lake 
Mareotis,  and  that  the  interference  with  cultivated  land  is 
minimised. 


CKOSSING  THE  NILE  257 

"  On  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  the  canal,  leaving  the 
Cairo  dock  basin,  follows  approximately  the  general  course 
of  the  Ismailia  and  Sweet  Water  Canal  to  Suez,  a  distance 
of  122  miles.  Locks  are  provided  at  the  40th  mile  and  at 
Suez  for  use  during  low  Nile,  and  in  flood-time  two  locks 
at  Cairo  and  at  the  22nd  mile  respectively  would  be  brought 
into  operation.  The  works  on  the  canal  call  for  no  obser- 
vation, as  they  are  similar  in  character  to  those  on  the 
thousands  of  miles  of  canal  already  constructed  in  Egypt." 

The  crossing  of  the  Nile  by  ships  in  transit  from 
Suez  to  Alexandria  was  to  be  facilitated  by  "  regulation 
works  of  some  magnitude." 

"  The  spot  selected  for  the  crossing  is  a  little  below  Cairo, 
where  the  two  flood  channels  unite  and  form  a  single  stream 
of  fairly  regular  and  equal  flow.  Training  walls  and  banks 
are  designed  to  confine  the  river  to  the  permanent  course 
for  a  certain  distance  above  and  below  the  point  of  crossing, 
and  direct  the  scour  so  as  to  maintain  the  required  depth 
for  the  passage  of  vessels.  A  railway  bridge  is  provided  to 
connect  the  lines  on  opposite  sides  of  the  river,  and  to  serve 
as  a  carrier  for  the  traversing  mooring  to  which  ships  would 
be  attached  when  crossing  the  Nile.  The  mode  of  procedure 
would  be  as  follows :  A  vessel,  say  from  Suez,  on  arriving  in 
the  Cairo  basin,  would  be  slewed  round  and  passed  through 
the  lock  into  the  Nile  stern  foremost,  with  her  bows  pointing 
straight  up  stream.  A  wire  hawser  would  be  attached  to 
the  traversing  mooring,  and  the  latter  would  be  hauled 
across  the  railway  bridge  by  fixed  hydraulic  engines  at  the 
Cairo  Docks,  taking  with  it  the  attached  vessel.  On  arriving 
at  the  opposite  bank  the  vessel  would  be  in  a  position  to 
enter  the  lock  to  the  Alexandria  Canal  bow  first.  There 
is  no  cross  current  tending  to  embarrass  the  operations,  since 
the  locks  point  sharply  down  stream,  and  the  ships  leave 
the  locks  stern  foremost  and  enter  them  bow  foremost.  .  .  . 
From  the  experience  gained  in  the  working  of  the  great 
s 


258  EGYPT 

railway  ferry  near  the  same  spot,  it  is  estimated  that  ten 
minutes  will  amply  suffice  for  the  warping  of  a  vessel  across 
the  river  from  one  canal  to  the  other." 

Such  a  canal  would,  it  is  further  urged,  be  most 
valuable  for  irrigation  purposes.  The  portion  from 
Cairo  to  Alexandria  would  supply  water 

"to  irrigate  without  pumping  the  half -million  feddans  of 
cultivated  and  cultivable  land  in  the  province  of  Behera," 
and  the  Suez  portion  of  the  canal  would  meet  the  irrigation 
requirements  "  of  about  a  million  feddans  in  the  provinces  of 
Charkieh  and  Dakalieh,  and  considerably  increase  the  facilities 
for  irrigating  a  further  area  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  feddans 
in  Gallioub." 

The  expenditure  required  to  construct  this  ship 
canal,  and  to  complete  the  barrage  with  the  required 
minor  irrigation  channels,  is  estimated  at  from  10  to 
12  millions.  The  water  rates  alone  would,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  engineers,  give  a  handsome  return 
independent  of  the  ship  dues.  The  fresh  water  would 
cleanse  the  ships'  bottoms  from  marine  growths,  and 
the  route  would  be  popular  with  travellers.  It  would 
be  at  least  a  day  longer  than  the  Suez  Canal  route, 
but  the  dues  would  be  less. 

"  In  conclusion,"  the  engineers  put  it,  "  it  may  be  said  that 
the  question  of  the  construction  of  an  alternative  Suez  Canal 
md  Alexandria  and  Cairo  resolves  itself  into  this:  Is  it,  in 
a  rainless  country  like  Egypt,  preferable  to  construct  a  sweet- 
water  canal  running  along  a  ridge,  or  to  widen  a  salt-water 
"  ditch "  lying  down  in  a  hollow  ?  and  is  it,  as  regards  our 
own  country,  preferable  to  have  an  alternative  route  for 
ships  through  Egypt  remote  from  the  present  one  and  under 
our  own  control,  or  to  be  wholly  dependent  upon  M.  de 
Lesseps  and  his  successors?" 


LECTUEE  ON  EGYPT  259 

About  the  same  time  a  series  of  articles  appeared 
in  the  Times  setting  out  the  desirability  and  prac- 
ticability of  having  an  alternative  canal  parallel  to 
that  controlled  by  M.  de  Lesseps.  These  articles 
succeeded  in  achieving  one  of  the  objects  of  con- 
troversy. They  made  the  adversary  very  angry. 

Happily  these  differences  have  been  composed,  and 
in  the  meantime  we  seem  to  be  working  smoothly  with 
the  successors  of  M.  de  Lesseps  ;  but  a  project  re- 
commended by  such  a  combination  of  practical  and 
scientific  authority  as  that  of  the  two  engineers  whose 
names  are  attached  to  the  above -quoted  article  is 
well  worthy  of  the  attention  of  administrators  and 
capitalists. 

To  return  to  the  other  important  subject  on  which 
Fowler  was  consulted,  namely,  to  the  question  of 
irrigation.  The  following  popular  description  of  Egypt 
taken  from  his  Tewkesbury  lecture  will  give  a  good 
idea  of  the  scene  of  these  labours. 

"  Egypt,"  he  says,  "  an  exceptional  country  in  every  respect, 
cannot  be  described  in  the  usual  manner  by  definite  numbers 
of  miles  in  length  and  breadth.  A  homely  illustration  is  often 
better  than  a  learned  disquisition  or  an  army  of  figures,  so 
I  will  ask  you  to  imagine  a  large  kite,  with  a  long  string 
or  tail,  laid  flat  on  a  sandy  beach,  with  its  head  washed  by 
the  sea,  and  its  tail  extended  straggling  inland  over  the  sand. 
This  will  give  you  a  good  general  idea  of  the  form  of  cultivable 
land  of  Egypt  and  the  surrounding  desert.  As  regards  size, 
you  must  suppose  the  head  of  the  kite  to  be  a  triangle  or  delta 
with  equal  sides  of  150  miles,  and  the  tail  to  be  about  2,500 
miles  long,  or  nearly  as  far  as  from  England  to  America,  for 
that  is  the  length  of  the  Nile  up  to  the  Equatorial  boundary 
of  Egypt.  The  area  of  the  body  of  the  kite,  which  represents 
the  cultivated  lands  of  the  Delta  and  Lower  Egypt,  is  rather 


260  EGYPT 

more  than  2,500,000  acres,  or,  say,  three  times  the  area  of 
Gloucestershire.  The  string,  or  tail,  represents  the  narrow 
ribbon  of  cultivated  land  on  each  side  of  the  Nile  in  Lower, 
Middle,  or  Upper  Egypt,  which  in  area  is  about  2,000,000  acres, 
or  two  and  a  half  times  the  size  of  Gloucestershire.  The  area 
of  the  whole  is  rather  less  than  Wales,  and  the  population, 
without  Kordofan  and  Darfour,  about  6,000,000,  or  the  same 
as  Ireland  and  50  per  cent,  more  than  London.  Thus  you 
see  how  insignificant  in  size  and  population  is  Egypt  Proper 
compared  with  the  interest  it  excites.  ...  If  there  were  no 
rain  in  Gloucestershire,  the  only  cultivated  lands  would  be 
those  subject  to  Severn  floods,  and  such  other  patches  of 
ground  as  could  be  irrigated  by  pumping  water  from  the 
Severn.  It  is  thus  in  Egypt ;  for  in  the  words  of  Herodotus, 
'Egypt  is  the  gift  of  the  Nile/  and  except  for  the  fertilising 
mud  in  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  the  whole  country  from  the 
junction  of  the  White  and  Blue  Niles  at  Khartoum  to  the 
sea  would  be  one  vast  desert  without  a  single  green  cultivated 
spot.  The  amount  of  mud  brought  down  by  the  Nile  each 
year,  according  to  my  investigations,  is  about  150,000,000  tons 
or  more  than  the  whole  excavations  of  the  Suez  Canal. 

"  So  much  for  the  mud,  now  for  the  water. 

"  The  discharge  of  the  Severn  at  Diglis  Weir,  during  an 
excessive  flood,  is  500  tons  per  second ;  that  of  the  Nile  at 
high  flood  is  10,000  tons  per  second.  I  have  had  occasion 
to  study  both  rivers  very  carefully,  and  I  am  able  to  tell 
you  that,  on  the  average,  the  Severn  discharges  3,500  million 
tons  of  water  per  annum  into  the  Bristol  Channel,  and  the 
Nile  no  less  than  thirty  times  that  quantity  into  the  Mediter- 
ranean, or  105,000  millions  of  tons,  sufficient  to  flood  the 
whole  area  of  England  to  a  depth  of  three  feet. 

"The  value  of  this  vast  supply  of  water  to  the  thirsty 
soil  under  the  hot  sun  and  rainless  sky  of  Egypt  cannot  be 
over-estimated.  When  the  first  Napoleon  was  in  Egypt,  he 
declared  his  determination,  if  he  remained  in  the  country, 
to  use  every  drop  of  Nile  water  on  the  land,  and  to  permit 
no  discharge  into  the  Mediterranean.  He  was  quite  right 


IRRIGATION  261 

in  the  principle  which  his  words  indicated,  though  he  could 
not  have  literally  accomplished  it. 

"  The  most  ancient  work  in  Egypt  for  storing  the  waters 
of  the  Mle  was  the  famous  Lake  Moeris,  situated  in  the  south- 
east part  of  the  land  called  the  Fayoum,  which  is  practically  a 
rich  oasis  with  one  side  joining  the  Mle  Valley  and  the  other 
abutting  on  the  Lake  Birket-el-karon,  whose  waters  are  nearly 
100  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean.  During  inun- 
dation the  waters  of  the  river  entered  into  Lake  Moeris  by 
means  of  a  canal,  and  were  retained  by  locks.  At  low  water, 
the  gates  were  opened  to  irrigate  the  great  plains  of  the  district 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  lake." 

In  the  same  lecture  he  describes  the  primitive 
methods  of  irrigation  which  it  was  part  of  his  business 
to  supersede  by  more  scientific  methods  : — 

"First.  The  Natala,  the  least  used,  and  only  for  raising 
water  to  a  small  height,  is  worked  by  two  men  swinging  a 
basket  by  ropes. 

"  Second.  The  Shadoof  is  formed  of  two  posts,  about  6  feet 
high  and  4  feet  apart,  with  a  palm-tree  pole  placed  horizontally 
across  the  top ;  to  this  a  lever  is  secured  by  ropes,  having  at 
one  end  a  balance  weight  and  at  the  other  a  leathern  bucket, 
attached  by  a  long  palm  stick.  The  bucket  is  pulled  down 
to  the  water  and  filled,  and  the  balance  weight  then  lifts  it 
to  the  required  height.  If  the  river  bank  is  high  two  or  more 
of  these  are  used,  one  above  the  other,  to  raise  the  water  to  the 
level  of  the  land.  The  usual  height  of  each  lift  is  from  8  to  9 
feet,  and  each  man  raises  about  25  gallons  of  water  per  minute. 
The  hieroglyphics  at  Thebes  represent  the  ancient  Egyptians 
working  shadoofs  of  precisely  the  same  construction  as  those 
employed  at  the  present  day. 

"  Third.  The  Sakieh,  or  Persian  wheel,  consists  of  a  vertical 
wheel  of  about  20  feet  diameter,  and  descending  to  the  level  of 
the  water  is  an  endless  rope  ladder  with  earthenware  jars 
attached.  The  jars  fill  as  they  dip  into  the  water,  are  drawn  up 
full,  and  when  at  their  maximum  elevation  discharge  into  a 


262  EGYPT 

trough  or  channel  from  which  smaller  channels  lead  into  the 
lands  for  irrigation.  The  sakieh  is  worked  by  means  of  oxen, 
or  other  cattle,  attached  to  a  horizontal  wheel,  which  works  by 
cogs  into  the  vertical  wheel  described." 

A  larger  measure  of  irrigation  had  been  inaugurated 
on  native  initiation.  This  was  the  Grand  Barrage  of 
the  Nile,  projected  by  Mehemet  Ali,  and  completed 
(so  far  as,  before  the  completion  carried  out  by  Sir 
Colin  Scott  Moncrieff,  it  can  be  said  to  have  been 
completed)  by  his  successor  Said  Pasha. 

"The  object  of  this  work  was  to  back  up  the  water  of  the 
Nile  to  a  certain  level  by  means  of  weirs  and  sluices,  so  as 
to  supply  irrigation  water  to  the  Delta  without  pumping.  The 
conception  was  a  grand  one,  and  the  principle  sound,  but 
the  foundations  and  other  details  were  insufficient,  and  the 
work  failed  to  accomplish  the  object  of  the  designer.  .  .  . 
When  the  sluices  fitted  in  the  arched  opening  were  first 
closed,  the  water  under  pressure  found  its  way  beneath  the 
foundations,  and,  carrying  sand  with  it,  undermined  and 
endangered  the  whole  structure.  Practically,  therefore,  the 
Barrage  has  been  of  comparatively  little  use,  except  as  a  bridge 
for  a  roadway  connecting  the  opposite  banks  of  the  river 
with  the  Delta." 

In  the  diary  for  1872  there  is  the  following  note 
on  the  Barrage  made  after  an  inspection  in  the 
company  of  Sir  William  Armstrong  and  Mr.  (now 
Lord)  Kendel,  who  were  then  with  Mr.  Fowler  at 
Cairo  : — 

"The  Barrage  is  situated  two  miles  below  this,  at  the 
southern  point  or  apex  of  the  Delta,  where  the  Nile  divides 
itself  into  two  branches,  Eosetta  and  Damietta.  This  work 
was  commenced  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  consists  of  a  bridge 
about  530  metres  long,  having  seventy-one  openings,  over  the 
Damietta  branch;  and  of  a  bridge  about  465  metres  long, 


THE  BAEEAGE  263 

having  sixty-one  openings,  over  the  Eosetta  branch.  The 
width  of  the  openings  are  all  the  same,  being  5  metres  wide. 
The  thickness  of  the  pier  2  metres  each.  The  width  of  the 
roadway  of  the  bridge  between  the  parapets  is  10  metres, 
while  the  piers  are  14  metres  in  length,  that  is,  the  piers  extend 
up  stream  5  metres  beyond  the  southern  face  of  the  archways  ; 
this  extension  of  the  piers  forms  the  point  of  attachment  of 
the  radial  arms  of  the  segmental  sluice  gates.  The  level  of  the 
springing  of  the  arches  is  8  metres  above  low  water,  the  road- 
way being  12  metres  above  the  same  level.  The  level  of  the 
top  of  the  sluices  when  shut  is  4  metres  above  low  water. 
'The  radier/  or  concrete  foundation,  is  32  metres  wide  and 
3  metres  thick,  is  enclosed  between  two  rows  of  piling,  and 
extends  the  whole  length  of  the  bridge.  The  piles  are  stated 
to  be  driven  to  a  depth  of  from  8  to  9  metres  below  low 
water.  The  level  of  the  upper  surface  of  the  radier  is  1*80 
metre  below  low  water.  About  three  or  four  years  ago,  when 
the  sluice  gates  were  closed  so  as  to  maintain  a  head  of  water 
of  about  3  metres,  it  was  observed  that  two  or  three  of  the 
arches  near  the  left  bank  of  the  Eosetta  branch  slid  in  a  down 
stream  direction  about  6  inches,  and  settled  to  some  extent 
at  the  same  time,  producing  serious  cracks  in  the  masonry; 
and  these  arches  have  since  then  continued  to  move  every 
year  to  a  slight  extent.  No  attempt  has  since  then  been  made 
to  maintain  a  head  of  water  greater  than  0*80  metre.  Works 
are  now  in  progress  to  ascertain  the  extent  of  damage  sustained 
by  the  foundations,  and  the  means  that  can  best  be  taken  for 
their  repair.  Provision  is  made  for  the  river  navigation  by 
means  of  two  locks  of  12  and  15  metres  wide  respectively. 

"  Between  these  two  bridges,  which  form  a  barrage,  or 
dam,  across  the  branches  of  the  river,  and  at  the  apex  of  the 
Delta,  is  placed  the  entrance  of  a  canal,  which  is  60  metres 
wide  at  bottom,  7J  metres  deep,  with  slopes  of  3  to  1.  It 
was  made  for  the  purpose  of  irrigating  a  large  area  of  the 
Delta,  but  in  consequence  of  the  failure  of  the  barrage,  by 
which  the  required  head  of  water  cannot  be  attained,  this 
object  has  been  but  very  partially  fulfilled.  The  barrage  over 


264  EGYPT 

the  Damietta  branch  remains  at  present  unprovided  with  per- 
manent sluice  gates." 

"The  completion  of  the  barrage,"  says  Mr.  Fowler,  in  his 
Tewkesbury  lecture,  "was  one  of  the  works  which  the  late 
Khedive  most  desired  to  have  carried  out.  By  his  instructions 
I  made  minute  surveys  and  studies,  including  observations  to 
obtain  the  minimum  flow  of  the  Mle,  and  also  made  borings 
to  a  considerable  depth  near  the  site  of  the  barrage.  These 
borings  penetrated  through  the  Nile  deposit  into  the  original 
marine  sand  and  gravel,  and  were  of  considerable  interest 
beyond  the  object  for  which  they  were  taken.  Eventually 
I  drew  up  an  exhaustive  report,  design,  and  estimate  for  the 
whole  work  of  rectification  and  completion,  which  proved 
beyond  doubt  the  practicability  of  the  work,  and  its  value 
in  largely  increasing  the  revenue  of  Egypt  at  a  comparatively 
small  cost.  For  the  sum  of  about  £1,500,000,  the  Nile  floods 
would  be  regulated,  pumping  dispensed  with,  serious  damage 
to  crops  rendered  impossible,  and  about  600,000  additional 
acres  of  land  brought  under  cultivation.  The  design  was 
approved,  and  its  execution  would  certainly  have  produced  a 
clear  profit  of  more  than  £1,000,000  per  annum,  but  un- 
fortunately some  delay  took  place  and  now  financial  diffi- 
culties have  postponed  it  sine  die." 

The  great  difficulty  of  the  engineering  operation 
was  occasioned  by  the  enormous  weight  of  water  which 
had  to  be  upheld,  and  the  terrific  force  of  the  rush 
of  water  over  a  vertical  fall  of  several  metres.  A  plan 
had  been  submitted  to  the  Khedive  by  Colonel  Kundall 
which  proposed  to  rely  on  the  existing  edifice  and  to 
protect  the  bed  of  the  river  by  some  species  of  paving. 
This  Fowler  condemned  as  altogether  inadequate.  His 
own  proposal  recommended  the  erection  of  a  supple- 
mentary curtain  or  wall,  which  should  have  the  effect 
of  relieving  some  of  the  stress  thrown  on  the  barrage. 
Mr.  Gatget,  a  contractor  largely  interested  in  Egyptian 


THE  WORK   ABANDONED  265 

operations,  had  made  a  similar  suggestion  and  had  pro- 
posed to  build  the  wall  or  curtain  above  the  barrage. 
Mr.  Fowler's  design,  however,  was  to  place  the  curtain 
wall  below  the  barrage.  This  device  would  provide 
what  Fowler  calls  a  "water  cushion"  which  would 
effectually  break  the  force  of  the  falling  waters. 

Like  the  Soudan  Bailway,  the  work  of  Egyptian 
irrigation  has  again  been  renewed.  The  barrage  has 
been  restored  by  Sir  Colin  Scott  Moncrieff  and  a  staff  of 
engineers  who  had  gained  their  experience  of  irrigation 
works  in  India;  and  at  the  present  time  Sir  John 
Fowler's  partner,  Sir  Benjamin  Baker,  is  consulting 
engineer  to  the  Egyptian  Government,  which  is  carry- 
ing out  great  supplementary  works  by  making  dams 
across  the  Nile  above  and  below  Cairo  so  as  to  control 
more  completely  the  fertilising  flow  of  the  mighty 
river,  and  a  huge  reservoir  above  Assouan  to  store 
flood  water  for  summer  use. 

All  these  important  works,  as  has  been  already 
indicated,  were  conducted  during  a  period  of  financial 
pressure.  The  diaries  are  full  of  indications  of  the 
coming  collapse.  Under  date  February  2nd,  1877, 
the  situation  is  summed  up  with  telegraphic  brevity 
in  the  following  despatch  sent  by  Messrs.  Stephenson, 
Clark  and  Co.  to  Mr.  Fowler :  '  *  When  do  you  expect 
to  get  the  money  from  the  Khedive  ?  "  No  satisfactory 
reply  was  forthcoming  to  this  and  similar  inquiries. 
Barrot  Bey,  interrogated  by  Mr.  Baldry  and  Mr.  Arthur 
Fowler,  referred  them  to  the  Minister  of  Finance  and 
the  Minister  of  Finance  referred  them  to  the  Khedive. 
Messrs.  Siemens  and  Co.,  according  to  an  entry  of 
the  5th,  refused  to  send  further  shipments  till  payment 
was  made.  On  March  4th  Mr.  Fowler  had  an  interview 


266  EGYPT 

with  His  Highness,  when,  after  suitable  apology,  he 
opened  up  the  question  of  accounts.  His  Highness 
admitted  the  urgency  of  the  situation,  and  very 
graciously  promised  to  mention  the  subject  to  the 
Minister  of  Finance.  Many  of  these  sums  were  per- 
sonal debts  of  the  Khedive,  but  all  alike  they  seemed 
to  drift  into  the  "floating  debt"  about  which  Gordon 
wrote  with  such  grim  humour.  His  Highness  Prince 
Hussein,  the  Minister  of  Finance,  was  next  seen  ;  he 
replied  that,  knowing  Mr.  Fowler  so  well  and  so  long, 
he  desired  to  effect  a  settlement  as  quickly  as  possible. 
11  He  would  confer  with  the  Controller,  without  whom 
he  could  make  no  decision."  And  so  the  evasive  game 
went  on. 

Other  negotiations  with  this  courteous  but  impecu- 
nious potentate  were  more  successful. 

The  diary  records  how  Mr.  Fowler  co-operated  with 
the  British  Consul-General,  Mr.  (afterwards  Lord)  Vivian, 
in  obtaining  the  Khedive's  leave  to  remove  Cleopatra's 
Needle  to  England.  The  obelisk,  packed  in  a  cylindrical 
sea-going  vessel  designed  by  Mr.  Benjamin  Baker,  was 
brought  to  England,  and  erected  on  the  Thames  Em- 
bankment by  Mr.  Dixon,  the  engineer  and  contractor. 
The  cost,  much  increased  by  salvage  charges  arising  out 
of  a  temporary  abandonment  of  the  vessel  in  the  Bay 
of  Biscay,  exceeded  by  about  £7,000  the  contract  price 
of  £10,000  subscribed  by  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  Erasmus 
Wilson.  The  following,  from  a  letter  dated  Cairo,  March 
10th,  1877,  addressed  by  Mr.  Fowler  to  Mr.  Dixon,  is  of 
sufficient  interest  to  warrant  reproduction  :— 

"  You  and  all  friends  in  England  will,  I  am  sure,  be  gratified 
with  the  manner,  as  well  as  with  the  fact,  of  the  consent  of  the 
Khedive  respecting  the  removal  of  the  obelisk  to  England. 


CLEOPATRA'S   NEEDLE  267 

"  Mr.  Vivian  sends  by  post  to-day  the  letter  of  Cherif  Pasha 
giving  the  consent  of  the  Khedive,  and  his  reply  of  thanks  for 
the  consent  and  terms  of  it. 

"These  letters  are  so  admirable  that  in  my  opinion  they 
should  be  published,  which  the  Times  will  be  glad  to  do,  in 
appropriate  type  and  position. 

"  As  to  the  best  mode  of  obtaining  the  publicity,  I  would 
suggest  that  some  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  should 
be  requested  to  ask  the  Government  if  there  be  any  objection 
to  their  production  of  the  correspondence  respecting  the 
removal  of  Cleopatra's  Needle. 

"  You  can  easily  find  a  member  who  will  willingly  do  this, 
but,  before  doing  so,  see  Lord  Tenterden. 

"I  saw  His  Highness  the  Khedive  this  morning,  and  told 
him  of  the  telegram  from  London  requesting  me  to  thank  him 
for  his  very  courteous  assent. 

"  I  must  now  tell  you  how  immensely  we  are  all  indebted  to 
Mr.  Vivian,  Her  Majesty's  Consul-General,  who  has  not  only 
given  his  influential  assistance  to  bring  about  the  decisive 
result  in  the  kindest  possible  manner,  but  has  guided  all 
parties  as  to  the  proper  manner  of  doing  it,  and  has  succeeded 
perfectly.  .  .  . 

"I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  congratulate  you  on  the  success 
which  has  thus  far  rewarded  your  perseverance. 

"  I  shall  be  in  London  in  a  short  time,  and  you  can  always 
consult  me  on  engineering  points." 

Next  year,  1878,  Fowler,  shortly  after  his  arrival  in 
Egypt,  had  an  interview  with  the  Khedive,  with  regard 
to  which  there  is  the  following  entry  :— 

"  January  20. — After  some  remarks  from  His  Highness  as 
to  the  financial  advantages  that  would  be  obtained  by  the  re- 
construction of  the  barrage,  Mr.  Fowler  said  he  told  all  his 
friends  who  were  interested  in  the  finances  of  Egypt,  that,  in 
any  financial  scheme  for  this  country,  proper  provision  should 
be  made  for  the  improvement  of  the  country  and  for  public 


268  EGYPT 

works,  such  as  the  barrage,  canals,  and  the  Soudan  Eailway. 
His  Highness  said  Mr.  Fowler  was  quite  right,  and  this  would  be 
the  only  proper  way  of  dealing  with  the  question ;  the  Soudan 
Eailway  was  a  most  important  work  with  reference  especially 
to  the  Soudan  and  the  Equatorial  provinces,  where  there  were 
at  present  from  ten  to  twelve  million  people  shut  out  from 
communication  with  the  civilised  world.  The  railway  would 
be  the  means  of  opening  up  and  civilising  the  people,  and 
developing  the  commerce  and  industry  of  those  regions. 

"  Later  in  the  day  Mr.  Fowler  showed  His  Highness  a  model 
of  the  barrage,  when,  on  being  told  that  the  cost  would  be  one 
and  a  half  million,  His  Highness  remarked  that  this  work 
would  be  the  best  guarantee  the  bondholders  could  have.  Mr. 
Fowler  agreed,  and  His  Highness  added  that  it  would  be  a 
better  guarantee  than  all  the  controllers  and  all  the  Caisse. 
The  new  Administration  had  already  cost  the  country  in 
one  year  £150,000,  or  about  10  per  cent,  on  one  and  a  half 
million." 

On  February  5th  Mr.  Fowler  records  that  he  had 
a  long  talk  with  Mr.  Vivian,  who  said  that  affairs 
were  in  a  most  critical  state,  as  open  war  had  broken 
out  between  the  Khedive  and  the  bondholders,  who 
were  disposed  to  make  a  point  of  the  Khedive's 
removal  before  entering  into  any  further  pourparlers 
for  a  new  arrangement. 

At  an  interview  with  His  Highness,  February  19th, 
Mr.  Fowler  explained 

"  that  he  proposed  to  return  to  England  on  the  following 
Saturday.  His  Highness  said  he  wished  to  speak  with  him 
on  the  subject  of  the  barrage,  and  asked  him  whether  he 
had  considered  means  for  obtaining  funds  for  that  work. 
Mr.  Fowler  replied  that  he  had  thought  of  this.  He  was 
of  opinion  that  provision  should  be  made  for  this  work 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  reconsideration  and  rearrangement 
of  the  finances. 


FINANCE  269 

"His  Highness  said  he  considered  the  matter  did  not 
concern  the  bondholders,  and  that  they  ought  not  to  be 
consulted  in  the  matter.  The  proprietors  of  the  land  were 
the  persons  interested,  and  the  money  required  should  be 
obtained  on  their  security." 

At  a  further  interview,  two  days  later,  February 
21st,  1878,  His  Highness  again  dilated  on  the  im- 
portance of  the  barrage.  He  explained  that  two 
million  feddan  then  useless  might  be  brought  under 
cultivation,  and  that  the  revenue  might  be  immensely 
increased  in  a  short  period.  The  barrage  works,  how- 
ever, must  be  abandoned  till  some  definite  financial 
arrangement  had  been  made.  His  intention  was  that, 
as  soon  as  the  financial  difficulties  were  overcome,  the 
barrage  should  receive  his  first  consideration,  and  be 
carried  out  with  Mr.  Fowler's  assistance. 

Mr.  Fowler  pointed  out  that  the  existing  financial 
scheme  was  most  unfavourable,  not  only  for  Egypt 
but  also  for  the  bondholders ;  that  it  made  no  pro- 
vision for  payment  of  the  just  claims  of  the 
Administration,  and  none  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
existing  public  works  upon  which  the  welfare  of 
the  country  depends,  nor  for  the  construction  of  the 
new  ones  of  which  the  country  stands  in  need.  His 
Highness  said  that  Mr.  Fowler  was  quite  right,  that 
he  himself  had  only  the  interest  of  the  country  at 
heart,  that  he  had  asked  the  British  Government  to 
appoint  a  suitable  person  as  Inspector-General  of  Lower 
Egypt,  to  whom  he  was  prepared  to  give  full  powers. 
This  proved  that  he  was  acting  honestly,  although 
many  people  were  pleased  to  accuse  him  of  bad 
intentions  and  of  hiding  something.  This  invitation 
to  the  British  Government  was  sufficient  answer  to 


270  EGYPT 

such  accusations,  and  he  only  regretted  that  they  had 
refused  to  accede  to  his  request.  He  hoped  they 
would  reconsider  their  decision.  Mr.  Goschen,  he  said, 
was  too  much  occupied  with  his  own  personal  political 
position  at  home ;  he  had  adopted  his  scheme  hastily 
and  without  due  consideration,  and  it  was  an  evident 
failure,  and  he  was  now  endeavouring  by  calumny 
and  all  means  in  his  power  to  throw  the  fault  of 
that  failure  on  His  Highness. 

Mr.  Fowler  pointed  out  that  it  was  a  very  serious 
thing  for  anyone  in  Mr.  Goschen's  position,  and  with 
his  financial  reputation,  to  acknowledge  the  failure. 
His  Highness  replied  that  the  failure  was  evident, 
and  must  be  understood  by  everyone,  but  that  Mr. 
Goschen  was  a  very  obstinate  man  and  was  endeavour- 
ing to  cover  his  own  failure  by  laying  blame  on  His 
Highness. 

Mr.  Fowler  said  he  had  known  of  His  Highness' 
request  to  the  British  Government  to  appoint  an 
Inspector-General,  and  in  an  interview  he  had  with 
Lord  Derby,  whom  he  knew  very  well,  he  had 
recommended  that  if  the  Government  did  send  any- 
one in  that  capacity  it  should  be  a  man  of  high 
position,  so  that  his  advice  might  be  of  real  service 
to  His  Highness. 

On  February  23rd  there  is  further  mention  of  the 
financial  situation  and  of  an  interview  with  Mr. 
Vivian. 

"With  regard  to  Mr.  Goschen's  scheme,  Mr.  Vivian  agreed 
with  Mr.  Fowler  that  it  was  an  incomplete  scheme,  Neither 
Mr.  Vivian  nor  Mr.  Fowler  thought  that  the  payment  of  tin- 
next  coupon  when  it  fell  due  was  possible,  unless  there  was 
money  in  the  State  chest  unknown  to  the  Controllers." 


FINANCE  271 

Mr.  Fowler  called  afterwards  on  Barrot  Bey,  with 
whom  he  had  a  general  conversation.  Mr.  Fowler 
expressed  his  opinion  that  even  if  a  full  and  complete 
arrangement  was  made  to  meet  all  debts  (as  well  as 
the  bondholders)  the  country  would  even  then  be 
able  to  bear  the  strain  upon  it,  provided  that  the 
finances  were  ably  and  skilfully  handled. 

To  render  clear  the  above  expression  of  opinion,  a 
brief  summary  of  the  history  of  Egyptian  finance  is 
required. 

"The  first  general  settlement  of  all  liabilities,  which  was 
effected  on  the  proposals  of  Mr.  Goschen  and  M.  Joubert  in 
November,  1876,  was  of  very  short  duration.  The  arrange- 
ment, indeed,  was  a  reasonable  one,  upon  the  facts  as  stated 
to  these  gentlemen,  but  unfortunately  the  statement  was 
wholly  misleading."  * 

On  the  breakdown  of  the  Goschen  arrangement  some 
new  scheme  had  to  be  proposed.  It  was  the  view  of 
the  Khedive,  of  Fowler,  and  of  the  illustrious  Gordon 
that  the  situation  did  not  entirely  belong  to  the 
bondholders.  The  opinion  of  the  Khedive  was  not  per- 
haps entitled  to  much  consideration.  The  debt  was  his 
autocratic  creation,  and  his  personal  responsibility  to 
the  bondholders  was  undoubted.  Fowler  was  of  opinion 
that,  with  proper  management,  the  bondholders  might 
be  paid,  and  that  provision  might  still  be  forthcoming 
for  the  engineering  development  of  Egypt;  but  that 
in  any  case  the  development  of  the  country  should 
not  be  postponed  to  the  rights  of  the  bondholders. 
Gordon's  position  was  not  very  different,  though 
naturally  the  expense  of  establishing  good  government 
as  conceived  by  him  included  less  engineering  than 

*  MILNER,  England  in  Egypt,  2nd  edition,  p.  220. 


272  EGYPT 

in  the  estimate  of  Fowler.  The  Khedive,  worried  to 
death  by  the  demands  of  the  representatives  of  the 
bondholders  —  the  financial  cormorants,  as  Gordon 
called  them — in  January,  1878,  summoned  Gordon  to 
Cairo  from  the  Soudan  to  help  him  over  his  financial 
difficulties.  Gordon,  in  March  of  this  year,  agreed  to 
accept  the  post  of  president  of  a  Commission  of 
Inquiry.  With  him  was  associated  M.  de  Lesseps, 
and  the  understanding  was  that  the  Commissioners  of 
the  Debt,  who  were  regarded  as  the  representatives 
of  the  bondholders,  should  not  be  on  the  Commission 
of  Inquiry.  The  story  of  this  extraordinary  trans- 
action is  told  at  length  in  Mr.  Boulger's  Life  of 
Gordon.  Lesseps  took  little  interest  in  the  matter, 
and  surrendered  to  the  pressure  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment, which,  with  the  other  Great  Powers,  insisted  on 
the  Debt  Commissioners  being  placed  on  the  inquiry. 
The  representatives  of  all  the  European  Powers  were 
against  Gordon  and  the  Khedive.  Gordon  desired 
to  have  money  for  the  payment  of  salaries  in  arrear 
and  the  redress  of  grievances,  and  even  proposed  to 
obtain  it  by  repudiation  of  the  next  coupon.  "  Ismail 
was  not  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  shut  himself  up 
in  his  harem  for  two  days,  and,  as  Gordon  said,  'the 
game  was  lost.' ' 

The  facts  and  the  equity  of  the  situation  are  very 
much  involved.  With  Gordon  and  with  Fowler  we 
may  doubt  the  right  of  a  spendthrift  autocrat  to 
pledge  the  credit  of  his  impoverished  serfs  for  pay- 
ment of  his  debts.  It  is  represented,  however,  and 
forcibly  enough  by  Milner,  that  the  burden  from  which 
Egypt  was  suffering  was  not  the  debt  to  the  bond- 

*  BOULGER,  vol.  ii.  p.  23. 


ISMAIL  DEPOSED  273 

holders,  but  the  incorrigible  dishonesty  of  poor  Ismail 
himself.  The  first  thing  to  be  repudiated  was  the 
ruler.  This,  as  we  all  know,  was  done,  but  the 
difficulty  remained  that  there  was  nothing  satisfactory 
to  put  in  his  place.  Ismail  was,  without  doubt,  the 
ablest  of  his  family.  Even  Gordon,  who  knew  how 
little  he  was  to  be  trusted,  regretted  his  abdication. 
"It  grieves  me,"  he  writes,  "to  think  what  sufferings 
my  poor  Khedive  Ismail  has  had  to  go  through."* 

Subsequent  events  seem  to  show  that  there  was 
justice  in  both  views.  When  Ismail  was  removed, 
after  an  interval  during  which  progress  was  much 
obstructed  by  the  jealousies  of  the  dual  control,  the 
finances  of  Egypt  under  skilful  management  are 
proving  equal  to  the  discharge  of  Ismail's  debts  and 
to  the  gradual  development  of  Egyptian  resources  by 
works  which  in  that  country  seem  necessarily  left  in 
the  hands  of  the  Government. 

In  1879  Mr.  Fowler  returned  to  Egypt  at  the  end 
of  January.  The  diary  tells  of  conferences  with 
Mr.  Kivers  Wilson,  M.  de  Lesseps,  and  with  the 
Khedive,  with  respect  to  his  engineering  undertakings. 
The  end,  however,  was  fast  approaching,  and  no  satis- 
factory arrangement  could  be  made  for  the  continuance 
of  the  works. 

Tuesday,  February  18th,  1879,  is  marked  as  a 

"famous  day,  from  the  'demonstration'  by  Egyptian  officers 
to  demand  their  pay  at  the  Ministry  of  Finance,  leading  to  a 
slight  assault  on  Nubar  Pasha  and  Eivers  Wilson,  and  the 
appearance  of  the  Khedive  on  the  scene  with  troops,  who 
quelled  the  affair  after  a  few  persons  had  been  wounded. 
Nubar  Pasha  resigned  next  day.  On  the  following  days  no 
business  was  done,  owing  to  the  confusion  and  excitement." 

*  Story  of  Chinese  Gordon,  HAKE,  vol.  ii.  p.  358. 
T 


274  EGYPT 

Mr.  Fowler  enters  in  the  note  that  he  called  on 
Rivers  Wilson  and  begged  him  not  to  resign,  as  he 
would  sacrifice  himself  and  do  no  good  by  such  a  step. 

On  Wednesday,  March  13th,  Mr.  Fowler  wrote  to 
the  Khedive  a  farewell  letter.  On  March  15th  he  had 
a  farewell  interview  with  the  Khedive,  at  which  that 
courteous  potentate  made  a  great  many  handsome 
speeches.  And  so  John  Fowler  passed  out  of  the 
tangled  skein  of  Egyptian  politics. 

The  surveys  of  the  Soudan  and  much  other  informa- 
tion collected  by  Mr.  Fowler  were  subsequently  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  Her  Majesty's  Government. 

The  London  Gazette  of  Tuesday,  September  1st, 
1885,  contains  the  following  announcement:— 

"Chancery  of  the  Order  of  St.  Michael  and  St.  George, 
Downing  Street,  September  1st. 

"The  Queen  has  been  graciously  pleased  to  give  directions 
for  the  following  appointment  to  the  Most  Distinguished  Order 
of  St.  Michael  and  St.  George  : — 

"To  be  an  Ordinary  Member  of  the  Second  Class,  or 
Knights  Commanders  of  the  said  Most  Distinguished  Order, 
John  Fowler,  Esq.,  C.E.,  for  services  rendered  to  Her  Majesty's 
Government  in  connection  with  the  recent  operations  in  Egypt 
and  the  Soudan." 

A  question  addressed  by  his  son,  the  Eev.  Montague 
Fowler,  to  the  Commander-in- Chief  as  to  the  precise 
nature  of  Sir  John's  services  has  elicited  the  following 
interesting  reply  :— 

"  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF,  January  12th,  1900. 

"  DEAR  MR.  FOWLER, — In  1884  Sir  John  Fowler  most  kindly 
placed  in  my  hands  copies  of  the  surveys  he  had  made  for  a 
railway  from  Assuan  to  Khartoum.* 

*  For  Fowler's  opinion  as  to  the  superiority  of  the  Nile  route  over  the 
Suakin  Berber  route,  see  p.  342. 


TESTIMONY   OF  LOKD   WOLSELEY  275 

"They  were  invaluable  to  me  in  1884-5,  and  helped  the 
army  very  materially  in  our  advance  upon  Khartoum.  They 
were  well  executed,  and  enabled  my  operating  columns  to  find 
water  where  no  other  available  maps  informed  me  it  was  to 
be  had. 

"I  feel  I  owe  your  father  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  for  all 
the  information  he  furnished  me  during  that  too  lately  under- 
taken expedition  to  try  and  save  General  Charles  Gordon's 
life.  You  are  at  liberty  to  make  any  use  you  wish  of  what 

I  say  here.  WT>  ,. 

"  Believe  me  to  be, 

«  Very  faithfully  yours, 

"  WOLSELEY." 


To  complete  the  list  of  Sir  John  Fowler's  engage- 
ments outside  the  United  Kingdom,  two  later  expedi- 
tions should  here  be  mentioned.  In  1886,  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  he  went  to  Australia,  and  inspected  the 
railways  of  New  South  Wales,  of  which  for  forty  years 
his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Whitton,  had  been  engineer- 
in-chief.  Sir  John  remained  consulting  engineer  to 
the  Government  of  the  Colony  till  his  death. 

In  1890  he  visited  India,  taking  with  him  his 
eldest  son.  Here  he  was  hospitably  entertained  by 
the  Viceroy,  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  by  the  governors 
of  Bombay,  Bengal,  and  Madras,  all  of  them  old 
personal  friends.  A  special  train  was  put  at  his 
disposal  during  the  period  of  his  visit.  He  was  con- 
sulted by  Lord  Koberts  on  the  frontier  railways,  and 
by  the  Government  on  a  variety  of  engineering 
problems.  This  flattering  reception  was  a  fitting  re- 
cognition of  a  long  career  of  industry  and  usefulness. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  FORTH   BRIDGE 

"ITTE  now  come  to  the  last  great  work  with  which 
'  '     Fowler  was  connected,   the  crowning  victory  of 
engineering    science    in    the    nineteenth    century,    the 
bridging  of  the  tidal  estuary  of  the  Forth. 

A  reference  to  the  map  of  Scotland  will  show  that 
if  a  line  is  drawn  from  D unbar,  on  the  Haddington 
coast,  to  Anstruther,  on  the  opposite  shore  of  Fife, 
there  will  be  to  the  west  of  it  a  firth  of  some  62  miles 
long.  Till  comparatively  recent  years  there  was  no 
bridge  across  this  great  flow  of  water  till  we  reached 
its  westernmost  point  at  Stirling.  The  Lothians,  Fife, 
and  Kinross  contain  some  of  the  richest  mineral  and 
agricultural  districts  in  the  United  Kingdom,  but  up 
to  the  year  1885,  when  the  Alloa  Bridge  was  made, 
all  traffic  between  the  north  and  south  of  the  Forth 
had  to  go  round  by  Stirling,  or  be  carried  over  the 
firth  in  ferry-boats.  The  bridge  at  Alloa  was  some 
42  miles  to  the  west  of  the  imaginary  line  above 
described.  There  were  three  principal  ferries  across 
the  water.  That  best  known  to  passengers  of  the 
present  generation,  from  Granton  to  Burntisland, 
which  was  twenty-four  miles  up  the  Forth ;  next,  some 
eight  miles  higher  up  the  river,  the  passage  familiar 
to  readers  of  Tlie  Antiquary,  from  South  to  North 

276 


THE   OLD   PASSAGE  277 

Queensferry,  close  to  the  site  of  the  great  bridge ; 
and  a  smaller  and  less  important  crossing,  to  Kin- 
cardine, some  fifteen  miles  further  to  the  west.  In 
addition  to  the  great  inconvenience  caused  to  local 
travellers  and  traffic,  a  vast  amount  of  goods  in  transit 
to  the  northern  part  of  Scotland  was  brought  into 
Edinburgh  by  the  great  trunk  lines  from  the  south, 
and  there  delayed.  The  railway  passage  at  Stirling  and 
at  Alloa  was  in  the  hands  of  one  company,  which 
naturally  was  not  inclined  to  give  the  fullest  facilities 
to  its  competitors. 

As  we  noticed  in  discussing  the  Channel  Ferry 
scheme,  there  was  between  Granton  and  Burntisland 
a  service  of  ferry-boats,  which  carried  goods  trains,  or 
portions  of  goods  trains,  from  shore  to  shore,  but  the 
transit  of  passengers  was  attended  with  the  most 
terrible  discomfort  and  inconvenience.  After  a  short 
railway  journey  from  Edinburgh,  the  passengers  with 
their  luggage  were  turned  out  at  Granton  at  a  miserable 
station.  Laden  with  wraps  and  hand-packages,  they 
had  to  stagger  down  over  rough  cobble  stones  to  the 
steamer.  Here,  at  a  narrow  gangway,  a  stern  official 
demanded  the  ticket  of  the  exhausted  traveller,  who 
had  to  drop  his  packages  in  the  wet,  and  search  his 
pockets  for  the  missing  bit  of  cardboard.  The  heavy 
baggage  was  brought  down  in  hand-barrows  by  per- 
spiring porters.  The  descent,  when  the  tide  was  low, 
was  steep,  and  the  only  brake  employed  on  the  two- 
wheeled  luggage  barrows  was  the  iron-shod  front 
supports.  These,  set  down  on  the  cobbles,  produced 
a  terrific  grinding  noise,  which  caused  a  widespread 
panic  among  the  timid  and  struggling  passengers. 
The  ascent  of  these  barrows  was  aided  on  debarka- 


278  THE  FOETH   BRIDGE 

tion  by  great  Clydesdale  horses  with  clanking  chains, 
which  charged  among  the  sea- sick  and  heavily-laden 
crowd.  At  the  end  of  the  summer  season,  when  the 
trains  were  crowded  by  a  southward-tending  flight 
of  passengers,  the  railway  companies  were  frequently 
obliged  to  leave  the  baggage  behind,  and  travellers 
to  England  found  on  arrival  at  Edinburgh  that  they 
must  either  stay  the  night  or  go  on  without  their 
luggage.  The  distance  across  was  about  five  miles,  and 
on  some  days  of  wild  weather  the  ferry  service  had 
to  be  suspended.  The  steamers  were  not  large,  as  the 
harbour  accommodation  was  not  extensive,  and  in  an 
easterly  gale  a  crowded  passage  in  the  John  Stirling 
or  the  William  Mure  was  a  most  painful  experience. 
In  the  dim  distance,  some  eight  miles  away,  the  passen- 
ger could  see  and  follow  with  his  prayers  the  building 
of  the  great  bridge  which  was  to  take  him  in  safety 
and  comfort  from  shore  to  shore. 

The  bridge,  in  fact,  was  urgently  desired  by  the  great 
railway  companies,  the  local  traders,  and  by  the  growing 
flight  of  passengers  to  Fife  and  the  north.  With  the 
successful  erection  of  the  second  Tay  Bridge,  which 
preceded  the  Forth  Bridge  by  some  years,  the  important 
trading  centres  of  Dundee,  Arbroath,  and  Aberdeen 
stood  ready  to  add  their  traffic  to  the  new  route. 

The    elaborate   history   of    the    Forth   Bridge,*   re- 

*  We  desire  to  acknowledge  here  our  extreme  indebtedness  to  this 
elaborate  and  beautiful  volume.  The  following  extract  from  a  letter 
written  by  one  of  the  editors,  Mr.  James  Dredge,  to  Sir  John  Fowler,  is 
of  considerable  interest : — 

"March  7^,  1890.  ...  I  was  pleased  to  hear  from  Percival  this  morning 
that  you  like  our  Record  of  the  Bridge.  I  am  well  satisfied  with  it,  and 
we  all  are.  The  opening  of  the  Britannia  Bridge,  forty  years  ago,  was 
celebrated  by  the  production  of  a  volume  that  cost  £12,000  to  produce  ; 
the  record  of  your  work  (so  far)  is  a  sixpenny  newspaper  ! " 


SIK  T.   BOUGH'S   PLAN  279 

printed  from  Engineering,  to  which  we  are  indebted 
for  many  of  these  particulars,  tells  of  one  or  two 
earlier  but  abortive  schemes  for  bridging  the  firth. 
A  double  tunnel  was  proposed  in  1805.  In  1818 
Mr.  James  Anderson  proposed  a  chain  bridge,  of  which 
Mr.  Westhofen  has  remarked  that  it  was  so  slight  a 
structure  that  it  would  hardly  have  been  visible  on 
a  dull  day,  and  that  after  a  storm  it  would  never  again 
have  been  visible  even  on  a  clear  day. 

In  1860  and  in  1865  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir  Thomas) 
Bouch,  at  the  instance  of  the  North  British  Eailway 
Company,  proposed  a  bridge  to  cross  at  a  point  some  six 
miles  above  Queensferry.  This  proposal  fell  through, 
and  it  was  not  till  1873  that  a  separate  and  inde- 
pendent company,  the  Forth  Bridge  Company,  was 
formed  to  carry  out  Sir  Thomas  Bouch's  design  of  a 
suspension  bridge,  with  two  spans  of  1,600  feet  each. 
The  Great  Northern,  the  North  Eastern,  the  Midland, 
and  the  North  British  Eailways  agreed  to  find  the 
capital,  and  to  send  traffic  sufficient  over  the  bridge 
to  pay  6  per  cent,  on  the  contract  price.  Some  founda- 
tion stones  were  laid,  but  in  December,  1879,  the 
first  Tay  Bridge,  the  design  of  Sir  Thomas  Bouch, 
collapsed,  and  the  public  confidence  was  shaken.  Sir 
John  Fowler,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  had 
always  distrusted  this  work,  and  would  not  allow  his 
family  to  cross  it.  One  of  the  defects  of  the  bridge 
was  that  the  piers  were  constructed  with  too  narrow 
a  base.  Sir  John  Fowler,  on  the  day  of  the  news 
reaching  London,  happened  to  meet  his  friend,  Mr. 
Nasmyth,  the  inventor  of  the  steam  hammer,  at  an 
exhibition  of  Holbein  pictures,  and  the  remark  passed 
between  the  two  engineers  that  the  ill-fated  bridge 


280  THE  FOKTH   BEIDGE 

might  still  be  standing  if  the  designer  had  adopted  the 
Holbein  "  straddle,"  that  peculiar  attitude  which  the 
artist  gives  to  his  male  figures,  very  particularly,  it 
may  be  remembered,  in  his  pictures  of  King  Henry 
VIII.  The  design  of  the  bridge,  however,  is  now 
admitted  to  have  been  faulty  in  other  respects.  As 
a  result  of  this  mishap,  Sir  Thomas  Bouch's  design  for 
a  suspension  bridge  over  the  Forth  was  abandoned,  and 
Messrs.  Barlow,  Harrison,  and  Fowler,  the  consulting 
engineers  of  the  promoting  railway  companies,  met  to 
decide  what  steps  should  be  taken.  The  inquiry  con- 
sidered the  situation  from  every  point  of  view.  They 
discarded  the  proposal  for  a  tunnel  and  the  principle 
of  a  suspension  bridge,  and  finally  adopted,  with  some 
modifications  introduced  to  meet  the  views  of  the 
other  engineers,  a  plan  submitted  by  Messrs.  Fowler 
and  Baker,  who  were  appointed  engineers  to  carry  it 
into  effect . 

In  July,  1882,  an  Act  was  obtained.  Each  of  the 
contracting  railway  companies  agreed  to  find  its  share 
of  capital,  and  to  guarantee  the  payment  of  4  per 
cent.  The  North  British  Kailway  undertook  to  keep 
up  the  permanent  way  and  to  manage  the  traffic ; 
while  the  Forth  Bridge  Eailway  Company  was  charged 
with  the  maintenance  and  repair  of  the  fabric  of  the 
bridge. 

With  regard  to  the  modifications  introduced  into  the 
original  design,  Sir  Benjamin  (then  Mr.)  Baker,  speak- 
ing at  the  Society  of  Arts  shortly  before  the  opening  of 
the  bridge,  remarked  :— 

"If  we  had  to  do  the  work  again,  with  our  present  ex- 
perience, I  doubt  if  some  of  these  modifications  would  be 
insisted  upon,  whilst  others  would  be  made." 


THE   CANTILEVEK  281 

The  spot  chosen  for  the  bridge  is  at  Queensferry, 
where  half-way  across  the  channel  of  the  firth  stands 
the  rocky  island  of  Inchgarvie.  On  each  side  of  the 
island  the  water  is  in  places  over  200  feet  deep,  and  it 
was  judged  necessary  to  avoid  this  deep  water  and  to 
build  the  bridge  of  two  spans,  with  a  central  pier  on 
the  rock  of  Inchgarvie.  Each  span  is  of  the  unprece- 
dented size  of  1,710  feet,  that  is,  three  and  two-third 
times  as  long  as  the  Britannia  Bridge  over  the  Menai 
Straits,  till  then  the  longest  span  in  the  kingdom.  The 
dimensions  of  each  span  is  such  that  if  erected  in  the 
Strand,  near  Charing  Cross,  its  other  end  would  reach 
across  the  Adelphi,  the  Thames  Embankment,  and  the 
river  itself,  to  the  Surrey  side. 

The  principle  adopted  is  now  known  as  that  of  the 
cantilever.  With  regard  to  this,  Sir  B.  Baker  has 
remarked : — 

"  When  I  was  a  student,  a  girder  bridge  which  had  the  top 
member  in  tension  and  the  bottom  member  in  compression 
over  the  piers,  was  called  a  'continuous  girder  bridge.'  The 
Forth  Bridge  is  of  that  type,  and  I  used  to  call  it  a  continuous 
girder  bridge ;  but  the  Americans  persisted  in  calling  all  the 
bridges  they  were  building  on  the  same  plan  *  cantilever  bridges.' 
.  .  .  Cantilever  is  a'  two-hundred-year-old  term  for  a  bracket, 
and  the  Forth  Bridge  spans  are  made  up  of  two  brackets  and  a 
connecting  girder.  Imagine  two  men  trying  to  shake  hands 
across  a  stream  a  little  too  wide  for  their  hands  to  meet.  One 
man  extends  his  walking-stick,  and  the  other  grasps  it,  and  so 
the  stream  is  bridged.  There  we  have  the  two  arms  or  brackets 
and  the  connecting  girder.  In  the  Forth  Bridge  the  arms  are 
supported  by  great  struts,  as  in  a  living  model  (shown  in  the 
illustration),  where  raking  struts  extended  from  the  men's  wrists 
to  the  points  of  support.  The  principle  of  bracket  and  girder 
construction  is  as  old  as  the  hills,  for  it  lends  itself  particularly 
to  timber  construction,  which  we  know  in  primitive  times 
preceded  masonry." 


282  THE  FOKTH   BEIDGE 

The  living  model  mentioned  above  was  arranged  as 
follows  : — 

"Two  men  sitting  on  chairs  extended  their  arms  and 
supported  the  same  by  grasping  sticks  abutting  against  the 
chairs.  This  represented  the  two  double  cantilevers.  The 
central  beam  was  represented  by  a  short  stick  slung  from  the 
near  hands  of  the  two  men,  and  the  anchorages  to  the  canti- 
levers by  ropes  extending  from  the  other  hands  of  the  men  to 
a  couple  of  piles  of  bricks.  When  stresses  are  brought  to  bear 
on  this  system  by  a  load  on  the  central  beam,  the  men's  arms 
and  the  anchorage  ropes  came  into  tension  and  the  sticks  and 
the  chair-legs  into  compression."  * 

In  the  Forth  Bridge  it  is  to  be  imagined  that  the 
chairs  are  placed  a  third  of  a  mile  apart ;  that  the 
men's  heads  are  340  feet  above  the  ground ;  that 
the  pull  on  each  arm  is  about  4,000  tons,  the  thrust 
on  each  stick  over  6,000  tons,  and  the  weight  on  the 
legs  of  the  chair  about  25,000  tons. 

The  point  most  important  to  be  grasped  by  the 
amateur  is  that  each  bracket  or  limb  of  the  canti- 
lever is  an  independent  or  self-supporting  structure, 
and  that  in  the  connecting  girder  there  is  nothing  of 
the  nature  of  the  keystone  or  locking  of  an  arch.  A 
neglect  of  this  point,  which  is  obvious  enough,  has 
given  rise  to  some  very  inept  criticisms. 

In  connection  with  the  antiquity  of  the  principle, 
Lord  Napier  of  Magclala  remarked  to  one  of  the 
engineers,  "  I  suppose  you  touch  your  hats  to  the 

*  This  illustration,  originally  devised  by  Sir  B.  Baker  for  the  purpose 
of  a  popular  lecture,  has  been  reproduced  in  descriptions  of  the  Forth 
Bridge  in  every  language  of  the  civilised  globe.  It  may  add  to  the 
cosmopolitan  interest  of  the  illustration  if  it  is  stated  that  the  central 
figure  is  Mr.  Kaichi  Watanabe,  then  an  engineering  student  with  Messrs. 
Fowler  and  Baker,  and  now  President  and  Engineer-in-Chief  of  several 
Japanese  railways. 


Q  u> 

O  .5 

§  I 

O  I 

S  ~ 

> 

2 


ANTICIPATIONS  283 

Chinese?"  "  Yes,  indeed,"  was  the  reply,  "bridges  on 
that  principle  were  built  in  China  many  centuries 
ago."  The  bridges  familiar  to  us  in  the  old  willow- 
pattern  crockery  are  for  the  most  part  of  this  design. 
An  even  older  anticipation  of  the  tubular-bridge 
principle  (which  consists,  to  speak  popularly,  in  divid- 
ing the  girder  into  an  upper  and  lower  member,  by 
taking  away  the  material  at  the  centre  where  it  is  not 
required,  and  adding  it  where  it  is  most  wanted  to 
resist  the  strain  of  bending,  i.e.  by  tension  in  the  upper 
and  compression  in  the  lower  member  of  the  so-called 
tube  or  girder)  has  been  noted  by  Dr.  McAlister  in  a 
most  interesting  article  entitled  "  How  a  Bone  is  Built," 
published  in  the  English  Illustrated  Magazine  for  July, 
1885,  in  which  he  compares  the  deft  and  economical 
process  of  nature  in  the  fashioning  of  a  bone  with  the 
practice  of  the  engineers  who  built  the  Britannia 
Tubular  Bridge,  and  the  great  Forth  Bridge  then  in 
process  of  construction. 

The  merit  of  the  Forth  Bridge  lies  not  in  its 
originality,  but  in  the  successful  application  of  an 
old  principle  to  new  conditions.  In  an  article  con- 
tributed to  the  Nineteenth  Century  review,  July,  1889, 
Sir  John  Fowler  and  Sir  Benjamin  Baker  wrote  :— 

"  The  adaptability  of  the  cantilever  system  of  construction 
for  railway  bridges  of  large  span  became  obvious  to  ourselves, 
and  no  doubt  to  others,  soon  after  the  invention  of  Bessemer 
made  cheap  steel  a  possibility.  In  1865  we  designed  a  steel 
cantilever  bridge  of  1,000  feet  span  for  a  proposed  viaduct 
across  the  Severn,  near  the  site  of  the  present  tunnel ;  *  but  it 
was  not  until  1881  that  the  Forth  Bridge  designs  were 
published  in  the  English  and  American  technical  journals. 

*  With  regard  to  this  proposal,  see  p.  356. 


284  THE  FORTH  BRIDGE 

These  designs  naturally  attracted  much  attention,  and  with 
characteristic  promptness  American  engineers  realised  the 
advantages  of  the  system,  and  designed  and  built  the  follow- 
ing year  a  steel  cantilever  railway  bridge  on  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Railway,  and  have  since  followed  on  with  more  than 
half  a  dozen  others  of  the  same  type  of  construction." 

The  history  of  this  great  engineering  feat  is  in 
itself  a  beautiful  illustration  of  the  relation  of  human 
effort  or  ability  to  the  environment  by  which  it  is 
necessarily  surrounded.  The  "  able  men "  who  de- 
signed and  carried  into  effect  this  stupendous  structure 
have  been  themselves  most  insistent  in  giving  promi- 
nence to  the  contributing  influence  of  outside  con- 
ditions. The  antiquity  of  the  principle,  and  the  new 
value  given  to  it  by  the  invention  of  new  processes 
for  the  cheap  production  of  suitable  material,  have 
been  amply  noticed  in  the  above  quotation,  but  the 
most  important  consideration  of  all  is  that  set  out  by 
Sir  Benjamin  Baker  in  his  presidential  address  to  the 
Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  in  1895.  He  there 
draws  attention  to  what  we  may  term  the  economic  as 
opposed  to  the  material  conditions  which  are  now 
necessary  to  the  successful  accomplishment  of  a  great 
design. 

"An  impartial  survey  of  actions  and  events  recorded  in 
history  will  satisfy  most  people  that  in  all  ages  there  were  to 
be  found  men  no  less  intellectual  and  enterprising  than  our- 
selves, and  that  the  demands  of  the  time,  whether  warlike  or 
peaceful,  have  always  proved  capable  of  realisation.  That 
'Necessity  is  the  mother  of  Invention'  is  true  of  all  ages, 
and  the  only  difficulty  in  making  forecasts  is  the  strange  way 
in  which  the  aims  of  different  generations  vary.  .  .  .  The 
popular  notion  that  some  great  advance  is  due  to  the  brilliant 
inspiration  of  a  particular  genius  proves,  on  closer  examination, 


THE  DEMAND   OF   THE   TIME  285 

to  be  wrong,  as  the  advance  was  merely  the  result  of  the 
operation  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  and  the 
genius  himself  very  probably  will  have  committed  himself  in 
writing  to  a  sufficient  extent  to  prove  that  he  really  was  drift- 
ing with  the  stream  rather  than  piloting  the  ship." 

Without  accepting  in  full  this  modest  disclaimer  of 
originating  ability,  we  are  enabled,  by  the  consideration 
here  put  forward,  to  estimate  in  their  true  proportions 
the  various  currents  which  unite  to  form  the  full  stream 
of  progress.  Originating  ability  is  controlled  and  directed 
by  the  demand  of  the  time ;  till  demand  arises,  it  is 
apt  to  lie  dormant  or  to  expend  itself  on  other  objects. 
Thus  the  workmen  who  built  the  Santa  Maria  for 
Columbus,  and  the  Royal  Harry  for  our  Tudor  king, 

"  were  quite  capable  as  artificers  of  constructing  with  the  same 
materials  and  implements  clipper  ships  of  from  500  to  900 
tons,  such  as  astonished  the  world  by  the  historical  race  from 
China  to  London  in  1866." 

The  reason,  that  ingenuity  in  those  earlier  times  lay 
comparatively  idle,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 

"wars,  revolutions,  and  great  social  changes  occupied  men's 
thoughts  in  former  times,  and  there  was  not  that  unceasing 
struggle  for  commercial  supremacy  and  material  advantages 
which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  present  century." 

Apart,  therefore,  from  the  ability  of  the  builders, 
and  the  presence  of  suitable  material  at  a  moderate 
cost,  the  Forth  Bridge  is  also  due  to  those  industrial 
conditions  which  make  the  saving  of  a  few  hours'  time 
on  the  transport  of  passengers  and  goods  a  motive  of 
irresistible  urgency. 

A  bridge  on  this  stupendous  scale,  if  it  was  to  secure 
the  public  confidence,  must  possess  great  rigidity.  It 


286  THE  FOKTH   BRIDGE 

must  not  only  be  able  to  carry  the  burdens  imposed 
upon  it,  but,  if  the  timidity  of  the  travelling  public 
was  to  be  overcome,  vibration  both  under  the  load  of 
the  passing  trains  and  also  from  the  lateral  pressure 
of  the  wind  must  be  reduced  to  an  imperceptible 
minimum.  Further,  if  it  was  to  be  built  at  all,  the 
incomplete  structure  must  (as  the  period  of  erection 
was  to  last  some  years)  be  as  competent  to  resist  the 
force  of  the  hurricane  as  the  finished  bridge.  Nothing 
but  the  best  material  could  be  used,  yet  at  the  same 
time  a  reasonable  economy  (as  far  as  was  compatible 
with  these  requirements)  had  to  be  observed,  in  order 
to  bring  it  within  the  category  of  a  legitimate  com- 
mercial venture. 

In  securing  these  imperative  conditions  the  distri- 
bution of  the  weight  of  the  bridge  is  of  the  first 
importance.  The  design  adopted  throws  the  greater 
proportion  of  the  weight,  nearly  one -fourth  of  it, 
immediately  over  the  main  piers  or  supports,  where 
it  is,  of  course,  most  easily  provided  for.  It  also  is  so 
devised  that  at  the  points  where  the  lateral  pressure 
of  the  wind  is  most  to  be  dreaded,  the  smallest  surface 
is  presented  to  the  blast.  Thus  at  the  central  tower 
of  the  Inchgarvie  pier  the  weight  per  foot  run  is  23 
tons,  and,  in  the  first  bay  of  the  cantilever,  21  tons; 
while  on  the  central  girders  of  350  feet  span,  which  join 
the  arms  of  the  cantilevers,  that  is  at  the  point  furthest 
from  the  main  support,  the  weight  is  only  a  little  over 
2  tons  per  foot.  Again,  the  surface  presented  to  the 
wind  is  rapidly  lessened  as  the  brackets  recede  from  the 
massive  piers,  and  on  the  centre  of  the  span  where 
the  leverage  of  wind  pressure  is  most  formidable,  the 
narrowest  surface  is  exposed.  Great  stability  is  also 


THE   COST  287 

given  to  the  structure  by  the  "  straddling"  of  the  sup- 
porting columns. 

Again,  during  the  course  of  construction  the  several 
portions  of  the  bridge  were  placed  securely  in  position, 
one  after  the  other ;  there  was  little  or  no  temporary 
work  required,  and  each  addition  to  the  structure 
served  as  a  staging  for  the  work  that  was  to  follow. 

A  further  difficulty  was  occasioned  by  the  fact  that 
the  enormous  mass  of  metal  employed  in  the  building 
is  liable  to  contraction  and  expansion  from  changes 
of  temperature.  This  has  been  adequately  provided 
for  by  expansion-joints,  a  device  readily  adaptable 
to  the  cantilever  and  central  girder  principle  of  con- 
struction. 

On  December  21st,  1882,  the  contract  for  the  con- 
struction of  the  Forth  Bridge  was  let  to  the  firm  of 
Messrs.  Tancred,  Arrol,  and  Co.  The  original  contract 
price  of  £1,600,000  and  the  specified  time  were  in- 
evitably exceeded.  The  total  expenditure  on  the  Forth 
Bridge  itself,  and  on  the  new  railways  connecting  it 
with  the  North  British  Kailway  system,  was  £3,367,625, 
and  the  net  earnings  suffice  to  pay  four  per  cent,  upon 
this  amount. 

Let  us  begin  our  description  of  the  famous  structure 
by  giving  an  account  of  the  supporting  piers. 

The  point  chosen  for  the  bridge  is  at  a  narrowing 
of  the  firth  caused  by  a  promontory  on  the  north 
or  Fife  side.  This  projection  of  land  reduces  the 
crossing  of  the  river  to  1  mile  and  150  yards.  The 
promontory  is  of  hard  whinstone.  Midway  in  the 
channel,  at  a  distance  of  one-third  of  a  mile  from 
the  top  of  the  promontory,  and  due  south,  lies  the 
rock  of  Inchgarvie.  The  north  channel,  between  the 


288  THE   FOETH   BRIDGE 

island  and  the  Fife  coast,  has  a  depth  of  about 
200  feet,  and  is  the  one  generally  followed  by  the 
shipping. 

The  southern  edge  of  the  island  is  under  water,  and 
from  it  to  South  Queensferry  is  a  distance  of  2,000 
feet,  of  which  about  500  feet  are  uncovered  at  low 
tide.  The  whinstone,  or  basaltic  trap  rock,  which 
forms  the  foundation  of  the  great  Fife  and  of  the 
Inchgarvie  piers,  disappears  in  the  southern  channel 
(i.e.  between  South  Queensferry  and  Inchgarvie),  and 
is  overlaid  by  a  thick  bed  of  hard  boulder  clay  with 
a  forty -feet  topping  of  softer  clay,  silt,  and  gravel. 
When  the  southern  mainland  is  reached,  the  ground 
rises  gradually,  the  clay  disappears,  and  ledges  of 
freestone  rock  crop  out.  The  foundations  of  the  third 
or  South  Queensferry  Pier  are  laid  in  this  bed  of 
boulder  clay.  From  an  engineering  point  of  view 
the  nature  of  the  foundations  has  been  considered 
highly  satisfactory,  and  no  trouble  was  at  any  time 
experienced  in  this  respect. 

The  following  is  taken  from  Sir  B.  Baker's  speech 
at  the  Royal  Institution  on  May  20th,  1887  :— 

"The  total  length  of  the  viaduct  is  about  1.J-  miles,  and 
this  includes  two  spans  of  1,700  feet,  two  of  675  feet  being 
the  shoreward  ends  of  the  cantilever,  and  fifteen  of  168  feet. 
Including  piers  there  is  thus  almost  exactly  one  mile  covered 
by  the  great  cantilever  spans,  and  another  half-mile  of  viaduct- 
approach.  .  .  . 

"Each  of  the  main  piers  includes  four  columns  of  masonry 
founded  on  the  rock  or  boulder  clay.  Above  low  water  the 
cylindrical  piers  are  of  the  strongest  flat  bedded  Arbroath 
stone  set  in  cement  and  faced  with  Aberdeen  granite.  The 
height  of  these  pieces  of  masonry  is  36  feet,  and  the  diameter 
53  feet  at  bottom  and  49  feet  at  top,  and  they  each  contain 


WATER   FOUNDATIONS  289 

48  steel  bolts  2|  inches  in  diameter  and  24  feet  long  to  hold 
down  the  superstructure. 

"Below  low  water  the  piers  differ  somewhat  in  character, 
according  to  the  local  conditions.  On  the  Fife  side,  one  of 
the  piers  was  built  with  the  aid  of  a  half -tide  dam,  and  the 
other  with  a  full-tide  dam.  The  rock  was  blasted  into  steps, 
diamond  drills  and  other  rock  drills  being  used.  Even  this 
comparatively  simple  work  was  not  executed  without  consider- 
able trouble,  as  the  sloping  rock  bottom  was  covered  with 
a  closely  compacted  mass  of  boulders  and  rubbish,  through 
which  the  water  flowed  into  the  dam  in  almost  unmanageable 
quantity.  After  many  months'  work  the  water  was  suffi- 
ciently excluded,  by  the  use  of  cement  bags  and  liquid  grout 
poured  in  by  divers  under  water  and  other  expedients,  and 
the  concrete  foundation  and  masonry  were  proceeded  with." 

For  the  sake  of  those  uninitiated  in  the  use  of 
engineering  terms,  a  word  may  here  be  interpolated  as 
to  "dams,"  or  "cofferdams,"  as  ^they  are  sometimes 
called,  and  as  to  "  pneumatic  caissons," — two  devices 
for  facilitating  foundation  -  work  in  water.  These,  of 
necessity,  played  a  most  important  part  in  the  construc- 
tion of  this  bridge.  The  following  is  abridged  from  the 
explanation  contained  in  the  reprint  from  Engineering. 
A  cofferdam  or  caisson  may  be  described  as  an  enclosure 
in  water  for  the  purpose  of  laying  dry  the  space 
enclosed,  or  at  any  rate  of  preventing  a  flow  of  water 
through  it.  In  soft  ground  this  is  done  by  driving 
a  double  row  of  piles  at  a  distance  of  from  two  feet  to 
four  feet  from  each  other,  till  a  double  timber  wall 
exists  all  round.  Sluice  doors  or  valves  are  placed 
so  as  to  allow  the  tide  to  flow  in  and  out.  The 
single  timber  piles  are  held  together  by  longitudinal 
timbers  aided  by  stays  and  struts  to  resist  the  water 
pressure  without.  The  space  between  the  two  lines 
u 


290  THE  FOETH   BRIDGE 

of  piles  is  then  cleared  out,  and  filled  in  with  clay 
puddle,  and  pressed  down,  till  the  whole  is  filled  in 
to  full-tide  or  half-tide  level,  as  the  case  may  be. 
The  sluices  are  then  closed  and  the  water  pumped 
out,  the  bottom  is  thus  exposed  for  examination  or 
for  foundation  work.  The  choice  between  a  full-tide 
or  half- tide  dam  will  be  generally  determined  by  the 
firmness  of  the  hold  obtained  by  the  piles,  and  also 
by  the  extent  of  external  pressure  from  water,  tide, 
and  wind.  Into  a  half-tide  dam  the  water  must  be 
allowed  to  enter,  when  the  tide  rises  to  the  level  of  the 
dam  wall,  and  requires  to  be  pumped  out  when  the 
tide  again  falls.  With  a  full-tide  dam  the  water  is  per- 
manently excluded  and  work  can  go  on  continuously. 

When  working  on  rock  the  driving  of  piles  is 
impracticable,  and  other  means  have  to  be  devised. 
Dams  giving  access  to  the  proposed  foundations  had 
in  such  cases  to  be  made  by  sinking  shields  fitted  to 
the  contour  of  the  rock,  aided  by  submarine  building 
operations  by  divers,  who  laid  bags  of  concrete  in 
position,  and  so  gradually  built  up  half-tide  caissons 
such  as  were  used  at  the  Inchgarvie  north  circular 
piers.  As  an  example  of  work  of  this  character  it  may 
be  stated  that  at  the  north-east  pier  there  were  two 
half-tide  caissons,  and  out  of  them  there  had  each  day 
to  be  pumped  250,000  gallons  in  one  case  and  340,000 
in  the  other.  The  time  occupied  was  just  under  an 
hour. 

Finally,  if  instead  of  a  caisson  open  at  the  top  the 
caisson  is  covered  in,  like  a  bell  or  gas-holder,  and 
the  water  is  driven  out  by  forcing  air  in,  thereby 
allowing  the  workmen  to  enter  and  excavate  in  the 
dry,  it  is  a  caisson  worked  by  the  pneumatic  process. 


PNEUMATIC   CAISSONS  291 

When  the  foundations,  as  at  the  southernmost  piers  of 
Inchgarvie,  had  to  be  constructed  in  deep  water  this 
last  method  became  necessary. 

"  Several  designs,"  says  Sir  B.  Baker  in  his  Royal  Institution 
lecture,  "were  prepared  for  these  foundations,  but  it  was 
finally  decided,  and  as  experience  proved  wisely,  to  put  them 
in  by  what  is  known  as  the  pneumatic  or  compressed-air 
process.  The  conditions  of  the  problem  were  a  sloping,  very 
irregular,  and  fissured  rock  bottom,  in  an  exposed  sea-way,  and 
with  a  depth  at  high  water  of  72  feet.  Anything  in  the  nature 
of  a  water-tight  cofferdam,  such  as  used  at  the  shallow  piers, 
was  out  of  question,  and  the  plan  adopted  was  as  follows : —  , 

"Two  wrought  iron  caissons,  which  might  be  likened  to 
large  tubs  or  buckets,  70  feet  in  diameter  and  50  to  60  feet 
high,  were  built  on  launching-ways  on  the  sloping  southern 
foreshore  of  the  Forth.  The  bottom  of  each  caisson  was  set  up 
7  feet  above  the  cutting  edge,  and  so  constituted  a  chamber 
70  feet  in  diameter  and  7  feet  high,  capable  of  being  filled 
at  the  proper  time  with  compressed  air,  to  enable  the  men 
to  work,  as  in  a  diving-bell,  below  the  water  of  the  Forth.  The 
caisson  weighed  about  470  tons,  was  launched,  and  then  taken 
to  a  berth  alongside  the  Queensferry  jetty,  where  a  certain 
amount  of  concrete,  brickwork,  and  staging  was  added,  bringing 
the  weight  up  to  2,640  tons.  At  Inchgarvie  a  very  strong 
and  costly  iron  staging  had  previously  been  erected,  alongside 
which  the  caisson  was  finally  moored  in  correct  position  for 
sinking.  Whilst  the  work  described  was  proceeding,  divers 
and  labourers  were  engaged  in  making  a  level  bed  for  the 
caisson  to  sit  on.  The  16-feet  slope  in  the  rock  bottom  was 
levelled  up  by  bags  filled  with  sand  or  concrete.  As  soon 
as  the  weight  of  the  caisson  and  filling  reached  3,270  tons 
the  caisson  rested  on  the  sand  bags  and  floated  no  more.  The 
high  ledge  of  rock  upon  which  the  northern  edge  of  the  caisson 
rested  was  blasted  away,  holes  being  driven  by  rock  drills  and 
otherwise  under  the  cutting  edge  and  about  six  inches  beyond 
for  the  charges.  After  the  men  had  gained  a  little  experience 


292  THE  FORTH   BRIDGE 

in  this  work  no  difficulty  was  found  in  undercutting  the  hard 
whinstone  rock  to  allow  the  edge  of  the  caisson  to  sink,  and 
of  course  there  was  still  less  difficulty  in  removing  the  sand 
bags  temporarily  used  to  form  a  level  bed.  The  interior  rock 
was  excavated  as  easily  as  on  dry  land,  the  whole  of  the  70  feet 
diameter  by  7  feet  high  chamber  being  thoroughly  lighted  by 
electricity.  Access  was  obtained  through  a  vertical  tube  with 
an  air-lock  at  the  top,  and  many  visitors  ventured  to  pass 
through  this  lock  into  the  lighted  chamber  below,  where  the 
pressure  at  times  was  as  high  as  35  Ibs.  per  square  inch. 
Probably  the  most  astonished  visitors  were  some  salmon,  who, 
attracted  by  the  commotion  in  the  water  caused  by  the  escape 
of  compressed  air  under  the  edge  of  the  caisson,  found  them- 
selves in  the  electric-lighted  chamber.  When  in  the  chamber 
the  only  notice  of  this  escape  of  large  volumes  of  air  was 
the  sudden  pervadence  of  a  dense  fog,  but  outside  a  huge  wave 
of  aerated  water  would  rise  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and 
a  general  effect  prevail  of  something  terrible  going  on  below. 
No  doubt  the  salmon  thought  they  had  come  to  a  cascade 
turned  upside  down,  and,  following  their  instinct  of  heading 
up  it,  met  their  fate.  Another  astonished  visitor  was  a 
gentleman  who  took  a  flat-sided  spirit  flask  with  him  into  the 
caisson,  and  emptied  it  when  down  below.  Of  course  the 
bottle  was  filled  with  compressed  air,  which  exploded  when 
passing  through  the  air-lock  into  the  normal  atmospheric 
pressure,  the  pressure  in  the  bottle  being  33  Ibs.  per  square 
inch. 

"The  Garvie  piers,  notwithstanding  the  novelties  involved 
in  sinking  through  whinstone  rock  at  a  depth  of  72  feet  below 
the  waves  of  the  Forth,  were  completed  without  misadventure 
in  less  than  the  contract  time.  The  first  of  the  deep  Garvie 
caissons  was  launched  on  March  30th,  1885,  and  both  piers 
were  finished  to  sea-level  or  above  by  the  end  of  the  year. 

"At  Queensferry  all  four  piers  were  founded  on  caissons 
identical  in  principle  with  those  used  for  the  deep  Garvie 
piers.  The  deepest  was  89  feet  below  high  water,  and  weighed 
20,000  tons ;  the  shallowest  of  the  four  was  71  feet  high,  the 


THE   CAISSONS  293 

diameter  in  all  cases,  as  at  Garvie,  being  70  at  the  base.  Some 
difference  in  detail  occurred  in  these  caissons,  as  compared 
with  Garvie,  owing  to  the  differences  of  the  conditions.  Thus, 
instead  of  a  sloping  surface  of  rock  the  bed  of  the  Forth  was  of 
soft  mud  to  a  considerable  depth,  through  which  the  caissons 
had  to  be  sunk  into  the  hard  boulder  clay.  Double  skins  were 
provided  for  the  caissons,  between  which  concrete  could  be 
filled  in  to  varying  heights  if  necessary,  so  that  greater  weight 
might  be  applied  to  the  cutting  edge  where  the  mud  was  hard 
than  where  it  was  soft.  The  annular  wall  of  concrete  also 
gave  great  strength  to  resist  the  hydrostatic  pressure  outside 
the  caisson,  for  it  must  be  understood  that  the  water  was 
excluded  both  below  and  above  the  working  chamber. 

"  The  process  of  sinking  was  as  follows :  the  caisson  being 
seated  on  the  soft  mud,  which,  of  course,  practically  filled 
the  working  chamber,  air  was  blown  in,  and  a  few  men 
descended  the  shaft  or  tube  of  access  to  the  working  chamber 
in  order  to  clear  away  the  mud.  This  was  done  by  diluting 
it  to  the  necessary  extent  by  water  brought  down  a  pipe 
under  pressure,  and  by  blowing  it  out  in  this  liquid  state 
through  another  pipe  by  means  of  the  pressure  of  air  in  the 
chamber.  It  was  found  that  the  mud  sealed  the  caisson,  so 
that  a  pressure  of  air  considerably  in  excess  of  that  of  the 
water  outside  could  be  kept  up,  and  it  was  unnecessary  to 
vary  the  pressure  according  to  the  height  of  the  tide.  In 
working  through  the  soft  mud  both  intelligence  and  courage 
were  called  for  on  the  part  of  the  men,  and  it  is  a  pleasure 
and  duty  for  me  to  say  that  the  Italians  and  Belgians  engaged 
on  the  work  were  never  found  wanting  in  those  qualifica- 
tions. .  .  . 

"  With  one  of  our  caissons  we  unfortunately  had  an  accident 
and  loss  of  life.  On  New  Year's  Day,  1885,  the  south-west 
Queensferry  caisson,  which  had  been  towed  into  position  and 
weighted  with  about  4,000  tons  of  concrete,  stuck  in  the 
mud,  and  instead  of  rising  with  the  tide  remained  fixed,  so 
that  the  water  flowing  over  the  edge  filled  the  interior.  The 
additional  weight  of  water  caused  the  caisson  to  sink  further  in 


294  THE  FOKTH  BEIDGE 

the  mud,  especially  at  the  outer  edge,  and  to  slide  forward  and 
tilt.  The  contractors  determined  to  raise  the  skin  of  the 
caisson  until  it  came  above  water-level,  and  then  pump  out 
and  float  the  caisson  back  into  position.  About  three  months 
were  occupied  in  doing  this,  but  when  pumping  had  proceeded 
a  certain  extent  the  caisson  collapsed,  owing  to  the  heavy 
external  pressure  of  the  water,  and  two  men  were  killed.  It 
was  necessary  then  to  consider  very  carefully  what  had  better 
be  done,  as  the  torn  caisson  was  difficult  to  deal  with." 

Some  arduous  work  had  to  be  done  by  the  divers 
to  make  the  caisson  again  watertight. 

"Finally,  on  October  19th,  1885,  or  between  nine  and  ten 
months  after  the  first  accident,  the  caisson,  to  the  relief  of 
everyone,  was  floated  into  position,  and  the  sinking  proceeded 
without  further  difficulty.  Thus  the  last  of  the  main  piers 
was  completed  in  March,  1886,  almost  exactly  two  years  after 
the  first  caisson  was  floated  out." 

It  was  necessary  to  restrict  the  hours  of  work  in 
these  compressed-air  chambers,  as  the  men  suffered 
more  or  less  from  pains  in  the  limbs  and  elsewhere. 
Paralysis  and  other  serious  consequences  are  reported 
to  have  followed  on  too  long  an  exposure  to  these 
conditions.  There  were,  however,  at  the  Forth  Bridge 
no  deaths  directly  resulting  from  the  air  pressure,  and 
Sir  Benjamin  Baker  says  that  he  himself  suffered  no 
sort  of  inconvenience  from  entering  the  chamber. 

For  a  description  of  the  superstructure  on  the  main 
piers,  which  we  must  now  suppose  to  be  successfully 
founded,  we  must  rely  again  on  Sir  B.  Baker's  lecture 
at  the  Eoyal  Institution. 

Owing  to  the  unprecedented  length  of  the  span,  the 
dead  weight  of  the  structure  itself  was  far  in  excess 
of  any  number  of  railway  trains  which  could  be 


WIND   PEESSUEE  295 

brought  upon  it.  Thus  the  weight  of  one  of  the  1,700- 
feet  spans  is  about  16,000  tons,  while  the  heaviest 
rolling  load  could  not  be  more  than  800  tons,*  or  only 
5  per  cent,  of  the  dead  weight. 

"It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  bridge  will  be  as 
stiff  as  a  rock  under  the  passage  of  a  train.  Wind,  however, 
is  a  more  important  element  than  train  weight,  as  with  the 
assumed  pressure  of  56  Ibs.  per  square  foot  the  estimated 
lateral  pressure  on  each  1,700-feet  span  is  2,000  tons,  or  two 
and  a  half  times  as  much  as  the  rolling  load.  To  resist  wind 
the  structure  is  'straddle-legged,'  that  is,  the  lofty  columns 
over  the  piers  are  120  feet  apart  at  the  base  and  33  feet  at 
the  top.  Similarly  the  cantilever  bottom  members  widen  out 
at  the  piers.  All  of  the  main  compression  members  are  tubes, 
because  that  is  the  form  which,  with  the  least  weight,  gives 
the  greatest  strength.  The  tube  of  the  cantilever  is  at  the 
piers  12  feet  in  diameter  and  1J  inch  thick,  and  it  is  subject 
to  an  end  pressure  of  2,282  tons  from  the  dead  weight,  1,022 
tons  from  the  trains,  and  2,920  tons  from  the  wind,  total 
6,224  tons,  which  is  the  weight  of  one  of  the  largest  trans- 
atlantic steamers  with  all  her  cargo  on  board.  The  vertical 
tube  is  343  feet  high,  12  feet  in  diameter,  and  about  f  inch 
thick,  and  is  liable  to  a  load  of  3,279  tons.  The  tension 
members  are  of  lattice  construction,  and  the  heaviest  stressed 
one  is  subject  to  a  pull  of  3,794  tons.  All  of  the  structure 
is  thoroughly  braced  together  by  wind  bracing  of  lattice 
girders,  so  that  a  hurricane  or  cyclone  storm  may  blow  in 
any  direction  up  or  down  the  Forth  without  affecting  the 
stability  of  the  bridge.  Indeed,  even  if  a  hurricane  were 
blowing  up  one  side  of  the  Forth  and  down  the  other,  tending 
to  rotate  the  cantilevers  on  the  piers,  the  bridge  has  the 
strength  to  resist  such  a  combination." 

The  highest  recorded  pressure  on  the  wind  gauges 
on  Inchgarvie  during  the  period  of  construction  would 

*  The  weight  actually  put  on  it  by  the  Government  inspectors  in 
their  last  test  consisted  of  two  trains,  each  weighing  about  901  tons. 


296  THE  FORTH   BRIDGE 

not,  in  Sir  B.  Baker's  opinion,  have  averaged  more 
than  20  Ibs.  per  square  foot.  With  regard  to  this 
question  of  wind  pressure,  it  is  interesting  to  notice 
that  Sir  Thomas  Bouch,  when  asked  at  the  Court  of 
Inquiry  why  he  had  made  the  unfortunate  Tay  Bridge 
so  much  weaker  than  other  tall  viaducts  erected  by 
himself,  replied  that  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of  wind 
pressure  had  been  modified  by  a  statement  of  Sir 
George  Airy,  the  late  Astronomer  Eoyal,  contained 
in  a  report  on  the  proposed  Forth  Bridge  to  the 
effect  that  "the  greatest  wind  pressure  to  which  a 
plane  surface  like  that  of  the  bridge  will  be  subjected 
in  its  whole  extent  is  10  Ibs.  per  square  foot."  The 
Board  of  Trade,  however,  warned  by  the  fate  of  the 
Tay  Bridge,  had  laid  it  down  that  a  56-lbs.  pressure 
must  be  provided  for,  while  the  technical  work  of 
Tredgold  named  40  Ibs.  as  the  limit.  Sir  George 
Airy,  somewhat  incautiously,  published  in  the  columns 
of  Nature,  October  19th,  1882,  an  adverse  criticism 
of  the  Fowler-Baker  design,  and  endeavoured  to  show 
that  a  suspension  bridge  would  have  been  more 
suitable.  Sir  George  Airy  was  then  over  eighty  years 
of  age,  but  his  high  repute  as  a  man  of  science 
gave  weight  to  his  opinion,  and  his  criticisms  caused 
uneasiness  to  the  uninstructed  public  and  considerable 
indignation  in  the  technical  journals.  One  of  them, 
Engineering,  December  15th,  1882,  rather  cruelly  set 
out  a  long  list  of  similar  ineptitudes  committed  by 
this  distinguished  astronomer,  whose  adventures  in 
engineering  criticism  provide  an  almost  heroic  instance 
of  the  soundness  of  the  maxim,  ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam. 

"Sir  George  Airy's  periodic  attacks  on  engineering  works 
are  instructive,  inasmuch  as  they  serve  to  indicate  the  blunders 


WORKSHOPS  AT   QUEENSFERRY  297 

which  inexperienced  engineers  would  be  likely  to  fall  into, 
if  entrusted  with  responsibility  before  being  properly  qualified. 
The  late  Astronomer  Royal  throughout  his  long  career  has 
laboured  under  the  hallucination  that  the  science  of  engineer- 
ing is  not  a  matter  of  experience  and  research,  but  of 
intuition.  ...  Possibly  he  may  have  at  times  mistaken  the 
silence  of  engineers  for  acquiescence,  but  supposing  Sir  George 
wrote  a  letter,  stating  that  in  his  opinion  the  distance  from 
London  to  Edinburgh  was  20  miles,  we  doubt  whether  anyone 
would  take  the  trouble  to  correct  him." 

On  this  occasion,  however,  several  distinguished  engi- 
neers took  part  in  the  controversy,  and  showed  very 
conclusively  the  error  and  irrelevancy  of  Sir  G.  Airy's 
criticisms. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  the  manufacture  of 
the  plates  which  composed  the  tubes  used  in  the 
bridge.  Special  plant  had  to  be  devised  for  their 
preparation.  Long  furnaces,  heated  in  some  instances 
by  gas  producers  and  in  others  by  coal,  first  heated 
the  plates,  which  were  then  hauled  between  the  dies 
of  an  800-ton  hydraulic  press,  and  bent  to  the  proper 
radius.  When  cool,  the  edges  were  planed  all  round, 
and  the  plates  built  up  into  the  form  of  a  tube  in 
the  drilling  yard.  Here  they  were  dealt  with  by 
eight  great  travelling  machines,  having  ten  traversing 
drills  radiating  to  the  centre  of  the  tube,  and  drilling 
through  as  much  as  four  inches  of  solid  steel  in  places. 
When  complete,  the  tubes  were  taken  down,  the  plates 
cleaned  and  oiled  and  stacked  ready  for  erection.  The 
magnitude  of  the  work  justified  the  erection  of  the 
most  elaborate  and  complete  workshops  on  the  Queens- 
ferry  shore.  Here  the  whole  of  the  steel  work  of  the 


298  THE   FOKTH   BEIDGE 

bridge  was  made  and  fitted.  This  fact  should  be  noted 
as  one  of  the  many  unique  features  in  the  building  of 
the  Forth  Bridge. 

"  The  tension  members  and  lattice  girders " —  we  quote 
again  Sir  B.  Baker — "generally  are  of  angle  bars,  sawn  to 
length  when  cold,  and  of  plates  planed  all  round.  Multiple 
drills  tear  through  immense  thickness  of  steel  at  an  astonish- 
ing rate.  The  larger  machines  have  ten  drills,  which,  going 
as  they  do,  day  and  night,  at  180  revolutions  per  minute, 
perform  work  equivalent  to  boring  an  inch  hole  through 
280  feet  thickness  of  solid  steel  every  twenty-four  hours. 
About  four  per  cent,  of  the  whole  weight  of  steel  delivered 
at  the  works  leaves  it  again  in  the  form  of  shavings  from 
planing  machines  and  drills.  The  material  used  throughout 
is  Siemens  steel  of  the  finest  quality,  made  at  the  Steel 
Company's  works  in  Glasgow,  and  at  Landore  in  South  Wales. 
Although  one  and  a  half  times  stronger  than  wrought  iron, 
it  is  not  in  any  sense  of  the  word  brittle,  as  steel  is  often 
popularly  supposed  to  be,  but  it  is  tough  and  ductile  as 
copper.  You  can  fold  half-inch  plates  like  newspapers,  and 
tie  rivet  bars  like  twine  into  knots." 

As  already  explained,  owing  to  the  depth  of  water 
and  to  the  exposed  situation  in  the  open  firth,  scaffold- 
ing was  impossible ;  the  bridge  had,  therefore,  to 
constitute  its  own  scaffolding. 

"The  principle  of  erection  adopted  was,  therefore,  to 
build  first  the  portion  of  the  superstructure  over  the  main 
piers,  the  great  steel  towers,  as  they  may  be  called,  although 
really  parts  of  the  cantilever,  and  to  add  successive  bays  of 
the  cantilever  right  and  left  of  these  towers,  and  therefore 
balancing  each  other,  until  the  whole  is  complete.  This 
being  the  general  principle,  a  great  deal  yet  remained  to  be 
done  in  settling  the  details." 


BUILDING  THE   CANTILEVEES  299 

What  was  finally  settled  has  been  described  as 
follows  : — 

"After  the  skewbacks,  horizontal  tubes,  and  a  certain 
length  of  the  verticals,  as  high  as  steam  cranes  could  con- 
veniently reach,  were  built,  a  lifting  stage  was  erected.  This 
consisted  of  two  platforms,  one  on  each  side  of  the  bridge, 
and  four  hydraulic  lifting  rams,  one  in  each  12 -feet  tube. 
To  carry  these  rams,  cross  girders  were  fitted  in  the  tubes, 
capable  of  being  raised  so  as  to  support  the  rams  and  plat- 
forms as  erection  proceeded,  and  steel  pins  were  slipped  in  to 
hold  the  cross  girders.  Travelling  cranes  are  placed  on  the 
platforms,  and  these  cranes,  with  the  men  working  aloft,  are,  of 
course,  raised  with  the  platforms,  when  hydraulic  pressure  is 
let  into  the  rams.  The  mode  of  procedure  is  to  raise  the  plat- 
form one  foot,  and  slip  in  the  steel  pins  to  carry  the  load,  whilst 
the  rams  are  getting  ready  to  make  another  stroke  of  one  foot. 
When  a  16-feet  lift  has  been  so  made,  which  is  a  matter  of  a 
few  hours,  a  pause  of  some  two  or  three  days  occurs  to  allow 
the  riveting  to  be  completed.  The  advance  at  times  has  been 
at  the  rate  of  three  lifts,  or  48  feet  in  height  in  a  week. 

"The  riveting  appliances  designed  by  Mr.  Arrol  are  of  a 
very  special  and  even  formidable  character,  each  machine 
weighing  about  16  tons.  It  consists  essentially  of  an  inside 
and  outside  hydraulic  ram  mounted  on  longitudinal  and 
annular  girders  in  such  a  manner  as  to  command  every  rivet 
in  the  tubes  and  to  close  the  same  by  hydraulic  pressure. 
Pipes  from  the  hydraulic  pumps  are  carried  up  inside  the 
tubes  to  the  riveters,  and  oil  furnaces  for  heating  the  rivets 
are  placed  in  convenient  spots  also  inside  the  tubes.  By 
practice  and  the  stimulus  of  premiums  the  men  have  succeeded 
in  putting  in  800  rivets  per  day  with  one  of  the  machines 
at  a  height  of  300  feet  above  the  sea,  which,  in  fact,  is  more 
than  they  accomplished  when  working  at  ground  level. 
Indeed,  by  the  system  of  erection  adopted,  the  element  of 
height  is  practically  annihilated,  and  with  ordinary  caution 
the  men  are  safer  aloft  than  below,  as  in  the  former  case 
they  are  not  liable  to  have  things  dropped  on  their  heads." 


300  THE  FORTH   BRIDGE 

In  this  way  the  central  steel  towers  were  built. 
The  successive  bays  of  the  cantilever  had  then  to  be 
added. 

The  first  half -bay  of  each  cantilever  was  erected 
by  a  similar  use  of  platforms  and  overhead  cranes. 

"Our  experience  so  far,"  said  Sir  B.  Baker  in  September, 
1889,  "has  been  that  whilst  the  work  of  erection  has  been 
somewhat  slower  and  more  costly  than  we  anticipated,  it 
has,  on  the  other  hand,  been  less  difficult  and  subject  to 
fewer  contingencies.  We  thought  at  first  that  the  crane 
men  and  erectors  would  require  practically  to  be  close 
together,  but  we  have  found  out,  or  rather  the  men  have 
found  out  for  themselves,  that  cranes  370  feet  up  in  the 
air  can  handle  work  at  ground  level,  and  that  the  long  steel 
wire  ropes  hanging  from  the  crane  jibs,  instead  of  being 
destructive  of  their  usefulness,  are  often  of  great  advantage, 
as  plates  and  bars  can  be  swung  out  pendulum  fashion  to 
a  distance  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  jib  itself.  This  result 
of  experience,  combined  with  the  boldness  of  the  men,  enables 
us  to  dispense  with  the  use  of  lifting  platforms  for  the  outer 
bays  of  the  cantilevers,  and  in  lieu  of  this  mode  of  erection 
to  use  steam  cranes  travelling  on  the  top.  .  .  ." 

The  girders  which  were  to  carry  the  permanent  way 
and  the  trains  were  put  in  when  the  pile  rose  to  the 
necessary  height,  and  furnished  an  additional  platform 
for  work  on  the  still  uncompleted  parts  of  the  structure. 

"  The  viaduct  girders,"  says  Engineering,  "  were  now  built  out 
by  overhanging  into  the  cantilevers.  .  .  .  The  viaduct  girders 
were  strong  enough  to  carry  themselves  overhanging  for  a  dis- 
tance of  100  feet,  and  even  then  to  carry  at  the  forward  end  the 
weight  of  a  3-ton  crane  and  its  load ;  but,  as  matter  of  safety, 
wire  ropes  were  carried  from  the  outer  ends  up  to  the  top  junc- 
tions on  the  vertical  columns." 


M 
H 

PH      °° 

It 

H     I 


o  -s 


THE   CENTEAL   GIRDER  301 

We  have  now  to  describe  the  joining  of  the  canti- 
levers by  the  central  girders,  the  crowning  feat,  and 
completion  of  the  whole  structure.  Owing  to  the 
swiftness  of  the  current  and  the  exposed  nature  of 
the  work,  it  was  not  possible  to  hoist  the  girder  into 
position,  and  it  was  decided  to  build  it  out  piece  by 
piece  till  the  arms  of  the  cantilevers  met  in  the 
middle.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that, 
strictly  speaking,  the  great  1,710-feet  spans  are  not 
joined  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  Each  half- 
span  hangs  entirely  from  its  own  supports  on  the 
main  piers.  Owing  to  the  large  amount  of  expansion 
and  contraction  to  which  the  immense  mass  of  metal 
is  liable,  it  would  endanger  the  fabric  were  it  actually 
joined.  At  the  junction  of  the  central  girder  with  the 
cantilevers  expansion-joints  are  introduced,  so  that  the 
shrinkage  due  to  the  cold  may  not  cause  a  gap,  and 
so  that  the  expansion  due  to  the  heat  may  not  cause 
"  buckling."  The  extreme  variation  in  the  lengths  of 
the  1,710-feet  spans  under  alternations  of  heat  and  cold 
is  calculated  not  to  exceed  nine  inches,  but  provision 
has  been  made  for  a  variation  of  double  that  amount. 

"Almost  every  engineering  visitor  to  the  works,"  says  Sir 
B.  Baker,  in  September,  1889,  "during  past  years  has  asked, 
'  How  are  you  going  to  erect  the  central  girder  ? '  I  have  never 
varied  myself  in  opinion  as  to  what  would  be  the  best  way  of 
doing  the  work.  In  a  paper  read  before  the  British  Association 
at  Southampton,  in  1882,  or  seven  years  ago,  I  said,  'The 
central  girder  will  be  erected  on  the  overhanging  system, 
temporary  connection  being  formed  between  the  ends  of  the 
cantilevers  and  central  girders.  The  closing  lengths  or  key- 
pieces  at  the  centre  of  each  1,700-feet  span  will  be  put  in 
on  a  cloudy  day,  or  at  night,  when  there  is  little  variation 
of  temperature,  and  the  details  will  be  so  arranged  that  the 


302  THE  FOBTH   BEIDGE 

key-piece  can  be  completed  and  the  temporary  connections 
cut  away  in  a  few  hours,  so  as  to  avoid  any  temporary  in- 
convenience from  changes  of  temperature.'  That  is  a  sufficiently 
concise  description  of  the  plan  now  in  progress  for  erecting  the 
central  girders." 

During  the  construction  of  the  works  Mr.  Arrol 
showed  an  interesting  model,  illustrating  how  the 
expansion  and  contraction  of  the  metal  mass  was 
provided  for  at  the  junction  of  the  cantilevers  and 
the  girders.  A  movement  of  six  inches  was  provided 
for  at  the  end  of  each  cantilever.  The  contrivance 
to  admit  of  it  is  most  clever.  What  is  termed  a 
rocking-pillar  is  introduced  between  the  end  of  the 
cantilever  and  the  end  of  the  girder.  The  lower  end 
of  the  pillar  rests  in  a  socket  on  the  cantilever,  while 
the  upper  end  supports  a  socket  carrying  the  girder. 
In  this  way  a  certain  amount  of  play  is  given  to  the 
junction.  The  rocking  motion  may  be  illustrated  by 
placing  a  walking-stick  on  the  ground,  and  allowing 
the  upper  end  to  oscillate  an  inch  or  so.  In  this 
case  the  ground  would  represent  the  cantilever,  and 
the  hand  at  the  top  the  girder  attachment.  Other 
arrangements  providing  against  undue  strain  owing 
to  contraction  and  expansion  were  introduced  in  the 
shape  of  " sliding  bed-plates"  and  "roller-bearings." 

The  following  account  of  the  actual  joining  of  a 
girder  on  November  14th,  1889,  must  conclude  our 
description  of  this  great  work.  It  is  taken  from  the 
already  frequently  quoted  pages  of  Engineering. 

"The  north  central  girder  had  in  the  meantime  been  built 
out  in  a  precisely  similar  manner,  and  by  October  15th  it 
was  sufficiently  advanced  to  allow  a  gangway,  65  feet  long, 
to  be  laid  across.  This  enabled  the  directors  of  the  company 


o  ,2 

h    S 
d!     D 


THE  BOOKING  PILLAR  303 

to  walk  across  the  bridge  from  end  to  end,  the  chairman  of  the 
company  being  actually  the  first  person  to  cross  the  north 
span.  By  October  28th  the  last  booms  were  put  in,  and  by 
November  6th  everything  was  ready  to  connect  the  girder  also. 
The  temperature  on  that  day  did  not  rise,  however,  sufficiently 
high  to  make  the  joint,  but  in  the  night  a  sudden  rise  took 
place,  and  by  7.30  in  the  morning  the  bottom  booms  were  joined 
together  for  good. 

"  It  now  required  a  good  fall  of  the  temperature  to  get  the 
top  booms  connected,  for  the  two  halves  of  this  girder  had 
been  set  less  high  at  starting,  and  there  was  now  practically 
no  camber  in  the  bottom  booms.  But  the  weather  remained 
obstinate  and  the  temperature  very  high,  and  it  was  not  until 
the  morning  of  November  14th  that  the  key-plates  could  be 
driven  in,  and  the  final  connection  made.  An  episode,  of 
which  much  has  been  made  in  the  papers,  occurred  on  this 
occasion,  and  the  facts  are  simply  as  follows.  After  the  wedges 
at  the  bottom  ends  had  been  drawn  out  and  the  key-plates 
driven  in,  a  slight  rise  of  temperature  was  indicated  by  the 
thermometer  in  the  course  of  the  morning,  and  orders  were 
given  to  remove  the  bolts  in  the  central  joints  of  the  connect- 
ing ties  and  to  light  the  furnaces.  Whether  the  thermometer 
indicated  wrongly,  or  whether  the  cantilevers  had  not  had  time 
to  fully  expand  under  the  rise  of  temperature,  or  whether  a 
decrease  of  the  same  took  place,  it  is  not  now  possible  to 
prove,  but  when  only  about  thirty-six  of  the  turned  steel  bolts 
remained  in  the  joints,  and  before  the  furnaces  could  get  fairly 
started,  the  plate-ties  sheared  the  remaining  bolts  and  parted 
with  a  bang  like  a  shot  from  a  38-ton  gun.  Something  of 
a  shake  occurred  in  the  cantilevers,  which  was  felt  at  the 
opposite  ends  and  caused  some  little  commotion  among  the 
men.  No  mishap  occurred,  however,  and  nothing  in  the  way 
of  a  fall  of  the  girders  took  place  as  stated  in  the  papers, 
simply  the  work  of  the  furnaces  and  the  task  of  knocking 
out  thirty-six  bolts  was  saved,  and  the  girder  swung  in  its 
rockers  as  freely  as  if  it  had  been  freed  in  the  most  natural 
manner. 


304  THE  FOETH   BEIDGE 

"And  thus  the  Forth  Bridge  was  completed,  for  the  remain- 
ing work  was  simply  to  replace  temporary  connections  by 
permanent  ones,  to  rivet  up  those  which  were  only  bolted, 
and  do  the  thousand  and  one  things  which  always  remain  to 
be  done  after  everything  is  said  to  be  finished." 

With  regard  to  the  staff  of  workmen,  we  may  again 
quote  Sir  B.  Baker  : — 

"To  carry  out  the  work  at  the  Forth  Bridge  there  is  an 
army  of  3,500  workmen,  officered  by  a  proportionate  number 
of  engineers.  Everything,  except  the  rolling  of  the  steel 
plates,  is  done  on  the  spot,  and  consequently  there  are  literally 
hundreds  of  steam  and  hydraulic  engines  and  other  machines 
and  appliances  too  numerous  to  mention,  many  of  them  of  an 
entirely  original  character. 

"  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  carry  out  a  gigantic  work  of 
this  kind  .  .  .  without  paying  for  it,  not  merely  in  money  but 
in  men's  lives.  I  shall  have  failed  in  rny  task  if  you  do  not 
to  some  extent  realise  the  risks  to  which  zealous  and  plucky 
workmen  will  be  sure  to  expose  themselves  in  pushing  on  with 
the  work  of  erecting  the  Forth  Bridge.  Speaking  on  behalf  of 
the  engineers,  I  may  say  that  we  never  ask  a  workman  to  do  a 
thing  which  we  are  not  prepared  to  do  ourselves,  but  of  course 
men  will  on  their  own  initiative  occasionally  do  rash  things. 
Thus,  not  long  ago  a  man  trusted  himself  at  a  great  height  to 
the  simple  grasp  of  a  rope,  and  his  hand  getting  numbed  with 
cold  he  unconsciously  relaxed  his  hold  and  fell  backwards  a 
descent  of  120  feet,  happily  into  the  water,  from  which  he 
was  fished  out,  little  the  worse,  after  sinking  twice.  Another 
man,  going  up  in  a  hoist  the  other  day,  having  that  familiarity 
with  danger  which  breeds  contempt,  did  not  trouble  to  close 
the  rail,  and  stumbling  backwards  fell  a  distance  of  180  feet, 
carrying  away  a  dozen  rungs  of  a  ladder  with  which  he  came 
in  contact  as  if  they  had  been  straws.  These  are  instances  of 
rashness,  but  the  best  men  run  risks  from  their  fellow- workmen. 
Thus,  a  splendid  fellow,  active  as  a  cat,  who  would  run  hand 
over  hand  along  a  rope  at  any  height,  was  knocked  over  by 


THE  DIEECTOES  AND   STAFF  305 

a  man  dropping  a  wedge  on  him  from  above,  and  killed  by  a 
fall  of  between  one  and  two  hundred  feet.  There  are  about 
500  men  at  work  at  each  main  pier,  and  something  is  always 
dropping  from  aloft.  I  saw  a  hole  one  inch  in  diameter  made 
through  the  four-inch  timber  of  the  staging  by  a  spanner  which 
fell  about  300  feet,  and  took  off  a  man's  cap  in  its  course.  On 
another  occasion  a  dropped  spanner  entered  a  man's  waistcoat 
and  came  out  at  his  ankle,  tearing  open  the  whole  of  his  clothes 
but  not  injuring  the  man  himself  in  any  way." 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  size  of  this  work,  it  is 
calculated  that  there  are  about  eight  million  of  rivets 
to  be  driven.  The  amount  of  surface  to  be  painted  is 
equal  to  145  acres.  The  weight  of  steel  in  the  main 
spans  is  51,000  tons.  The  weight  of  the  1,710  span 
is  16,000  tons.  The  steel  plates  required  in  the  con- 
struction, if  placed  in  line,  would  have  stretched  45 
miles.  In  the  construction  there  was  used  21,000 
tons  of  cement,  47,000  tons  of  granite,  and  113,000 
tons  of  stone. 

The  directors  of  the  Forth  Bridge  Kailway  Company 
were — Mr.  M.  W.  Thompson  (chairman)  and  Mr.  W. 
Unwin  Hey  gate,  representing  the  Midland  Railway ; 
Lord  Colville  of  Culross  and  Lord  Hindlip  from  the 
Great  Northern  Railway  ;  Mr.  John  Dent-Dent  (deputy- 
chairman)  and  Sir  Matthew  White-Ridley,  Bart.,  from 
the  North  Eastern  Railway  ;  the  Marquis  of  Tweeddale 
and  the  Earl  of  Elgin  and  Kincardine  from  the  North 
British  Railway.  Mr.  Spencer  Brunton  and  Mr.  James 
Hall  Renton  were  elected  by  the  shareholders.  The 
secretary  was  Mr.  G.  B.  Wieland,  the  secretary  of  the 
North  British  Railway.  The  engineers  were  Sir  John 
Fowler,  K.C.M.G.,  C.E.,  and  Mr.  Benjamin  Baker.  The 
contractors  for  the  bridge  were  Sir  Thomas  S.  Tancred, 
x 


306  THE  FOETH   BEIDGE 

Bart.,  Mr.  W.  Arrol,  Mr.  T.  H.  Falkiner,  and  Mr.  Joseph 
Phillips.  The  contractors  for  the  north  and  south 
approach  railways  were  Mr.  W.  Arrol,  Mr.  T.  H. 
Falkiner,  and  Mr.  Joseph  Phillips.  On  the  staff  of 
Sir  John  Fowler  and  Mr.  Baker  were  the  following  : 
Mr.  Allan  Stewart,  Mr.  P.  W.  Meik  (resident  engineer 
from  1883  to  1886),  Mr.  F.  E.  Cooper  (resident 
engineer  from  1886  to  1890),  and  a  number  of  assist- 
ants. On  the  contractors'  staff  were  Mr.  Thomas  Scott, 
manager  ;  Mr.  W.  Westhofen,  who  was  specially  en- 
gaged on  the  works  at  Inchgarvie  ;  Mr.  A.  S.  Biggart, 
in  charge  of  drawing  offices,  shops,  and  yards ;  and  a 
number  of  others  far  too  numerous  to  mention.  M. 
Coiseau,  a  Belgian  contractor,  was  in  charge  of  the 
pneumatic  caissons. 

When  the  Forth  Bridge  was  begun,  Sir  John  Fowler 
was  no  longer  a  young  man ;  but  though  occasionally 
in  his  correspondence  there  is  allusion  to  a  troublesome 
bronchial  affection,  his  energy  and  determination  re- 
mained unabated.  Nominally  the  chief  responsibility 
rested  on  his  shoulders,  but  of  course  the  detailed  plans 
of  this  gigantic  undertaking  required  the  co-operation 
of  many  minds.  It  is  a  structure  which  has  made 
the  reputation  of  many  men.  Beyond  the  general 
responsibility  which  fell  on  him  as  the  titular  chief  of 
the  engineering  staff,  Sir  John's  personal  interest  was 
principally  attracted  to  the  masonry  of  the  piers  and 
to  the  quality  of  the  granite  and  other  materials  em- 
ployed in  them,  a  subject  which  always  had  had  a 
great  fascination  for  him,  and  when  it  is  remembered 
that  the  approach  viaducts  on  each  side  of  the  Forth 
are  in  themselves  large  engineering  works  involving 
a  succession  of  great  granite  piers,  the  importance 


SIR  JOHN   ON  MATEKIALS  307 

of  Sir  John's  favourite  study  of  masonry  becomes 
apparent. 

At  the  same  time,  his  attention  was  not  exclusively 
directed  to  this  point. 

The  following  passage  from  an  address  delivered  by 
him  to  the  Merchant  Venturers'  School  at  Bristol  sums 
up  in  popular  language  the  great  change  which,  in 
the  course  of  his  own  observation,  had  come  over  the 
business  of  bridge  building,  mainly  by  reason  of  im- 
provements in  material — a  change  which  indeed  seemed 
to  culminate  in  the  methods  and  designs  used  on  the 
Forth  Bridge  :— 

"If  I  were  to  be  called  upon  to  name  one  science  which 
has  contributed  more  than  any  other  to  the  improvement 
of  the  quality  of  material,  or  to  economy  in  its  production, 
I  think  I  should  name  chemistry.  By  means  of  chemistry 
efficiently  applied,  after  thousands  of  experiments,  we  have 
steel  of  a  high  quality  at  a  less  cost  per  ton  than  iron  of  even 
moderate  quality  could  formerly  be  produced. 

"At  the  present  time  14,000,000  tons  of  steel  rails  are 
annually  made  in  the  world  at  a  less  cost  per  ton,  and  of  more 
than  three  times  the  durability  (or  length  of  life)  of  the  rails 
formerly  manufactured  from  the  metal  called  '  iron.' 

"  What  this  means  in  annual  economy  and  greater  freedom 
from  accidents  would  lead  us,  if  we  pursued  the  investigation, 
into  very  large  figures  and  elaborate  statistics,  but  it  is 
obviously  of  such  vast  importance  that  it  may  be  classed  as 
one  of  the  greatest  scientific  and  practical  improvements  of 
modern  times. 

"Again,  by  the  manufacture  of  steel  plates  for  ships  and 
bridges  we  have  a  vastly  superior  and  stronger  material  at  less 
cost  than  iron.  .  .  .  The  Forth  Bridge  ...  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  value  of  the  superior  and  economical  steel 
material,  first  introduced  into  this  country  by  the  process 
called  'open  hearth,'  through  the  genius  of  my  late  dis- 


308  THE   FOKTH   BEIDGE 

tinguished  friend  Sir  William  Siemens.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  great  Forth  Bridge  would  have  been  financially 
impossible  without  the  use  of  steel.  With  iron  it  would  have 
been  twice  the  weight  (if  practicable  at  all),  in  consequence  of 
the  less  strength  of  the  material,  and  more  than  twice  the 
cost,  and  therefore  impracticable.  .  .  . 

"The  Britannia  Bridge  over  the  Menai  Straits  was  built 
forty  years  only  before  the  Forth  Bridge,  but  how  great  the 
contrast  between  the  two  works  ! 

"  Let  us  compare  design,  material,  and  manufacture. 

"The  design,  in  the  hands  of  Stephenson  and  Fairbairn, 
was  in  accordance  with  the  best  knowledge  and  experience  of 
that  day,  and  presents  a  solid  and  safe  structure,  but  with  the 
material  so  placed  that  much  of  it  contributes  nothing  to  the 
strength  of  the  bridge,  and  is  mere  dead  weight,  tending  to 
weaken  the  bridge. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  the  Forth  Bridge  is  designed  so  that 
each  member  in  the  structure,  either  in  tension  or  compression, 
has  a  definite  and  calculated  stress  to  sustain. 

"  The  material  of  which  the  Menai  Bridge  was  constructed 
is  iron,  having  an  ultimate  tensile  strength  of  22  tons  per 
square  inch,  whilst  the  Forth  Bridge  is  of  steel,  with  a  tensile 
strength  of  33  tons  per  square  inch. 

"  The  improvement  in  manufacture  has  been  as  great  as  in 
the  strength  and  excellence  of  the  material.  For  instance, 
for  the  Menai  Bridge,  plates  of  the  dimensions  of  12  feet  long- 
by  2  feet  wide,  or  24  square  feet  in  area,  were  obtained  with 
difficulty,  and  special  credit  was  accorded  to  Mr.  Thorneycroft 
of  Wolverhampton  for  his  practical  skill  in  obtaining  plates 
of  that  large  size.  On  the  Forth  Bridge  the  largest  plate  was 
30  feet  by  5  feet,  or  150  square  feet  in  area,  and  was  obtained 
without  difficulty  or  extra  expense,  and  thus  an  immense 
number  of  rivets  were  saved. 

"  The  engineer  of  the  Menai  Bridge  calculated  that,  with 
the  iron  they  used,  a  bridge  of  the  span  of  1,710  feet  might  be 
constructed,  but  not  an  ounce  of  weight  must  be  put  upon  it, 
or  a  breath  of  air  allowed  to  impinge  against  it.  Each  span 


A  VISIT  TO   SPAIN  309 

of  the  Forth  Bridge  happens  also  be  1,710  feet.  When  tested 
by  the  Board  of  Trade  Inspectors  1,830  tons  were  put  on  the 
1,710  feet,  but  4,000  tons  might  have  been  put  on  it  without 
injuriously  affecting  the  structure." 

This  address  was  delivered  some  time  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  bridge,  but,  for  the  rest,  he  took  very 
little  part  in  the  scientific  discussions  which  occasion- 
ally arose  during  the  construction  of  the  bridge.  He 
delighted  in  showing  parties  of  his  friends  over  the 
works,  and  in  explaining  to  them  the  nature  of  the 
operations.  Except  the  speech  at  the  opening  cere- 
mony, and  an  article  signed  by  himself  and  by  Sir 
Benjamin  Baker  which  appeared  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  review,  he  left  the  work  of  popular  exposition 
to  his  younger  colleagues. 

The  responsibility,  however,  weighed  much  on  his 
mind,  and  the  zeal  and  energy  which  he  threw  into 
the  work  of  general  superintendence  was  unremitting. 
On  March  23rd,  1884,  he  writes  to  his  wife  from 
Barcelona,  where  he  had  gone  partly  in  search  of 
health  and  partly  on  business. 

"  I  sometimes  analyse  my  motives  in  coming  to  Spain.  The 
ostensible  motive,  of  course,  is  to  see  Per's  (his  son's)  work 
at  the  Lomo  de  Bas  mines,  as  to  which  I  have  special  duties 
as  chairman,  but  I  think  the  strongest  of  all  is  to  endeavour 
to  see  the  Forth  Bridge  finished,  and  to  have  a  few  more  birth- 
days with  you.  You  will  say  these  are  rather  sad  and  morbid 
thoughts,  and  no  doubt  they  are,  but  it  is  always  the  case 
with  me  when  I  have  not  sufficient  occupation  or  absorbing 
interests." 

"  My  chief  consolation,"  he  says  in  the  same  letter,  "  is  the 
warm  sun,  and  the  consolation  is  rather  the  hope  that  it  may 
diminish  my  cough  than  for  the  personal  comfort,  although 
that  is  something." 


310  THE  FORTH   BEIDGE 

Later  in  the  year,  December  14th,  he  writes  again 
from  the  Forth  Bridge,  to  which  he  paid  a  fortnightly 
visit. 

"I  am  very  much  disposed  to  come  here  after  Christmas 
and  make  this  my  home  for  a  month  or  two.  I  do  not  think 
the  work  will  go  on  either  rapidly  or  satisfactorily  unless  I  do." 
Next  day  he  writes  again,  "I  am  more  and  more  convinced 
that  I  must  come  and  live  here  for  a  time,  if  this  work  is  to 
progress  rapidly." 

In  October,  1886,  he  writes  :— 

"I  have  all  the  contractors  here,  and  am  hard  at  work 
organising  a  better  progress  with  the  works.  They  see  I  am 
terribly  in  earnest,  and  are  carrying  out  all  my  suggestions 
with  the  energy  I  require.  .  .  .  The  air  is  softer  with  the  rain, 
and  probably  my  cough  will  be  less  troublesome  than  it  was 
with  the  cold  of  yesterday  and  the  day  before.  I  should  be 
so  pleased  if  I  could  safely  and  with  reasonable  comfort  remain 
in  England  all  the  winter,  and  spend  much  of  my  time  here. 
We  must  see." 

We  quoted  earlier  in  this  work  a  time-table  of  one 
of  Sir  John  Fowler's  working  days.  The  same  tireless 
energy  still  characterised  his  movements,  as  the  follow- 
ing extract  will  show. 

"FORTH  BRIDGE,  May  29z%,  1887. 

"  I  have  almost  settled  to  leave  here  very  early  on  Thursday 
(3.30  a.m.)  and  go  to  Glen  Mazeran,  and  leave  there  so  early 
on  Friday  morning  that  I  have  an  hour  at  Inverness  with 
Dougal  and  Paterson  on  Highland  railway  matters,  and  go 
forward  to  Inverbroom  by  the  twelve  o'clock  train  from 
Inverness. 

"  On  my  way  to  Inverbroom  I  will  call  at  Braemore  House, 
and  spend  half  an  hour  or  an  hour  there  whilst  the  carriage 
drives  round  to  the  square,  also  go  through  the  garden  before 
I  go  on  to  Inverbroom.  I  must  leave  Inverbroom  on  Thursday, 


O  3 

M  tf 

tf  2 

«  "*• 


W        V 
K      J= 

H  " 
o 
Ex* 


OfV.     •*-/->    -no 


OPENING  CEREMONY  311 


9th,  to  return  here,  which  I  can  do  on  the  same  day,  reaching 
Queensferry  about  eleven  o'clock.  This  is  a  stiff  programme, 
and  involves  early  rising  and  long  days,  but  if  I  am  well,  and 
my  cough  not  very  troublesome,  I  can  manage  it  all,  and  it 
will  be  useful  work." 

Not  a  bad  week's  work  for  a  man  of  seventy  years 
of  age  !  On  November  17th,  1887,  he  writes  again  : — 

"  I  am  well  this  morning,  and  have  just  been  over  the  works 
with  Arrol,  Falkiner,  and  Cooper.  The  progress  of  erection  is 
now  very  satisfactory,  and  if  we  are  all  spared  until  next 
summer  the  operations  will  be  more  interesting  than  they  have 
ever  been.  ...  I  am  very  glad  I  came  here  now,  as  there  are 
many  matters  in  which  my  presence  will  be  very  useful. 
Yesterday  the  wind  was  so  high  that  the  work  of  erection  was 
quite  stopped.  To-day  is  calm,  and  men  are  perched  about 
in  numerous  places  from  300  to  400  feet  high,  and  apparently 
work  as  comfortably  as  if  they  were  on  the  ground.  .  .  ." 

The  opening  ceremony  took  place  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  on  March  4th,  1890.  A  gale 
of  wind  was  blowing  at  the  time,  and  the  speech- 
making  out-of-doors  was  cut  very  short.  The  last 
rivet  of  the  bridge  was  driven  by  His  Koyal  Highness, 
and  the  bridge  was  declared  open.  The  company  then 
sought  the  shelter  of  the  banqueting-hall,  erected  at 
the  Forth  Bridge  Station,  where  luncheon  was  served. 

In  his  speech  after  lunch,  the  Prince  announced  that 
Her  Majesty  had  been  pleased  to  make  Sir  John  Fowler 
and  Mr.  Thompson  baronets,  Mr.  Baker  a  Knight 
Commander  of  the  Order  of  St.  George  and  St.  Michael, 
and  to  confer  on  Mr.  Arrol  the  honour  of  knighthood. 

Sir  John  Fowler  was  called  upon  to  reply.    He  said  :— 

"Your  Koyal  Highness,  Mr.  Chairman,  My  Lords  and 
gentlemen,  I  have  to  acknowledge  this  toast  on  my  own  part 


312  THE  FOKTH   BRIDGE 

and  on  that  of  my  colleague  and  partner  Mr.  Baker,  whom 
I  must  learn  as  quickly  as  possible  to  call  Sir  Benjamin 
Baker,  and  on  behalf  of  all  our  able  engineering  staff  who  have 
been  associated  with  us  in  the  design  and  construction  of  the 
Forth  Bridge." 

After  referring  to  the  class  of  critical  pessimists 
who  make  it  their  business  to  declare  that  bold  and 
novel  undertakings  like  the  Metropolitan  Kail  way,  the 
Suez  Canal,  and  the  Forth  Bridge  are  impossibilities, 
he  went  on  to  say  :— 

"  It  is  very  curious  to  watch  the  manner  of  retreat  of  these 
prophets  of  failure  when  results  prove  they  have  been  mistaken, 
and  I  could  tell  you  some  very  curious  stories  connected  with 
the  Forth  Bridge.  But  on  this  day  I  feel  I  can  afford  to 
be  magnanimous,  and  I  shall  say  nothing  ill-natured  about  any 
of  them — not  even  the  astronomers.  I  am  certain,  however, 
that  the  astronomers  are  very  sorry  for  themselves,  because, 
since  the  failure  of  their  predictions  as  to  the  Forth  Bridge, 
cautious  people  are  beginning  to  be  a  little  doubtful  about 
these  small  planets  that  they  say  they  discover  in  the  sky. 
Now,  personally,  I  believe  in  astronomers,  I  believe  even  in  their 
little  planets,  but  I  do  not  believe  in  astronomy  being  a  safe 
guide  for  practical  engineering.  ...  I  should  like  to  designate 
this  work  as  a  British  work.  Scottish  and  English  railway 
companies  have  found  the  capital.  Aberdeen  has  found  the 
granite.  The  greater  part  of  the  steel  has  come  from  Glasgow. 
The  cement  has  come  from  the  clay  and  chalk  cliffs  of  the 
valley  of  the  Thames,  which,  as  you  are  aware,  is  in  the 
neighbouring  and  very  friendly  kingdom  of  England,  and  part 
of  the  steel  has  come  from  '  dear  little  Wales.'  The  workmen 
have  been  chiefly  Scottish.  They  are  famous  throughout  the 
world  as  masons,  and  especially  in  granite;  and  I  do  not 
believe,  and  I  profess  myself  to  be  a  good  judge,  that  a  better 
piece  of  mason  work  was  ever  executed  for  any  public  work  in 
this  world."  Then  as  to  the  aesthetic  aspects  of  the  work. 
"This,  I  confess,  gave  me  a  little  concern,  for  I  read  rather 


SIK  JOHN'S   SPEECH  313 

strongly-worded  letters  in  the  newspapers,  and  altogether  we 
seemed  likely  to  get  into  hot  water  over  the  matter."  How- 
ever, a  learned  society  in  Edinburgh  "called  to  its  hall  two 
famous  artistic  athletes — Mr.  William  Morris,  as  the  vigorous 
attacker  of  the  Forth  Bridge  on  aesthetic  grounds,  and  Mr. 
Benjamin  Baker,  the  equally  vigorous  defender.  The  result, 
I  believe,  was  that  Mr.  Baker  and  the  bridge  were  entirely 
victorious."  Then  as  to  the  durability  of  the  bridge.  "We 
have  two  materials  in  the  Forth  Bridge — granite  and  steel. 
...  With  Scottish  granite  connected  with  English  cement  we 
have  durability  and  union  of  parts  for  at  least  a  thousand 
years.  ...  In  regard  to  the  steel,  it  can  be  deteriorated  or 
decayed  from  two  causes — vibration  and  oxidation.  Vibration 
can  only  produce  injurious  action  when  the  maximum  strain 
to  which  it  will  be  habitually  exposed  by  use  approaches  to 
one-half  of  its  ultimate  strength ;  but  as  the  Forth  Bridge  can 
never  have  as  much  as  one-fourth  of  the  ultimate  strain,  I 
think  we  may  dismiss  vibration  as  a  source  of  injury.  With 
regard  to  oxidation,  that  means  gross  neglect  by  those  who 
have  the  bridge  in  charge ;  it  means  that  the  painting  shall  be 
so  neglected  that  the  atmosphere  has  direct  access  to  the  steel, 
and  I  won't  do  those  who  have  the  charge  of  this  important 
and  costly  work  the  injustice  of  supposing  such  a  contingency 
to  be  possible." 

After  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  work  done 
by  his  various  colleagues  —  Mr.  Baker,  Mr.  Allan 
Stewart,  Mr.  Phillips,  Mr.  Arrol,  and  Mr.  Biggart — 
he  then,  last  but  not  least,  claimed  their  due  meed 
of  praise  for  those  thousands  of  workmen  —  brave 
men,  who  for  years,  often  in  tempestuous  weather, 
and  at  an  elevation  of  one,  two,  three,  or  even  four 
hundred  feet  above  the  waters  of  the  Forth,  did 
their  hazardous  work,  and  never  knowingly  scamped 
a  rivet. 

Sir   John's   allusion   to   the  artistic  aspects  of  the 


314  THE  FOKTH   BEIDGE 

question  refers  to  an  incident  which  is  interesting  and 
amusing. 

Mr.  William  Morris,  a  great  handicraftsman  and 
man  of  genius,  who  unfortunately  allowed  his  fine 
artistic  sense  to  be  obscured  by  a  disordered  political 
imagination,  seemed  to  see  in  the  Forth  Bridge  an 
embodiment  of  all  he  found  amiss  in  the  economy 
of  our  age. 

"  There  never  would  be,"  he  said,  "  an  architecture  in  ironr 
every  improvement  in  machinery  being  uglier  and  uglier, 
until  they  reach  the  supremest  specimen  of  all  ugliness — the 
Forth  Bridge." 

In  reply  to  this  tirade  Sir  B.  Baker,  lecturing  the 
following  evening  (November  27th,  1889)  at  the 
Edinburgh  Literary  Institute,  not  unnaturally  ex- 
pressed a  doubt 

"  if  Mr.  Morris  had  the  faintest  knowledge  of  the  duties  which 
the  great  structure  had  to  perform,  and  he  could  not  judge 
of  the  impression  which  it  made  on  the  minds  of  those  who, 
having  that  knowledge,  could  appreciate  the  direction  of 
the  lines  of  stress  and  the  fitness  of  the  several  members  to 
resist  the  forces.  Probably  Mr.  Morris  would  judge  the  beauty 
of  a  design  from  the  same  standpoint,  whether  it  was  for  a 
bridge  a  mile  long,  or  for  a  silver  chimney  ornament.  It  was 
impossible  for  anyone  to  pronounce  authoritatively  on  the 
beauty  of  an  object  without  knowing  its  functions.  The 
marble  columns  of  the  Parthenon  were  beautiful  where  they 
stood,  but  if  they  took  one  and  bored  a  hole  through  its  axis 
and  used  it  as  a  funnel  of  an  Atlantic  liner  it  would,  to  his 
mind,  cease  to  be  beautiful,  but  of  course  Mr.  Morris  might 
think  otherwise." 

"  He  (Sir  B.  Baker)  had  been  asked  why  the  under  side  of 
the  bridge  had  not  been  made  a  true  arc,  instead  of  polygonal 


.ESTHETICS  315 

in  form,  and  his  reply  was  that  to  have  made  it  so  would  have 
materialised  a  falsehood.  The  Forth  Bridge  was  not  an  arch, 
and  it  said  so  for  itself.  No  one  would  admire  bent  columns 
in  an  architectural  fagade,  or  a  beam  tricked  out  to  look  like 
an  arch;  but  that  was  really  to  what  the  suggestion  of  his 
artistic  friends  amounted,  though  they  did  not  see  it,  being 
ignorant  of  the  principles  on  which  the  Forth  Bridge  was 
constructed.  Critics  must  first  study  the  work  to  be  done 
both  by  the  piers,  and  by  the  superstructure,  and  also  the 
materials  employed,  before  they  are  capable  of  settling  whether 
it  is  beautiful  or  ugly.  It  would,  he  added,  be  a  ludicrous 
error  to  suppose  that  Sir  John  Fowler  and  he  had  neglected 
to  consider  the  design  from  the  artistic  point  of  view.  They 
did  so  from  the  very  first.  An  arched  form  was  admittedly 
graceful,  and  they  had  approximated  their  bridge  to  that  form 
as  closely  as  they  could  without  suggesting  false  constructions 
and  shams.  They  made  the  compression  members  strong 
tubes,  and  the  tension  members  light  lattice  work,  so  that  to 
any  intelligent  eye  the  nature  of  the  stresses  and  the 
sufficiency  of  the  members  of  the  structure  to  resist  them 
were  emphasised  at  all  points.  It  would  have  been  futile 
to  attempt  to  ornament  the  great  cantilevers,  and  so,  to  keep 
the  whole  work  in  harmony,  they  studiously  avoided  any 
attempt  at  ornamentation  of  the  piers,  and  people  would 
search  in  vain  even  for  a  moulded  capping,  or  cornice  through- 
out the  whole  work.  The  object  had  been  so  to  arrange  the 
leading  lines  of  the  structure  as  to  convey  an  idea  of  strength 
and  stability.  This,  in  such  a  structure,  seemed  to  be  at  once 
the  truest  and  highest  art." 

In  reference  to  this  interesting  question  of  the 
merits  or  demerits  of  the  bridge  from  an  artistic  point 
of  view,  we  may  fitly  conclude  our  account  of  this 
great  work  by  quoting  from  a  letter  of  congratulation 
written  to  Sir  John  Fowler,  when  the  bridge  was 
completed,  by  a  competent  critic,  Mr.  Alfred  Water- 
house,  R.A.  : — 


316  THE  FOBTH  BEIDGE 

"20,  NEW  CAVENDISH  STREET, 

PORTLAND  PLACE,  W., 

"December  5th,  1889. 

"  DEAR  SIR  JOHN  FOWLER, — I  was  very  much  obliged  to  you 
for  so  kindly  enabling  me  to  visit  the  Forth  Bridge  in  so  satis- 
factory a  manner.  Your  note  was  the  means  of  my  introduc- 
tion to  Mr.  Baker,  who  happened  to  be  on  the  spot,  and  who 
was  very  good  to  me  as  introduced  by  you. 

"I  expect  you  are  tired  of  congratulations,  but  I  cannot 
help  saying  how  overawed  I  was  by  the  work.  It  hardly 
looks  human.  One  feature  especially  delights  me — the  absence 
of  all  ornament.  Any  architectural  detail  borrowed  from  any 
style  would  have  been  out  of  place  in  such  a  work.  As  it  is, 
the  bridge  is  a  style  unto  itself. 

"The  simple  directness  of  purpose  with  which  it  does  its 
work  is  splendid,  and  invests  your  vast  monument  with  a  kind 
of  beauty  of  its  own,  differing  though  it  certainly  does  from 
all  other  beautiful  things  I  have  ever  seen. 

"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  WATERHOUSE." 

It  would  be  endless  and  unnecessary  to  record  the 
congratulations  and  public  laudatory  notices  which 
followed  the  completion  of  the  great  bridge.  The 
Sovereign  expressed  her  approval  by  conferring  titles 
on  the  engineers ;  the  University  of  Edinburgh 
honoured  itself  by  giving  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Laws ;  but  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  acknowledg- 
ment of  all  was  the  bestowal  of  the  Prix  Poncelet  on 
Sir  John  Fowler  and  Sir  Benjamin  Baker  by  the 
Institute  of  France,  a  gratifying  and  impartial  tribute 
to  the  fact  that  scientific  generosity  and  merit  rise 
above  the  narrow  limitations  of  nationality  and  creed. 
At  this  date  there  was  no  other  precedent  for  the 
bestowal  of  this  international  honour  on  an  English- 


THE  ENGINEERS'  BEST  MEMORIAL  317 

man,  except  in  the  noteworthy  instance  of  Lord 
Kelvin,  who  had  already  received  the  same  honourable 
distinction. 

Those,  however,  who  have  seen  the  bridge  cannot 
but  feel  that  there  is  a  certain  incongruity  in  seeking 
to  increase,  by  such  means,  the  fame  and  honour  of 
its  builders.  The  most  colossal  structure  of  the  fore- 
most industrial  nation  of  the  world,  standing  as  it 
does  in  a  place  where  the  natural  scenery  sets  off  its 
superb  proportions,  is  itself  the  most  appropriate 
memorial  of  its  makers. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  ENGINEER  AT   HOME 

IT  is,  of  course,  in  his  professional  capacity  that 
Sir  John  Fowler  becomes  an  outstanding  figure  in 
the  engineering  world  of  the  second  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  we  have  endeavoured  to  set  out  the 
conjuncture  of  character  and  opportunity  from  which  his 
public  career  proceeded. 

When  we  speak  of  a  man's  private  life  we  are 
ordinarily  supposed  to  refer  to  those  leisure  hours 
which  he  spends  away  from  his  business.  The  forma- 
tive influence  in  Sir  John  Fowler's  life  and  character, 
however,  was  undoubtedly  his  business  experience. 
To  the  incidents  of  his  daily  work,  his  energy, 
punctuality,  attention  to  detail,  and  that  probity  of 
character  which  is  at  once  controlling  and  exacting, 
both  to  himself  and  others,  were  readily  applicable, 
and  have  already  been  noticed.  It  remains  to  con- 
sider how  a  character  so  profoundly  influenced  by  the 
necessities  of  an  industrial  age  appeared  in  the  more 
spontaneous  and  impulsive  atmosphere  of  home-life. 

Fowler  was  naturally  a  man  of  warm  affections,  and, 
though  in  early  life  he  yielded  to  it  very  little,  with  a 
deep  strain  of  sentiment  in  his  disposition.  He  was 
a  strong  man,  but  he  was  also  a  very  good-natured 
man,  and  the  fact  made  him  on  the  whole  a  kindly 

318 


PEIVATE   AND   PUBLIC   LIFE  319 

minister  of  those  economic  laws  which  some  find  so 
hard  and  unrelenting.  He  was,  in  this  way,  a  popular 
man  in  his  own  profession  and  in  society.  He  showed 
a  generous  desire  to  obtain  public  recognition  of  the 
work  of  other  members  of  the  profession,  and  expression 
of  his  opinion  had  weight  with  those  who  had  the 
responsibility  of  dispensing  public  honours.  Among 
other  notable  engineering  works  of  the  last  few  years, 
he  was  much  interested  in  the  Manchester  Ship  Canal, 
and  on  the  passage  of  the  Bill  through  Parliament,  and 
on  the  completion  of  the  work,  he  wrote  warm  letters  of 
congratulation  to  the  engineer,  Mr.  (now  Sir)  E.  Leader 
Williams.  "  I  am  sure,"  he  said,  "  all  your  friends  will 
be  pleased  and  proud,  as  I  am,  at  the  result  of  your 
long  perseverance  against  formidable  odds."  The  com- 
pliment was  duly  appreciated.  Sir  E.  Leader  Williams 
writes :  "Sir  John  always  took  an  interest  in  the 
success  of  other  engineers  in  carrying  out  large  works. 
He  knew  by  experience  the  anxiety  and  worry  that 
attends  the  prosecution  of  such  enterprises,  and  his 
kind  words  and  letters  were  prized  by  his  professional 
brethren." 

A  man's  private  and  public  life  is  not,  though  we 
sometimes  talk  as  if  it  were,  divided  into  two  water- 
tight compartments,  and  Sir  John  Fowler's  case  was  no 
exception,  for  just  as  his  genial  and  kindly  nature 
followed  him  into  his  professional  life,  so  occasionally  the 
somewhat  arbitrary  habit  of  thought,  acquired  by  the 
practice  of  command  and  the  achievement  of  success, 
coloured  the  judgments  and  actions  of  his  private  life. 
This  must  be  the  explanation  of  a  certain  controversial 
keenness  and  love  of  mastery  which,  especially  in  later 
years,  took  possession  of  him.  In  professional  matters 


320  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

this  tendency  was,  as  we  have  remarked,  well  under 
control ;  when  necessary  he  knew  how  to  yield,  but 
naturally,  in  his  expression  of  political  opinions,  in 
the  management  of  his  family  and  affairs,  no  such 
imperative  occasions  for  concession  arose.  Happily 
in  such  matters,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  important 
question  of  standing  for  Parliament,  he  sought  and 
was  much  guided  by  the  advice  of  his  wife.  Her 
womanly  tact  had  a  refining  and  moderating  influence 
on  a  temperament  that  was  naturally  imperious. 

To  complete  our  memorial  of  Sir  John  Fowler's 
career,  some  sketch  must  here  be  attempted  of  his 
home-life  in  London  and  at  Braemore. 

Up  to  1867  he  continued  to  live  at  2,  Queen  Square 
Place.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  enjoyed  keeping  open 
house  for  his  friends.  Professional  men  then  lived,  if 
the  term  may  be  allowed,  on  greater  terms  of  intimacy 
with  their  business.  The  ladies  of  the  family  occasion- 
ally penetrated  into  offices  which  were  under  the  same 
roof  as  the  dwelling.  During  the  making  of  the 
Metropolitan  Eailway,  when  much  of  the  work  had 
to  be  done  in  the  midnight  hours,  entertainment 
used  to  be  provided  for  the  staff  by  the  hospitable 
chief.  In  the  early  sixties,  and  especially  during  his 
presidency  of  the  Institution,  he  had  every  Tuesday 
night  a  small  dinner-party,  to  which  a  select  circle  of 
engineering  friends  had  a  standing  invitation.  Later 
in  the  evening  the  party  adjourned  to  the  weekly 
meeting  of  the  Institution.  After  a  day's  labour  of 
opposing  one  another  in  the  parliamentary  committee- 
rooms  over  the  way,  there  would  assemble  round  his 
hospitable  board  the  younger  Stephenson,  Locke, 
Brunei,  Bidder,  Scott-Russell,  Rendel,  and  Hawkshaw. 


FKIENDS  AND   AMUSEMENTS  321 

No  record,  alas !  has  been  kept  of  these  interesting 
gatherings,  though  with  Lady  Fowler,  who  was  always, 
and  with  Mr.  Baldry,  who  was  sometimes,  present,  they 
live  as  memories  of  pleasant  and  brilliant  talk. 

In  1867  the  Fowlers  removed  to  Thorn  wood  Lodge, 
a  house  with  a  large  garden  and  grounds  on  Campden 
Hill,  Kensington.  Mr.  Fowler  had  become  acquainted 
with  the  amenities  of  this  charming  rus  in  urbe  while 
the  house  was  in  the  temporary  occupation  of  his  friend 
Mr.  (now  Sir)  William  Vernon  Harcourt.  Here  he  had 
his  London  headquarters  for  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

He  was  fond  of  society,  and  went  everywhere. 
Society,  too,  liked  him,  and  he  was  accepted  socially 
as,  in  an  informal  way,  the  representative  of  his  great 
profession.  He  enjoyed  being  of  service  to  his  friends 
in  little  matters  of  domestic  engineering.  In  this 
way  he  took  great  pleasure  and  interest  in  designing 
and  superintending  the  making  of  the  boys'  bathing- 
place  at  Harrow,  where  his  sons  were  at  school.  He 
also  was  consulted  about  the  levelling  of  the  cricket 
ground. 

He  had  been  a  keen  cricketer  in  his  youth,  and  as  a 
member  of  the  M.C.C.  he  was  a  familiar  figure  at  Lord's, 
where  he  seldom  failed  to  attend  at  the  great  matches 
of  the  year. 

He  had  a  Yorkshireman's  love  of  a  good  horse,  and, 
when  in  London,  he  rarely  missed  his  morning  ride  in 
the  park.  He  was  a  man  of  great  bodily  strength,  and 
he  used  to  say  that  till  he  was  sixty  he  did  not  know 
what  it  was  to  feel  physical  fatigue.  He  was  a  light 
sleeper  and  woke  early.  He  rose  every  morning  at 
six,  made  himself  a  cup  of  tea,  and  wrote  his  letters 
between  seven  and  nine. 
Y 


322  THE  ENGINEEE  AT  HOME 

"We  have  already  noted  his  first  purchase  of  land 
at  Glen  Mazeran,  Inverness-shire.  He  soon  became 
ambitious  of  something  on  a  larger  scale,  and  in  1865 
he  purchased  the  estate  of  Braemore,  in  Koss-shire, 
and  in  1867  the  adjoining  estate  of  Inverbroom. 

In  a  letter  to  his  father  dated  July  15th,  1867,  he 
gives  the  following  account  of  his  new  purchase  : — 

"  The  chief  works  which  I  am  carrying  out  are  building  the 
new  house  and  the  garden  and  outbuildings,  roads,  etc.,  belong- 
ing to  it,  improvement  of  the  arable  land,  and  plantations. 

"  The  house  is  a  serious  undertaking,  both  as  regards  the 
carrying  out  of  such  a  large  work  in  such  a  wild,  uninhabited 
part  of  the  country  and  as  regards  its  cost.  I  think  it  is  so 
far  advanced  that  no  doubt  remains  we  shall  be  able  to  cover 
it  in  before  the  end  of  October,  and  have  it  ready  for  occupa- 
tion next  season.  The  bulk  of  the  stone  for  the  stonework 
is  obtained  from  a  quarry  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the 
house.  It  is  a  rock  very  common  in  the  north  of  Scotland 
called  gneiss.  It  is  blue  in  colour,  consisting  of  felspar,  quartz, 
mica,  and  hornblende,  and  therefore  in  its  component  parts 
not  unlike  granite,  but  it  appears  to  have  been  subjected  to 
a  less  degree  of  heat  than  granite,  as  it  retains  its  schistose 
or  stratified  character.  It  is  wonderfully  durable,  and  makes 
excellent  work  for  the  plain  part  of  the  walls,  but  it  cannot 
be  worked  into  anything  requiring  an  acies  or  edge,  and  there- 
fore we  have  window-heads,  sills,  plinths,  etc.,  brought  from 
Glasgow,  where  quarries  supplying  the  finest  compact  and 
durable  sandstone  abound.  It  is  brought  by  sea  to  the  head 
of  Loch  Broom,  and  then  carted  six  miles  to  the  house.  The 
contrast  of  the  sandstone  with  the  deep  blue  gneiss  produces 
a  good  effect,  and  I  expect  the  green  Westmoreland  slates  will 
also  accord  well  as  to  colour. 

"  The  people  in  the  country  have  been  very  much  astonished 
by  my  building  the  house  700  feet  above  the  sea,  instead  of 
following  the  old  Scotch  practice  of  burying  it  in  the  lowest 
place  I  could  find,  but  now  they  see  what  is  likely  to  be 


s  I 

f  s 

M  ^ 

en  2 

*  I 

w  3 

H 


PLANTING   AT  BEAEMOEE  323 

realised,  and  the  plantations  springing  up  about  it,  the  new 
idea  seems  to  find  favour. 

"All  the  plantations  are  promising  well,  and  I  believe  in 
this  climate  with  a  southern  and  western  aspect,  the  trees  will 
make  rapid  progress  after  two  or  three  years.  Road  making 
is  easy,  as  the  materials  are  good,  and  my  Glen  Mazeran 
tenant,  Clunas,  is  especially  good  at  road  making." 

Then  follows  a  statement  of  his  intentions  with  regard 
to  the  farming  of  the  lower  part  of  the  strath,  and  the 
letter  ends  in  a  strain  of  moralising  very  unusual  with 
the  writer  : — 

"  The  garden  promises  to  be  a  great  success,  and  next  year 
we  may  expect  to  be  well  supplied  with  all  kinds  of  vegetables 
and  fruit.  .  .  .  You  will  see  by  the  date  of  this  letter  that  it 
is  written  on  my  birthday,  and  that  on  this  day  I  am  fifty 
years  old.  To  you  this  will  almost  appear  the  age  of  youth, 
but  to  me  it  appears  the  commencement  of  old  age.  I  scarcely 
know  why,  but  age  seems  to  have  stolen  upon  me  unawares, 
and  taken  me  by  a  curious  surprise.  I  sometimes  think  it  is 
because  for  many  years  my  life  was  so  fully  occupied  with 
daily  work  that  I  had  no  time  for  retrospective  and  prospective 
thought,  but  probably  it  is  the  case  with  all. 

"For  any  measure  of  worldly  success  I  may  have  had  I 
have  to  thank  you,  my  dear  father,  for  the  early  care  you  took 
of  my  education,  and  the  choice  of  my  career,  and  the  examples 
you  have  always  presented  to  me  and  to  your  children  of  truth- 
fulness and  strict  integrity.  May  you  yet  be  spared  a  little 
longer  with  your  clear  intellect  and  great  intelligence,  and  as 
free  from  pain  and  every  discomfort  as  is  possible  for  you.  .  .  ." 

Together  the  estates  of  Braemore  and  Inverbroom 
contain  some  40,000  acres.  For  the  most  part  the 
land  was  wild  heather  and  rock,  destitute  of  trees 
except  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  strath,  where,  border- 
ing on  the  rivers,  there  was  a  small  stretch  of  arable 


324  THE  ENGINEER  AT   HOME 

land.  Mr.  Fowler  set  to  work  with  characteristic 
energy  to  develop  the  resources  and  amenities  of  this 
beautiful  tract  of  country. 

First  he  determined  to  have  a  view  from  his  house. 
He  chose,  therefore,  a  site  on  the  spur  of  the  mountains 
that  flank  the  valley  of  the  Kiver  Broom.  It  was  a 
daring  adventure,  even  for  a  great  engineer,  and  friends 
were  not  wanting  to  hint  that  the  aerial  mansion  would 
be  uninhabitable.  The  result,  however,  has  fully 
justified  the  effort.  The  wood  has  grown  up,  and  the 
house,  being  built  fair  and  square,  is  warm  and  com- 
fortable even  in  the  wildest  weather.  The  stables  and 
the  gardens  are  situated  directly  below  the  mansion 
house,  on  the  level  of  the  high-road.  A  winding  road 
of  some  miles  in  length  and  of  easy  gradients  leads 
from  the  high-road  to  the  house,  but  a  short,  if  some- 
what precipitous,  path  runs  straight  down  from  the 
house  to  the  stables  and  gardens.  The  streams  of  the 
mountain-side  have  been  gathered  into  a  loch  some  way 
above  the  house,  and  utilised  to  furnish  power  for 
electric  light  and  other  purposes. 

The  road  which  leads  from  Garve  Station,  on  the 
Ding  wall  and  Skye  Kail  way,  to  Braemore  runs  for  miles 
through  a  desolate  moor.  There  are  traces,  however, 
everywhere,  of  a  primaeval  forest,  a  subject  about  which 
Sir  John  Fowler  was  never  weary  of  speculating. 

Shortly  before  reaching  the  watershed  between  the 
east  and  west  of  Scotland,  we  come  on  the  Braemore 
property,  and  as  we  pass  the  watershed  and  reach  the 
shores  of  Loch  Drome,  we  see  the  first  signs  of  Sir  John 
Fowler's  experiment  in  re-afforesting  the  country.  The 
situation  of  the  land  at  this  point,  though  exposed 
to  the  milder  breezes  of  the  west,  has  proved  too- 


CORRIE-HALLOCH,  BRAEMORE. 


To  race  page  325. 


THE  MAKING   OF  BRAEMOEE  325 

high  and  wind-swept,  and  the  plantations  here  have 
not  been  so  successful  as  lower  down  the  valley,  where 
some  1,200  acres,  which  from  time  immemorial  have 
been  bare  mountain,  are  now  successfully  covered  with 
Scotch  fir,  larch,  spruce,  and  hardwood.  Altogether 
some  9,000,000  of  trees  have  been  planted  along  the 
strath.  The  contrast  between  the  bare  and  dreary 
country  which  the  traveller  passes  on  the  ascent  from 
Garve,  and  the  sylvan  landscape  into  which  he  now 
descends,  is  most  enchanting. 

The  views  from  the  house  extend  northwards  down 
the  valley  of  the  Broom  to  the  sea  loch  of  that  name, 
and  towards  the  seaport  of  Ullapool,  while  to  the 
west  the  prospect  stretches  into  the  fastnesses  of  the 
forest.  In  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  house 
the  zealous  care  of  Sir  John  and  Lady  Fowler  has 
collected  every  variety  of  heath  and  of  mountain  tree 
and  shrub.  Most  wisely,  even  in  the  gardens,  the 
attempt  has  been  abandoned  to  acclimatise  exotics.  No 
effort,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  spared  to  realise, 
under  cultivation,  the  unsurpassable  beauty  of  a  High- 
land mountain  side. 

The  Eiver  Broom  for  more  than  a  mile  of  its  course 
runs  in  a  precipitous  gully,  at  places  some  200  and 
300  feet  in  depth.  Across  the  river  it  has  been  the 
congenial  amusement  of  the  engineer's  holiday  to 
construct  three  "  very  handsome  light  iron  bridges," 
one  for  carrying  a  roadway  across  into  the  forest,  the 
others  footbridges  to  allow  his  visitors  to  see  the 
magnificent  waterfall  of  Corrie  Halloch  and  the  wild 
gorges  of  the  river.  From  a  point  not  far  below 
the  house  the  river  issues  out  of  a  succession  of  rocky 
gullies  to  the  open  strath,  and  about  four  miles  lower 


326  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

down  flows  into  the  tidal  water  of  Loch  Broom.  Here, 
on  the  river  also,  every  device  of  which  an  engineer 
can  dream  has  been  called  into  use  to  ornament  and 
improve  the  property.  Embankments  have  been  made, 
and  the  adjoining  land  has  been  trenched  and  drained 
and  converted  into  pasture  and  arable  field.  Loch 
Drome,  the  sheet  of  water  which  is  passed  at  the  head 
of  the  valley  on  the  road  from  Garve,  has  been  increased 
from  37  acres  to  about  double  that  extent,  by  means 
of  an  embankment  at  the  lower  end.  This  operation 
has  much  improved  the  fishing  in  the  loch.  A  small 
flood  in  the  river  also  can  be  assisted  by  opening 
the  sluices  in  this  embankment,  and  the  device  goes 
some  way  to  realise  the  fisherman's  paradise,  in  which 
he  can  control  his  own  "  spates."  It  has  been  stated 
in  print  that  this  artificial  flood  has  been  efficacious  for 
purposes  of  salmon  fishing,  but  on  this  head  we  regret 
to  find  that  scepticism  still  prevails. 

The  Scottish  Highlander,  whether  of  high  or  low 
degree,  is  not  much  inclined  to  welcome  the  Sassenach 
settler  with  effusion,  but  Sir  John  Fowler  and  his 
family  very  early  succeeded  in  overcoming  this  clannish 
exclusiveness.  His  neighbours  magnanimously  over- 
looked his  misfortune  in  not  having  been  born  a 
Scotsman.  At  a  dinner  of  the  Scottish  Corporation, 
he  told  his  hearers  that  he  had  done  his  best  to  be 
a  Scotsman.  His  worldly  goods  were  mostly  in  Scot- 
land. For  forty  years  of  his  life  he  had  never  missed 
spending  his  autumns  in  Scotland.  His  eldest  son 
resided  there.  His  grandchildren  were  born  there,  and 
wherever  he  went  his  heart  was  in  the  Highlands. 
He  had  inquired  as  to  the  objects  of  the  charity  in 
the  support  of  which  they  were  feasting,  and  had  been 


A  HIGHLAND   LAIRD  327 

glad  to  learn  that  neither  religion  nor  nationality  was 
a    bar    to    membership,    but   he    observed    that    only 
Scotsmen  were  qualified  to  receive — a  very  good  rule 
—and  he  wished  the  Scottish  Corporation  all  success. 

Scotsmen  have  a  great  admiration  for  the  man  of 
solid  achievement,  and  they  like  their  humour  to  be 
served  to  them  dry.  Sir  John  Fowler  succeeded 
admirably  in  catching  the  tone  of  his  adopted  country. 
As  he  passed,  he  had  always  a  friendly  greeting  and 
a  pleasant  jest  for  his  humble  neighbours.  He  built 
good  cottages,  and  was  a  kindly  and  improving  land- 
lord. His  practical  knowledge  of  farming  and  building 
and  generally  of  estate  work  won  him  the  respect  of 
his  tenants.  "He  knew,"  one  of  them  remarked,  "the 
prices  and  quality  of  the  material  used  in  all  such 
operations  as  well  as  any  of  us.  No  one  could  get 
the  better  of  him  in  a  bargain."  The  usual  ignorance 
of  the  cockney  shooting  tenant  on  such  topics  might 
lead  to  profit,  but  not  to  popularity.  The  shrewd, 
capable,  and  liberal  landlord  was  a  more  congenial 
personage.  His  knowledge  and  keen  business  habits 
seconded  and  encouraged  the  industry  of  his  tenants. 
In  a  word,  he  recognised  that  there  was  a  business  side 
to  the  duties  of  a  landlord,  and  very  faithfully  he 
performed  his  share  of  the  contract. 

Visitors  would  occasionally  appear  from  yachts,  storm- 
staid  on  the  coast.  At  one  time  it  was  Mr.  W.  H. 
Smith  and  at  another  Lord  Kosebery  who  came  over 
from  Ullapool  to  see  the  sylvan  fairyland  which  the 
laird  of  Braemore  had  created  on  the  barren  mountain 
side.  But  for  the  most  part,  in  a  sparsely  populated 
region  like  Ross-shire,  the  occupants  of  the  great 
houses  are  necessarily  dependent  for  society  on  their 


328  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

own  visitors.  The  hospitality  of  Braemore  was  among 
Sir  John's  principal  pleasures.  There  came  to  Brae- 
more,  year  after  year,  a  long  succession  of  visitors, 
and  for  them  the  greatest  variety  of  entertainment 
was  provided.  The  company  was  not  exclusively 
composed  of  sportsmen.  Indeed,  a  confidential  talk 
with  McHardy,  who  for  thirty  years  was  head-keeper 
and  stalker,  and  trusted  friend  of  the  family,  has  left 
the  impression  that  the  sportsmanlike  prowess  of  the 
visitors  varied  inversely  to  their  distinction  in  other 
fields  of  fame.  A  visitors'  book  with  ample  margin 
contains  a  record  of  distinguished  names.  Great 
artists — Landseer  and  Millais — have  adorned  the  pages 
with  charming  sketches  in  reminiscence  of  pleasant 
days  spent  in  the  forest  or  on  the  loch.  High 
ecclesiastics  and  statesmen  contributed  to  the  volume 
appropriate  sentiments  in  prose  and  verse. 

"When  the  dull,  dreary  session  is  over,  and  patriots  twaddle  no 

more, 
How  blithely  I  breathe  the  brave  breezes  which  blow  round  the 

braes  of  Braemore ! 
Though  the  Broom  like  our  Gladstone  meanders,  or  foams  down 

with  froth  in  a  spate, 

Though  the  stalker,  like  Dizzy  in  ambush,  for  his  prey  is  aye 
lying  in  wait, 

Yet  here  may  we  cast  away  care,"  &c.  &c. 

So  sings  a  distinguished  statesman  who  is  not  gene- 
rally associated  in  the  minds  of  his  countrymen  with 
the  pursuit  of  the  muses. 

For  the  fishermen  there  was  a  stretch  of  four  miles 
of  salmon  river,  and  many  lochs  in  which  trout 
abounded.  On  the  low  ground  of  the  forest  a  good 
day's  grouse  shooting  was  to  be  had,  and  some  four  miles 


THE   RECREATIONS  OF  A  STATESMAN. 
SIR  WILLIAM  V.  HAKCOURT,  by  SIR  J.  E.  MILLAIS,  P.R.A. 

(From  the  Visitors'  Book  at  Braemore). 


To  face  page  328. 


A  YACHTSMAN  329 

away,  at  the  head  of  Loch  Broom,  Sir  John's  yacht 
was  moored,  and  especially  during  his  later  years  it 
was  his  delight  to  organise  a  water  picnic  for  a  party 
of  congenial  friends. 

Sir  John  at  different  times  owned  three  yachts, 
each  of  them  named  The  Southern  Cross,  after  the 
constellation  which  so  delighted  him  during  his  stay 
in  Egypt.  His  first  yacht  was  built  for  him  in  1878. 
Some  years  later  he  bought  a  350-ton  yacht,  in  which 
he  visited  the  Mediterranean  and  cruised  among  the 
islands  of  the  Greek  archipelago.  This  was  in  later 
years  replaced  by  a  smaller  and  handier  craft,  more 
suitable  for  the  work  required  of  it  in  the  bays  and 
narrow  channels  of  the  Scottish  coast.  He  was  elected 
a  member  of  the  Eoyal  Yacht  Squadron,  a  social  dis- 
tinction much  prized  by  those  who,  for  their  pleasure, 
go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships. 

Last,  but  of  course  not  least,  there  was  the  deer 
forest — that  sport  of  kings.  Sir  John  himself  was  a 
keen  deer  stalker ;  indeed,  to  him  all  other  sports 
except  salmon  fishing  were  matters  indifferent.  In 
later  years  he  rarely  fired  a  gun  at  a  grouse  or  threw 
a  fly  for  a  trout,  and  he  took  no  interest  in  the  big 
battues,  common  in  south  country  sport.  Notwith- 
standing this  somewhat  exclusive  taste,  Sir  John  was 
emphatically  what  is  called  "  a  good  sportsman,"  a 
phrase  of  talismanic  import  to  the  initiated.  There 
are  presumably  varieties  of  "good  sportsmen."  There 
is  the  man  who,  whether  born  in  the  palace  or  in 
the  cottage,  has  obviously  been  intended  by  Provi- 
dence for  a  gamekeeper,  who  lives  on  affectionate 
terms  with  ferrets,  and  who,  in  default  of  higher 
quarry,  will  take  part  with  enthusiasm  in  a  rat  hunt. 


330  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

Sport  with  Sir  John  was  a  less  absorbing  interest ; 
he  liked  only  the  best  of  it,  and  he  took  a  pride  in 
seeing  that  everything  was  properly  done. 

Sport,  however,  was  not  his  sole  interest  at  Braemore. 
He  was  always  very  fond  of  getting  experts  to  talk  to 
him  on  their  own  subjects.  Geological  rambles  with 
Sir  Koderick  Murchison  were  red-letter  days  to  him. 

The  following  entry  in  the  Visitors'  Book  at 
Braemore  shows  that  the  interest  of  these  rambles 
was  highly  valued  by  that  great  geologist  himself:— 

"  Adieu,  Braemore  ! "  he  writes,  "  where  the  cordial  reception 
of  the  kind  host  and  hostess  have  made  an  indelible  impression 
on  the  heart  of  the  old  Silurian ! 

"  Forty-two  years  have  elapsed  since,  when  in  company  with 
Professor  Sedgwick,  I  hammered  the  rocks  at  Ullapool,  and 
now,  by  the  active  assistance  of  Mr.  Fowler  and  the  aid  of 
his  handy  steam  yacht,  I  have  been  enabled  to  place  all  the 
great  rock  formations  which  are  exposed  on  the  shores  of 
Loch  Broom  in  their  true  order  of  age  and  succession,  from 
my  fundamental  gneiss  (hodie  Laurentiari),  through  the  grand 
massive  Cambrian  rocks  of  Ben  More,  the  lower  Silurian 
quartz  rocks  and  limestone  of  Ullapool,  up  to  the  overlying 
gneiss  of  Braemore  (metamorphic  lower  Silurian),  on  which 
the  mansion  stands,  and  from  which,  looking  northwards,  the 
spectator  commands  in  one  unrivalled  view  all  this  glorious 
geological  series. — August  21st,  1869." 

His  lifelong  friendship  with  Sir  Eichard  Owen  gave 
him  similar  occasions  of  discussing  the  conditions  of 
prehistoric  life.  One  excursion  which  the  two  friends 
took  together  resulted  in  a  trophy  of  national  interest. 

"You  remember,"  writes  Professor  Owen,  "our  excursion 
to  Sandside!  The  skeleton  of  that  whale  now  forms  the 
chief  feature  in  the  grand  hall  of  the  new  museum  (the  Natural 
History  Museum  at  South  Kensington),  and  I  am  daily  gratified 
by  the  interest  with  which  it  is  inspected." 


HIS  VISITORS  331 

To  Braemore  also  came  the  extremes  of  political 
parties  —  Sir  AVilliam  Harcourt,  whose  acquaintance 
and  friendship  had  been  made  in  parliamentary 
committee -rooms,  Earl  Cairns,  the  great  Conservative 
Lord  Chancellor,  the  veteran  statesman  Lord  Cran- 
brook,  and  other  notabilities,  too  long  a  list  to  narrate. 

On  Friday,  August  llth,  1871,  there  is  a  pathetic 
signature  in  blue  indelible  pencil,  with  regard  to  which 
Sir  Kichard  Owen  writes  in  his  journal  :— 

"  I  am  now  the  only  guest.  Lady  Ashburton  and  T.  Carlyle 
drove  over  and  took  tea  with  us.  ...  He  is  much  emaciated, 
can  digest  but  little,  and  hardly  gets  any  sleep.  He  was  most 
friendly,  and,  I  thought,  took  his  last  leave  of  me  at  parting. 
.  .  .  He  painfully  with  a  pencil  put  his  name  in  the  Visitors' 
Book." 

Professional  friends,  his  partners  Sir  Benjamin 
Baker  and  Mr.  Baldry,  usually  gave  a  few  days  of 
their  holidays  to  a  visit  at  Braemore.  His  old  anta- 
gonist—  now  Field -Marshal  —  Sir  Lintorn  Simmons, 
was  also  a  regular  summer  guest.  Here,  too,  came 
Prince  Hassan,  son  of  Ismail  the  Khedive,  at  that  time 
a  student  at  the  University  of  Oxford.  Professor 
Owen  records  in  his  diary  under  date,  August  20th, 
1871,  that  the  Prince 

"has  quite  fallen  into  English  ways,  and  speaks  English 
perfectly.  On  Monday  he  made  his  first  stalk  on  the 
mountains,  and  was  so  excited  by  the  thought  of  it  that  he 
threw  all  the  cushions  about  in  the  drawing-room ! " 

Archbishops  and  bishops,  and  lesser  ecclesiastical 
dignitaries  such  as  deans  and  archdeacons,  as  well 
as  eminent  laymen  from  many  varied  walks  of  life, 
abounded,  all  eager  to  please  and  to  be  pleased,  for 
so  the  kindty  wizard  of  the  mountain  ordered. 


332  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

When  the  labours  of  the  day  were  over,  the  party 
met  at  dinner  in  the  highest  good  humour.  It  was 
holiday  time  with  all.  The  railway  station,  that 
portal  of  dull  care,  was  more  than  20  miles  distant, 
the  scenery  was  enchanting,  and  the  day's  sport  had 
been  invigorating ;  everything  was  propitious  for  the 
relaxation  of  frank  and  cheerful  talk.  Each  member 
of  the  company  had  something  worth  hearing  to  say. 
The  Field-Marshal  had  anecdotes  of  the  secret  history 
of  the  Crimean  War,  or  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  at  the 
Berlin  Conference.  It  was  an  hour  at  which  even  an 
archbishop  might  be  indiscreet.  All  this  was  a  sincere 
pleasure  to  the  genial  host. 

The  late  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  whom  Sir 
John's  son  Montague  was  for  a  time  domestic  chaplain 
and  assistant  secretary,  was  a  frequent  and  welcome 
guest.  The  Archbishop  had  at  first  excused  himself 
from  accepting  an  invitation  to  Braemore  on  the 
ground  that  he  liked  to  spend  his  holiday  with  his 
family.  Sir  John,  however,  was  not  to  be  denied, 
and  as  the  Archbishop  and  Mrs.  Benson  would  not  leave 
their  children,  he  invited  all  the  children  to  accompany 
them.  So  it  came  about  that  the  whole  family  on 
more  than  one  occasion  passed  several  happy  weeks  at 
Braemore.  Mr.  Arthur  Benson,  the  archbishop's  son  and 
biographer,  has  obligingly  sent  the  following  pleasing 
and  authentic  picture  of  the  life  at  Braemore. 

"  Sir  John  Fowler,  as  I  first  remember  him,  was  a  strongly- 
built  man,  with  large,  rough-hewn  features.  His  whole  face 
spoke  of  work — hard,  practical  work.  He  evidently  never 
gave  his  personal  appearance  a  thought.  He  dressed  in  loosely- 
fitting  clothes;  he  was  becoming  bald,  and  his  strong  hair, 
which  he  wore  long,  stood  out  stiffly  from  the  back  of  his 


A  VISITOE'S   EEMINISCENCE  333 

head;  he  was  clean-shaven,  with  the  exception  of  rough 
whiskers  and  a  small  beard  under  his  chin;  the  somewhat 
downright  expression  of  his  full,  mobile  lips,  often  pursed 
in  thought,  his  big  nose,  his  full-blooded  complexion,  was 
humanised  by  the  genial  and  kindly  glance  of  his  light- 
coloured  eyes.  He  would  have  despised  any  elegance  of 
motion,  hand,  or  demeanour,  and  his  brusque  gestures  and 
walk  would  have  been  almost  clumsy  but  for  the  dignity  of 
strength  which  characterised  all  he  did.  At  the  same  time,  he 
was  a  man  of  quick  and  sensitive  emotions,  which  contrasted 
strongly  with  his  bluff  exterior.  I  have  often  seen  his  eyes 
fill  suddenly  with  tears,  which  he  would  brush  away  with  his 
hand,  and  his  voice  falter  when  he  talked  of  anyone,  and  there 
were  many,  who  were  dear  to  him.  I  remember  that  when 
I  first  saw  him  in  Scotland,  in  an  old  brown  shooting-coat,  he 
seemed  to  me  at  once  to  move  with  greater  simplicity  and  ease 
than  in  formal  London  garments.  In  the  evenings  in  Scotland 
he  wore  a  velvet  suit  with  knickerbockers  and  purple  stockings, 
in  which  I  used  to  fancy  he  looked  like  a  benevolent  artist. 
But  this  dress,  which  might  have  seemed  post  in  some  men,  only 
appeared  in  his  case  natural  and  without  calculated  effect.  .  .  » 
"  Sir  John  Fowler's  gift  of  hospitality  was  very  great.  To 
hit  the  exact  mean  in  entertaining  guests  requires  a  natural 
talent.  It  is  possible  to  leave  them  so  much  alone  that  they 
feel  neglected,  or  to  fill  the  day  with  a  ceaseless  round  of 
engagements,  until  weariness  results.  At  Braemore  everything 
was  perfectly  organised;  there  was  no  sense  of  proprietorship 
about  Sir  John :  he  sate  like  a  guest  among  his  guests ;  and  yet 
every  day  was  laid  out.  As  soon  as  breakfast  was  over  he 
would  say  what  he  proposed:  he  would  tell  my  father  that 
he  would  leave  him  free  till  luncheon,  and  then  he  would  take 
him  for  a  ride  in  the  forest  to  see  the  deer  at  home.  Then  came 
the  turn  of  each  of  us.  Lady  Fowler,  of  whose  delicate  and  un- 
obtrusive kindliness  I  may  not  here  further  speak,  would  be  at  my 
mother's  disposal.  Then  my  sisters  were  provided  for ;  gillies 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  myself  and  my  brothers,  and  I  do  not 
recollect  a  single  day  upon  which  Sir  John  had  not  some  plan 


334  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

for  my  youngest  brother,  then  a  schoolboy  of  fourteen.  He 
certainly  delighted  in  making  these  arrangements,  but  they 
were  never  forced  upon  anyone,  and  if  a  preference  was 
expressed,  matters  were  at  once  skilfully  accommodated.  I  do 
not  remember  that  he  took  much  physical  exercise  himself.  I 
remember  his  occasionally  stalking  a  deer,  and  once  or  twice  he 
took  a  salmon-rod  to  the  river.  He  was  a  successful  sports- 
man, but  he  knew  that  my  father  had  little  sympathy  for  any 
kind  of  sport,  and  a  deep-rooted  objection  to  depriving  any 
creature  of  the  inestimable  privilege  of  life,  and  so,  though  the 
younger  members  of  the  party  were  amply  provided  with 
fishing  and  stalking,  yet  the  fact  was  never  obtruded. 

"  I  imagine  that  he  must  have  done  a  great  deal  of  professional 
work  in  the  course  of  the  day,  but  it  was  all  kept  very  much  out 
of  sight.  He  was  fond  of  sending  and  receiving  long  telegrams ; 
more  than  once  I  remember  some  interesting  news  arriving 
from  town  on  telegrams  covering  four  or  five  sheets.  .  .  . 

"  He  had  a  strong  vein  of  humour,  and  I  can  remember  his 
relating  with  high  relish  how  he  had  been  badgered  in  some 
important  case  before  a  Parliamentary  Committee  by  an 
eminent  Q.C.,  who  asked  him  all  kinds  of  ingenious  questions, 
which,  though  bearing  little  on  the  matter  in  hand,  were  yet 
difficult  to  answer  satisfactorily.  '  Now,  Mr.  Fowler/  said  the 
counsel, '  let  me  ask  you  this.  Supposing  two  of  the  largest 
vessels  in  Her  Majesty's  fleet  were  to  collide  beneath  this 
structure  of  yours,  what  would  be  the  result?  Let  us  have 
a  candid  answer.'  '  I  imagine/  said  Sir  John,  '  that  both  the 
captains  would  be  dismissed  from  the  service  for  gross  in- 
competence.' The  Forth  Bridge  was  then  in  course  of  con- 
struction, and  though  Sir  John  must  have  been  tired  enough  of 
being  questioned  about  it,  he  was  always  ready  to  give  some 
of  the  astounding  figures  connected  with  the  materials  used  in 
the  construction.  One  day  at  luncheon  he  explained  the 
principle  of  cantilevers  with  a  piece  of  paper  and  a  pencil, 
illustrating  it  with  a  cork  and  a  pair  of  forks,  with  a  precision 
and  brevity  which  astonished  me.  I  can  only  say  that,  with 
no  mechanical  predilections,  I  have  never  forgotten  it.  ... 


SIR   JOHN    FOWLER    AND    HIS    ELDEST    GRANDSON. 

To  face  page  335. 


HIS  ADMIRATION  OF  INTELLECT  335 

"  To  my  mother  on  another  occasion  he  spoke  of  the  delight 
he  took  in  managing  men.  '  It  is  the  greatest  pleasure  in  the 
world,'  he  said,  'to  have  a  thoroughly  capable  man  to  deal 
with,  who  is  at  the  same  time  very  difficult  to  manage,  so  that 
you  have  to  try  all  the  flies  in  your  book.  I  never  allow  myself 
to  be  beaten,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  I  enjoy  more.' " 

The  secret  of  all  true  courtesy  and  hospitality  is  the 
desire  to  please  and  to  be  pleased.  At  Braemore  these 
conditions  were  thoroughly  fulfilled.  The  result  was 
an  all-pervading  atmosphere  of  genial  enjoyment  which 
none  could  resist. 

Sir  John  had,  we  are  informed  by  a  competent 
observer,  a  curious  habit  of  taking  stock  of  strangers. 
It  consisted  of  "drawing"  them  on  their  special 
subjects.  He  was  at  pains,  at  first  at  all  events,  to 
conceal  any  imperfections  there  might  be  in  his  own 
knowledge  of  the  question  discussed.  The  problem  in 
his  mind  seemed  to  be,  "  Is  this  man  an  impostor,  or 
is  he  not  ? "  The  ordeal  of  examination,  of  which  the 
victim  was  probably  quite  unconscious,  was  often  some- 
what searching,  but  at  length  the  dossier  of  the 
examined  was  silently  put  away  for  future  use  in  some 
mental  pigeon-hole.  Nothing  in  most  cases  came  of 
this  appraisal  of  men.  His  verdicts,  however,  were 
sometimes  communicated  to  those  in  his  confidence, 
and  were  seldom  far  from  the  truth.  It  was  an  object 
with  him  to  know  who  were  the  leading  intellects  in 
every  sphere  of  human  activity,  and  his  position  in 
society  gave  him  frequent  opportunity  of  indulging  this 
foible.  Like  all  men  of  kindly  disposition,  he  was 
devoted  to  children.  Yet  even  in  his  intercourse  with 
them,  he  showed  the  same  keen  desire  to  discover  talent 
and  to  watch  its  development.  An  almost  exaggerated 


336  THE  ENGINEEE  AT  HOME 

respect  for  intellectual  ability  was  a  marked  character- 
istic of  his  mind. 

We  have  left  for  the  last  chapter  all  reference  to 
Sir  John's  political  opinions.  We  have  merely  noted 
that  he  was  a  strong  Conservative.  In  1879,  at  an  age 
when  a  prominent  parliamentary  career  was  no  longer 
probable,  he  was  selected  to  contest  Tewkesbury  in  that 
interest.  Lord  Beaconsfield  had  recently  returned  from 
Berlin  bringing  peace  with  honour,  and  the  next  election 
was  to  be  fought  in  the  light  of  that  event.  A  speech 
which  he  delivered  early  in  January  to  the  electors 
contains  a  statement  of  his  political  creed. 

He  was  keenly  in  favour  of  a  forward  foreign  policy 
in  Egypt  and  on  the  Indian  frontier,  and  much  opposed 
to  the  masterly  inactivity  which  was  being  recom- 
mended in  other  quarters.  He  would  do  all  in  his 
power  to  improve  the  health  and  education  and  comfort 
of  the  people,  but  he  was  against  revolutionary  changes, 
disestablishment,  and,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "  depriving 
a  poor  man  of  his  beer." 

Like  all  men  of  his  generation,  he  was  a  staunch 
believer  in  self-help.  Though,  as  already  noticed  in 
quotations  from  his  article  on  railway  accidents,  he  was 
very  far  removed  from  the  doctrinaire  opponents  of 
Government  regulation,  he  yet  retained  that  attitude 
of  suspicion  and  dislike  towards  Government  inter- 
ference which  was  characteristic  of  the  Liberalism  of 
an  earlier  period.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said  that  he 
was  altogether  consistent  in  his  political  principles. 
In  the  short  period  of  his  Hallamshire  candidature  he 
seems  to  have  been  not  disinclined  to  dally  with  those 
who  favoured  that  very  serious  form  of  Government 
interference  known  as  fair  trade  or  protection.  His  turn 


POLITICAL  VIEWS  337 

of  mind  was  practical  rather  than  theoretic,  and  we  are 
informed,  that  from  practical  considerations  he  accepted 
as  inevitable  for  England  the  policy  of  Free  Trade. 

Indeed,  except  on  the  subject  of  Egypt,  we  doubt 
if  he  really  was  much  interested  in  politics.  His 
orderly  mind  hated  the  confusion  and  anarchy  caused 
by  Mr.  Gladstone's  abnegation  of  responsibility  for  the 
well-being  and  progress  of  the  Egyptian  Soudan.  The 
bungling,  which  in  practical  matters  is  apt  to  attend 
the  indecision  of  the  philosophic  temperament,  was 
abhorrent  to  him.  The  Titan  might  be  weary  of  the 
burden  of  empire,  but  in  John  Fowler's  view  he  must 
not  decline  his  allotted  task.  His  professional  con- 
nection with  Egypt  gave  additional  emphasis  to  this 
criticism.  For  the  rest,  it  appears  to  us,  that  he 
adopted  the  policy  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged 
very  much  in  the  same  spirit  as  he  accepted  the  verdict 
of  experts  on  scientific  problems  with  which  he  was 
not  personally  conversant.  His  vehemence  of  ex- 
pression was  not  so  much  a  sign  of  enthusiasm  as  of 
the  latent  energy  which  characterised  all  he  did.  To 
the  theoretical  aspect  of  politics  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  given  much  attention. 

The  following  letters  addressed  to  the  Times  on  the 
subject  of  the  rescue  of  Gordon  seem  worthy  of  being 
put  on  record.  They  were  at  the  time  an  original  and 
weighty  contribution  to  political  controversy. 

"THE  SITUATION  IN  EGYPT. 

"  To  the  Editor  of  '  The  Times?  April  30th,  1884. 
"SiR, — I  have  hitherto  resisted  great  pressure  from  many 
friends  deeply  interested  in  Egyptian  affairs,  and  have  refrained 
from  any  public  expression  of  opinion  on  the  great  problem 
which  has  long  agitated  all  classes  in  England ;  but  the  position 
z 


338  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

is  now  so  critical  that  I  feel  a  duty  is  imposed  upon  all  those 
who,  like  myself,  have  had  long  and  intimate  knowledge  of 
Egypt,  to  speak  plainly  their  views  without  reserve  or  delay. 
It  would  be  idle  and  useless  to  enumerate  the  incidents  which 
have  led  to  the  present  deplorable  state  of  things,  although  at 
some  future  time,  less  urgent  than  the  present,  a  valuable 
lesson  may  be  learnt  from  them,  and  therefore  I  will  at  once 
proceed  to  set  forth  in  a  few  words  the  warning  I  desire  to 
convey.  Throughout  England  a  cry  has  arisen  that  Gordon 
must  be  rescued  at  any  cost,  if  possible,  from  the  perilous 
position  into  which  his  noble  nature  has  led  him,  and  it  is  now 
proposed  to  make  the  attempt.  I  venture  no  opinion  on  the 
mode  of  making  this  attempt,  but  I  do  emphatically  say,  from 
my  knowledge  of  the  people  and  the  country,  that  before  any 
further  step  is  taken  involving  English  blood  and  treasure, 
England  must  distinctly  and  unequivocally  state  her  intentions 
and  future  policy  with  regard  to  Egypt.  I  have  every  reason 
to  believe  that  if  England  would  even  now  plainly  declare 
throughout  Egypt  that  circumstances  had  imposed  upon  her 
the  responsibility  of  the  security  and  good  government  of  the 
country,  and  that  she  had  determined  to  assume  that  responsi- 
bility, all  serious  difficulties  would  soon  vanish  and  danger  to 
Gordon  be  averted. 

"  No  mistake  can  be  greater,  in  my  opinion,  than  to  suppose 
that  such  a  course  would  involve  either  greater  expenditure  or 
greater  military  exertion  than  the  policy  of  the  past,  which, 
if  continued,  would,  I  fear,  lead  to  continued  humiliation  and 
certain  failure.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  if  we  promptly 
declared  our  intention  to  assume  the  responsibility  which 
everyone  personally  acquainted  with  the  country  must  know 
to  be  inevitable,  we  should  find  an  expedition  up  the  Nile 
would  be  received  with  welcome  and  not  resisted. 

"The  Egyptian  people  are  easily  governed  if  treated  with 
kindness  and  justice,  as  they  would  be  under  an  English 
administration,  and  all  Europeans,  without  exception,  would 
profit  by  the  establishment  of  such  a  stable  government  if 
felt  and  known  to  be  continuous  and  permanent,  which  is  an 


LETTERS   TO  "THE  TIMES"  339 

essential  condition  of  success.  I  refrain  from  any  suggestions 
respecting  details  of  administration  or  improvement  and  de- 
velopment of  the  country,  which  I  have  had  unusual  oppor- 
tunities of  studying,  because  I  desire  to  limit  myself  at  this 
time  to  the  expression  of  an  earnest  hope  that  no  further  steps 
will  be  taken  by  England  in  Egypt,  either  defensive  or  offensive, 
until  a  distinct  policy  has  been  pronounced,  so  that  the  people 
in  every  part  may  know  the  Government  which  they  have  to 
obey,  and  by  which  they  will  be  protected. 

"  I  am,  Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  JOHN  FOWLER. 

"No.  2,  QUEEN  SQUARE  PLACE,  WESTMINSTER." 


"  To  the  Editor  of  '  The  Times,'  May  1th,  1884. 

"  SIR, — I  make  no  apology  for  presuming  to  occupy  a  little 
more  of  your  space  on  Egyptian  affairs.  The  rapidly  advancing 
and  already  impending  dangers  in  Egypt  are  not,  I  fear, 
generally  understood  in  England,  to  their  full  extent,  and, 
strange  to  say,  they  seem  to  be  the  least  recognised  in  any 
sufficient  degree  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  Official  and  semi-official  reports  of  the  last  few  days 
announce  a  startling  increase  of  excitement  and  of  insolent 
defiance  of  authority  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  private  letters  from 
trustworthy  sources  confirm  these  reports,  and  consider  them 
to  understate  the  real  facts  of  the  case. 

"A  correspondent  who  has  been  more  than  twenty  years  in 
Egypt,  with  unusual  opportunities  of  knowing  the  feelings  of 
the  natives,  and  for  whose  perfect  reliability  I  can  personally 
vouch,  writes  as  follows : — 

"  *  We  have  been  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and  now  we  are 
in  a  state  of  anarchy.  Eobberies  are  being  committed  in  the 
provincial  towns  in  the  face  of  day,  because  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  it.  The  old  police  were  bad,  and  have  been 
abolished,  but  they  were  of  some  use,  and  nothing  has  been 
put  in  their  place.  Burglaries  and  shooting  from  behind 
hedges  is  increasing  and  will  increase,  and  lately  an  attempt 
by  the  authorities  to  suppress  a  mischievous  newspaper  was 


340  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

met  by  defiance ;  and  so  things  move  on.  Meanwhile  the  poor 
country  suffers.' 

"  Yes,  that  is  just  it, '  and  so  things  move  on/  and  so  they 
must,  so  long  as  we  remain  in  the  position  of  temporary  '  care- 
takers ' ;  for  we  are  really  nothing  else,  and  we  are  doing  great 
and  daily  injury  to  Egypt  and  ourselves  by  a  continuance  in 
this  anomalous  position. 

"The  long,  interesting  letter  of  Sir  Samuel  Baker  in  The 
Times  of  the  30th  of  April,  sets  forth  in  great  detail,  and  with 
the  advantage  of  full  local  knowledge,  the  measures  which  he 
considers  necessary  for  military  success  and  the  establishment 
of  English  authority.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  time,  men, 
and  money  required  for  his  proposal  will  be  available,  but  the 
proposal  itself  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  consequences  which 
we  have  already  incurred  by  neglected  duties. 

"If  we  discard  as  impracticable,  which  I  think  we  may, 
such  proposals  as  abandoning  Egypt  to  take  care  of  itself,  or 
return  to  dual,  or  still  more  divided,  control,  and  Sir  Samuel 
Baker's  scheme,  there  remains  only  the  policy  which  alone 
was  the  possible  one  after  we  once  went  to  Egypt  to  put  down 
rebellion — viz.  the  acceptance  of  full  responsibility  of  security 
to  life  and  property,  and  the  good  government  of  the  people. 

"If  we  were  not  prepared  for  this  we  had  no  business  to 
go  to  Egypt  alone  as  we  did.  With  regard  to  withdrawal, 
even  that  miserable  step  would  be  better  than  a  continuance 
of  our  present  aimless,  do-nothing  policy,  and  probably  we 
could  withdraw  now,  while  if  we  wait  longer  we  may  meet 
the  fate  we  have  recklessly  and  persistently  tempted. 

"  No  such  disgrace,  however,  is  necessary,  nor  what  is  called 
'the  abandonment  of  the  Soudan/  which  means  nothing  less 
than  leaving  to  anarchy  and  slavery  a  vast  district  capable 
of  cultivation  and  of  gradual  civilisation,  and  almost  com- 
pelling it  to  remain  a  perpetual  menace  to  Egypt  proper. 
A  few  years  ago  I  had  numerous  engineers  and  surveyors 
engaged  during  two  seasons  in  Darfur,  as  far  as  the  capital 
El  Fashr,  in  various  parts  of  Kordofan,  and  also  to  Shendy 
and  Khartoum,  and  during  that  long  period,  and  over  many 


LETTEKS  TO   "THE  TIMES"  341 

hundreds  of  miles  of  country,  no  trouble  whatever  was 
experienced  with  the  natives.  They  were  well  aware  that 
our  objects  were  peaceable  and  intended  for  their  good,  and 
that  we  were  under  the  protection  of  a  real  Power  at  Cairo, 
which  they  recognised  and  respected. 

"During  this  time  I  was  in  constant  communication  with 
Gordon  Pasha,  both  in  Cairo  and  when  he  was  in  Khartoum, 
and  in  various  parts  of  Kordofan  and  Darfur,  and  certainly 
nothing  was  further  from  his  views  at  that  time  than  'the 
abandonment  of  the  Soudan.'  On  the  contrary,  he  was  a 
warm  advocate  for  its  development  and  peaceable  settlement, 
and  explained  to  me  his  plans  for  securing  permanent  frontiers 
on  the  side  of  Abyssinia  and  also  to  the  south  and  west. 
These  plans  and  his  general  views  appeared  to  me  admirable, 
and  calculated  to  lead  to  the  total  extinction  of  slavery,  but 
they  were  based,  or  they  would  have  been  futile,  on  a  con- 
tinuance of  regular  government  and  adequate  authority. 

"At  that  time  neither  Egyptian  nor  English  prestige  had 
been  lost,  and  therefore  authority  was  easily  maintained. 
We  have  foolishly  thrown  away  and  temporarily  lost  this 
precious  prestige,  and  there  is  no  escape  from  paying  the 
inevitable  penalty  to  regain  it. 

"  Practically,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  cannot  withdraw 
from  Egypt  nor  abandon  the  Soudan.  We  are  now  there,  and 
if  we  were  to  withdraw,  some  other  first-rate  Power  would 
attempt  to  take  our  place ;  but  the  European  Powers  generally 
would  never  permit  it,  because  England  alone  possesses  in- 
terests sufficient  to  afford  full  security  to  all  other  Powers 
that  an  open  route  through  Egypt  and  the  Suez  Canal  shall 
always  be  securely  maintained. 

"  Concurrently,  however,  with  the  clear  enunciation  of  our 
intention  to  be  the  responsible  custodians  of  Egypt,  must 
appear  to  the  people  of  that  country  our  determination  to 
preserve  them  from  oppression,  develop  their  resources,  and 
employ  them  in  all  possible  cases  in  the  various  administra- 
tions of  government.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  we  may  safely 
proceed  to  send  relief  and  other  expeditions  up  the  Nile 


342  THE  ENGIKEEK  AT   HOME 

Valley,  which  I  venture  to  predict  will  receive  a  welcome 
as  they  proceed,  provided,  of  course,  the  people  thoroughly 
understand  that  we  are  now  their  responsible  protectors. 

"  JOHN  FOWLER. 

"  2,  QUEEN  SQUARE  PLACE,  WESTMINSTER." 

"  To  the  Editor  of  '  The  Times?  May  21s£,  1884. 

"SiR, — It  is  no  longer  possible  to  withstand  the  over- 
whelming and  almost  universal  feeling  in  and  out  of 
Parliament  that  something  effectual  must  be  done,  and 
without  further  delay,  to  rescue  Gordon  and  England.  The 
danger  to  be  guarded  against  at  the  present  moment  is  rather 
that  in  the  impatient  and  excitable  state  of  the  public  mind 
on  the  subject  a  mistake  may  be  made  in  the  scheme  of 
rescue. 

"  It  is  indispensable,  however,  as  a  first  step,  that  we  should 
distinctly  recognise  the  fact  that  no  expedition  for  the  relief 
of  Gordon,  however  costly  in  men  and  money,  could  possibly 
reach  Khartoum  in  time  to  accomplish  its  object,  unless 
preceded  by  an  authoritative  proclamation  of  our  intention 
to  assume  undivided  and  continuous  responsibility  and  autho- 
rity in  Egypt. 

"The  generous  offers  of  money  and  personal  services  you 
have  received  indicate  the  extent  and  depth  of  sympathy  and 
shame  which  exist ;  but  care  must  be  taken  that  neither  these 
volunteer  nor  official  efforts  are  expended  in  a  wrong  direction, 
and  it  is  in  that  view  I  venture  to  occupy  once  more  a  little 
of  your  space. 

"  One  proposal  which  is  recommended  is  for  constructing 
a  railway  across  the  desert  from  Suakin  to  Berber.  I  venture 
to  say  that  such  a  work  would  be  a  great  mistake,  because 
not  only  would  it  be  exceedingly  costly  and  difficult  by  reason 
of  the  general  character  of  the  desert  and  the  mountain  range 
which  has  to  be  surmounted,  but  it  would  leave  completely 
unprotected  and  undeveloped  the  whole  of  the  Nile  Valley 
between  Berber  and  Wady  Haifa,  which  includes  Dongola  and 
Dabbe,  the  caravan  entrances  to  Kordofan.  Egypt  has  already 


LETTEES  TO   "THE  TIMES"  343 

had  experience  of  railways  constructed  across  waterless  deserts 
in  the  line  from  Cairo  to  Suez,  which  was  taken  up  and 
abandoned  after  struggling  for  some  years  against  the  ruinous 
loss  of  its  working  and  its  comparative  inutility. 

"It  would  be  an  advantage  in  every  way,  in  my  opinion, 
if  Egypt  was  limited  to  the  valley  and  delta  of  the  Nile, 
and  if  the  present  opportunity  was  taken  for  the  settlement 
of  boundaries  between  Egypt  and  Abyssinia,  and  their  strict 
observance  secured  effectually  by  the  conditional  transfer  to 
Abyssinia  of  one  or  more  much -cove  ted  ports  on  the  Eed 
Sea.  By  this  arrangement,  and  thus  being  able  to  confine 
operations  in  Egypt  to  the  Nile  Valley,  the  steps  to  be  taken 
are  simple,  and  attended  with  little  or  no  risk.  The  value 
of  the  Nile  for  navigation  greatly  varies  in  different  parts 
of  the  river,  and  at  different  periods  of  the  year,  and  although 
rocky  obstructions  or  cataracts  are  numerous  in  some  parts, 
there  are  also  long  stretches  of  water  which  can  be  used 
advantageously  as  water  carriage  only. 

"  The  experience  I  have  gained  in  Egypt  leads  me  to  suggest 
and  strongly  recommend  the  immediate  completion  of  a 
communication,  partly  by  railway  and  partly  by  water, 
between  Wady  Haifa  and  Khartoum.  From  Cairo  to  Wady 
Haifa  the  existing  route,  partly  railway  and  partly  river,  is 
fairly  satisfactory,  and  may  be  further  improved  as  regards  the 
river  by  a  short  ship  incline  at  Assouan  and  the  removal  of  a 
few  obstructions  between  Assouan  and  Wady  Haifa,  which 
I  estimated,  after  careful  investigation,  at  £3,000  a  year  for  a 
few  years.  From  Wady  Haifa  southward  the  more  serious 
works  commence,  and  from  actual  examination  it  was  found 
that  as  far  as  Hannek  (the  Third  Cataract),  a  distance  of  200 
miles,  the  river  consisted  of  a  succession  of  obstructions  which 
render  it  useless  for  ordinary  traffic.  Over  this  ground,  there- 
fore, it  would  be  necessary  to  lay  down  a  railway,  but  the 
sections  and  surveys  show  that  very  little  cutting  or  embank- 
ment would  be  required,  and  about  50  miles  have  already  been 
completed.  From  Hannek  the  Eiver  Nile,  by  way  of  New 
Dongola,  Handak,  Old  Dongola,  and  Dabbe  to  Ambukol,  a 


344 


THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 


distance  of  about  170  miles,  can  be  again  used  as  the  means  of 
communication,  and  although  some  rocky  obstructions  exist 
they  may  be  gradually  removed  and  the  navigation  improved 
as  the  traffic  increases. 

"Ambukol  is  known  as  the  point  where  the  Nile  makes 
a  vast  bend  to  the  east,  round  by  Aboo  Hammed  (where  the 
Korosko  desert  route  joins  the  Nile),  Berber,  and  Shendy  to 
Khartoum,  and  not  only  does  this  bend  of  the  river  involve 
a  great  additional  length  as  compared  with  a  direct  line,  but 
it  [is  so  much  interrupted  by  cataracts  and  rapids  between 
Ambukol  and  Berber  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  leave  the 
river  at  Ambukol  and  make  a  railway  direct  to  Khartoum 
through  the  Wady  Mokatten,  which  is  peculiarly  favourable 
in  every  respect  for  the  purpose. 

"My  proposition,  then,  would  be  to  concentrate  all  rescue 
efforts  for  the  present,  both  military  and  otherwise,  to  the 
improvement  of  the  communication  up  the  Nile  to  Khartoum, 
and  with  the  view  of  saving  time  and  money  and  being 
thoroughly  prepared  for  vigorous  proceedings  in  the  early 
autumn,  provide,  without  delay,  special  steamers  and  lighters 
for  the  river  service,  and  rails,  sleepers,  locomotives,  and  other 
appliances  for  the  railway  works.  The  total  length  of  railway 
to  be  made  would  be  about  335  miles,  and  of  river  to  be 
supplied  with  steamers  and  lighters  about  200  miles,  and  the 
cost  may  be  safely  assumed  to  be  within  £2,000,000,  including 
all  materials,  carriage,  and  labour,  and  the  payment  of  native 
labour. 

"  Unlike  all  expeditions  and  expenditure  purely  military, 
the  result  of  the  expenditure  and  work  I  recommend  would  be 
available  for  all  time  as  the  means  of  encouraging  trade  and 
promoting  civilisation,  and  during  its  construction  it  would 
largely  employ  natives  who  are  much  in  need  of  the  food  they 
would  receive. 

"In  September  and  October  the  steamers  and  all  other 
materials  may  be  ready,  and  as  the  Nile  would  be  in  flood,  may 
ascend  to  their  different  destinations,  and  the  works  would 
then  proceed  rapidly. 


CANDIDATE  FOE  HALLAMSHIKE  345 

"  The  peculiar  advantage  of  Khartoum  is  sufficiently  known, 
being  at  the  junction  of  the  Blue  and  White  Niles,  and  in 
the  centre  of  communication  with  Berber ;  indeed  it  would  be 
impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  a  position  which  possesses 
such  advantages.  I  feel  this  proposal  is  wanting  in  the  dash 
and  magnificence  of  other  suggestions,  but  I  know  it  to  be 
practicable,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  more  economical,  certain, 
and  even  more  rapid  than  any  other  scheme. 

"JOHN  FOWLER. 

"2,  QUEEN  SQUAEE  PLACE,  WESTMINSTER." 

In  1885  he  was  selected  as  Conservative  candidate 
for  Hallamshire,  his  native  district  of  Yorkshire.  On 
this  occasion,  as  before,  his  chief  line  of  attack  on  the 
Gladstonian  party  was  an  indictment  of  their  foreign 
policy,  more  particularly  their  abandonment  of  the 
Soudan  to  anarchy  and  chaos. 

The  work  of  canvassing  a  large  and  populous  division 
was  soon  found  by  him  to  be  a  great  tax  on  his 
strength,  and  he  very  wisely,  on  the  advice  of  his 
doctor,  withdrew  from  the  contest.  The  reader  will 
agree  with  the  congratulations  sent  to  him  by  Mr. 
Dent,  one  of  the  directors  of  the  Forth  Bridge  Railway 
Company. 

"  DEAR  SIR  JOHN,"  he  writes,  "...  I  am  very  glad  that  you 
have  given  up  Hallamshire ;  the  successful  finish  of  the  Forth 
Bridge  is  a  greater  crown  to  a  man's  life  than  a  seat  in 
Parliament." 

His  political  campaigns,  although  never  resulting  in 
his  return  to  Parliament,  were  in  their  way  very 
successful.  Although  in  private  conversation  he  was 
wont  to  condemn  his  political  adversaries  with  con- 
siderable vehemence,  when  he  took  the  field  as  a 
candidate  he  rose  to  the  occasion  and  put  great  control 


346 


THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 


on  his  habit  of  passionate  utterance.  The  Tewkesbury 
election  of  1880  was  conducted  with  complete  good 
temper.  The  defeated  candidate  was  hardly  less 
popular  than  his  successful  rival.  His  carriage  was 
drawn  to  the  station  amid  the  cheers  of  both  parties. 
Though  he  did  not  secure  their  votes,  he  earned  their 
regard  and  respect. 

All  who  knew  Sir  John  will  remember  this  very 
human  contradiction  in  his  character.  In  his  less 
guarded  moments  he  was  apt  to  be  impulsive, 
passionate,  and  even  arbitrary,  full  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  spoiled  child  of  fortune.  Such  foibles, 
when  combined  with  a  real  kindliness  of  heart,  merely 
supply  the  light  and  shadow  which  endear  men  to 
their  friends.  Fortunately  for  us  all,  friendship  goes 
by  favour.  There  is  probably  nothing  less  provocative 
of  affection  than  that  managed  character  in  which  all 
spontaneity  has  been  suppressed  by  a  too  rigid  self- 
discipline. 

It  was  a  peculiarity  of  Fowler's  frank  and  vehement 
nature  that  he  could  put  himself  under  discipline  when 
he  had  some  great  objective  in  view.  He  was  not  a 
man  with  whom  friends,  who  happened  to  differ  from 
him,  liked  to  talk  politics.  The  warmth  of  his  invec- 
tive was  apt  to  be  contagious.  When  he  went  elec- 
tioneering, however,  he  was  respectful  to  opponents, 
though  their  views,  to  his  mind,  were  not  a  little  dis- 
ordered. In  private  he  did  not  suffer  fools  gladly, 
but  he  had  the  capacity  for  taking  infinite  trouble  to 
persuade  them,  when  he  met  them  on  parliamentary 
committees  or  boards  of  directors.  He  was  most 
careful  to  prepare  his  speeches  beforehand,  and  when 
important  letters  had  to  be  written  he  would  reject 


THE  CKOFTEB  QUESTION  347 

draft  after  draft  till  he  had  got  it  quite  right.  He 
had,  in  fact,  that  great  element  of  genius,  a  capacity 
for  taking  pains. 

As  a  Highland  landlord,  he  naturally  took  an 
interest  in  that  most  important  political  and  economic 
problem,  the  future  of  the  crofter  population.  In 
a  speech  addressed  to  the  annual  reunion  of  the 
natives  of  Koss  and  Cromarty,  held,  significantly 
enough,  not  in  Eoss  or  Cromarty,  but  in  Glasgow,  in 
December,  1885,  Sir  John  touched  on  this  vexed 
question  : — 

"  Let  me  begin,"  he  said,  "  by  speaking  of  landlords  as  I 
would  of  babies,  that  as  they  are  inevitable  it  is  best  to  be 
kind  to  them.  But  I  go  further  and  say  landlords  are 
desirable,  and  especially  in  mountainous  and  thinly-populated 
countries,  because  it  is  well  to  have  educated  men  and  women 
in  every  district,  and  also  because  large  and  comprehensive 
works  of  improvement  can  only  be  carried  out  by  their  means. 
Landlords  also  have  their  friends  who  visit  them  and  enjoy 
intercourse  with  the  natives  to  the  advantage  of  both.  Of 
course  it  is  essential  that  a  landlord  should  be  properly 
equipped  for  his  duties  in  a  knowledge  of  the  work  he  has 
to  do.  At  Braemore  I  have  had  the  responsible  duties  of 
a  landlord  for  twenty  years,  and  during  that  time  I  have 
done  much  work  and  made  many  mistakes.  I  have,  however, 
succeeded  in  improving  all  the  arable  land  in  the  strath,  so 
that  it  will  now  produce  at  least  three  times  the  food  it  was 
capable  of  producing  when  I  first  went  to  Braemore.  .  .  . 
But  a  landlord  must  have  tenants,  and  it  so  happens  that  I 
have  at  Braemore  a  large  farmer,  a  small  farmer,  and  crofters. 
My  large  farmer  is  my  son.  .  .  .  My  small  farmer  is  Mr. 
Chisholm,  who  is  the  best  road-maker  in  the  north,  and  his 
wife  has  the  largest  family  of  small  children,  and  feeds  the 
biggest  chickens  of  any  woman  in  the  Highlands.  Their 
elder  sons  have  wisely  either  emigrated  or  migrated.  Two 


346  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

on  his  habit  of  passionate  utterance.  The  Tewkesbury 
election  of  1880  was  conducted  with  complete  good 
temper.  The  defeated  candidate  was  hardly  less 
popular  than  his  successful  rival.  His  carriage  was 
drawn  to  the  station  amid  the  cheers  of  both  parties. 
Though  he  did  not  secure  their  votes,  he  earned  their 
regard  and  respect. 

All  who  knew  Sir  John  will  remember  this  very 
human  contradiction  in  his  character.  In  his  less 
guarded  moments  he  was  apt  to  be  impulsive, 
passionate,  and  even  arbitrary,  full  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  spoiled  child  of  fortune.  Such  foibles, 
when  combined  with  a  real  kindliness  of  heart,  merely 
supply  the  light  and  shadow  which  endear  men  to 
their  friends.  Fortunately  for  us  all,  friendship  goes 
by  favour.  There  is  probably  nothing  less  provocative 
of  affection  than  that  managed  character  in  which  all 
spontaneity  has  been  suppressed  by  a  too  rigid  self- 
discipline. 

It  was  a  peculiarity  of  Fowler's  frank  and  vehement 
nature  that  he  could  put  himself  under  discipline  when 
he  had  some  great  objective  in  view.  He  was  not  a 
man  with  whom  friends,  who  happened  to  differ  from 
him,  liked  to  talk  politics.  The  warmth  of  his  invec- 
tive was  apt  to  be  contagious.  When  he  went  elec- 
tioneering, however,  he  was  respectful  to  opponents, 
though  their  views,  to  his  mind,  were  not  a  little  dis- 
ordered. In  private  he  did  not  suffer  fools  gladly, 
but  he  had  the  capacity  for  taking  infinite  trouble  to 
persuade  them,  when  he  met  them  on  parliamentary 
committees  or  boards  of  directors.  He  was  most 
careful  to  prepare  his  speeches  beforehand,  and  when 
important  letters  had  to  be  written  he  would  reject 


THE   CKOFTEK   QUESTION  347 

draft  after  draft  till  he  had  got  it  quite  right.  He 
had,  in  fact,  that  great  element  of  genius,  a  capacity 
for  taking  pains. 

As  a  Highland  landlord,  he  naturally  took  an 
interest  in  that  most  important  political  and  economic 
problem,  the  future  of  the  crofter  population.  In 
a  speech  addressed  to  the  annual  reunion  of  the 
natives  of  Ross  and  Cromarty,  held,  significantly 
enough,  not  in  Ross  or  Cromarty,  but  in  Glasgow,  in 
December,  1885,  Sir  John  touched  on  this  vexed 
question  :— 

"  Let  me  begin,"  he  said,  "  by  speaking  of  landlords  as  I 
would  of  babies,  that  as  they  are  inevitable  it  is  best  to  be 
kind  to  them.  But  I  go  further  and  say  landlords  are 
desirable,  and  especially  in  mountainous  and  thinly -populated 
countries,  because  it  is  well  to  have  educated  men  and  women 
in  every  district,  and  also  because  large  and  comprehensive 
works  of  improvement  can  only  be  carried  out  by  their  means. 
Landlords  also  have  their  friends  who  visit  them  and  enjoy 
intercourse  with  the  natives  to  the  advantage  of  both.  Of 
course  it  is  essential  that  a  landlord  should  be  properly 
equipped  for  his  duties  in  a  knowledge  of  the  work  he  has 
to  do.  At  Braemore  I  have  had  the  responsible  duties  of 
a  landlord  for  twenty  years,  and  during  that  time  I  have 
done  much  work  and  made  many  mistakes.  I  have,  however, 
succeeded  in  improving  all  the  arable  land  in  the  strath,  so 
that  it  will  now  produce  at  least  three  times  the  food  it  was 
capable  of  producing  when  I  first  went  to  Braemore.  .  .  . 
But  a  landlord  must  have  tenants,  and  it  so  happens  that  I 
have  at  Braemore  a  large  farmer,  a  small  farmer,  and  crofters. 
My  large  farmer  is  my  son.  .  .  .  My  small  farmer  is  Mr. 
Chisholm,  who  is  the  best  road-maker  in  the  north,  and  his 
wife  has  the  largest  family  of  small  children,  and  feeds  the 
biggest  chickens  of  any  woman  in  the  Highlands.  Their 
elder  sons  have  wisely  either  emigrated  or  migrated.  Two 


348  THE  ENGINEEE  AT  HOME 

of  them  are,  I  believe,  with  us  to-night,  and  are  doing  well 
in  Glasgow.  At  Braemore  I  have  also  crofters,  but  fortunately 
for  themselves  and  for  me  they  all  earn  money  outside  their 
crofts,  and  the  croft  is  valuable  to  give  food  for  their  cow 
and  vegetables  for  the  family.  From  a  long  experience  of 
the  Highlands,  I  am  much  disposed  to  think  that  many  of 
the  difficulties  and  differences  which  exist  are  due  to  want 
of  accurate  knowledge  on  the  part  of  those  who  give  opinions 
and  interfere  in  these  questions.  I  will  give  you  two  re- 
markable instances  of  this  in  my  own  experience.  Some  years 
ago  a  friend  of  mine,*  a  liberal,  philanthropic  man,  and  a 
member  of  Parliament,  came  to  see  me  at  Braemore.  He 
had  never  been  in  the  Highlands  before,  but  he  had  been 
making  speeches  and  writing  articles  on  the  millions  of  acres 
of  land  in  the  Highlands,  which  if  cultivated  would  grow 
unlimited  food  for  the  people,  but  was  now  wasted  on  sheep, 
cattle,  deer,  and  wild  cats.  Well,  I  took  him  over  the 
property,  and  he  saw  for  himself,  and  was  satisfied  that  not 
one  hundredth  part  of  the  ground  was  capable  of  the 
cultivation  he  had  expected,  and  he  found  that  every  yard 
of  ground  which  was  cultivable  was  cultivated.  He  was 
astonished,  but  he  was  honest,  good,  and  true,  and  he  thanked 
me  again  and  again  for  saving  him  from  repeating  his  mis- 
takes ;  and  yet  to  this  day  you  hear  constantly  from  ignorant 
or  mischievous  persons  the  same  gross  misstatements.  Another 
mischievous  misstatement  is  with  respect  to  deer  forests,  as 
if  all  the  land  of  the  high  mountains  of  the  Highlands  would 
produce  mutton  or  beef.  Now  it  so  happens  that  adjoining 
a  part  of  my  property  at  Braemore  is  the  property  of  Inverlael, 
which  has  long  been  in  the  hands  of  my  excellent  neighbour, 
Mr.  Walter  Mundell,  as  a  sheep  farm.  A  great  portion  of 
Inverlael  is  more  than  2,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea, 
and  some  parts  more  than  3,000  feet.  Probably  a  more 
competent  and  experienced  farmer  does  not  exist  than  Mr. 
Walter  Mundell,  and  yet  the  high  death-rate  of  his  sheep 
on  that  elevated  ground,  combined  with  a  long  continuance 

*  The  late  Mr.  Samuel  Morley. 


DEEE  FORESTS  349 

of  low  prices,  rendered  it  quite  impossible  for  him  to  continue 
it  as  a  sheep  farm  without  destructive  loss,  and  of  course  such 
ground  was  far  too  high  for  cattle.  Now  as  a  practical 
common-sense  question,  what  is  the  proper  course  to  adopt 
in  such  a  case?  Is  the  land  to  be  abandoned  and  remain 
useless  to  the  landlord,  and  afford  no  employment  to  the 
people,  or  to  be  let  as  a  deer  forest,  and  bring  employment 
and  other  advantages  with  it  ?  Surely  there  can  be  only  one 
answer  to  such  a  question.  Well,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  we 
have  seen  how  landlords,  sheep  farmers,  and  crofters  may  be 
comfortable  in  Eoss-shire,  and  of  course  in  other  places  also, 
and  we  have  seen  that  Highlanders  may  prosper  in  our 
colonies,  and  we  know  that  they  prosper  in  Glasgow  and 
London  and  all  the  great  cities  of  Great  Britain,  and  there 
is  ample  room  for  all  the  surplus  population.  Now,  don't 
you  think  that  under  these  circumstances  that  wise  heads 
and  kind  hearts  ought  to  be  found  to  settle  all  differences 
which  now  unfortunately  exist  in  the  Highlands  ? " 

A  practical  summing  up  of  the  question  which  seems 
to  us  to  leave  little  more  to  be  said. 

As  a  master  and  employer  of  labour  Sir  John  Fowler 
was  very  popular.  Many  proofs  of  this  have  been  forth- 
coming in  a  quite  spontaneous  manner.  "  I  was  over 
thirty  years  in  his  service,"  said  one  trusted  servant 
at  Braemore,  "  and  I  do  not  think  I  ever  had  a  cross 
word  from  him.  Indeed,  he  was  more  like  a  father 
to  me  than  a  master."  The  same  informant  dwelt  with 
warm  appreciation  on  the  interesting  talks  he  had  had 
with  his  master  in  their  long  walks  in  the  forest. 
No  one  is  more  capable  of  valuing  such  glimpses  of 
the  great  world  than  the  intelligent  Highlander,  whom 
fate  has  retained  in  his  northern  home.  Another,  a 
coachman,  long  since  gone  into  other  employment,  has 
narrated  how  when  it  was  his  duty  to  drive  Sir  John 


350  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

to  the  distant  Garve  Station,  starting  at  three  or  four 
o'clock  on  a  late  autumn  morning,  his  master  would 
personally  see  that  the  servant  as  well  as  himself  had 
a  good  breakfast  before  starting,  and  all  in  a  manner 
so  kindly  and  thoughtful  that  the  remembrance  of  it 
was  cherished  after  long  years.  In  many  of  his 
letters  to  Lady  Fowler  he  expresses  his  gratitude  for 
the  attention  and  care  (not,  so  far  as  we  can  gather, 
of  any  extraordinary  nature)  of  the  servant  who 
happened  to  accompany  him.  So,  too,  with  his  own 
associates  he  seemed  to  look  on  what  many  regard 
as  the  mere  ordinary  courtesies  of  life  as  real  kind- 
nesses to  himself.  This  somewhat  eager  recognition 
of  personal  attention  was  a  genuine  source  of  content- 
ment, a  trait  of  character  calculated  to  make  a  man 
very  popular,  even  though  at  times  it  may  have 
made  him  tolerant  of  flattery.  Full  of  goodwill 
himself,  he  looked  for  and  appreciated  the  goodwill 
of  others.  Yet  on  occasion  he  could  be  exacting. 
If  a  thing  was  wanted,  neither  trouble  nor  expense 
was  spared  to  get  it  at  once,  and  of  the  best  quality. 
Still  he  was  a  man  whom  it  was  a  pleasure  to  serve, 
and  with  whom  to  exchange  courtesies  was  a  grateful 
office. 

Apart  from  the  sports  and  duties  of  his  Highland 
home,  Sir  John's  recreations  and  interests  are  evidence 
of  a  liberal  taste.  They  were  active  and  social  rather 
than  sedentary.  He  collected,  much  aided  therein 
by  Lady  Fowler,  a  valuable  collection  of  pictures. 
After  his  death  his  famous  Hobbema  fetched  a 
record  price  at  Christie's.  He  had  a  number  of 
Turner's  water-colours,  and  his  appreciation  of  fine 
work  was  real  and  discriminative. 


HIS  AMUSEMENTS  351 

He  was  not  a  great  reader,  though  being  a  bad 
sleeper  he  often  had  some  volume  of  light  literature 
by  his  bedside  at  night.  He  kept  himself  informed 
of  the  advance  of  the  sciences  connected  with  his 
profession,  partly  by  reading,  but  more  often  by  con- 
ference and  talk  in  the  daily  round  of  his  work. 

In  connection  with  his  Highland  home,  where  he 
naturally  had  more  leisure,  he  read  with  great  interest 
topographical  and  antiquarian  works.  Thus,  one  of 
our  informants  remembers  to  have  found  him  busy 
with  Sir  Thomas  Dick  Lander's  Account  of  the  Great 
Floods  of  August,  1829,  in  the  Province  of  Moray 
and  the  Adjoining  Districts  (Edinburgh,  1830),  a  work 
full  of  curious  information  for  a  Highland  laird  who 
happened  also  to  be  an  engineer.  Burt's  Letters 
from  the  North  were  also  in  his  hands  at  this  time. 
Captain  Burt  was  an  engineer  officer  who,  about  the 
year  1730,  was  sent  to  the  north  of  Scotland  as  a 
contractor ;  he  gives  in  a  series  of  letters  a  most 
curious  account  of  the  poverty  of  the  Highlanders 
of  that  period,  as  well  as  of  the  arbitrary  power  of 
their  chieftains.  Sir  John  also  had  by  him  for  constant 
reference  a  set  of  the  Annual  Register,  a  storehouse 
of  facts  from  which  his  love  of  detail  and  comparison 
extracted  a  vast  amount  of  pleasure  and  amusement. 
This  statement  is  sufficient  to  show  that  his  recourse 
to  books  was  rather  that  of  the  lover  of  action  and 
outdoor  life  than  of  the  student  of  literature. 

We  noticed  on  an  earlier  page  his  diffident  dislike 
of  speaking  in  public,  and  in  his  earlier  days  no 
amount  of  preparation  seems  to  have  made  him  quite 
comfortable  on  a  public  platform,  a  somewhat  strange 
contradiction  in  one  naturally  so  self-confident.  In 


354  THE  ENGINEEE  AT   HOME 

further  extension  of  the  field  of  labour  and  the  foundation 
of  a  Graeco-Eoman  Branch  of  this  flourishing  society. 

"  I  know  that  Sir  John  Fowler  regarded  his  connection  with 
the  Egypt  Exploration  Fund,  and  the  prosperity  to  which  it 
attained  under  his  direction,  with  legitimate  pride.  And 
indeed  he  had  full  reason  to  be  proud.  I  trust  that  it  may  not 
be  thought  presumptuous  in  me,  who  saw  so  much  of  him  in 
connection  with  the  administration  of  this  society,  and  who 
thus  learned  to  admire  his  simple  and  manly  character,  to  have 
written  this  imperfect  appreciation  of  the  debt  of  gratitude 
that  all  who  take  an  interest  in  the  art  and  archaeology  of 
ancient  Egypt  owe  to  Sir  John  Fowler." 

It  is  not  given  to  many  to  pass  beyond  the  limit 
of  threescore  years  and  ten,  without  feeling  the  heavy 
and  disabling  hand  of  time.  Sir  John,  although  a 
hard  worker,  was  also  careful  of  his  health,  and  was 
happily  allowed  to  enjoy  a  green  and  vigorous  old  age. 
The  following  letter  of  reminiscence  which  has  been 
kindly  sent  to  the  author  by  Sir  Benjamin  Baker  is 
a  valuable  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of  wise 
husbandry  in  the  matter  of  health,  as  well  as  an 
interesting  addition  to  the  biography  of  his  friend  and 
partner : — 

"You  ask  me,"  he  writes,  "if  any  of  Sir  John  Fowler's 
early  professional  friends  are  likely  to  be  able  to  contribute 
information  respecting  his  career.  Sir  John  outlived  most  of 
his  professional  friends.  Stephenson,  Locke,  Brunei,  Eendel, 
and  other  leaders  all  died  before  they  reached  the  age  of  fifty- 
seven.  Sir  John  lived  thirty-three  years  after  occupying  the 
Presidential  Chair  of .  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers,  whilst 
on  the  average  other  presidents  have  so  far  survived  no  more 
than  thirteen  years  after  attaining  the  same  distinction  in  the 
profession.  The  early  death  of  so  many  leading  engineers  was 
accepted  by  their  colleagues  as  a  warning  that  the  anxiety  and 
responsibility  inseparable  from  a  great  engineer's  work  cannot 


LETTEE  FBOM   SIE   BENJAMIN  BAKEE        355 

be  safely  associated  with  continuous  application  to  their  duties 
and  no  holidays.  At  an  unusually  young  age,  therefore,  Sir 
John  made  it  an  annual  duty  to  take  a  long  holiday  in  the 
Highlands,  where  his  thoughts  were  diverted  into  an  entirely 
different  channel,  and  this  practice  finally  led  to  the  acquire- 
ment of  the  forty  square  miles  of  hills,  straths,  rivers,  and 
lochs  in  Western  Eoss,  and  the  transformation  of  the  whole 
into  the  beautiful  estate  which  is  well  known  throughout  the 
North  as  Braemore.  The  same  regard  to  his  health  led  him  to 
place  himself  in  the  hands  of  doctors  as  regards  diet  and 
other  matters  to  an  extent  which  amused  his  friends,  knowing 
as  they  did  with  what  a  robust  constitution  he  had  been 
endowed.  He  might  easily  excite  the  sympathy  of  strangers 
by  being  seen  in  Westminster  with  a  woollen  scarf  over  his 
mouth  as  a  respirator,  but  his  friends  would  know  that  perhaps 
a  few  days  later  he  might  be  found  minus  respirator,  lying 
amidst  sleet  and  rain  on  the  bleak  top  of  one  of  his  own  high 
hills  at  Braemore,  waiting  patiently  for  hours  for  the  hinds  to 
move  on,  or  for  a  stag  to  rise,  and  returning  in  the  dark  after 
a  long  day's  stalk  without  any  thought  of  hardship,  provided 
he  brought  a  fine  beast  home  with  him,  which  he  generally  did. 

"  My  first  visit  to  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  was  to 
hear  my  late  partner  deliver  his  presidential  address  in  1865 ; 
and  his  last  visit  was  to  perform  the  duty  devolving  upon  him 
as  the  oldest  surviving  Past-President  of  proposing  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  me  for  the  presidential  address  delivered  on  my 
taking  the  chair  occupied  by  him  thirty  years  before.  The 
growth  of  the  engineering  profession  during  the  aforesaid 
interval  is  well  illustrated  by  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
members  of  the  Institution  from  1203,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
first  address,  to  6,907  on  that  of  the  second. 

"  I  first  met  Sir  John  Fowler  forty  years  ago,  as  a  youngster 
about  to  proceed  to  India  for  a  career.  The  impression  I  then 
formed  of  him  is  as  clear  to-day  as  ever,  and  has  never  varied. 
I  felt  myself  in  the  presence  of  a  born  commander  of  men, 
who  formed  his  opinion  with  instinctive  quickness,  held  on  to 
it  firmly,  never  questioning  its  soundness  himself,  nor  failing 


356  THE  ENGINEEE  AT  HOME 

sooner  or  later  to  satisfy  most  of  his  hearers  by  ingenuity  of 
argument  and  charm  of  manner,  that  if  they  held  a  contrary 
opinion  originally  it  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  them  that  they 
had  come  to  see  him  before  it  was  too  late.  He  advised  me 
not  to  go  to  India.  I  thought  he  was  wrong,  but  obeyed.  I 
have  long  since  known  that  he  was  right. 

"  In  many  far  more  important  matters  his  great  experience 
and  rapid  and  comprehensive  grasp  of  all  of  the  circumstances 
have,  to  my  knowledge,  led  him  to  give  advice,  the  rejection 
of  which  has  afterwards  been  seriously  regretted.  Thus  the 
Great  Western  Eailway  directors  long  remained  undecided 
on  the  question  of  bridge  versus  tunnel  across  the  Severn. 
Sir  John  strongly  advocated  a  bridge,  and  we  prepared  designs 
and  estimates,  which  were  thought  too  bold  and  risky  at  the 
time,  but  which  our  subsequent  experience  at  the  far  more 
difficult  work  across  the  Forth  more  than  justified.  He  told 
the  directors  that  a  tunnel  would  take  twice  as  long  to  con- 
struct, would  cost  far  more  than  the  estimate,  on  account  of 
trouble  with  influx  of  water,  and  for  the  same  reason  would 
cost  more  to  maintain,  as  the  tunnel  would  require  to  be 
continuously  pumped,  whilst  the  bridge  would  want  nothing 
but  a  coat  of  paint.  Most  important  of  all,  however,  the 
bridge  would  carry  safely  far  more  traffic  than  a  tunnel  by 
reason  of  the  better  gradients  and  facilities  for  intermediate 
block  stations.  All  this  has  proved  to  be  true,  and  there  is 
little  doubt  that  the  present  directors  regret  that  their  pre- 
decessors rejected  the  advice  of  their  consulting  engineer,  and 
handed  over  to  them  a  tunnel  instead  of  a  bridge.  Similarly, 
to  my  knowledge,  the  Great  Western  Eailway  would  have 
been  at  Southampton  Docks,  and  the  Great  Northern  Eailway 
would  years  ago  have  effected  amalgamations  which  would 
have  obviated  the  difficulties  arising  from  the  costly  extension 
of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire,  or  Great  Central 
Eailway  to  London,  had  they  followed  Sir  John's  advice.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  qualities  such  as  Sir  John 
Fowler  possessed  would  have  ensured  success  in  any  profession 
or  business,  and  it  is  a  question  whether  his  country  would 


LETTER  FROM   SIR  BENJAMIN  BAKER       357 

not  have  benefited  more  by  his  services  as  a  great  organiser 
and  leader  of  men  in  warlike  operations  than  in  the  peaceful 
pursuit  of  railway  making.  Leaders  of  men  necessarily  invite 
criticism;  their  personal  characteristics  often  present  many 
different  phases,  and  the  opinions  of  casual  critics  may  reason- 
ably vary  according  to  the  particular  phase  of  which  they 
have  had  experience.  At  one  time  of  his  life  Sir  John  was 
much  troubled  with  distressing  headaches,  and  being  at  the 
same  time  hard  pressed  with  work,  I  can  readily  understand 
that  anyone,  knowing  him  only  when  the  headache  was  in 
force,  would  form  the  wrong  opinion  that  he  was  irritable 
and  unreasonable  in  manner  and  judgment.  All  who  knew 
him  well,  including  his  engineering  staff,  knew  that  these 
stormy  intervals  were  but  as  a  few  claps  of  thunder  in  a 
summer's  season,  and  that  his  normal  attitude  was  one  of 
infectious  cheerfulness,  for  which  everyone  having  to  do  with 
him  felt  the  better.  Occasionally,  however,  somebody  would 
resent  a  remark  or  action  of  his,  and  a  slight  initial  difference 
between  two  strong  and  proud  men  often  widens  into  a  serious 
breach  of  former  friendly  relationships.  Such  breaches,  of 
course,  did  occur  in  Sir  John's  long  career,  as  they  have  in 
that  of  all  other  prominent  men's,  and  they  have  sometimes 
led  temporarily  to  wrong  inferences,  which  have  long  since 
proved  themselves  to  be  unfounded. 

"For  many  years  past  no  secrets,  personal  or  otherwise, 
existed  between  my  partner  and  myself,  as  we  consulted  each 
other  on  even  the  most  private  personal  matters.  I  claim, 
therefore,  to  know  his  character  'down  to  bed-rock.'  His 
last  letter  to  me,  written  that  I  might  be  '  the  first  to  know ' 
that  he  was  sick  unto  death,  was  subscribed  '  Your  affectionate 
friend,'  and  I  am  proud  to  have  held  and  to  have  returned 
for  more  than  thirty  years  the  friendship  and  affection  of  such 
a  man." 

For  many  years  Sir  John  Fowler  had  suffered  from 
attacks  of  bronchitis,  the  result  of  chills  caught  on 
some  of  the  frequent  journeys  necessitated  by  his 


358  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

profession.  Gradually  this  caused  weakness  and  dilata- 
tion of  the  heart,  and,  during  the  last  few  years  of  his 
life,  an  increasing  difficulty  in  breathing. 

Notwithstanding  his  growing  infirmities,  he  continued 
to  take  a  close  interest  in  much  of  the  work  which  went 
through  the  office  at  Queen  Square  Place.  The  last 
matter  of  importance  to  which  he  gave  personal  super- 
vision was  the  difficult  and  costly  engineering  task  of 
crossing  the  river  Findhorn,  on  the  new  section  of  the 
Highland  Railway  between  Aviemore  and  Inverness. 
It  had  been  originally  proposed  to  take  a  circuitous 
route,  and  to  build  near  Tomatin  a  bridge  of  very 
moderate  dimensions.  Sir  John,  however,  succeeded  in 
persuading  the  directors  to  adopt  a  more  direct  course, 
and  to  save  thereby  a  distance  of  between  one  and  two 
miles.  The  present  lofty  and  magnificent  viaduct  is 
the  result.  The  stone  used  in  the  fine  masonry  of  this 
work  came  from  the  quarries  which  had  supplied  granite 
for  the  Forth  Bridge,  and  in  excellence  of  this  kind  the 
veteran  engineer  found  an  intense  delight. 

In  July,  1896,  when  he  had  attained  the  ripe  age 
of  seventy-nine,  he  became  for  the  first  time  seriously 
ill.  In  August,  however,  he  was  able  to  go  to  his 
beloved  Braemore,  and,  as  usual,  to  entertain  his 
friends.  He  returned  to  London  in  October.  There 
he  remained  till,  in  January,  1897,  by  his  doctor's 
advice,  he  went  to  Egypt,  accompanied  by  Lady 
Fowler  and  a  medical  attendant.  The  air  of  the 
desert  and  a  quiet  rest  at  the  Mena  Hotel,  near  the 
Pyramids,  revived  him,  and  on  his  way  home  he  was 
able  to  enjoy  a  six  weeks'  visit  to  Hyeres,  where  he 
found  his  old  friend  and  partner,  Mr.  Baldry.  After 
reaching  home  he  had  a  relapse  in  June,  and,  though 


LAST  DAYS  359 

able  to  go  to  Braemore,  it  was  evident  to  himself 
and  to  those  who  loved  and  watched  him  that  he 
was  growing  weaker.  It  was  at  this  time  he  wrote 
the  touching  letter  to  which  allusion  is  made  in  the 
above  -  printed  communication  from  Sir  Benjamin 
Baker.  One  of  the  last  visitors  at  his  Highland  home, 
Mr.  Alfred  Gathorne-Hardy,  remembers  well  how 
shocked  he  felt  at  the  changed  appearance  of  his 
kind  friend  and  host.  Sir  John,  however,  would  not 
hear  of  the  visit  being  curtailed,  and  though  obliged 
to  keep  his  room  on  many  days  he  followed  with 
kindly  interest  the  sport  of  his  guests  in  the  forest 
and  on  the  river. 

In  October,  1897,  he  returned  to  London,  where 
he  became  very  ill.  His  medical  adviser,  Dr.  Kidd, 
for  whose  sedulous  care  he  frequently  expressed  the 
warmest  gratitude,  became  afraid  in  February,  1898, 
that  the  end  had  come.  The  family  was  summoned. 
His  strong  spirit,  however,  once  more  bore  up  against 
disease,  and  he  rallied  so  far  that  he  was  able  to  go 
to  Brighton  for  a  fortnight  in  May.  His  sister, 
Mrs.  Whitton,  now  a  widow,  at  this  time  returned 
from  Australia.  To  her,  and  indeed  to  all  the 
members  of  his  family,  he  had  ever  been  warmly 
attached,  and  the  meeting  was  a  source  of  much  quiet 
joy  to  the  brother  and  sister.  He  continued  fairly 
well,  though  extremely  feeble,  during  the  summer. 
In  September  he  went  to  Bournemouth,  where,  until 
the  end  of  the  month,  he  was  able  to  go  out  daily 
in  an  invalid  chair.  He  grew,  however,  visibly 
weaker,  but  at  intervals  he  recovered  his  clear  mind 
and  fortitude,  and  talked  with  calm  resignation  of  that 
which  was  to  come. 


360  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

On  November  20th,  1898,  he  was  feeling  unusually 
bright,  and  joined  his  wife  and  his  brother,  Mr. 
Frederick  Fowler,  at  dinner.  He  asked  his  brother 
to  tell  other  members  of  the  family  that  he  was  in 
full  possession  of  his  faculties,  and  presently  he  retired 
to  his  room,  which  adjoined  the  dining-room.  Here, 
seated  on  a  sofa,  while  his  favourite  servant,  Frederick 
Theyer,  was  helping  him  to  undress,  he  suddenly  and 
very  peacefully  passed  away.  His  work  was  done, 
and,  full  of  years  and  of  honour,  he  was  vouchsafed 
the  crowning  mercy  of  a  painless  death. 

The  work  of  men  who  have  excelled  in  the  arts  of 
peace  does  not  touch  the  imagination  as  do  records  of 
conquest  and  stirring  adventure,  but  it  has  a  perma- 
nence and  importance  which  is  not  to  be  gainsaid. 

The  life-work  performed  by  Fowler  and  his  compeers, 
by  the  relatively  prosaic  methods  here  described,  has 
been  revolutionary  in  its  consequences.  The  England 
through  which  Fowler  travelled  to  London  in  the 
"Emerald"  coach  in  the  year  1838  is  not  the  England 
which  he  left  in  1898.  Yet,  so  numerous  have  been 
the  leaders  of  the  army  marching  forward  in  step, 
so  general,  so  simple,  and  so  obvious  has  been  each 
advance,  that  we  find  it  difficult  to  perceive  and  to 
insist  on  the  personal  element  in  this  vast  change. 

The  effacement  of  the  record  of  great  industrial 
captains  will,  on  reflection,  enhance  rather  than  detract 
from  their  title  to  the  gratitude  of  mankind.  It  is 
true  that,  in  the  life  of  Stephenson,  as  depicted  by 
Dr.  Smiles,  the  figure  of  the  hero  emerges  out  of  the 
chaos  in  which  lurked  his  great  opportunity,  homely, 
resolute,  and  successful  in  its  appeal  to  our  historical 


GKEATKESS   OF  THE  AETS   OF  PEACE        361 

imagination.  He  seems  to  pass,  and  to  carry  the  world 
with  him,  at  one  step  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  middle 
ages  into  the  modern  economy  of  an  industrial  state. 
The  biographer  is  well  within  his  rights  when  he 
dwells  even  to  exaggeration  on  the  width  of  that 
stride.  Yet  even  Stephenson,  who  has  been  identified 
with  the  locomotive  engine,  had  his  precursors.  His 
fame,  moreover,  is  great  and  lasting,  not  so  much 
because  of  his  own  work,  but  because  of  the  vastly 
superior  work  which  his  successors  have  been  able  to 
engraft  on  his  achievement.  All  these  considerations 
have  a  levelling  effect.  It  would  almost  seem  that 
those  who  work  with,  rather  than  against,  the  stream 
of  progress,  are,  by  the  very  success  of  their  effort, 
doomed  to  a  certain  supersession  and  oblivion.  After 
Stephenson,  a  typical  figure  to  whom  much  is  assigned 
that  happened  both  before  and  after  his  time,  many 
opportunities  for  improvement  of  transport  have  been 
seized,  but  to  none  of  them  has  the  public  vouch- 
safed the  same  high  acknowledgment  of  fame.  After 
Stephenson  it  was,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  to  be  the 
day  of  the  great  organiser  rather  than  of  the  great 
inventor ;  and  it  is  as  a  great  organiser  that  Fowler 
becomes  a  pre-eminent  figure  in  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion of  the  century. 

These  levelling  reflections  detract  in  no  way  from  the 
merit  of  those  who  receive  and  utilise,  who  rekindle  with 
increased  glow,  and  then  hand  on  the  torch  of  know- 
ledge and  enlightenment  from  generation  to  generation. 
On  the  contrary,  they  enable  us  to  discriminate,  to 
appreciate  the  value  of  services  which  have  been 
eclipsed  by  the  very  greatness  of  their  results,  and 
to  set  them  in  contrast  with  those  barren  heroisms 


362  THE  ENGINEEK  AT  HOME 

which  leave  their  perpetrators  in  splendid  isolation. 
The  great  man,  in  Carlyle's  view,  is  too  often  the  man 
of  violent  and  unscrupulous  character,  who  is  borne 
into  a  place  and  power  on  some  backward  eddy  from 
the  otherwise  even  current  of  human  progress,  by  an 
appeal  to  the  ignoble  instincts  of  fear,  superstition, 
and  force.  The  Mohammedan  power,  the  crushing 
burden  of  militarism  under  which  Europe  still  groans, 
are  gifts  which  we  owe  to  Mahomed,  and  to  such  as 
Frederick  and  Napoleon — men  whose  abnormal  oppor- 
tunity and  personality  Carlyle  has  characterised  as 
heroic. 

Happily  greatness  of  this  kind  is  as  rare  as  it  is 
monstrous.  It  can  have  few  imitators,  but  remains  in 
isolation,  a  solitary  monument  to  dazzle  the  imagina- 
tion of  succeeding  generations. 

The  greatness  achieved  in  the  arts  of  peace  is  in 
every  way  a  contrast  to  that  of  the  Carlylean  hero. 
Under  free  institutions  the  coercive  hero  has  no  per- 
manent usefulness.  The  able  man,  the  great  man,  the 
worker  of  beneficent  revolution,  is  he  who  opposes 
superstition,  and  vicious  but  inveterate  custom,  by 
some  new  and  convincing  exposition  of  right  reason ; 
who,  like  Bentham,  from  his  philosopher's  study,  a 
figure  not  ordinarily  regarded  as  heroic,  exercises 
a  silent  but  irresistible  influence  on  the  laws  and 
administration  of  his  country ;  who,  like  Adam  Smith, 
gains  the  assent  of  his  countrymen,  or  even  of  a  larger 
audience,  to  some  just  law  of  social  development ;  who, 
like  Newton  or  Stephenson,  discovers  some  hitherto 
neglected  law  of  nature,  and  applies  it  for  the  en- 
lightenment or  service  of  men ;  or,  to  come  to  the 
subject  of  the  present  biography,  who  takes  a  yeoman's 


GEEATNESS  OF  THE  AETS  OF  PEACE   363 

share  in  domesticating  for  the  use  of  man  the  new 
discoveries  of  science,  the  triumphs  of  hydraulic,  steam, 
and  electrical  engineering.  These,  and  such  as  these, 
are  the  great  qualities  of  civilisation.  They  make  no 
appeal  to  the  fratricidal  impulses  of  force  and  fraud 
which  lie  buried,  not  very  deeply,  in  human  nature,  and 
which  seem  to  give  to  him  who  evokes  them  on  a  large 
scale  the  isolation  of  greatness.  They  rely  rather  on  the 
equity  of  free  contract,  and  on  the  self-discipline  and 
independence  of  labour  which  is  thereby  engendered. 
They  recognise  that,  in  accordance  with  the  great  law 
of  the  economy  of  effort,  slavery,  arbitrary  power, 
and  the  oppression  of  labour  are  things  morally  and 
economically  inconsistent  with  modern  conditions. 

Men  possessed  of,  and  called  on  to  exercise,  these 
qualities  are  not  isolated  from  or  placed  above  our 
industrial  system.  They  are  part  and  parcel  of  it. 
They  are  the  moving  spirits  in  an  economic  har- 
mony, wherein  the  ceaseless  energy  of  human  effort  is 
spontaneously  guided  into  honourable  and  serviceable 
channels. 

We  are  far,  alas !  from  an  ideal  condition  of  in- 
dustrial life,  but  who  can  doubt  that  progress  must 
be  organised  by  the  expansion  and  adaptation  of  this 
principle ! 

It  is  in  the  light  of  these  considerations  that  we 
claim  for  men  of  scientific  and  industrial  achievement 
a  meed  of  honour  more  real  and  more  due  than  that 
which  is  given  to  great  conquerors.  England's  great- 
ness among  the  nations — the  greatness,  that  is,  of 
modern  England — will  never  in  the  eye  of  history 
consist  in  mere  supereminence  of  material  empire, 
but  in  her  pioneer  advance,  scatheless,  through  the 


364  THE  ENGINEER  AT  HOME 

difficulties  of  that  new  industrial  era  on  which  she 
was  the  first  to  enter.  To  their  country's  greatness 
in  this  respect,  Fowler  and  his  compeers  (for  the 
merits  of  these  captains  in  industry  has  been  happily 
contagious)  have,  by  their  energy,  their  integrity, 
and  their  independence,  made  notable  contribution. 
It  has  been  the  object  of  this  volume  to  depict  the 
career  of  a  strong  man,  whose  pride  and  good  fortune 
it  was  to  labour,  in  all  honour,  with  and  not  against 
the  tendency  of  the  time,  and  in  this  light  the  reader 
is  asked  to  accept  the  foregoing  tribute  to  the  memory 
of  John  Fowler. 


APPENDIX 

ADDRESS  OF  JOHN  FOWLER,  ESQ. 

President  of  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers, 

ON    TAKING    THE    CHAIR,   FOR    THE    FIRST    TIME   AFTER    HIS    ELECTION, 
JANVARY  9,   1866. 

GENTLEMEN, — On  assuming  the  chair  of  this  Institution  as  its 
President,  and  undertaking  for  the  first  time  its  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities, allow  me  to  assure  you  that  I  feel  deeply  the  honour  you  have 
conferred  upon  me  by  electing  me  to  this,  the  highest  position  to 
which  the  Civil  Engineer  can  aspire ;  and  that  I  feel  still  more 
deeply  the  weight  of  the  duties  which  are  inseparable  from  this 
honour.  I  will  also  venture  earnestly  to  request  you  to  extend  to 
me  your  indulgence  during  my  period  of  office,  and  afford  me  your 
kind  co-operation  in  any  efforts  I  may  make  for  the  advancement  of 
our  profession,  or  for  increasing  the  usefulness  of  this  Institution. 

I  ask  this  assistance  from  you  with  peculiar  anxiety,  because  I 
cannot  but  feel  that  the  present  is  a  period  of  unusual  importance  to 
this  Society,  and  that  the  rapidly  increasing  prominence  of  the  pro- 
fession demands  at  our  hands  a  corresponding  care  for  its  efficiency 
and  dignity. 

The  high  degree  of  material  prosperity  which  this  country  and  its 
dependencies  have  now  happily  enjoyed  for  a  considerable  time,  has 
naturally  led  to  great  activity  in  our  profession;  probably  at  no 
former  period  have  the  skill  and  enterprise  of  engineers  been  so 
severely  taxed  as  during  the  last  few  years ;  and  as  civilisation  con- 
tinues to  advance,  and  labour  to  require  increased  assistance  from 
mechanical  contrivances,  the  connection  of  civil  engineering  with 
social  progress  will  become  more  and  more  intimate. 

I  hope  I  may  be  allowed  to  say,  however,  with  a  deep  feeling  of 
professional  pride,  that  hitherto  the  inventive  genius,  the  patient 
perseverance,  and  indomitable  energy  of  the  members  of  our  pro- 

365 


366 


APPENDIX 


fession  have  not  been  found  unequal  to  the  tasks  they  have  been 
called  upon  to  perform ;  and  although  I  have  full  confidence  in  the 
future,  I  venture  to  suggest  that  the  present  is  a  fitting  moment  for 
considering  the  means  by  which  our  younger  brethren  may  be  best 
prepared  for  the  arduous  duties,  and  growing  difficulties,  which  they 
will  undoubtedly  have  to  encounter  in  their  professional  career. 

It  is  not  merely  that  works  of  magnitude  and  novelty  are  in- 
creasing, and  will  continue  to  increase,  but  it  is  becoming  apparent 

Competition  tnat  we  s^a^  ^ave  to  meet  ^e  comPetition  of  foreign 
by  foreign  engineers  in  many  parts  of  the  world ;  and  that  great 
efforts  are  now  being  made,  not  only  by  careful  scholastic 
education,  but  by  more  attention  to  practice  on  works,  to  render 
the  civil  engineers  of  France,  Germany,  and  America,  formidable 
rivals  to  the  engineers  of  this  country. 

Here  it  has  always  been  found  that  friendly  and  honourable 
rivalry  among  members  of  the  profession  has  been  on  the  whole 
beneficial  to  science  and  to  engineering  progress,  and  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  same  result  will  follow  the  more  extended  rivalry 
which  we  shall  have  now  to  meet  from  the  engineers  of  every 
nation.  At  the  same  time  this  consideration  renders  it  our  especial 
duty  to  take  care  that  the  distinguished  and  leading  position  which 
has  been  so  well  maintained  by  our  great  predecessors,  shall  not  be 
lowered  by  those  who  come  after  them. 

My  predecessors  in  this  chair  have  addressed  you  chiefly  upon  the 
interesting  topics  and  works  of  their  own  time,  and  with  so  large 
Former  a  field,  demanding  their  attention,  it  was  natural  that 

addresses.  they  should  devote  themselves  mainly  to  describe  the 
past,  and  to  indicate  in  outline  the  features  of  greatest  interest  in 
the  present. 

My  immediate  predecessor,  Mr.  McClean,  gave  to  the  Institution 
a  description  of  the  remarkable  results  which  had  been  produced  by 
the  general  introduction  of  railways  into  England  in  combination 
with  steam  power,  and  clearly  pointed  out  their  influence  on  the 
increase  of  its  material  prosperity  and  national  wealth. 

Mr.  Hawkshaw  pointed  out  the  rapidly  increasing  importance  of 
wrought-iron  for  engineering  works,  with  the  promise  of  new  appli- 
cations of  steel;  and  the  fact  and  consequences  of  the  increasing 
speed  of  railways  and  steam  boats. 

Mr.  Bidder,  after  denning  the  object  and  scope  of  the  profession 
of  the  civil  engineer  to  be  "  to  take  up  the  results  discovered  by  the 
abstract  mathematician,  the  chemist,  and  the  geologist,  and  to  apply 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDEESS  367 

them  practically  for  the  commercial  advantage  of  the  world  at  large," 
illustrated  his  views  by  selecting  the  examples  of  hydrodynamical 
science  and  hydraulic  engineering,  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out 
the  serious  mistakes  which  might  result  from  the  neglect  of  a  proper 
knowledge  of  true  mathematical  principles. 

Mr.  Robert  Stephenson  described  the  modern  railway  system  in 
England  up  to  the  period  of  his  address,  commenting  upon  its  extent, 
and  justly  appreciating  its  value ;  and  he  reviewed,  in  a  large  and 
philosophical  spirit,  its  system  of  management,  and  the  commercial 
economy  which  it  had  produced. 

Mr.  Locke  in  like  manner  selected  for  his  subject  a  description  of 
the  French  railway  system  and  its  management,  in  the  introduction 
of  which  he  had  himself  been  so  actively  engaged. 

Another  of  my  predecessors,  Sir  John  Rennie,  seems  to  have  been 
determined  that  no  single  topic  of  professional  interest  should  remain 
to  any  future  President  which  he  had  not  himself  exhaustively  dis- 
cussed; for  he  not  only  presented  a  complete  panorama  of  all  past 
engineering  works,  but  he  gave  a  descriptive  analysis,  so  full  and 
complete  as  to  make  his  address  at  once  a  history  of  engineers,  and  a 
manual  of  engineering  science. 

The  whole  field  of  discussion  and  description  of  the  past  has  thus 
been  so  completely  and  so  ably  occupied  by  my  predecessors  in  this 
chair,  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  travel  over  the  same   THEFuTUEE 
ground ;  but  I  propose  to  deal  almost  exclusively  with  OF  THE 
the  future,  and  endeavour,  although  I  possess  no  peculiar  I 
personal  fitness  for  the  task,  to  suggest  some  of  the  means  by  which 
the  younger  members  and  the  rising  generation  may  best  prepare 
themselves  for  the  duties  which  that  future  will  bring  with  it. 

I  may  first  briefly  notice,  and  for  the  purpose  of  illustration  and 
introduction,  a  few  of  the  great  engineering  problems  of  remarkable 
boldness  and  novelty  which  are  now  presenting  them- 
selves for  the  supply  of  the  future  wants  and  convenience   ENGINEERING 
of  mankind :  amongst  them  may  be  enumerated  the  Suez   PROBLEMS  OF 
Canal;  the  tunnel  through,  and  the  railway  over,  Mont  y**/™ 
Cenis ;  railway  bridges  over  and  under  great  rivers  and 
estuaries;  new  ferry  works  of  unusual  magnitude;  vast  warehouses  and 
river  approaches  for  commercial  cities  like  Liverpool ;  railways  under, 
over,  and  through  great  cities ;  long  lines  of  land  and  ocean  telegraphs ; 
and  comprehensive  schemes  of  water  supply,  drainage,  and  sewerage. 


368  APPENDIX 

All  these  works  present  problems  of  great  interest;  and  it  will 
require  cultivated  intelligence,  patient  investigation,  and  enlarged 
experience,  to  accomplish  the  task  of  their  satisfactory  solution. 

For  the  Suez  Canal  we  must  be  content  to  wait  a  few  years  before 
the  work  be  so  far  advanced  as  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  the  effects  of 
the  physical  and  moral  obstacles  which  to  some  experienced  minds 
have  appeared  all  but  insuperable. 

The  Mont  Cenis  Tunnel,  and  the  temporary  railway  being  con- 
structed over  its  summit,  will  continue  to  be  watched  with  interest 
by  all  engineers,  and  it  may  yet  be  a  question  how  far  the  mode 
of  traction  which  has  been  adopted  for  the  temporary  railway  will 
prove  to  be  the  best.  The  modified  locomotive  with  the  aid  of  a 
central  rail  has  no  doubt  succeeded  in  surmounting  gradients  which 
have  hitherto  been  considered  to  be  more  severe  than  compatible 
with  the  economical  use  of  the  locomotive  engine ;  but  further 
experience  is  still  required,  and  the  results  of  the  trial  will  be 
watched  with  great  interest,  because  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  con- 
ditions will  continue  to  present  themselves  to  which  the  ordinary 
locomotive  engine  cannot  conveniently  be  applied. 

In  many  of  the  proposed  and  future  designs  of  bridges  over  or 
under  great  rivers  and  estuaries,  no  novelty  in  the  principles  of  con- 
struction may  probably  be  required,  but  in  other  cases  the  mere 
magnitude  alone  will  demand  new  arrangements  and  combinations; 
and  may  possibly  also  suggest  the  use  of  steel  for  parts  or  the  whole 
of  the  structure. 

The  docks  and  warehouses  of  our  great  commercial  cities  are 
rapidly  advancing  in  importance,  and  are  constantly  demanding 
increased  facilities  to  enable  them  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  trade; 
and  for  this  purpose  every  possible  resource  of  steam  machinery,  and 
hydraulic  and  pneumatic  mechanism,  will  have  to  be  taxed,  to  obtain 
convenient  and  adequate  power  and  expedition. 

The  new  scheme  of  river  approaches  at  Liverpool  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  proposals  of  modern  times  for  its  boldness  in 
grappling  with  the  difficulties  and  necessities  of  a  pressing  want,  and 
the  complete  solution  of  a  difficult  problem.  It  is  understood  that 
the  engineer  of  the  Mersey  Board,  who  has  designed  this  great  work, 
is  preparing  a  model  on  a  large  scale,  which  I  have  no  doubt  will  be 
brought  before  the  Institution. 

The  railways  under,  over,  and  through  great  cities  are  amongst  the 
most  striking  results  engendered  by  the  necessities  of  rapidly  in- 
creasing and  closely  crowded  population,  and  may  be  regarded  as  one 


PEESIDENTIAL  ADDEESS  369 

of  the  most  useful  economical  developments  which  engineering  has 
supplied  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of  modern  civilisation.  The 
engineering  problems  they  present  are  infinite  in  their  number,  and 
interestingly  intricate  in  their  character. 

Ocean  telegraphy  is  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  enough  has  been  done 
by  the  numerous  lines  already  laid,  and  by  demonstration  before  this 
Institution,  to  prove  that  further  experience  alone  is  wanting  to  enable 
deep  or  shallow  sea  cables  to  be  successfully  laid  and  maintained 
wherever  they  may  be  required ;  and  probably  in  no  branch  of  our 
profession  is  the  future  of  greater  interest  than  in  the  coming  tele- 
graphic connection  of  every  part  of  the  world  by  sea  and  land,  and 
in  the  political,  commercial,  and  social  results  which  must  follow  such 
a  remarkable  increase  in  the  facility  of  general  intercommunication. 

The  rapid  growth  of  communities,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded, 
has  also  developed  the  necessity  of  provision  being  made  for  a  more 
abundant  supply  of  pure  water,  and  for  a  more  complete  system 
of  sewerage  than  is  now  generally  possessed  by  our  towns  and  cities. 
Some  of  these  works  are  already  being  carried  out,  or  seriously 
contemplated,  on  a  scale  of  almost  startling,  but  not  unnecessary, 
magnitude. 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  in  every  department  of  civil  engineering 
the  wants  of  commerce  and  society  are  pressing  more  and  more 
urgently  upon  the  resources  of  our  profession.  We  have  ship  canals, 
but  the  Suez  Canal  throws  them  all  in  the  shade.  We  have  long 
tunnels  through  our  English  mountains,  but  we  have  now  to  penetrate 
the  Alps.  We  have  large  bridges,  but  larger  are  required.  We 
have  noble  ports,  but  they  are  choked  with  trade,  and  new  accommo- 
dation of  an  improved  kind  is  called  for.  We  have  steam  ferries 
across  rivers,  estuaries,  and  straits,  and  rapid  ocean  steamers,  but 
higher  speed  and  better  accommodation  are  demanded.  We  have 
large  warehouses  with  convenient  mechanical  appliances,  but  larger 
warehouses  and  better  mechanical  appliances  have  become  a  necessity. 
We  have  many  thousands  of  miles  of  telegraphic  communication,  but 
nothing  short  of  its  universal  extension  will  suffice. 

In  the  solution  of  these  problems,  thus  rapidly  indicated,  and 
in  others  which  could  be  easily  adduced,  we  may  rest  perfectly 
satisfied  that  the  difficulties  they  present  are  not  to  be  overcome 
by  a  stroke  of  genius  or  by  a  sudden  happy  thought,  but  they  must 
be  worked  out  patiently  by  the  combination  of  true  engineering 
principles,  ripe  experience,  and  sound  judgment. 

Having  thus  called  your  attention  to  the  peculiar  position  of  our 

2  B 


370  APPENDIX 

profession  in  consequence  of  its  rapid  growth,  and  pointed  out  some 
DEFINITION  of  tlie  Prol)lems  which  await  an  early  solution,  I  shall 
or  A  CIVIL  now  attempt  to  describe  the  nature  of  the  functions 
ENGINEER.  Qf  ^e  modern  CIVIL  ENGINEER;  and  consider  how  the 
coming  generation  can  be  best  prepared  for  its  inevitable  work,  and 
to  what  extent  this  Institution  can  be  made  ancillary  to  that  purpose. 

Although  we  know  from  history  that  men  have  existed  from  the 
earliest  times  who  have  been  distinguished  by  great  mechanical 
capacity,  remarkable  skill  in  working  materials,  profound  science, 
and  constructive  knowledge,  yet  it  is  only  during  the  present  century 
that  civil  engineering  can  be  considered  to  have  become  a  distinct 
and  recognised  profession.  Now,  however,  it  has  assumed  the 
position  of  an  art  of  the  highest  order.  Perhaps  we  may  without 
arrogance  be  entitled  to  claim  for  it  the  title  of  a  true  science. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  define  and  describe  a  civil 
engineer  in  a  few  general  words,  but  all  such  attempts  have  been 
more  or  less  unsatisfactory.  Still,  though  it  is  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  describe  an  engineer  by  a  short  definition,  it  is  not  so 
difficult  to  enumerate  and  describe  the  nature  of  the  works  he  is 
required  to  design  and  execute,  and  the  professional  duties  he  is 
called  upon  to  perform. 

He  has  to  design  and  prepare  drawings,  specifications,  and 
CLASSIFICA-  estimates,  and  to  superintend  the  carrying  out  of  works 
TION  OF  THE  which  may  be  thus  enumerated : — 

TRUSTED*™  !•  Railways,   roads,   canals,   rivers,  and  all  modes  of 

A  CIVIL  inland  communication. 

2.  Water  supply,  gas-works,  sewerage,  and  all  other 
works  relating  to  the  health  and  convenience  of  towns  and  cities. 

3.  The   reclamation,   drainage,   and   irrigation   of   large   tracts   of 
country. 

4.  Harbours  of  refuge  and  of  commerce,  docks,  piers,  and  other 
branches  of  hydraulic  engineering. 

5.  Works  connected  with  large  mines,  quarries,  ironworks,  and 
other  branches  of  mineral  engineering. 

6.  Works  on  a  large   scale   connected  with  steam-engines,   with 
machinery,  shipbuilding,  and  mechanical  engineering. 

This  list,  which  might  be  almost  indefinitely  extended,  involves 
a  vast  variety  of  work,  and  must  appear  almost  appalling  to  a  young 
engineer.  Yet  it  greatly  concerns  his  future  success  that  he  should 
as  far  as  possible  be  prepared  to  undertake  any  or  all  of  the  works 
embraced  in  the  list. 


PEESIDENTIAL  ADDEESS  371 

I  believe  the  personal  history  of  most  of  us  would  show  that 
circumstances  have  led  us  in  a  widely  different  direction,  in  the 
exercise  of  our  profession,  from  that  which  we  originally  contem- 
plated, and  that  the  success  of  many  men  may  be  distinctly  traced 
to  their  ability  to  avail  themselves  of  unforeseen  opportunities  to 
advance  in  some  neAV  direction. 

The  civil  engineer  must  therefore  be  prepared  for  the  various 
classes  of  constructive  works  thus  enumerated;  but  in  addition  to 
this  professional  preparation,  it  is  of  the  first  importance,  study  of 
as  affecting  his  true  position,  and  the  confidence  which  objects,  and 
ought  to  be  reposed  in  him,  that  he  should  also  have 
a  correct  appreciation  of  the  objects  of  each  work  contemplated,  as 
well  as  their  true  value,  so  that  sound  advice  may  be  given  .as  to  the 
best  means  of  attaining  them;  and  he  must  be  prepared,  if  neces- 
sary, to  advise  his  employers  that  the  objects  which  are  sought  are 
not  commercially  worth  the  cost  of  the  means  which  would  secure 
them.  It  is  not  the  business  of  an  engineer  to  build  a  fine  bridge 
or  to  construct  a  magnificent  engineering  work  for  the  purpose  of 
displaying  his  professional  attainments,  but,  whatever  the  temptation 
may  be,  his  duty  is  to  accomplish  ,the  end  and  aim  of  his  employers 
by  such  works  and  such  means  as  are,  on  the  whole,  the  best  and 
most  economically  adapted  for  the  purpose. 

The  first  question  which  will  present  itself  to  an  engineer  with 
respect  to  any  proposed  work,  will  be  the  selection  of  his  material ; 
and  as  this  question  is  so  vital  to  the  accomplishment  of      choice  of 
a  satisfactory  result,  I  propose  to  treat  it  in  a  preliminary      materials. 
and  special  manner.     I  wish  to  impress  upon  every  young  engineer 
a  due  sense  of  its  importance,  because  probably  a  greater  number 
of  mistakes  have  been  made  by  the  use  of  a  wrong  material,  than 
from  any  other  cause. 

In  the  case  of  stone  work,  it  is  essential  that  the  mode  of  con- 
struction shall  have  reference  to  the  character  of  the  stone ;  and  this 
requires  much  of   the  knowledge  of   the  geologist,  the 
stonemason,  and  the  quarryman,  so   that   the    engineer 
may  know  how  best  to  work  and  set  the  stone,  and  what  are  the 
peculiarities  of  the  quarry  as  to  its  sound  or  unsound  beds ;  and,  in 
addition,  he  should  have  sufficient  chemical  knowledge  to  detect  any 
unfitness  in  the  conditions  of  use  to  which  he  proposes  to  subject  the 
stone. 

Let  us  always  bear  in  mind,  in  connection  with  this  subject,  the 
example  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  engineer  as  well  as  architect,  who 


372  APPENDIX 

himself  selected  the  quarries,  and  sometimes  even  the  blocks  of 
which  his  structures  were  composed. 

Of  bricks  I  must  be  content  with  saying,  that  the  power  of  de- 
tecting the  good  from  the  bad,  the  suitable  from  the 
unsuitable,  must  be  acquired  by  the  combined  assistance 
of  reading,  experiment,  and  practice. 

A  knowledge  of  lime,  and  the  art  of  making  the  best  practicable 

mortar  from  each  description  of  building  lime,  is  almost  of  equal 

Mortar  and    importance  to  that  required  for  selecting  the  stone,  brick, 

cement.         an(j  building  materials  themselves,  but  it  is  somewhat 

remarkable  that  the  art  of  preparing  mortar  in  a  proper  manner  is 

not  so  general  as  it  deserves  to  be ;  and  to  secure  good  mortar  is  a 

matter  of  continual  anxiety  to  the  engineer. 

Mortar  for  engineering  works  is  ordinarily  made  from  cement 
(chiefly  Portland  cement);  or  from  hydraulic  lime,  such  as  lias;  or 
from  ordinary  lime,  such  as  grey  or  chalk  lime. 

Cement  is  chiefly  used  in  combination  with  sand  in  various  pro- 
portions, according  to  the  nature  of  the  work  to  be  executed,  and 
it  is  not  only  necessary  to  possess  the  requisite  knowledge  and 
experience  for  determining  the  proper  proportions  of  cement  and 
sand  for  each  individual  case,  but  it  is  desirable  to  have  the  means 
of  determining  by  direct  and  repeated  experiment  the  strength  and 
quality  of  the  cement  which  it  is  intended  to  use. 

In  the  case  of  hydraulic  lime,  such  as  lias,  the  same  general 
knowledge  of  the  proper  proportion  of  sand  to  be  used  is  also 
requisite,  but,  from  the  great  variation  in  the  character  of  lias  lime, 
and  the  .different  proportions  of  silica  and  alumina  in  combination 
with  the  lime  itself,  it  is  essential  to  obtain  a  careful  chemical 
analysis,  in  order  to  avoid  the  great  disappointment  and  bad 
consequences  which  may  result  from  ignorance  of  the  various 
qualities. 

Of  ordinary  limes,  it  is  only  necessary  here  to  say  that  they  are 
of  almost  infinite  variety  as  to  quality  and  constituent  parts,  and 
must  each  be  dealt  with  accordingly;  and  the  engineer  can  scarcely 
take  too  much  trouble  to  inform  himself  of  the  exact  nature  of 
each  lime  he  has  to  use,  and  the  best  mode  of  using  it. 

Modern  science,  and  the  convenient  manner  in  which  steam-power 
can  now  be  applied,  have  given  to  the  modern  engineer  the  means 
of  obtaining  better  mortar  from  the  same  materials  than  was  possible 
before  the  general  introduction  of  steam. 

The  heavy  rollers  and  iron  pan  worked  by  steam-power  are  now 


PKESIDENTIAL  ADDKESS  373 

almost  universally  used  for  grinding  and  mixing  lime  and  sand 
for  works  of  magnitude :  they  produce  with  properly  proportioned 
ingredients  a  mortar  so  good  in  quality,  and  so  equal  in  the  time  and 
power  of  setting,  that  the  engineer  can  calculate  with  certainty  upon 
the  conditions  under  which  his  designs  will  be  carried  out;  and 
when  he  has  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  quality  and 
power  of  good  mortar,  and  acquired  confidence  in  its  use,  he  will 
feel  himself  justified  in  its  adoption  in  cases  where  our  predecessors, 
and  even  some  modern  engineers,  would  have  hardly  ventured  to 
employ  it  in  the  place  of  the  more  costly  Portland  cement. 

When  iron  is  intended  to  be  used  in  structures,  it  is  essential  to  know 
under  what  circumstances  cast-iron  is  best  for  the  purpose,  or  when 
wr ought-iron  should  be  employed, '"and  also  when  steel  must 
be  resorted  to.    The  profession  has  probably  been  assisted 
to  a  greater  extent  by  the  experiments  and  writings  of  its  members 
and  of  distinguished  men  of  science  in  the  material  of   iron  than 
on  any  other  subject;    but   these   valuable   investigations   and  ex- 
periments must  be  supplemented  by  the  practical  knowledge  which 
can  only  be  acquired  by  attentively  studying  the  peculiarities  of 
material  and  manufacture. 

Cast-iron  or  pig-iron  remelted  and  run  into  moulds  is  largely  used 
by  engineers  for  columns  and  other  parts  requiring  great  power 
of  resisting  compressive  strains ;  and,  as  its  price  per  ton  is  generally 
about  one  half  of  that  of  wrought-iron,  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
economic  importance  to  adopt  it  in  all  cases  where  it  can  be  safely 
and  properly  used,  but  it  is  of  the  most  varied  quality  and  strength, 
and  the  greatest  attention  of  the  engineer  is  required  to  secure  the 
proper  kind. 

Wrought-iron  is  perhaps  less  varied  in  its  quality  than  cast-iron, 
and  for  many  purposes  of  engineering  it  is  the  safer  metal  to  adopt, 
from  its  greater  power  of  resisting  tensile  strains,  and  less  liability 
to  sudden  fractures.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  wrought-iron 
is  sometimes  pure  and  of  high  quality,  sometimes  very  impure  and 
of  the  commonest  quality,  and  even  with  the  same  degree  of  purity 
it  may  be  soft  and  fibrous,  or  hard  and  crystalline;  therefore  it 
is  obvious  that  the  young  engineer  should  acquire  a  sound  knowledge 
of  its  nature  both  chemically  and  practically,  so  as  to  enable  him  to 
obtain  the  quality  he  desires,  and  to  know  when  he  has  secured  it. 

It  would  be  easy  to  enlarge  upon  this  interesting  question  of 
wrought-iron,  but  it  may  suffice  to  instance  armour-plates,  and  rails, 
as  cases  where  the  best  quality  is  required,  but  the  quality,  though 


374  APPENDIX 

best,  must  be  different  in  kind;  for  armour-plates  the  iron  can 
scarcely  be  too  soft  and  fibrous,  whilst  for  rails  it  can  scarcely 
be  too  hard  and  crystalline,  provided  it  is  not  so  brittle  as  to  be 
liable  to  fracture  by  use.  Again,  in  some  iron,  such  as  the  'best 
Yorkshire,'  the  quality  appears  to  improve  with  every  additional 
operation  in  the  manufacture,  whilst  the  ordinary  Welsh  iron  is 
almost  destroyed  by  repeated  manipulation.  All  these  and  many  other 
matters  connected  with  iron  should  therefore  be  known  thoroughly 
and  practically  to  the  engineer. 

In  order  to  illustrate  the  necessity  of  the  systematic  study  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  metals  called  iron  and  steel,  let  me  refer  to 
the  experiments  of  Mr.  Eaton  Hodgkinson,  which  first  demonstrated 
that  the  average  resistance  of  cast-iron  to  crushing  was  more  than 
six  times  its  tenacity,  whilst  the  resistance  of  wrought-iron  to 
crushing  was  only  four-fifths  of  its  tenacity,  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  the  mathematical  investigations  he  founded  upon  these  ex- 
periments first  established  on  a  satisfactory  and  reliable  basis  the 
degree  and  ratio  of  tensile  and  crushing  force  in  cast  and  wrought- 
iron. 

With  respect  to  steel,  it  must  be  admitted,  that  before  we  can 

safely  adopt  it  to  any  considerable  extent  for  purposes  of 

construction,  it  will  be  necessary  to  have  a  similar  series 

of  experiments  and  investigations  specially  made,  but  so  promising 

a   metal  will  amply  repay  all  the  trouble  that  may  be  bestowed 

upon  it. 

Of  timber  a  thorough  knowledge  should  be  acquired,  as  no  material 
is  otherwise  more  likely  to  deceive  and  to  disappoint  the  engineer. 

Not  only  is  great  difference  found  in  trees  of  the  same 
Timber.  J 

general  description,  such  as  the  numerous  varieties  of 

the  pine,  but  the  same  kind  of  pine  is  a  different  quality  of  wood 
in  different  countries,  and  even  in  different  soils  and  climate  in  the 
same  country ;  and  again  the  same  tree  is  entirely  changed  by  being 
'  bled '  or  having  its  sap  Avithdrawn.  The  oaks  of  America,  England, 
and  the  Continent  are  entirely  different  in  their  character,  and  oaks 
also  differ  in  quality  from  each  other  in  the  same  country,  and  so 
with  numerous  other  woods  used  by  the  engineer.  The  strength, 
durability,  and  peculiarity  of  different  kinds  of  timber,  and  the 
true  value  of  artificially  preserving  them,  should  also  be  known 
and  understood. 

I  have  selected  these  examples  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  this 
important  fact,  that  before  an  engineer  can  even  commence  the  de- 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  375 

signs  of  his  works  he  must  have  previously  obtained  a  large  amount 
of  preliminary  information  regarding  the  nature  of  all  the  materials 
employed  upon  engineering  works,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  select  for 
his  intended  structures  those  materials  which  will  be  on  the  whole 
the  most  suitable;  having  reference  to  efficiency,  durability,  and 
economy. 

I  will  now  proceed  to  the  question  of  the  kind  and  degree  of 
knowledge  which  is  required  to  enable  a  young  engineer  to  proceed 
to  the  actual  design  of  a  public  work  of  importance. 

0   ...     .,  ,    .  ,  ,    .  KNOWLEDGE 

such  as  a  railway  with  its  stone,  brick,  and  iron  struc-  REQUIRED 
tures,    its  earthworks,  and  its   all-important   permanent  BY  A  CIVIL 
way;  a  railway  station,  a  station  roof;  docks  and  their 
appliances ;  waterworks,  breakwaters,  or  a  Great  Eastern  steamship. 

Although  it  has  become  the  practice  in  modern  times  for  many 
civil  engineers  to  be  employed  chiefly,  or  almost  entirely,  in  some  one 
branch  of  the  profession,  I  desire  to  repeat  my  conviction  that  it  is 
most  important  that  the  early  preparation  and  subsequent  study 
should  be  as  extensive  as  possible,  and  should  embrace  every  branch 
of  professional  practice,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to  a 
young  engineer  more  numerous  opportunities  for  his  advancement, 
but  also  because  sound  knowledge  and  experience  in  all  branches 
of  engineering  will  greatly  add  to  his  efficiency  and  value  in  any 
special  branch,  in  the  same  manner  that  a  medical  man  will  be  more 
reliable  in  his  practice  on  the  eye  and  the  ear  if  he  possesses  a  sound 
practical  and  theoretical  knowledge  of  every  part  of  the  human 
frame. 

All  classes  of  the  profession,  but  especially  the  railway,  the  dock 
and  harbour,  and  the  waterworks  engineer,  must  possess  a  knowledge 
of  parliamentary  proceedings,  so  as  to  be  able  to  avoid  all  non-com- 
pliances with  the  Standing  Orders  of  Parliament.  To  do  this,  it 
is  true,  is  no  easy  matter,  as  the  clauses  are  often  drawn  up  with  so 
little  care  and  practical  knowledge  that  neither  engineers  nor  soli- 
citors, nor  the  most  experienced  parliamentary  agents,  can  understand 
what  is  intended. 

On  the  subject  of  parliamentary  proceedings  generally,  it  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  all  Committees  desire  to  do  justice  to  the  cases 
which  are  brought  before  them,  and  that  if  they  sometimes  fail  in 
their  decisions,  either  as  regards  the  interests  of  the  public,  or  in 
arranging  a  fair  settlement  between  antagonistic  interests,  it  is  not 
unfrequently  due  to  the  imperfect  and  crude  manner  in  which  cases 
are  presented  to  them.  I  would  therefore  impress  on  all  young 


376  APPENDIX 

engineers  the  importance,  both  to  themselves  and  to  their  clients,  of 
laying  their  cases  before  Committees  in  the  most  perfect  manner 
possible,  accompanied  by  full  and  correct  information,  carefully  pre- 
pared and  clearly  worked  out. 

The  professional  knowledge  required  by  the  railway  engineer  com- 
mences with  surveying  of  all  kinds,  the  use  of  the  theodolite,  the 
Railway  aneroid  barometer,  the  level,  the  sextant,  etc.,  and  in- 

engineering,  eludes  the  surveys  for  preliminary  and  parliamentary 
purposes;  and  also  working  surveys  of  minute  accuracy,  on  a  large 
scale,  from  which  engineering  works  may  be  set  out  with  precision 
upon  the  ground. 

The  railway  engineer  must  understand  thoroughly  the  nature  of 
earthworks  of  every  kind,  and  the  proper  angles  or  slopes  to  be 
adopted  for  cuttings  and  embankments. 

He  must  have  the  qualifications  requisite  to  enable  him  to  design 
bridges,  viaducts,  tunnels,  and  all  other  incidental  works  and  build- 
ings, in  the  best  and  most  economical  manner. 

He  must  have  a  knowledge  of  the  training  of  rivers,  and  of  the 
effect  of  floods  and  drainage,  in  order  that  he  may  make  accurate 
provision  for  the  due  discharge  of  water  without  wasting  money  on 
works  unnecessarily  large,  or  to  avoid  the  risk  of  damage  arising 
from  making  them  insufficient. 

He  must  be  familiar  with  the  various  characters  of  permanent  way, 
the  best  description  of  rail,  sleeper,  fastenings,  and  ballast,  and  with 
the  different  descriptions  of  switches,  crossings,  turntables,  signals 
and  telegraphs. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that,  with  all  our  experience,  there 
should  still  remain  a  doubt  amongst  engineers  as  to  the  best  kind 
of  permanent  way  to  be  adopted  even  under  similar  circumstances. 
For  although  continental  engineers  have  almost  without  exception 
adopted  the  flat-bottomed  or  '  Yignoles '  form  of  rail,  the  I  form  of 
rail  with  equal  top  and  bottom  webs,  and  cast-iron  chairs  and 
wooden  keys,  is  still  largely  used  in  this  country. 

A  collection  of  facts  with  respect  to  the  different  descriptions  of 
permanent  way  in  use  in  this  and  other  countries,  with  a  view  to 
a  comparison  of  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  each,  would 
form  a  most  interesting  and  important  paper  for  the  Institution, 
especially  if  it  embraced  all  the  recent  experiments  with  reference 
to  the  use  of  steel  rails. 

The  railway  engineer  should  not  be  destitute  of  some  knowledge 
of  architecture  and  such  a  taste  for  those  graceful  outlines  and  simple 


PKESIDENTIAL  ADDEESS  377 

appropriate  details  which  should  always  characterise  the  works  of  an 
engineer,  as  to  be  able  to  avoid,  on  the  one  hand,  the  unnatural 
ornamentation  which  seems  to  have  no  connection  with  the  structure, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  disregard  of  either  form,  outline,  or  pro- 
portion. 

But  all  such  knowledge  may  fail  if  there  be  not  a  constant  super- 
vision and  control  over  the  quality  of  all  the  materials  and  workman- 
ship employed  upon  the  railway.  And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
without  the  practical  knowledge  which  is  obtainable  only  by  the 
actual  performance  of  the  duties  of  resident  engineer,  it  is  hopeless 
to  expect  that  any  engineer  can  be  competent  to  undertake  the  re- 
sponsibility of  important  works,  or  be  fit  to  have  large  sums  of  money 
entrusted  to  him  for  expenditure.  It  is  in  the  capacity  of  resident 
engineer  that  all  previous  preparation,  both  scholastic  and  profes- 
sional, and  all  theoretical  acquirements,  become  utilised  and  rendered 
of  practical  value,  and  it  is  only  after  much  experience  on  different 
works  of  varied  character,  dimensions,  and  materials,  and  the  acqui- 
sition of  the  power  of  discriminating  between  good  and  bad  materials 
and  workmanship,  that  a  young  student  of  engineering  can  claim  to 
take  rank  as  a  '  Civil  Engineer.' 

The  dock  and  harbour  engineer  requires  the  general  and  much 
of  the  special  knowledge  of  the  railway  engineer,  such  as  that  which 
belongs  to  railways  and  tramways,  and  warehouses  for  Dock  and 
goods;  and  to  this  he  must  add  a  vast  amount  of  other  harbour 
special  knowledge  not  required  by  the  railway  engineer.       engineering. 

For  example,  he  must  understand  the  laws  which  govern  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  tides,  the  rise  and  fall  and  time  of  high  and  low 
water;  and  he  must  have  a  knowledge  of  marine  surveying,  or  the 
best  means  of  ascertaining  the  set  and  speed  of  currents,  and  their 
tendency  to  increase  depth  of  water  by  scour,  or  to  diminish  it  by 
silting;  he  must  also  know,  in  the  case  of  docks,  what  kind  and 
extent  of  entrance  accommodation  to  provide,  whether  the  general 
plan  should  comprise  only  a  simple  lock,  or  be  combined  with  a  half- 
tide  basin ;  whether  single  or  double  gates  should  be  used ;  and 
whether  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  a  tidal  basin  or  a  recessed 
space,  or  both. 

The  nature  of  the  trade  to  be  accommodated  in  the  proposed  docks 
must  also  be  carefully  ascertained,  in  order  to  provide  a  proper  pro- 
portion of  quay  space  and  water  space,  and  proper  width  of  quays, 
warehouses  for  bonding  or  for  goods  to  be  deposited,  sheds  for 
temporary  protection,  entrance  for  barges  into  warehouses  from  the 


378  APPENDIX 

docks,  graving  docks  and  workshops,  with  mechanical  appliances  for 
gates,  sluices  and  pumping,  and  for  shipping  or  discharging  minerals 
or  goods. 

He  may  have  to  deal  with  solid  foundation,  and  enjoy  a  facility 
of  procuring  suitable  materials  for  construction,  as  at  Liverpool ;  or 
he  may  have  the  bad  foundations  of  Hull  and  other  places,  where 
alluvial  silt  of  great  depth  has  accumulated.  It  may  be  that  good 
sound  stone  is  too  costly  for  the  mass  of  his  work,  and  that  he  must 
resort  to  brickwork,  or  rubble  stonework,  or  concrete,  or  to  a  com- 
bination of  all  three;  but  in  determining  such  questions  it  is 
impossible  that  anything  but  previous  experience  and  habits  of 
careful  investigation  will  enable  an  engineer  to  arrive  at  the  best 
decision.  For  it  is  not  enough  that  his  work  should  be  solid, 
permanent,  and  safe,  but  it  should  be  rendered  so  at  the  smallest 
possible  cost. 

The  dock  and  harbour  engineer  is  also  required  to  report  upon,  and 
to  construct,  harbours  of  refuge,  piers,  landing  stages,  lighthouses, 
forts,  canals  and  their  appliances,  river  improvements,  and  many 
other  hydraulic  works ;  and  in  short,  of  this  branch  of  engineering  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  questions  are  continually  arising  which  require 
special  study  and  mechanical  invention  to  a  greater  extent  than  in 
almost  any  other  branch  of  the  profession. 

Harbours  of  refuge  being  large  and  costly  works,  are  necessarily 
few  in  number,  and  they  are  so  slow  in  progress,  and  have  generally 
been  so  often  changed  from  their  original  object  and  design,  that  few 
engineering  works  have  given  less  satisfaction  either  to  the  profession 
or  the  public ;  but  we  may  hope,  that  if  governments  will  accurately 
appreciate  the  objects  they  desire  to  obtain,  and  boldly  grapple  with 
the  difficulties  and  cost  of  well-matured  design,  better  and  more 
useful  works  of  this  nature  may  be  accomplished  than  have  yet  been 
undertaken. 

The  waterworks  and  drainage  engineer  must  possess  many  of  the 
qualifications  of  the  railway  and  dock  engineer,  and  especially  those 
Waterworks  which  concern  earthwork  and  masonry ;  he  must  also  be 
and  drainage  familiar  with  the  means  of  obtaining  information  on  the 
engineering.  su^ject  of  rainfau  in  different  localities,  the  methods  of 
correctly  gauging  streams  of  every  kind ;  the  proportions  of  the 
rainfall  available  for  his  purposes  after  estimating  for  evaporation 
and  waste,  and  the  extent  of  the  provision  to  be  made  for  periods 
of  dry  weather,  or  for  compensation  to  mill-owners  and  other 
interested  parties. 


PEESIDENTIAL  ADDEESS  379 

He  must  be  conversant  with  the  proper  mode  of  executing  the 
works  of  reservoirs,  conduits,  weirs,  tunnels,  and  aqueducts. 

He  must  understand,  by  the  aid  of  the  chemist  and  his  own 
experience,  the  nature  of  the  impurities  in  water,  and  the  best  mode 
of  diminishing  them,  whether  mechanically,  by  subsidence  and 
filtration,  or  otherwise. 

To  the  waterworks  engineer  we  must  look  for  the  solution  of  one 
of  the  great  problems  which  the  rapid  increase  of  population  is  now 
forcing  upon  us,  viz.  a  comprehensive  system  of  conservancy  of  the 
flood  waters  of  mountainous  localities  for  the  use  of  large  cities  and 
towns,  and  densely  populated  districts.  We  are  completely  out- 
growing our  present  arrangements  for  water  supply  in  the  great 
majority  of  instances;  and  the  convenience,  comfort,  and  health 
of  the  public  demand  that  such  works  when  required  shall  be  no 
longer  postponed. 

The  initiative  has  been  taken  as  to  the  question  of  a  new  source 
of  water  supply  for  London,  in  a  pamphlet  by  a  well-known  authority 
in  this  branch  of  engineering,  and  sooner  or  later  the  subject  must 
command  public  attention. 

The  waterworks  engineer  must  also  be  competent  to  design  and 
superintend  works  of  sewerage,  as  well  as  of  water  supply,  for  large 
and  small  towns  and  localities ;  and  his  familiarity  with  waterworks 
will  naturally  aid  him  in  this,  as  the  problems  for  the  discharge  and 
pressure  of  fluids  are  identical  in  both  cases. 

The  great  sewerage  works  of  London  are  now  far  advanced  and 
have  already  produced  beneficial  results ;  the  attention  of  other  still 
neglected  cities  and  towns  has  recently  been  called  to  this  important 
subject  by  the  loud  and  startling  voice  of  a  threatened  return  of 
cholera,  and  it  is  to  be  'hoped  that  the  proper  authorities  will  perform 
their  duty  promptly  and  efficiently  in  this  matter :  but  I  cannot  here 
refrain  from  calling  attention  to  a  gigantic  evil  which  has  been 
created  by  certain  drainage  and  sewerage  works  already  executed, 
and  where  the  convenience  and  comfort  of  one  set  of  people  have 
been  secured  only  by  the  infliction  of  a  nuisance  upon  others.  I 
allude,  to  the  discharge  of  collected  sewage,  without  any  attempt  at 
purification  or  deodorisation,  into  streams  of  pure  water. 

It  is  remarkable  that  an  injustice  so  great,  and  an  evil  so  in- 
tolerable, should  in  any  case  have  been  permitted  by  Parliament, 
or  by  the  general  law  of  the  land;  but  now  that  public  attention 
has  been  fairly  directed  to  the  subject,  let  us  hope  that  as  soon  as 
possible  a  remedy  will  be  applied  to  the  cases  where  mischief  has 


380  APPENDIX 

already  been  done,  and  that  care  will  be  taken  to  prevent  its 
recurrence. 

It  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  doubt  that  deodorisation  or  purification 
is  quite  practicable  in  every  locality,  and  therefore  no  sewage  should 
ever  be  permitted  to  be  discharged  into  existing  streams  without  this 
purification,  or  it  should  be  carried  out  to  the  sea,  and  there  dis- 
charged, as  is  now  proposed  for  the  north  side  of  London. 

The  mechanical  engineer  deals  with  the  most  varied  and  numerous 

subjects  of  all  the  branches  of  engineering.     They  require  that  he 

should  thoroughly  understand  the  means  of  producing 

engineering       mechanical  power,  and  of  applying  it  to  all  the  infinite 

variety  of  purposes  for  which  it  is  now  demanded.     To 

this  end  he  should  be  master  of  the  laws  of  motion  and  rest,  of 

power  and  speed,  of  heat  and  cold,  of  liquids  and  gases. 

He  must  be  familiar  with  the  strength  of  materials  under  every 
variety  of  strain,  the  proper  proportions  of  parts,  and  the  friction 
of  surfaces. 

He  must  apply  existing  tools  and  contrive  new  ones  for  his  work, 
and  know  how  to  direct  power  in  the  raising  of  weights,  or  for 
driving  all  fixed  machinery,  or  in  producing  locomotion  on  land 
or  water. 

On  railways  he  is  responsible  for  the  vast  number  of  objects 
required  in  the  machinery  for  erecting  and  repairing  shops  for  the 
engines  and  carriages,  for  the  pumping  and  other  fixed  engines, 
and  especially  for  the  locomotive  engine  itself,  and  for  rolling  and 
fixed  plant  generally. 

In  connection  with  docks  he  is  required  to  design  the  machinery 
for  opening  and  closing  the  dock  gates,  working  sluices,  emptying 
graving  docks,  or  for  working  the  cranes  on  the  quays,  or  in  the 
sheds  and  warehouses. 

The  mechanical  engineer  generally  also  executes  the  designs  of 
the  gas-engineer,  even  when  he  does  not  originate  the  work  which 
is  entrusted  to  him ;  and  in  this  branch  considerable  chemical  know- 
ledge must  be  added  to  his  mechanical  qualifications. 

For  waterworks  he  designs  and  executes  pumping  engines,  sluices, 
valves,  stopcocks. 

In  the  case  of  mines  he  supplies  designs  of  the  engines  for 
pumping,  drawing,  winding,  or  ventilating;  for  locomotives  above 
and  below  ground,  as  well  as  for  the  various  mechanical  appliances 
required  in  collieries,  mines,  and  ironworks. 

The  adoption  of  the  telegraph  has  been  so  astonishingly  rapid 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  381 

and  extensive,  both  by  sea  and  land,  and  the  purposes  to  which  it 
has  been  applied  so  important,  that  a  considerable  body  of  able  and 
accomplished  engineers  have  devoted  themselves  almost  exclusively 
to  the  subject  for  the  last  few  years,  and  have  already  created  a  new 
branch  of  the  profession,  called  telegraphic  engineering;  but  to 
be  an  accomplished  telegraph  engineer  it  is  necessary  first  to  be  a 
good  mechanical  engineer  and  then  to  add  the  special  knowledge 
of  the  electrician,  and  therefore  I  include  telegraphic  under  the  head 
of  mechanical  engineers. 

I  think  it  may  fairly  be  traced  to  the  distinguished  ability  of  that 
class  of  mechanical  engineers  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  tele- 
graphic engineering,  that  already  so  much  has  been  done  in  telegraphy. 
Certainly  no  discussions  have  been  more  ably  sustained  in  this  Insti- 
tution than  those  upon  this  subject. 

Allied  with  the  mechanical  engineer  is  the  naval  architect,  and 
only  a  mechanical  engineer  could  have  constructed  the  vast  steam- 
ships of  modern  days.  The  ordinary  timber-ship  builder  of  old 
would  have  been  literally  '  at  sea '  in  the  construction  of  modern 
vessels,  wherein  the  material  is  iron,  and  when  the  size  of  the  vessel 
requires  scientific  knowledge  of  form  and  resistance,  of  strains  and 
of  strength,  and  when  steam  is  the  motive  power.  The  demand 
for  large  and  swift  vessels  for  ferries,  for  long  voyages,  for  floating 
batteries,  and  for  iron-clad  sea-going  vessels,  has  of  late  been  so 
great  that  the  construction  of  steam  vessels  has  become  a  distinct 
branch  of  engineering,  under  the  name  of  naval  architecture. 

The  mining  engineer  must  possess  much  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
railway  and  the  mechanical  engineer,  and  he  must  add  to  that 
general  knowledge  much  special  knowledge  of  his  own. 
He  must  know  how  to  sink  shafts  to  the  minerals  if  they 
require  to  be  extracted  from  beneath  the  surface  (which 
is  usually  the  case),  and  how  to  divert  or  pump  out  the  water  he 
meets  with  either  in  the  shafts  or  the  workings. 

He  must  know  how  to  excavate  and  bring  to  the  surface  minerals, 
whether  they  be  coal,  copper,  tin,  lead,  or  iron,  and  to  do  this  he 
must  construct  subterranean  railways,  provide  means  of  ventilation 
by  fans  or  furnaces,  supply  power  to  lift  the  extracted  mineral  to  the 
surface;  and  when  brought  there  he  must  understand  the  further 
requisite  work,  as  the  coal  will  probably  require  screening,  or  washing, 
or  manufacturing  into  coke,  and  the  ore  will  require  crushing,  wash- 
ing, or  smelting,  or  possibly  all  three  operations. 

In  all  these  cases,  and  many  others,  such  as  the   collection  of 


382  APPENDIX 

surface  ironstone  and  other  minerals,  by  railways  and  locomotive 
engines,  and  the  working  of  lifts  and  inclined  planes,  the  mining 
engineer  has  most  important  functions  to  perform,  and  has  special 
machinery  to  adapt  or  invent  j  and  relying  on  his  judgment  and 
skill  alone,  the  investment  of  large  sums  of  money  for  the 
development  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  this  country  is  annually 
made. 

I  must  not  altogether  omit  a  passing  reference  to  the  scientific 
talent  which  of  late  years  has  been  devoted  to  Artillery — its  weapons 
of  attack  and  works  of  defence ;  and  I  think  we  may 
fairly  claim  that  it  is  mainly  due  to  some  of  the  able 
members  of  this  Institution  that  this  art  has  been  placed 
on  a  new  and  vastly  improved  basis,  and  that  as  a  consequence  a 
new  branch  of  the  profession  has  been  actually  created — Artillery 
Engineering. 

Having  now  enumerated  in  some  detail  the  various  descriptions 

of  work  which  engineers  are  called  upon  to  carry  out, 

REQUIRED  BY     I  will  next  proceed  to  point  out  the  kind  of  preparation 

A  CIVIL  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  requisite  to  enable  them  to 

ENGINEER.  '  J  -,      • 

perform  their  work  in  a  proper  manner. 

I  am  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  the  task,  and  of  the  wide  difference 
of  opinion  which  exists  on  the  subject,  but  I  feel  unable  to  resist 
the  opportunity  of  bringing  this  question  under  the  consideration  of 
the  Institution,  because  I  feel  convinced  that  at  no  period  in  the 
history  of  the  profession  has  it  been  so  important  as  at  the  present 
time.  Those  who  may  not  be  disposed  to  coincide  in  my  views  may 
at  least  be  led  by  the  description  of  them  to  throw  new  light  on 
a  subject  which  is  of  vital  consequence. 

We  of  the  passing  generation  have  had  to  acquire  our  professional 
knowledge  as  we  best  could,  often  not  until  it  was  wanted  for  im- 
mediate use,  generally  in  haste  and  precariously,  and  merely  to  fulfil 
the  purpose  of  the  hour,  and  therefore  it  is  that  we  earnestly  desire 
for  the  rising  generation  those  better  opportunities  and  that  more 
systematic  training  for  which  in  our  time  no  provision  had  been 
made,  because  it  was  not  then  so  imperatively  required. 

The  preparation  and  training  for  the  civil  engineer  may  be  shortly 
described  as  follows : 

1.  General  instruction,  or  a  liberal  education. 

2.  Special  education  as  a  preparation  for  technical  knowledge. 

3.  Technical  knowledge. 

4.  Preparation  for  conducting  practical  works. 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  383 

All  this  preparation  and  training  will  have  to  be  acquired  at  some 
time  or  other,  and  in  some  order  or  other,  and  it  is  known  that 
in  the  cases  of  some  successful  persons  of  great  perseverance,  they 
have  been  acquired  in  a  very  remarkable  order ;  but  at  the  present 
time,  and  with  all  our  modern  opportunities,  there  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  not  be  learned  in  the  most  convenient  and  methodical 
manner. 

I  will  begin  by  supposing  a  boy  of  fourteen,  in  whom  his  parents 
have  discovered  a  mechanical  bias,  who  has  made  good  progress  in  his 
general  education,  and  especially  in  arithmetic,  is  of  strong  constitu- 
tion, and  possessed  of  considerable  energy  and  perseverance :  and 
unless  a  boy  possesses  these  tendencies  and  qualifications  it  is  quite 
useless  to  destine  him  for  an  engineer. 

Taking  the  boy  of  fourteen,  however,  who  possesses  the  requisite 
qualifications,  and  with  a  determination  on  his  own  and  his  parents' 
part  that  he  shall  be  made  an  engineer,  the  period  from  fourteen 
to  eighteen  should  be  devoted  to  the  special  education  required  by 
an  engineer,  during  which  mathematics,  natural  philosophy,  land 
surveying  and  levelling,  drawing,  chemistry,  mineralogy,  geology, 
strength  of  materials,  mechanical  motions,  and  the  principles  of 
hydraulics  should  be  thoroughly  mastered. 

To  accomplish  these  studies,  and,  in  addition,  to  make  considerable 
progress  in  the  living  languages,  French  and  German  especially,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  sacrifice  to  some  small  extent  his  classical  studies  and 
pure  mathematics,  and  it  is,  in  fact,  the  partial  omission  of  these 
studies,  and  the  prominence  of  those  I  have  enumerated,  which 
constitutes  a  'special  education.' 

If  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  the  boy  has  made  all  the  progress  in 
these  studies  which  can  be  reasonably  expected  from  fair  abilities 
and  more  than  average  perseverance,  the  next  step  is  of  great  im- 
portance, and  is  one  respecting  which  some  difference  of  opinion  will 
exist. 

At  eighteen  a  boy  if  duly  prepared  may  either  be  at  once  placed  in 
the  office  of  a  civil  engineer  for  a  period  of  four  or  five  years' 
pupilage,  or  he  may  be  placed  in  a  mechanical  workshop,  or  he  may 
be  sent  to  one  of  our  great  universities ;  and  any  one  of  these 
courses  may  be  the  best  under  particular  circumstances,  such  as  local 
convenience,  or  as  the  social  position  of  parents  may  dictate. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  a  period  of  twelve  to  twenty-four 
months  may  be  very  profitably  spent  in  manufacturing  works,  before 
passing  into  a  civil  engineer's  office  ;  but  in  that  case  the  greatest 


384  APPENDIX 

possible  care  must  be  taken  that  the  works  selected  are  adapted  in 
themselves  to  impart  the  desired  information ;  and  that  proper 
organisation  exists  for  carrying  out  strict  office  discipline,  regularity 
of  attendance  and  due  diligence;  and  that  assistance  be  given 
systematically  to  the  pupil  to  enable  him  to  obtain  all  the  advantage 
possible  from  his  stay  at  the  works. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  future  success  of  the 
engineer  that  during  his  professional  preparation  he  should  continue 
his  studies  of  mathematics  and  scientific  works  relating  to  his  pro- 
fession, and  also  of  modern  languages. 

In  the  case  of  its  being  intended  to  send  the  boy  to  Cambridge  or 
Oxford,  it  is  indispensable  that  all  preliminary  professional  work, 
such  as  practical  knowledge  of  mechanics,  mechanical  drawing, 
surveying  and  levelling,  should  be  mastered  before  going  to  the 
university,  because  it  can  scarcely  be  expected  that  he  will  submit 
to  the  drudgery  of  learning  them  after  his  return  from  a  three  years' 
university  course,  then  at  the  age  of  say  twenty-two.  Probably  the 
best  plan  will  be  to  take  him  away  from  his  scholastic  studies  some- 
what earlier  than  eighteen,  if  it  be  intended  that  he  should  go  to  the 
university,  and  to  take  especial  pains  to  make  him  accomplished  in 
the  preliminary  work  of  the  draughtsman,  the  surveyor,  and  the 
mechanic ;  so  that  when  he  has  taken  his  degree  and  enters  as  a 
pupil  in  a  civil  engineer's  office  he  will  at  once  commence  useful  and 
interesting  employment,  and  will  not  require  more  than  three  years' 
pupilage. 

If  arrangements  can  be  so  made,  and  assuming  a  boy  has  worked 
well  at  school  with  his  general  studies,  and  subsequently  with  his 
special  studies ;  and  if  from  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  he  does 
justice  to  his  opportunities  in  a  good  workshop,  keeps  up  his  know- 
ledge of  modern  languages,  proceeds  to  Cambridge  or  Oxford,  taking 
a  good  degree,  and  afterwards  completes  his  studies  as  a  pupil  with  a 
civil  engineer ;  probably  such  a  course  would  constitute  the  best  possible 
preparation  and  training  which  could  be  obtained :  but  at  the  same 
time  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it  is  a  somewhat  hazardous  combina- 
tion, and  can  only  be  successful  with  great  determination  on  the  part 
of  the  pupil  to  keep  his  future  career  always  in  view,  and  to  prepare 
for  it  accordingly,  as  well  before  going  to  the  university,  and  during 
his  college  career,  as  after  he  leaves  it. 

With  respect  to  the  special  preparation  of  young  men  between  the 
ages  of  fourteen  and  seventeen  or  eighteen,  several  of  the  largest  and 
best  proprietary  schools  and  colleges  in  this  country  have  special 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  385 

classes  and  departments  for  the  study  of  the  applied  sciences;  and 
thence  well-prepared  pupils  are  annually  sent  out  to  commence  their 
career  with  engineers,  architects,  and  surveyors ;  but  still  the 
character  of  this  special  preparation,  in  its  theoretical  branches,  is 
not  considered  quite  equal  to  that  of  France  or  Germany  for  the 
civil  engineer. 

It  is  true  that  nearly  all  continental  nations  have  an  advantage  over 
this  country  in  the  power  which  the  nature  of  their  government 
gives  them  of  concentrating,  in  one  recognised  official  school  for 
the  preparation  of  civil  engineers,  all  the  best  available  talent  of  their 
country. 

This  plan  does  not  exist  in  our  country,  and  on  the  whole  we 
rejoice  that  it  does  not ;  neither  does  the  inducement  of  government 
employment  form  the  chief  stimulus  to  our  exertions,  for  which 
we  are  also  thankful :  but  at  the  same  time  no  good  reason  can 
exist  why  the  opportunities  of  acquiring  theoretical  preparation  in 
this  country  should  be  inferior  to  those  of  the  Continent;  and  I  have 
the  confident  hope,  from  the  anxiety  which  is  now  manifested  to 
increase  the  ranks  of  our  profession,  and  the  desire  to  have  the  best 
possible  preparation  for  it,  that  even  in  the  theoretical  branches 
we  shall  shortly  have  to  acknowledge  no  inferiority  to  any  other 
nation.  In  the  practical  branches  we  are  admittedly  superior. 

In  drawing  attention,  however,  to  a  comparison  between  our  own 
and  other  countries,  let  me  be  guarded  against  the  possibility  of  being 
understood  to  suggest  that  this  theoretical  equality  ought  to  be 
obtained  by  any  sacrifice  whatever  of  our  undoubted  great  practical 
knowledge.  Indeed,  on  the  contrary,  I  think  that  attention  to  the 
greater  opportunities  which  young  engineers  in  this  country  enjoy, 
by  reason  of  the  number  -and  character  of  our  new  public  works, 
than  is  attainable  in  other  countries,  should  be  constantly  encouraged 
to  the  utmost  possible  extent,  and  that  our  superiority  as  practical 
engineers  should  be  ever  maintained. 

We  will  now  suppose  that  the  general  education  and  the  special 
instruction  have  been  completed,  the  short  probationary  pupilage 
in  workshops  has  been  gone  through,  languages  and  mathematics 
kept  up  and  improved,  the  university  course  in  certain  cases  completed, 
and  the  period  has  arrived  for  entering  a  civil  engineer's  office. 

In  selecting  such  office  for  a  pupil  it  is  important  that  it  should  be 
well  organised  and  not  be  too  large ;  that  the  engineer  should  be  a 
comparatively  young  and  rising  man,  and  be  accustomed  to  take 
pupils;  but  these  should  be  few  in  number,  and  bear  some  pro- 

2  C 


386  APPENDIX 

portion  to  the  number  and  extent  of  the  works  in  usual  course 
of  construction  under  the  engineer's  direction. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  pupil,  when  once  the  engineer's 
office  is  entered,  with  any  detailed  advice,  because  he  is  no  longer 
a  boy,  unable  to  appreciate  his  position  and  duty.  We  assume  that 
he  has  been  highly  educated  and  carefully  trained,  and  knows  well 
that  his  future  success  or  failure  will  depend  on  the  degree  of  dili- 
gence with  which  he  avails  himself  of  the  opportunities  of  acquiring 
knowledge  during  his  pupilage. 

The  work  in  the  office  and  in  the  field  should  be  done  to  the  best 
of  his  ability,  and  after  the  pupil  has  become  a  skilful  draughtsman, 
and  is  capable  of  taking  out  quantities  of  engineering  works,  and 
preparing  detailed  estimates,  methodically  arranged,  he  will  then 
probably  proceed  to  work  out  details  of  designs,  and  make  calcula- 
tions of  strengths  and  strains,  and  thus  become  of  real  value  in  the 
office,  at  the  same  time  making  substantial  progress  and  rapid  im- 
provement for  himself. 

He  should  avail  himself  of  every  opportunity  of  mastering  the 
purpose  and  the  principles  of  construction  of  the  work  brought 
to  his  notice,  both  in  the  office  and  in  execution;  and  he  should 
ascertain  the  cost  price  of  all  the  materials  and  workmanship  em- 
ployed, separating  the  items  into  every  minute  detail. 

The  information  which,  amongst  much  beside,  should  be  thus 
obtained  during  pupilage,  and  which  is  necessary  to  constitute  a 
sound  engineer,  is — 

1.  A  fair  knowledge  of  the  most  fitting  material  to  use  for  any 
given  work,  under  any  given  circumstances. 

2.  The  power  of  designing  any  ordinary  work  with  a  maximum  of 
strength  and  a  minimum  of  material  and  labour. 

3.  A  knowledge  of  the  means  of  ascertaining  the  cost  price  of 
any  ordinary  engineering  work. 

The  information  or  knowledge  included  in  this  brief  enumeration 
may  be  called  practical  knowledge,  and  it  cannot  be  too  often  urged 
upon  young  engineers  that  theory  and  practice  must  always  go 
together,  hand  in  hand,  step  by  step ;  and  that  they  are  not  only 
not  inconsistent  or  conflicting,  but  that  they  are  necessarily  united, 
and  must  both  be  fully  developed  in  the  same  person  before  he  can 
become  a  properly  qualified  'Civil  Engineer/ 

The  period  of  pupilage  should  be  from  three  to  five  years, 
depending  on  the  circumstances  which  have  been  previously 
indicated,  and,  in  addition  to  his  attention  to  the  office,  and  to 


PRESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  387 

outdoor  works,  it  will  be  well,  while  keeping  up  his  preparatory 
studies,  especially  in  mathematics,  that  he  should  improve  his 
acquaintance  with  the  French  and  German  languages,  and  keep 
up  his  knowledge  of  their  engineering  literature,  and  also  avail 
himself  professionally  and  personally  of  the  advantages  offered  by 
this  Institution. 

In  the  case  of  the  mechanical  engineer,  however,  it  will  be  seen 
that  although  all  scholastic  and  scientific  training  should  be  the 
same  as  that  previously  described  for  all  other  branches,  the  period 
of  pupilage  of  the  mechanical  engineer  must  necessarily  be  passed 
chiefly  in  large  workshops  or  manufacturing  establishments. 

I  propose  now  to  consider  in  what  manner  this  Institution  can 
be   made   available   in    the    preparation    of    the   young  THE 
engineer,  and  more  useful  to  the  profession  generally;   INSTITUTION. 
and  as  a  first  step  allow  me,  very  briefly,  to  trace  its  history  and 
refer  to  its  present  prosperity. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers  was 
established  on  January  2nd,  1818,  and  that  Telford  was  formally 
installed  President  on  March  21st,  1820. 

The  origin  of  the  Institution  was  very  humble. 

About  the  year  1816  Mr.  Henry  Robinson  Palmer,  who  was  then 
articled  to  Mr.  Bryan  Donkin,  suggested  to  Mr.  Joshua  Field  the 
idea  of  forming  a  Society  of  young  engineers  for  their  mutual  im- 
provement in  mechanical  and  engineering  science.  The  earliest 
members  were  Mr.  Palmer,  Mr.  Field,  and  Mr.  Nicholas  Maudsley, 
to  whom  were  shortly  added  Mr.  James  Jones,  Mr.  Charles  Collinge, 
and  Mr.  James  Ashwell. 

When  the  Society  was  constituted,  on  January  2nd,  1818,  these  six 
young  men  were  joined  "by  two  others,  Mr.  Thomas  Maudsley  and 
Mr.  John  T.  Lethbridge,  with  Mr.  James  Jones  as  Secretary,  and 
during  the  remainder  of  that  year  there  was  no  increase  in  the 
number  of  the  members,  and  the  only  additions  were  three  new 
members  in  1819. 

In  the  following  year,  1820,  when  Telford  became  President,  there 
were  thirty-two  elections. 

At  the  end  of  1822,  when  the  Institution  had  been  established  for 
five  years,  there  had  been  fifty-four  elections. 

Telford's  name  gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  progress  of  the 
Institution,  which  grew  rapidly  in  importance  under  his  fostering 
hand,  so  that  at  the  tenth  year  of  its  existence — at  the  close  of 
1827,  there  had  been  a  total  of  158  elections,  and  by  June  3rd,  1828, 


388  APPENDIX 

when  the  charter  of  incorporation  under  the  great  seal  was  obtained, 
the  number  amounted  to  185  members. 

Telford  continued  to  be  the  President  until  his  decease  occurred, 
which  took  place  on  September  2nd,  1834,  and  at  that  time  the  actual 
number  of  members  on  the  books  (as  distinct  from  the  number 
elected)  was  200. 

Mr.  James  Walker,  the  second  President,  was  elected  to  that  post 
on  January  20th,  1835 ;  and  after  occupying  the  chair  for  ten  years, 
he  declined  to  allow  himself  to  be  again  put  in  nomination,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  strong  expression  of  opinion  from  several  influential 
members  that  a  shorter  period  for  the  term  of  the  office  of  President 
had  become  necessary. 

Accordingly  on  January  27th,  1845,  Sir  John  Rennie  was  elected 
President  and  served  for  three  years. 

Since  then  the  chair  has  been  successively  filled  by  Joshua  Field, 
Sir  William  Cubitt,  James  Meadows  Rendel,  James  Simpson,  Robert 
Stephenson,  M.P.,  Joseph  Locke,  M.P.,  George  Parker  Bidder,  John 
Hawkshaw,  and  John  Robinson  McClean,  each  of  whom  has  served 
for  two  years,  the  maximum  time  now  allowed  by  the  by-laws. 

It  should  be  mentioned  that  in  the  ordinary  course  of  rotation 
Isambard  Kingdom  Brunei  would  have  succeeded  Robert  Stephenson, 
but  Brunei  requested  that  he  might  not  then  be  put  in  nomination, 
owing  to  ill-health  and  the  pressure  of  professional  duties,  and 
unhappily  his  early  subsequent  decease  deprived  the  Society  of  any 
future  opportunity  of  electing  him.  It  must  always  be  a  subject 
of  regret  to  the  profession,  that  in  the  annals  of  the  Institution 
a  member  so  gifted  and  accomplished  should  not  appear  on  their 
list  of  Presidents. 

At  the  close  of  1836,  when  the  Institution  had  existed  nineteen 
years,  the  number  of  members  of  all  classes  who  had  been  elected 
was  369,  and  the  number  of  those  still  remaining  on  the  books  was 
252,  or  about  five-sevenths  of  those  elected. 

At  the  close  of  1860  these  numbers  were  1535  and  930  respectively, 
from  which  it  appears  that  three-fifths  of  all  those  elected  still 
belonged  to  the  Institution,  being  a  decline  of  only  one-seventh  in  the 
relative  proportions  after  a  further  existence  of  twenty-five  years. 

The  average  annual  effective  increase  of  members  and  associates 
during  the  ten  years  from  1840  to  1850  was  25,  and  from  1850 
to  1860  it  was  27,  the  actual  increase  in  1859  and  1860  being 
37  in  each  year.  In  1861  it  was  20,  and  in  1862  the  number 
was  57. 


PKESIDENTIAL  ADDBESS  389 

The  numbers  of  members  of  all  classes  on  the  books  on  November 
30th,  1865,  were:— 

Honorary  Members  .  .  20 

Members  .  .  .         .486 

Associates  .  ...       689 

Graduates  .  ...  8 

Total  .  .  .     1203 

or  an  effective  increase  in  one  year  of  108  members  of  all  classes. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  a  steady  annual  increase  has  been  the 
characteristic  of  the  Institution  from  its  commencement,  and  it  may 
be  noted  in  this,  the  forty-eighth  year  of  its  existence,  that,  when 
it  had  been  established  twenty-four  years,  the  number  of  members 
was  almost  exactly  one-half  of  the  present  number. 

The  experience  of  the  last  few  sessions  shows  us  clearly  that  we 
may  expect  the  future  rate  of  increase  to  be  at  least  equal  to  the 

past,  and  the  attendances  on  the  Tuesday  evening  dis- 

J  Attendance. 

cussions  show  that  the  interest  attached  to  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Institution  increases  in  at  least  an  equal  proportion  with 
the  augmentation  of  the  numbers. 

It  is  now  not  uncommon  to  find  our  meeting-hall  inconveniently 
crowded,  and  occasionally  it  is  altogether  inadequate  to  accommodate 
the  numbers  who  desire  to  be  present ;  and  many  persons  who,  from 
the  public  interest  attached  to  some  of  the  subjects,  desire  to  hear  or 
to  take  part  in  the  discussions,  are  now  prevented  by  our  restricted 
accommodation  from  doing  so. 

For  some  years  in  the  early  history  of  the  Institution  it  was  a 
work  of  considerable  difficulty  to  keep  the  disbursements  within  the 
receipts,  and  except  for  the  admirable  management  of  our 
late  Secretary  and  now  Honorary  Secretary,  Mr.  Manby, 
it  is  hard  to  know  what  difficulties  we  might  not  have  experienced. 
It  was  not  until  its  income  became  sufficiently  increased   by  the 
liberal  donations  of  the  council  and  other  members,  by  trust-moneys 
and  bequests,  and  by  the  increase  in  its  numbers,  that  the  Institution 
was   in  a  financial  position   to  give  increased  accommodation  and 
assistance  to  its  members. 

It  may  be  stated  that  during  the  last  ten  years  the  average  increase 
on  the  receipts  has  been  forty  per  cent.,  whilst  the  increase  in  the 
disbursements  has  been  only  twenty  per  cent. ;  and  that  the  present 
amount  of  the  realised  property  of  the  Institution  may  be  safely 
taken  at  £25,000. 


390  APPENDIX 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  considerable  improvements  have 

been  made  in  the  library  of  the  Institution,  and  in  its  arrangements 

and  facilities;   and  no  doubt  the  Council  and  Secretary 

will   continue  to  give  this  important  department  their 

earnest   attention,   and   we  may   reasonably   expect   that   both   the 

contents  of   the   library  and   its   accessibility  will   be  still   further 

increased. 

It  is,  however,  somewhat  remarkable  that  a  greater  number  of 
members  do  not  avail  themselves  of  the  additional  opportunities  of 
Additional  reference  to  the  library  which  have  been  afforded  them, 
facilities.  an(j  this  brings  me  at  once  to  the  consideration  of  the 
important  question  of  the  manner  in  which  this  Institution  may  be 
made  more  useful  to  its  members. 

The  state  of  the  finances,  as  we  have  already  seen,  will  prudently 
permit  the  expenditure  of  a  larger  annual  sum  than  we  now  disburse, 
and  therefore  we  are  at  full  liberty  financially  to  consider  the  ques- 
tion of  additional  accommodation  for  the  members,  and  I  believe  the 
library  of  the  Institution  would  be  far  more  valuable  if  an  arrange- 
ment could  be  made  by  which  it  might  be  kept  open  in  the  evenings 
for  a  certain  number  of  days  in  the  week,  say  until  nine  or  ten  o'clock. 
I  have  ascertained  that  no  practical  obstacle  to  this  extension  of  use 
exists,  and  that  the  additional  expense  would  not  be  considerable. 

Most  of  the  members  of  the  Institution  are  necessarily  engaged  in 
their  ordinary  daily  professional  duties  during  the  only  hours  when 
the  library  is  at  present  available  to  them,  and  it  is  obvious  that  it  is 
only  in  the  case  of  a  special  reference  being  required,  or  for  some 
statistical  purpose,  that  the  library  can  be  useful  to  members  generally 
under  the  present  arrangement. 

I  can  say  from  my  own  experience  that  I  should  have  felt  it  a 
great  boon,  as  a  young  man,  to  have  had  the  opportunity  of  spending 
an  occasional  evening  in  the  library,  and  of  reading  and  consulting 
the  rich  record  of  professional  learning  and  experience  now  collected 
there,  and  therefore  I  throw  out  this  hint  respecting  the  extension  of 
the  hours  for  reading. 

Another  step  might  probably  be  taken  with  great  advantage  to 
students  and  engineers  generally,  viz.  the  systematic  collection  of 
good  working  drawings,  specifications,  and  contracts  for  important 
works  in  progress  or  completed,  with  facility  for  reference  to  them 
in  the  library,  and  permission  to  make  tracings  or  copies. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  engineers  in  large  practice  would 
permit  copies  to  be  taken  of  their  working  drawings  and  specifications 


PKESIDENTIAL  ADDRESS  391 

for  this  purpose,  and  in  addition  to  this  assistance  with  respect  to 
drawings,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  obtain  permission  for  the  in- 
spection of  the  works  themselves,  during  their  execution,  so  that 
young  engineers  might  have  the  opportunity,  especially  during  the 
summer  months,  of  seeing  works  as  they  are  carried  out,  and  com- 
paring them  with  the  drawings  and  specifications  to  which  they  have 
had  access  in  the  library. 

I  would  also  venture  to  suggest  that,  in  addition  to  the  greater 
advantage  which  may  be  conferred  on  those  using  the  library  by 
extended  time  of  access  to  it,  and  to  the  collection  of  working  draw- 
ings and  specifications,  with  arrangements  for  inspection  of  practical 
works,  a  limited  number  of  lectures  would  be  very  valuable  if  given 
by  members  who  were  especially  conversant  with  any  given  subject, 
on  other  evenings  than  those  of  the  ordinary  meetings  during  the 
session  of  the  Institution. 

I  now  approach  a  question  in  connection  with  the  Institution  and 
its  functions  upon  which,  in  common  with  the  profes-  NEWBUILD- 
sion  generally,  I  confess  I  feel  very  strongly,  and  that  is,    ING- 
the  necessity  of  providing  as  soon  as  possible  a  building  more  com- 
modious and  more  convenient  than  that  which  we  now  possess. 

Our  rapidly  increasing  numbers  have  already  reached  the  point 
when,  as  I  have  previously  stated,  the  theatre  in  which  we  are  now 
assembled  is  admittedly  insufficient  for  the  accommodation  of  those 
who  wish  to  attend  our  discussions ;  and,  in  addition  to  inadequate 
space,  there  are  conditions  inseparably  attached  to  the  present  building 
which  prevent  this  room  being  properly  ventilated  and  rendered 
comfortable. 

The  other  rooms  of  this  building  are  also  totally  inadequate  for 
the  ordinary  purposes  for  which  they  are  required,  and  on  the  even- 
ings of  our  annual  conversazione  especially,  the  crowding  and  dis- 
comfort are  such  as  to  repel  many  of  our  best  friends  from  venturing 
to  be  present  with  us. 

With  a  proper  building  and  well-arranged  rooms,  we  shall  also  be 
able  to  have  many  objects  of  professional  interest  for  our  inspection 
and  study,  of  which  we  are  at  present  deprived — such  as  models  of 
work  and  machinery,  new  articles  or  new  combinations,  or,  possibly, 
even  a  good  museum. 

I  hope,  however,  we  shall  shortly  be  in  a  position  to  consider  a 
distinct  proposal  for  a  new  building,  worthy  of  the  present  position 
and  the  future  requirements  of  the  Institution. 


392  APPENDIX 

Having  now  frankly  brought  before  the  Institution  some  of  the 
more  important  matters  which  appear  calculated  to  influence  the 

future  of  the  members  of  our  profession,  permit  me  to 
CONCLUSION.  .  ,      .          , ,     ,    T 

say,  in  conclusion,   that  I  am  not  sanguine  enough  to 

expect  that  I  shall  accomplish  more  in  this  Address  than  direct 
the  thoughts  and  attention  of  my  professional  brethren  to  the 
subject,  and  induce  others  more  able  than  myself  to  take  it  up. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  rapidly  increasing  prominence  and 
importance  of  our  profession  imposes  upon  us  grave  responsibility 
and  the  duty  of  vigilant  watchfulness,  so  that  the  character  of  our 
members,  and  the  success  of  our  works,  may  be  all  that  greater 
knowledge,  wider  experience,  and  more  cultivated  taste  ought  to 
make  them,  and  that  every  new  work  of  importance  may  be  better 
than  that  which  has  preceded  it,  and  remain  as  a  monument  of 
progress  of  which  all  may  be  proud. 

It  is  not  now  sufficient  that  an  engineering  work  should  be  durable 
and  free  from  failure,  but,  with  our  present  means  of  study  and  of 
knowledge,  it  will  be  expected  that  our  works  should  display  in  a 
satisfactory  degree  the  qualities  of  fitness,  economy,  and  taste,  in 
addition  to  that  of  durability. 

With  deeper  study  and  more  complete  preparation,  the  love  of  our 
profession  and  pride  in  its  noble  works  will  become  greater  and 
greater  in  its  students,  and  lead  to  that  intense  devotion  and  applica- 
tion which  history  teaches  us  has  alone  produced  the  greatest  works 
in  art  and  science ;  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  far  greater  triumphs 
remain  to  be,  and  will  be,  achieved,,  by  those  whom  I  now  see  before 
me,  than  have  yet  been  realised  by  either  ancient  or  modern  engineers. 

Amidst  all  the  excitement  of  our  professional  avocations,  how- 
ever, let  us  constantly  bear  in  mind,  and  endeavour  to  imitate,  the 
example  of  the  distinguished  men  who  have  been  removed  from 
amongst  us  during  the  last  few  years  in  the  happy  manner  in  which 
they  succeeded  in  combining  personal  friendship  with  professional 
rivalry,  and  in  their  never-failing  interest  in  the  prosperity  and 
usefulness  of  this  Institution. 


INDEX 


Abernethy,  Mr.,  204. 

Aboo  Hammed,  344. 

Aboo  Simbel,  The  rock  temples  at,  217. 

Abyssinia,  331,  343. 

Account  of  the  Great  Floods  of  August, 

1829,  etc.,  Lander's,  351. 
Ahnas,  Excavations  at,  353. 
Aire  and  Calder  Navigation, The,  18,20. 
Airy,  Sir  George,  296,  297. 
Alexandra  Park  Extension    Railway, 

The,  123. 
Alexandria,   Harbour  works    at,  236, 

242  ;  projected  canal  from,  255, 256. 
Alloa  Bridge,  The,  276. 
Allport,  Mr.,  82. 
Ambukol,  343,  344. 
Ancholme  drainage,  The,  138. 
Anderson,  James,  279. 
Anio,  The  River,  195,  2'01. 
Annual  Register,  The,  351. 
Appleby,  Messrs.,  243-246,  249  (note). 
Argyll,  The  Duke  of,  224. 
Armstrong,  Sir  W. ,  now  Lord,  120,  205, 

209,  236,  238-242,  262. 
Armstrong,  134. 
Arrivabene,  Count  C.,  193. 
Arrol,  William,  aft.  Sir,  299,  302,  306, 

311,  313. 

Arterial  drainage,  137. 
Artillery  engineering,  382. 
Ashburton,  Lady,  331. 
Ashton-  under  -Lyne   and   Manchester 

Railway,  The,  78. 

Ashwell,  James,  387. 

Assouan,  238,  265,  343. 

Australia,  Visit  to,  275. 

2  c  2 


B 

Baker,  Sir  Benjamin,  107,  114,  118, 
147,  157,  159,  166-169,  171,  178, 
197,  255,  256,  265,  280,  281,  282 
(note),  283,  284,  288,  291,  294,  296, 
298,  300,  301,  304-306,  309,  311- 
314,  316,  331,  354. 

Baker,  Sir  Samuel,  224,  340. 

Bakewell,  Mr.,  235. 

Baldry,  Mr.,  265,  321,  331,  358  ;  letter 
to,  115. 

Ballochney  Railway,  The,  55,  57. 

Bankers'  Magazine,  The,  66. 

Barlow,  Harrison,  and  Fowler,  Messrs., 
280. 

Barnet  Extension  Railway,  The,  123. 

Barrage  of  the  Nile,  The  Grand,  262, 
267-269. 

Barrot  Bey,  244,  265,  271. 

Barry,  J.  W.,  aft.  Sir,  158. 

Bateman,  La  Trobe,  179,  180. 

Beaconsfield,  Lord.     See  Disraeli. 

Bedford  Level,  The,  142,  143. 

Belgian  railways,  The,  128. 

Belgians,  The  King  of  the,  252. 

Belmore,  Earl,  207,  208. 

Ben  More,  330. 

Beni-Hassan,  The  walls  at,  219;  tombs 
at,  353. 

Beni-Mazar,  233. 

Beni-Sooef,  233. 

Benson,  Archbishop,  332. 

Benson,  Arthur,  332. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  118. 

Bentinck,  Lord  George,  132. 

Berber,  249,  344,  345  ;  proposed  rail- 
way to,  342. 


394 


INDEX 


Beyer  and  Peacock,  Messrs.,  171. 
Bidder,  George  Parker,  99,  123,  139, 

146,  320,  366,  388. 
Biggart,  A.  S.,  306,  313. 
Binns,  Jonathan,  44,  45. 
Birket-el-karon,  Lake,  261. 
Birmingham,  20,  23. 
Bischoff,  Mr.,  44,  45. 
Bitter  Lakes,  The,  226. 
Board  of  Trade,  The,  68, 72,73,  77, 101. 
Bondholders,  The,  268,  269,  271. 
Bouch,  Thomas,  aft.  Sir,  279,  280, 296. 
Boulag,  Ferry  at,  236,  237. 
Box  Tunnel,  The,  169. 
Bradley,  Foster,  Rastrick,and  Co.,  The 

iron  foundry  of,  23. 
Brady,  Francis,  158. 
Braemore,  182,  322,  330,  355. 
Bramwell,  Sir  F.  J.,  232. 
Bricks,  The  use  of,  372. 
Bridge  Creek,  The,  161. 
Brierley,  Oswald,  224. 
Bristol  and  Clifton  Railway,  The,  183. 
Bristow,  Mr.,  39,  42. 
Britannia  Bridge,The,  97, 281, 283,308. 
British  Association,  The,  John  Fowler's 

address  to,  163. 
Brittain,  Thomas,  22. 
Broadbent,  Miss  Elizabeth,  117. 
Broom  Loch,  322,  329,   330  ;    River, 

325 ;  Valley,  325. 
Brundell  of  Doncaster,  Mr.,  17. 
Brunei,  Isambard  K.,  31,  60,  75,  148, 

169,  320,  354,  388  ;  patent  shield  of, 

177 ;  bridge  of,  at  Maidenhead,  31-33. 
Brunei,  Isambard,  32. 
Brunton,  Spencer,  305. 
Bubastis,  353. 
Burbeary,  Mr.,  36. 
Burchell,  Mr.,  148. 
Burr,  Mr.,  235. 
Burton,  Charles,  4  (note). 
Bury,  Edward,  80. 


Cairns,  Earl,  331. 

Cairo,   Projected   canal  between,   and 

Alexandria,  255,  256. 
Campden  Hill  Tunnel,  The,  167. 


"Cantilever"  bridges,  281. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  331. 

Cataract  Incline,  The,  239. 

Cataracts,  The,  236,  238. 

Cement,  The  use  of,  372. 

Central  Railway  Terminus,  Suggested, 
146. 

Chabim  Pasha,  235. 

Chambers,  Mr.,  235. 

Channel  Ferry,  A,  203. 

Chapel  Town  Iron  Works,  38. 

Charles!.,  134. 

Cheops  and  Chephren  Pyramids,  The, 
217. 

Cherif  Pasha,  244,  266. 

Chester-Holyhead  route,  The,  123. 

China,  Bridges  in,  283. 

City,  Number  of  persons  entering  the, 
153. 

City  and  South  London  Railway,  The, 
178. 

Civil  Engineer,  Nature  of  the  work 
of  a,  50-52,  370  et  seq. ;  knowledge 
required  by,  375 ;  preparation  re- 
quired by,  382. 

Civil  Engineers,  Minutes  of  the  Insti- 
tution of,  18. 

Clarence  Railway,  The,  56,  57. 

Clarke,  Seymour,  127,  128. 

Cleopatra's  Needle,  266,  267. 

Clerkenwell  Tunnel,  The,  167. 

Cobbett,  T.  G.,  77. 

Coiseau,  Mons.,  306. 

Collinge,  Charles,  387. 

Colville,  Lord,  127,  305. 

Commercial  Crisis  of  1847-8,  Evans's, 
66  (note). 

Commissioners  of  the  Egyptian  Debt, 
The,  272. 

Cooper's  Hill,  Engineering  College  at, 
187. 

Cooper,  F.  E.,  306,  311. 

Corrie  Halloch  Waterfall,  325. 

Counters  Creek  Sewer,  The,  161. 

Cranbrook,  Lord,  187,  331. 

Cranes,  Hydraulic,  120. 

Craven  Arms  Railway,  The,  123. 

Crofters,  The  future  of  the,  347. 

Cubitt,  William,  aft.  Sir,  80,  98,  388. 


INDEX 


395 


D 

Dabbeh,  243,  342,  343. 

Dalhousie,  Lord,  74. 

Damietta  branch  of  the  Nile,  The,  262. 

Darfour,  260,  340,  341. 

Darfour  Survey,  The,  246,  247  (note). 

Darlington  and  Newcastle  Railways, 

The,  24. 
Daroot,  237. 

Davidson  of  Tulloch,  Mr.,  182. 
Debba,  248. 
Delta,    Irrigation    of    the,    232,    259 

et  seq. 

Denison,  Mr.,  80. 
Dent- Dent,  John,  305,  345. 
Derby,  The  Earl  of,  270. 
Der  el-Bahri,  The  Theban  temple  of, 

353. 

Devon,  The  Earl  of,  78. 
Dickens,  Col.,  188. 
Diglis  Weir,  260. 
Disraeli,  The  Rt.  Hon.  Benjamin,  M.P., 

aft.  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  132,  227, 

336  ;  letter  from,  126, 
Dixon,  Hannah,  4  (note). 
Dixon,  Mr.,  266. 

Dock  and  harbour  engineering,  377. 
Docks,  Construction  of,  93. 
Dodsworth,  Roger,  5. 
Dongola,  342,  343. 
Donkin,  Bryan,  387. 
Douai  and  Rheims  Railway,  The,  120. 
Dougal  and  Paterson,  Messrs.,  310. 
Dover  Harbour,  205,  210. 
Drainage  engineering,  378. 
Dredge,  James,  278  (note). 
Drome,  Loch,  324,  326. 
Drunkie,  Loch,  180. 
Dual  Control,  The,  273. 
Dunrobin,  182. 
Duport,  Mr.,  243,  244. 
Dyson,  Mr.,  21,  22. 

E 

East  Lincolnshire   Railway,  The,   59, 

77,  79. 
Eastern  Counties   Railway  Company, 

The,  74,  89,  150. 
Eastwood,  Rev.  J.,  4  (note). 


Ecclesfield,  History  of  the  Parish  of, 

4  (note). 

Ecclesfield  Volunteers,  The,  1,  2. 
Ecclesfield  Church,  5  ;  parish,  5. 
Edfoo,  241. 

Edgeware,  Highgate,  and  London  Rail- 
way, The,  123. 

Egypt  Exploration  Fund,  The,  352-354. 
Egypt,  Sir  John  Fowler  in,  212  et  seq.; 

the  finances  of,   273  ;  the  state  of, 

337-45. 
El  Fashr,  340. 

Elgin  and  Kincardine,  The  Earl  of,  305. 
Ellenborough,  Lord,  192. 
Elstob,  134. 

"  Emerald  "  Coach,  The,  26,  360. 
Engineer  and  Railway  Volunteer  Staff 

Corps,  The,  182. 
Engineer,    Knowledge  required   by  a 

civil,  375  ;  preparation  required  by, 

382. 
Engineer's  work,  Nature  of  an,  50-52, 

370  et  seq.  ;  Sir  John  Fowler's  views 

upon,  61. 

Engineering,  279,  289,  296,  300,  302. 
Engineering  pupil,  An,  384  ;  the  work 

of  in  the  "thirties,"  16. 
Engineering  problems,  367-369. 
England  in  Egypt,  271  (note). 
English  Illustrated  Magazine,  The,  283. 
Ensor,  Mr.,  235. 
Euston  Square,  Passengers  to  and  from, 

153. 


Fairbairn,  William,  98,  99,  308. 
Falkiner,  T.  H.,  306,  311. 
Falshaw,  James,  aft.  Sir,  16. 
Fayoum,  The,  261. 
Fenchurch  Street  Station,  Passengers 

to  and  from,  153. 

Fens,  The  drainage  of  the,  134  et  seq. 
Ferguson,  Mrs.,  247. 
Field,  Joshua,  387,  388. 
Findhorn  River,  Bridge  over  the,  358. 
Fitzwilliam,  Earl,  14. 
Fleet,  The,  162,  163. 
Forth,  Ferries  across  the,  276,  277. 


396 


INDEX 


Forth  Bridge,  The,  12,  203,  276  ct  seq.; 
material  used  in  building,  305. 

Forth  Railway  Company,  The,  280, 305. 

Forth  Steam  Ferry,  The,  208. 

Fowler,  Arthur,  265. 

Fowler,  John,  baptism  of,  1  ;  helps  to 
raise  a  regiment  of  Volunteers,  1 ;  be- 
comes a  land  surveyor,  2  ;  marriage 
of,  3  ;  methodical  habits  of,  3  ;  letter 
from,  to  his  son,  175. 

Fowler,  Charles,  4. 

Fowler,  Frederick,  4,  360. 

Fowler,  Henry,  4,  56. 

Fowler,  John  (son  of  Samuel),  4  (note). 

Fowler,  John,  aft.  Sir,  birth  of,  1,  3 ; 
vigour  of,  6  ;  school  days  of,  6,  7  ;  his 
devotion  to  cricket,  7,  321 ;  interest 
in  engineering,  7  ;  early  training  in 
engineering,  8 ;  his  study  of  the 
Bible,  9  ;  his  destructive  habits  as  a 
child,  10  ;  his  power  of  imagination, 
10,  11  ;  his  connection  with  the 
Leather  family,  13  ;  first  experience 
in  railway  work,  13,  14 ;  leaves  his 
father's  roof,  18  ;  at  Birmingham, 
20,  23  ;  goes  to  London,  26 ;  his  first 
appearance  before  a  Parliamentary 
Committee,  30  ;  re-engages  with 
Mr.  Rastrick,  38 ;  surveying  in 
Cumberland,  38  et  seq.  ;  contem- 
plates opening  offices  in  Sheffield, 

46  ;  his  affection  for  Mr.  Rastrick, 

47  (note) ;    enters  J.    T.   Leather's 
office,  48 ;  superintends  the  making 
of    the    Stockton    and    Hartlepool 
Railway,    49,  53 ;    his  fondness  of 
work,    53 ;     in   London   on   Parlia- 
mentary   business,    55 ;    works    on 
which  he  was  engaged,  59,  60  ;  his 
views  upon  an  engineer's  duty,  61  ; 
his  relations  with  Edward  Watkin, 
82  ;  his  policy  as  an  engineer,  85  ; 
on  railway  accidents,  101 ;  his  pro- 
fessional characteristics,  105  et  seq.  ; 
his  skill  before  Parliamentary  Com- 
mittees, 108  ;  his  expeditions,  113, 
123,     132  ;      his     marriage,     117  ; 
thoughts    of   entering    Parliament, 
120,  121  ;  his  Highland  home,  121 ; 


his  professional  engagements  from 
1850-60,  122  «t  seq. ;  his  connection 
with  Irish  railways,  124  ;  catches 
his  first  salmon,  125  ;  appointed  a 
member  of  the  Irish  Railways  Com- 
mission, 128  ;  his  work  on  the  Nene 
Improvement  and  Norfolk  Estuary, 
134  et  seq.  ;  his  speech  on  arterial 
drainage  at  the  Institution  of  Civil 
Engineers,  138  ;  his  work  on  the 
Metropolitan  Railway,  145  et  seq.  ; 
his  evidence  before  the  Select  Com- 
mittee on  Metropolitan  communica- 
tions, 149;  his  address  to  the  British 
Association  in  1882,  163,  190  ;  his 
proposed  locomotives  for  the  Under- 
ground Railway,  169  ;  reports  on 
the  Glasgow  waterworks,  179-181  ; 
purchases  Braemore,  182  ;  joins  the 
Engineer  and  Railway  Volunteer 
Staff  Corps,  182  ;  his  principal  work 
from  1860-70,183;  elected  President 
of  the  Institution  of  Civil  Engineers, 
183 ;  his  interest  in  engineering 
education,  185  ;  visits  Norway,  188  ; 
visits  India,  189  ;  his  episode  with 
General  Garibaldi,  193-202  ;  engineer 
of  the  Channel  ferry  scheme,  203 ; 
his  visit  to  Egypt,  212  et  seq.  ;  his 
faculty  for  enjoyment,  213 ;  his 
expedition  up  the  Nile  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  220 ;  his  memo- 
randum on  the  irrigation  of  Egypt, 
224  ;  inspects  the  Suez  Canal,  225 
et  seq. ;  appointed  general  engineer- 
ing adviser  to  the  Egyptian  Govern- 
ment, 229  ;  diaries  of  his  Egyptian 
sojourns,  236  ;  created  a  K.C.M.G., 
274  ;  his  work  in  connection  with 
the  Forth  Bridge,  276  et  seq.  ;  his 
distrust  of  the  Tay  Bridge,  279: 
created  a  baronet,  311  ;  honours 
conferred  on,  316;  in  his  home, 
318-64  ;  his  dinners,  320 ;  his  habits, 
321 ;  his  devotion  to  children,  335  ; 
his  political  opinions,  336  ;  selected 
Conservative  candidate  for  Hallam- 
shire,  345 ;  his  collection  of  pictures, 
350 ;  his  favourite  books,  351 ;  his 


INDEX 


397 


connection  with  the  Egypt  Explor- 
ation Fund,  352 ;  the  regard  he  paid 
to  his  health,  354  et  seq. ;  illness  of, 
358,  359 ;  death,  360 ;  his  Presi- 
dential Address  to  the  Institution  of 
Civil  Engineers,  365  et  seq. 

Correspondence  of,  with  his  father, 
18-21,  25,  30,  35,  37  et  seq.,  52,  53, 
55,  322;  with  Mr.  Baldry,  115; 
with  his  wife,  119  et  seq.,  309  ;  with 
his  grandfather,  28;  with  J.  T. 
Leather,  49  ;  with  B.  Disraeli,  127  ; 
with  General  Garibaldi,  198  ;  with 
a  chi]d,  221  ;  with  General  Gordon, 
246-255. 

Fowler,  Joshua,  4  (note). 

Fowler,  Lady,  321,  333,  350. 

Fowler,  Mrs.,  Death  of,  4. 

Fowler,  Rev.  Montague,  274,  332. 

Fowler,  Robert,  4. 

Fowler,  Samuel,  4  (note). 

Fowler,  William,  4. 

Fowler  and  Baker,  Messrs.,  280. 

Francis,  Mr,,  64-66,  68,  69. 

Fraser,  Mr.,  83. 

French,  Baron,  193. 

Frodsham  and  Co.,  Messrs.,  236. 

G 

Gainsford,  R.  I.,  76. 

Gale,  Mr.,  179,  180. 

Gal  way,  Lord,  17. 

Garibaldi,  General,  193-202 ;  his  pro- 
ject for  draining  the  Campagna,  195. 

Garnkirk  and  Glasgow  Railway,  The, 
57. 

Garve,  324,  326. 

Gatget,  Mr.,  264. 

Gathorne-Hardy,  Alfred,  359. 

Gatty,  Dr.,  2,  13. 

Ghizeh,  237  ;  the  Pyramids  of,  217. 

Gibbs,  Mr.,  248. 

Girder  bridges,  97,  98,  99. 

Girouard,  Lieut.,  251. 

Gladstone,  Right  Hon.  W.  E.,  M.P., 
227,  327  ;  interest  of  in  the  Under- 
ground Railway,  173. 

Glasgow  and  City  Railway,  The,  183. 

Glasgow  Waterworks,  The,  179. 


Glen  Mazeran,  121,  322. 

Glyn,  Mr.,  67. 

Golborne,  134. 

Gooch,  Mr.,  21,  22. 

Goole,  Ship-lock  at,  18. 

Gordon,  Col.,  aft.  Gen.,  Charles  G., 

244  et  seq.,  266,  271-273,  337-345. 
Goschen,  The  Right  Hon.  G.  J.,  M.P., 

270,  271. 

Grand  Junction  Canal,  The,  150. 
Grand  Junction  Railway,  The,  64. 
Grantham,  R.  B.,  137. 
Granton  and  Burntisland,  Ferry  service 

between,  276-8. 
Granville,  Earl,  234  (note). 
Great  Central  Railway,  The,  84,  356. 
Great  Eastern  Railway,  The,  80. 
Great  Grimsby,  94  ;  Dock  Companies 

of,  78. 
Great  Grimsby  and  Sheffield  Junction 

Railway,  The,  78. 
Great  Grimsby  and  Potteries  Railway, 

The,  59. 

Great  Grimsby  Extension,  The,  59. 
Great  Grimsby  Railway,  The,  59,  77, 

88. 

Great  Grimsby  Works,  59. 
Greathead,  J.  H.,  178. 
Great  Northern  Railway,  The,  79-84, 

149,  151,  170,  279,  356. 
Great  Northern  Railway.   History  of 

the,  Grinling's,  17,  79. 
Great  Northern  and  Western  of  Ireland 

Railway,  The,  124. 
Great    Western    Railway,    The,    111, 

148,  149,  151,  170,  356 ;  a  collision 

on,  73. 
Greaves'  mines,   Messrs.,  A  pumping 

operation  at,  19. 
Grurity  Fen,  143,  144. 


Hammersmith  and  City  Railway,  The, 

123. 

Hancock,  W.  Neilson,  LL.D.,  128. 
Handak,  343. 
Hanneck,  243,  245,  343. 
Harcourt,    Sir  William  Vernon,  321, 

331. 


398 


INDEX 


Harris,  Lord,  172,  173. 

Hartlepool  Docks,  56,  57. 

Hartlepool  Junction  Railway,  The,  55. 

Hassan,  Prince,  331. 

Hawkshaw,  John,  aft.   Sir,  148,  158, 

320,  366,  388. 
Heneage,  Edward,  M.P.,  77. 
Henry  VIII.,  Holbein's  picture  of,  280. 
Heracleopolis  Magna,  Excavations  at, 

353. 

Heygate,  W.  Unwin,  305. 
Hieroglyphics,  Egyptian,  222. 
Highland  Railway,  The,  182. 
Hill,  Sir  Rowland,  149. 
Hindlip,  Lord,  305. 
History  of  Hallamshire,  Hunter's,  2, 

13. 
History    of    the     English    Railway, 

Francis's,  64,  65,  73. 
History  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway, 

Grinling's,  17,  79. 
History    of    Wisbech    and    the    Fens, 

Walker  and  Craddock's,  135. 
Holborn  Valley  Viaducts,  148. 
Holmes,  Captain,  4. 
Huddart,  134. 
Huddersfield,  83. 

Hudson,  George,  67,  80,  81,  89,  119. 
Hudson,  Mrs.,  119. 
Humber  Survey,  The,  59. 
Hunt,  Ward,  206. 

Hunter's  History  of  Hallamshire,  2, 13. 
Hussein,  H.H.  Prince,  266. 
Hutchinson,  the  contractor,  52,  53. 

I 

Ibrahimia  and  Yoosef  Canal,  The,  237. 

Ilchester,  The  Earl  of,  207. 

Inchgarvie,  The  island  of,  281,  291, 
295,  306. 

India,  Visit  to,  275. 

Indian  Railways,  188,  189. 

Inner  Circle  Railway,  The,  158,  159. 

Institution  of  Civil  Engineers,  The, 
137;  John  Fowler's  presidential  ad- 
dress to,  184,  365  et  seq.  ;  growth  of 
membership,  355,  387,  388 ;  history 
of,  387 ;  finances  of,  389  ;  library  of, 
390. 


International  Communications  Bill, 
The,  203. 

Inverbroom,  322. 

Irish  industries,  128. 

Irish  railways,  Proposed  Treasury  Com- 
mission on,  126  et  seq. ;  negotiations, 
for  the  amalgamation  of,  131. 

Iron,  The  use  of,  373. 

Irrigation,  The  question  of,  232,  259. 

Ismail  Pasha,  216,  229,  232  et  seq., 
265  et  seq. 

Ismail  Pasha  Ayoub,  242-4. 

Ismailia  and  Sweet-water  Canal,  The, 
257. 


Janson,  Mr.,  243-246,  248. 

Jay,  Mr.,  173. 

Jhelum  and  Rawalpindi  Railway,  The, 

189. 

John  Stirling,  The,  278. 
Johnson,  Mr.,  123,  173. 
Johnstone,  Christopher,  128. 
Jones,  James,  387. 
Joubert,  Mons.,  271. 

K 

Karnak,  The  temple  of,  217,  218,  220. 

Katrine,  Loch,  180. 

Kelvin,  Lord,  317. 

Khartoum,  234,   243,   251,  340,    341, 

344,  345. 

Khedive,  The.     See  Ismail  Pasha. 
Kidd,  Dr.,  359. 
Kinderley,  Charles,  134,  136. 
Kinderley's  Cut,  136. 
King's  Cross  Station,  Passengers  to  and 

from,  153. 

King's  Scholar  Pond  Sewer,  The,  162. 
Kitchener,  Lord,  251. 
Knowles,  Mr.,  236. 
Kobe  Bridge,  245. 
Kordofan,  260,  340-2. 
Koroor,  238. 
Korosko,  251. 


Labelye,  134. 
Laffan,  Captain,  100. 


INDEX 


399 


Lancaster  Guardian,  The,  75. 

Lauder,  Sir  Thomas  Dick,  351. 

Lawes,  Captain,  86. 

Lawrence,  Lord,  207. 

Leather,  George,  13-15,  18,  20-22,  25, 

31,  37. 
Leather,  J.  T.,  7,  13,  20,  48,  52,  53, 

55. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  195. 
Leeds  to  Glasgow,  Projected  line  from, 

77. 
Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  190,  191,  216, 

220,  225-227,  255,  258,  259,  272, 

273. 

Letheby,  Dr.,  232. 
Lethbridge,  John  T. ,  387. 
Letters  from  the  North,  Burt's,  351. 
Lewin,  Sir  Gregory,  56. 
Life  of  Gordon,  Boulger's,  272. 
Lime,  Kinds  of,  372. 
Liverpool,  22. 
Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railway  Bill, 

The,  15,  24. 

Liverpool  Central  Station,  183. 
Liverpool,  Scheme  of  river  approaches 

at,  367,  368. 
Locke,  Joseph,   22-25,  75,  146,  148, 

320,  354,  367,  388. 
Loftie,  Rev.  W.  J.,  160. 
London,  A  journey  from  Birmingham 

to,  27. 
London   Bridge  lines,   Passengers  at, 

153. 
London,  Chatham,  and  Dover  Railway, 

The,  205,  207,  211. 

London,  Tilbury,  and  Southend  Rail- 
way, The,  122. 
London    and    Birmingham    Railway, 

The,  64,  67. 
London  and  Brighton  Railway,  The, 

25,  26,  28,  29,  150. 
London  and  Exeter  Railway,  The,  66. 
London  and  North  Western  Railway, 

The,  82,  149. 
London  and  South  Western  Railway, 

The,  146,  150,  151,  153. 
Lowe,  Dr.,  235. 
Lowe,  Robert,  172,  184. 
Lucan,  Lord,  124,  125. 


M 

McAlister,  Dr.,  283. 

Me  Clean,  John  Robinson,  366,  388. 

MacNeill,  Sir  John,  58. 

Magaga,  233,  237. 

Mahatta,  240. 

Maidenhead  Bridge,  31-33. 

Making  of  the  Land  of  England,  Pell's, 
144. 

Manby,  Mr.,  389. 

Manchester,  22. 

Manchester  and  Birmingham  Extension 
Railway  Bill,  The,  47. 

Manchester  and  Birmingham  Railway, 
The,  25. 

Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  Lincolnshire 
Railway,  The,  14,  77-79,  81-84,  90, 
93,  95,  208. 

Manchester  and  Lincoln  Railway,  The, 
78. 

Manchester  Ship  Canal,  The,  319. 

Mareotis,  Lake,  256. 

Marriott,  General,  245. 

Matai,  233. 

Maudsley,  Nicholas,  387. 

Maudsley,  Thomas,  387. 

Mechanical  Engineering,  380. 

Mehemet  Ali,  262. 

Meik,  P.  W.,  306. 

Meley,  Mr.,  235. 

Merchant  Venturers'  School,  John 
Fowler's  address  to,  178,  185,  219, 
307. 

Mersey  Board,  The  engineer  of  the, 
368. 

Metropolitan  Communications,  Select 
Committee  on,  149,  152  et  scq. 

Metropolitan  District,  Population  of 
the,  153. 

Metropolitan  District  Railway,  The, 
46,  158,  183;  cost  of,  159;  level 
and  gradients  of,  160,  163  ;  dis- 
coveries during  the  construction  of, 
165  ;  method  of  construction,  166, 
167. 

Metropolitan  Railway,  The,  46,  145 
et  seq.,  183  ;  commencement  of  the 
works,  157  ;  cost  of,  159  ;  level  and 
gradients  of,  160,  163  ;  method  of 


400 


INDEX 


construction,  166, 167;  early  engines 

on,  170,  171  ;  opening  of,  172. 
"Metropolitan     Railways,"     Sir    B. 

Baker's  paper  on,  147. 
Metropolitan  railways,  Mileage  etc.,  of, 

174. 

Mid-Kent  route,  The,  123. 
Midland  Railway,  The,  13,  81,  83,  279 ; 

opposition  of  the  Sheffield  people 

to,  14. 
Millais,  J.   E.,  Portrait  of  Sir  John 

Fowler  by,  184. 
Mill  wall  Docks,  183. 
Milner,  Sir  Alfred,  271  (note). 
Minghetti,  Signor,  196,  198. 
Minieh,  233,  237. 
Mining  engineering,  381. 
Minster,  The,  226,  249. 
Moeris,  Lake,  261. 
Mohammed  Abusamra,  237. 
Moncrieff,  Sir  Colin  Scott,  262,  265. 
Monkland  and  Kirkintilloch  Railway, 

The,  55,  57. 
Monnier,  Mons.,  241. 
Mont  Cenis  Tunnel,  The,  367,  368. 
Moon,  Richard,  aft.  Sir,  127. 
Morecambe  Bay,  The  embanking  of, 

39,  40. 

Morecambe  Bay  Railway,  The,  45,  46. 
Moreton,  The  Earl  of,  207. 
Morning  Chronicle,  The,  74. 
Morris,  William,  313,  314. 
Morrison,  James,  68,  74,  75  (note). 
Mortar,  The  use  of,  372. 
Much    Wenlock    and    Coalbrookdale 

Railways,  The,  123. 
Mulholland,  John,  128. 
Mundell,  Walter,  348. 
Municipalism,  155. 
Murchison,  Sir  Roderick,  330. 
Murcott,  Mr.,  235. 
Mycerinus,  The  Pyramid  of,  217. 
Mylne,  W.  C.,  134. 

N 

Napier  of  Magdala,  Lord,  282. 
Napoleon  I. ,  260. 
Napoleon  III.,  225. 
Nasmyth,  James,  279. 


Natala,  The,  261. 

Nature,  296. 

Naval  Architecture,  381. 

Nene  Improvement  Commission,  The 
123,  134  et  seq. 

Nene  Outfall,  The,  136. 

Nene  Valley  Drainage  Commissioners, 
The,  136. 

New  Dongola,  343. 

New  Holland,  Construction  of  docks 
at,  93 ;  floating  bridge  at,  95,  208, 
209. 

New  Holland  Railway,  The,  77. 

Nile,  The,  234,  242,  257,  259  et  seq.  ; 
343-345  ;  an  expedition  up,  220, 

Nile  Valley,  The,  342,  343. 

Nineteenth  Century,  The,  Articles  on 
railway  accidents  in,  101 ;  on  pro- 
posal for  a  Channel  ferry,  209,  210  ; 
on  a  canal  between  Cairo  and  Alex- 
andria, 255  ;  on  bridge  construction, 
283. 

Norfolk  Estuary,  The,  123, 134  et  seq. 

North  British  Railway,  The,  58,  279, 
280. 

North  Eastern  Railway,  The,  57,  279. 

North  Level  Commissioners,  The,  136. 

North  London  Railway,  The,  146,  151. 

"  North  Metropolitan  Railway,  The," 
etc.,  145. 

Norway,  A  visit  to,  188. 

Norwegian  railways,  188. 

Nubar  Pasha,  215,  242,  273. 

Nyanza,  The  P.  &  0.  ss.,  215. 


Ocean  telegraphy,  367,  369. 
Oldham  waterworks,  The,  31. 
Omdurman,  Recovery  of  a  chronometer 

at,  236. 

Onias,  The  exploration  of,  353. 
Oswestry  and  Dolgelly  Line,  The,  183. 
Ottoman  Power,  The,  Abandonment  of 

the  exclusive  policy  of,  228. 
Our  Iron  Hoods,  Williams's,  75. 
Owen,  Mrs.,  172. 
Owen,  Professor,  172,  215,  220,  224- 

226,  330,  331. 


INDEX 


401 


Oxford,  Worcester,  and  Wolverhamp- 

ton  Railway,  The,  60,  122. 
Oxyrhynchus  papyri,  The,  353. 


Paddington     and     Moorgate,     Steam 

carriages  between,  145. 
Paddington  Station,  Passengers  to  and 

from,  153. 
Page,  134,  146. 
Paget,  Sir  A.,  198. 
Palmer,  Henry  Robinson,  387. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  173,  225. 
Parliament  and  Railway  Competition, 

68-70. 

Pax  Britannica,  The,  230,  231. 
Peacock,  Mr.,  148. 

Pearson,  Charles,  146-8, 152, 171,  177. 
Peto  and  Betts,  Messrs.,  81. 
Petrie,  Flinders,  219. 
Philistine,  A  real,  223. 
Phillips,  Joseph,  306,  313. 
Pihl,  Carl,  188. 
Pole,  Mr.,  99,  100. 
Post  Office,  The,  and  the  Metropolitan 

Railway,  149. 
Potter,  James,  47. 
Pyramids,  The,  217. 

Q 

Queen  Square  Place,  117,  320. 
Queensferry,  277,  279,  281,  292,  297. 

R 

Raglan,  Lord,  207. 
Railway  Chronicle,  The,  73. 
Railway  Commission,   The,   97,    100, 

102,  147. 

Railway  engineering,  376. 
Railway  extensions,  146. 
Railway  mania,  The,  60,  64  et  seq. 
Railway  system  of  England,  The,  85. 
Hailway  System,  S.  Sidney's,  86. 
Railways  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 

Whishaw's,  57. 

Rameses,  The  statue  of,  217,  219. 
Ranelagh  Sewer,  The,  161. 
Rastrick,  J.  U.,  23-26,  29,  30,  35,  36, 

39,  40,  42,  44,  46,  47,  75. 


Re-afforesting,  Sir  J.  Fowler's  experi- 
ment in,  324. 

Red  Sea,  The  crossing  of  the,  223. 

Regent's  Canal  Railway,  The,  146. 

Regent's  Park,  Bridges  in,  183. 

Rendel  and  Knowles,  Messrs.,  236,  239. 

Rendel,  J.  Meadows,  aft.  Sir,  94,  188, 
354,  388. 

Rendel,  Stuart,  aft.  Lord,  262,  320. 

Rennie,  John,  134,  136. 

Rennie,  Sir  John,  75,  134,  139,  141, 
367,  388. 

Renton,  James  Hall,  305. 

Rheims  and  Douai  Railway,  The,  60. 

Rhoda,  233,  237. 

Riaz  Pasha,  252. 

Rider,  Mr.,  6. 

Roberts,  Mr.,  125. 

Roberts,  Sir  F.,  now  Field  -  Marshal 
Lord,  189. 

"Rocket,"  Stephenson's,  25. 

Roman  Campagna,  Projects  for  the 
reclamation  of  the,  193  et  seq. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  327. 

Rosetta  branch  of  the  Nile,  The,  262. 

Rothschild,  Alphonse  de,  206. 

Rough  Notes  of  a  Ride  over  the  Track 
of  the  Manchester,  Sheffield,  Lincoln- 
shire, and  other  Railways,  Sidney's, 
87. 

Rundall,  Colonel,  264. 

Russell,  Scott,  96,  97,  148,  320. 

Russell,  W.  H.,  224. 

S 

Said  Pasha,  249,  262. 
St.  Enoch's  Station,  Glasgow,  183. 
St.  John's  Wood  Railway,  The,  158. 
Sakieh,  The,  261. 
Salisbury,  Lord,  250. 
Sandside,  330. 
Saunders,  Mr.,  67. 
Scott,  Thomas,  306. 
Sedgwick,  Professor,  330. 
Senhouse,  Sir  Fleming,  43. 
Serpentine,  The,  183. 
Severn  Tunnel,  The,  356. 
Severn  Valley  Railway,  The,  123. 
Sewerage,  System  of,  367,  369. 


402 


INDEX 


Shadoof,  The,  261. 

Sheffield  and  Lincolnshire  Extension 

Railway,  The,  59,  78. 
Sheffield   and    Lincolnshire    Railway, 

The,  76-78. 
Sheffield  and  Manchester  Railway,  The, 

23,  59. 
Sheffield  and  Rotherham  Railway,  The, 

14. 
Sheffield,    Barnsley,    and    Wakefield 

Railway,  The,  59. 
Sheffield  Victoria  Station,  95. 
Sheffield  Waterworks,  The,  20,  179. 
Shellal,  The  Isle  of,  238. 
Shendy,  340,  344. 
Shoreditch  Station,  Passengers  to  and 

from,  153. 

Sidney,  Samuel,  86-9,  91,  95. 
Siemens  and  Co.,  265. 
Siemens,  Sir  William,  308. 
Simmons,  Captain,  now  Field-Marshal 

Sir  Lintorn,  95,  96,  99,  100,  331. 
Simpson,  James,  98,  235,  388. 
Sioot,  237. 

Slamannan  Railway,  The,  57. 
Slavery,  The  suppression  of,  245  (note), 

248. 

Smeaton,  John,  134. 
Smiles,  Dr. ,  his  biography  on  Stephen- 

son,  15. 
Smith,  Adam,  on  passenger  transport, 

71  (note). 

Smith  and  Knight,  Messrs.,  173. 
Smith  of  Deanston,  91. 
Smith,  W.  H.,  327. 
Solymos,  Mr.,  235. 
Soohag,  238. 
Soudan,  The  abandonment  of  the,  340-5; 

Railway,  232  et  seq.,  268 ;  surveys  of, 

274,  275. 
South  Eastern  Railway,  The,  146,  150, 

205,  207,  211. 
Southern  Cross,  The,  329. 
Spackman,  Mr.,  66. 
Spearman,  Sir  Alexander  T.,  Bart,  128. 
Stanhope,  Philip,  206. 
Stanley,  Charles,  176. 
Steam  carriages,  145. 
Steel,  The  use  of,  374. 


Stephenson,  Clark,  and  Co.,  Messrs., 

265. 
Stephenson,  George,  13, 14,  23-25, 146, 

361  ;  Smiles'  Life  of,  360. 
Stephenson,   Robert,  24,    70,   71,   75, 

134,  136,  140,  146,  308,  320,  354, 

367,  388. 

Stevens,  John  Hargrave,  146,  148. 
Stewart,  Allan,  306,  313. 
Stockton  and  Darlington  Railway,  The, 

64. 
Stockton  and  Hartlepool  Railway,  The, 

49,  51,  56-58. 
Stone,  The  use  of,  371. 
Stonehouse,  Mr.,  49. 
Story  of  Chinese  Gordon,  Hake's,  273 

(note). 

Strachey,  General,  188. 
Suakin,  Proposed  railway  from,  342. 
Suez,  Locks  at,  257. 
Suez  Canal,  The,  220,  224  et  seq.,  255, 

367-369. 

Sugar,  The  manufacture  of,  232,  233. 
Surveys,  Opposition  of  landowners  to, 

16. 
Sutherland,  The  Duke  of,   182,   188, 

196,  198,  215,  220,  224,  225,  227. 
Swann,  Elizabeth,  3,  4  (note). 
Swann  of  Dykes  Hall,  William,  3. 
Swanwick,  Mr.,  21,  22. 


Tancred,  Arrol,  and  Co.,  Messrs.,  287. 
Tancred,  Sir  Thomas  S.,  305. 
Tapton,  23. 
Tay  Bridge,  The  first,  collapse  of,  279, 

296. 

Tay  Bridge,  The  second,  278. 
Telegraphic  engineering,  381. 
Telford,  387,  388. 
Tenterden,  Lord,  267. 
Tewkesbury  Lecture,  The,  216  (note), 

227,  233,  259,  264. 
Thebes,  238,  261. 
Theyer,  Frederick,  360. 
Thiers,  Mons.,  206. 
Thompson,  Sir  E.  Maunde,  352. 
Thompson,    M.    W.,    305 ;   created   a 

Baronet,  311. 


INDEX 


403 


Thorneycroft  of  Wolverhampton,  Mr., 

308. 

Thorn  wood  Lodge,  321. 
Tiber,  Inundations  of  the,  193. 
Tilbury  Railway,  The,  45. 
Timber,  The  use  of,  374. 
Times,  The,  67,  184,  259 ;  letters  from 

Sir  John  Fowler  to,  224,  337. 
Tomlinson,  jun.,  James,  158. 
Toorah,  Quarries,  The,  217. 
Torksey  Bridge,  The,  95,  98. 
Torlonia,  Prince,  196. 
Tredgold  on  wind- pressure,  296. 
Trent,  Bridges  over  the,  95. 
Trossachs,  The,  179. 
Tunnelling,  Method  of,  177. 
Turkish  Railways,  The,  123. 
Turner,  Mr.,  23,  27. 
Tweeddale,  The  Marquis  of,  305. 
Ty-Bourne,  The,  161,  163. 
Tyndall,  Professor,  11. 

U 

Ullapool,  325,  330. 
Underdown,  Robert  George,  208. 
Underground  Railway.    See  Metropoli- 
tan Railway. 


Vennacher,  Loch,  180. 
Vermuyden,  Sir  Cornelius,  134. 
Victoria  Station  and  Pimlico  Railway 

Co.,  The,  132. 

Vignoles,  Mr.,  14,  75,  97,  146. 
Vivian,  C.,  aft.  Lord,  266-8. 
Voisin,  Mons.,  225. 

W 

Wadsley  Hall,  1-4  (note). 

Wady  Haifa,  234,  241,  246,  248,  250, 
342,  343. 

Wady  Mokatten,  The,  344. 

Wake,  Bernard,  7  (note),  76. 

Wakefield,  Brigg,  and  Goole  Railway, 
The,  59. 

Wakefield,  Pontefract,  and  Gooie  Rail- 
way, The,  59. 


Wales,  T.R.H.  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of,  220,  224,  311. 

Walker,  James,  388. 

Walker  of  Limehouse,  Mr.,  24. 

Watanabe,  Kaichi,  282  (note). 

Water  supply,  Some  problems  of,  181, 
367,  369. 

Waterhouse,  B.A.,  Alfred,  315. 

Waterworks  engineering,  378. 

Watkin,  Edward,  aft.  Sir,  82. 

Watte,  134. 

Weardale  Railway,  The,  15. 

Webster,  Hannah,  4  (note). 

West  Bourne,  The,  161,  163. 

West  Cumberland  and  Furness  Rail- 
way, The,  42,  43,  46. 

West  Hartlepool  Harbour  and  Railway 
Co.,  The,  57. 

Westerdyke,  134. 

Westhofen,  W.,  279,  306. 

WharnclifFe,  Lord,  38. 

White  Ridley,  Sir  Matthew,  Bart,  305. 

Whitley  Hall,  6. 

Whitton,  Mr.,  4. 

Whitton,  Mrs.,  359. 

Wicker  Viaduct,  The,  95. 

"  Widening  "  Tunnel,  The,  167. 

Wieland,  G.  B.,  305. 

Wild,  Mr.,  99,  100. 

Wilkinson,  Mr.,  198,  200. 

William  Mure,  The,  278. 

Williams,  E.  Leader,  aft.  Sir,  319. 

Wilson,  Edward,  158. 

Wilson,  Erasmus,  aft.  Sir,  266. 

Wilson,  Rivers,  255,  273,  274. 

Wilson,  W.,  201,  204. 

Wincobank,  1. 

Wishaw  and  Coltness  Railway,  The,  57. 

Witham  Drainage,  The,  138. 

Wolseley,  Lord,  Letter  from,  274. 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  371. 


Yarborough,  The  Earl  of,  77,  81. 
York  and  Lancaster  Line,  The,  76. 
York   and   North    Midland   Railway, 
The,  64. 


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The  life  of  Sir 
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